The Road to Grace (The Walk) (15 page)

His eyes welled up again. “I did not know it then, but my mother and brother and sister were dead within an hour. The Nazis were very efficient.”

He looked at me and there was a darkness to his gaze. “I heard the screaming once. I had been in Sobibor for three months and I was assigned to weed near the fence in camp two when they started the engines. Even through the concrete walls, the screams escaped. The sound of it froze my blood. It is a sound you never forget. Then they fell off until there was nothing but silence. When I have nightmares, it is that I hear. The silence.

“Sobibor had one purpose. To kill as many people as quickly as the Germans could. When I arrived there, the Germans had three gas chambers, with big truck engines. They could kill six hundred people at a time. But that was not fast enough for them. So three new chambers were made so they could kill twelve hundred people at a time. Imagine—twelve hundred at a time. They were Russian POWs, homosexuals, and gypsies, but mostly Jews.”

He went silent and I just looked at him, my heart pounding, my stomach feeling sick. After a moment he rubbed his eyes then met my gaze.

“In Sobibor, there were three camps. Camp one and
camp two were where they prepared food for the officers and guards. Those prisoners who were there cooked or cleaned cars, or washed or made clothing, shoes, gold jewelry, or whatever the guards asked for.

“Camp three was away from us. It was a mystery. One of the cooks wanted to know what was going on in camp three so he hid a note in a dumpling. A note returned to the bottom of a pot. It said,
death
.

“Those who remained alive in camp three had one job, to kill and dispose of the dead. At first the Germans buried the bodies in big holes using tractors, but there were too many, so they began burning them. You could see the flames at night. Always burning. Like hell.

“Once, Himmler himself paid a visit to the camp. To celebrate his great coming, hundreds of young girls were killed in his honor.

“No one was safe. Even those helping the guards would be replaced every few weeks. It was frightful to be told to deliver food to camp three, because many times the deliverers would not come back.”

His words trailed off. He had again retreated within himself. My self-pity was swept away by the power of his story. After a few moments I asked, “How did you survive?”

“Hmm,” he said, nodding. “People think that the Jews just went like sheep to their graves—and no one resisted. That is not true. Many tried to escape. Many, many lost their lives because of it. The Germans had a rule. If one person escaped, then a dozen in the camp would be shot.

“It was horrible having death hanging over you at all times, but in one way, it was liberating. Once we knew for sure that it was only a matter of time before they would
kill us, we had nothing to lose. We knew we all would die, so risk meant nothing.

“While we were planning our escape there came to Sobibor a Russian soldier with the name Pechersky. We called him Sasha. He planned the escape. Some of the men had axes from cutting trees, some made knives, and at the chosen hour one by one we killed the guards and took their guns. It went good until one of the guards was found. Then all was madness. The guards in the towers started shooting down with their machine guns. Our men fired back. It was every man for himself.

“There were forests just past the fence. We knew if we made it to the forest, it would be difficult for them to find us. There were seven hundred of us in the camp and maybe three hundred of us made it out of the camp. But the fields were planted with land mines and many did not make it to the trees. One land mine blew up near me and a man flew past me in the air.

“The Germans radioed for help and soldiers arrived with dogs to hunt us down. In the end, less than a hundred of us made it to freedom. And many of those were turned in or killed by Polish traitors in town.”

“Then it was a failure,” I said.

“No. It was worth it if even one escaped, because we all would have died—every one of us. I was a lucky one. A good farmer found me. He took me in and hid me until the war was over. I owe my life to him.”

I suddenly understood. “That’s why you stopped to help me.”

“Yes, I made a promise to God that I would never turn away from someone in need.”

“What did you do when the war was over?”

“I had much hate. I was asked to testify at the war criminal trials. I got to look some of the guards in the faces and point at them and condemn them. I do not regret this. Mercy should not rob justice.

“But my soul became dark. I trusted no one. I hated everyone. Even the Polish. Until I met Ania.” His expression softened as he spoke her name. “My dear Ania. She had suffered too. Not in Sobibor, but she saw death too. Her own father and mother were killed in front of her. But she was not like me. She was so beautiful. Not just her face, which I tell you was beautiful, but in her eyes. Somehow she could still smile and laugh.”

When he said this he smiled for the first time since he’d started his story. “Oh, my dear Ania. I could not keep myself from her. But she would not have me. Finally I said, ‘Why, Ania? Why will you not have me?’

“She said, ‘Because you are like them.’ I got very angry. I said, ‘I am not like them.’ She said, ‘Their hate for us—your hate for them, there is no difference. You have such hate in your heart, you might as well have died in Sobibor.’

“She was right. I was just like them. She showed me that the one thing they could not take from me was my choice. So I made a choice to be free of them. To be free of my past, my horrible, horrible past.” He nodded. “That’s when she married me. That’s when I became a free man, even more than when I ran from the camp. In many ways it was the same.”

“What happened to Ania?”

“My Ania died nine years ago. After she died I came to America to be with my son. He now lives in California.”

I looked down for a long time, then said, “I’m sorry. My problems are small by comparison.”

He reached over and put his hand on mine. “No. Your problems are not small. They are horrible too. All the more reason you must let them go.” Then he looked me in the eyes and said something that changed me forever. “What would your beloved have you do?”

My eyes welled up with tears. When I could speak I said, “She would tell me to be free.”

He nodded. “Yes, just like my Ania. Just like my Ania.” He looked me in the eyes. “Honor her wishes and you will honor her.”

I pondered what he’d said. “How do I do this? How do I forgive?”

“I had no one to go to. No one to say ‘I forgive you.’ But you can go to him, your partner. You can tell him you forgive him. But you must first say it to God. Then you may say it to him.”

“I don’t think he believes he did wrong.”

“He knows he did wrong. He knows. But it does not matter. This is your freedom. He must find his own.” The moment faded off into silence. Finally he said, “I have burdened you too much for your sickness.”

I shook my head. “No. You haven’t burdened me. I’ll think about what you’ve said.”

He nodded. “Would you like more soup?”

“No, thanks. I’m full.”

Suddenly his face lit up. “You would then, perhaps, like to listen to me play the piano.”

I smiled. “I would like that.”

He smiled wide. “I would be most pleased to play the piano for you.”

We both stood and walked into the front room. I sat back into the sofa as Leszek sat down at the instrument. For a moment he looked down at the piano, then he lifted
his hands, his fingers hovering briefly above the keys, then he started to play.

I don’t know what it was that he played, but I could feel, as well as hear, Lezek’s soul pouring out through his music. He was no longer a gray, feeble old man, but vibrant and strong.

Even the room was changed, glorified by the power and brilliance of the music, and I might as well have been seated amid velvet tapestries and gold-leaf veneers in one of Europe’s finest concert halls. I closed my eyes and was lost in the passion of the moment—somewhere between anguish and hope, despair and triumph, past and future, nowhere and everywhere.

Then the music stopped as abruptly as it had begun, leaving the room quiet, the silence ringing powerfully.

There were tears rolling down my face. Both of our faces. Leszek was an old man again. He was mortal again. Without looking at me he said, “It is late. I think I will go to bed now.” He got up from the bench.

“Thank you,” I said.

He turned to look at me. “It is my pleasure, my friend. It is my pleasure.”

Then the old man shuffled off to his room.

I lay in bed for hours unable to sleep—not just because I had already slept so late, but because my mind was too full. I thought mostly about the horror Leszek had seen in his life. I realized that in some ways the atrocities of the Holocaust had become cinema to me: a mental library of documentaries, movies, and books I had experienced growing up, erroneously believing that I knew something about the horror. I had never met anyone who had lived through it. It was the difference between reading a travelogue and talking to a native.

This was something I could never understand: how could a person be so inhumane to others? I put myself in that equation. Had I been a German soldier, would I have obeyed orders? Statistically speaking, I likely would have. What if I had been in Leszek’s position? Would I have attempted an escape or accepted my death? And wasn’t that question, in some ways, the very question I was facing right now?

In those dark, quiet hours, I found the truth of Leszek’s words. What he said was true—whether I had intended to or not, I had assigned a portion of my future to Kyle. I had deeded him a continual stake in my life—recurring at consistent intervals like a regularly scheduled program in the television network of my mind. As an advertiser, this was something I understood. We paid money to media to lease space in their viewers’ minds. That’s what I had given Kyle, a television series in my mind, a daily drama I visited, to create pain and hate and justification and … Then I saw it. Could it be that I held on to my hate and unforgiveness because I wanted to? That hate was as strong a lust as sex or violence? That I had some carnal desire to beat him mercilessly every day in the boxing ring of my mind? And how long would
this show go on before I canceled it? For the rest of my days?

It could. I had met people who held grudges as their most prized possessions, clinging to bitterness and resentment even after the focus of their hatred was dead and buried.

That idea seemed absurd. If my life was, as my father always said, the sum total of my thoughts, then what would such a course of thought make of my life? And was I willing to give that away? No. I wanted to own my thoughts. I wanted to reclaim my mind. I wanted my time back. I wanted to forgive.

I don’t know what time I eventually fell asleep, but I woke the next morning around ten. It was light out, so I knew, this time, that it was morning. I didn’t feel dizzy. Actually, except for being off schedule, I felt normal. I lay in bed for a few minutes, revisiting the previous night’s thoughts.

Long ago I had learned that those middle-of-the-night thoughts didn’t always hold up to the light of day. There were times, in my advertising life, when I had jumped out of bed with a campaign idea I thought so brilliant I had to write it down. I kept a notepad next to my bed for that very purpose. I would jump up and scribble down my flash of genius, then go back to bed, only to wake the next morning, read the words, and wonder,
What was I thinking?

But this time, that wasn’t the case. Everything Leszek had said was true. I owned no stock in Kyle’s life and I had no desire to vest him with stock in mine. I retrieved my cell phone from my pack, then, as I considered what I was about to do, hesitated. What would I say? How much
would I say? In a way, it didn’t matter. It was the act itself. The less I said the better. I would call and say, I forgive you. Just those three words. I thought about Pamela. That’s what she had come so far to hear. What she had risked her life to hear. But Kyle wasn’t, as far as I could tell, seeking what Pamela had. Again, I reminded myself of Leszek’s words. It didn’t matter. What I was doing had nearly nothing to do with Kyle. How he responded to my forgiveness was up to him. Even if he met my call with hostility, it didn’t matter.