Kanada (15 page)

Sunday, January 20, 1946 –
Sunday, February 24, 1946

W
inter came. We were living in a twilight waiting and hoping. The war was over, but not for us. When I looked in the mirror, I didn't recognize the person staring back at me. I wasn't a girl, and I wasn't a woman. I was no one's daughter or sister. I almost forgot what it was like to live in an ordinary house on a street like a thousand others.

Slowly, I grew to accept that I was alone in the world. No one was looking for me. I hadn't received a reply from Julia in Hungary or Iren in Canada. I found that I could keep the past at bay by working. I went to classes, and I got a job playing the piano four nights a week in the camp's café. I wasn't paid, but the man who ran the café gave me cigarettes once in a while. Cigarettes served as the camp's currency. It was enough just to be able to play the piano.

One dark winter night, I found Miri waiting for me at the back door of the café. The manager did not allow our friends to wait for us inside. Miri was stamping her feet and rubbing her hands together in a vain attempt to keep warm.

“I thought that you'd never finish work!” she said.

I hugged her. I did not see her often. She spent most of her time with Natan. I drew her arm through mine, and we set out for the block.

“I have to talk to you.” Her eyes were shining.

She sat down on the bed and patted the mattress beside her.

“Something wonderful has happened to me,” she said. “Can you guess what I am going to tell you?”

I shook my head.

She beamed. “I am going to have a baby!”

I heard her words, but they did not register. “What did you say?”

“I am going to have a baby,” she said again. She did a happy little jig. “I'm going to have a baby! I'm going to have a baby!”

When I finally found my voice, I realized that I had to choose my words carefully.

“You can't have a baby,” I said. “You're only a year older than me, and you're not married.”

“So what? They didn't get us, Jutka. This is a life! We've won! Besides, I love Natan. We are going to get married.” She grabbed my hands. “Be happy for me! I want this baby more than anything else in the world. Can you believe it?
I'll have a baby and a husband. I'll have a family again. I won't be alone anymore!”

“You're not alone, Miri. You have me.” I knew this wasn't what she meant even as I said it.

“I know that. You're my best friend in the world. Friends are important, but they're different from having your own family. Please, Jutka, be happy for me,” she begged. “Will you help me plan my wedding?”

I didn't know how to reply. I felt happy and sad at the same time. All kinds of ideas crowded into my head, but I did not express them. I did not say that her parents would be disappointed in her. I did not say that I regretted the loss of her freedom. I did not say that I felt sorry for the weight of the adult responsibilities she was so eagerly embracing. To be honest, I was also jealous. At the same time, I was happy that she would love and be loved in return. I kissed her cheek and said, “Of course I'll help. How long do we have to plan your wedding?”

Two weeks later on a bright February afternoon, we set up a makeshift wedding canopy in the square in front of the block. A crowd had gathered for the ceremony even though most days at least one wedding took place in the camp. Despite the cool weather, Miri had refused to wear a coat. She looked beautiful in the frilly white blouse and white skirt I had bought in exchange for the cigarettes I got for playing the piano. It was my wedding present to her. Her face was covered by a short white veil Margaret had made
out of the curtains that had covered the windows in her office in the
UNRRA
building.

I felt self-conscious in the plain shirt and dark skirt I was wearing, but I knew that nobody was looking at me. All eyes were on the bride.

We walked slowly, arm in arm, toward the huppah. From the corner of my eye, I could see Sandor leading Natan, resplendent in a borrowed suit and tall black hat, toward the marriage canopy.

A fiddler began to play a Hassidic tune that tugged at my heart strings. I peeked at Miri. She was smiling broadly under her veil.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I whispered to her.

“I've never been more certain of anything in my entire life,” she replied. “I only wish that my mama and papa were here to see me.”

“They are.” I squeezed her arm.

We reached the wedding canopy. Miri stepped forward and took her place beside Natan. I stood beside Sandor. He took my hand.

“This will be us some day,” he whispered.

The rabbi began his blessings, so I didn't have to answer him.

Sandor treated the four of us to a wedding supper in a little restaurant in town called the Drei Husaren.

The dining room looked romantic. A candle flickering in the middle of the lace-covered table cast dancing shadows
over our faces. The restaurant was crowded, but there was an empty table next to ours. Two violinists were walking among the customers, pausing for tips.

We studied the menus.

“Everything is terribly expensive,” said Natan.

“Nothing is too expensive for my best friend's wedding supper,” replied Sandor.

Miri looked around the restaurant. “This is a beautiful place. Thank you so much for bringing us here,” she said to Sandor.

Sandor smiled. Only I knew the long hours he had worked on a construction crew in town to pay for the evening.

“All the other ladies are so fashionable that they make me feel shabby,” said Miri.

I adjusted her veil. She had kept it on because she said that it made her feel like a bride. I straightened the collar of my own blouse, but I knew that nothing could make it look more glamorous.

The waiter ushered a couple to the table next to ours. The tall blond girl must have been our age; the distinguished-looking man with her was much older. The girl's eyes raked over us.

“I don't want to sit next to
DPS
! They stink!” she said loudly. Her eyes rested on Miri's veil. “Is that cow supposed to be a bride?”

I saw Miri's downcast eyes and the flush over Natan's face as he jumped up from his chair. I stood up too and put a restraining hand on his arm.

“How dare you speak like that about my friend!” I said before Natan could open his mouth.

Natan sat back down.

The girl ignored me.

“Surely you don't expect us to sit next to Jews?” she said to the waiter.

Her companion chuckled.

“Of course not, Fräulein Schiller, of course not.” The waiter flicked a linen napkin.

“If you cater to such riffraff, I will tell my friends not to dine here.”

“I am so sorry, Fräulein Schiller, but we did not know who they were when they made their reservation,” explained the waiter.

He bowed so low that I was waiting for his nose to hit his knees. He turned to us.

“You must leave immediately!”

“What do you mean?” asked Sandor. “I booked this table days ago.”

“Please leave!”

“Get out of here!” barked the old man. “Just because the Führer didn't get all of you, don't think that you are welcome here!”

Sandor and Natan jumped up, hands balled into fists.

“Stop it!” I said. “I won't let you ruin Miri's wedding day.”

I turned to the waiter. “Sir, this is my friends' wedding supper. We don't want any trouble. Please, sir, let us stay here.”

Tears were running down Miri's face.

“No, Jutka,” she said. “I don't want to stay where we're not wanted. Let's go, my husband.”

Miri and I dragged the boys to the exit. At the door, I looked back. The last thing I saw was the smug expression on the blond girl's face as she sat down at the table next to ours.

Sunday, March 10, 1946 –
Sunday, March 24, 1946

T
he snow had melted and the air had softened. Buds had appeared on the trees. The sight of new life around me was sweet. I wouldn't allow myself to dwell on old dreams.

In mid-March, we all came down with a mysterious malady Purim fever. It all began when the camp news-paper, the
Landsberger Lager-Cajtung,
proclaimed Sunday, March 17, to Sunday, March 24, a workers' and Purim carnival. Prizes were to be given to the best decorated building and the most beautiful window. Everybody began to build floats, sew costumes, and plan parades.

“What should we wear?” asked Miri. She cupped her rounded belly and patted it. “I am too fat to be Queen Esther.”

“You'll make a gorgeous queen,” I said.

She laughed.

“Thank you for saying it. We'll have to find some material to make costumes, and that's going to be hard.”

“Let's ask the nurses at the hospital if they would sell us two sheets. They're soft and white and would make lovely costumes,” I said. “I can pay in cigarettes.”

Miri heaved herself to her feet. “Let's go before somebody else has the same idea.”

We wanted to celebrate being alive. Music blared from radio loudspeakers. All of the buildings were decorated with banners, slogans, and caricatures. Someone hoisted up effigies of Hitler. We hanged him and hanged him, over and over again.

We made our way through the crowd of Queen Esthers and Hamans and Ahasueruses. Some people were wearing their concentration camp uniforms. A man had dressed as Hitler.

The nurses wouldn't take my cigarettes, but they gave us two sheets. Miri and I had draped ourselves in them. We felt like glamorous Queen Esthers, with silver paper crowns on our heads. Sandor and Natan made handsome Ahasueruses, with army blankets thrown over their shoulders as capes.

The four of us held hands to prevent the crowd from separating us as we found our way to the field to look at floats. We listened to speeches and a reading of the Megillah.

I felt playful and carefree and very young when Miri suddenly began to cry.

“What's the matter, sweetheart?” asked Natan.

“Last year, on Purim, my mama and papa were still alive.” Miri sobbed into her hands.

“So were my father and brother.” I burrowed my head in Sandor's chest. “We're alive and they're gone. Do you ever wonder why we survived and they didn't?”

Sandor stroked my hair. “We'll never know why, but we're here and Hitler, may his name be forever blotted out, is hanging on the scaffold!” He looked at the battered effigy.

A man elbowed his way through the throng toward us. It was Ari, the shaliach.

“I am glad I found you,” he said, out of breath. “I need your help.”

“What's going on?” asked Sandor.

Ari whispered something into Sandor's ear. I heard the words
shipment
and
Hagana.

Sandor nodded. “We'll be there. What time do you need us?”

“After nightfall.” Ari melted into the crowd.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“What's going on, Natan?” echoed Miri.

Sandor and Natan exchanged glances.

“We can't tell you,” replied Sandor. “Not yet.”

“All we can say is that it's for Eretz Israel,” mumbled Natan.

“I want to help!” said Miri. “Tell me what's going on!”

Sandor waited while the crowd roared at the sight of a beautifully decorated float.

“Ari doesn't want us to discuss it with you,” said Sandor when the float had passed, “but you are welcome to come along.”

We pushed our way past revelers to a warehouse at the edge of a field, beside the fence surrounding the camp. The building had no windows and most of the front wall consisted of two large metal doors.

Sandor rapped sharply on one of them. An eye appeared at a peephole, and we heard loud clanging, banging, and the sound of a key scraping in a lock. We followed Ari into the warehouse. Sandor helped him slide the metal doors shut.

Dozens of Queen Esthers, Mordechais, Ahasueruses, and a few Hamans sat at long wooden tables. I recognized most of them. They were either taking rifles apart, cleaning rifle parts, or reassembling the weapons. We found empty chairs at the table closest to us.

“What's going on here?” I asked.

“These guns will be shipped to Eretz Israel,” said the girl next to me, “to the Hagana.”

She stopped talking when Ari came over.

“Thank you for coming to help,” he said. “We were lucky to lay our hands on this shipment. We need all the manpower we can get.”

He sat down next to Sandor and showed us how to take apart the rifles, clean and polish their parts, and then reassemble them.

“The weapons are old,” he said. “It's very important that they be in perfect working order. It might mean the difference between life and death for one of us.”

Sandor and I worked together. I lost count of how many rifles we reassembled. My shoulders and neck began to ache from hunching over the guns. When we finished, we packed the weapons into wooden crates. Ari checked his watch. As if on cue, there was a knock on the door. The soldier from the Jewish Brigade who had addressed us months earlier was waiting in the dark outside. Two more members of the Jewish Brigade stood beside him. Three tarpaulin-covered army trucks were parked outside of the fence, their lights off. More Jewish Brigade soldiers were waiting by the trucks.

We passed the crates over the fence to the soldiers, who loaded the weapons into the trucks. We worked quickly and silently in the moonlight. When all the guns were aboard the vehicles, the trucks drove away into the night.