My Bridges of Hope (5 page)

What madness. “I still can't believe all this about the British. They fought the Nazis. They fought very bravely and liberated us from the concentration camps . . . they were my heroes, together with the Americans and the Russians.”

“There are political reasons,” Miki says simply, with finality.

I fall silent. Why is “political reasons” an acceptable answer?

“It's late, Elli. Good night.” Miki reaches out and brushes my right cheek with his
hand. His touch is like the moonbeam, fleeting, ethereal.

“Good night, Miki.” As he disappears into the night, an overwhelming sense of the surreal envelops me. Quietly I tiptoe into the house, but Mommy is still awake. I cannot tell her about the transports, not yet. I have to think about the things Miki told me, somehow sort them out. Perhaps tomorrow. Or, perhaps during the weekend, when Bubi will be home. I hope it will be all right for Bubi to know. I must check with Miki tomorrow.

Tomorrow. Will Miki admit to all he's said to me tonight? Will I meet tomorrow the Miki of tonight?

Šamorín, December 1945

When the war ended Daddy's younger brother, who had emigrated to America years ago, saw Daddy's name on a list of survivors in one of New York's Jewish newspapers, and he hastened to contact him by mail. And so, in one of life's bitter ironies, it came about that Uncle Abish's letter from America rejoicing over Daddy's survival arrived shortly after we received news of Daddy's tragic death. In his letter Daddy's brother expressed concern about our fate. “What has happened to your wife? And to your children? If, God forbid, you remain all alone, I invite you to come live with me and my family in New York.”

The painful task of having to inform Daddy's brother about the newspaper's error fell to Mommy, and she did so as gently as possible.

Yesterday Uncle Abish's reply came. His
shock and grief, on top of his offer to take us into his New York home, deepened the pain of our mourning. In vain Daddy had planned for years to join his younger brother in America. In vain he waited for our turn on the U.S. emigration quota. Throughout the years of waiting he developed a poignant attachment to New York. With uncharacteristic pride he used to point at the staggering skyscrapers on postcards he received from his brother. “See?” he would say. “Over a hundred stories high. Can you imagine, a building over a hundred stories high? One day you'll stand at the foot of this skyscraper and experience the thrill of staring up to the very top, where it touches the clouds.”

Oh, Daddy. Without you I don't want your impossible dream to become our reality. Without you I don't want to experience the thrill of standing at the foot of the skyscraper. Without you New York would forever be tinged with pain.

“Send me your vital statistics,” Uncle Abish urged in his letter, “so that I may apply for an affidavit immediately.”

Uncle Abish's letter energizes Mommy.
“Elli, you will take a course in dress design in Bratislava while we await our turn on the American quota,” she cries enthusiastically. “In New York you and I will open a dress salon. You will design the dresses, and I will sew them!”

“And what about Bubi?” I ask.

“Bubi should continue his studies,” Mommy answers with finality. I don't argue, and she goes on: “We will be successful in America, you'll see,” Mommy promises. America is big and ambitious, and so are Mommy's plans. America will be our oyster!

How can I tell them, my mother and brother, that I am dreaming of going to Eretz Israel, not America? How can I tell them that ever since Miki spoke of the secret ships across the Mediterranean, Eretz Israel is all I can think of? How can I dash their hopes?

I keep my silence all weekend. Neither Mommy nor Bubi notices. In their excitement they are oblivious to anything beyond the America project. On Monday morning Bubi returns to school.

In the afternoon Mommy sits down at the kitchen table to write a letter to Uncle Abish,
to provide our vital statistics for immigration papers. I know that I must break my silence.

“Mommy, I must speak to you.”

Mommy raises her head, but her mind is still on the letter. “You wanted to say something?”

“Not just say something, Mommy. I must speak to you.”

“Now? Right now? I've just started the letter to Uncle Abish.”

“Yes.”

She puts down the pen and absently moves over to make room for me on the wooden bench. But I prefer to stand. I position myself on the opposite side of the table and look straight into Mother's puzzled eyes.

“Mommy, I'm not going to America.”

Mother's eyes widen, and her mouth opens a little.

“I want to go to Palestine . . . Eretz Israel.”

“Palestine? Why Palestine?”

Before I can reply, she continues, her tone somewhat heated: “We have been making plans for America for a long time. We have been dreaming, Daddy was dreaming, about America for years. I believed you were excited about America.

“Yes, Mommy, the prospect of America was exciting. It was Daddy's dream, and it became our dream. But Daddy did not make it—he who wanted so badly to reach America. And I no longer want to go to America.”

Mommy's silence is deafening.

I plead: “Palestine . . . Eretz Israel is part of us. That's where we belong. Mommy, you can see that, can't you?”

Mother's brilliant blue eyes search my face. “You're a strange girl, Elli,” she says, and in her bafflement I detect a faint note of pride, a grudging admission of deference. “A very strange girl.”

This is my cue to press on. “Mommy, Eretz Israel is our only home. The Jewish country is the only true home a Jew can have. After what happened to us here, in our birthplace, our fatherland, a Jew can never feel secure anywhere else. Eretz Israel is the only country where a Jew will not be a foreigner.”

Mother shakes her head: “I don't understand you, Elli. We've talked and talked and talked about America. You've never said a word. You were eager and hopeful, just like me, just like Bubi. And now, when it's within
our reach, you've suddenly changed your mind. With such finality. You have always been a strange child.”

“You see, Mommy, last week Miki told me of secret transports to Palestine. And then I realized—I felt it in the pit of my stomach—going to America is wrong. After what's happened to us. After what happened to Daddy. For us there is only one place—Eretz Israel.”

“Your brother has gone back to Bratislava. We cannot reach him till next week. Why didn't you speak up last night? At least we could've talked it over, the three of us.”

“Oh, Mommy, believe me, we can be happy only in Eretz Israel.”

Mommy picks up the sheet of paper and I can see the words “My dear Brother-in-Law, May God Keep You Till one Hundred And Twenty,” the latter phrase in a Hebrew acronym. Slowly Mommy pulls the drawer of the kitchen table open, ever so slightly, and lets the white sheet slide through the narrow slit. “It can wait till next week.” Then she rises to her feet, her face inscrutable.

“Let's heat up some potato soup.”

Mommy puts the large white pot on the
stove and goes to the cellar to get some wood. I place a few sticks of kindling in the stove and light a crumpled piece of newspaper under them. The crackling of the fire is reassuring. Mother stirs the soup. I watch her without a word as she ladles the steaming liquid into two white enamel bowls, and my insides fill with a sense of painful longing.

We eat in silence. The warm soup courses through my body and stills my agony somewhat. Mommy has not rejected the idea of Eretz Israel outright. I believe my argument has made a dent in her American aspirations. Perhaps a truce has been reached. When Bubi comes home next weekend, the issue will be presented fairly, and the three of us will make a decision together. There is a basic condition, a nonnegotiable principle we had agreed upon shortly after liberation from the concentration camps: Wherever one goes, all will go.

The three of us shall never be separated again.

Šamorín, January 1946

Since that magical evening a week ago when he revealed the secret of his work for
Briha
within the framework of Aliyah Bet, the “illegal” transports to Palestine, Miki smiles at me when our eyes meet over the dining room table. His gaze lingers, and I feel my face turn crimson. The others have begun noticing the change and stare at us in fascination. I am mortified, but Miki does not seem to care.

More and more often after his tea he spends time helping me with homework. Miki has opened a whole new universe of feeling for me. A thrilling new universe.

When Bubi comes home for the weekend and Mommy informs him of my sudden change of heart, my brother is flabbergasted.

“What made you change your mind?” he asks with consternation.

“It's Miki,” Mommy interjects. “He's
working for Aliyah Bet. They have become fast friends, Miki and your little sister. He wants her to go with him to Palestine. Don't you think he's a little too old for her?”

“He's twenty-seven,” I say quietly. “That's not too old.” I am aware of the trembling in my voice. “I never said he wanted me to go with him. Miki has nothing to do with my decision. Mommy, don't you know how I feel about Eretz Israel?!”

Bubi listens with attention, and his eyes fill with sadness. “I knew about the transports,” he replies with a deep sigh. “I was also thinking about them. For weeks I could think of nothing else. But then I realized, what would Mommy do in Palestine? Eretz Israel is for young people.”

Mommy is silent. She knows that the severe spinal injury she suffered in Auschwitz prevents her from doing heavy physical work.

“What will Mommy do?” Bubi presses. “In Eretz Israel she cannot make a living sewing dresses. Who among the pioneers needs new dresses? Who among the pioneers can afford new dresses?”

The three of us carry on our discussion late
into the night. I can no longer present my case with my earlier passion. How can I jeopardize Mommy's health in the harsh conditions of Eretz Israel?

At the conclusion of the weekend the decision is final: We will go to America together.

Mommy and Bubi accept my resignation with sympathy, with concern. With pain.

The decision has changed our lives. Now we live on the emotional verge of departure. Letters to and from Uncle Abish, to the U.S. Embassy in Prague, to the Czechoslovak Passport Authority in Bratislava, and local clearances, permits, and applications are at the hub of our existence.

Secretly, selfishly, I am praying for a miracle that would bring Eretz Israel back into our agenda. After all, the documents have not yet arrived. Our passport application has not yet been approved. The U.S. visa has not been granted. We may end up in Palestine by default.

I keep postponing a confrontation with Miki. I don't want to jeopardize our relationship. Will his feelings change toward me when he finds out our family decision? Will he again become distant and aloof?

Šamorín, September 1945—April 1946

As it turned out, my relationship with Miki did change, but not because of our decision. The shift was caused by a rather unexpected turn of events.

About five months ago, right before the High Holidays, a tall, husky young woman in Soviet army uniform drifted into the Tattersall, looking for someone who spoke Russian. I was doing my homework in the dining hall when she came in, so I volunteered. As it was a month since the beginning of school and my exposure to Comrade Alla Drugova's teaching blitz, I had no trouble communicating in Russian. The
barishna,
meaning “soldier girl” in Russian, said she was Jewish and wanted to spend the holidays among Jews.

I became the
barishna
's interpreter and mentor. The reluctance of the others to
embrace her into the Tattersall family was caused less by the language barrier than by her robust temperament, which they considered somewhat aggressive.

She was a strange girl, the
barishna.
Her enormously fat legs bulged out of high boots into which they had been permanently compressed. She said it had been years since she had taken off her boots—she even slept in them. When I asked why, the
barishna
shrugged in reply. She said she was eighteen but looked much older. She also said she had been in the army for over three years, two of them on the front lines. We wondered: Had she been drafted into the army at the age of fifteen? We were skeptical, but it was pointless to ask questions, because the
barishna
was not in the habit of answering them. Even her name she did not divulge, so Barishna became her name.

Barishna was in the habit of lunging headlong into whatever interested her.

“That fellow Grossman you've introduced me to, he's rich, isn't he?” she asked me a few days after I introduced her to Miki, one of the few who spoke Russian.

“Why do you ask?”

“He must be very rich. You told me his family had owned a lot of land and houses. And he returned alone. So, he must have inherited it all. He must be a tycoon!” Barishna used the Russian word
bogach
for “tycoon.”

I was taken aback by Barishna's reference to Miki's “wealth.” I had thought her naive and childlike and even said as much to Miki, who was annoyed at Barishna's habit of joining us on our walks. I believed her behavior was that of an unspoiled innocent, and when Miki asked me to tell her to stop tagging along, I was reluctant to hurt her feelings. Now I was shocked when Barishna continued: “I think Grossman's the richest man here. He is heir to a bigger fortune than any of the others.”

I could not understand what Barishna was saying. This kind of speaking was so alien to me that it was unintelligible. Had she spoken of “fortune”? Of “inheritance”? All of us were heirs to empty homesteads, fallow fields, businesses bereft of proprietors. Every survivor was heir to the agony of a staggering vacuum. How dared she speak of material
fortune when we felt only the pain of our parents' tragic absence?