Under a Red Sky (18 page)

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Authors: Haya Leah Molnar

BOOK: Under a Red Sky
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“I made strong Turkish coffee and placed their cups on a chair by the door. Just after five P.M., there was a loud knock, and I felt my heart leap into my mouth but I couldn't utter a sound. I started toward the door, but Lieutenant Schmidt and Lieutenant Bundt had already opened it a crack with the tips of their guns. The afternoon light leaked in, revealing two silhouettes. It was the girls, Stefica and her best friend, Rachel Goldman, coming home late from ballet practice. Lieutenant Schmidt quickly pulled them inside. Rachel pleaded with him, saying that she was expected home for supper, but he wouldn't let her go. I was grateful that my daughter was home safe, but not knowing what was about to happen, I was terrified. I wondered if the girls would have been better off at the ballet studio or at Rachel's house. But at this point, we had no choice. All that mattered was that we were together, even though we were prisoners in our own home.”
“Grandma,” I whisper, “do you think that Mama remembers this?”
“Of course she does, she was right there with us when it happened. How could she forget such a thing?”
I nod in the dark, not fully comprehending, since Mama has never told me anything like this about the war. “Go on, Grandma,” I tell her.
“Darkness fell early. It was frigid. The air felt as if it would freeze in our throats. Natan was ill with the flu, and he huddled in his cot under five blankets. The only sound you could hear in the house was his breathing. Your aunt Puica hid in our pantry closet and chain-smoked. She knew how much I hate cigarettes, but I made believe I didn't see or smell anything. Yosef sat at the dining room table, playing solitaire, turning each card softly in order not to make any noise. I took off my shoes and paced from room to room, checking on everyone. I had to make sure that each and every member of my family was really here and safe.
“When I first heard the singing, I thought that one of my children had turned on the radio. I rushed to turn it off but realized it was coming from outside. The sound of Romanian Orthodox hymns grew louder until it reached fever pitch. Then I heard truck tires screeching to a halt. Fists pounded on our door with frozen knuckles.
“‘Who's there?' Lieutenant Schmidt asked in German.
“‘Open this door or I'll break it!' a voice barked back in Romanian.
“The two men remained stationed at our door. That moment's silence was heavier than anything I had ever felt. When it broke, there was pounding everywhere and the sound of shattered glass. ‘We know that there are Jews in this house,' the voice hissed from
the other side of the door. ‘Open up and let the kikes out and you will be unharmed.'
“Lieutenant Schmidt slowly unbolted the door, sliding the barrel of his shotgun out first. He then popped his helmeted head out and carefully addressed the man in front of him.
“‘I told you to go away. No one enters this house, by order of the Führer,' he said.
“‘Show me your orders on paper,' the voice demanded.
“‘These are my orders,' Lieutenant Schmidt snapped, rattling his shotgun against the doorframe.
“‘Nicu! Nicu, get back over here!' Shouts in Romanian came from the truck outside. ‘Let's not waste time. There are plenty more kikes where these came from.' I was standing in the dark, close enough to the door to see the glare of headlights illuminating the top of Lieutenant Schmidt's helmet. Then I heard the crackling of boots against pebbles followed by the sound of the truck taking off.
“I don't have any recollection of the rest of that night. The next day Lieutenant Schmidt and Lieutenant Bundt remained in our house guarding us. I cooked them a meal that consisted of our entire week's rations and told my family to tighten their belts. We were nearly out of food, but we were alive. When the Germans determined that it was safe for us to venture out, they gave us strict orders to return as soon as we had foraged for food.”
 
“WHAT I LEARNED at the marketplace was far worse than the terror we had experienced the night before. The Legionnaires had gone on a killing spree. The truck in front of our house was part of a
convoy that had carted off hundreds of Jewish men, women, and children from their homes to Bucharest's slaughterhouse. There, in the red-brick building of the slaughterhouse near the icy black waters of the Dîmbovi
a River, the legionnaires ordered the Jews to strip naked and kneel on the ice-cold floor next to the lifeless cattle that hung from hooks. Our people were made to crawl on their hands and knees onto the conveyor belt. No one was spared. Not even the babies. Jews were slaughtered like cattle, torn limb from limb, our blood gushing everywhere.
“Everywhere an endless river of tears. I heard that there was so much blood, the Legionnaires had trouble finding a spot to mark the flesh with a stamp that read ‘Kosher meat, fit for human consumption' before hanging each lifeless body on a hook alongside lambs and other meat. The parents of Rachel Goldman, your mother's friend who had come to our home that night, were among the victims. Rachel was the only one in her family who survived.
“Later I found out that many more people were killed. Over thirteen hundred Jews were tormented or killed during three days of anti-Semitic riots throughout Bucharest. Some were burned alive in their homes after being robbed. Others were taken to the forest and shot into open pits that became mass graves. Women were raped in view of their children and then murdered. Eva, that is how the Legionnaires took revenge on us Jews for what King Carol's men had done to their leader.
“When I got home, I didn't allow myself a moment to think about what I had heard at the market. I didn't even tell your grandfather until much later. I had a responsibility toward Lieutenant Schmidt and Lieutenant Bundt, who had saved our lives. I had to
cook and be a good hostess. After dinner, I asked the kids to each personally thank our SS men. ‘No problem,' Lieutenant Bundt said, toasting all of us with one of my crystal glasses filled to the rim with red wine. ‘If all Jews were like you, anti-Semitism would not exist in the world.'”
GRANDPA YOSEF
pokes his head into our bedroom and motions for me to join him.
“Let's go for a walk. It's beautiful outside.”
“I'm reading, Grandpa,” I tell him, stretching my arms and yawning.
“You can read later. We're going out.”
I slide off my bed and slip on my shoes, wondering what's going on. Grandpa is usually so easygoing, but not today. He takes my hand as we walk past the yard gate and turn left.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“You'll see,” he answers. “Look how sunny it is. I told you it's a gorgeous day. The walk will do you good.”
We turn the corner, and Grandpa stops to light a cigarette. “I want you to keep your eyes open and remember exactly where we are going, because the next time you go you will have to do it alone,” he says, his voice soft but firm.
“What are you talking about, Grandpa?”
“Don't ask so many questions. Just keep your eyes open and remember the way we're walking.”
We walk for about three blocks, and then Grandpa stops again, throws his cigarette on the sidewalk, stubs it out with his shoe, and nods toward a house to his right.
“See that building?” he says without looking at the building or at me. “That's the place you want to remember.” He searches his pocket for his cigarette pack again, gets another one out, and lights it. I see a gray building with no windows. There is a gray wooden door with a peephole. No number. No nameplate. Nothing anyone would ever remember. “Why do I want to remember this building?” I ask, pointing to it.
“Don't point,” Grandpa says, pushing my hand down. “This is where you will meet the rabbi and start your Jewish studies. But next week you will have to come here by yourself. Do you think you can do that?”
I look around. We are just three blocks from home on a street I've passed every day on my way to and from school. There are trees and lampposts on this street, and most of the houses have wrought-iron gates guarding their front yards. I note again that the gray building to our right has no yard, no gate, and no windows—just a gray wooden door with a peephole. That's the only thing that makes it different. No yard. No gate. I can remember that. I grab Grandpa's hand. “Let's go!” I tell him, pulling him back toward home.
 
WHEN WE ARRIVE HOME, Grandpa makes me a tall glass of homemade raspberry syrup with seltzer, my favorite Romanian soda. He
pours the thick syrup, and I watch its red ribbon trail to the bottom of the glass. Grandpa shakes the blue seltzer bottle, and with a single move of his wrist he swishes the seltzer into the glass, then stirs it with a long spoon. The bubbles rise to the surface. I gulp the delicious drink down as soon as he hands it to me.
“Why can't you take me to meet the rabbi?”
“It's not a good idea for me to take you there and drop you off on a regular basis. The rabbi thinks it might attract attention, and we've got enough problems right now. The last thing we need is more trouble because some Communist anti-Semite gets wind that you are getting a Jewish education. Your grandmother gave me hell about your safety, and I promised her that not even a hair on your body would be harmed. You understand?”
“Is it dangerous, Grandpa?”
“I'm not taking any chances.”
“What could happen?” I draw up the last of my syrup and bite the straw.
“Nothing. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. It's not illegal to be a Jew, and it isn't illegal or wrong to study any religion, including ours. It's just that the Communists think all religion is superstition and they're anti-Semitic. So they might try to make our life a little more difficult than it already is.” Grandpa pauses. “But we're not going to allow them to do that, are we?” he asks, looking at me.
I shake my head in agreement, but I am terrified.
“Good. Your first lesson will begin next Friday after you get home from school, so we've got all week for you to practice getting there and back.”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
I ask Mama one afternoon later that week.
“I'm embroidering a flower, see?” Mama points to a red petal against the crisp whiteness of the tablecloth.
“Who taught you how to do that?”
“My grandmother Eliza. She taught me how to sew and how to knit.” Mama smiles, looking up from her work.
“Is it difficult?”
“Not if you practice. You want to try?” Mama places the needle between my fingers, cups her hand around mine, and pulls the thread.
“Mama,” I ask cautiously, “do you remember the war?”
“Of course,” she says, still guiding my hand.
“What do you remember the most? What was the scariest thing?”
Mama places her embroidery in her lap and looks up. “What do I remember? I remember too much. I remember being hungry, so hungry that I would have eaten anything. One night I came
home from a ballet class and Mother prepared a dish that she said was rabbit, but it looked like cat. I was too hungry to ask, but it surely didn't look like rabbit or chicken to me.”
“Grandma Iulia cooked a cat?”
“I don't know. I never asked, and I'm certain she wouldn't have told me anyway. But we were all so hungry, we didn't care. We ate it, whatever it was.”
“I would have thrown up,” I assure her.
“Perhaps.” Mama smiles.
“What else do you remember?”
“Let's see, I remember walking in pitch darkness after the curfew with my cousin Mimi and being terrified that we would get caught. I stumbled and fell into a construction hole, and poor Mimi had to pull me out. That was terrifying.”
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“I sprained my ankle, but I was lucky not to have broken anything.”
“Did you tell Grandma?”
“Of course not. She had enough to worry about.”
“Mama, do you remember the Nazis who lived with you?” I try broaching the subject that has been haunting my dreams.
Mama arches her left eyebrow. “Of course I remember Lieutenant Schmidt and Lieutenant Bundt. What about them?”
“Grandma told me that they saved your life.”
“They did.” Mama seems surprised that I know the story, but from the look on her face it is clear she does not want to revisit the topic.
“What was the scariest part of the war, Mama?”
“Everything. Everything was scary and terrible,” she says.
“Yes, but what was the very worst of it?” I press.
Mama eventually looks up from her embroidery. “I suppose the worst of it was when Father cheered on the American airplanes to bomb us.”
“Grandpa wanted you to get bombed?”
“Of course not, silly,” Mama says. “But he wanted the Allies to win so bad, every time the sirens went off before an air raid, your grandpa was the last person to get into the shelter. Instead, he would cup his hands like binoculars and look up at the sky, waiting for the planes to arrive and drop their bombs. As they approached, he would start cheering them on. ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!' His fists flew through the air in victory until the bombs could be seen dropping from the sky and Mother would lunge out of the shelter, grab him by both his arms, and pull him down into safety. ‘Yosef, you crazy bastard,' she'd shout, ‘you're going to get us all killed!'”
“Why did Grandpa do that?”
“I don't know.” Mama shrugs. “He couldn't help himself. He wanted the war to end.”
I concentrate on Mama's embroidery. She has finished the red petals of the flower and is now working on its stem and leaves.
“Don't you want to know what my best memory of the war is?” she asks.
I wait for her to tell me.
“The best day of the war took place when I thought an air raid had hit us but it was something else entirely. I was taking a ballet class when I heard a terrible rumble and the light fixtures started to shake and then the walls in the studio fell one by one, all around us.
I started to run, but everywhere I ran there was rubble to climb over, and people were screaming. I saw a hand moving just above the ground, its fingers stretched up as if reaching to grasp the sky, but the body attached to that hand was buried alive. None of the buses were running, and the tram had stopped as well, so even though I was very far from home, I kept running. And the closer I got to home, the more dead bodies I encountered. I stumbled over people who were injured. Many more were dead or dying, and the smell of burned rubber was in my nostrils, in my hair, and on my clothes. I thought, This is what death smells like.
“There were sirens blaring, and rescue crews were beginning to pull people from beneath collapsed buildings. The shouts for help were everywhere. Somewhere at the back of my head I thought, Maybe I'll run into Natan, whose job was to cart off the dead after the air raids, but this was no air raid. It was the worst earthquake that had ever hit Bucharest. I kept running, and the earth at one point opened up right in front of me, so I ran in the opposite direction. I closed my eyes and kept running, blinded, but all the while, though my eyes were closed, I could see my mother, who was home in bed with phlebitis. I ran and I prayed and I ran and I prayed, ‘Dear God, please, please, please make sure that Mother is safe. Please. I'll do anything, God. Anything you want me to do. Whether you are there, God, or not. Please. Anything. Please. Only keep her alive. Please.' Out of nowhere, a man with a horse and buggy appeared, and the horse reared up on his hind legs as the man shouted, ‘Hey, beautiful, you need a ride?' I got in and begged him to take me home even though I had no money to give him. He took pity on me because I must have been crying. ‘Don't
worry, beautiful,' he told me. ‘If God wants you to die, you will die, but if He wants you to live, you could be in the eye of the storm where it's calm, or in the middle of the raging ocean, or in this cab with me during this earthquake and you will survive.' And as he said that we turned the corner onto our street.”
Mama pauses and smiles. “I will never forget the image of my mother waving her white handkerchief as she sat perched on the ledge of a wall that had been part of her bedroom. Beneath her dangling feet hung a framed needlepoint depicting a couple having a picnic in a pastoral setting. The man was playing the lute, and the woman was gazing lovingly at him. That giant gilded frame was still on the hook, though completely crooked. It had hung right above Mother's bed. Mother was all black from soot, but she was alive. I climbed through the rubble and helped her down, and I couldn't stop crying because she had been spared, and my prayers had been answered. We were so lucky. My father, Puica, and Natan—every one of us had been in a different part of the city, and we all survived the earthquake. That miracle was the best day of the war for me.”
“And the house?” I ask.
“Gone. It collapsed like a house of cards. Later we all went back and rummaged through what was left. Most of our stuff had been destroyed. But still, we found so many things intact. We salvaged several paintings. Some clothing. Pots and pans. Dishes. Forks, knives, spoons. I even found a dozen eggs in the icebox. They were completely unbroken. We made an omelet for supper that evening at Cousin Mimi's house. What a feast that was.”
“Where did you live after that?”
“My father searched long and hard for a new home, but there was no point in buying another house, because at any moment we could have been bombed. When he found this place as a rental, he grabbed it, and we've been here ever since.”
Mama puts her embroidery down. I try to take it all in.

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