The Upright Heart (16 page)

It is incredible to think that even after you have died you can still have the capacity to dream, but you can. It feels so different, like there is no separation between one moment and the next. You can choose to call one experience a dream, while the other, you don’t. In the dream where the man sets me free, I return to the school completely changed. It is easy for me to reenter the building, and for a moment I wonder why I am doing so. Why don’t I lay my sandy sheath down on the ground, or on top of a factory roof, stand naked beneath the moon, and let my blanket of sand give rise to a desert landscape? I could wander aimlessly for one thousand years, but it would make no difference. There isn’t one Sarah that doesn’t know the secrets of my heart.

In my dream I feel so free wandering the dark city at night. Naked and invisible beneath my shimmering shawl, I come to a group of men on the outskirts of the city. They are standing around a large metal garbage can where a fire is burning, drinking from amber bottles, talking excitedly. They have shaved heads and are wearing sport clothes. Some of them have black drawings painted onto their skin, just like the tribe leaders in Papua New Guinea. I notice their empty eyes, their wild smiles, and their brisk movements, and for some reason I remember the German soldiers who locked us up in the school and burnt us alive. I recall the sound of their voices and the sour smell of their breath that traveled with the shouts that sent our souls running. And oh how it felt when there was nowhere to go.

I watch them without being seen, but when I move closer, my shawl slips, and so does my invisibility. They spot me bending over to pick it up.

A warm breeze picks up fragments of dust in the night air, which sparkle as they pass over the fire. The man with the most drawings on his body, the one who seems to be the leader of the group, stands up and points at me, and the others nod in agreement. My heart races wildly as they kneel down in a circle, and the man gestures for me to come. I have no choice but to go. I pick up my desert blanket and walk over to them. They lay me down beside the fire and take turns marking my body with black ink and a pen that sizzles. I don’t resist them. I give in to the initiation. They draw lines across my wrists and make a big double loop that twists around my belly button. They write Hebrew letters in a constellation pattern on my back. How do you know them? I ask, but they just point up. Then they write the words,
oved kochavim
, the servant of the stars. Even though I don’t see the words, I know they are there. Now I understand that this phrase can have new meaning. These are letters I know by feeling. Together, they can recreate the world.

Each man writes something different. When they finish and change turns, the one who is done kisses me on the forehead, and allows the next man to come in. I have never made love. I never in my life had even the chance to kiss someone before I died. The way these men take care of my body, the way they mark it and release it, somehow makes me feel that they are helping to set my soul free, which is how I always imagined it would feel to make love.

When they are finished, they wrap my body back in the blanket of sand. They show me the way. I say goodbye to all of them, one by one, and with each farewell, I kiss them on the lips. I see how our tender exchange has changed them. Their gaze is no longer filled with hatred and emptiness. They tell me I have saved their lives.

I pass invisibly back through the streets of the town that I have known and loved. Now it is no longer a burnt-out wasteland. Everything has reversed to a time when the city was still happy and
alive. I pass by families coming out of the theater, see businessmen laughing in local cafés. I even see my dear friend Anna walking down the street. She looks older and tired. She walks beside a very thin man with a mustache. They speak together in a quiet, serious manner. I call out to her, but there is no need. She doesn’t hear me at all.

I pass by the storefront of what was once the best clothing store in town. All of the lights are turned off, and in the big glass window there is only the faint trace of a mannequin dressed for her wedding day, her young groom standing beside her in a gray suit. There are young fashionable mannequins, all standing at attention, looking out at the world, waiting to be chosen. I don’t know how it happens, but I catch my reflection in the glass window. My body looks the same as it always has, artful, even, with all of the paintings that it carries. My hair, which was always black, is now long and silver, as if it has captured the light of all the stars.

When I arrive at the school gates, I pause before I reenter. The same man is still standing there, the one who let me out, ready to let me back in. It is as if he has been waiting for me there all along. He doesn’t smile or wink this time, only solemnly opens the metal bars, which he closes as I enter, my shimmering sheath catching onto the latch of the gate, remaining there. I walk inside. I am in my school uniform again. As I climb the winding staircase toward little Sarah, who sits solemnly with her head in her hands, I wonder, how can it be that everything is different but nothing has changed? When little Sarah sees me, she smiles and touches my long gray hair.

It is easy to wait when you know that somebody you love is coming. I had thought we were close enough that not even death could sever our communication, but I must have been wrong. Wolf, I
have called for you not once, but over and over. From the eastern border of Poland to the western tip, I have asked for you to hear me, begged for you to come. Waiting for you is worse than waiting for the messiah. At least he offers prayers for his people to speak.

Have you become my God? I thought better of myself.

Today I wandered the bridges that cross the Wisła River and even penetrated its depths, just to see what was there waiting. There I saw a girl, a beautiful Jewish girl. Her hair was long and intertwined with the reeds that extend for miles beyond her figure, fish feeding on plankton that grew at its tips. She wore no clothes, but showed me how she loves to dance, to lay her tawniness beneath the surface of the water so that it catches the sun at just the right moments. I asked her name.

“Uh oh,” she mouthed, and swam away. A few minutes later she came back with a long stick, and in the sand she wrote out her name. Maryna. I smiled and told her it was a beautiful name. She showed me a small cache of things she kept to help entertain herself. There were old trinkets, like children’s toys and colorful foil wrappers from candies discarded before the war. Memorabilia from happier times. There was even an SS hat, which alarmed me, especially when she tried it on and marched around as if she herself were a German soldier. I could not hide my disgust.

“What do you mean? How can you play that game?” I shouted in disbelief.

“Nobody can take away my fun,” she told me, without even making a sound.

These stones are perfect for paving roads. After all, you can’t find any new material nowadays. Everybody agrees: you’ve got to be resourceful. Just because the war is over doesn’t mean we have much.

So how to do it? You bring a rope, a wheelbarrow or something solid on wheels, and a knife or two just in case somebody decides to mess with you. Often the Germans already damaged the stones, or else we were forced to do so ourselves, so why not tow them off? Half the work has already been done. Nobody is coming back to visit them, especially not in eastern Poland, where so many mass murders took place.

Ah, but there are so many uses for these stones. They may be only made of granite, but sometimes you can still find a grave made of marble. You might even be able to remove the inscription and sell it off as a gravestone for a Pole. If not, you can always use the stones to build a new road. All you have to do is turn it over to hide the inscription, and nobody will ever know the difference. Look how easily you can make history disappear. We have a black market going among those of us who work in the cemeteries. Nobody is looking. Nobody can afford to waste anything useful nowadays. Nobody cares. Nobody will stop you. So maybe you do it at night, just so you don’t show off. After all, somebody might get mad at you for disturbing the dead or for some other nonsense like that. Who knows? They might even get jealous about your taking some of the town’s most valuable supplies without asking. But tell me, please, exactly whom would you like me to ask?

Saturday evening as the sun goes down, Wolf puts on his jacket and removes the dressing from his forehead. He says a prayer. (How strange to do with no kippah, no tefillin, no tzitzit. Will HaShem ever forgive him?) He then takes his bag, the dog, and the boy and checks out of his hotel. There is a train leaving early the next morning that is headed west toward the countries that will lead him to the port, from where a boat will take him home.

And how does he define home now? A bed to rest his head where he knows that he is not taking anybody else’s place? Familiar smells and sounds? A place that is filled with people he knows and loves? You can change a person’s language. You can take from him everything material, and yet you must leave him something to love. And if there is no person left for him to love, then give him an idea that will keep his heart beating for just a few moments more.

And what about the boy? What will Wolf do with this miraculous boy? Who will care about him if he leaves him in Kraków alone? This is something he hasn’t decided yet. He could leave him money, his address in America, what more? The boy does not have any papers. Perhaps he could take him home with him. What would Chaja say? Surely she would understand. And how would the whole family adapt? How would the boy respond to living in a home with rules after being on his own for so long? There are so many questions and yet there is no time to answer them, and so together they go.

Nights in Kraków are rarely like this. The cloud cover has retreated and the moon is so full that it is swelling with the luminosity of its own beauty. A rare occasion here. The occasional cloud does manage to pass over, and when it does, it creates a refraction of light, like a dim rainbow of the soul that curves around the circumference of the body of the moon, as if to say, now, this is love.

How lonely the moon must be
, the boy thinks to himself, as he walks ahead of the group. He is so caught up in his imaginings that he does not notice the woman following them. Anna has just finished her shift selling
paczki
—doughnuts—at a little bakery on Ulica Krakówska, her Saturday job. She had thought about attending mass, but when she recognized the boy, the one whom she had recently seen in the center of town, she felt compelled to follow him. She has been haunted by his face and wants to know
more about him, and also about the foreigner and the odd, thin man who walks beside them yet manages to look completely apart. Maybe it is the madness of experiencing so much loss in such a short period of time, but lately she believes in signs. Anna often thinks back to what happened in recent years and wonders why she couldn’t have seen what was coming. How is it that she couldn’t have known what was to be? She ignores the voice in her head that warns her not to go with them, and follows them down the street. Something inside tells her that she must.

Yes, the moon must live a lonely life
, the boy repeats to himself, catching the glimpse of an ornate relief windowsill depicting an angel and a woman locked in an embrace. In the apartment beyond, an elderly couple count their money, discussing what food they will buy for the following week, and whether or not they can afford to eat meat.
At least the sun has its own phenomenal heat to keep the moon company
, the boy continues, passing by an empty building that was bustling with family life just a few years ago. A cold wind passes through the dark, empty doorway. The sun’s rays touch down to earth, to the plants, to the water, to the skin of its people, transforming everything it dares to impact and even that which it doesn’t. It affects people’s lives. It is nature. It helps new life to grow. There is an exchange of energy to keep it going, but with the moon things are so different. People look at the moon, and feeling just how far away it really is, they suddenly feel very alone. They can sense its light and its glow but they can rarely feel it on their skin, even though they long to know its touch. They cannot get close to it, no matter how hard they try, and sometimes that is a painful feeling, wanting to be near something that is so far away. They watch the moon shrink and they watch it grow, but they will never know what it feels like to lay in its arms.

The moon is as powerful as the sun, but it works its magic in secret ways. Maybe that is why people say that the moon is
feminine, because women are more mysterious than men. The moon has a magnetism that moves the waters in and out and up and down, and can do so inside a woman’s body, or at least that is what I have heard, but I cannot always rely upon other people’s stories to know the truth. Maybe I don’t care anymore about what the truth has to tell me, anyway. Maybe that is why I love the pill so much, because it helps me to see the world how I want to see it, and if I want everything to be happy, then it is. Look how my optimism has brought me good fortune. Now I have Wolf in my life, and even a little animal to love and hold. I admit I am afraid of losing them. Wolf is leaving on the early morning train, and I wonder what will happen to me then? Will he take me with him? I want to ask him, but I can’t. I am too afraid of what he will say. He has already given me everything. But oh how I long to stay with him. Even the pill will not heal this wound in my heart after he leaves.

Will it be too sad for Wolf to go into Kazimierz tonight? This I wonder, as we walk there in single file. I am used to the death and the graveyards, but for him it is all still new. This place isn’t sad because it is a cemetery, no, of course not. It is always comforting to sit in the resting place of the dead. What is sad is the absence of names, of coffins that should be here, the secret presence of people who want to be buried, the ones who sleep in the rafters of the old factories, who swim the depths of the Wisła, who climb the roof of Wawel Castle trying to get closer to home. They are all stuck between worlds, just like the woman I saw wandering the tombs the other day, and just like Wiktor, our solemn guide, who means to protect and help Wolf, though I am not sure just how he can.