Upon the Head of the Goat (21 page)

“Fires are not permitted,” he replied brusquely. Mother put herself between the fire and the policeman. “If it were your mother heating water to wash you, would you destroy the fire? What harm is there in trying to keep clean? That water will be warm soon, and I'll put the fire out, I promise you. Nobody else cares about what I am doing. Please be generous, young man.”

The policeman, not much older than Henri, looked up at Mother's soot-lined face and bowed his head. “I'll be back in ten minutes. If your fire is not out by then, I'll put it out!”

“Thank you, officer.” Mother's even tone did not waver. “You are a kind and generous man.” He walked away, and Mother placed the rest of the twigs she had gathered on the fire.

“You go back to the children now,” she said to me, “and get out the soap and towels. I'll be along in a minute. We will have to move quickly—this water won't stay warm very long.”

When she got back, carrying the pot of water, I had the soap and towels ready. She divided the water to save some for a rinse and covered that pot with a towel to keep it from cooling. I bent over, and she poured the water over my head and rubbed the soap over my scalp. I felt her determined fingers work through my hair. After she finished with my hair, she helped me wash my neck, arms, and legs. Then she proceeded to scrub Sandor and Joli as well. Again I was grateful for the sheet walls that provided some privacy.

Afterward she took us outside into the sunlight to dry our hair, and pulled a pair of big shears from her apron pocket.

“If I cut some of your hair, it will be easier to take care of,” she said to me. I wanted to protest, but looking up at her concerned face, I could understand that she had to do it, so I sat down on the ground, and she dropped to her knees behind me.

I bit my lips and listened to the squeaking sound of the shears as they clipped away my damp hair. Each strand on the ground measured ten centimeters. How long will it take to grow back, I wondered. I looked around. People were passing by, but no one took any special interest in what we were doing.

Mother took great care with the haircutting. After she finished, she combed it all through several times, then got up and told me to stand up. She stepped away to look at her handiwork, her brows furrowed in concentration. She pulled a small hand mirror from her apron pocket and gave it to me.

“Take a look. I think this length suits your face. It makes you look more grown-up, don't you think?” She stood and waited eagerly for my approval.

I relaxed my teeth and tasted blood. I ran my tongue over a cut in my lower lip. Looking into the mirror, I saw that my hair, half dry by now, was cut to chin length. All the ends curled up in a natural wave, framing my face and making my eyes larger than I was used to seeing them.

“I like it,” I said to Mother. “I think Judi will like it, too. It is more like what she calls ‘modern.'”

“You have a tough critic in your friend, ‘Little Miss Budapesti.'”

“That is a funny name to call Judi, but it fits her.”

“Oh, Piri, you look so stylish with your modern haircut,” Mother exclaimed, mimicking Judi's flamboyant way of speaking. Though I resented her making fun of my friend, I did have to laugh as she imitated Judi's voice and gestures almost perfectly.

We were still laughing when the young policeman returned to check on the fire; he had given us almost an hour. Stopping a few paces away from us, he listened to our subsiding giggles with a curious interest.

“Wouldn't you like to see my daughter's new haircut?” Mother's voice invited. “Do you think I did a good job?” The policeman started to move toward us and then hesitated.

“I came to make sure you put the fire out. And you will have to get rid of all that hair,” he said loudly from where he stood.

“I will dispose of the hair. And thank you again for letting me heat the water,” Mother replied. He gave a small nod of acknowledgment and walked on. Now it was Joli's turn. Mother sat her on the ground and crouched down next to her, shears in hand, but Joli stuffed her long strands of hair inside her blouse.

“No, you can't cut mine,” she shouted.

“It won't hurt,” promised Mother.

“Don't you want to be stylish like me?” I coaxed, kneeling beside her. Mother looked over at me with an amused glance, and I realized that I, too, was mimicking Judi. We both burst out into a laugh. Joli joined in our laughter and let go of her hair.

“I want mine cut just like Piri's,” she announced. Mother cut her hair shorter than mine and pinned it to the side with a red barrette she pulled out of her apron pocket. Joli accepted her new face in the small hand mirror Mother handed her, stood up, and ran over to Sandor to show him her new self.

Mother and I had been right. Judi did think my new appearance more fashionable. “Now you look like my friends in Budapest,” she said, surveying me appreciatively when we had all gathered in the tent that afternoon. “Your mother did a fine job.”

“Do you think Henri will like it?” I asked Judi nervously.

“He should,” she answered. “It makes you look older, more sophisticated.”

That evening, when Henri and Gari came to call for us, I watched Henri's eyes as he first noticed the big change. After the initial surprise, he smiled broadly.

“You cut your hair. You look very different.”

“She looks more sophisticated,” Judi suggested. “More like a Budapesti than a small-town girl. Go ahead, tell her you like it.”

“I do,” Henri answered. “But I also like small-town girls.”

Judi walked away with an air of impatience and Gari followed her. Henri and I fell in behind them as we began the route of our regular evening walk. Henri had become a very important part of my life, and I looked forward to our times together. Sometimes we forgot about our present ghetto existence and made plans for the future.

“I could talk my parents into letting me continue my schooling in Beregszász or apprentice myself to one of the craftsmen. That way we could keep on seeing each other,” he said.

“We could go to the cinema,” I volunteered, remembering how I watched the older girls going to the films with their boyfriends. Now I, too, could have a boy to go with.

When we got to Gari's house that evening, Gari's mother and father were not there; they had gone to see some friends in the barracks. Gari asked us to come inside the house for the first time. As we walked into the salon, I noticed the nice furniture. “We took it from the big house,” Gari explained. But disorder was everywhere as if they were in the midst of moving—clothing and dishes left randomly on tables and chairs.

Gari caught my eyes moving over the disorganized room. “You can see that we are living without a maid. Nobody to pick up after us,” he said in a humorously apologetic tone of voice. Shifting some clothing from a table onto a chair, he uncovered a phonograph. “This is all they allowed us to take for music. The piano is still in the big house, even though they don't use it, and having a radio is, of course, against the German rules. I did salvage a few of my records by sneaking them inside some blankets when we moved here. Let's close all the windows, and I'll put one on.”

I had a momentary pang as I remembered giving my phonograph to Ica, but it passed and I joined the others in closing the windows and clearing a space in the middle of the room for dancing. I felt nervous about the whole experience. I had danced with other girls in school, and Iboya and I had practiced dancing together, but I had never danced with a boy before.

After the music started, Gari and Judi moved first. I recognized the rhythm of the fox-trot, and the beat seemed to skip inside of me. Gari tapped his foot to the beat and looked over at Judi, who was swaying her whole body to the music. She held out her hands, and Gari took them. Dancing far apart, they kept time as they looked into each other's eyes. Judi's body seemed to absorb the music, to move with it in an easy grace. I had never seen her so relaxed. Gari watched her, smiling, with heightened color in his face.

“Come on, you two,” he called to us after the second record started. Judi withdrew her hands from his and slipped into his arms.

“Not with two professionals around like you,” said Henri, laughing. He took my hand. “Would you like to try?” he asked softly.

“I've never danced, except with girls, mostly my sisters,” I said. But he pulled me up gently, and we eased slowly into following the music. I was just getting a little more confident when Gari's father came through the door. He quickly shut it behind him.

“I can't believe what I am seeing,” he said. Gari waved his hand to his father in greeting and went right on dancing, holding Judi, who slowed down her body movement.

“Don't let me stop you,” Mr. Weiss said. “I just came to get a blanket. But lower the sound; you don't want them to hear.” He motioned with his hand toward the guards' house.

Gari whispered something to Judi, and they both stopped dancing. “Father, would you dance a tango with Judi?” Gari questioned. “She is an excellent dancer.”

Mr. Weiss hesitated before replying. “Why not? It has been a long time since I danced. Clear the floor,” he joked, rolling down his shirt sleeves and buttoning them.

I had long admired Mr. Weiss's looks. He was, like my father, a large man, but his coloring was very different. In contrast to my father's sandy coarse hair and tanned skin, his hair was deep black, streaked with gray at the temples. His high-cheekboned face had a ruddy quality that gave him, with his big stature, a look of bursting energy. He stood erect and toyed with his trimmed black mustache. Gari changed the record. The slow, precise tango tempo filled the room. Mr. Weiss walked over to Judi and made a low, formal bow.

“May I have this dance?” he asked, holding out his arm. Judi nodded and walked into his outstretched arm, which then bent around her slim back. One of her hands found his shoulder, and she put her other hand into his. She looked frail against his bulk, but they glided evenly across the wood floor. He held her firmly as he bent her body slightly backwards. She tilted her head up to look right into his face. They both seemed to concentrate as much on their pose as on their steps.

Gari, standing with his back to the door, watched the dancers in awe. Henri and I, now seated on the sofa, stared in amazement. I could not believe Judi's ability and composure. Her body, usually restless and gawky, was fluid and graceful. How had she managed to hide all this from me? I wondered. When the music stopped, Mr. Weiss bowed deeply and escorted Judi back to Gari.

“Where did you learn to dance like that, young lady?” Mr. Weiss asked her.

Judi, her shyness returned, blushed deeply. “My father taught me. I used to dance with his friends when we had parties at home in Budapest.”

Mr. Weiss smiled at her. “Let us hope that you will soon be back there again, dancing, and not only with your father and other old men.” Then he picked up a blanket from a corner, told us to continue our dancing until curfew, and left.

After he had gone, Judi exclaimed to Gari, “I knew that your father would be a marvelous dancer.” I both envied Judi and felt sorry for her—she had given up so much because of the war.

21

E
ACH NIGHT NOW
when we returned to our ghetto quarters we found Mrs. Gerber sitting with Mother in our tent. She left our cubicle only to sleep. “It is so cozy in here,” I heard her say to Mother one morning as she came in. I was shocked by her words. I could barely wait each morning for the end of the ordeal of rolling our blankets and swallowing the lukewarm tea and the stale bread so that I could leave the tent. I found it very depressing.

Mother had made hangers out of sticks wound around with strips cut from a sheet, on which to hang our clothes. The hangers rested on a nail in the beam. No longer as careful about herself, she was still determined to keep us clean. She brushed and inspected my hair every morning. I changed my blouse every second day; she rinsed out our clothes in cold water and spread them out on the grass to dry in the sun. Not to let our appearance slide was her obsession. “As long as you are clean, you won't get sick,” she preached.

One morning I left the tent to find the children playing outside. Pali and Carla had joined them. I overheard Sandor say to Pali, “I'll be a German inspector, and we'll pretend that I came to look at your space. I'll be mad and call you
Schwein;
that means ‘pig.'” “No,” cried Carla, standing nearby, and she ran across to her mother, who was sitting alone in her space.

Carla's mother seldom joined Mother and Mrs. Gerber, who continuously talked about the theater, reminisced about their husbands and their prewar lives, and exchanged recipes for their favorite dishes. I couldn't understand how they could talk about food when they were so hungry. Frequently they visited with other women in the shed, trying to help them cope with the problems of survival. Mr. Shuster stopped by occasionally with some new rumors about the war. All the political news that they could get, he said, seemed to indicate that the Russians were winning. “If they'd just hurry up and get here before the trains come to take us away!” was Mother's constant comment.

Toward the end of our second week in the ghetto, I asked Henri to take me again to see his grandmother in the infirmary. As we came through the door, we saw Mr. Weiss speaking to a group of men near the doctor's partition. They called Henri to join them.

“You go talk to my grandmother. I'll join you in a minute,” he told me.

When Henri joined me at his grandmother's bedside. he seemed perturbed and abrupt. “I must get back to the gate,” he said after greeting his grandmother. “I'll see you later if I can,” and he went off, half running.

I stayed with his grandmother awhile longer, then left, and as I neared our shed, I saw six men walking along the path from the direction of the gate. Henri and Gari walked alongside them, and they were all deeply engaged in conversation. With dismay, I recognized one of the men as Mr. Hirsch from the Juden Bureau. When I told Mother about it, she looked frightened.