Displaced Persons (26 page)

No one believed stories like this anymore, but these were the stories of anyone who lived. In Europe, on the steppe, to look at the world practically, realistically, with a cold, knowing eye, was to read only death sentences. It was when magical thinking came true that one lived. An open window here, an abandoned work camp there. Her father had escaped from hard labor; he too had come home.

Baruch was not a dazzling figure, and it was hard to imagine how even in youth he could have wrapped himself around the heart of a girl from a good family in a small town. He murmured gruff thank-yous for all Sima’s favors and calls, but did not seem to like her particularly well. He never asked for her personal advice, only for technical assistance with his housing and welfare and job applications. Once he missed an appointment with Sima and forgot to call; he had been accepted as a salad man in a moderate-priced restaurant not too far from downtown. It frustrated Sima, though everything in her training had taught her not to let it hurt her. Usually she succeeded.

She adjusted the tale to accommodate her irritation. The new story unfolded in a less dramatic series of scenes: Baruch was not the lover but the friend of the lover, the confidant of Moshe himself, told of the plans to flee Mlawa, perhaps inspired to flee himself because of the lovers. In Russia, Baruch would have encountered Moshe again in the Russian army, would have heard a message from Moshe before he died, would have tried to bring the message to Fela despite the obstacles and chaos of cold and hunger and battle. In another version,
Baruch knew Moshe as a living being, a man who had lived side by side with Baruch in postwar Europe, just as Fela had imagined: married, attached, but alive, still longing for news of his first love. They would go together to a reunion—yes, a reunion of their
landsmanner
, the remnants of their broken hometown, and they would see her. No, better, the reunion would be in Israel, without Baruch. Moshe, along with the other new émigrés from Russia, would attend, not daring to be hopeful. Alone, without the interference of assistance bureaucracies or immigration authorities, he would see Fela’s sister Bluma, only partly disguised by age and fatigue, and Bluma would respond to a tap on the shoulder.

Excuse me, he would say, is your name Berlinka?

Yes, the sister of Fela would say. Yes. And you?

I, he would say, I am Moshe Lev.

In the shock that would follow, Bluma would reveal that Fela was alive. She would ask what had become of him; had he seen her, those days in Germany, after the war?

No, he would answer, no.

Then sudden anger. Bluma would turn cold. Why didn’t you look for her after the war? How she suffered. How she suffered.

And who says I didn’t look? Moshe would exclaim. I was in prison. There was nowhere to look. I wrote to the Red Cross, to the Joint—but nothing, no word. It wasn’t so easy, at that time, if you stayed in the East. No committees for the refugees, no communications in the Russian zone. What do you think—I would not look if I could?

She’s married, said Bluma. With children.

Yes, Moshe would say. And I am too.

The drama would close with an anguished silence beween Bluma and Moshe, the two closest figures of Fela’s first life: To let it alone or to tell her? The truth, or peace?

In Brooklyn Baruch would receive the letter from his friend. He would think on it and think on it. He would divulge the tale to Sima.
And then? How would Sima and Baruch contrive to put the two back together? Each could know a version of the tale, but it was up to the romantic pair themselves, separated by continents, to reveal their identities.

A
N EFFICIENCY STUDIO HAD
opened in the Brighton Beach project for seniors, and the administrators had squeezed Baruch to the top of the list by the start of February. Sima paid a follow-up visit on Friday morning, in the middle of the month. It was a long way out; she took the agency car.

The day was uncommonly warm and sunny for the time of year, a taste of spring before the snowstorm predicted for the weekend.

She lied to Baruch. I wanted to tell you a hello, said Sima. Hello from Fela Mandl.

Who? said Baruch.

Excuse me, said Sima. Fela Berlinka.

Berlinka, said Baruch. Berlinka, Berlinka. The word chimed out of his mouth in a singsong.

The sisters from Mlawa? Sima finally said.

Yes, said Baruch. Oh yes, a very good family. Yes, she said hello? He seemed gratified, but only slightly. What else do I have to do? he said to Sima. Will you still keep visiting?

Only if you want me to, said Sima.

I’m all right on my own, said Baruch. Do you know how much a private phone costs here? It’s very expensive. How can anyone do it? I have to use the common one downstairs, and there’s always a wait.

Sima pushed her fingers into her purse for a business card. Here, she said, placing it on the table near the window. Just in case you need something. She closed the door behind her, then stepped toward the elevator. She pressed the button to call it. Through the porthole of the
elevator door Sima could see the compartment lowering itself down.

But then she turned back and knocked on Baruch’s door.

Did you forget something? His face was softer than it had been a moment ago.

He likes to think that sometimes I too can be weak, Sima thought. She returned the soft look. Yes, Mr. Sosnower. I forgot to ask you—

She paused. He looked at her, waiting. Should she go through with it? Could she really alter a woman’s history with a question? Then Sima pressed down the thought, forced herself to continue. Did you ever know a Moshe Lev? From your town, from Mlawa?

Moshe Lev—Baruch said, his soft look vanishing. Of course! Yes, he too was from Mlawa. How funny that you ask—how do you—

I remember hearing his name from my friend. She wondered what had become of him.

Really? Hmm, well, I did not know him so well in Poland. But I suppose—Baruch’s face remained blank, still surprised but not excited—I suppose everyone wonders, still, after so many years. It was a funny thing, running into him in Kiev when I did, after so many years living in the same neighborhood, and not seeing him since we were schoolboys. Of course he was a bit older than I, but a brother of mine would have gone to school with him—a fine man. We were on a line together to buy something, maybe milk? Yes, that was it. He recognized me, actually. He said he did not forget faces from his hometown. But that was so long ago.

Sima’s breath was steady in her chest. How long ago?

Oh, long before he died. Maybe 1975 or so? We met from time to time. But his wife and mine were not so friendly. She was a quiet one, his wife, had to be to keep up with him—very sociable. You bring back things, Mrs. Traum. Moshe Lev! I had not thought of him for years.

S
IMA LET HERSELF INTO
the agency car, parked on the street outside Baruch’s building. She was dressed too heavily for the day and pulled off her scarf.

Now Sima too had a secret. There was nothing she could say to Fela. The story would be the same, whether Moshe Lev had survived and reappeared, or whether he had died, victim to hunger or a bullet. Another life to which no one could return or even imagine without pain. How could Sima have flirted with such a story?

She turned her face toward the row of small terraces on the west wall of the building, searched for the one belonging to Baruch. But he wasn’t looking out. In the February warmth he had opened a window, and his blue cotton curtain beat softly at the glass.

May 1990

P
AVEL STRAIGHTENED HIS PROGRAM
on his lap. Perhaps a dozen people waited in the chairs of the auditorium, watching the student arrange the microphones on the podium. Others would come. Pavel liked to arrive with plenty of time to spare. He had a seat on the aisle to stretch out his leg, and he placed a scarf on the seat next to him for Fela. The four of them would all be together.

He tapped at the name tag on his lapel and looked over at the white sticker on Chaim’s jacket, the solid blue letters. Chaim took after him in attitude, intelligent and quiet. Still with a full head of hair, even if it was pure silver, cut close to his head. He was very distinguished, with his bright eyes and straight posture. Pavel liked to be sitting next to him, this boy he had cared for as a brother. Their wives powdered their noses and chatted outside.

It is good we are early, Pavel nodded to Chaim.

Very early, said Chaim.

I don’t like to go when people are fighting for seats. It can be a terrible chaos, sometimes. The ceremony—you used to have to arrive at least an hour and a half in advance. But it is better now. Since they moved it out from the synagogue—when was it?—five years ago, now we have space. That theater—you know, at Madison Square Garden. But no, you didn’t go this year.

Chaim smiled. You know I did not go.

Pavel put Chaim on all the mailing lists that he himself was on. Still, after so many years of suggestion—not pressure, not pressure, for Chaim was almost as stubborn about these matters as Hinda, she never came to anything like this either, not even the events with senators, with luminaries—Chaim had finally given in for this. Why this one—Art and Culture in the Warsaw Ghetto? Pavel did not know. But it was not for him to question. He was glad to have the company, and sophisticated company too, someone with whom he could do a little criticizing, perhaps hear something a little different from what he heard from his friends and his cousin. Chaim was younger than everyone, and he had an energy that the others did not have. It was good to sit with him. Chaim remembered Pavel when he was strong and fit, when he could watch over a household and feed any number of guests and travelers. Chaim remembered.

C
HAIM READ THE LYRICS
to “The Song of the Partisans” at the bottom of his flyer.

Never say that there is only death for you

Though leaden skies may be concealing days of blue!

The words looked alien and awkward in English. Strange. He had not remembered the song sounding in Yiddish, so stiff, almost—he
felt ashamed even to think the thought—almost silly. He tried to retranslate it. Never say that you travel on your last journey. Not good, not elegant, but at least not so blunt as the English. And “days of blue!” It was out of a Broadway musical. Americans needed a rhyme. Chaim had noticed a piano on the stage. Would the audience have to sing? That was the new thing: an interactive lecture. It wasn’t just the English translation of the song that was printed alongside the Yiddish letters, it was also the phonetic English. Yes, it was very possible there would be singing.

Chaim breathed. It would not be so terrible. Theme song or no, a professor would introduce, and another professor would speak. The hall would fill, he would see people he did not always see. A good reason to come. And it made Pavel happy for him to be here.

Tell me, Chaim, you know this man?

Who?

The professor who wrote the book.

No, of course not. How would I know him? I was just interested in the topic.

I don’t say no, I just thought—you know, since you don’t go to the commemoration—

I can’t go to the commemoration, Pavel. I feel like a pretender. So I don’t like to go.

What pretender? said Pavel. What have I to do with the Warsaw Ghetto? Nothing. Less than you! You think the Brooklyn borough president has something to do with the Warsaw Ghetto? It’s a big event, so he comes.

I went with you to a film two years ago, no, before. The documentary.

A film! It’s not the same. It was a long time ago—and anyway, I left in the middle! But you know, I think I knew this one, the professor’s father, very slightly, not well, of course, he’s from Romania, but—

Chaim looked at the flyer again. Why had he agreed to come?

Fela had asked him to, that was why. He always felt a pull in his abdomen when he refused Pavel, but it was a discomfort he could overcome. Fela’s requests were a different story.

She had caught him on the phone a week before. There was a lecture at the New School, a new book, she thought it would be very interesting for Chaim and Sima, they would be in their element, since it would be full with professors—

I’m not a professor, Chaim had said. I’m an adjunct. And it’s technical, not intellectual. Radio engineering. You know, Fela, I—

Chaim, she interrupted. I know you don’t go to these things. I know you don’t. I don’t like it so much myself. I go because—I go, I don’t know why I go.

Fela, with the songs and the speeches, it is something I can’t—

This is not one with speeches. I made sure.

I will ask Sima, he tried.

I already spoke to Sima. She said to speak to you.

Ah.

Fela’s voice became quiet. Chaim. I want from you a favor. I need you to talk to him. He does not listen to me. Maybe he listens to you.

Could he not have talked to Pavel at another time? But no, Fela had wanted it to be casual, she had not wanted Pavel to know that she had called and pleaded with Chaim to reason with Pavel about the business, to reason with him about Kuba.

Pavel tapped at his shoulder, held out a half-finished packet of mints in his palm.

Do you want?

Chaim shook his head. He felt like a fraud simply sitting here, deciphering lyrics to a resistance song, even though he himself had once taught them to the younger children in the DP camp classes, long after the resistance fighters had been crushed. He had never heard the song during the war, the few months his family had been crammed into the ghetto housing, shipped from their small town to
the North. There had been a time he had claimed otherwise. If asked, he would say he was from Warsaw originally, he would date his flight through the sewers of the ghetto as happening after the battle, not a full year before, he would add a few exploits to the short time in the forest with the gentile partisans, he would ascribe his ignorance about weapons to the ancient technology accessible to the forest fighters. Sometimes when speaking he had not been sure what was true and what was not, for the stories he told came out in pieces, not in order of time or place.

And he had been caught once, during his second or third year in the military. Now he could not remember the particular lie, but when he thought of the Tel Aviv café on an autumn evening, sitting with a few friends from his company, his stomach still folded in shame. Two women had been at their table. What had he said? He did not want to remember. But after he had said it, one of the women—she must have been European, even Polish—had given him a quick look in which he saw first warmth, then puzzlement, then—accusation. She wore glasses but was pretty, a slim brunette, long legs that folded under her seat as they drank, perhaps a bit older than he. Her head had given a half-shake, not perceptible to his companions but clear to Chaim. She did not believe him. He had felt himself blush and quickly had stood up to use the bathroom. Suddenly the shame of the lie had seemed greater than the shame of what it covered, that he had not borne arms, that he had roamed through the city just after his escape with a friend, then from village to village looking for work as a field hand, that his time with the partisans had come so late, after he had found himself all alone, that it had seemed more a shelter than a battleground. He had lost his brothers and the last friend he had escaped with, and he felt himself a traitor just for being alive.

P
AVEL SPOTTED SOMEONE HE
knew. A man on the arm of his wife waved and walked past, then took a seat a few rows ahead of them. Glick. Pavel turned to Chaim.

I know him from the business. A prominent man. Manufactures the linings for the biggest designers. Pavel threw another smile in the man’s direction, then nodded to Chaim again. He is interested in buying when we sell, but Kuba wants to wait for something bigger.

Hmm? Chaim seemed surprised. So you sell already.

Not yet, not yet, no evil eye, it is just—well, you know, my son is not in the business, of course, that was never his interest, and for me to hold on—

What does Kuba say?

Well, you know. Pavel sighed. Kuba still wants Michael to draw a salary from there, he is our finance manager, you see, very good with numbers, excellent—and, of course, we want to sell so that we still work for the new owners, just without the risk—I am not ready to retire, you know, I have something in me still!

It’s a good time, isn’t it? All these big companies buying.

I think so, said Pavel, his hands and cheeks growing warmer. How long since he had discussed business with Chaim! Yes, Chaim was coming closer to everyone, finally, after all these years. He was coming closer.

I think so, Pavel repeated. For a long time I didn’t think it was, now I do. Now I do. He turned his face from Chaim’s. I used to make business, didn’t I, Chaim? You remember. I was afraid of nothing.

Chaim looked at him for a moment. It’s different, Pavel. A completely different time now.

I think it’s the right time, Pavel said. I do. And Kuba also thinks so.

Kuba had seemed cheerful that week, more than usual. Pavel had begun to agree with him more. It made Pavel nervous to give in, but he did not have the energy for the arguments anymore. He was more
than seventy years old. His son and his daughter would not go into the business. They were doing something better. Larry was a doctor—Columbia Medical School!—and Helen had a master’s degree. It was too early for Pavel to retire, of course, too early for Kuba too, but now they could sell at a good price, maintain good salaries as employees to the new owner, even hold on to a job for Michael, who wanted to make changes, work for a more modern company, not be stuck in the old style of his father and uncle.

Still the plans made Pavel nervous. Every idea he had for a sale, to an acquaintance or business colleague, Kuba did not like. With you it is only to friends, only among friends, Kuba would complain. This is business, American business! We can do better! All right. If Kuba thought a better deal was in the making, let Kuba find it. Pavel would not lose anything by letting Kuba have his way. And as yet Kuba had not found anything. So! There was time. Pavel still had strength, he could hold on while Kuba looked for the perfect purchaser. He could hold on.

He did not speak to Fela about the details. He did not speak to Fela about any of it at all. And for the most part she kept silent. Except in the last few days. He had mentioned, casually, accidentally—really, he was beginning to forget what to tell her and what to leave out—that Kuba was meeting with a prospective buyer in the coming week. Someone big. But then Pavel revealed he had agreed with Kuba that this was something for Kuba to handle on his own. Kuba knew Pavel’s wishes.

For the first time since he knew her, his wife had opened her mouth about his business.

Pavel, Fela had said. I want you to go to the negotiations with Kuba.

Why? I trust him. I have so much work—

You are being—you have no—you are being a fool, just giving him everything over you without asking a single question. He probably goes with Michael and not with you.

Pavel had refused to answer. So what if Kuba went with his son?

Fela read his look. Pavel! Are you crazy? Do you think I don’t have anything to do with your decisions? All right, you don’t care about yourself, but what about your wife? He thinks he knows more than you, but he is wrong! You think he knows more than you, he and this little brat of his son!

Fela!

It is true!

I know whom to trust!

You! You know whom to trust! You, of all people!

Her face had made Pavel worry. But he did not know how to interpret her worries. It was a fact, Fela and Hinda were not the closest of friends, and it was also a fact that Kuba was not the easiest man in the world. But this did not mean that one attributed to him the possibility of a double cross, of betrayal—

Chaim, Pavel said. What did you think of Kuba when we met the first time?

Nothing, said Chaim. I don’t remember. I never liked his friend, of course. From the beginning he was—Chaim paused, then switched to English, “a phony.”

Of course. That’s a nice way to put it.

Of course I couldn’t guess what he would do in the end—Pavel looked at him, shook his head, and Chaim left the topic—but Kuba! I don’t remember thinking too much one way or the other. I was so young.

You’re not in love with him, this I know.

So! I’m in love with other people.

What? Are you—

Pavel, please, I’m just joking. I thought we talked of your business.

Your family is my business too! Pavel grinned again. But Chaim seemed to do all right without his interference. Pavel and Fela had
liked Sima from the beginning. Chaim had made a good choice, Pavel reflected. Even as a boy Chaim had not taken to Marek Rembishevski. Chaim had a sense about people, for bad and for good too. He had attached himself to Fela the moment he saw her in a Polish market. He had a sense.

B
UT
I
DO THINK,
Chaim continued, keeping his face calm, I do think that Kuba—he thinks he knows more than he does. He was always a little too sure.

Kuba. Well, he always thought of himself as smart. I don’t say he isn’t, of course.

Of course. Chaim smiled.

I just say that a more intelligent man than himself, he doesn’t happen to know.

I think it is all right to keep an eye on his plans, if it doesn’t insult him. Chaim gave Pavel a sideward glance. With Pavel’s face in profile, Chaim could see the crushed bones of Pavel’s cheek in the space between his glasses and his eyes. I think it is all right for you to watch.