Under a Red Sky (17 page)

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Authors: Haya Leah Molnar

BOOK: Under a Red Sky
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GRANDMA IULIA AND GRANDPA YOSEF
are in their bedroom. The door is closed and they're speaking Yiddish. It's easy to figure out that they're talking about me, since I understand enough to get the gist of what they're saying. Several times they go back and forth between Yiddish and Romanian, totally forgetting that I'm right here in the room with them.
“Have you lost your mind, Yosef?” The more upset Grandma Iulia is, the higher her voice gets. “You want she should go to a rabbi? What on earth for? She's a girl!” When Grandpa doesn't respond to this clear evidence, Grandma starts filling in the blanks, then reverts to her own point of view. “I was so happy, Yosef, when she was born a girl. Baruch
HaShem!
No need for a bris to tear us all apart. Remember how Gyuri vowed not to have the baby circumcised if it was a boy? And how you promised me to take the baby to a mohel without the father's permission? We would have had World War Three in this house, Yosef, and your own daughter would never have forgiven you. But God was merciful, because she is a girl. Now what do you want to do, Yosef?”
Seeing that Grandpa still doesn't answer, Grandma catches her breath and continues. “You want to look for trouble! We're lucky we don't have to send her to study for a Bar Mitzvah, lucky we don't have to hide her studies from the Communist scum. We should be grateful that this child has brought some peace to our home. Don't you spoil it, Yosef.”
Grandpa is as still as a rock, so Grandma rolls on in Romanian now, apparently oblivious to my presence. “You've forgotten that we're surrounded by goyim who hate us, and what do you do? You promise this girl she can study with a rabbi no less. Only a meshugeneh kopf like yours would think of such a scheme. Yosef! You're not listening!” Seeing that Grandpa doesn't flinch, Grandma proclaims in a definitive voice, “You must explain to the child that this is not a good idea, Yosef. That's all there is to it.”
“Are you finished ranting, Iulia?”
“How come no one ever told me that I'm Jewish?” I shout. Both my grandparents stare at me as if I've suddenly appeared in the room.
“I never hid anything from you,” Grandma Iulia finally answers. “We've been speaking Yiddish in front of you ever since you were born.”
“But I didn't know that Yiddish was Jewish talk! You never told me.”
“That's true.” Grandpa Yosef smiles. “Let's just call this a sin of omission.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It means Grandma Iulia and I left out some vital information.” He adds quickly, “Out of respect for your father, and for your mother's sake as well.”
“I don't understand!” I cry.
“Your father went through hell during the war because he is Jewish, and he didn't want you to suffer the way he had.”
“How could he avoid my suffering just by not telling me that I'm Jewish?”
Grandpa shrugs. “He can't, but he clearly doesn't see that.”
“I don't care! I just want to understand about being Jewish.”
“What's there to understand?” Grandma Iulia asks. “We're Jews, and that's all there is to it.”
“Look, Iulia, I promised,” Grandpa says. “The child wants to know about being Jewish, so she needs to study with a rabbi. That's not such a bad idea. What do you expect me to tell her, that her grandmother's afraid?”
“Yes. Tell her you've made a mistake. Tell her being Jewish is dangerous. Yosef, tell her what we went through during the war!” Grandma Iulia is now red in the face.
“Now who's meshugeneh?” Grandpa asks.
“And putting her in harm's way is not?”
“You're getting paranoid, Iulia. I will make sure that Eva is safe.”
“How can you say I'm paranoid, Yosef, when we barely survived the slaughterhouse?”
“That's in the past, Iulia. I'm grateful that we are alive.”
“I suppose you think that it can't happen again, since the Communists love us so much. You better tell the child the truth, Yosef.”
“What truth?”
“That being a Jew isn't easy, and it isn't only about Torah.”
“Iulia, being a Jew is about Torah. Your parents knew it and so do you.”
“Leave my parents out of this, you fool. What happened to us during the war, I suppose that was in the Torah too?”
“If I were a rabbi, I would say yes, it is somewhere in the Torah—but I don't know. This child has a right to question and to learn.”
“Learn that people hate us, Yosef? She already knows it. Where is it written that girls have to study Torah?”
“You show me where it's written that girls don't have a right to study.”
“I'm sure the rabbi will agree with me,” Grandma Iulia says indignantly.
“I hope not.” Grandpa Yosef puts on his cardigan. “I'm going for a walk, Iulia. You want to come?”
“Get out of here, you crazy old fool.”
 
THE ROOM IS as still as twilight. I have never witnessed such a serious argument between my grandparents, and it is all on my account. I feel so bad I wish I could disappear, but instead I can't help asking:
“Grandma?”
“Yes?”
“Why don't you want me to learn about being Jewish?”
Grandma doesn't answer. The room gets darker, and her duvet covers take on ominous proportions. Eventually I get up and start toward the door, but her voice stops me.
“Before the war, before the lousy Communist scums took power and nationalized all our property, including the skin on our back, there was a king in Romania,” she begins. “His name
was King Carol II. The only redeeming feature about King Carol, as far as I'm concerned, is that he had a Jewish mistress who influenced him not to murder Jews. During his reign, King Carol allowed us to live in relative peace. We were free to own businesses and have our own homes. And as long as we didn't publicize it, we could practice our religion. We owned several businesses, and we were free to travel abroad. I dragged your grandfather to France, where he was more interested in eating oysters than in sightseeing in Paris. He squeezed lemon over those treif—unkosher—oysters and slurped them with gusto, declaring them ‘magnifique!' After Paris, he sent me to a Swiss spa, where every part of my body was rubbed with the most exquisite potions on earth. I went on a diet so that I would be even more attractive in his eyes. Those were good times.” Grandma sighs.
I hate it when Grandma goes off in a different direction. “What happened with King Carol during the war?” I ask, trying to steer her back on track.
“The rat ran away as soon as things got rough with the Germans,” she says, pulling the duvet around her waist. The room is so dark now that Grandma Iulia is just a shadow sitting up in her bed. “In Germany, Hitler and his Nazi gangs came to power. But in Romania we had our own brand of fascists, the Iron Guard. They were called the Legion of the Archangel Michael, and they wore green shirts and spewed venom. Of course, Jews were at the top of their enemies list. The Legionnaires incited the goyim to rise up against the monarchy and against Jews, with empty promises of a better life.”
“What does goyim mean, Grandma?”
“Don't interrupt me. Goyim just means ‘non-Jews.' Where was I?”
“You were saying that the Legionnaires were evil.”
“Yes, they were a bunch of lunatics. They performed Romanian Orthodox religious rites, and the Romanians, who love drama, ate it all up and hated the Jews even more. The Legionnaire leader was Corneliu Zelea Codreanu—he was not a man but the devil himself. When King Carol saw that the Legionnaires were a threat to his monarchy, he ordered his men to kill Codreanu and fourteen Legionnaires. The king's men stripped the Legionnaires naked and strangled them. Then they doused the bodies with acid, so they would be unrecognizable, and buried all fifteen, including Codreanu, in a mass grave. This murder incited the Romanian population of Bucharest into a fanatic religious frenzy. The Jews had no hand in the murder, but we were blamed.” Grandma stops abruptly. “My mouth is very dry. Be a good girl and fetch me a glass of water.”
I bound out of the dark bedroom, hoping that Grandma Iulia won't change her mind about telling me the rest of the story. In the kitchen I find Sabina looking quite exhausted, slumped on a stool with her mouth half open and her head propped against the windowsill. I let the water run until it is cold and fill up a glass. Sabina snores softly through it all. Then I tiptoe back to Grandma Iulia's bedroom and hand her the glass.
“You're an angel,” she says between gulps, finishing the entire glass. “Where was I?”
“You were talking about the Legionnaires.”
“Ah yes, the war came. Eventually Romania joined the Axis powers, the Nazis. There were a lot of German army personnel swarming all over Bucharest. The Jewish population was forced under peril of death to treat the Germans as honored guests.
There was a terrible shortage of food and housing. Jews were ordered to wear armbands with yellow Stars of David, and we had to obey a night curfew. Our children were assigned to do forced labor for the Nazis. Your mother had to draft maps of key local roads and bridges, and your aunt Puica became a surgical nurse at a clinic that cared for injured German soldiers. Uncle Natan was part of the team of Jews who had to cart off the bodies to the morgue after the Allied bombardments of Bucharest. I never knew if my children would come home alive at the end of the day, and whenever Natan did appear, he smelled of death. I was too scared to ask him where he had been.”
“I don't understand why you had to wear armbands with yellow Stars of David, Grandma,” I say.
“How else were they going to know who is Jewish and who isn't?” she answers. “It was an easy way for them to identify us.”
“But why did they need to identify Jews if we look just like everyone else?”
“This isn't about our looks, it's about who we are,” Grandma explains. “When the sirens started to blast announcing an air raid, Jews were the last ones allowed into the bomb shelters, so we suffered the highest casualties. Your uncle Natan had to cart off several of his school friends after air raids. Our nightly curfew was also set much earlier than the rest of the population's, and our ration cards were even more meager than theirs.”
“Couldn't you just refuse to wear the Star of David armband?” I wonder out loud.
“We had no choice,” Grandma goes on. “We were lucky that we weren't deported to concentration camps, like your father.
We had heard horror stories about so many other Jews from Transylvania, from Hungary, Germany, Austria, Poland, and the rest of Europe. What is hard labor when you compare it to a death camp?”
“But, Grandma,” I argue, still trying to understand, “how would anyone know that you were Jewish unless you told them?”
“They would know, believe me. Our identity wasn't a secret before the war. You can never hide who you really are, Eva.”
“I didn't know that I'm Jewish until now, so you can hide who you are!”
“Shhh, let me finish my story,” Grandma continues. “In the midst of all this, your grandpa Yosef and I were forced to take in two Nazi SS officers, Lieutenant Schmidt and Lieutenant Bundt.”
“Did they know you were Jewish?”
“Of course. Not only did they know but they showed up for three kosher meals a day, meager as our food supply was. They expected me to set out my finest china and silver and join them in German conversation while they ate at our table. They loved hearing their mother tongue uttered from Jewish lips.” In my mind I could see Grandma smile despite the total darkness that surrounded us.
“Were they mean?”
“No. They were extremely polite and neat. They made their beds every morning. Their uniforms were spotless, and their shirts were always pressed and starched. They never brought women to the house, and most important, they didn't touch my daughters or make lewd remarks. I was so grateful, because I had heard such horror tales from many friends who had to house other Nazis …” Grandma's voice trails off.
After a while, I ask, “So what happened?”
“On January 22, 1941, Lieutenant Schmidt and Lieutenant Bundt showed up early for dinner, toting guns. The Legionnaires were already in power, and I was terrified. I had no idea why they were home so early. The two men barked orders at us as if we were members of their platoon or, worse, their prisoners—which is precisely what we were.
“‘Close your window shutters and nail them shut,' they said as they ran around the house making sure that all our windows and doors were locked. Then, after bolting everything, they barricaded the doors with furniture. They spoke to us in German but offered no explanation. When they had secured the house, they stationed themselves inside by our front door, shotguns in hand, and waited.

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