The Lost Wife (32 page)
Authors: Alyson Richman
I looked over to Fritta, who was staring straight into Haas’s eyes.
“Lenka is so diligent, she wanted to get an early start on her work.” His eyes now widened as if to signal to Haas to stop.
For a few seconds a silent exchange ensued between them. Haas raised one of his dark eyebrows, then Fritta nodded. They ended their silent dialogue with each of them staring intently at the other. Haas seemed to understand that the only crime I was guilty of was my arriving at an inauspicious moment.
“Very well.” It was Fritta who ended the standoff. “I think Lenka now understands she shouldn’t get to work any earlier than she is expected.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We don’t want the Germans to know we were here, so let’s the three of us make a pact not to mention this again.”
“Yes, sir.” I nodded. I looked over at Haas, who was now looking around the room for something.
“Now let’s get you back to your barracks, Lenka.” He quickly lifted the book off the covered drawings and rolled them into a paper tube so quickly that I could barely see anything other than the swift movements of his hands.
“Let’s not mention any of this again.”
I nodded.
Fritta turned to Haas. “I will be back in an hour when the others arrive,” he said.
Haas was already at his desk, his back to us. He nodded.
Fritta tucked the tube with his drawings under one armpit, and the two of us walked silently and briskly out the door.
CHAPTER 39
Rita is now in her seventh month. I look at her body through her dress, her stomach resembling a small melon. She is severely undernourished and no one would suspect that she is with child.
She is exhausted. You can see that just by looking at her face. When I visit her this time at Lautscher, I see that her hands are shaking when she paints.
Theresa looks sideways to me from her easel and shakes her head gravely. I nod. Rita does not look well.
“I think we should go to the infirmary,” I tell her.
She shakes her head no. She continues her painting as I talk to her. Her small, wispy strokes of watercolor are bleeding all over the page.
“We won’t tell anyone you’re pregnant. We’ll say you’re just unwell.”
“I would rather stay here than risk getting typhus, or worse,” she says, turning to me. She places her paintbrush down. “I have already told Oskar. So please just let me finish my work, Lenka.”
The severity of her tone surprises me, but I try not to take offense.
I watch as she presses her palms to the table where she’s working, her back slightly hunched forward, the small outline of her stomach against the cloth of her dress.
And then I hear Theresa gasp.
Beneath the low wooden stool, between Rita’s legs, is a swelling puddle of water.
CHAPTER 40
Theresa runs for Oskar. He and I carry Rita to the infirmary. There, the baby is born two months early amid the sick and the wretched. Rita’s baby boy pulled out of her, his body no bigger than a newborn pup.
He is alive, but barely. He is blue, and he is no bigger than my hand. When she lifts him to her breast, there is no milk.
I will never forget the sound of his cry. A whimper, but so low it was almost imperceptible. But in its faintness, in the child’s desperation to live, it was thundering.
Oskar is at Rita’s bedside. His skin is ashen and reminds me of the color of a seagull. His brown eyes are wet with tears.
They call one of the rabbis, who suggests they call the baby “Adi,” which in Hebrew means “my witness.” Rita holds him to her breast, convinced that his suckling might bring forth her milk.
I leave to afford them privacy. But within the hour I see a friend of Oskar’s standing in front of me.
“They want you to do a drawing of the baby,” he says. He is breathless from having run to find me.
“It is urgent,”
he says.
“There isn’t much time.”
he says.
“There isn’t much time.”
I go to my barracks and find a scrap of paper. It is my largest one, but still no bigger than a dinner plate. Its edges are jagged, but it is clean and without any markings. In my pocket, I stuff two nubs of charcoal. I have nothing else, as I have given everything to Mother for Friedl and the children.
When I get to the infirmary the baby is at her empty breast. “I have no milk,” she says, weeping. I put my sketchpad down and go over to embrace her. I kiss the top of her forehead, then Adi’s. I sit down and look at the two of them. My beautiful Rita, with her blond hair wet from perspiration, her cheeks flushed, her eyes cloudy with tears. The child’s features, without the padding of baby fat, are Rita’s in sharp relief. The high planed forehead, the sharp, upturned nose, and the sickle-shaped cheekbones. Rita’s face is bowed to Adi’s, her eyes fastened to him, his tiny body cradled in her shaking arms.
The child’s face is exquisite and delicate; his skin is still rosy from what nourishment Rita was able to give him within the womb. But with each passing minute, the color in his little body begins to fade. The blue first appears at his fingertips, then spreads to his limbs, then to his face. I can see Rita’s face stiffen with pain as she tries to draw him closer to her, to warm him.
“He’s turning blue!” she cries. “Oskar, he’s so cold! Don’t we have anything to warm him with?” she cries like a frightened animal.
Oskar takes off his dirty shirt and tries to lay it on the baby. I see Rita wince. The dirt on the shirt is evident, and probably the smell is, too. There are no embroidered receiving blankets like I remember Marta being swaddled in. This wretched piece of cloth will be the first and perhaps the last thing to touch the child’s skin.
Rita is now beyond grief as the baby’s breath becomes more labored, his color now no longer blue but china white.
I start to sketch them. I see the first lines give way to an image of mother and child, their faces emerging on a piece of precious, stolen paper. I sketch Rita’s face nestled close to her child’s, his cheek against her breast, their features one and the same. I want to capture life—by adding even the slightest bit of color to the picture, but I don’t have a single stick of oil pastel or a tube of paint. The stick of vine charcoal is already dust in my hand. And then it comes to me, in an act of almost primal desperation. I look down at my ragged hands, my frayed cuticles, and pull at them. I tear the skin until the corners are leaking blood. I squeeze red droplets of blood onto various parts of the drawing: Rita’s cheeks, mouth, and breast, and the child’s limbs. My drawing, first intended to show the love between a mother and child, now becomes one of blazing defiance: cast in black and red.
CHAPTER 41
I never told my children or grandson about Lenka. They grew up thinking their parents found each against the backdrop of a war, two misplaced people in a foreign country who married out of a shared longing to forget.
I think Rebekkah would explain it as a longing to make a new start, a new family, because both of ours had perished like a whisper of smoke, a desire so loud it thundered in our chests and clouded our judgment.
I think my son would say I married Amalia simply because it was better than being alone.
And I would tell my children, had they ever asked for the truth, that it was a little of both.
I learned when my daughter was in college that I was incorrectly listed among the dead on the SS
Athenia
. Rebekkah discovered this while scrolling through reams of microfiche one late night at her school’s library.
Athenia
. Rebekkah discovered this while scrolling through reams of microfiche one late night at her school’s library.
She told me quietly during her spring break, when we were alone in the apartment, two cups of tea between us.
The Xerox copy Rebekkah made of the newspaper now rested on the table. I glanced at it before touching it. The headline concerned Roosevelt’s signing of the neutrality proclamation for the United States. Below, next to a smaller article about the French army penetrating Germany, was a photograph of the
Athenia
and an announcement that 117 were confirmed dead. My name, my father’s, my mother’s, and sister’s were among those listed.
Athenia
and an announcement that 117 were confirmed dead. My name, my father’s, my mother’s, and sister’s were among those listed.
“Are you okay, Dad?” Rebekkah asked me. I had been looking at the paper for several seconds but was struggling to believe what I was seeing was actually true. I knew that there had been tremendous chaos when the rescue boat landed near Glasgow. I had reported my parents’ and sister’s deaths to a clerk and the only explanation I could come up with was that when I told him my name, he accidentally included it along with the others as one of the deceased.
“This is unbelievable,” I said. My stomach was doing somersaults and I thought I might be sick.
“It’s as though you were given a second life,” she said. There was a youthful quality to her voice, and at the same time a depth of understanding far beyond her years. I remember that she reached past the cup and saucer and touched my hand.
But I was not thinking about my daughter and her compassion. My head was instead swimming with thoughts of my beloved Lenka. She would have read this in the Czech papers. She would have believed that I was dead.
I remember I excused myself and told my daughter I needed to lie down. I felt dizzy. I felt as though I might choke. Lenka. Lenka. Lenka. I saw her pregnant, dressed in widow’s black, believing herself to be abandoned. Terrified. Alone.
My guilt was suffocating me. I had felt its unforgiving grasp for years. Letters to the Red Cross. Searches that led to dead ends. Letters that stated that Lenka had been sent to Auschwitz and was presumed dead.
Is this what it means to be in love? To mourn for an eternity for a mistake I foolishly made? How many times did I revisit those last hours in our apartment? I should have insisted that she come with me. I should have wrapped her in my arms and never let her go.
And my naïveté pierces like an ice pick. A painful, slow, bleeding wound.
I close the door to my bedroom while my daughter finishes her tea. I stretch out my arms, imagining Lenka. All these years and all I want is to hold her, comfort her.
Ask for her forgiveness.
But all I hear is quiet, then the sound of Rebekkah carrying our dishes to the sink.
I wrap my hands together like a knotted ball.
Air and memory. I press them deep into my heart.
CHAPTER 42
After the war, I began to search for Lenka through more official channels. The Red Cross had created tracing centers across the country, so I registered at one on the Upper West Side. I would go there once a week, whether it was blustering cold or a torrential rain, to see if they had located Lenka.
I made an official request and filled out form after form.
At my first visit, the woman who was helping me urged me to be patient. “We are working with Jewish organizations throughout Europe,” she said. “Give us time. We will contact you immediately if we discover any news.”
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