Unravelled (13 page)

"She was used for medical experiments. Did no one tell you this?"

My mother shook her head, rubbing her hairline with her gloved hand, accidentally creating a few flyaway hairs in the process. She cleared her throat, placing her hand over her mouth as if it would mask the unladylike noise.

"No," she shook her head. "I'm afraid that information was omitted. What kind of experiments?"

Aliz stood underneath the two, watching their lips, her eyes still wide with the same intensity, her mouth slack as if she were trying to take in the foreign words.

"She and her twin were used."

My mother nodded her head as if the information was rushing back to her all at once. Clouded with information about birthdates, death dates, names of concentration camps, towns in provincial Hungary, bar mitzvah dates, her head hardly had room for much more.

"I do remember this a little bit," Mother nodded slightly, putting her hand on Aliz's head that was covered by a white hat. Aliz shirked away, her eyes almost animalistic in their expression.

The woman nodded. "She has collapsed veins on her right arm. That's important for the doctor to know if she goes because he won't be able to draw blood from that side. But as far as we can tell, she doesn't really have any outstanding health problems because of it. Some of the kids go through periods of time when they get really, really ill. But we don't know what Mengele injected into them."

"Mengele?"

With that, Aliz covered her ears whimpering, as if the mere mention of the name sent pains through her body. She began stamping her feet, powdering dust on the woman and my mother's shoes, making a sound like an injured puppy. The woman put her hands over Aliz's ears, holding her still while she continued to whine, her mouth slack once again.

"He's the doctor who was in charge. She gets very agitated when you mention his name. She told one of the nuns in Katowice that he killed her sister, and we do know her sister died in the hospital weeks later. To be totally honest, we're not sure exactly what he even did. Aliz doesn't talk about it, not even when she's directly asked. The SOB escaped with all of his files and paperwork, so we don't know what he did to the kids or why some of them are sick. And he's still on the lam. Or could be dead, we don’t really know."

My eyes widened and throat tightened. A feeling of uneasiness tingled up and down my arms, as if this Mengele person was suddenly nowhere and everywhere all at once.

"They haven't caught him?" I swallowed hard, my eyes bulging.

"No," the woman shrugged, patting her hair back. "But I think they will. They have to."

My throat felt drier than when my parents and I had driven through Arizona during the summer I was 12, our thighs sticking to the hot leather of the Studebaker, my eyes and throat on fire.

"Are you staying at a hotel around here?" Mother asked, protectively taking Aliz's hand. Aliz took a deep breath and wiped her nose over and over again, until she had rubbed a red spot over the tip of it.

The woman nodded, explaining that she would be working at one of the Veteran's hospitals in San Francisco before making her way back to Chicago to work with some children who would be arriving from Poland, by way of Germany. They, too, had been in the camps and were, just like Aliz, without parents.

Mother offered the woman to come with her in the Studebaker, saying she would drop the woman off at her hotel. The woman nodded graciously, making some joke about being Jewish and wanting to save her cab fare. Quietly, Mother and I lifted Aliz's suitcase and the small bag she had brought with her, pink-white color canvas bag with stains on the side. Wordlessly, we made our way to the parking lot, stuffing their belongings into the open trunk, the way we often did before embarking on long road trips. It was always like a jigsaw puzzle, finding ways to make each piece fit so they wouldn't slide around making clanking sounds in the trunk, which would make Mother jump and hold a gloved hand to her heart.

As we hoisted Aliz's canvas bag in the trunk, she began to stamp her feet, shaking her head so vigorously that her hat flew off a few feet to her left. I ran to grab it amidst her shaking and clamoring.

"What is it?" Mother asked, pausing and repeating the question in Hungarian, whispering next to Aliz's ear.

"Nem! Nem! Nem!" Aliz stomped, singing the Hungarian word for “no” over and over again, like a mantra.

"Aliz, you're in the United States," the nameless woman told her, placing her hands on the girl's thin shoulders. "You're supposed to try to speak English."

Aliz  continued as if she hadn't heard the woman, or perhaps she simply didn't understand her. She continued to stamp and cry, finally grabbing the handles of the bag and thrusting it onto the asphalt, the zipper bursting and the contents spilling onto the ground like a broken teacup.

"Oh, Aliz," the woman sighed, her voice crackling with exhaustion. "Just because we put your bag in the trunk doesn't mean we're taking it away from you."

The words flew over Aliz's head, not reaching her ears. Ignoring the woman, Aliz got down on all fours, gathering the contents of the canvas bag. It was more of the same; shoes, dolls, shawls, a winter jacket, dresses, socks and underwear, laying still on the pavement, the San Francisco wind occasionally picking up and blowing life into the clothing. The woman bent down once again and the four of us instinctively began collecting Aliz's things, folding them and pressing them into her bag, my mother finally zipping it with an air of authority.

When the bag was finally closed, Aliz stood pulling at the handles, moving it an inch or two at a time toward the backseat of the cream colored Studebaker.

"I think she wants to ride next to the bag?" I guessed, grabbing it from her hand and thrusting it in the backseat.

"I don't think it's a good idea to indulge her," the woman shook her head. "On the way here, she saved the crust of all of the sandwiches she bought on the train and stuffed them down her dress. I spent twenty minutes in the bathroom trying to dust her off. She's never going to live a normal life here if you let her act like this."

I scratched my neck and looked to my mother, who nodded, signaling that it was okay with her for Aliz to sit next to her canvas bag. The woman continued speaking, a whirl of emotion around her head, as she discussed all of Aliz's quirks, punctuated only by the starting of the engine and the sound of the brakes as we rolled away.

Mother drove four miles out of her way to drop the woman off at her hotel, thanking her profusely. The woman, seemingly unable to take a hint, kept talking as Mother started rolling the car forward, trying to get away from her constant chatter that was now coming from the open passenger window. About ten minutes later, Mother made some excuse about having to make dinner (even though Mrs. Stein had already volunteered to make us a full meal to go with our vanilla and chocolate cakes), finally freeing herself from the prison of the woman.

"I bet you're glad she's gone," I turned to my cousin and smiled. She smiled back as if she understood before sitting up in the backseat to wave goodbye to the woman once and for all. After readjusting herself in the leather seat with a whoosh of her skirt, she reached into her white sock, digging around as if searching for something. I clicked my tongue, wondering if this was the start of some strange habit. Finally, she pulled three crusts of brown bread out victoriously, holding them above her head for a few moments of celebration before stuffing them in her mouth. Mother's eyes were focused on the road, and I said nothing of the situation, pursing my lips shut as I watched the city roll by out the window.

After chewing and swallowing, with a loud gulp, Aliz pressed her face to the window surveying her new surroundings. Her mouth formed an O on the glass, making a tiny cloud of breath in front of her. With her mouth and eyes open, she watched this new world, her new home pass in front of her. Men and women sauntered down the street arm in arm, others bought flowers from street vendors while children skipped rope and drew on the sidewalks. It was as far away as I could imagine one could get from Auschwitz, from the gray world I had seen in the magazines and newsreels.

Mother finally pulled up into our driveway, shutting the car off and making a small thud as she put the car in park. She heaved a sigh as she opened the heavy door.

"We're home," she announced.

Aliz slid out of the car, her mouth still slack from taking in what she had seen so far of San Francisco. She surveyed the house, running her eyes over it as if she were an architect inspecting the bend and turn of each angle. Gable yipped from inside and darted toward her when Mother opened the front door, his ears flopping and tongue hanging to the right of his mouth. He jumped so high that he practically reached Aliz's shoulders, knocking her down onto the driveway.

"Oh, Aliz!" Mother exclaimed, rushing toward her. Gable was on top of the small girl who was now a lump of blue and white on the driveway. "Are you all right?"

I rushed to her side, hearing small whimpers escape from her mouth every few seconds. To my surprise, she was laughing, her arms around the dog as he licked all the breadcrumbs from her face. Mother and I exchanged a smile as we helped her up, Gable snug in Aliz's tiny, gangly arms.

13 CHAPTER thirteen

✪

Two days later, Eva and I sat in my blue and white bedroom with strains of Tex Williams crackling on my record player in the background. She sat cross-legged with a large history book on her lap, making indentations in her calves. I silently wondered what the history books in twenty years would say about Aliz, Auschwitz and us.

"So, do I hand it in or not?" I changed the subject abruptly from Eva's obsessive chatter about Troy Grossman, the dreamy blond boy who sat next to her in chemistry class. Last year, he had kissed her on the cheek at Playland at the Beach, right before they went into the Funhouse. But I had more important things on my mind, more pressing things, like my future, or whether or not I was going to have one.

"Your application to college?" Eva asked, plopping down on the cream colored carpet dramatically, her history book hitting the floor with a thud. "I don't know. Just do it. What's the worst that could happen?"

I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the absolute worst-case scenario, the scene in which I didn't go to college. I could practically see the lines in my forehead and feel the misery in Future Me's chest as I pranced around the house, picking up after my children and living each week for my husband's paychecks. The very thought of it made my stomach turn. It made me so nauseated that I had decided to apply for college a year early, in hopes that I could get out of the house a bit faster, to get away from my mother's sullen face and dead eyes. 

My mother lived with the dead. They were as real to her as the women she chatted with at Temple after services. They hung in the air like a cloud of smoke, always there, even on the most joyous of occasions. And now with Aliz in our house, it was like living with a ghost. In the past couple of days, I had noticed the air felt heavy and thick. It was as if Aliz brought Auschwitz with her. I begged my mother to let me spend the night at Eva's later in the week, but she refused, saying she needed my help. All of her extra money had been funneled into paying for a visa for Aliz and her ultra-expensive journey to San Francisco. Mother had even set aside money to buy Aliz a new "American wardrobe".

"The worst that could happen is I stay here," I nodded, picking at a fleck of dirt under my index finger. "With Aliz and Mother."

"Not necessarily," Eva shrugged.

"Oh?"

"You could always marry Jimmy Price," she laughed loudly at her own joke.

Jimmy Price, a total square, carried around several handkerchiefs in his front pocket that he often used to blow his nose and put back in his pocket. He had a separate case for pens and three different protractors he rotated so that one wouldn't get too "used".

It wasn't so much her suggestion about Jimmy Price that made me shiver, but the notion that the only way I could be saved, without saving myself, involved getting married. I didn't have a boyfriend, my last one had broken my heart by leaving me for some girl from the Catholic school. I wasn't convinced I was even that good at relationships. I knew I had liked him a lot, but when he called me every night before bed "just to talk" for two or three minutes, I found myself getting totally annoyed and feeling suffocated. I wanted to be like Katharine Hepburn, to waltz into a room and demand attention, yet have men around to enjoy the pleasure of their company instead of "needing" them.

I sighed heavily, letting the air escape. Eva sat up and struck a match, lighting up a Lucky Strike cigarette. She puffed quickly and evenly and offered me one. I leaned in and lit up my own, taking a long puff and letting the smoke tickle and sting my lungs. It felt good, cathartic in a way.

Without warning, there was a muffled knock on the door. If we hadn't been quiet at that very moment, we wouldn't have even heard the hand rapping on the wood. It came once and then twice, softly and then again a little bit insistently. Without getting up from my bed, I leaned over to open the door, expecting my mother trolling the house for dirty laundry or asking me to get up and feed Gable. Instead, Aliz stood in my doorframe, looking tiny and fairylike. She was dwarfed by the door, her height much smaller than a child of almost eleven. Her skin was white, bordering on gray, and her hair hung limply on either side of her shoulders, the front pinned back with a pair of my old pink barrettes. She said nothing at first, simply licked her lips, standing wordlessly like a ghost. It was as if she would float away at any moment, an ember in our imaginations. I had to remind myself that she was, indeed, a real girl.

Aliz had been with us for two days, but hadn't proven to be the terror we thought she would be, given her file and what we had been told about her. She sat politely, but quietly at meals. She accompanied Mother to the Piggly Wiggly, where Mother said she spent quite a bit of time staring in amazement at all of the produce, fruits and vegetables. Mother had lost her in the store for a moment, moving on with her shopping and assuming Aliz was following her. After a few minutes of panic, Aliz was returned to Mother at the front of the store where she was waiting calmly and coolly, picking up packs of gum and candy, feeling them and putting them back.

Her file seemed to describe an altogether different child than the one we had. The day we picked her up at the train station, her unruly behavior now seemed uncharacteristic of her. Mother had suggested that perhaps riding so long on a train and being handed over to different escorts during her journey had proven stressful to her. Perhaps even a trigger, Mother whispered, telling me in a hushed voice that the Jews had been forced to travel by cattle car to Auschwitz. I nodded when she spoke the words, as if I had any comprehension of what she had experienced.

The file, which had been translated in New York, offered a picture of an extremely disturbed little girl who spent her nights banging her head against the wall or screaming in terror. According to the curly cue writing, she didn't often speak, but when she did, she sometimes spoke to her parents or siblings. She screamed when she heard the name "Mengele". She hid bread in her dress and shoes. She slept on her doll, which they had found to be stuffed with both food and jewelry. She spent nights scratching at her arms, until her skin became red and angry, sometimes even bleeding. Sometimes, she kicked the nuns, even though they had given her relative freedom in Katowice to do as she pleased, reigning in the children only for mealtimes.

But this little girl before us was polite, spoke words of thanks and gratitude, never asking for anything, simply sitting with her hands folded as Mother turned on Vaughn Monroe. She listened intently, as if she understood his words, her eyes fixated on the radio. 

"You're so lucky to be here," Mother spoke as if Aliz understood. I tried not to make a sound as she listed off the reasons why this girl, with no family, who had been subjected to disgusting and inhumane medical experiments had any reason to be lucky. Mother reasoned she was fortunate because so many immigrants from Europe were clamoring to get to the United States or Palestine or Canada. It wasn't easy to get a visa. People waited in Displaced Persons camps all over Germany for years, hoping and praying for a chance to get out of Europe. The communists had moved in to Eastern Europe and the Jews weren't welcome. In fact, pogroms had made their way through Poland again and a few farmers pitchforked Jews to death, stabbing them with their brutal anger. They were unwanted vermin, they reasoned. They weren't supposed to come back. Since Aliz had us, her visa was expedited and her journey paid for outright without Aliz having to search for sponsorship. There were millions of children, orphaned or lost, waiting and waiting with no end in sight. I shuddered to put myself in Aliz's worn out shoes.

Mother had enrolled her in the same grammar school I had gone to, just a few blocks down the street from our house. She would start in a week, when Christmas break was over. She had been placed in first grade, even though by her age she should be in fifth. She had gone to school through the American equivalent  of second grade in Hungary, it had been discovered, but missed the rest of her years due to her imprisonment and subsequent time spent at the convent. Not knowing English would make it even more difficult for her.

"We'll teach Aliz at home and she'll also learn at school, "Mother had said with a smug smile. "She'll catch up to the kids her age soon enough. I know she will. She's a smart girl."

The latter was ascertained without any such proof, whatsoever.

And now Aliz was standing at my door, paper-thin and wide-eyed. In her short-sleeve pink blouse, the one I had worn when I was eight years old in a school play, I could see her tattooed number for the first time. The engraved ink stared back at me, the blue lines etched in her skin forever. She must have noticed us staring at it, as she moved her right hand to cover it, shame in her eyes.

"What's happening, Aliz?" Eva asked, sitting up and looking at my cousin straight in the eyes. Aliz looked back at her, studying Eva's pink mouth with intent.

"Vat's chappening?" Aliz repeated, her voice gravelly and thick with a Hungarian accent. My mother still had hers, but Mother's was now softer, the edges rounded out so it sounded more pleasant. Aliz's was new, harsh.

"That's right," Eva nodded, laughing a little bit. Aliz shirked into the doorframe, as if she wanted to disappear inside of it.

"She's not laughing at you," I assured her, putting the cigarette in my mouth and my hands out to her. Aliz looked back at me with her big, saucer brown eyes, the corners of her mouth turned downward. I patted my bed, urging her to come sit down next to me.

She tentatively took a step forward, her slippers catching on the rug, making static.

Eva and Aliz stared at each other for a few moments, Aliz's eyes studying her hair, her maroon dress and looking down at her bare feet. She had painted her toenails red a few hours earlier and the nail polish was glistening in the late afternoon sun pouring through the window. Eva took another drag, sucking in and out. Aliz's older sister, the cousin I had never met, would be our age right now. I wondered if she had survived, would she be sitting here with us talking about college applications, crushes and puffing on Lucky Strikes?

"Isabelle's talking about college applications," Eva told Aliz, as if she would understand. Mother thought simply talking to Aliz would improve her almost nonexistent English skills. She had, after all, simply taught me Hungarian by speaking to me.

Aliz furrowed her brows and took another step forward, sitting down on the messy mass of sheets I had meant to take off the bed earlier in the day. She kicked her legs back and forth and then crossed her arms over her chest, the scars all over her arms even more apparent, more angry in the light. They danced up and down her white skin like little half moons.

After a few moments of silence, the three of us not sure where to look, I thrust my cigarette forward to Aliz's lips. Her right leg was constantly in motion and her left hand kept picking at a loose thread on her dress. At the very least, it would get her to calm down. She studied me again and then took the cigarette in her right hand, taking a drag on it, before coughing vehemently, hitting her chest with the palm of her left hand.

"It's okay," Eva told her with a smile. "I did that too the first time. Well, the first four or five times."

Aliz kept her head down, the cigarette in her hand and hair covering her eyes. I could hear her sucking and chewing on her cheeks from under her hair as she continued to look down, the cigarette dangerously close to burning her skin.

"Aliz," I told her, holding my hand out for the Lucky Strike, its ashes coming off in clumps onto her tiny little hand. She made no move, but sat, her back straight, as she let the cigarette turn into a butt, burning the inside of her fingers as it did so. Alarmed, Eva ran to the bathroom to grab a glass and put the cigarette out. But even as it slowly burned her fingers, she didn't even flinch or scream. She simply sat, chewing on her cheeks. It was the same way she must have sat as they burned her family, until there was nothing left of them but ashes.

"Here!" Eva picked up Aliz's hand and thrust it into the glass that was half-filled with water. Her small hand fit all the way into it. As it submerged, the cigarette flickered out, first to a spark and then gone completely.

"Aliz!" I exclaimed, attempting to meet her eyes. It was impossible under her blanket of hair. "Are you okay?"

I picked up my blanket and began to dry her hand. I put it up to my face to get a closer look at the burn, but she pulled it away immediately, putting it back in her lap. As soon as it had returned to the safety of her left hand, I felt something warm on the bed, grazing my left thigh. As I looked down, I could see Aliz's skirt had now turned dark, urine grazing my bed.

"Oh!" I exclaimed standing up instinctively. Aliz merely sat on the bed, her hair still covering her saucer-brown eyes. I grabbed her by the upper arms and stood her on her feet, urine dripping from under her skirt to the floor in small waves. She finally lifted her face to look at me. It was stained with tears, yet she hadn't howled or made noises like most children would when crying. Instead, her tears fell silently, forming a small river on her neck. Finally, she sniffed, the only indication of her tears.

"You'll be okay," I told her putting my arms around her small, square shoulders. She didn't hug me back, merely stood with her arms at her sides, small sniffles muffled in my dress.

But I wasn't sure she would be.