Shadows of Berlin полностью

If one were to travel back in time, one needed simply to eavesdrop on any whispered conversation of contraband Jews huddled in a Berlin café to hear the woman’s name spoken in hushed tones. Pry into the nightmares of those huddled Jews, and one will see the woman’s face. She is well known to the U-­boats. Angelika Rosen. The ginger-­haired beauty in the service of the Gestapo, the huntress of jüdischen Illegalen. Rashka’s mother’s la muse du rouge now notorious under a different name. She is the Red Angel in the service of malakh ha-­mavet, the angel of death.

At home in the bedroom, Rachel sits propped up on a pillow, shoes off. Of course, she has never spoken a word aloud about the angel, not to her husband, not to her shrink.

Eema, on the other hand, simply can’t shut up about her.

You were nothing to her, tsigele, her eema scoffs. She wanted a mirror held up to herself, and you served that purpose. You were nothing more to her than a moment’s vanity.

Is this truth or jealousy?

The German language loves abbreviations, so the unwieldy designation of Konzentrationslager was reduced to “KL” or “KZ” or simply to “ein Lager.” There were two major Auschwitz camps in the marshlands of German-­occupied Poland: KL Auschwitz I and KL Auschwitz II. KL Auschwitz I had been an abandoned Polish cavalry barracks when the SS arrived to rebuild it for forced labor and mass murder. This is where Feter Fritz received the number tattooed on his arm, passing under the infamous gate that promised, “Arbeit Macht Frei.” Work Makes Freedom. But really it remained a small-­scale operation compared to its sprawling brother camp a kilometer and a half down the road. That was Auschwitz II, also known as Birkenau. Birkenau was vast, with acres and acres of stone and wooden barracks housing the misery of its inhabitants as the chimneys of five Krematorien stood smoking sacred human soot into the sky. It was a camp for slave labor, yes, but mostly it was devoted to the murder process on an industrial scale. This is where Eema had been sent, and this is where her ashes lie still, at the bottom of a pit.

That night, Rachel sits on the couch with a cigarette smoldering, alone but for Kibbitz, purring like a motor as she absently strokes his furry stripes. But when she feels a chill, she is not surprised that the cat’s head darts up, and he leaps from nesting on her lap. Her eema has occupied the opposite side of the sofa, her head shaved to the skull, as it would have been on her arrival at Lager Birkenau, her eyes deeply set, and her emaciated body hung with her filthy camp rags. Rachel had seen the newsreels of Auschwitz-­Birkenau at the D.P. camp when her name was still Rashka. British Pathé had screened the Red Army’s footage. The pits crammed with decaying bodies. The piles of shorn hair. The tangled heaps of eyeglasses and gaping dentures. The mountains of discarded clothing, sleeves and skirts flapping disembodied in the breeze like a pile of ghosts. She had forced herself to watch every second of them. Kept her eyes pried open, an unblinking witness.

Do you remember, tsigele, when I taught you how to properly clean your brushes?

Rachel says nothing, but her mother does not seem to notice. She is smiling at her memory with rotting teeth. How I taught you to use the wire brush to comb the paint from the bristles? How to soak them in the mineral spirits before blotting them? And then to squeeze the spirits from the brushes with your finger? The decaying smile remains. How you made such a mess, poor thing. Do you remember?

Rachel’s eyes brim. “Yes, Eema. I remember.”

And then her mother’s eyes grow raw. The skin of her face is drawn so tautly, she cannot produce tears. But a desolate longing burns her gaze. Don’t let me be forgotten, Rashka. Her voice is a command, a dreadful plea. It’s a daughter’s duty to keep her mother’s memory alive. Don’t let me be forgotten.

The next morning delivers a white sky as a portent of the coming winter. Rachel is making coffee, scooping spoonfuls of instant into the percolator. The floor is cold as she pads across it in her socks to find her husband dressed for work. The drain in the kitchen sink is now so slow that water stands in the sink. “You should call the super,” Aaron tells her, filling a glass with tap water and then drinking it without a breath.

“The super,” Rachel repeats darkly.