Mercy (50 page)

was, where it was, w hy it was in m y mind, the place, the

geography, the real place, the w ay it was, it’s partial in my

mind but solid, the things I see in my mind were there, they’re

pushed back in my mind, hard to get at, behind a wall o f time

and death. Everything that matters about me begins there. I

remember it, not like a dream and it’s not something I made up

out o f books— when I looked at the books I saw what I already

had seen in m y mind, I saw what I already knew was there. It’s

the old neighborhood, familiar, a far-back memory, back

before speech or rationality or self-justification, it’s w ay back

in m y mind but it’s whole, it’s deep down where no one can

touch it or change it, it can’t be altered by information or

events or by wishful thinking on m y part. It’s m y hidden heart

that keeps beating, m y real heart, the invisible one that no

physician can find and death can’t either. N ot everyone was

burned. At first, they didn’t have crematoria. They pushed all

the bodies into huge mass graves and put earth on top o f them

but the bodies exploded from the gases that come when bodies

decompose; the earth actually heaved and pulled apart, it

swelled and rose up and burst open, and the soil turned red. I

read that in a book and I knew right aw ay that it was true, I

recognized it as if I had seen it, I thought, yes, that seems more

familiar to me than the crematoria, it was as i f m y soul had

stayed above and watched and I saw the earth buckle and the

red come up through the soil. I always knew what Birkenau

was like from the parts o f it I have in m y mind. I knew it was

gray and isolated and I knew there were low , gray huts, and I

knew the ground was gray and flat, and it was winter, and I

knew there were pine trees and birch trees, I see them in the

distance, upright, indifferent, a monstrous provocation,

G o d ’s beauty, He spits in your face, and there were huge piles

o f things, so big you thought they were hills o f earth but they

were shoes, you can see from currently published photos that

they were shoes— the piles were higher than the buildings, and

there was a huge, high arch. I have never liked seeing pictures

o f the A rc de Triom phe in Paris, because they always make me

feel sad and scared, because at Birkenau there was a high arch

that looked like a sculpture against that desolate sky. Y o u

think in your mind the yellow star is one thing— you make it

decorous and ornamental, you give it esthetic balance and

refinement, a fineness, a delicacy, maybe in your mind you

model it on silver Stars o f David you have seen— but it was

really a big, ugly thing and you couldn’t make it look nice. I

think I was only waist-high. Y ou don’t know much if yo u ’re a

kid. I remember the women around me, masses o f wom en, I

held someone’s hand but I don’t think it was someone I even

knew, I can’t see any faces really because they are all taller and

they were covered, heavy coats, kerchiefs on their heads,

layers o f clothes fouled by dirt, but if yo u ’re a child yo u ’re like

a little cub, a puppy, and you think yo u ’re safe if yo u ’re

huddled with women. T h ey’re warm . They keep you warm .

Y o u want to be near them and you believe in them without

thinking. I wasn’t there too long. We walked somewhere, we

waited, we walked, it was over. I’ve seen birch trees here in the

United States in the mountains but I have always transposed

them in my mind to a different landscape: that low, flat,

swam py ground past the huts. Birch trees make me feel sad

and lonely and afraid. There’s astrologers who say that if you

were born when Pluto and Saturn were traveling together in

Leo, from 1946 to about the middle o f 1949, you died in one o f

the concentration camps and you came right back because you

had to, you had an urgency stronger than death could ever be,

you had to come back and set it right. Justice pushed you into a

new wom b and outrage, a blind fury, pushed you out o f it

onto this earth, this place, this zoo o f sickies and sadists. Y ou

are an avenging angel; you have a debt to settle; you have a

headstart on suffering. I consider Birkenau my birthplace. I

consider that I am a living remnant. I consider that in 1946 I

emerged, I burst out, I was looking for trouble and ready for

pain, I wanted to kill Nazis, I was born to kill Nazis, I wasn’t

some innocent born to play true love and real romance, the

parlor games that pass for life. I got these fucked-up compassionate parents who believed in law and kindness and blah

blah. I got these fucked-up peaceful Jew s. I got these fucked-

up civilized parents. I was born a girl. I have so many planets in

Libra that I try to be fair to flies and I turn dog shit into an

esthetic experience. Even my mother knew it was wrong. She

named me Andrea for “ manhood” or “ courage. ” It’s a b o y’s

name; the root,
andros
, means “ man” in Greek. It’s “ man” in

the universal sense, too. Man. She and God joined hands to

tease me almost to death. He put brains, great hearts, great

spirits, into w om en’s bodies, to fuck us up. It’s some kind o f

sick joke. Let’s see them aspire in vain. Let’s see them fucked

into triviality and insignificance. Let’s see them try to lose at

checkers and tic-tac-toe to boys, year in, year out, to boys so

stupid He barely remembered to give them an I. Q. at all, He

forgot their hearts, He forgot their souls, they have no warrior

spirit or sense o f honor, they are bullies and fools; let’s make

each one o f the boys imperial louts, let’s see these girls banged

and bruised and bullied; let’s see them forced to act stupid so

long and so much that they learn to be stupid even when they

sleep and dream. And mother, handmaiden to the Lord, says

wear this, do that, don’t do that, don’t say that, sit, close your

legs, wear white gloves and don’t get them dirty, girls don’t

climb trees, girls don’t run, girls don’t, girls don’t, girls don’t;

w asn’t nothing girls actually did do o f any interest whatsoever. It’s when they get you a doll that pees that you recognize the dimensions o f the conspiracy, its institutional reach, its

metaphysical ambition. Then God caps it all o ff with

Leviticus. I have to say, I was not amused. But the meanest

was m y daddy: be kind, be smart, read, think, care, be

excellent, be serious, be committed, be honest, be someone,

be, be, be; he was the cruelest jo k er alive. There’d be “ Meet

the Press” on television every Sunday and they’d interview the

Secretary o f State or Defense or a labor leader or some foreign

head o f state and w e’d discuss the topic, m y daddy and me:

labor, Suez, integration, law, literacy, racism, poverty; and

I’d try to solve them. We would discuss what the President

should do and what I would do if I were Secretary o f State. He

would listen to me, at eight, at ten, at twelve, attentively, with

respect. The cruelty o f the man knew no bounds. Y ou have a

right to hate liberals; they make promises they cannot keep.

They make you believe certain things are possible: dignity in

the world, and freedom; but especially equality. They make

equality seem as if it’s real. It’s a great sorrow to grow up. The

w orld ain’t liberal. I always wanted excellence. I wanted to

attain it. I didn’t start out with apologies. I thought: I am. I

wanted to m ix with the world, hands on, me and it, and I’d

have courage. I w asn’t born nice necessarily but nurture

triumphed over nature and I wanted to be the good citizen