When We Danced on Water (20 page)

The murmur was louder this time and the judge demanded order.

Teo, his head between his knees, heard this and understood why he had been summoned to Berlin. He understood that Freddy might be acquitted if the judge were to call the deaths of the Soviet soldiers an accident, and if he were further convinced of Freddy's humanitarianism by virtue of having harbored a Jew in secret for nearly six years.

Teo was called to the witness stand when Freddy had finished testifying. He scanned the room, taking in the judge, the guards, the grand architecture of the place, and, finally, Freddy himself, who looked far older than Teo remembered him. There seemed to be less of him, as though not only his body weight had shrunk but his very bones as well. For the first time in two years Teo felt ready to talk. A stockpile of words and images was pressing from behind his eyes and lips but he did his best to remain calm as the military prosecutor took him through the preliminaries: who he was, where he had been born, how he, a Jew, had come to live in the home of a high-ranking Nazi officer.

“And so,” the prosecutor was saying, “he took you in. Befriended you.”

“He kept me in his house under false pretenses. I was a prisoner there.”

“A prisoner? The defendant has testified that he took you to museums and cafés, that he taught you about art. He even brought you to meet his family.”

“That was all in the beginning—”

“Before there were restrictions against Jews in Berlin?”

“No, it had nothing to do with that. I was in hiding. I had no papers. Or rather, he had forged papers made for me but kept them in a safe, where I couldn't reach them.”

“Mr. Levin, the defendant mowed down two Soviet soldiers in the last days of the war. This is not a crime we take lightly, even in the madness of those times and that place, but Soviet justice is fair and we will not punish a man unduly if his crime can be proven an accident and his behavior, as in the case of harboring a Jew and endangering his own life, is otherwise exemplary. I wish to be very clear: if you have nothing to clarify or add then this tribunal will most likely release the defendant in a relatively short time, and he will—”

“I was his slave,” Teo said in a clear voice, interrupting.

“Excuse me?”

“For nearly six years of my life I was that man's slave,” he repeated, gesturing toward Freddy. “I was only seventeen when he lied to the police or bribed somebody and had me released to his custody and prevented me from returning to Denmark. I was a child. I didn't know anything of the world beyond dancing, but whatever I would have become, he took it away from me. Maybe it seems insignificant when you think about the unspeakable things that happened to people during the war, but in those six years I lost … everything. My freedom. My career. My personality. Even my … sexual identity.” Teo turned to the judge, his voice rising. Bloodred panic was roiling inside him, a scarlet scrim between him and the world. “Do you know what that means? I never left the grounds of the house … I had to stay hidden from view all the time. Like a ghost. I had no … no power to make decisions about the most basic aspects of my own life.” He stopped speaking to breathe, and to steel himself. “And … he raped me, almost daily. A week before I met him I was falling in love with a girl, back in Copenhagen … but then he took over my life and I stopped knowing who I was and what I desired. Who I desired. And I still don't know. I still don't know who I am.”

With that, Teo gripped the arms of his chair and squeezed tight as a shout erupted from his gut through his lungs and out his throat, a sound more sharp and painful than any he had ever made, a growl and a howl and a sob rolled into one. When it ended, there was silence in the courtroom but for Teo's panting and Freddy's weeping.

For the next hour the judge listened and the prosecutor listened and the courtroom listened as Teo told of his imprisonment. He shocked the court by describing the acts Freddy had forced him to perform, and detailed his obsession so thoroughly that no one in the courtroom could think Freddy incapable of murdering anyone who tried to prevent him from being with Teo.

Late in the afternoon Freddy was sentenced to life imprisonment. In Siberia. As the guards escorted him from the courtroom, Freddy stopped, wild-eyed, exuberant almost. “Jimmie Lunceford, remember?” he shouted, staring at Teo. The guards were pulling him as he sang, “
I'm so mad about you, say we'll never part! I can't live without you; you're the keeper of my heart. So if you love me, too, Honey, keep your mind on me!
Teo!” he yelled, jubilant, “with me, together,
ad astra!
” The last words reverberated as the guards wrestled Freddy out the door, but Teo sat motionless and winded.

Minutes later, back on his feet but dry-mouthed and shaky, Teo hurried to his hotel, fetched his small suitcase and ran the rest of the way to the train station. He had to get out of Germany, out of heartless Europe, tainted and barbarous. He would stop in Warsaw then leave the continent. America or Canada, Australia or New Zealand, these would be too difficult, he would have to wait too long for permission. He needed somewhere that would take him immediately, so he chose to leave for Palestine just as soon as he could ascertain what had become of his sister.

He settled in on the eastbound train, feeling more purposeful and even optimistic than he had in years.

Nothing in Warsaw was familiar to him, but he had left the city nearly a decade earlier, when he was only fifteen. Much of Warsaw still lay in ruins; gaping pits or piles of rubble occupied space where buildings once stood. Apart from his brief interview with Cukier, he hadn't heard Polish spoken in so many years that he needed people to repeat themselves once or twice before he could understand them.

Reaching his old street by public transportation seemed nearly impossible, so he simply walked across Warsaw, arriving at Szara Street after two difficult hours. At first nothing made sense: the building on the corner was gone and so was the one next to it. His own building was still standing, but it looked so different—naked now, exposed—that he had trouble recognizing it. And then there were the holes, huge bullet holes running up the building nearly to the third floor. He approached slowly, wary.

He was trembling now, and stood looking up at the entryway for several long minutes before climbing the stairs into the building. Several of the names on the mailboxes were familiar to him; his own had been written over, rather sloppily, so that the L still showed through.

He climbed one flight of stairs, turned to the right and knocked. A young girl in braids opened the door and for a second Teo thought he had found Margot. Of course Margot would be a young woman now, he knew this, but for a brief moment he enjoyed the fantasy. Before he could speak, a woman loomed up behind the girl. “Yes?” she asked. “What is it?”

“I used to live here,” Teo said, “I was wondering whether you know what became of my family, the Levins, especially my sister, Margot.”

“Jew, go away,” came a deep baritone from somewhere inside the house. “Maria, close the door.”

“I'm sorry,” the woman whispered, and closed the door in Teo's face.

Teo was stunned, but before he could knock again, a door opened behind him. “Please come in, Mr. Levin,” said a thin young woman. “I've been waiting for you.”

Even more stunned now, Teo removed his cap and entered the house. It was a mirror image of his own family's apartment but shabbier. He tried to remember the family that had lived in this flat but could not recall a name or a face. The young woman disappeared to one of the back rooms for a moment, then returned with an envelope in her hand.

“Would you care for some tea?” she asked. Teo nodded. The young woman gave him the envelope and went to the kitchen.

The letter was addressed to Nelly Pukarski at this address. There was no return address. Teo's hands shook as he pulled the letter free from the envelope.

28 October 1940

Dear Nelly,

Greetings from the lovely south of our beautiful Poland! The weather is warm and pleasant here, the climate much more suited to me than Warsaw. The nuns are friendly and I have made many friends.

Please be sure to show this letter to my silly brother when he gets home today. Tell him I miss him and expect to see him soon. And remember: Make All Reasons You Know And Try Our Word In Christ Everlasting!

Your friend,
Kitty

Teo was reading the letter for the fourth time when the young woman came back with tea. He looked up from the letter, a quizzical look on his face.

“I am Nelly,” the young woman said. “My family moved here shortly after you went to Denmark. Margot and I became best friends, we were together all the time. We used to prance about pretending we were ballerinas, too.” Teo tried to smile but was not certain he had succeeded.

“That's a picture of my mother,” she said, pointing to a blurry photograph on a small table next to Teo. “She starved to death during the war. We didn't know she was giving us all her food.” She paused and there was an awkward silence until Teo said he was sorry.

“I live here with my father and my brother, they are working now.”

Teo lifted the letter in his hands.

“Yes, of course, Margot. I'm sorry, that's what you are here for.” She sat down and motioned Teo to do the same. “Your parents arranged for Margot to be sent to a convent in the south. She was given a new name there, Katharina Lyczynski. This is the only letter I received from her during the war, but I believe she may still be at the convent.”

“How can I find her?” Teo asked.

“Look at the last line of her letter. It's a code.”

He glanced at it again but still did not understand.

“Make all reasons you know and try our word in Christ everlasting,” Nelly quoted without reading it. “If you take just the first letter of each word you get ‘Mary Katowice.' She's at Saint Mary's in Katowice.”

Teo glanced again at the letter, his mouth open. He looked up at Nelly, nodding. Presently he stood up, and so did Nelly.

“Please write to me,” she said.

“I will,” he said as he moved to the door. Out in the hall he turned back toward her before descending. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

“God bless,” she answered, and she watched him as he ran quickly from the street of his childhood.

Teo had not slept in a bed for several days, but he did not care. He caught the next train to Katowice, down near the Hungarian border. The train was packed, so he stood in an aisle.

Sometime after dark, as he squatted dozing, he was awakened by shouts. A drunken Pole, red-faced and disheveled, was barreling down the aisle shouting. “Jews off the train, Jews off the train! This train is for Poles only!” He stepped on people in the aisle, poking his face into each visage to see if it belonged, perhaps, to a Jew. “Oswiecim, all Jews disembark at Oswiecim!” he ranted. Teo had not realized it but understood that this train would indeed pass by Auschwitz. Just before the drunken Pole reached Teo he found his victim. “A Jew, here, a Jew!” he shouted as he stood over an elderly man, stooped and disfigured. Teo was about to leap to the old man's defense when a whistle sounded behind him and two train guards apprehended the drunken Pole and led him away, cursing as he went.

Saint Mary's turned out to be several kilometers from the center of Katowice. Teo set out on foot from the train station, which he reached in the early morning, after splashing down a
pączek
with weak but steaming coffee. He had forgotten how tasty these doughnuts were, though there was less plum jam inside than he recalled from his childhood. Several trucks and buses passed him and one offered a ride, but Teo preferred to walk. He watched the Polish farmers till their land with great oxen and passed a village market with little to offer. His small suitcase had grown heavy in his arms but he walked on in the dust and sunshine.

At the gate of the convent he pulled a heavy bell and waited. A wimpled nun greeted him.

“Good day, sister, I hope you can help me. I am here to see Katharina Lyczynski.”

“What business would you have with Sister Katharina, please?”

He was thrilled to learn she was still here, but surprised she would be called Sister.

“She is my sister, we were separated by the war.”

“I see,” said the nun. “What is your name?”

“Teodor L … Teodor,” he said, unsure whether he would gain admittance with so Jewish a surname.

“Please wait here,” she said.

Five minutes passed before she returned, during which time Teo, leaning on a stone wall clotted with moss, watched a dog chase a cat up a tall birch just inside the gate. The cat hissed from her perch while the dog barked crazily from below. “Please follow me,” said the nun as she opened the locked gate.

Teo was made to wait in a small reception room just inside a stone courtyard. When Margot entered he did not know it was she and stood staring at this young woman in a simple habit. In fact, he may not have believed it was she at all if he had not noticed the lazy eyelid she was born with.

“I have prayed for this day to come,” she said. “You must have found Nelly.”

Teo nodded. They did not embrace.

“Margot,” he said, in disbelief.

“Sister Katharina, now,” she said with a smile.

“Come with me,” he said. “I have come to take you away from here.”

She stopped smiling, became earnest. “This is my home, Teodor. It is my life. I was brought here by Our Lord Jesus Christ and saved.”

Teo sat down abruptly. A small porcelain Jesus with a forlorn expression stood in his direct line of vision. He caught the shape of a lamb in the stained-glass window on the wall next to him.

Margot sat next to him. “Are you still dancing?” she asked gently.

He shook his head.