Upon the Head of the Goat (17 page)

By the third day there was a big drop in the water mark inside the cement pipe of the well. My hands, chafed from cranking and pulling on the iron chain, were wrapped in rags. Mother, not having anything left to give, stayed in the house with Sandor and Joli. She came out to check on me and pull up a bucket of water at regular intervals.

The next day, Iboya and some of her friends borrowed Mr. Schwartz's wagon and his horse, who was too old to be confiscated, and went from one Jewish house to another, collecting anything that could be of help to the people in the ghetto. A number of them had been forced to leave without a change of clothing, without bedding and blankets, and in some cases without the medication they needed on a regular basis. She came home at dusk exhausted after several trips to the ghetto.

“Iboya, what is it like? Where do the people sleep?” I asked her on the fifth morning of the march to the ghetto as she was preparing to leave for her day of collecting.

“We are only allowed to the gate,” she answered. “The white arm band simply means that I belong to the youth service group of the Juden Bureau and don't have to obey the curfew. I don't know what it is like inside.”

After Iboya had gone, Mother turned her flour sack upside down to bake the last of the flour into bread. “I am not going to bother to save the growing yeast for the next baking,” she said. “There is no next. This is the last of our flour, and who will be here to bake bread?”

I had once asked Mother about the neat little ball of dough she always saved from her Friday baking and tucked inside a flowered tin box for the following Friday. She had answered, “I brought this tin box with me from Komjaty when I first moved to Beregszász. My mother gave me a ball of her growing yeast to take with me. She got her original ball of dough from her mother. This way the bread we bake stays the same for generations.”

“Are you going to give me a ball of the dough when I get married?” I asked.

“Of course,” she had answered.

I stood now remembering that promise and watching her scrape up every morsel of dough from her wooden kneading bowl. With a determined expression on her face, she formed it into the last loaf of bread. Over the next few evenings I watched her sitting at the stove, the top plate covered with even slices of bread. She sat and patiently turned the slices until they were browned on both sides. Satisfied that they were done, she placed them in a pillow case.

“Why are you making all the bread into toast?” I asked.

“Bread mildews, but toast keeps,” she replied.

Mother kept reminding me each day as I ran out to fill the first bucket with water, “Piri, don't forget to ask if any of them have come from around Komjaty. And if someone has, come and get me right away.” I knew that she was anxious for news of Babi and Rozsi.

One day during this time, I ran after a wagon with a very sick old lady lying on the top, propped up by bundles, to hand her a cup of water. Her hands shook as she reached for it, and I climbed up on the side of the wagon to hold her hand against the cup so that the water would not spill out. Her hand felt smooth, warm, and leathery dry, like Babi's. I let the wagon carry me for a short distance, holding on to her hand until one of the guards made me jump off. I walked back to my bucket on the sidewalk feeling very depressed. I let my mind wander for the first time since the procession had started. “Where is my Babi?” I wondered. The answer came the next day in a letter from Molcha. No return address, I noticed right away, but I recognized her simple and round lettering.

The letter was dated April 26, 1944. It had taken only four days to reach me. The first sentence answered my question: “We are the first to arrive in the Szölös ghetto. They have not yet emptied the city. I'm giving this letter to one of our ghetto police. He promised to pass it over the fence.” I read on quickly. German soldiers had come along with the Hungarian police to take them from their homes. They were given thirty minutes to get out, and allowed one bundle each. Molcha's father insisted on taking his tinker's tools. They did not stop him. When Molcha's family got out to the oxcart at Babi's gate, they overheard one of the Hungarian policemen tell the two German soldiers that Babi refused to leave. Molcha and her mother went in to see if they could help avoid an incident. Babi was sitting in her chair holding her prayer book. Rozsi was crying in her helplessness. Molcha's mother told Babi, “You will get us all in trouble with your stubborn ways,” as she helped Rozsi lift her out of her chair and carry her to the waiting oxcart.

In her last sentence, Molcha asked, “No matter what happens, can we remain friends forever?” I finished the letter, and then with great reluctance handed it to Mother. Her eyes filled with tears as she read it. She let the tears spill down her white cheeks. “My mother left her land after all,” she said in a husky voice. “What an end to have lived for! Abiding with God every step of the way, too. Where is justice, O God? And my poor Rozsi.” Mother sat down and, spreading out writing paper, composed a desperate scheme to try to save Babi from further harm. She addressed the letter to our relatives in Szölös and asked me to post it directly.

We never knew what happened to that letter, but the next day we did get a letter from Rozsi, the last we ever received, telling us that they were all right and that Babi, still as strong and firm in belief as ever, was helping to keep everyone calm. Maybe we will all be sent to the same place in Germany, Rozsi concluded, saying that she was looking forward to being reunited with us.

Finally on Friday, after seven days of constant movement, the street was empty of refugees. My water bucket was no longer needed and I could see the road again. The quiet made Mother jumpy. She kept looking for an explanation. She waited for the mailman, sent me to the corner to buy a newspaper, and looked up and down both sides of the street.

“I have lived on this street for over twenty years, but I have never seen it so deserted for this length of time. No one has even come over to say one word to me in the seven days since the procession started,” she said.

As I walked back with the newspaper, I noticed that the buds on the chestnut trees lining both sidewalks had opened and the small, fragile shiny leaves were uncurling under the sunny sky. Back in our yard, Sandor and Joli, permitted again to leave the house, were back to their never-ending make-believe in the sandbox, with the large walnut tree shading them like an open umbrella. Mother was standing watching them. Taking the paper from me, she sat down in Lilli's chair. It had become a permanent part of the yard. Nobody had moved it since the day Lilli left. The light spring breeze carried the scent of the walnut leaves and mixed it with all the other earthy smells of growth. My head was slightly dazed by spring fever, yet Mother's sudden idleness made me very uneasy.

THE GHETTO

19

T
HE NEXT MORNING
I awoke with the same feeling of uneasiness and heard Mother arguing with Iboya.

“You are not going on the wagon today. I want you to stay home with us. Besides, it is the Sabbath.”

“I rode on the wagon all over the city last Saturday and you didn't stop me,” Iboya protested.

“Today I want you to stay home,” Mother replied.

“I can't. I promised to meet the others on Main Street, and they will be waiting for me. We have to collect as much food, bedding, and clothing as we can. Time is running out.” With these last words, Iboya was out the door.

Later I went into the yard to hand my phonograph over the back fence to Ica Molnar.

“Keep it for me, just in case we have to go away,” I told her. “You can play my records. I'll go and get them.” I turned from Ica's stunned face. We had not seen much of each other since I had been forbidden to attend public school with her. When we met on the street, we didn't seem to have anything to say. She was still Ica Molnar, but I had lost my old identity of her equal. I had been classified as an undesirable citizen—a Jew—and Ica had learned to keep her distance from me. Now, confronted by my entrusting her with my most valued possession, Ica was at a loss for words. Her helplessness came through in her pale blue eyes. “I did not mean to cause you harm,” they pleaded as she accepted the weight of the heavy machine. I turned away faster than I had to. It hurt me to see her distressed.

I had just started back to the vegetable garden when Mother's voice pierced my ears. “Piri, Piri, where are you?”

Running past the woodshed, I turned toward the porch and saw that our yard had been invaded. Military and police uniforms mingled. Strange male voices spoke, asked questions, and gave orders. Surrounded by hostile men, Mother stood holding Joli in her arms and Sandor by the hand. I felt an anger rise inside me and wished that I were able to protect my mother and the two little ones. One of the men stood reading the names the census taker had posted on our porch.

“Where is Etu?” he asked.

“She does not live at home. She is away at school.”

The Hungarian policeman took out a notebook. “Her address?”

Mother hesitated. “I have not heard from her in a long time.”

“What was her address when she last wrote?”

“I'll go and look for her letter.”

“Wait. Next is Iboya. Where is she?”

“Go look for her,” Mother cried to me.

I hated leaving them, the two children clinging for comfort, and Mother herself so shaken. The policeman closest to me shoved me into motion. “Do as you're told,” he growled. “And don't take all day.”

I left our crowded yard and ran, tearing through our street toward Main Street. I ran past our shoe store and suddenly wished I had a pair of new shoes. I looked into the fur shop next door and thought of Lujza, mangled dead by a train. I ran past Dr. Feher's office and remembered him in his white coat. He, too, was dead. Dead, I repeated to myself as I ran past the temple yard. Seeing the German tanks there, I remembered that I had forgotten to wear my yellow star. But no one stopped me for questioning. The temple doors were open. German uniforms milled around, throaty German sounds carried out to the street. I hurried on in search of the open wagon harnessed to Mr. Schwartz's old horse, but there was no trace of the wagon, Iboya, or Iboya's friends. I looked into the café where Lujza had once bought me a pastry. The faces and voices inside had changed. Uniforms and sounds of German laughter crowded the open room. I was out of breath and wet with perspiration. Where was I to look?

Growing more anxious and aware of the passing time, I bumped into a man carrying a briefcase as I ran around a corner. He looked annoyed, but just rushed past me. Stopping to lean against the wall of a house to catch my breath, I remembered Mother and the children as I had left them, surrounded by those strangers in uniform. I started to cry out of helplessness and resumed my running, tasting salty tears in the corners of my mouth. I was not at all sure that I had taken the right course, or that I was searching the right streets. Finally, just as I passed the cobbler's shop, I spotted the wagon with the lone horse.

A friend of Iboya's sat on the box smoking a cigarette. Behind him, an assortment of bundles lay strewn in disarray.

“Where is my sister Iboya?” I asked him.

“Inside. I'll go get her.” He looked me over with questioning eyes, threw the cigarette butt into the gutter, and went into the building.

When I saw Iboya come through the gate, I let go of all restraint. “They've come to take us away. You have to come home right away!”

“We'll take you,” said her friend, lighting another cigarette.

“No need.” Iboya shook her head. “Continue on.”

Several other boys and girls came through the gate carrying bundles. “We'll be joining you shortly,” they called after us.

Iboya looked cross as she examined my face. “Why are you crying? You'll just give yourself a headache.”

“Mother looked scared when they asked her questions, and I had to come to look for you. What if they take her away and don't wait for us?” I blurted out.

“We know where to find them.” Iboya started running, and I fell into step behind her. It took all of my energy to keep up with her as the strong noonday sun beat over our heads. When we reached Gyar Street, a wagon stood outside our gate facing in the direction of the brick factory. A driver sat on the box with his back toward us. As we came through the gate, we could see Mother sitting on one of the porch benches with Joli on her lap and Sandor sitting next to her. She jumped up when she saw us. We stepped up on the porch to see uniformed men walking through the rooms of the house, looking at and touching everything.

The Hungarian policeman with the notebook came out onto the porch. “Iboya,” he said, and crossed her name off the census list posted on the porch wall. “Piri.” He put a black line through my name. “Mrs. Ignac Davidowitz, Sandor, Joli”—a black line was run through each name as he pronounced it. He had written Etu's name and address in his notebook.

Iboya walked away from us, went into the summer kitchen, and came out carrying a heavy duffel bag. The policeman who had shoved me stepped up to her. “Untie the string and empty the bag,” he said. Mother and I looked in amazement at the contents she scattered on the porch floor at his command—a box of notepaper, pencils, some intimate feminine articles, a large box of aspirin tablets, and several books. Iboya's face flushed as the policeman kicked at the articles with his boot and looked into some of the books he picked up. “You may gather it up,” he said, and kicked again at the bolt of absorbent cotton and the crocheted sanitary napkins.

“Let's go,” said the policeman.

I realized that I had not packed anything to take with me, but I could not go into the house with all of them walking through. Iboya finished putting her things back in the bag. Mother held up the key to the front door, indicating that she would like to lock up.