Mischling (14 page)

With the point of my bread knife, I dug a little well in my wrist. The well offered me two drops of blood. I only needed one, but I didn't reject the other. Even drops of blood, I knew, liked to travel in pairs. With this redness, I affixed a false health to the apples of her cheeks.

I told Pearl that she had to look her best that evening, that there would be many people in show business at the concert who could discover her and set her free and put her in the American movies. Though I had no desire to live in America myself, I would be sure to follow her there, for the sake of her sunny career, and we'd all live together, Pearl and Mama and Zayde and me, in some place with a hummingbird in it, and a garden, a dog, weather that didn't want to do us any harm. It could be a fine life. Zayde would have the Pacific to swim in, and Mama would have more than just poppies to paint. A new set of seas and flora and exotics, that is what they needed.

But before I had a chance to tell Pearl any of this, Ox arrived at the door. In a strict line, we marched through our early snow toward an unfamiliar season, one that promised music meant for the living.

Inside, we arranged ourselves against the brick of the rear wall and watched the members of the orchestra tinker and ready themselves, saw them empty valves and adjust their reeds. They were a group of women with close-cropped hair, each aged beyond age, and their premature antiquity was emphasized by the girlishness of their clothes—uniforms of knife-pleated blue skirts, blouses brimming with scalloped collars. Their throats were sinewy, and every arm that held an instrument was elongated, as if their bodies had decided to compensate in length for what they lacked in volume. While the musicians' hands moved as if all were well with the world, their faces did not forget where they were, and they didn't let you forget either. Downcast of eye and drawn of lip, these performers were the grimmest figures in the room. Sadder than the Lilliputs, who were mourning the recent loss of their patriarch in their finest clothes. More melancholy than the women of the Puff, faded women in pastel dresses, their heads stooped like too-heavy blooms atop tired stalks, all of them milling about the tables set up for the enjoyment of the SS, tables piled high with cheese and sardines and pastries and meats. Even the aggrieved expression of the smoked pig, his scream plugged in his mouth by a lacquer-red apple, was outdone by the frantic sadness of the musicians.

The women had been playing since the early morning. Even though the transports had ceased, they had orders to play while the prisoners worked, accompanying their struggle with bright music that gave the impression of a hardy and cheerful place none of us were familiar with. It wasn't music that promised the gas or the grave; it didn't mention the forgetful-bread, the numbers, or the bones. I don't know what it was supposed to promise us.

I would've asked the Dutch pianist, Anika, her opinion on this matter if I'd had a chance. She had one of those all-knowing faces, eyes that moved in recognition of the unbearable. Many around me were in possession of such eyes, but Anika's burned a bit brighter at the time, their luminescence a remnant of what she'd attempted at the border of the electric fence days before.

The others had held her back. They said it didn't matter whether her little boy was alive anymore or not; she had to endure for him still so that she could tell someone someday what they had done to him. Why can't I tell the devil? she'd asked. It seemed a good question to me, but then again, I figured if there really was a devil, he already knew. And while I had no fear of the inventions Catholics like Anika believed in, I admired her willingness to face such a monster in demand of answers, simply because her pain was so great that it recognized only suicide as her friend.

And you'd think—given what the authorities said my father did—that I would have understood suicide long ago, that I would have known its color, its cry, its scent. And it's true that I'd been born with thoughts of it within me; it was my only difference from Pearl, and my greatest instinct until Uncle thwarted the very possibility of it. But it wasn't until I saw Anika's eyes that I truly knew the suffocation of this notion's friendship, the way it crept and curled within you, the way it said,
Look, here is another way, let me save you.

Years later, the world would learn how common suicide was among these musicians. So few resisted it after they were freed. But I swear, that very day, I had some suspicion of it, the impulse that might follow them. I heard it in every note that the musicians played. The flutist squeaked, the oboist lowed, the drummer snared, and in these sounds there was written something else, a hidden meaning, a doubled message about beauty and its opposite.

Beside me at the wall, Pearl and Peter were ear-deep in whispers. They stood arm to arm, leg to leg; they managed a discreet clasp of hands. Pearl was wearing the sweater Bruna stole for us, and the strawberries on her dress had faded to dull orbs, like planets too pale to sustain life. Peter had slicked his hair back in an attempt to look like a gentleman. I'd heard he performed a thousand push-ups every day but saw no evidence of this. He appeared weak to me, just another moony boy, and I couldn't help but worry for him. Peter was attached to Pearl, and no good could come of that, because while he was a messenger boy, she was going places as soon as the war ended, and possibly even before that. Perhaps this very evening, I thought, someone would discover her and whisk her away to the new life she deserved, a life as a star or, at the very least, a life as someone who had a future.

Catching sight of my stare—I suppose it was unfriendlier than I realized—Peter dropped her hand and smiled at me in an attempt at a familial feeling.

“The orchestra's improved since they arrested more Poles,” he said, too loudly, in my direction. And when I didn't grasp this offered thread of conversation, he flushed a little and mumbled something about having to excuse himself. Pearl tried to persuade him to linger but—

“There will be other shows,” he said.

If I had known what was to happen, I would have begged him to stay. Years later, I would wonder if he might have changed what I could not, if he could have spared my sister even a portion of her pain.

But I was a stupid and possessive person, too attached to know real love, and so I didn't stop him when he picked his way through the childish crowd or the members of the orchestra or the throng of guards with the women of the Puff splayed over their knees.

“Where do you think you're going?” Taube leered at Peter as he passed the revels of this crew. “The Puff is empty tonight!”

He punctuated this statement by hurling a bottle at Peter's retreating back. We heard the bottle shatter at the threshold, and then we saw Uncle walk in, resplendent in a white suit, a silken Nurse Elma at his side, her neck beflocked with a string of minks, each of which surveyed the celebration warily, their beady eyes of jet telegraphing doom to whomever they glinted upon by chance.

“Quite a party,” Uncle observed. He glared at the guards—their vulgarity in the presence of children annoyed him, but he appeared determined not to diminish his festive mood. He reached up to the toddler perched on his shoulders and tweaked his nose with affection.

It was an Italian boy, a non-twin whose handsomeness had endeared him to Mengele. He was three years of age, and others joked that he could have been the doctor's own son. In fact, this boy's resemblance to him trumped Rolf Mengele's likeness to his father. As I watched him bounce about on Uncle's shoulders and attempt to say the doctor's name, I couldn't help but wonder how many others might be seen as potential protégés. I hoped that they would not come between the doctor and me; it would not do to have my mission unraveled by a toddler. I vowed to apply myself to my work with renewed vigor.

I was interrupted in these vows by a sudden scuffle in the corner, a startled cry. Anika was pointing to the piano, a black expanse that stood like a beetle with one cocked wing. Taube strode over, his boots slapping against the floor, and she informed him of her instrument's deformity. Taube stared at her curiously and then bent stiffly over the piano to inspect the absence in the keys.

Pearl blushed—her cheeks carried the pinkest bloom of guilt I'd ever seen. I realized that this was the piano she'd mistaken for our own—this was an error so severe that I had to wonder after her mind-set. Ours had a charcoal finish and cat scratches on every leg. It had not been this pristine luxury. I said nothing of this, though. Already, she felt bad enough about what she'd done. She buried her face in my shoulder so that her guilt over this piano's pillage could remain undetected.

“You're responsible for this instrument,” Taube was shouting at Anika. “And you will play it in this state. You will play it so that no one notices what is missing. Do you understand?”

Anika nodded and collapsed onto her bench. Her fingers hovered over the keys, hesitant. Then she began, her fingers finagling some solution to the absence. The orchestra played foxtrots, marching songs, songs sanctioned by the authorities. Looking down the row of girls, I saw Bruna tap her feet, saw the Lilliputs sway in time, saw Twins' Father lift up a crippled girl so that she might have a better view than any of us.

We were all moving toward forgetting, it seemed; we didn't know how hungry we were, how mangled and displaced. Our impurities meant nothing, our bodies were not unlike the other worthy bodies in the world, and not a death wish could be rooted out among us. The one person who avoided this rapture was Uncle.

He was bouncing the boy on his knee, but it was more a gesture of restless irritation than anything. I watched the boy's eyes roll in his head as he was jostled. A fear of Uncle had entered them, perhaps for the first time.

“Come now,” he said. “Play my favorite.”

The conductor's face was blank except for the false flush on her cheeks.

“Don't tell me you don't know my favorite?” Uncle demanded.

“Chopin's funeral march?” the conductor quavered. She pulled nervously at her skirt.

“A funeral march!” He boomed with laughter. “Is that what you think of me? That I'm a funereal sort?”

The conductor tried to stammer out an explanation but was able to produce only a squeak.

“I'm only joking, Marcelle.” Uncle laughed. “Come make me happy.”

The conductor stood stock-still, her mouth agape. The violinist had to poke Marcelle in the side with her bow to bring the conductor back to life.

“He means the song,” the violinist hissed.

“Oh, of course,” the rattled conductor said, and then the orchestra eased into “Come Make Me Happy.” The flaws were frequent, because Anika was unable to make her instrument obey, despite her skill. The piano tripped and stumbled. I felt sorry for the piano. I wanted it to know that I understood its bereavement, that I feared nothing more than having an essential piece torn from me too.

Lacking his usual eye for precision, Uncle seemed unaware of these flaws and was merely roused by the song. Maybe it was because he was seeping with vodka. Maybe it was just his good mood. In any case, he deposited the boy on the floor and grabbed Nurse Elma for a dance. Everyone looked on with embarrassment and fear, as neither was a good dancer—Uncle was positively clumsy, and Nurse Elma kept trying to lead—and the couple's gracelessness was highlighted by the flawed music. Here was the perfect pair, the photogenic two, stellar genetic specimens, and they couldn't keep time. The oboist stifled a laugh into her instrument, which bleated piteously from this input. This sound startled Uncle and he dipped Nurse Elma precariously and then dropped her on her bottom. He tried to play this off as a joke, but no one could overlook his innate lack of coordination.

To distract from this failure, he strode before us and directed us to sing along, an impromptu maestro with an unskilled choir of ragged children. I'm not sure how many of us even knew the words to “Come Make Me Happy.” I'm sure that many, like myself, invented words as they went.

But as we sang, we forgot our hunger and our filth, we forgot that we were splittable, faded, dim. For a moment, I even forgot that I was
mischling
. At the end, we hit the high note with the force of those who are usually powerless to strike, and I knew we were enabled because of the strength of our numbers, all the old and the new, and the force of our many pasts, small as they were; they conspired to make us sound beautiful. Even Uncle—I could tell he thought it so. And was it possible? Did the loveliness of our song make him reconsider the fates he'd planned? I swore I saw a bit of uncertainty cross his face as he swung an unseen baton at our chorus.

Work would never set us free, despite what they'd promised. But beauty? Yes, I thought, beauty might see us past the gates.

And then the song stopped abruptly when Anika's hands stumbled and the music soured. Boos rose and Taube, his face more massive and red than usual, threw his bottle at the beleaguered musician. It crescendoed at her feet.

Anika rose from her bench, glass crunching beneath her thin shoes, one with a high heel, the other cripplingly flat, in the mismatched manner of the footwear most women were issued. But even with this forced imbalance, she was able to stand upright, to put her hands in the air as if newly arrested. Her lips parted as if she wished to speak, but her tongue kept rolling out and saying nothing. She looked like an old doll I'd once left out in the rain, a toy stripped of its life through use and circumstance.

Taube directed Anika to lay her hands out on the wing of the piano. They quivered like two baby mice on the black lacquer while he took his time removing his belt, and the leather hissed like a snake in the grass as it whipped round his waist and entered his grip.

All was too quiet. I saw the belt. I saw her hands. I had never seen a room in such silence.