Upon the Head of the Goat (16 page)

I was too confused to understand anything beyond the fact that Dr. Feher had killed himself. I continued on my way to the Gerbers'. I did wonder, as I walked, where all the people in Dr. Feher's yard had come from. There were so few people now on these once-busy streets. Then I remembered that tonight was Passover Eve, the first seder night. On this day, in other years, these streets had been filled with people scurrying about in preparation. And here I was carrying four potatoes to the Gerbers for their seder. Their lives, too, must have changed from what Judi had told me about the many elegant parties they used to give in Budapest.

When I knocked on the Gerbers' door, Judi opened it and stood, with hesitant eyes, holding the door ajar.

“Who is there?” called Mrs. Gerber in a frightened voice from inside the house.

“Come and see for yourself,” Judi answered. “I almost didn't recognize you,” she said to me. “Your disguise is perfect.”

Mrs. Gerber came to the door and stood looking at me in amazement. “Come into the house, let's not stand here,” she said, leading the way into the kitchen. Once we were all inside, she turned to stare at me again. “Did your mother dress you up this way?” she asked.

“Yes, she was worried about you and sent you some things to make potato pancakes with.”

“I can't believe your mother. What an actress she might have been.” Mrs. Gerber took the package from me. “She took such a big chance in sending you. Did you see anything on your way over here?”

“Yes, two German soldiers with rifles on their shoulders walked right past me. I must go home.” I didn't think I should mention Dr. Feher.

“Can I walk her back part of the way?” pleaded Judi, reaching for her coat with the bright yellow star on the lapel.

“No, it is not safe for you to go out there with German soldiers on the street.”

Judi slipped into her coat anyway. Mrs. Gerber grabbed her. “You are not going any farther than the yard.”

“I want to talk to Piri for a moment,” Judi said quietly.

Mrs. Gerber hesitated, then, putting on her coat, she led us out with Pali following behind her.

“I want to talk in private,” Judi snapped. She pulled me toward the open gate.

“Stay inside and close the gate,” Mrs. Gerber ordered. She turned and took Pali by the hand; together they went back into the house.

Judi waited until her mother had gone before asking, “What is it like out there?”

“There is hardly anyone on the streets. But I walked past Dr. Feher's house and he is dead. I wonder if we should tell our mothers. He shot himself. What does ‘violated' mean?”

I was surprised that Judi did not answer me. She looked confused.

“The people in the courtyard said the reason Dr. Feher shot himself is that the German soldiers violated his wife and daughter,” I explained.

“Raped,” she said. “‘Violate' is a word the grownups use to confuse us. What they mean is ‘raped.'”

I took her answer in slowly. “Did the soldiers come to your street, too?” I asked.

“No. Luckily, we live too far out of the main area. We heard from our neighbor that the hospitals are full of victims.”

“They did not come into our house, but they were on our street. Mother was scared that they might…” I decided not to tell Judi about sleeping in the summer kitchen. “I really must go,” I said.

Mrs. Gerber came running toward me from the house. “Take these to your mother,” she said when she reached us at the gate. “I know that she will go through some of the rituals for the seder in spite of everything falling apart. These will dress up her table. And do be careful.” She gave me a little package.

“Mother said we'll get together as soon as things quiet down,” I said, walking through the gate.

As I neared the public-school yard, I saw German soldiers spilling out into the street. I did not know what to do. If I crossed to the other side of the street, they might get suspicious. To turn around and run did not seem like a good idea either. Then I remembered Mother skipping across the kitchen. Clutching the package, I began to skip by, hoping that they would pay as little attention to me as the other German soldiers had. Skip, hop. Skip, hop. The whole yard was filled with soldiers. Some of the ones on the street did turn to look at me.

“
Hüpfe, hüpfe,
” said one of them, clapping his hands in rhythm with my movements. I skipped past Mrs. Silverman's gate, and when I was certain that the soldiers could no longer see me, I broke into a run.

When I reached home, I had to knock on the gate to be let in. Mother opened it, her eyes dark green with fear, and I decided not to tell her about Dr. Feher.

“Mrs. Gerber sent you these,” I said in a rush, handing her the package.

She took it and bolted the gate. Once inside, she unrolled the brown paper to find the graceful, tapering green and gold candles from Mrs. Gerber's mantel. “Now her house will be empty,” Mother said to us as she shook her head in appreciation of the gift.

Our seder behind locked doors and drawn shades consisted of vegetable soup, potato pancakes, and a lekvár pudding made from crushed matzos. No prayer books, no traditional seder plate, no wine. Mother had covered the table with a white cloth, and Mrs. Gerber's green and gold candles stood in our brass candleholders at the center as a festive decoration. Mother lit the candles. The four of us—Iboya and I, Sandor and Joli—sat down around the table, and then Mother sat herself in Father's chair and handed each of us a matzo.

“You children know that tonight is the first night of seder,” she said. “A lot has happened since last Passover, but we must be grateful that the five of us are here together tonight. It is traditional in the Passover recital to say, ‘Next year in Jerusalem,' but instead, I will say that next year I want us all to be together with the rest of the family in Komjaty like we used to be.”

Iboya said, “Amen.” The rest of us repeated it after her. Mother got up to serve the soup.

18

E
ARLY THE NEXT MORNING
, Mr. Hirsch knocked at our door. Mother went out into the yard to talk with him. Iboya and I, watching from the porch, saw Mother cup her face in the palms of her hands, and for a while her body shook with sobs. Then Mr. Hirsch touched her gently on the arm and left.

“I cannot believe it,” Mother said slowly. “Dr. Feher shot himself. They have just gotten permission from the Germans to bury him. No funeral—we cannot get into the synagogue and they won't let the rabbi out. But we have to bury him, and I have to be at the cemetery in an hour.”

Mother came out of the bedroom dressed in a good dress I had not seen her wear for years, a black silk with a matching jacket, and she held in her hands the hat she used to wear with it. I followed her to the salon. A pale but steady Mother stood in front of the gilded mirror adjusting the hat. “I lost my last good friend who could have helped me,” she told the looking glass. I noticed the yellow Star of David pinned to the lapel of her jacket.

“You are going dressed like that?” I asked in surprise. “Isn't it dangerous? I thought you were going to dress in one of your disguises.”

“Mr. Hirsch said that it will be all right. The Germans are busy now with reorganizing the government, and the soldiers had their chance the other night.” She stopped, sighed, and went on. “And they have the old men locked in the synagogue to amuse them for now. So it should be all right—at least for a while—for us to be out on the street as long as we don't go over the curfew time.”

Then she left, and I watched her as she opened the gate and walked up the street in her silk dress and good shoes. For some reason that I didn't understand, tears welled in my eyes.

Mother returned two hours later with the Gerbers. They seemed changed. Even Judi was subdued.

Mrs. Gerber and Mother sat down at the kitchen table and Mrs. Gerber began to tell Mother the contents of a letter she had received from a friend in Budapest. “Hitler's deputy Adolf Eichmann himself came with his SS officers to enforce the new anti-Jewish laws. He gathered up the Jewish community leaders to confer with them and help him carry out the new orders. They are also forcing the Jews entirely out of all professions. The same thing is happening here. That, too, might have had something to do with your Dr. Feher's decision to kill himself.”

“No,” I interrupted, “I heard someone say that he shot himself because his wife and daughter were…”

“Raped,” offered Judi boldly.

Mrs. Gerber bowed her head in helplessness. “What will happen to those poor old men in the synagogue? If we don't reach twenty thousand pengö by seven o'clock tonight, they will execute them. We are still short eight thousand and the Germans said they won't extend the time.”

“I heard that many Gentiles gave,” Mother said.

“I am sure your Mr. Kovacs wasn't one of them. Does he know that you are without money?”

“I am not going back there any more,” Mother said, pausing a moment before she continued. “Mr. Hirsch said that they were allowed to take food in to the old men. Some were sick from fright and fatigue. We could have used Dr. Feher in there. In a way, he had no right to take his life. He could have helped while we are still here.”

“Did Mr. Hirsch have any idea of what is going to happen to us?”

“He said he'll have more information by next week.” Mother looked over to Judi and me. “Why don't the two of you get some plates and set the table on the porch?” Mother said.

“Come on,” said Judi, “they want to get rid of us.”

Later that afternoon, past curfew time, Mr. Hirsch returned, deeply disturbed. He told Mother that the Germans were getting ready to line up the men in the synagogue and shoot them. “They think we are holding out,” he said. “They won't accept the fact that we have no money.”

“Where should we have money from?” Mother asked. “They've taken away our incomes and left us nothing.”

“We are holding an auction as a last resort. You would not believe what can be bought for five pengö. It is an ugly sight, but we are desperate. The families of the imprisoned men are crying and pleading with us to save their fathers and grandfathers. And if we let it happen to them this time, who will be next?”

Mother moved around the kitchen and picked up the brass candlesticks and the brass mortar and pestle she kept on the shelf of the kitchen cupboard. She handed them to Mr. Hirsch.

“Can I come and help?” asked Iboya.

“We are using only our sons for now. There will be time for you to help with other things,” he answered. He thanked Mother for the things she had given him and promised to send us word of the outcome of the sale. Then he was gone.

We heard nothing further that night. I lay awake in bed straining to hear the sound of gunfire from Main Street and yet terrified of hearing it. Hearing nothing, though, but the breathing of the others in the room, I finally fell asleep. The next morning, Mr. Schwartz stopped by on the way to his fish store to tell Mother that the men had been let out at ten o'clock the night before.

The same day, Mr. Hirsch came to tell Mother the deportation orders. Eichmann had divided Hungary into six zones, and the first to be evacuated would be our area and the surrounding villages. My mind leaped to thoughts of Babi and Rozsi, and I didn't hear anything else that he said. After he left, we did our chores and ate our sparse meal. A word from any one of us and we would have started to cry. It was enough just to be close to one another.

*   *   *

Early the following morning, we were awakened by strange sounds of movement in our street. We came out onto the porch in our nightshirts to see our street lined with slowly moving wagons and walking refugees—mostly women. We went back inside and quickly dressed ourselves and the children. Mother told Sandor to keep Joli inside while she, Iboya, and I went down to the gate and watched as the carts and wagons, pulled mostly by oxen, with an old horse appearing occasionally, crawled by. In the wagons, heaped high with bundles, rode the infants, the old, and the sick. Hungarian policemen and German soldiers with bayonets fixed to their rifles walked alongside the wagons. After watching this procession in uncomprehending silence for about fifteen minutes, Mother stopped one of the Hungarian policemen and asked, very politely, where all of these people were from and where they were being taken.

“Jews from the villages outside of Beregszász,” he said scornfully. “They are being taken to the brick factory, now the ghetto.”

“What is a ghetto?” I asked Mother as soon as the policeman had gone back to his place in the line of march.

She answered my question in a firm tone of voice, “It is a place for people who have been separated from the rest of the community.”

I turned away to look again at the people in the road. Some of the women walking behind the wagons were crying. One of them looked at us and spoke: “Dear ladies, some water please for my feverish son.” Another one asked for a diaper for her baby. A third wanted some bread for her father. “Gracious ladies…” The pleading continued without stop. I could not look into their faces. They represented something terrifying. Their bodies walked, their mouths spoke words, but their eyes were vacant and hopeless.

Mother told me to draw water from the well and to give it to those people, I could reach. She took Iboya back into the house with her, and after a while Iboya returned to pass out diapers torn from sheets. I carried the buckets of water, handing cupfuls to the old and sick. I tried to run up to the wagons with the Hungarian police guards, rather than the ones the German soldiers were walking beside, but except for an occasional shove or grunt, the German soldiers let me be. People handed me whatever utensils they had to be filled with water from the bucket. “Pretty miss, dear young lady, God should bless you, a blessing on your head,” I kept hearing as I continued to empty out our well, taking only short rests until dusk, when Mother called to us to come inside. But the procession continued, even while we slept.