What the Night Sings: Part III

Your life becomes bread. Rainwater. Numbers. Keeping your feet clean. Any obsessive ritual to keep your own heart beating.

We walk from lunch every day to this little copse of birch, where we can get away from the camp noise and talk.

The camp pulsates with this collective energy, gearing up for change.

Some just hold them—a tarnished flute, a mandolin missing three of eight terribly corroded strings.

I wonder whether the relief agencies will see value in helping us get these trifles.

"Long fingers," she says, noticing my stare, "better for making munitions than playing Mozart, I guess. Oh, but it is good to see you, Gerta. You look well."

I laugh sardonically. "It's okay, Roza, you don't have to lie. I can't seem to gain any weight. Anyway, you must've gotten into the clothing line early. That's a pretty dress."

Most don't even have an instrument, but the director has several salvaged pieces.

Brass follows next, then percussion.

If you're stranded in the desert, should you look for a good violist, a bad violist or an oasis? A bad violist. The other two are just mirages.

I stir as I realize what a wry smile I'm wearing.

"My oversight brings up an important point, friends," says the director.

"The orchestra would be incomplete without the viola. It is the soul of the orchestra. You may not always be able to discern its sound, but you always know when it is missing."

"I'll marry my music." I smile at him with finality.

"I'm glad you and I are friends, Lev," I say, the tingling in my foot finally subsiding.

For so long, the only things we had to read were German signs and posters, with those awful caricatures of imaginary Jews.

The potato is dry and mealy in my mouth.

Chaplains visit, too, trying to comfort the hysterical, whose bellies are at last full enough to allow their emotions to surface.

The chaplains have been trying to reunite survivors, a fruitless effort most of the time.

Maria before a rapt audience in Berlin, performing her signature aria from Turandot.

To the wall I affix the Ahnenpass, what is left of the girl I thought I was.

He is impossibly good-looking, tan, his sleeves rolled up past his elbows to reveal strong, sinewy arms.

"I'm sorry," he says, out of habit rather than conviction.

"Yes, I was there," I say solemnly.

"Huh," I scoff, and look blankly out of the far window, thinking again of Maria.

"Well, you have to face it. There's a past here, but no future. In a Jewish homeland, we have both. It's the only place we can go. And if enough of us join together, we can protect each other. Our own army, our own schools, where we don't always have to convince our neighbors that we don't, in fact, poison wells or make matzo with the blood of gentile children. Where this can't possibly happen again. Haven't you ever thought about it?"

My father's viola does not scream; it pleads, it woos.

Outside the main camp gate is a secluded place I've been escaping to.

I walk slowly here, in and out through patches of sunlight like empty mansion rooms, methodically listening to each footstep press the grass.

He has a rucksack and a jacket tossed across one shoulder, and he is chewing on something.

"Seems we had a fraught parting last time," he says.

I look at him and concede with a little smile.

"Was I right?" he says, still grasping me close. His eyes are bottomless. A scar bisects his eyebrow. I take my deepest breath in months.

"Sure," I call back indifferently. "See you tomorrow."

I never realized how meticulously he keeps them polished.

I can feel his pleading in the squeezing of my fingers. And just as quickly, he lets go; he seems stunned at himself for acting on such an impulse.

He leans in close, suddenly earnest.

He crosses his arms to avoid repeating his lapse in judgment.

"There was a boy in my choir, Rudolf. We liked each other. A lot. He asked his parents if he could study viola with my father just so he could come to my house. He'd stand there staring stupidly at me the whole time. But just like that, he stopped coming, with no explanation. Maybe he moved on to another girl. Boys are fickle. It's like my father used to say: 'The only constant in this world is change.'"

This is a veritable banquet placed before me. Just a short time ago, I would have given anything for one forkful of this meal.