While We're Far Apart (42 page)

When we got outside we heard screaming and gunshots and weeping as the Nazis went from house to house, searching. They shot anyone who tried to hide. All of the elderly people and those who were too sick to get out of bed were killed on the spot.

We stood huddled in the courtyard while all of this went on, shivering with fear. As the sky slowly grew light, I could hardly bear to look into our neighbors’ faces. We all knew what was coming next. We have all heard enough stories by now to suspect that the rumors are true.

When everyone in the ghetto had been evacuated or killed, the Nazis marched us through the streets as fast as we could go, shouting at us to hurry, hurry! They didn’t take us to Budapest’s train station, but to the freight yard on the edge of town. There we saw a long line of empty boxcars standing with their doors open. The soldiers pointed guns at us and herded us inside the freight cars like animals.

All I could think of was that I should have done what Avi said. I should have saved Fredeleh a long time ago while I still had the chance. I couldn’t stop weeping, from regret as much as from fear, as I prayed to Hashem and pleaded with Him for help.

Hundreds of us were stuffed into a single train car – the few men who were left and all the women together with no privacy. There was not even enough room for everyone to sit down. We were given one bucket with drinking water and another empty bucket for necessity. When there were so many of us jammed inside that we could barely breathe, they rolled the door closed and locked it. All around me, people were weeping, cursing, praying. Some lost their minds with fear. I huddled close to Mama, clutching Fredeleh in my arms, praying for a miracle – and for forgiveness. How could Avraham ever forgive me for not taking Fredeleh to safety at the Christian orphanage?

Mama did her best to soothe me, trying to keep me calm for Fredeleh’s sake. “I love you, Sarah Rivkah,” she said as she held me close. “You have been a wonderful daughter to me. I want you to know, no matter what happens, how much I love you and Fredeleh.”

“Please don’t talk like that, Mama. We’ll be okay. They’re just taking us to a work camp.”

“I know. I know.”

But we both knew the truth.

The train stood on the side rail with the doors sealed shut for a very long time. The summer sun grew hot, the boxcar stifling. The train still had not begun to move when we heard a commotion outside. The people who were close to the door and were able to see between the wooden slats told us that a big black car had pulled up outside. It was the kind that important officials drove and had blue and yellow flags flying from it. Swedish flags, someone said.

While the German authorities spoke to the man in the car, a group of men began moving along the tracks behind the line of railcars, stuffing papers between the wooden slats to those of us inside. My mother managed to grab one of them. We stared at it, not sure what it was, before deciding that it was some sort of identification paper. It bore the blue and yellow colors of the Swedish flag, and an insignia with three crowns on it, along with a lot of important-looking stamps and seals.

“The German soldiers are coming back to the railcars,” those nearest the door informed us. We could hear the doors to the other boxcars up the line from ours sliding open. A few minutes later, our door rolled open, too. Fresh air and blinding sunlight poured inside.

One of the soldiers called out to us: “If there are any Swedish nationals on board, come out and show your papers.” People began pushing toward the open door, jumping down from the cars, waving the papers that had just been passed to us. But we had only one paper for the three of us. Mama pushed it into my hands.

“Take it, Sarah Rivkah. You and Fredeleh, go! Hurry!”

“No. I won’t leave you, Mama.”

“You need to save yourself and Fredeleh. Go!” I clung to my mother, unwilling to leave her behind, but Mama shoved me as hard as she could toward the door. Fredeleh clung to me, screaming in all the confusion.

I wanted to save my daughter. I would do anything for her. And I knew that Mama wanted the same thing for me. But how could I leave my mother behind in a car meant for animals – to go who knows where?

I felt hands pushing me. I looked over my shoulder, but Mama wasn’t there. She had disappeared in the overcrowded car, shrinking back among the others so I could no longer see her. I knew she wanted to make it easier for me, and also that she didn’t want to watch Fredeleh and me leave. The other people in the car continued to push me forward, saying, “Hurry, girl! Go! You have a paper.”

Just as I was about to step off the train with Fredeleh, a young mother pushed her way to the open door and shoved her baby toward me. Terror filled her eyes. “Take him, please,” she begged. “Have mercy and take my child so he will live!” I saw her desperation and her love. “His name is Yankel Weisner. He is four months old. I am Dina Weisner, his mother.”

The baby and his mother were both crying. I was, too. I shifted Fredeleh to my hip and propped the baby against my shoulder. His mother gave him one last kiss.

My legs felt so weak I could barely walk as I stepped off the train. I went forward, clutching the two children, and showed the German soldier my paper. My heart pounded with fear. Would he believe me?

He looked over the document for a very long time, glancing up at the two children and me. At last he handed it back to me. “You may go.”

We were free. Fredeleh and I and baby Yankel were all free.

I set Fredeleh down and we hurried toward the black car with the Swedish flags on it. A group of people from the trains had gathered around it, and they beckoned to the others and me, calling us to come, to follow them. When everyone who had Swedish papers had gotten off the trains, the soldiers turned back to the boxcars, walking down the line, closing the doors again and sealing them shut. The sound of those doors slamming and locking shivered through me. I couldn’t watch.

I turned and followed the black car as it drove slowly away from the freight yard, clutching Fredeleh’s hand in mine, holding the baby tightly against my chest. Some of the Swedish men walked with us, leading the way back into Budapest. No one spoke a word. I felt as though I were sleepwalking.

When we had walked about a quarter of a mile, the shriek of a train whistle sounded in the distance behind us. Then iron wheels began rumbling along the tracks as the long line of freight cars moved away from us, leaving Budapest. The whistle shrieked again. I will hear the sound of that train for as long as I live.

C
HAPTER 37

A
WEEK HAD PASSED
since Mrs. Fischer came to Jacob’s apartment to meet her grandchildren, and he had not heard a single word from her. He paced the floor in his living room, glancing at the telephone from time to time, debating whether or not to call Mr. and Mrs. Fischer and tell them that he did not understand such hardheartedness. But that wasn’t entirely true. He did understand it. He used to be every bit as inflexible as they were.

He stopped pacing and turned away from the telephone. He needed to stop thinking about the Fischers and find something to do. He headed toward the kitchen to fix something to eat when he heard footsteps thumping across the porch, then a key in the lock. Penny and the children must be home. They hadn’t come home at all yesterday – on a weeknight, no less – and he had been concerned about them. He met them at his front door and saw three very sad faces.

“Something terrible has happened!” Esther said. “Grandma Shaffer’s dog ran away yesterday. We looked and looked for her, but we can’t find her!”

“I am so sorry to hear that.” These children already had suffered so much loss – why another one? Esther had told Jacob how much Peter loved that dog, how he wished that the dog was his.

“Is it okay to pray for a dog, Mr. Mendel? Grandma misses Woofer so much, and she was already sad because Uncle Joe died.”

Jacob paused, searching for the right words to say. “I think you know by now that prayer is not a magic spell that we say so Hashem will give us what we wish for. But you can pray that Hashem will comfort your grandmother when she grieves. And we can – ” Jacob stopped. He felt like a hypocrite. How had Hashem comforted him when he had grieved all these months for Miriam and Avraham? Then he saw Peter and Esther standing in front of him, looking to him for help, and he knew that Hashem had sent these children into his life. Their love had indeed comforted him. He could do the same for them.

Jacob opened his arms to them and drew them close. “We must trust Hashem,” he murmured, “even when we cannot see Him working.” He spoke the words to himself as much as to the children. He remembered the words he recited every year on
Tisha B’Av
when his people mourned the destruction of their temple, and now he offered them as comfort: “ ‘Though He brings grief, He will show compassion, so great is His unfailing love. For He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.’ ” And as he held the children in his arms, Jacob felt Hashem’s comfort, as well.

Shortly after the children went upstairs to eat their dinner, the telephone rang. He recognized Mrs. Fischer’s voice and his pulse sped up.

“I have a proposal for you, Mr. Mendel. Well, it’s really a proposal for the children. I would like to arrange for Esther to study at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music this summer. Could you help me do that? Do you think she would like to study there?”

He couldn’t speak for a moment. “Yes! Yes, I’m sure it would be possible. I would first need to speak with the young woman who takes care of the children, and I would need to ask Esther, of course.”

“This must all be done anonymously, Mr. Mendel. She cannot know that the scholarship is coming from me, or that I am her grandmother.”

He opened his mouth to chide Mrs. Fischer for not stepping forward and becoming part of the children’s lives, but then changed his mind. “Tell me more about this school.”

“The conservatory has been around since the 1890s, and it’s in a lovely old mansion in Park Slope. They teach students of all ages. I have friends on the board of directors there. Esther can take private piano lessons, music history, theory classes – anything she would like. And she may continue her lessons in the fall, if she wishes. Just bring her over to the conservatory’s admissions office, and she can sign up for whatever she wants to. I’ll make arrangements to pay all of her expenses.”

“That is very generous of you, Mrs. Fischer. I am sure she will be delighted.” What a relief to know that Esther would have something to keep her occupied this summer besides the unsavory neighbor boy and her obsession with the news reports.

“I would like to do something for Peter, as well,” Mrs. Fischer continued. “It could be music lessons if you think he would enjoy them, or whatever else you suggest.”

“Peter has been taking piano lessons, but he does not have the same interest or ability that his sister has. What he does love is baseball. I have been wondering myself if there might be a team for him to join, but under the circumstances . . . the fact that he does not talk . . . I have not been able to come up with a solution. He never plays outside with the other boys because they make fun of him.”