A few minutes later I realized that I had read the same page over and over and could not recall a word of it. My mind kept returning to Henrietta Ackerland and the hopeless case I had agreed to take on. I flipped open my notebook, read through my notes—it took but a minute—and gazed once more at the picture Henrietta had left behind.
Maybe she would. She looked frail, but looks could be deceiving. In Auschwitz I had seen men continue to live for months even as their muscles dwindled, their cheeks hollowed out, and their limbs thinned to sticks. And had I not survived when everything had been taken from me?
It was no use. The memory flooded my mind without warning. I shut my eyes against its assault, but it had already commandeered my consciousness. It was the first day, that miserable cold day, after we had spilled out of the stinking, cramped cattle cars into that hell on earth called Auschwitz, after the men had been separated from the women and children, after the initial selection that determined who would live to see that day's end and who would be gassed and turned to ashes before sundown.
With the other men who were to live, I had staggered along toward the barracks, the guards shouting obscenities at us, the whimpering of once proud men like the cries of birds with broken wings around me, the air smoky with an unknown and unimaginable stench. Suddenly a pain, sharp and rending, deep in my stomach and chest, unlike any pain I had ever suffered before or since. My chest constricted and my vision darkened. I stumbled forward and would have landed on my face had the back of the man marching in front of me not been in the way. A pair of strong hands straightened me up, and a voice whispered in Hungarian, "Keep walking. Don't give the bastards an excuse to beat you."
Putting one heavy foot ahead of the other, I shambled forward, pushed ahead by the men behind me. Tears were streaming down my cheeks, and my ears were pierced by an unrelenting internal shriek. For in that moment I knew, with a certainty that snuffed out all hope of denial, that my two daughters had just died.
So when Henrietta had told me her son was alive, that she would have felt it had he died, I could not dismiss her words out of hand. Against my better judgment, against all logic, I allowed a tiny part of myself to be convinced that this case had merit, that I had to pursue it.
I opened my eyes. They were dry. Like Henrietta Ackerland, I was all cried out. With a sour taste in my mouth, I rose from my bed, went into the kitchen, and guzzled water from the tap. My heart, which had been beating erratically, calmed to a steady rhythm. Returning to the bedroom, I gave the paperback another longing look. But it was pointless. It would not take my mind off the bad memories.
But something else could. At least for a short while.
I went about the room, drawing all the shutters closed. The only light came from the bare bulb that hung at the center of the ceiling. Shadows pooled at the corners, but they did not disturb me. The closet was lighted fine. I knelt before it.
The closet had two sections. On the right were shelves, where I stored my few shirts, pants, socks, and underwear. On the left was a bar with three hangers dangling from it, two of which were taken by jackets, the third by nothing at all. At the bottom of the left section I had stacked a few sheets, pillowcases, and a winter blanket. These I removed, setting them on the floor. Then I lifted the false bottom I had installed at the foot of the closet and set it aside. Beneath it I had hidden a wooden box, a foot long and half that across, with a tarnished metal clasp. I took out this box and placed it beside me on the bed. I undid the clasp, lifted the lid, and gazed at what lay within.
Immediately, I felt myself grow calmer. A feeling not unlike satisfaction filled my chest. A grim satisfaction it was, but I could not recall the last time I had experienced any other kind.
For in the box, neatly arranged, were my souvenirs from Germany, mementos of the months I had spent in that wretched country in 1946 and 1947 after I had recovered from my time at Auschwitz and Buchenwald and until I arrived in Israel in September 1947. A good time it was, a healing time. A time I wished could have lasted longer than it did.
