by Malka Adler
One day I cut myself with a knife at the butcher’s store.
A deep cut in my finger. It bled a lot. The German butcher took me to a doctor who said, broken finger. He put a board under the finger with a large bandage. The wound didn’t heal well. I didn’t return to the German butcher. My finger is crooked to this day.
Shaleachs from Israel – emissaries – arrived at the monastery.
Shaleachs from the Jewish Brigade. They wore ordinary clothes. They were suntanned and healthy, with strong hands. I wanted to be close to them, hear stories about Eretz-Israel. The Shaleachs asked us, where do you want to go after the monastery, to America or to Israel.
I spoke to Dov. We said Israel, but first to our home, in the village of Tur’i Remety in the Carpathian Mountains.
Chapter 32
Dov
The monastery was good for me.
At night they gave us chocolate to get us to go to sleep. We didn’t want to go to sleep. We’d wander round the room, the yard, the room, sit on the beds, lie down in our clothes. Get up. Start conversations, drop them in the middle, go back to them. There was one fellow who after ten turns in the yard would stand next to the wall, and boom-trach he’d bang his head against the wall. He was given a whole bar of chocolate. At first he refused to eat it. He said to the soldier, you first. He was certain the chocolate was poisoned. There was one who sat with us in the yard every morning and plucked out his eyebrows with his nails. He went from the eyebrows to the eyelashes. Finished with the eyelashes and went on to the hair on his chest. He’d take hold of a handful of hair on his chest and hop, pull it out with the skin. Disgusting. Then he’d throw up his hand with the piece of skin, as if he was flying a plane, mmm. mmm. mmm. He’d call us to watch. The soldiers dabbed on blue iodine, put on a large bandage and cleaned under his nails. Then they brought scissors and cut his nails. In the meantime one soldier with a braid down to her ass quietly, quietly sang him a song. I heard it. He’d go, mmm. mmm. mmm. And lick a candy. Don’t know where the soldiers got so much candy. They had a store of candies in their pockets. They’d thrust candies at us at every opportunity. For instance, if they found a wet bed in the morning. Sometimes they found three-four wet beds at a time. Mainly after nights with barking dogs. Some fellows go into a frenzy if a soldier even unintentionally touches them, on the elbow for instance. One fellow locked himself in the shower and stood under the shower for a whole day because a soldier touched his shoulder. They shouted through the window, Moishe, open up, open up. Only that night did he agree to come out.
We barely spoke among ourselves at the monastery.
They spoke a bit about home. A bit about the village, the town. We didn’t ask questions. Most of the day we’d follow the nuns around to see what was happening and what the plans were and I was uneasy because of the large dresses they wore. I didn’t want anyone to see what was going through my mind and, by everyone else’s gestures, I realized that they, too, didn’t want anyone to see what was going through their minds. There was one fellow who liked to follow the fattest nun. She had a wide pleated dress. He used to hide behind the trees and run after her, his back bowed. He was certain she was hiding grenades or a little Kalashnikov under her dress. He’d say, why does she have such a big dress, if not for bombs, eh? Why does she have a head covering like a sheet from her head to her neck, if not for a chain of bullets?
One day the fat nun had enough of the fellow. She took him to her room. Don’t know what they did there, but he began to visit the nun’s room regularly and stopped talking about bombs.
There were days we’d mess around with the soldiers. We’d measure their waists and breasts with our fingers, measure the length of a leg from the middle of a skirt down, always arguing about where the groin actually started from, we also weighed each of them with our hands. We’d laugh a little, then fall silent. We’d usually count fingers, back and forth, back and forth. Count up to a thousand and start again.
Nobody at the monastery knew where any of us came from.
Stories about the camps passed only among us. Through faces, hands, the smell of the skin. In line for the shower. At the dinner table, or when we sat on the wall, looking into the distance, or when someone’s nose ran without his having a cold.
The hardest of all were the rumors.
Every day there were different rumors. I thought I’d go mad. It was enough for someone to say he’d seen doctors in white coats, or mention a gas truck that had come to the monastery, and no one would take a shower. Everyone ran away to the yard and the poor soldiers didn’t understand why we didn’t go near the showers for three days. Finally, the soldiers said, you’ll get lice, do you want lice? According to the rumors I knew which camps the refugees had come from. For instance, when they said truck, one of the fellows cried out, uprising, uprising, as he’d seen in his camp. He shouted to the soldiers, fetch rifles, everyone, take shelter, quickly, quickly. It took an entire bar of chocolate and a handful of candies showered over him to stop the uprising in his head.
One fellow used to make a high pile out of all the bags he had in his room. He collected bags from the neighboring room as well. At first he got beaten up. In the end they left him alone, they even let him open the bags and arrange clothes in groups. Because he always put things back in the evening. I knew, that fellow came from “Canada” Commando at Birkenau Camp, we might have been there together, but I didn’t know him. Another fellow would wander about the toilets all day with a brush, a rag and a bottle of Lysol. He cleaned the toilets from morning till night, poor fellow, he got sores from the Lysol. One day I said to him, Simec, your poor hands, what are you doing.
He said, I’m working.
I asked, what work did you do at Auschwitz?
He said, poop and pee, took the rag and walked off.
When a train went by the monastery for the first time, everyone ran away to the forest. Three trains went by and we remained in the forest. Only at the fourth did we agree to come out.
One day a group of doctors arrived by train. They wore ordinary clothes, no white coat. There was a stupid nun who blurted out, the doctors have come to see how you are. Nu, within a second not one was left in the monastery. Everybody ran away to the forest. We were certain the war had started again. We were certain that the doctors were hiding white gloves in their pockets and would soon line us up on some ramp and start directing us, left, right, all with white gloves. During the first weeks we ran to the start of the forest. The more we ate, the farther into the forest we ran. Some ran to the forest, some ran on the spot and waited to see what would happen. Some climbed onto the roof of the monastery and kept watch from above. Sometimes we waited for a signal from someone who’d climbed up onto the roof. According to his signals we’d decide whether or not to return to the monastery.
And there was one day when they gathered us together to go and see Yiddish theater, the early show. We stood reluctantly, hands in pockets, waiting for the vehicle. Suddenly a rumor spread, Germans. Wow. All of us ran to the forest. By that time, we’d put a little flesh on our thin bones so we ran far. I was strong and immediately climbed a high tree. I thought, today no one will get me down from this tree. Not even my friend Vassily. Vassily, my best friend in the village. Vassily with the coat, one sleeve long one sleeve short and high shoes without socks. Vassily with the straight yellow hair like stalks of mid-summer wheat and brown eyes like mine. Vassily who came to look for me in the forest when Hungarians came to take my family to the synagogue. Vassily wept under the tree, Bernard, if you aren’t back by nightfall, they’ll kill your family. Your father said, remember the young man from Budapest, remember Shorkodi’s friend, the one who promised you work in Budapest. They stood him up against a wall. Ten rifles were given an order. Ten rifles all at once. Bernard, listen to me, they’ll put your family up against a wall, do you understand or not?
The rumor about the Germans kept us in the forest for hours, and then we heard the women soldiers calling us, we have hot
meat for you, we have bread for you, and you have beds with sheets. Five-six fellows left the forest at a run. A few minutes later we heard the fat nun saying over a loudspeaker: Listen, listen, the war is over. The war is over. There are no Germans at the monastery. None. Please come back to the monastery.
We slowly left the forest. One by one, heads down. We were ashamed.
After a month, maybe a little longer, the boredom at the monastery began to annoy me.
I went out to wander around Indersdorf. I walked fast for a hundred steps, a hundred slowly. I ran for half a street, and for half I walked slowly. I found an inn. There were cars there, mainly the American soldiers’ command cars. They’d park their command cars next to the inn and go in for a beer. I liked their command cars. Sometimes I’d run up to them. Stop. Approach slowly, walk around, choose the best looking command car and get closer and closer, touch the steering wheel and run away. Because I remembered the rifle butts on my back. A few minutes later I’d stop, and immediately return to the command car. I was excited by the steering wheel in my hands. By the clocks and the smell of petrol in the tank. I spent hours sitting near the inn and dreaming of holding the steering wheel in a traveling command car.
In the meantime I received piano lessons. A soldier with curls tried to teach us simple tunes on the piano and for six months I failed to learn how to play “Ha-Tikvah” – the Jewish anthem. And I had a lot of time to practice. I said to her, I know how to play the harmonica, do you have a harmonica? She didn’t. I dreamed about the command car.
One day my brother Yitzhak said, it’s time we went to the village.
I said, yes, it’s time to go home.
Yitzhak said, to the village, to the village.
I repeated, yes, to the village.
We left for Prague. By the falling leaves and the leaves on the pavement, it was autumn. I almost peed in my trousers with excitement. Mrs Fisher from UNRWA, a small woman with powdered cheeks and white beads round her neck, gave us papers in English with a red stamp. She said, if they stop you at the train show them these papers. Do not under any circumstances agree to go with soldiers.
I began to chew my nails. I asked, what soldiers, Germans?
Mrs Fisher said, no, no, there are no more German soldiers on the train. There are Russian soldiers.
I asked, Russian soldiers who fought against the Germans?
She said, yes.
We had no money for the journey. Yitzhak said, I don’t like trains. Maybe we’ll hitchhike and have done with it.
I said to him, we won’t reach Prague before the snow.
He said, but I still don’t like trains, and he chewed on the zipper of his battledress.
We went to the train station. In my heart I asked, which train will come for us, a passenger train or a cattle train, and then came the whistle. Aah. I wanted to run. I looked at Yitzhak. His face was white, as if he was on the ramp at Auschwitz. I came up close to him and we held hands. Our palms were warm and sweaty. I cried out, it’s an ordinary train with windows, look.
The train stopped. We ran to the locomotive and went around the train. We checked here and here and hop we climbed in through the window. We sat on a seat. We didn’t talk. I closed my legs and arranged my head as if I was used to traveling by train with seats and a window. As if I was used to breathing normally and had plenty of air. mmphaa mmphaa. And there is no smell, none. Why not? Because people didn’t urinate or poop in their pants and there was no one to die on the shoulder of a neighbor.
Mmphaa. People sat quietly, one read a newspaper, another slept, someone else ate a sandwich, and then I heard a baby crying. I jumped up and my brother caught hold of my sleeve, said, sit down, sit down, and don’t turn around. I sat down. I was confused and all the more so when the conductor approached. I kicked my brother and we got up together. We walked slowly to the end of the carriage. We left the carriage and hid in the space between the carriages. The conductor passed by. We went back to our places.
Two people behind me began to talk as if there was about to be a serious disaster. I didn’t know that Germans could be afraid. One said: Russian soldiers take people off the train if they don’t have papers. The other said: Take them off, what for? The first one said: They send them to a labor camp in Russia, Siberia I heard. The other one said: Siberia? The first one said: Far away, in the snow. They need laborers, do you have papers?
My mouth went dry, did you hear, did you hear, my brother asked me not to worry, our papers are all right, Mrs Fisher said so. I put my hand in my pocket and held onto the papers. I didn’t stop worrying. At the entrance to Prague, a Russian soldier boarded the train with a rifle. An oy vei escaped me, and my brother made a shshsh sound. We’re all right. I urgently needed the toilet and didn’t dare get up. The Russian soldier pointed at me and said in German, papers, papers. I took my papers from my pocket. My hands were shaking. The soldier examined the papers from top to bottom. I saw he couldn’t read English. I didn’t know either. I saw that the red stamp on the paper satisfied him. He returned the papers to me and left. I fell back against the seat. Said to my brother, and what will happen if the red stamp doesn’t satisfy the next soldier, what’ll we do then?
My brother said, it’ll satisfy him. I got a stomach che and regretted leaving the monastery.
We reached Prague before noon. It was a little cool and my brother said, I’m going to find out about the train to Hungary. We decided to meet at the station in two hours.
I wandered the streets. People in the street were wearing wool coats and hats. They smoked a lot of cigarettes and stood in groups to see what was new in the newspaper. I put my hand into my pocket, waited a few minutes, and then took it out, put it back. I repeated this several times.
I reached the municipality building. Saw people standing in a long line. I asked, what’s the line for?
They told me, they’re handing out a free cup of coffee and a sandwich. I was hungry and stood in line. I progressed slowly. At the allocation table were Russian soldiers. Two were handing out sandwiches, two stood on the side with rifles. My stomach constricted, I took out my papers just in case, and whispered Shshsh. Calm down. I got a sandwich and a cup of coffee. I ate the sandwich in one gulp and was still hungry.
I stood in line a second time. I approached the table. The soldier with the rifle pierced me with his eyes. He had a nervous mustache. He raised his Kalashnikov and aimed it at my forehead. I immediately left the place. I wanted to run and didn’t dare, I was sure he’d put a bullet in my ass. I quickly left the municipality. Aha, a Russian soldier was willing to kill me because of bread, and Mrs Fisher said the war was over and there was peace in the world. A shitty peace.
I decided to return to the monastery.
Two hours later I told my brother, I’m not going on to the village with you. I can’t be afraid anymore over bread, you understand me? Yitzhak didn’t say a word just sat down on the pavement.
After a few minutes, he stood up and said, I’m going by myself. You go on back to the monastery and wait for me there. When I get back we’ll go to Palestine. And listen to me carefully, if you feel bad things go aside and pretend to shout at someone, loudly, d’you hear me? But aside, so nobody sees you.
We stood together on the platform to Hungary.
Me with my light hair, about fifty kilos, my brother with black hair, maybe fifty-two kilos. We both had soft bristles on our cheeks and a battledress with a wool lining, without a bag. My brother jumped onto the train the minute it entered the station and stood at the window opposite me. I put my hand in my pocket and took strength from the papers. My brother said, it’ll be all right; I had asked. Be careful. He said, don’t worry. I’m going away and I’ll be back.
The train left. I didn’t leave Yitzhak until the train had disappeared.
Chapter 33
Yitzhak
The train left the station in Prague, I was on my way to Hungary.
Dov stood on the platform, I couldn’t take my eyes
off him. Even when he was the size of a dot I went on looking, even when I felt burning and itching.
On the train I sat, stood, wandered around a bit, sat down again, and got up to wander through other carriages, because most of the passengers were asleep and it was hard to be alone. On my way through the carriages I hoped to find some Jews from Hungary, maybe one or two from my village, or the market in the town of Perechyn.
I didn’t find any familiar faces on the train. I went back to my carriage, and tried to doze off with one eye open, one eye closed. A woman in a theater dress and a beribboned hat smiled at me and began to wink. Aha. I closed the open eye. A few minutes and hop, my head fell forward. I jumped to my feet. Gave myself several slaps and sat down on the edge of the seat, one foot in front of the other. The woman with the hat put her hand on her breast and winked. I closed my eyes leaving them open a crack. She licked her lips with a pointed tongue and played with an earring at the edge of her ear. I felt a tingling along my spine. I wanted to tell her, leave me alone, I have no patience for your nonsense, none, and I moved to another carriage. I’m walking among the packages and bags when suddenly I hear Icho, Icho. My stomach turned at the sound of that Icho. Slowly I turned around. A short man with a paunch and a dark face fell upon me. We almost fell on the floor. He seized my hand enthusiastically, how are you, Icho, don’t you remember me?
