The Earth Is Singing (7 page)

On every street corner there is a patrol, some with cars where Hitler’s SS soldiers sit and watch the population go by. Omama refers to them as “those Nazi bastards”, and tends to spit whenever she mentions them. Latvian policemen stride up and down the pavements with their guns hoisted high and no time for the neighbours they used to socialize with.

I try to imagine Uldis, grim and unsmiling, with a gun, and it doesn’t seem possible.

My heart gives a little jump when I think I see him, except it’s another Latvian policeman with similarly chiselled cheekbones and fair hair.

I am heading to the home of Maya Kronis. She is a friend of Mama’s who lives on the other side of the old town. Her sight is failing and she cannot see to thread a needle, so Mama does all her mending at a reduced rate.

I hurry past the
Doma laukums
, our grand cathedral. So far it has escaped the bombing and fire. I pass the
Trīs brāļi,
three houses which stand together but are all from different centuries. I knock on Mrs Kronis’s door on
Klostera iela.
Mrs Kronis still lives in her own house. I feel envious of her three floors and pretty backyard.

“Hanna,” she says, opening her front door only wide enough to put her nose through it. “How kind of you to come across town with my clothes. Please send my best wishes to your mother. You will understand if I don’t ask you in today?”

“Oh,” I say. “Yes.”

I’m a little disappointed and thirsty, having crossed town in the sticky heat of July in a black jacket.

Mrs Kronis opens the door just wide enough to grab her clothes and then shuts it with an apologetic shrug.

I walk back through town at a snail’s pace. Because I am out of breath, hot and tired, I notice more on the way back than I did on the way there.

Several people stare at me in an odd way. Others cross to the other side of the road, pulling their clothes around themselves as if I am a virus that might penetrate through to their skin.

Some of these people are classmates from my ballet school or friends of Mama’s from way back when we lived in the villa.

I see Velna’s mother hurrying along across the street with a shopping basket and so I call out “Hello!” and give her a wave, as she has always been very kind to me whenever I visited Velna after school for tea.

Velna’s mother gives a little jump and hugs her basket to her chest as if I’m about to run over and grab it from her. She stops for a moment and half opens her mouth. Then she lowers her head and rushes on without looking back.

My heart aches with shock and sadness.

I look down at the star on my left breast. It is very yellow against the black of my jacket. I feel as if I might be glowing. Squinting down at it gives me an ice-cream headache and a pain in the back of my neck so I stop.

I feel different. I feel as if Rīga is no longer my place of birth.

It is my city, but it is as if I’ve come down from another planet. Familiar buildings look strange. My feet echo on the pavement with a hollow snapping sound that I have never noticed before.

There are other Jews wearing stars.

I try to catch their eye and smile as I pass them but very few people react and, if they do, it’s with a guilty half-smile as if they’ve been caught doing something they shouldn’t have.

Omama told me to wear the star with pride because it is a symbol of our faith, but I don’t feel proud.

I just feel embarrassed.

When I get home to the apartment I rip the jacket off and burst into tears.

“I don’t want to be Jewish,” I say, lying face down on my bed with Mama perching on the edge. “I want to be like Papa. I am going to be Latvian and not Jewish from now on. I will not wear the star. I look Latvian. I could get away with it.”

Mama looks as if she is considering something. Then she shakes herself, as if trying to get out of a trance, and pulls me into a sitting position and holds my hands. I notice the pale skin around her knuckles and the way that her gold wedding band is swivelling around her finger. It is getting loose.

“Oh, Hanna,” she says. “I am afraid that as far as Jewish law goes, you are considered to be Jewish if your mother is. You must never go out without your star now.”

“Is that what Hitler thinks too?” I say. “Because I have Papa’s blood in me too, remember?”

We are both silent for a moment. I can see Mama wrestling with painful images of Papa, just like I am. I can see him grinning at me over breakfast and ruffling my hair. Sometimes at night I almost feel him sitting by my bed, watching me sleep.

“I’m sorry,” says Mama. “I’m sorry you have to be Jewish at this terrible time. There is nothing I can do to alter that fact. It is who you are.”

She takes me into the kitchen to make me a warm drink.

“Oh,” she says, stirring a cup of hot chocolate. “The money from Mrs Kronis – could you put it in my tin?”

I start in horror. With the strangeness of everything in town I quite forgot to ask Mrs Kronis for the mending money.

Mama sees my face and sighs.

“Never mind,” she says. “These are strange times. Easy to forget what normal is, yes?”

I can’t help noticing when she opens the cupboard to put the tin of hot chocolate away that there are lots of gaps where there used to be packets and boxes of food.

“Are we going to run out of food, Mama?” I say.

My question coincides with the arrival of Omama fresh from her afternoon nap.

“Run out of food?” she says, slapping my arm. “Run out of food? Not while I’ve got breath in my old body, girl!”

She disappears off back into her bedroom and then emerges with a slim box of biscuits which she proceeds to arrange in patterns on a plate with great deliberation and much muttering.

“I have friends in high places,” is all she’ll say when we quiz her about where the biscuits have come from.

We laugh. Omama is full of surprises.

But that night I worry about the empty cupboards.

Then I replay Velna’s expression for the hundredth time.

It’s like everything is pushing me in a direction I really don’t want to go.

When I go to bed I try to find a comfortable position but I can’t.

I feel as if I am still wearing the Jewish star.

There are new officials on
the street.

They wear white armbands with a blue Star of David on them. Some of them have long beards and skullcaps on.

Mama says that they are a special Jewish council set up to help the Nazis keep control over the rest of us. She says that they are on our side and that if we have any problems or questions our council members will be able to help us.

Omama snorts when Mama says this.

“I have been around too long,” is all that she will say.

By August there is a new list of regulations pinned up in the street and emblazoned in big black letters all over the front page of
Tēvija.

Regulations for Jews

All Jews must wear a second yellow star in the middle of their backs.

No Jew is permitted to walk on the sidewalks.

I look outside. I don’t have to wait long. A steady stream of Jews is picking its way through the gutters outside. Horses and army vehicles roar past them, splattering them with the rain, ash and mud which now lie heavy over our streets.

Some of the Jews look dejected. Others have their heads held high. I can see that they are defiant and that they are trying to wear the star with what is left of their pride. Then I see them being whipped by Nazi soldiers for impertinence. I let out a cry and put my hands over my mouth. The Jews stumble to the ground and fall to their knees in the mud and rain. Some of them are whipped again and again and then kicked. They lie motionless in the gutter. The SS utter their loud barking laughs and move on. The lucky ones get up again and continue to walk.

Now their heads are bent low and they are limping.

Tears of anger rise up in my eyes. I notice that the new members of the Jewish Council are still allowed to walk on the pavements and use the buses and cabs.

“That’s not fair,” I say, out loud.

“Come away,” says Mama, shooing me back into the room and pulling the curtains tight so that there is no gap. “Help me with the sewing, please.”

She has the roll of yellow fabric out again. In silence I help her cut thread and measure the width of the stars to a perfect ten centimetres. Then she sews the three new stars onto the backs of our jackets.

“Well,” says Omama, holding her coat up to admire Mama’s handiwork. “Whatever next? They will have us dressing in giant star costumes soon.”

We giggle, despite the solemnity of the moment.

Omama has a way with words.

Uldis comes to visit me.

Because of the way that the Nazis are beating and whipping us Jews on the streets I am imprisoned inside the apartment again at the moment. Uldis has been busy with his police work but he comes by on the way home sometimes and Mama begrudgingly cuts him the smallest piece of bread or sponge cake if she has managed to somehow make one out of almost no ingredients.

“Could you bring us food?” I ask him. It’s all I can think about at the moment. “You must still be able to buy normal provisions.”

Uldis sighs.

“Even for non-Jews there is not so much food about,” he says. “The war is having an effect everywhere. But I will see if we have anything that we can spare.”

“Oh,” I say, disappointed. Sure, it’s good to see him looking so well and handsome but I was hoping he might at least have brought us a cake. Mama’s neck is getting scrawnier by the day and Omama spends more time sitting in a chair than she used to.

“It’s all right,” says Mama in a low voice. “We don’t need your charity, Uldis. Hanna enjoys your visits so that will have to do for now.”

Her face doesn’t invite argument, so I pass Uldis a scrap of black bread and press my shoulder up against his.

A notice comes through our door.

It proclaims that all Jews must register with their local police stations.

“For what?” I say.

Mama passes me the piece of paper. Her hand has developed a tremor over the last week and I notice that she can never sit still for more than a minute at a time.

The paper says that all able-bodied Jews between fourteen and sixty-five must go out to work and will be assigned to jobs which they are not allowed to turn down.

“That is me, then,” I say. “What will I
do
? All I can
do
is dance.”

I have been trying to do my ballet exercises late at night when nobody is watching. I force my legs to go into first position and then work my way through to fifth before running through a series of arm exercises. There is precious little room for pirouetting in my tiny bedroom but I risk it anyway.

Mama sits down and puts her head in her hands for a moment.

“I don’t know, Hanna,” she says. “There will not be much choice in the matter.”

“Who will look after Omama?” I say.

“Omama will,” says Omama. “I am quite capable of amusing myself until your return. I can catch up with my ancient friends in this very building. I have my papers and radio and enough biscuits to see me by until these Nazi bastards have gone.”

Mama rolls her eyes.

“Language, please,” she says. “And that radio is supposed to be confiscated,” she says. “Mama, you are awful.”

But she is smiling.

We have to go to our local police station to register for work.

For the first time we are out on the streets with many of our Jewish neighbours. We haven’t seen most of them for months. Mama uses the opportunity to speak to as many of her old friends as possible. I cling onto Omama’s arm in the long queue outside the police station. She is too old to register for work and only came with us out of sheer nosiness. I’m clinging for safety but I’m also trying to hold her up without letting her know that this is what I’m doing.

Omama’s legs are as thin as my arms now. We haven’t had a lot of food over the last few weeks so now they look even more brittle, like small shiny brown twigs. Like the other Jewish women out here on the streets she is huddled inside a black headscarf as hats are no longer allowed and she is wearing her jacket with the two stars, just like everybody else. The queue outside the police station weaves its way like a dark wriggling snake covered in yellow splodges. The rain falls onto us and steam rises from the gutter. I have no hat or umbrella so my fair plait is becoming dark from the rain and my face shines with rainwater.

Mama is deep in conversation with an old friend, Mrs Brauner. From the way they are gesticulating and huddling together I can tell that the information Mama is receiving is causing her some distress.

Before I have a chance to creep nearer and eavesdrop the queue jolts forward and we find ourselves propelled through the door by the crowd. Omama pushes her way back outside.

Inside a small room there are men with white and blue armbands sitting behind a desk. I recognize some of them from our Jewish community.

We take our turn at the desk.

A man shoves two blue cards at us and gives us a pencil.

We have to fill in our place of residence and which apartment we live in. Then we have to put down our “present employment”. I glance up at Mama in panic.

“Put down that you are a seamstress,’’ she hisses. “I will teach you. Write it down. Quick.”

I pencil the words with a trembling hand.

We are told that soon we will be placed in employment and that there is no choice in the matter. Then we are gestured to leave the room.

It isn’t until we are outside rushing through the rain that something strikes me.

“Mama,” I say, “why did we answer all the questions in pencil? Why not pen?”

We are approaching our apartment on
Skārņu iela
. I am holding onto Omama’s arm to stop her stumbling.

“I don’t know, Hanna,” says Mama. “Maybe they do not want to keep a permanent record.”

We both fall silent, considering what her words could imply.

She stops in the gutter to stare up at the window where we have spent so much time watching the destruction of our beautiful city. I see the rain pour down her cheeks and from the flushed colour of her skin and redness around her eyes I realize that the rainwater is mixing with tears.