Читать книгу The Memories We Keep - Walter Zacharius - Страница 9

“Halt.”

A surge of humanity carried me across the Lodz station, where I struggled to catch a glimpse of my parents. It had taken us days to travel from Dubow to Lublin, with a stop in Warsaw, on our way home. Although the fighting continued we knew that Poland would finally fall and we had to make provision for the future. In the train, we’d agreed that we had a better chance of avoiding the station guard’s suspicion if we detrained separately, since we were smuggling goods my aunt Esther had given us in case the Lodz grocery shops were empty. Suddenly, though, I was not so sure.

“YOU!” the same voice thundered. I froze.

My breasts and hips were enhanced by packets of wheat, flour, oats, and ground millet. I literally waddled attempting to navigate through the crowd.

A young soldier stepped in front of me. “Name?” he thundered.

Beneath his clumsy German I detected a Polish accent; he was a Volksdeutscher, a German Pole proud to be more Aryan than his Nazi counterparts. His military cap was balanced jauntily on his straw-blond curls, and his glance was insolent. I turned away.

He snatched my coat collar and raised it, forcing me to look at him. “I said give me your name!”

“Let go of me,” I ordered him in Polish. How dare he take such liberties? I was a free citizen and he was a pimply faced parody of a soldier. I dropped my suitcase and stared at him defiantly.

“You little cunt,” he roared, tearing my coat open. “I’ll teach you to defy me.” He pushed me to the ground, straddled me, and pried my legs apart. I felt no fear; only anger. A crowd formed around us. Surely they would protect me. Yet they made no move, and their gasps and cries seemed to come from far away. The guard explored my thighs, my breasts. I screamed and flailed at him.

“What seems to be the problem, soldier?” an authoritarian voice snapped above us.

The Volksdeutscher leapt to attention, brushing dust off his sleeves. His cap was askew and his ruddy face shone with sweat.

“She’s a gypsy smuggler, lieutenant.”

The officer shook his head. He was no fool. All around him were overstuffed coats, weighted suitcases, baby strollers without babies. Smuggling in wartime might be a capital offense, but people had to keep from starving. “Is it true?” he asked me. “Are you a gypsy?”

I stood, straightened my clothes and looked at him squarely. He was about my height, barrel-chested with a bulldog face. “No, sir.”

“She’s lying,” the soldier insisted. “Just look at her. Bulges everywhere. She’s a gypsy smuggler and—”

“Shut up,” the officer snarled, slapping the boy’s face. The soldier recoiled. The crowd murmured. Instantly, I knew that the lieutenant regretted his impulse and that I would pay for it. I wanted to run, but the crowd had us pinned in.

“This girl denies being a gypsy,” the lieutenant said.

“Whatever. She’s still smuggling food under her dress.”

Now the officer was trapped. Faced with a direct accusation, he couldn’t ignore it. “Are you a smuggler, young lady?”

“No, sir.” My voice was weak.

“Then you wouldn’t mind a search.”

The Volksdeutscher grinned and took a step toward me.

“I’ll take care of this,” the officer growled. “Lift up your skirt.” Men in the crowd pressed forward. Women looked away. I stood still, my face afire with humiliation.

“Lift it,” the officer repeated, “or I’ll do it for you.”

I scanned the crowd, hoping that miraculously father or Jozef would rescue me. But of course they were not there. Shame overwhelmed me and I began to cry.

The officer stood in front of me. I raised my head to look at him, seeing—what?—some sort of odd pleasure in his eyes? Deliberately, he caught the hem of my skirt with his riding crop and raised it over my hips. He ran his free hand up and down the inside of each of my thighs, then let the skirt drop.

“Everything’s in order,” he barked hoarsely, turned on his heel, and parted the crowd just as Moses had parted the Red Sea.

I arrived home to a commotion. The entry doors to our house on Sophienstrasse were wide open and a horse-drawn cart was backed up to the porch. Papa, who had evidently arrived moments before me, raced across our lawn, where the horse was tearing up mouthfuls of grass.

“What’s going on?” he demanded of the driver seated on top of the cab. “Remove this cart immediately!”

“I was hired for this,” the driver said. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Who am I? I own this property, that’s who I am. You have exactly two minutes to leave these grounds before I—”

“Put that down!” a familiar voice bellowed.

Papa ran into the house where Stasik, our butler, was brandishing a kitchen cleaver above the head of Maria, the maid. “There’s the doctor now,” he shrieked. “You’ll drop it now, all right!”

“What the devil’s happening?” my father demanded. “Why is that cart on my lawn, and what’s Maria doing?”

“She’s stealing Mrs. Levy’s silver,” Stasik wailed, tugging at the box under Maria’s arm. “Drop it, I say.”

“Let go,” Maria shrieked, digging her nails into his hand. Abruptly, the box sprang open, and silver scattered over the hall floor. “Don’t come near me.” Maria shrank from my father’s approach. From the look of him, he could have killed her.

Papa seized her wrist and dragged her outside to the rear of the cart, where a half dozen chairs and several paintings had been hastily stacked. “You mean to rob us, Maria? In the name of God, why?”

“Let go of me!” The girl kicked at his shins. “Let go or I’ll report you to the authorities.” Maria looked at my mother. “For rape.”

“But that’s disgusting. Absurd. Mrs. Levy and I just this minute arrived.”

“Who’ll believe you?” Maria’s voice was filled with contempt. “Who’ll believe a Christ-killer? A lousy stinking Jew?”

A loud roar like an ocean in turmoil filled my ears, and I flew past my father and clawed at her eyes. “You bitch!” I shrieked. “You bitch, you bitch, you bitch!” I flung her to the ground, kicking her as hard as I could.

It was my mother who rescued her. With a strength neither Papa nor I could have imagined, she pulled me off the maid and held me until I stopped shaking. Maria lay curled at our feet, whimpering, and it took an enormous effort to keep me from kicking her again. At last I became aware that my mother was kissing my head, and I heard my father’s calm voice reassuring someone that everything was under control.

“It’s taken care of, officer,” he said, producing a wad of zlotys for the policeman by his side. “A disagreement with the help, that’s all.”

The policeman extended a hand. “Let me know if you need me,” he said, evidently anxious to be off. “This is a peaceful neighborhood, and I wouldn’t want it disturbed.”

“Thank you.” Papa escorted him out the gate then returned to his reclaimed possessions, a trembling Stasik, and Mama clinging to me as if I might erupt again. But my fury was spent.

My father lifted Maria up and placed her gently in the back of the cart. He handed the driver some money. “For a doctor,” he explained, “not for you. Understand?” He slapped the horse’s rear to get him moving. We stood and watched it go, too numb to say anything. My mother released me but kept kissing my hair. My father put his arms around both of us.

“We shall never discuss this moment again,” he said, leading us to the front steps.

The facade of our house on Sophienstrasse had always seemed beautiful to me, but now, in the twilight, it was forbidding, and I was loath to cross the threshold, afraid of what we’d find inside. I had been born in this house, grown up in this house, endured my father’s tantrums, my brother’s teasing, my mother’s scolding—and experienced their love. Now as we entered it motes of dust flew around our head like flies and the air smelled musty. The joy each of us felt at being reunited—imagine that, joy because we all made it home from the train station!—was replaced by intense melancholy. Even Stasik, who had preceded us inside, was somber, not at all pleased to see us again.

“The piano,” I gasped as Mama and I entered the drawing room. “Where’s the piano?” It was where I had spent my happiest hours.

Behind me, Mama reeled as if my words had physically struck her. “And the Monet?” she shrieked.

“Maria stole them,” Stasik said. “And the silver candlesticks. Her family came and took them yesterday. I pleaded with her, Mrs. Levy. Begged her not to take them. But the girl wouldn’t listen and I couldn’t stop her. She said if I tried, she’d report me to the authorities.” He lowered his lead. “At least I kept the silver menorah.”

“You did your best, I’m sure,” Mama said. “Dr. Levy and I are very grateful.”

“I’ve worked for the doctor’s family for fifty-two years. I started out in Mr. Levy Senior’s stables….”

“We appreciate that,” Mama said, exhaustion etching her face. She turned to climb the stairs.

The old man wrung his hands. “I watched Jozef and Mademoiselle Mia grow up. I know every nick and swirl of the banister there. I’ve polished the door knocker so many times that—”

Mama turned to face him. “We appreciate it all,” she said warmly. “And in view of the difficulties, I’m sure you earned a vacation. Perhaps you’d like to visit your brother in Zakopane.”

“A vacation?” Stasik dropped into one of the chairs at the foot of the landing and began to sob. “After so many years, something more should be said. Surely Dr. Levy’s father would have wanted a lifetime employee to….”

“What’s the problem?” my father asked, appearing at the top of the stairs.

“Dr. Levy. This house. It’s the only life I know. My wife, Bertha, died under this roof. And now, to be sent away without any ceremony. It doesn’t seem right.”

“Who said anything about sending you away?” Mama seemed to be struggling to understand. “I offered you a vacation.”

“But what else could you mean?” Stasik stared at her as if she’d gone mad. “Is it possible that Madame and the Doctor have not read the notices? The ordinances?”

“Of course not,” Papa said. “We just arrived.”

The old man shook his head. “The new German governor of the Wartheland says it’s illegal for Jews to employ Volksdeutsche or Poles. If I stay, they’ll take everything from you. You are not even allowed to say the name of the Führer or you could be shot.”

I watched blood drain from my father’s face and felt a strange tug at my heart, as though someone were trying to dislodge it from its steady beat. My mother gave a little cry and ran upstairs to embrace her husband. They seemed suddenly old, older even than Stasik, and the trap I thought I’d escaped by leaving Krzemieniec now seemed to close so tightly around me that I could barely breathe. Selfishly, all I could think of was Paris and the lycée and Jean-Phillipe and my music. In Paris, I could play and sing. There was no music left in Lodz.

The Nazis conquered Poland in October 1939. Lodz now became a German capital. Street signs were changed, so that Pomorska Boulevard became Fredericusstrasse, and Kowalska Street was now Sophienstrasse. German officers strutted the streets, resplendent in black uniforms and hats, as though they, not we, were its citizens. We learned to keep our voices low, our eyes downcast, our gait measured. We were a defeated people, the Jews most of all.

There was no word from Jozef. Papa finally got through to his school in Kraków, but he had left. No one knew where he had gone. The telegram I was expecting from the lycée telling me when school was to reopen never arrived, and when I called, I was told someone would return my call, but no one did. I knew that without the school’s acceptance letter I would not be allowed to leave Poland. Jews were obliged to stay where they were unless they had proof of need to travel. I was a Jew; I had no proof.

Stasik stayed, no longer as our butler but as our guest. Papa gave him two thousand zloty to buy clothes and to use as spending money. He now dressed as one of us but rarely went out. He lived in constant fear he would be discovered, interrogated, and forced to betray us, so he kept to the guest room on the second floor, a silent presence in a silent house.

My father was not allowed to return to his clinic, so he commandeered the laundry room as an office and saw patients—Jewish patients—without having access to adequate medicines. He, too, left the house rarely, and then usually to go to the Kehillah, the council of prominent Jews who met each week to discuss concerns of their community, which daily became more secularized and isolated.

After every session he would return, have a drink, and report to us:

The government in Berlin was encouraging able-bodied Jewish men to enlist in the German Army, but the local government was grabbing Jewish boys off the streets and sending them to labor camps. There seemed to be a choice of one or the other.

There was to be no marrying among Hebrews until further notice.

Groups of vandals had been breaking into Jewish-owned shops and homes, looting at will, the police doing nothing to stop them.

Jews were banned from jobs in all sensitive industries, including military and industrial and biotechnical research. Jewish professors at schools and universities were summarily dismissed, and of course no Jews were allowed to hold government positions. This last applied not only to Jews but also to all but a few select Poles, their places being taken by Volksdeutsche, many of them wholly without experience.

Papa would explain all this in a monotone, his eyes dull, his movements slow and awkward, and we, equally inert, would take in his words but not their full implications. During the day, I would go shopping for food, exercise as best I could, and go to a friend’s house where I would practice on her piano. But I played without enthusiasm. The works of Bach and Beethoven seemed without meaning, as though they had been written for a different time, a different place, a different people. I was no longer the girl who had returned to Lodz a few months ago, wearing a fine dress, a fancy hat, “the latest” shoes, and full of scorn for those not shaped by Paris, the City of Light. In fact, I could barely remember her.

Winter would be coming soon, and with it the darkness and cold. But it was already dark and prematurely cold in the Levy house on Sophienstrasse.