My Enemy's Cradle (12 page)

Thursday. Isaak told me he would be gone until late afternoon. I asked if I could come with him to his meetings, since they were only in the synagogue.

"No," he said right away. He averted his eyes, as if he were embarrassed by my nakedness, as if we didn't know each other's bodies now. "It would be noticed. I don't want anyone to know you're here. Not even the people I trust. The fewer who know, the better. That's always the way."

When Isaak left, I put on one of his shirts and then his overcoat, and took the clothes I had been wearing for two days to the bathroom to wash them. I scrubbed at the grease stain the trooper had left on my blouse, but it left a shadow.

In that one day, I grew absorbed with the sensations of skin, like a woman born blind who can suddenly see and is unable to sleep for the looking she must do to catch up. I lay on the bed trying to read, but was distracted by the touch of his shirt and the miracle of air on my body. I sat on the floor to work on a poem but could only write about the feel of my back pressed against the brick wall and of the sunlight streaming over my bare thighs. I craved the heat of Isaak's skin against my own. Anneke hadn't told me how hot blood was when it rose in two bodies.

When he returned, I was again lying on the bed. This time he didn't look away.

"Don't move." He came over to the bed and loosened my hair, which I had twisted into a soft roll to keep out of my book. "It's like honey," he said, sifting it through his fingers and arranging it over my shoulder. "It flows like honey."

His hand brushed my breast, and I caught it and held it there. I let the book fall.

"No, I want to draw you." He pulled away. "You're beautiful."

"I'm not. Anneke is."

Was.

"No, Anneke was pretty. What's pretty can never be beautiful.
You
are beautiful. I'll show you. Get up, I need to move the bed for the light."

Isaak moved his desk aside and pushed the bed underneath the window.

"There, lie down," he said.

Holding his gaze, trembling, I took off his shirt. Isaak watched, then nodded. I let him arrange me as I had been before, lying on my side, one arm propping my head, the other draping my waist to lift a page of my book. I couldn't breathe when he touched me. He poured my hair over my neck, my shoulder. When he tilted my hip back into the sunlight I shivered.
See me, Isaak. Want me.

He picked up a pad and a pencil and brought the chair to the side of the bed. He sat still for a long time, just looking at me, moving two fingers softly over his lips. I pretended to read, but whenever I could I watched him studying my body, appraising it with his artist's eyes. I traveled into them to see myself as he began to draw. I wanted to be found a prize.

A stream of hair fell and parted over my breast; I watched his hand shape my swell and then the half-moon shadow beneath. He traced the curve of my belly with long, smooth gestures, and I saw that it was graceful. When he swept the rise of my hip, his hand moved as if he were stroking a melon.

I could see that I pleased him—had I ever pleased Isaak before? For the first time, I felt desirable.

But I didn't want him to draw me anymore.

I rolled over onto my back and let my fingers drift along my belly and my hips, everywhere I wanted him to be. I closed my eyes so he could watch. And when he dropped his pad, I felt I had won. But if I had won, what was it he had lost?

Afterward, Isaak dressed and took his coat from its peg. I lifted my head from the pillow to ask where he was going.

"Your house." He tied his shoes. "I'll get your things. It's dark enough."

Once again I wasn't full the way Isaak seemed to be when we finished making love. If anything, I was hungrier than before. I wondered if there were any amount of lovemaking that would be enough. I wondered if something was wrong with me. I reached out and tried to pull him back into the bed.

"Go tomorrow night. I don't need anything."

"No. Your aunt's leaving for Apeldoorn in the morning. I need to get everything you'll take with you next Friday. Anneke's papers. Her clothes."

Next Friday. I got out of bed and began to dress.

"You're not going," Isaak said. "It's too dangerous. And it's not necessary; I'll get everything."

"Yes, I am going. I have to see her again." I suddenly felt guilty for how much pleasure I'd taken the last day and night while she had been alone in our empty home.

Isaak studied me for a moment, then nodded.

I wore his clothes and borrowed the lawyer's bicycle. Once more we set out across the town in the dark, with me in disguise. Like a criminal. At first the dry leaves of the plane trees overhead rustled softly like paper, but as we rode the wind picked up and they began to sound menacing, like breaking glass. A storm was coming. I wanted to be back in the safety of Isaak's room.

I could be pregnant now.

"Cyrla!" My aunt pulled me into the kitchen and for a second I thought how good it was to hear my name again, how it made me feel whole again. "You shouldn't be here."

It was a mistake to have come to this place that was no longer my home.

And it was difficult to look at my aunt, shrunken like an old woman, her face pouched and colorless. I looked away, but everything in the kitchen pulsed with memories, each a stiletto. My apron hung on its peg beside Anneke's, from a time when my most unpleasant chore was to chop onions. There were the Delft blue-and-white sugar and flour containers, each side painted with a different scene Anneke and I used to make up stories about. The pretty beaded milk cap we borrowed to drape over our dolls' heads. Even though the blackout shades were down, my aunt was anxious someone might be able to see me here; when she turned off the kitchen light and lit a candle, I was relieved.

"I'm so sorry about—" Isaak began.

My aunt threw up her palms in fierce warning, then left the room. She came back in a few minutes, her face closed, with my suitcase. "Take her now," she said, handing it to Isaak. "Hurry. I saw Mrs. Bakker this morning—she said she heard voices here yesterday. I told her I must have been talking to myself, but ... And two soldiers were here this afternoon—just as you predicted. I told them Pieter had been delayed and would be back tomorrow, but I don't think they believed me. What if they're watching the house now?"

I felt ashamed hearing this, as if I'd done something wrong. I hated being someone for whom lies must be told.

"I don't think that's likely," Isaak replied. "It's only some blankets. But we'll leave. Do you have the papers?"

My aunt pulled a packet tied with string from behind the meat safe. "There's money in here, too. I didn't know what she'd need. But it's only for a few weeks, and then..." She turned to me and her face crumpled. "Oh,
kleintje.
How did we get to this?"

I embraced her without answering. The war couldn't go on much longer; everyone except for Isaak said this. When it was over, I would have my own home. With Isaak. With our children. I would never ask anyone to leave it.

My aunt stepped away and crossed her arms over her chest, her fingers digging into her arms as if to keep them from reaching for me again. "Take her," she said, not looking at me. "See her safe. Go now."

Isaak took my hand and pulled me to the door.

My aunt watched, then suddenly called out, "Wait!" For an instant I thought,
See? She couldn't send me away after all.
But that wasn't it.

She turned the light on again, pulled a pair of scissors from the shelf, and lifted them up to me. I stared, not understanding.

Isaak put my suitcase by the door. "Sit down," he said. "Undo your hair."

My hands flew to my head. "No, not that! I'll keep it pinned up. No one will know. It's the way my mother—"

They were right, though. I took the scissors from my aunt—I would cut my hair myself. And I wouldn't cry. But I turned away just in case.

I unbraided my hair and cut a handful quickly, so I couldn't change my mind. It was so thick it was like cutting rope, and I could do only a small section at a time. The room was silent except for the slicing of the steel blades and the sighs of my hair hitting the linoleum. It took so long.

I turned to face them, my head higher, freed from the weight. My aunt's hands flew to her mouth and she ran from the kitchen, but not before I'd seen her eyes. In Isaak's eyes, for just a second, I thought I saw anger—perhaps for the loss of my hair. He set his mouth and took the scissors from me and snipped at a few places. "Does it look right?" I asked.

He didn't answer. Nothing was right about this. We just stood together for a moment, not knowing what to say. My aunt came back. She kept her eyes averted, but held out a mirror.

My hand shot out and knocked the mirror from her hand; it shattered against the tiled wall. I hadn't meant to do it, but how could I have borne the sight of myself stealing my cousin's life? I bent quickly to pick up the pieces of glass, glittering in my fallen hair, but Anneke's face looked up at me from each shard.

Friday. For the first time, Isaak had fallen asleep beside me in the narrow bed, his long, hard thigh between my two soft ones. I thought I could stay like this forever, lying skin-to-skin with him, my breath softly feathering the hairs of his chest, the rain beating against the window hard as hurled nails. But Isaak woke and rolled to sit at the edge of the bed.

"Don't leave," I said. "Don't go to work. There's so little time."

Isaak rubbed his face awake. "I'll be back after services. We have a week."

He left, and the storm made the wait until he returned worse.

I sat at his desk to write to my father. I tried twice and tore up both letters. What of all this could I tell him? I tried a third time and made my letter short so he wouldn't read between the lines or sense where I was lying.

Dearest Papa,

I have news to tell you, but you must promise not to be sad or worried. I am leaving Schiedam. It is just a precaution, and only for a short while. Possibly you have heard that there are more restrictions here now. Isaak and I feel it would be wise for me to go away for a while, and we have found a safe place. As always, I am hopeful you will meet each other soon. How you will like him, and how Mama would have loved him!

In a way, I feel better because of this, knowing that if you are hiding and sacrificing to be safe, then so am I. I have been living so comfortably these past years that I have begun to feel guilty.

Please write and tell me how you are—I haven't heard from you for so long, and it is difficult to not know. You can still reach me through the same address—Tante Mies will know how to get your letter to me. Everyone here is well and sends you their love. Kisses to my brothers, who must be fine big boys by now—Levi will be almost nine; how I wish I could see him. And I cannot even imagine that little Benjamin is seven. The war is almost over, and when it is I will be with you.

All my love, your daughter,

Cyrla

I put the pen down and my hands found my belly, flat and empty, and yet perhaps so full. I was no longer the last link in my family's chain, but rather I might be carrying it already, curled inside me. Safe. I tore up the letter.

That afternoon I slept and paced and read and ate the food Isaak had left for me. I ached for Anneke, as though I had just awakened to the understanding that she was gone. I cried until I couldn't possibly cry any more, and then I cried more. If only I hadn't left her. I'd taken her for granted, had left her alone, and she'd fallen away.

I walked around the room, suddenly anxious to mark it as mine somehow. Could I move the goosenecked lamp? Rearrange Isaak's books? Finally I took down the da Vinci prints and hung them back up in a different order. I thought about where I would be when he noticed and grew ill with fear.

When Isaak returned I told him I wasn't going. "I'll stay here until you arrange my passage. Or until you get me a set of false papers so I can live somewhere nearby."

Isaak sat at his desk. He riffled through a pile of papers, pulled a pair of glasses from his pocket, put them on, and then took them off again and rubbed his eyes. He glanced up at the da Vinci prints and his mouth narrowed for a second, but he didn't say anything. He looked terribly tired.

"Isaak?"

"In the first place, you can't stay here. It is too obviously where you might be."

"But no one knows I'm missing. I died, remember?"

"Your uncle. A man doesn't walk away from his home. I have someone watching the shop and the house. The Germans are watching the shop, too. He hasn't returned, but he will. And he'll look for you here."

I climbed onto Isaak's bed and wedged myself into the corner, my back against the walls. Where I couldn't be bent. "He won't look for me. He'll be glad I've gone. Isaak, this is my life. My choice."

Isaak looked down at his hands on his knees, and spread his fingers. "We've been over this. You don't have a choice. If Anneke doesn't show up, there'll be too much interest."

I didn't like the tone in his voice. As if I were a willful child. "Isaak, it won't work. They'll see right away I'm not Anneke ... my eyes! Tante Mies always said they were the blue of winter seas, while Anneke's were light, like summer seas! You said they measured her eye color.... "

Isaak bent over the wastebasket, pulled out my torn letters. His face fell when he saw my father's name. "You didn't."

"No. I saw it wasn't safe. Besides, I don't know where to post them anymore."

"You refuse to see—"

"Don't!"

"I have to! You think you can simply not show up there? That it will be fine if the Nazis find out Anneke's dead but her cousin's using her papers and by the way, she's Jewish? There were roundups in Twenthe and Enschede last week! Did you know that?"

"Isaak, stop."

"They took them to the labor camp at Westerbork. But they won't stay there long—they'll ship them to Auschwitz. And do you know what happens then? We've just gotten a report—they're gassing people."