Displaced Persons (10 page)

Dvora interrupted, sitting up, her forehead damp. Who gets married? she asked. The man and woman who live there?

No, said Berel. I believe it is the man’s sister.

Ah, so this Mandl is already married to the woman.

Perhaps, nodded Berel. But he had asked Chaim the same question, and the boy had continued talking about the sister. Yes, I believe so.

Dvora blinked. He knew what the blink meant: some kind of scandal there. But she would measure in one hand a bit of scandal and in the other the opportunity to see a real home. Berel knew which hand would come out the winner.

I must change my shirt, said Berel. We will go now, I suppose. It’s a long way.

A long way? We will have someone drive us! Dvora looked offended. We won’t walk there, like peasants. If we are a cantor’s family, we are a cantor’s family.

I should go with the boy to the Roundhouse first. They brought the contract with them.

Can I come? Sima grasped at Berel’s sleeve. I want to go to the Roundhouse again.

Berel frowned. No, you stay here with your mother.

Bring her, said Dvora. It will make an impression. And I need time to get dressed.

Sima wiped her mother’s face with a towel.

Good girl, said Dvora. But don’t let your father leave without me.

A
SAD ARMY THEY
were, Pavel Mandl and the pink-faced man who wished to be his brother-in-law, his thin friend Marek, and Chaim, the boy teacher’s assistant from Sima’s class. Dressed neatly, hair slick, eyes haggard. Impressive, Berel thought, only in their desperation. In the enormous chairs of Yidl Sheinbaum’s office at the DP camp, their bodies appeared small, creased, and hidden.

Berel had been here before. Next to the offices Yidl and his new wife, Tsipora, had a grand apartment, filled with luxurious items captured from the local Germans. Berel had brought Dvora and Sima there the first time he was invited to sing at a wedding—so many of the refugees married under Yidl’s canopy, no rabbi present—he had been overwhelmed by his first visit, the grandness of the place when compared with the little area of the barracks he lived in, thinly separated by a sheet from the other tiny families. He had been overwhelmed but somewhat distanced too. Yidl did not seem to Berel to be of so high a background, and the elegant silvers and carpets, the large rooms, a separate spot for dining, aroused in him both envy and disdain. Dvora had disagreed. At least there are some Jews, she said, who live as well as the Germans who murdered us and still have comfort!

But today the fine offices did not seem so full as they had before. Yidl Sheinbaum had received Berel and Simale with formality and calm. In public he was emotional, forceful, but here in his own territory his triangular face took on the aspect of a quiet bird, a sharp face atop a short, stocky body.

You have been asked to perform a good deed, Sheinbaum said.

Berel felt his mouth stiffen, suppressing a laugh.

Just a little singing, he said.

Ah no, Reb Makower. Much more than a little singing. Perhaps our friend—Sheinbaum gestured at Chaim—did not explain fully.
You are to perform what perhaps you have not performed since before the war, a wedding.

Since before the—

I know, Sheinbaum interrupted. How careful you have wanted to be about the ritual, Rebbe. I know! And such is the problem we face today. An American rabbi in the same position, yes, but without, shall we say, the authority you have to believe your fellow remnants.

I don’t think I can perf—

Listen, said Sheinbaum. I know it has been far too long since you recited the prayers. A prayer book we have for you. And, of course, we have a British captain on his way to sign the necessary paperwork, attesting to your status.

Chaim spoke. That way we think we can convince the American to sign at least as a witness. In part it will be an American wedding.

Berel looked at the men.

My sister, said Pavel Mandl, his voice rasping and quiet. My sister. It is all I want in the world, to have her married to a Jewish man in a Jewish ceremony, by a rabbi, with a contract. It is not war, when anyone can do a ceremony. I want a rabbi. To have her have a Jewish child, just like your little one, Rebbe.

Berel did not dare look at Sima. But he knew she would keep quiet. He could feel her standing still next to him, her head a hand’s breadth from his thigh.

I will do anything. I have stones, Pavel whispered. I will sell anything.

Berel saw the thin man, Marek, look quickly at Pavel, then turn away. But Sheinbaum interrupted again. Don’t be silly. You want your sister to have a Jewish wedding, she will have a Jewish wedding. And an American one too. Isn’t it so, Reb Makower?

Berel nodded.

Now, a little coffee? We will set out in a few moments.

Sheinbaum’s broad new wife, Tsipora, came in to serve them, and he retreated into the recesses of his apartment to speak on the tele
phone. After some time he returned with a man in a high-level British uniform.

My friends, Sheinbaum announced in Yiddish, his voice low and serious, this is Captain Davies. He is here to solve our problem.

Please, said the captain, in German. How can I help you?

The group looked at Yidl. But Yidl looked right back. He spoke to everyone, even the military attachés, even the diplomats from America, in Yiddish. And German! He made it a point not to speak German. Tsipora said something in a language Berel did not know. French? It was said she had studied medicine in Paris before the war. She leaned over to Pavel and patted him on the shoulder and whispered in his ear, as if she had known him for years, a sister.

Pavel seemed to shrink under her touch. For a moment Berel wondered if he should say something, for suddenly he and his daughter were part of this group, this little gray mass that five minutes before had been strangers to him. But the captain broke the silence.

All this just to show one of you is a rabbi? Here, we’ll put your seal along with mine—these Americans, he shook his head at Yidl. All I need from you, Herr Sheinbaum, is a word. I have seen it for myself. What you tell me is true.

The men looked at the captain, silent.

“What this man says is true!” the captain suddenly cried in English. “True!” And he slapped Sheinbaum on the back.

So! said Sheinbaum, passing the letter to Pavel with a slim smile on his face. Let us travel. For, of course, now I am invited, yes?

L
YING ABOUT SUCH A
thing—but what was a sin now? It had no meaning to Berel anymore. With everyone hugging one another, a few people crying, he wandered back to Dvora, a little piece of cake in his hand. He held it out to her. She looked up at him from her chair and blinked. Immediately he felt his mouth tremble, but he did not
want the others to see his face lose its seriousness and shock. He bent down to Dvora’s chair. Face muscles trapped, he felt his words come out half-strangled.

You always wanted a rabbi for a husband, hmm?

Dvora blinked again. Berel lost the battle: an unstoppable laugh began to move up his ribs. He coughed with his neck bent, hoping to make the noise sound like a sneeze.

Sima trotted over with a broad grin. What is funny? Her voice pierced through the angry mutterings of the adults.

Sh! warned Berel. He sucked in his cheeks, pursed his mouth as if to whistle. Nothing is funny. A very serious thing has happened.

But you are laughing!

Sh! He took her upper arm and pressed it, hard. Sima, you must behave.

The three of them huddled, Berel trembling with the last waves of his laughter, crumbs from the cake stuck to his palm, Dvora with her legs crossed, ladylike, calm.

This is what happens, Berel finally whispered. This is what happens when you try to do everything the rabbis say. They have no sense!

He is not like every rabbi, said Dvora. This one is an American, no?

Same books, said Berel. Same rigid ideas. Wanting a piece of paper that is burned into the sky long ago. He is a very pure man! No departures from the Talmud for this one! Young, why should he jeopardize his career with something like this?

So, said Dvora. You showed him better. Congratulations. But she was smiling. On their way to the car Sheinbaum had pulled him aside, demanded he be addressed as Yidl, and asked where in the camp he lived. Berel had told him. Terrible, Sheinbaum had answered. Just terrible. You should have talked to me before. It will be fixed.

Berel looked at his wife. Already, three months in the DP camp, things had changed between them. She had been the master of scheming and lying and stealing in the steppe, the ruler of the family, the protector. Now that they had what to eat and where to sleep,
however uncomfortable, he saw frailties in her he had not seen before: how difficult it was for her to learn German, how slow she was to pick up the cloth-cutting skills in her training program, how short of breath she became after an hour of walking. He had felt himself growing taller and plumper even as she remained thin and pale. Now they had a crisis upon them, a small crisis, but a crisis, and he had risen to meet it. She was alive with pride at his trickery, a bit of heat surging into her cheeks.

It is lovely here, Berele.

Sima laughed out loud. I’m going to take more cake!

Take, take, said Berel. But he had stopped laughing. The humidity had broken a bit. Still he felt a sudden fatigue, a desire not to sleep but to lie down and cover his eyes. It was a lovely home, sunny and overflowing with people. But he did not know how Pavel and the others could bear it, the smallness and modesty, the normality of it, the living between two worlds in a house that had been built for families who stayed put.

D
ELAYED BY HALF A
day, the ceremony had been beautiful after all, from Berel Makower’s trembling melodies to the crushed goblet. But Pavel’s rage had worn him out. Kuba had remained poised, even cheerful, smiling and nodding the whole day. Kuba wasn’t too bright, thought Pavel. But what did that matter? Perhaps he was better off, nodding like a beast.

And watching his sister under the chuppah, her face solid and still in front of the man Yidl promised was a rabbi, had made Pavel cry. After all they had gone through, was this what a real life was, still so much struggle and pain?

Fela found him after, silently resting in a soft armchair. She kissed him, then stood again.

Ours will be less complicated, she said, looking at the room filled
with guests. We will have it inside Belsen to avoid the paperwork. The British chaplain, or another rabbi, whoever you want. No little orchestra. Just a man’s voice.

He looked at her. So she had given up. He was surprised, but only faintly. He waited for the air to spill out of him, the breeze of his relief cooling his skin, but nothing moved inside him.

She stepped behind his chair. Pavel felt her presence and smell around him as he continued to sit. He watched the soldiers and Rayzele dancing with fever and urgency, and he watched the musicians, legs no longer swollen with recovering hunger, clinking the love songs that once had seemed cheerful. Marek’s lady friend drank and sang with some of the men. The American rabbi was roaming the table for rye bread and cheese, crumbs on his unshadowed chin.

So, muttered Pavel. So, let him eat.

The flutist, hair in her face, was tweetering out a little French ballad.

Pavel’s tongue tasted bitter in his mouth. He rubbed at his wrist. Yes, he thought. Yes, let him eat.

September 1949–February 1950

S
OMEONE CALLED OUT FROM
a barracks, a woman’s voice, louder and louder. Miloch! Miloch!

Pavel didn’t turn. A woman finding a relative or friend. He was walking quickly to the Joint office, where his and Fela’s visa applications lay in a pile of hundreds. This was the bad luck of the British zone: the refugees in the American zone had been processed much more quickly, helped by the Jewish soldiers. He needed a connection. Simply participating in the council meetings—that was not enough. He needed something more.

Miloch! The woman was upon him, and Pavel saw her face, paler, older, but hers.

Perla, he said. Perla.

There were tears in her eyes, and her cheeks were pink from running after him.

My name is Pavel, said Pavel, trying to order his thoughts, to
explain. The name I was born with—I didn’t hear—so long since anyone has called me—I didn’t know anyone from that time, that time when I was—was still—

But he was overcome. Perla’s face, round and dignified, two tears running evenly down her cheeks and neck, her thin, flowered dress—she was an old woman inside a young mother’s body. There was a number on her wrist—so! Surely her baby son had not survived. And her father, an elderly man when Pavel knew him, elderly but wealthy, influential, who had saved Pavel’s life with a bribe, merely because he had known Pavel’s grandfather—

Your father, said Pavel.

No, said Perla. He did not survive. Myself and my sister, only us—and—I am married again.

They arranged to meet as two couples, for a coffee in the main street of the camp. Perla’s new husband was from their province. It happened that Pavel had shared a barracks with him in one of the work camps. Tulek.

They sat outside, in a café modeled on the style they had in Berlin, where the Polish Jews could feel more of the West, sophisticated. Perla had once come from a very high family. In the fall breeze, Fela hugging a dark sweater around her slim shoulders, they found an empty round table. Pavel watched Tulek take in Fela’s figure as she sat down, smoothing her skirt under her thighs. Yes, thought Pavel, I have a beautiful wife.

Miloch, said Perla. The girls who knew him in my town all thought of him as—

No more Miloch! interrupted Fela, only half-joking. Who is Miloch? My husband is Pavel.

Miloch, said Pavel, smiling. The name of a hanged man. I was afraid to use my own name at that time. I was on a list—

Pavel, please, said Fela. Let us not—

Perla reached across the table, patted Fela’s hand. Pavel, of course
Pavel. I must accustom myself. But sometimes you have a picture burned in your brain.

It was true, thought Pavel. Sometimes a picture burned in the brain, a brand. He had one of Perla—coming home to her father’s house in winter, wearing only a slip and an undershirt, almost naked, shivering, her white skin pink from the cold, her elbows bent at her sides.

You gave your clothes away, said Pavel.

What? said Perla.

Yes, that time—you saw a family without coats being sent—

Pavel, said Tulek. You must have heard who they have in the jail.

I hid in her father’s house, said Pavel. He saved my life, that time.

You must have heard, repeated Tulek. Kresser.

Kresser? said Pavel. The name came out of him like a casual question. That name! A name he spat at. He felt his heart gallop a moment, then he stilled it. His voice came out quiet, serene. Kresser. Hmm. Still alive.

Oh yes, said Tulek. No one has killed him yet.

What, now? His old activities, I suppose? He was a thief before the war too. So I heard.

Tulek said, No, no. Listen: someone denounced him. They have him not for stealing but for crimes. You know, against his own prisoners.

Oh, said Pavel. Oh.

Fela was looking at him, worried. She wanted the conversation to change.

Perla said to her husband, Pavel knew him too?

Ha! Tulek gave a short laugh. Who knew him once would not forget him. Great creativity, that one. Great creativity. An artist, one might say. Original, inventive. Who says Jews cannot produce great works? That one could compete with some of the Ukrainians.

Pavel didn’t laugh. A Jew in the jail for crimes. Probably they had caught him while up to some certain illegal activity, and someone else, a fellow smuggler even, had recognized and named him—many people went through that labor camp before it was liquidated. No doubt Kresser had managed to take another position of power when he moved on to the next one. Or perhaps not. Perhaps that little unit in eastern Germany, where they crafted helmets with machinery once meant for pots and pans, had been Kresser’s only experiment with cruelty. Perhaps Kresser, once the typhus epidemic had wiped out half the unit’s population, had seen Pavel and his comrades, those whose fevers were subsiding, carry the dead beyond the barracks, into an abandoned field designated by the camp commanders. Perhaps Kresser had seen the prisoners take the blankets of the dead, the blankets stained from shit and blood, scattered with lice, and search for a clean corner, a small strip of uninfested wool, to wipe the bodies for burial. Perhaps Kresser had seen.

S
HE WAS A GRACIOUS
woman, said Fela when they were alone again, strolling to the apartment. Really. You could see she was very fine. From a fine family. A lady.

Pavel saw that Fela meant it. She had a sweet little son, ventured Pavel.

Fela said nothing.

I didn’t dare ask.

It is right not to ask, said Fela. Too painful to speak of it.

But what of this man? said Pavel. What do you think?

What man? Kresser? said Fela. It has nothing to do with you.

He paused a moment. The image of Kresser in a cell did not please him. It should please him, he thought. But there were Germans roaming free, Ukrainians obtaining visas. What did Kresser think now?

I want to go see him, Pavel blurted.

What? said Fela. Her voice still quiet, but alarmed. What? Why do you need the trouble? We have things to do here! Our applications, we need to earn—I have only six months left, and I want the child born on American soil. American.

I want to see if he’s sorry.

Sorry! Fela gasped.

He was upsetting her. No, no, Felinka. No, not to say anything, just to confront him—so he knows—

He is not sorry! People like that—criminals like that—they never change, even if they are Jews! Especially if they are Jews. To do what that kind of person did! He will not change, Pavel, not for you, not for me, not for anyone. Please! What can it prove, what can it show?

But for him to be in an American jail—for them to—

Ah! Fela had caught him. You want him out!

He felt his face darken with shame. No, no.

You want him out.

I just want to ask him. For them to judge—

It is not you they judge, Pavel.

No, said Pavel. It is not. But this is something—this is something to keep inside, to keep among people who know what it means. These Americans! He stopped. Then started again, anger leaking out of his mouth. These Americans! They marry German women who sent their husbands off to war, and now look! Now it is all a court, a court to make a spectacle, a scandal, out of us!

It is not your scandal! It is not our scandal!

But it is!

No. Our scandal is that we are here. We are here! Pavel, how long have we been waiting? Four years since the end of the war. Four years in Germany, living with the Germans! That is the scandal, that is the scandal. Let these others make their little history. Let this criminal pay, Pavel, let him pay. A thousand payments like his would not be
enough. Fela’s voice shook, uneven, as if there were a bubble of air in her chest. Worry for your family, Pavel! You worry for your family, first! Then go to the others.

Pavel wanted to shout: Did I not take Chaim out of jail? But he knew that Fela would respond sharply and that he would not be able to find a retort. He looked at her face straight on: almost a challenge. Perhaps she might cry. Really, he wanted her to cry. If she did he would reach over to her, smooth her hair to her cheeks, rub her back, comfort her. If she did he would say, of course,
mammele
, my loved one, whatever you like, whatever you want, I will do.

H
E THOUGHT IT WORTHWHILE
to try his small access with Yidl Sheinbaum, again reelected as head of the Jewish Committee. Now everyone called him Yidl, soldiers, children, everyone. Since Hinda’s wedding they had nodded at each other in passing on the street. Yidl had shaken his hand once or twice at the committee meetings that Pavel attended. An air of royalty about him, benevolent dictator of the refugees. It was rumored that the visas were slower because Yidl worried about the end of his reign, the kingdom he had made, its city of rebuilt humans. But this was too terrible to consider seriously. The British hated Jews; that was plain from the struggle they had made over the Palestine question, and from the stinginess they still had with immigration papers to England. Hinda and Kuba had received permission to go to England for only two years, and now waited for a visa to New York to come before time ran out. Even the young orphans they took in came back twelve months, eighteen months later, preparing for a life elsewhere, New Zealand, South America, all kinds of places. As for the Americans, Yidl did not have the same connections with the American authorities as he might have if he had allied with the Jewish Committees in the American DP camps. People had
spoken about the possibilities, but plans had fallen through, who knew why; all those German Jews in the American zone committees, one of the Belsener leaders had said, they do not respect the Eastern Jews, what do we need this for, we’ve built enough by ourselves. Whatever the reason, Yidl had not made the alliance. And as a result, with the Americans—so careful with their visas, so willing to take in these others, gentiles, anyone fleeing the Russians, victims of the Germans already forgotten, already an annoyance, a problem, a trouble—Yidl did not have the influence he deserved.

But surely Yidl’s friends had some way of maneuvering with the immigration authorities, for their own friends. Many had left already, only some through family connections already in the United States. Pavel himself tried to work through his second cousin, a man in New York from his mother’s side, but of course Hinda would be first, as she already had a baby. Yidl must have some way. He was a good person to know. For this reason Pavel left word through his friend on the committee that he might have something to say, an opinion. Pavel was not yet sure what it was, but he had an idea about Kresser.

The office was plain, as he remembered it from Hinda’s wedding three years ago. A large desk, of course, a secretary sitting outside, typing on a typewriter that made little squeaks as her fingers hit the keys, a broad window, room for some dozen people to sit, but only two or three plain, wooden chairs. Pavel was glad that the office of the leader of the Jews was spare, like an old synagogue, where one came to inscribe one’s name in the books, even if here the books were the lists of those going to America, Australia, Canada. To Palestine, Israel, it was now easier to go, of course. But the scarcity there—it made Pavel shudder to think of Chaim alone there, laboring in the fields—Pavel wanted to wait for something good, for a good life for his child, his children, he would have children, like the plump ones born every week in the camp, born of marriages made quickly, the noise of infants and even older ones crowding out the quiet.

Yidl extended his hand. Then sat down in the chair in front of his desk, next to Pavel’s, and said, leaning into Pavel’s face, I know why you are here.

Yes, said Pavel. I told your assistant to let you know—

You know the man in the American jail. The Jewish man.

Pavel shifted his eyes. Yes.

Do you know anything good? Anything that might help us?

Pavel looked at Yidl: truthfully, no.

Truthfully?

Pavel pulled himself up, a little offended. I do not bear false witness.

There was silence. Then Pavel said, Still, as I said, I could talk to him—I could see if he—if he felt remorse—and then, if that were the case—

Tomorrow, Yidl said, I have a meeting with some of our representatives at the immigration committee. So! I cannot go tomorrow. But a delegation is to go down on Sunday. Myself, and Norbert, of course, perhaps two others. Come with us.

B
USINESS
, P
AVEL HAD SAID
to Fela. Business. And it was true that he was to meet Marek to arrange a contract afterward. But he could see she knew it was something else. Germans did not do so much business on Sundays. Better this way, he had insisted, though she had said nothing. No one notices what we are doing, not on Sundays.

Yet Pavel thought the American soldiers could not help noticing the committee members disembarking from the long car hired by Yidl. They were small men—but for Norbert, Yidl’s second in command—small in comparison to the soldiers, but dignified, their bodies stiff, their faces calm and accusatory. Pavel’s cap remained firm over his curled black hair, his jacket was smooth, his shirt pressed. As they
entered the jail of the Bremen zone—just a barracks office with a small row of locked rooms—Pavel felt himself to be a soldier, a peace soldier, perhaps, unarmed, but part of a large, disciplined whole.

In the bare room to which the group was led, Yidl announced: This is good.

Norbert nodded.

Yes, repeated Yidl, pulling a chair from the wooden table and motioning for the others to sit as well. This is good.

The door opened: Kresser entered.

Pavel stood. It was him. Fatter, of course, and perhaps more stooped. Still, it was the same man, with large green eyes and dark hair, olive skin, the wide mouth that spat. Pavel felt his blood knocking in his ears. Fear? But how could it be? It was not Pavel who was the prisoner. Still, his body felt tight, filled with a desperate attention.

The rest of them betrayed nothing; perhaps they felt nothing. They did not know him, this Kresser. Yidl too remained sitting. Do you know who I am?