What the Night Sings: Part IV

Spring is finally burgeoning after the longest winter, and the birches' new leaves turn their faces toward the sun's warmth.

He looks transcendent as he rhythmically bows, murmuring the Hebrew prayers that he learned on his father's knee.

At first I am as incredulous as the other man.

The air is heavy with an impending storm, and my head is throbbing.

"Right," I say vacuously, tightening the knotted sleeves.

She sidles up and nudges me sympathetically. "Don't say that."

I was only a year into my apprenticeship when the ghetto was formed.

That doesn't assuage his uneasiness.

I can't play it staccato yet, but I've got the notes down.

"Hmmph. Saint Roza the Overcomer." I wave a benediction in the air.

I gently pick up her gnarled hand and put her fingers up to her face.

Lev has this way of talking about these things—stars, futures—it resonates within me like music.

Even in the middle of the night, there are women at the new mikvah. They emerge as from a chrysalis, silently, their faces turned up toward the bright moon.

Before I go in, I shower in warm water and wash away the mortification of finding Michah with that girl.

"No. No. That isn't true. Don't let them have that victory. Don't you dare!” Roza almost chokes on her admonition.

I start a cappella. My throat is tight; my tongue is dry and tastes bitter. But I sing.

Back near the door, a shadowed figure tucks quickly into the dark corner of the vestibule.

Roza and I start playing as a sort of roving duet at all the weddings in Bergen-Belsen.

"I'll see what I can do," says Herr Butterman, a bittersweet smile tempering the excitement he wore when he made the announcement.

It disgusts me, this effervescent and very public show of—what? Repentance?

What am I to do with this mess of tears and rouge at my feet? Absolve her of the death of my father? Of the loss of my innocence?

What am I to do with this mess of tears and rouge at my feet? Absolve her of the death of my father? Of the loss of my innocence?

I see a string of moments:
Maria and me dancing together, singing the melody to Bach's "Wachet auf" chorale while Papa plays the motif.

The voices begin:

Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen—
Come, daughters, help me lament—

We wanted to keep you innocent and free. But we also wanted you to have a skill you could take with you, so you could feel capable. That's why I tried to teach you charm as well. It's a form of diplomacy.

No one starts operatic technique at fourteen—that's ludicrous. Yes, there are those rare prodigies, but they're mostly parroting.

She looks at me with a stoic woundedness.

The bride and groom, lifted on chairs, hold each end of a scarf across a tarp wall stretched between stakes, and it waves in a breeze made by dancing men on one side, dancing women on the other. The couple's eyes are fixed on each other as they undulate on this sea of strangers, this sea of brethren.

All night I sweated in my bed, the thin mattress offering no buffer for my constant tossing and turning.

I lift my hand in a tentative wave.

He doesn't answer me, but this wistful look comes over his face.

I have an aunt I never knew about, on a kibbutz.

Even outside the print shop, I breathe in the acrid smell of ink settling on the print rollers.

He has covered my face with an opaque veil.

"Oh!" He's suddenly heartened. "Sure! That sounds good!"

"No, you know—doing things the Jewish way. Keeping kosher, the prayers—"

Raindrops begin hitting the window, spreading into soft rivulets.

"You here for the funeral?" he asks Lev, looking askance at the fringes hanging from his waist.

A small garden on the side of the house seems to be growing only a trellis of neglected beans.

Bergen-Belsen's yawning fences curl us back into the den where thousands still wait in limbo for an answer to the question, where?