The World Between, page 6
White impatiens lined the path to the main building. A well-groomed row of yews hugged the walkway. Rothman waited for me to catch up.
It’s beautiful here, I said, inhaling the sharp tang of pine trees. The tension in my shoulders subsided.
Don’t dawdle, he said. This is heavy.
The lobby was cool and clean with a gold-and-white mosaic-tiled floor. We went to the front desk, where a middle-aged man wearing a kippah greeted us in Hebrew, then Russian. I had deliberately forgotten the Russian I’d learned in the camp; Rothman spoke it fluently. To everyone, he was whatever they wanted him to be. But with me, he was selfish, a tyrant, a savior, a fallen saint, a friend, a brother, a man who disappeared for weeks without word.
Take a walk, he said. I’ll be a while.
I resented his commanding tone. Where are you going?
Swim meet.
What?
He shot me an exasperated look. Just go, he said, and pointed toward the French doors that led to the grounds at the back of the facility.
I didn’t want to argue, not then, not after being without him so long.
There was an Olympic-size pool— the water a deep azure. Across the lawn, palm trees and casuarina offered shade. A few families sat at wooden picnic tables, their voices catching on the breeze. I climbed to the small park at the top of the grassy knoll; I hadn’t been on a swing since the camp. Each year Rothman had built one from a plank of wood and some rope, which he tied to a tree limb. We enjoyed it all summer, flew like the blue herons on the lake, necks stretched, chests wide, legs pumping.
Beside the pool, a group of young veterans gathered. An instructor with a whistle around his neck and a clipboard in his hands joined them. They greeted each other with quick hugs and slaps on the back. They looked like gods cast in sunshine. A breeze tugged at my dress, and with it, my anger at Rothman dissolved. I didn’t want to consider why he had avoided me all month. I didn’t want to remember the argument we’d had the night before he’d walked out and left me alone in our apartment on the Street of Shoes. I had drunk too much wine and begged him to dance and rubbed my body against his, and when I lifted my face to be kissed, he turned away to light a cigarette.
You too? He scoffed at me.
What? I said, and held his hand to my cheek. He pinched me hard. My eyes teared, but I didn’t cry.
Everybody wants something from me, he’d said, and then cradled my face.
Even when he hurt me, I felt precious to him. I love you, I told him.
I love you too. He sighed.
Then let’s . . . I kissed his jaw, his eyelids, and tasted the bitter sweat in the crease of his neck. His pulse a heavy thud under my lips.
He slipped a hand between my legs. Like this?
He wanted, I think, to shock me, but I had convinced myself long ago that if there was ever a chance for us to become lovers, I would take it.
Embarrassed, I hid my face in his collar and said, Yes.
Come, he led me into the bedroom, and when we got there, he sat on the bed and put the cigarette out on the bottom of his boot and said, Strip.
I took off my clothes and waited, eyes shut, bracing for rejection. I was young. I had no idea what he would think of my body, what anyone would think of it. Back then I was skinny, small with lonely hips and large mournful breasts.
Are you sure? Rothman said.
I nodded. My throat tight, I couldn’t squeeze out a word. He was gentle as I knew he would be, but even I, a complete novice, could tell there was something wrong. He made no attempt at romance and there was little passion, only a sad mechanical execution. The whole business lasted maybe ten minutes. He barely let me touch him. I don’t think Rothman particularly likes being touched, not in that way, at least not by women, though he has pretended otherwise when it suited him, when he needed a wife to keep up appearances and to help entertain business associates. It never took long for his wives to realize that his passionate nature didn’t necessarily extend into the bedroom. I should have understood, but I was too naive then and Rothman had tried his best to protect me from that part of his life. In the camp he made sure I was never alone, but always in the company of the children and matrons. It makes me wonder what he must have endured with the guards and the other inmates who’d created a crude system of reward and punishment. I remember after the war there were towns we were forced to leave in a hurry.
As we lay breathing in the warm evening air, I sensed his unease and thought to comfort him in case he regretted what we’d just done.
We’re perfect for each other, I said, threading my hand through his. You’re perfect. I kissed his shoulder.
What the fuck are you talking about? Scowling, he bolted upright.
He was really angry, which made me so nervous, I stuttered, something I hadn’t done since I was a little girl.
I, I just meant, we’re good together. I placed my palm on his back. You and me like this, lovers and friends, family, I said. You’re my family. Nothing could be more perfect than being with you forever.
I had loved him for so long, I didn’t know anything else. No one I met came close to Rothman. I hugged him and whispered, My love, marry me, certain that would cure the sudden awkwardness that had sprung between us. I was sure that what we’d done was proof that he loved me the way I loved him, but he said nothing. He stood up. I blushed, noticing that he hadn’t even bothered to remove his trousers.
He straightened his uniform. I have to get back to the base, he said, and left eighty lira on the nightstand.
To this day, I don’t know if he meant for me to feel cheap or if it was a way for him to underscore the transactional nature of all of his relationships.
On the swing in Beit HaHayal, I pumped my legs and swung so high, my body was no more than light and dust and air. Pine needles fell to the ground. My sandals slipped off my feet, and my heels scraped the dirt, raising clouds of dust. I heard the men near the pool laughing. The swim instructor blew his whistle. They undressed, talking animatedly, unbuttoning their shirts, revealing ropey necks and muscled chests. They truly were like gods. I searched for Rothman and found him among those men. He glanced up the hill, and I waved. His face was stony and resolute. The men unzipped their pants and then it seemed that everything slowed. There was the hollow snap of wood, the grind and click of metal, the sounds of prosthetic limbs being shed. There were men without legs who held on to men without arms. Rothman lifted his chin, defiant, daring me to look away as he stripped out of his clothes. I saw the deep, ugly, twisted flesh that bisected his right thigh as clear as if I were standing beside him. I recalled those many nightmarish weeks in Kolyma, his high fever, his bottomless screams, and when the camp doctor wanted to amputate, Rothman begged, Kill me. Even then he wouldn’t allow me to see the damage. He’d kept the wound and later the scar concealed from me. I thought it was out of love and Rothman’s innate vanity. I put it from my mind, knowing how upset it would make him if I ever alluded to or remarked on his injury. We had been together so long that I barely noticed the slight limp he worked so hard to conceal. It was as much a part of him as his laughter or his wit. I think he viewed that imperfection as a mortal weakness, especially in front of me, the girl who loved him, worshipped him. It was all right for others to appear that way; he even preferred it. It gave him leverage, but he couldn’t abide it in himself. Except now it seemed he had found his brothers-in-arms, men just as virile and even more damaged than him. They didn’t view him as weak. He was one of them, a broken god.
The men hobbled to the edge of the pool, the instructor counted to three, and they tipped their bodies into the water and sank. I held my breath. The instructor called out and they bobbed to the surface like corks and swam gracefully and unhindered, propelling themselves forward. I stared blindly at the trees that fenced in the grounds, clutching the folds of my dress, whispering Rothman, Rothman. My voice booming louder, Rothman, but he couldn’t hear me, and even if he had, I knew he wouldn’t answer.
35.
Weeks later, I ask Dr. S, How long have I been here?
The doctor mumbles something I can’t make out.
It’s a late afternoon appointment, different from our 10:00 a.m. meetings. No tea, no wafers, all business. He examines the contents of his tobacco pouch, frowning, sinks his meerschaum pipe with the wolf carving in and gently lifts one corner, fills the bowl, then uses his thumb to pack more leaves in.
I’ve told you not to concern yourself with time.
He strikes a match, then draws hard on the pipe and follows it up with two rapid puffs, producing a cloud of cherries.
But I’m well now. I want to leave, I say.
Where will you go?
Dr. S seems more stooped today than yesterday. There’s a tremor in his hand as he drops the match into the ashtray. His tie is askew, and his socks are mismatched—one navy, the other black. An easy mistake if he were dressing in the dark, taking care not to wake his young wife, but the woman’s picture is still missing from the desk. What conclusion can I come to but that she’s left him.
Home, I say. May I? And point to the lopsided cigarette box one of his children or grandchildren made for him. He slides it from one corner of the desk to the other like a toy train car. For a moment, he seems to ignore my request. I sigh and think that I’ll just have to wait until I get back to my room, where I’ve hidden the carton of Dunhill that Rothman brought me. It arrived on a shipment from London via Delhi, but I prefer to keep those cigarettes for when I’m alone writing to you or making paper boats. I’ve gotten very good at making them. I string the boats together into a chain. My mother used to make them from old newspaper when I was a girl, and we’d sail them on the lake in summer. The trick was to see how long it would take for them to capsize. Sometimes we’d see Tomasz and his father, the town plumber, there. Tomasz made his boats out of tree bark and poplar leaves. They were a natural wonder and always managed to bobble along while our paper ones sank.
I enjoy schnorring cigarettes from Dr. S, who in his own way is like a plumber, a Roto- Rooter man of the mind. Through the open window I can hear the children behind the stucco wall. Is it an orphanage? I ask.
What? His brow beetles as he jams a file into a drawer.
I point out the window toward the Collège des Frères. Is it an orphanage or just a school? Do the children live there year-round?
It’s a boarding school.
What’s the difference? I puff on the cigarette.
Parents who love them, he says.
I turn his words over in my mind. The strains of the Chopin nocturne meander through the hall. I close my eyes, almost giddy to hear Tomasz-Henrik play again, each note whispering Rivkaleh.
36.
My mother loved me best at the beginning of the war—love driven by worry and sacrifice. Harder when worry falls off and indifference sets in. No one except generals and profit mongers imagines a war will last years. Days, weeks, a month or two, but never years, though history is full of wars that have lasted decades. By the end, my mother, like the rest of the camp, was infiltrated, outflanked by disease brought on by overexertion, hunger, and cold. But in that first year when we ran in the fields and made daisy-chain crowns in summer and the snow fell like tatted lace in the fall and lashed at us through the long winter, she was ferocious in her love, certain it would keep me alive.
I don’t think I ever told you about the man who caught me staring through Lenya’s window. She was one of four prostitutes in bunk eight. He came up behind me and in minutes he had torn my woolen stockings and told me that, if I made a sound, the guards would shoot me, and he pointed to the watchtower, where two men held Kalashnikovs and passed a flask between them. I should have known they had no bullets. We barely had food, except what we could grow in the short summer season and early fall. The ammunition was sent to the soldiers on the front, where Papa was. The man was skin and bones, still I thought he’d crush me. I must have screamed. My mother was bringing clean sheets to the barrack matrons and heard me. She came running, bearing the thick paddle she used to stir the laundry in those great steel tubs. I don’t remember how many times she hit him; he fell without a sound. Fifty years later and I can still smell his rotten breath and see the dark yellow stains on his gatkes, that long underwear the men in the camp wore and rarely took off, if they were lucky enough to have a pair.
The story around the camp was that he was drunk and fell and hit his head. Only Lenya knew the truth. She saw it all through her window and spat on the dead man. I don’t know what my mother said to keep her quiet, but Lenya’s clothes were always clean and her bedding the first to be dried. When my mother was dying, Lenya stayed with her, and when she was dead, Lenya was the one who gave me the news, Du nebech meydl, You poor girl; she caressed my cheek, Deyn mameh ist toyt, Your mother is dead, and pulled me into her arms. My face buried in the sharp angles of her breasts. Rothman made sure we said kaddish for Mama. Two of the other prisoners buried her in the forest. Lenya paid an inmate to inscribe a stone. We placed it on her grave. Maybe it’s still there.
37.
The Georgian woman enters without knocking. Rothman has given her a small gift. She shows me the bottle of Trésor perfume, still in its box. He’s asked her to deliver another sales contract.
Thank you, I say, placing the envelope on the desk. I mime, You smell nice.
She beams at me, her gold teeth sparkling.
When she leaves, I open the envelope and make a long chain of paper boats.
After midnight I sneak into Tomasz-Henrik’s room and find him waiting for me, an eager swain. We greet each other with chaste kisses. He feeds me the orange he’s saved from lunch. I give him the chain of boats as a gift. He tells me they are beautiful. He tells me I am beautiful and sighs in my ear, Rivkaleh, mayn ketzeleh, my kitten.
38.
I pay the cabdriver for the ride from Ben Gurion Airport to Tel Aviv and walk into the entrance of our old building on the Street of Shoes. It no longer smells of tzimmis and stuffed cabbage, but of fried fish and roast pork. Three flights up, I’m puffed out and lean against the jamb and insert the key I’ve carried on a chain for four decades. After a brief and intense struggle, the chamber in the lock releases and the door swings open. How small the flat is compared to our apartment on West End Avenue. The first thing I do is switch on all the lights. They flicker as if waking from a deep sleep and then beam steadily. Rothman made sure the electricity worked, and he put in new bulbs. The living room is a narrow rectangle, the kitchen a square. More than forty winters have abused the window casements. The plaster has peeled to expose the rebar, and there are islands of black mold on the ceiling. Years of dust and soot are on the floor. A graveyard of insects litter the kitchen counter. The furniture is still covered in the sheets we draped them in. We hadn’t expected to stay away so long. The sheets are stained with mold and eaten through by bed worms. The mustiness makes me cough; my eyes tear and my throat is scratchy. It’s cold but I open the windows and they gasp and tremble as I do with the effort. The night sky presses against the balcony, and the lights of Tel Aviv pulse to a rhythm I no longer know.
I tear the ragged sheets off the bed. They practically disintegrate in my hands. I switch on the dood, unsure whether the hot water heater still works, relieved at the familiar whoosh of the pilot catching, relieved that Rothman sent a man to take care of the plumbing and install a new stove and refrigerator.
If you’d given me more time, I could’ve gotten the place painted and professionally cleaned before you arrived. Now it’ll have to be done while you’re there, he said. Meanwhile, he had a phone installed, something that would have taken months without his connections.
It takes time for the water to heat, so I light a cigarette, wrap my arms around myself, and trudge into the master bedroom. Outside, someone shouts in a language I’ve never heard. Days from now when I meet the woman next door, I learn it’s Tagalog. She is a caretaker from the Philippines, caring for an old survivor who lost his wife and children in Majdanek. It’s all he ever talks about, she grumbles. It’s all she ever talks about too, as if in caring for him she’s absorbed every memory the old man ever had. A Vespa sputters past the building. An airplane flies too low, making the windows rattle, but all I hear and see are the crowded images of us before the fall, or the end, or whatever it is we called the devastation that tore us from here.
Because I can think of nothing else, because all at once I’m frightened of being alone in the apartment, I rush to the kitchen sink and run the tap. After a series of fits and starts, the water gushes from the spout. I drink palmfuls that taste of rust and imagine the water being dredged up from the bottom of an ancient cistern. The refrigerator stands like a sentry on watch. I wipe a hand across my mouth and peer into the empty murk, then plug the appliance into the wall socket. A quick spark, a hum, and the apartment is alive again. Thank God for Rothman. Out on the balcony it’s easy to see where the Street of Shoes dips into the old central bus station. They’ve dismantled it and built a new station nearby, far uglier than the old one. Still, the immigrants have remained, mostly Africans and Asians now, living in a grimier swelter of poverty and stink than we did.
The temperature is warmer outside than it is in. I remember the evenings we ate our dinner on the balcony and watched buses come and go, passengers waiting, bundles at their feet, chickens in wire cages to be slaughtered for the Shabbos meal. There was an old bearded Jew who lived in the station, beseeching men to don tefillin so moshiach, the anointed one, the great messiah would come. From our perch we saw the filthy, beating heart of the city, where the sacred and the profane collided. Now all I see is the light at the brothel, if it is a brothel, blinking its cold blue eye.
When the water is hot, I undress, toes cringing against the cold tile. I wash off the flight. I wash off the Belgian, I wash off forty years and am born anew, again. A cockroach scuttles near the drain. The creature makes a valiant run for it, but in the end is swept into the current. Wrapped in my coat, I climb into bed and hang on as if shipwrecked.
