“Surely that madness is of no interest to anyone now?” she said. “What do you need to know for?”
“I’m writing my doctoral thesis on it.”
He asked her if she was more afraid of the past or of the future. And then came the question: “In Terezin, in Auschwitz-Birkenau or in the camps you were in afterwards, did you do anything you are ashamed of now?”
An alarm bell rang inside her, and at the same time she felt furious that shame still trailed her like a shadow. She was even a little offended, but was careful not to show it; after all, it was not his fault. He was working on his thesis. When all was said and done, the era behind them had been unique in many respects; he believed that it would not repeat itself, but that it should never be forgotten.
“Do you have nightmares?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“Not afraid of ghosts?”
“I sleep like a log,” she said.
“I would like to believe you,” the teacher said slowly. For a moment it occurred to her that he might know all about her. But from whom? The doctor might have gossiped. Any concierge in Prague knew as much as the president or the cardinal. Who, apart from the doctor, had seen her tattoo? She might kick off her blanket in her sleep. Her nightdress might ride up.
She clenched her fists. After a moment she excused herself, she had to go to the bathroom.
They stood together in the street for a few minutes. Skinny waited for him to say goodbye. She made her way back to Belgickâ, deep in thought. The teacher had asked her for her address, but she had avoided giving a direct answer.
She wondered again where she could emigrate. Anywhere she went she might meet people who had survived the camps and had wanted to get as far away as possible from Europe. She would probably run into them even in Tierra del Fuego. Besides, she had heard that Nazis were now getting to Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina; the Vatican alone was said to have obtained more than 5,000 visas for them. Wouldn’t it be a joke if she ran into Sergeant Werner Heinz Ziegler somewhere in the German quarter of Säo Paulo? They could reminisce nostalgically about how far they were from Prague or the Bismarckplatz in Heidelberg.
She also wondered whether her father had frequented the Café Demin.
I tied myself to her as if with a shoelace. I was interested in everything about her and my interest grew stronger every day, until I realized that she had erected a barrier beyond which I was not allowed to venture.
We had all received a one-off financial subsidy, but treated ourselves to five meals a day by eating at the free restaurants. We had our private topography of Prague.
Sometimes Skinny would close her eyes in order to sense from a person’s voice whether he or she was lying to her. What she liked about Adler was that he was a good friend and undemanding. I was afraid that I wouldn’t seem so undemanding; but perhaps she didn’t see me that way. I gobbled her up with my eyes; carefully weighing every expression. When she’d slept well she had big, clear green eyes.
Skinny and I left Prague to spend a week at the Jewish Community’s convalescent home in Ostravice in Moravia. It was an eight-hour train journey. Through the window she watched the landscape slipping past — woods, fields and factories as at Auschwitz-Birkenau. We didn’t have to speak; we were all in the same situation. The train, the rails; telegraph posts along the track. Villages with people living their own lives, not caring what was happening in the world. The kind of people we used to be envious of when they moved us from one camp to another. For the repatriated, the railway had abolished the distinction between second and third class. We were sitting in second class on worn green-upholstered seats, with a compartment to ourselves. We were travelling like lords, we knew where we were going and, more importantly, we knew that nothing bad was going to happen to us when we got there.
Skinny looked at me and I knew what she was going to say: “I’ve not been on a train like this before.”
It was beginning to get dark. I tried to touch her, not only like a friend, though also like a friend. I dreamed of holding her intimately. I wanted to kiss her.
“We’re here on our own,” I said.
“Not yet,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I couldn’t manage it.”
I looked at her close up. That was all she would let me do. Her eyes were gazing at me like two green gates to a fortress I could not capture. I was looking into her eyes; my glance slid down over her face, down to her hands which lay folded in her lap. Suddenly it was difficult, almost impossible, to take her hands into mine. She was looking at me.
Two things merged in me: my longing to touch her body and the recognition that she was afraid of me. I was filled with tenderness. I gathered all my strength and courage. Suddenly I didn’t care what happened or what I might wreck.
“I love you,” I said. “If I were Ervin Adler,” I went on, hearing the awkwardness in my voice, “I would put it differently, but it would still be the truth.”
“I don’t know what Ervin is supposed to have said to me. He’s said rather a lot.”
“You should know.”
“I don’t know.” She was hiding behind those little words.
“I could live with you, not just for this moment but for always.”
She was silent for a while. Something had calmed her.
“That makes two of you,” she smiled.
She looked at me and then dropped her eyes. It was nearly nightfall and I was glad the guard had not turned on the lights. We were immersed in darkness. It was a fleeting moment, then she looked at me from the half-shadows and behind me she must have seen the dimming landscape, the telegraph posts and the sky. These seemed to carry her back to where she didn’t want to go.
“What’s happened?” I asked.
“What should have happened?”
“The way you’re looking at me.”
“How should I look at you?”
“Are you afraid of me?”
She remained silent.
“Are you afraid of… something?”
“Perhaps.”
She was 16,1 was 18.
“I know what you’re afraid of.”
I don’t know if she turned pale or blushed, because it was too dark, but she didn’t say anything. Suddenly she was vulnerable: there was an ocean of shame in her. She did not know the saying: If we want to keep a secret we must not tell it even to our closest friend.
“I don’t want to rush anything. I’m happy as things are.”
“We can draw a line under everything that’s been and start afresh, together,” I said.
This was what she had wanted to hear. In her eyes was the darkness that was falling outside. A white expanse and a quarry deep in snow. For the first time since I’d met her, there was irritation or impatience or fear alternating with gentleness in her gaze. She was looking at me as never before.
“I love you,” I said again. I knew that it was true — more than true, the words seemed inadequate. But I said it because there are no other words to describe how I felt, and she must have known from my eyes that it was the truth. I heard a trembling in my voice that I had never heard before. I hardly recognized myself, the colour of those three little words.
“I’m not as mature as you think,” she said.
“I would do anything for you,” I said.
“Perhaps it’ll happen if you don’t hurry things.”
“You think I’m in a hurry?”
“I need you to be patient.”
“I am patient.”
“No, you’re not. Not as much as you think or as much as I need.”
I did not know what to say.
Wasn’t it enough for her that I loved her? If love includes respect, then I respected her, and if it includes anguish, then I felt that too. Surely she realized what it cost me to say those words.