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Chapter 5: The War
She could hear people laughing in the distance, and she expected the dream to continue. Instead, she slowly became aware of her own body, the warmth of her own hands under the thick covers, the heaviness in her limbs as if they were weight down or tied down.
The chattering sounded close by, and she realized it was real. Suddenly it became quiet, and she heard a voice, "She is awake. Her eyes are open." And they were. She was looking at the whiteness of a ceiling, not knowing where she was, but realizing she was in bed. She could not move, her body was stiff and unwilling to try even the smallest of movements. She drifted in and out of sleep, reluctant to come to full consciousness. The voices grew quiet, and at times she could sense them close to her. Then someone sat down on her bed, and she winced as the shift of her weight launched the sharp pain all over her body. She moaned, as the cheerful voice of a woman greeted her. The woman had a friendly face, her hair was tied with a kerchief, peasant style, and her bare arms were large and looked strong as she held a cup of hot liquid, and proceeded to lift the child's head urging her to drink. The cup was warm, as were the arms of the woman with the big friendly voice. Her stomach protested as she drank, not remembering the last feeding. She fell asleep, again, exhausted from the effort it took to drink.
She awoke in the middle of the night, having slept through most of the day. It was quiet in the dark room. She knew the blackout shutters were on the windows. There was a faint yellow of light coming through the door at the end of the room. Quite a large room, it seemed, by the heaviness of breathing from the number of sleeping people around. Some very close by. As close as the same bed. There was a head, on the pillow, on her right, and when something moved in between them, under the cover, she discovered they were a pair of feet. They slept three in the same bed, head to feet. She kept still, in fear of kicking the head of the unknown person at her feet. She was glad she had her own cover and she was on the side of the bed, and not in the middle.
The sirens sounded unmercifully in the quiet, and suddenly the room became alive with activity as the people were urging each other to get up. They didn't want to leave the warmth of their bed, and some complained aloud about the ungodly hours the enemy chose to attack. The girl watched them, in the near darkness, some were half dressed in their underwear and socks, so it would be quicker to dress in case of an air-raid.
In the commotion Gittle had no problems to slip under her cover unnoticed. She only had her underwear on, and didn't know where her clothes were. Then it was quiet, except of the noise of the planes. She could hear the bombs falling in the distance.
Gradually, in the last few months, she had lost concern for the unexpected. No curiosity, and most importantly, no fear. She learned to empty her mind of thoughts and let herself withdraw to her twilight zone behind her brick wall, and detach herself from the world around her. There were no worries there, and because she was completely alone, there was no one to fear. She could envelop herself in a thick, comforting, white cloud and she could stay there for longer and longer as time went by. In the warmth of her bed she fell asleep. As long as the air raid lasted no one would be around to force her to cope.
The returning people made a fuss over her not retreating to the shelter. The woman with the kind face who seemed in charge, appeared concerned. "Why?" she asked. In answer the girl lifted the cover to show her she wasn't dressed. She didn't speak. And so the pattern of communication was set.
Miss Margaret, as she had introduced herself, had some clothing for Gittle. A dress of unidentifiable color, something of a well worn brown-burgundy mixture. For a split second, it reminded her of the clothes of the women who worked on her Father's fields. It was flannel, warmer than her own clothes were, but it had a strange smell that made her aware of her stomach. The knitted cardigan was helpful to put on the top of the dress, it held the dress that was much too big, from falling off. She didn't ask where her own clothes were. They were the clothes she brought from home, ages ago in the spring, and they were not much protection against the cold. Miss Margaret had no shoes to give her, but her own, she said, were almost dry. Miss Margaret was talking, while she examined the child's feet, and asked her if they hurt. The girl answered "No." with the shake of her head. Her feet were blue and cold, still, and they felt as if they belonged to someone else, just like the clothes she was wearing. Miss Margaret removed the laces so she could put the shoes on her feet. "Your shoes are too small, but I don't have others to give you." she was told "They will help to keep the swelling down." The child reached for them to indicate she can dress herself, and she watched Miss Margaret's return to the others. There were four women in the room, mostly older, some seemed sick, others were talking quietly to each other. None showed any interest in the newcomer. The girl watched them also without interest. Dressed, finally, they all waited around the door. Miss Margaret was combing her hair front of a small mirror on the wall. When she was done she turned to Gittle holding out the comb to her, "I think you can comb your own hair," she said " and because you're so quiet you will be in charge of the comb. This is the only one we have, and we have to take good care of it. We keep it on that windowsill wrapped in newspaper."
Miss Margaret straightened the beds; she seemed to do everything around here, before looking at Gittle saying, "We are going to the chapel before breakfast."
Chapel?
She realized, as they left the room, that they were on the second floor. The chapel was on the ground floor. There was a small courtyard and a corridor ran along the wall of the building. They seemed to be walled in on the opposite side by the connecting wall of another house. There was mud and melting snow in the centre of the yard and fire wood piled against the wall across the yard. The entrance to the courtyard was to the right. She was wondering for a moment who had found her sitting outside that door.
She had never been to a chapel before. The chapel was a rather small room, with whitewashed walls, in striking contrast with the greyness of everything else outside. The small window on the left overlooked the courtyard, but the oily dust and dirt that settled on the window pane made it impossible to see through. There were eight short benches; four on each side along the walls with just enough space in the middle to pass through. Right across from the entrance, high up on the wall was the strangest looking thing she had ever seen. It was a large cross, and on the cross was what appeared to be the form of a man. He had appeared to be affixed to the wooden cross. Everyone stood still for a moment after entering, looking at the cross, and making unfamiliar motions with their hands. But Gittle was pushed forward towards the benches, and no one noticed her confusion.
They were sitting, waiting for something. She noticed everyone making signs with their hands as they were entering the chapel and their lips were moving in silent prayer. They all made the same sign. Touched their forehead, then their chest, the left shoulder, then the right. Seemed easy. She felt this was something she would also be expected to do. There were more people now, a few old men, or perhaps they just looked old, in their rugged clothes and sad, grey faces. There were some very young women in neater clothes, but all looked part of the place blending in with the dusty, rumbling house. In all there were about twenty to twenty-five people; together, but each one alone as they sat not talking, not looking at each other, but each busy with different thoughts that seemed to deeply occupy them.
She heard whispers of prayers, lips moved slowly, hardly noticeably. Serenity spread on the faces of those who prayed, while others sat silently, their face communicated nothing to the world. Gittle's face belonged to the second group of people. Her face showed nothing of the confusion she felt. She looked at the colourful, but very faded, statues. They were mostly women. The largest was holding a baby, and because of the soft expression on her face as she looked down on the baby in her arms, she didn't look quite as strange as the others did. She could not figure out the purpose of these statues. They were not in her experience, especially as one or the other of the adults would walk up to a statue and would kneel down in front of it, making the sign of the cross, lips moving, looking very grave and earnest; waiting for some kind of sign or answer. Perhaps they had received what they sought, because they crossed themselves again and returned to their seats. Some people held strings of beads in their hands, rosaries, and they seemed to be counting their prayers, one to each bead.
When the priest entered everyone fell quiet, all whispers stopped. Gittle tried to look small so she wouldn't be noticed. The priest was an old man, wearing the traditional white collar under the black garment that looked more like the clothing on old women. In his old voice he was talking about "Jesus Christ on the cross" who died because they were all sinners; and they should pray to him for forgiveness. It seemed Jesus was doing the good things, such as forgiveness, and God was doing the punishing. The war was God's punishment for their sins. Gittle was trying to think of something that she must have done that brought such a change in her life and of the world's. To her horror she could not stop remembering.
She could see herself standing in their kitchen, long ago in that other life, with Maria their maid. Although Maria is much older than she is, she understands that people still consider Maria very young. And she has a beau. She is wishing for a pair of silk stockings for the Sunday dance where she is planning to go. Gittle said her Mother had some and she would, surely, give a pair to Maria if she would only ask. She doesn't know where her mother is at that moment, but she runs to the room where she knows her mother keeps her stockings, and removes a pair for Maria. She has a strange feeling of doing wrong, because of the way Maria hurriedly puts away the package. She doesn't know why Maria isn't more grateful and wouldn't want to talk about it afterwards. She was about six at the time. Now, two years later, she knows it was wrong, but doesn't understand how it could cause all the terrible things to happen.
The singing of the people around her brought her back to the present.
Christ was the Son of God, the priest said. Gittle had never heard of God having a family. But he also said they should all pray as good, God fearing Christians, and that explained things. This was another God. The Jewish G-d, obviously, didn't care, or He was busy with something else. She should try to pray. She shouldn't get this God angry, too.
x x x
The days went by, filled with frequent visits to the shelter. No matter how often they were sounded, there was no getting used to the penetrating sound of the sirens. There was a shortage of water. The little there was, had to be boiled for drinking. The bathtub was used to store water for the toilet using a pail. Just enough and no more. They used wash cloths instead of taking baths. They were taking baths once a week, before that, and one person after another in the same water. By the time the turn of the second person came, the water had a greyish colour and it was cold. Now that stopped too, because taking the water to store was restricted to certain hours of the day. Then, it trickled slowly it had an unhealthy color and foul smell.
The food, what little there was, had to be always between air raids. Sometimes the soup was warm. The gas supply, too, had been restricted more and more as time went by, before it stopped completely. There was an old wood stove outside in the yard, but the firewood was covered with snow, and the wet wood took a long time to catch fire. It smoked for a long time while drying out and often the air raids came before anything could warm up.
They had bean soup one day and lentils the next. The legumes needed no special care and they stored well for a long time. Sometimes there was a piece of bread with it and you could soften it by dunking it in the soup.
The cold was becoming a particular problem. There was no heat at all, and as the snow had began falling they wore all the clothes they had, all the time. The adults had cut the tips off their gloves so they didn't have to take them off when they did chores and they could feel with their fingers. When they weren't frozen stiff.
Gittle had no hat or gloves.
They took off their coats and sweaters when they went to bed and didn't mind that they had to share it because more bodies kept the bed warmer. Although Gittle kept herself as separate as she could, the presence of the other bodies in the same bed kept her warmer, too. The others took very little notice of her, and they no longer expected her to speak. Occasionally they would ask her directly about some small matter, to which the girl would respond with a nod or with a shake of her head.
x x x
And then the itching began. First it was only her body. She scratched, and scratched until the skin began to bleed under her insistent fingers. When it dried, the scabs formed and she was playing with them, picking off the hard crusts, and so the bleeding would start again. But it was hard to resist not to pick at them, because they itched just as badly while they were drying out as they were before. When her head began to itch, she realized that she had, what the people around her called, lice.
Miss Margaret was nice about it, and said they all had them. There just wasn't enough water and heat to keep their clothes clean. Or their bodies either. But that night they had a bath, and Miss Margaret let Gittle use the tub first. The water was still clean. A small portable tin tub was brought into the corner of a room, and filled with enough water so it would almost be up to the ankle of the child standing in it. They used a wash cloth and a little warm water was added for the next person to take a turn.
The special comb for head lice was smaller than the regular one, but had teeth on both sides very close together, except where several teeth were missing. The lice got caught in between the teeth of the comb, and they could be shaken out onto a newspaper and, then, smashed. There was a small sound such as a pin piercing through paper, as you smashed each, and a small spot of blood. Her blood, the girl realized. The lice were small, sort of oval shaped, greyish. Gittle became quite good at getting them out of her hair. She would kneel on the floor front of a chair covered with old newspaper. Her head bent over the paper, she could hear the lice falling out as they landed. Good thing she didn't have her long braids anymore. She combed her hair with a vengeance, scraping her scalp until it would hurt. At first when she had begun combing, the lice would fall on the paper many a time, then there were less and less of them, and she continued until she couldn't find any even in the teeth of the comb. There were pieces of dried scabs caught in the comb, results of the constant scratching. She knew nothing of nits, so, each day she thought she had rid herself of the last one. The next day they were back again.
Body lice were very different. Less personal, in a way, because they lived between the seams of the clothes, not on the skin. Yet, they managed to get their share of her blood, although she could never catch them in the act. By the time she could look they were tightly packed in the seams. They didn't seem to move. First she didn't know where to look, then she realized the lice took up the color of the clothes, which made it harder to spot them. The lice in her dress had different color than the lice in her sweater. Miss Margaret said, the clothes needed a good boiling.
The only thing that got boiled was the drinking water. The shortage of water was difficult to live with, and everyone got only a sip or two twice a day. Sometimes it all had to go into making the soup.
Then, one day, staying in the shelter became permanent. The shelter was the place where wood and coal had been stored for the winter, before the war, in the days when there was enough to store. Now, the rectangular, windowless place attached to the building, served as the bomb shelter. There were few steps going down, and it was somewhat lower than ground level, but didn't have the protection of a structure above it. There were lunch tables placed along each of the long walls. Five tables. Across the last table, closest to the bathroom, there were bags of food supplies stored against the wall. The tables had long benches on both sides. The bench on the side of the wall, was placed just so a body could pass sideways, when there was a need to go to the toilet.
The toilet was in fact a bucket, within a hurriedly constructed closet with a door, a pretence to privacy. The bowl of water for washing hands was placed on a stool. There was no ventilation of any kind possible, this airless hole was not meant to be lived in.
The walls of the narrow shelter were brick, the mortar falling from between the bricks. The place was constantly damp even without the continual presence of human bodies. The air soon became foul and people were falling asleep from the lack of oxygen in the near darkness of the place. The adults in charge did what they could and kept the entrance door open as much as possible. But it was December, and the people close to the door complained of the bitter cold.
All important activities, such as distributing food, took place in the front where the only petroleum lamp was providing a smelly, yellow light. Miss Margaret sat at the first table closest to the door with some of the others who had seemed more at home in the place, and the more quiet people sat in the back where it was even darker.
Gittle managed to take the first seat of the last table on the side of the wall. She liked it that she wouldn't be sandwiched in between two people. They were sitting tightly together there was barely enough space to move with her arms besides her. The first day, because of the lack of space on the bench or the table, Doll fell onto the earth floor and her head broke. There was a large, triangle shaped whole in her forehead. Looking inside the girl could see only emptiness. Just a dumb doll, and she threw it in the garbage.
x x x
The first days in the shelter seemed endless. They could see when daylight turned to darkness through the small opening of the door. It was getting dark early this time of the year. One day Miss Margaret brought a book, and she was determined to read the story. She brought the lamp to the back and put it front of Gittle on the table, then took the first seat across from her by having the others push closer to each other. The smell of the petrol almost wasn't worth the little light it spread. The pear shaped glass around the flame was so stained with soot that it was a wonder any light came through it at all. But the smell did. While listening to the story, Gittle kept her eyes on the flame and watched the black soot rising from the round open end of the glass, forming shapes of black ghosts in the air and unpleasant sensations in her stomach.
The book was titled The Loveable Stepmother. Stepmothers were supposed to be mean, and ugly. The story was about a little girl whose mother had died, and whose father remarried. The new wife was a beautiful young woman, but the daughter was scared to meet her. When Miss Margaret reached that part of the story, on about page three, she noticed that the people at the table were not interested at all. Whatever age they were, they were too old for this story. Closing the book, she became aware of the disappointment she saw in Gittle's eyes. She handed the book over to the silent child. "Here, you keep it for me." but she took the light back to the front as she left the table. Gittle took the book, and stared at the cover. In the dim light she could make out the pictures. There was the little girl, about her own age, looking very frightened at the shadow of a woman who was carrying in her arms, what looked like, dried twigs. The kind of twigs children were spanked with and witches rode on. There were other pictures in the book, and she could tell by looking at them that the story had a happy ending. She wanted to find out what had happened before that. But she could not read.
She stared at the bewildering lines of the book, trying to remember what her teacher in first grade had taught them. It wasn't much. Things began to happen before the school year was over. She remembered that names began with capitals. Under one of the pictures showing the girl and her father, there were two words with capitals with a short word in between. She could read it was "and". Then, she tried other words at random, and she thought she had some of them right. She couldn't be sure because she couldn't find a complete sentence she could decipher. So she went back to the first page of the story that Miss Margaret read to them. It was too dark to see well, and her eyes hurt from the strain, but she found that by starring at a word she could eventually make out the letters. Now she had something to do. She could make out some of the words and she thought she could read them. It took days before the slow, painstaking work was beginning to pay off. She would understand some words, and finally she found sentences in which the words hang together in their meaning to form a sentence. She knew she was right, because it had the same meaning that she remembered from Miss Margaret's reading. When she managed the first page, she would go back to the first line to practice again, and again, until it became easier to recognize each word. Then she would try to look for those words on other pages.
And a part of her soul came alive.
x x x
One day passed very much like another, except, it was hard to tell whether it was day or night. When the air raids became too long some people became restless and began walking up and down at the length of the shelter that was in itself not much longer then its width. There was a space in the middle, about two meters in width, in between the two rows of tables. The darkness, now, extended permanently over their lives, and everyone was depressed. They no longer even tried to put on an act of good humour. Food and water could not be counted on. Hunger, the lack of daylight and fresh air, resulted in a lethargy that was common to all. Then they became sick. Those who became feverish, had a makeshift bed made under the front table where there was only space for benches on one side of the table, and the wall was on the other. Gittle thought it might be nice to be sick and sleep in a horizontal position, instead of bending on the top of the table, using her arms as pillows. There was not much flesh on those arms, so she was feeling the hardness of the table, her head hurting from the protruding bones in her arms, and her whole body ached. Sometimes she tried to support her back by leaning against the brick wall behind her but it was too far and she could reach it only with her head. And that was a good thing, because the walls were cold and damp. Her feet dangled because they were too short to reach the floor, and after a while they felt as if they didn't belong to her. Her legs became so numb, that when she had to go to the washroom she had to practice to stand on her feet first.
The adults could come and go between the bombings to stretch their legs and take care of what chores there were, but she was forgotten and was sentenced to stay put at the table. And she stayed. There was no energy or desire to do anything else, and there was safety about being overlooked.
Leaving the shelter became more and more dangerous. The bombings became so frequent the sirens no longer announced the approaching planes. They would have had to sound without a pause.
x x x
The loud voices in the front of the shelter carried the excitement to the back. The door in the front was left open as the adults filed outside one after the other.
Gittle, not wanting to stay alone in the dark, followed them to find out the cause of the commotion. She felt a sharp pain in her head as her eyes were trying to adjust, what seemed after the shelter, bright daylight, even on the dark winter day. When she was finally able to focus, she couldn't take her eyes off the remnants of a dead horse, only a few steps away. There was only the upper part of the horse, the rest already chopped away by clever, hungry people, who had first discovered the dead horse. There was the head and the two front legs, and nothing else. It was covered with mud or blood or both. What was left was frozen stiff, lying on its side with its legs straight.
Shivering, the cold forced them under ground again, but the excitement lingered. There were unusual activities in the front of the shelter, and in a few hours the smell of cooked food filled the room. The excitement and the anticipation of something warm to eat made them more energetic and every one was talking of food.
When the soup came, it had an unusual smell to it. The grown-ups had started eating first, and they loudly enjoyed the pieces of meat they found. Horse soup. Gittle tasted it, and the sweet taste it had turned her stomach, and her throat seemed to close up; not wanting any part of the soup. Perhaps, her body recalled the image of those skinny, frozen legs of the dead horse pointing in her direction. For days they had the thin horse soup to eat, and everyone was thankful they had at least that.
x x x
At times, in her half wake, half sleep state, she could smell her mother's cooking. Particularly the smell of freshly baked butter rolls. She would walk towards the kitchen in anticipation of the warm rolls with their soft buttery taste inside the crust. She walked very slowly, her mouth watering, closing the door that led to the rooms behind her, because her mother didn't like the cooking smell in the other rooms. It was early afternoon, because the sun shone through the doorway making the hall way bright with its light.
She would put her hands on the door handle and turn it slowly.
She had never made it into the kitchen. She would wake up as the door was opening.
x x x
Gittle was making progress in her book. She could, now, read beyond the three pages Miss Margaret had read to her, and she discovered that she didn't have to be able to read every single word to understand the sentence, but she could read the rest and guess what the unknown word was. She tried to read it with that in mind, and many times it worked out. Her eyes were constantly burning from the effort in the dim light, but it was a small price to pay. Life inside the story was much preferable to the shelter's.
x x x
Food was getting very scarce. Most days there was no soup because there was no gas to cook and the firewood supply was getting low. There wasn't enough time between the bombings and shelling to go upstairs and make a fire in the stove. It took too long for the wet wood to catch fire.
It got dark very early in the day and dawn came late as if the new day would be reluctant to look at their world. So, it seemed to be dark all the time. Bread appeared a few times in that period. Very old, the ends of loafs they had put away to make breadcrumbs from. If you were lucky you got a piece a little larger than the one your neighbour got. But not if you were a child, because children had smaller bodies, so they needed smaller portions of food. You could not bite into the dry bread, but holding it to your mouth you could moisten a small part of it until it was soft enough for the teeth to gnaw at it. It lasted longer that way too, but Gittle could never make it last as long as the person across the table. They never talked or even looked at her much, but they noticed the food in her hand.
It was a very cold December, so they had said, and the door was opened for very short periods only, and only a crack. The people at the door were complaining of the cold, and said that it was enough fresh air coming in when people had to use the door.
x x x
She finished reading the book. The little girl in the story got sick and the stepmother took really good care of her. The girl got used to the stranger and sometimes in her feverish state she called her Mother. By the time she became well again she had realized the stepmother really liked her and she liked the stepmother, too. That made the father happy, and they all lived happily ever after. A fairy tale.
Christmas was coming. Conversations could be heard from the adults about past Christmases. They told stories that seemed funny to them in retrospect, and they would laugh. The days were spent with the telling of the stories, and it made them feel better, you could tell. As they were remembering their humanity they felt alive. Trying to cling to that lost feeling they would remember more and more stories. What could be done to make this Christmas feel like Christmas? They could sing. There is still that.
They could teach the little one some songs. There should be children at Christmas. All agreed on the first song and Miss Margaret volunteered.
She was humming the song as she sat across Gittle. She even smiled, and asked her to hum the melody. She tried to respond, her mind struggled to shake off the lethargy. Every one hummed, and she moved her lips, pretending. It was a pleasant tune, the shelter seemed lighter, perhaps less cold. Miss Margaret was satisfied, and she began teaching the words;
Little Jesus, little Jesus
Please watch over me,
My little heart, my little heart
Loves you completely.
My whole heart belongs to you
Love me in return
Very, very much.
It was a simple song with soothing melody, and they all joined in to sing.
However, in the following days as Christmas neared, the mood of the people changed and they became very quiet. They often left the shelter, even during air-raids, to cry in private, or just to be alone.
x x x
She is standing somewhere strange in the thick fog.
Groping to hold on to something she staggers around. She is surrounded by the thick, grey fog that covers everything. She could feel the dampness of it on her face but the fog is too dense to see her way. Then she sees him. Quite close. He looks at her, his eyes unusually large, his face expressionless and pale, and he looks older. He looks directly into her eyes, but his eyes are empty of recognition. Then he turns slowly to leave. "Gyurika!" she cries out and reaches to stop him.
The sound of her own voice wakened her. Her outstretched hand hit something hard. Tears flowing freely from her eyes, the pillow already soaked against her face. Her heart still pounding, she realized it was a dream. Then, she held her breath waiting for some reaction from her surroundings. All quiet. For a while she didn't know where she was, because she was lying down, not sitting at the table where she had last remembered being. There were the legs of people sitting along the bench on her right, and someone was lying next to her, on her left, next to the wall. She realized she is under the table where the sick usually were laid. She has been sick, then, and she cried out in her dream. Her whole body was shaking from fever or from the dream, she didn't know. She was terrified that someone had heard. And what else could she have said and give herself away? But no one stirred. She could hear people snoring and breathing noisily. In time, her heartbeat became more regular, but she didn't want to think about her dream. She didn't want to dream at all. Or sleep. She dozed on and off, trying to stay awake.
The next time she became conscious she was sitting at the table on the bench. Her head was heavy and her throat and body ached. Her head rested on the table on her arms and she knew she didn't have the strength to sit up. In the shadowy light of the shelter she drifted in and out of consciousness for some time. There didn't seem to be a reason to fully wake up.
Once, when she had opened her eyes, she had seen a cup with a piece of dry bread on top of it close to her face on the table, but the next time she looked it wasn't there. She did not feel hungry, and it didn't matter. Everyone seemed sick and weak, keeping their heads bent on the table most of the time. But one person had to be more sick than they all were, and she now had Gittle's space to lie down under the table.
Then, one day they lifted someone from under that table, the blanket covered the face, too, and carried her outside. Some people cried. There was a little more space on the bench.
x x x
She couldn't find her book. She looked around but no one had it at her table. It had disappeared while she was sick.
By now, she knew the contents of the book almost to the word. In her head, she began making up different endings. She made up a brother for the little girl in the story. But the little girl was always the same. She had two thick braids her father was very proud of, and she was wearing white knee-high socks, and her navy dress had a white lace collar.
x x x
The days became even more monotonous. No one had any energy left to talk or move much. There simply wasn't any food or water. Everyone received a fistful of dry beans in the morning. The first time the beans were put on the tables someone warned to make sure they are beans they put in their mouth. There were small stones, mice droppings, and sometimes crawlers mixed with the beans. She kept the bean, one at a time, in her mouth as long as it took for it to soften. First the thin casing came off, then the bean split in two before it got somewhat softer.
Around that time, the bombings became more frequent, lasting longer, and the tables moved as the bombs hit the ground in the vicinity. The perpetual sound of thumping and the shaking of the foundation made people jumpy and so to deal with it, some would pray constantly, others invented little games to play on the table pushing the dry beans back and forth from one square to another, that they managed to draw with chunks of bricks they had found outdoors.
The cold walls became colder. There were holes in the mortar between the bricks where water collected, and the walls cried as the holes overflowed.
The damp cold settled in the girl's bones, and when she had to get on her feet to go to the "washroom" her legs refused to straighten, her back remained bent. The water in the bowl they used to wash their hands in hasn't been changed lately, and it had the same repugnant smell as the bucket. The bucket was seldom emptied.
But they had ceased to care.
There was a new irritating condition of her skin that added further to her misery. A new kind of itchiness appeared on places of her body that were not covered by hair or clothing. She had accepted the head lice and the lice in her clothing as inevitable. This itching was worst in places like in the web of her fingers. There wasn't sufficient light to see, but she could feel with her fingers the bumps under her skin. They were very small, but ran into each other and spread in large areas. She was frantic to stop the itching and so she scratched. Her nails were working until the itching stopped.
Relief came when she felt the blood under her nails. She knew, by now, that the itch won't come back on that place until the scabs began to dry. The same thing had happened with the lice on her head. As the scabs dried, she picked them off so the scalp would bleed again and wouldn't itch. The dried scabs would get lost in the tangled hair. She thought the lice might feed on the scabs instead of her scalp.
x x x
The rats became more bold as the weeks went by, and Gittle considered herself lucky that her feet didn't reach the floor. The rats appeared from nowhere particular. Sometimes from the direction of the pee-room, as she thought of it, other times from under the noticeably disappearing storage bags that held their food supply, across the table. The dried beans, that is. The crawlers became more numerous as well. The kind you would associate with dark, damp places that never see the light of the sun. They dropped from above on your hands or clothes, and you couldn't even hear or see them coming. Perhaps they were used to this place from winters gone, when the fire wood had been stored here.
x x x
There was something going on above. The sounds reaching the shelter were different. There was a lot of pounding, as before, but sounded closer, and more constant. And machine guns. Trat-trat-trat-trat...in rapid succession. The few stairs took 90 degree turn to reach the door of the shelter, so people were not afraid of catching a bullet as they stood at the door, listening to the sounds above. They stopped complaining if the door was open, but would stand there for days in the unusually cold winter, listening to the trat-trat-trat of the guns that went on without stopping. The ground shook constantly, there didn't seem to be any let off.
Some of the dried beans were passed around or people just helped themselves from the bags where the rats chewed holes, and the beans spilled to the floor. But there was nothing at all to drink, and no one risked going out.
And, now, no one complained. Life was suspended in the near darkness, listening to the pounding of the outside world, waiting for a direct hit, although they had realized from the beginning that even a close hit would be disastrous, because the wood storage they called a shelter, had never meant to withstand an air raid.
Gittle could feel the fear of the adults. The news came that the Russians took the Pest side, and the Germans are retreating across the Danube to Buda. They are blowing up the bridges behind them. She thought she should be afraid, too. But those, out there, shooting at each other were the Germans and the Russians. Since she understood that the Germans and the Hungarian Nyilas were the ones Jews had to fear, she hoped the Russians would win.
x x x
It was already dark outside, one day, when the door to the shelter was closed, and no one dared to open it because the fighting was going on just outside on their street. They could hear glass breaking, bullets raining on the outside of their building, and instinctively they pulled away from the walls as the old bricks sometimes cracked. When the loud yelling and heavy stomping accompanied the bouncing bullets on the stairs, the people close to the door flattened to the wall the best they could. Shots shook the door smashing it at the handle, and the door was yanked open amidst ncomprehensible shouting and howling. German soldiers appeared in the doorway, and within seconds they were at the back of the small shelter yelling in German, and pointing their guns around, expecting resistance. In the chaos not one of the occupants dared to move, yet they all seemed to shrink in size hoping to become invisible.
Slowly the yelling stopped as the soldiers reassured each other that they were safe, and this group isn't going to attack them. There were about ten of them; they filed into the available space in between the tables so they hardly had space to move. The shouting in German continued as the soldiers communicated with each other, and some of them, close to the door, left. The one in the back barked something in German while his pointed gun at Gittle almost touched her, he motioned that she should move up on the bench. Not understanding the words, but clearly getting the meaning, she moved back from the pointed bayonet as did everyone on the bench, therefore creating space they did not realize they had, for the soldier to sit down. The other solders settled much the same way, all sitting on the edge of some bench.
There wasn't a sound to be heard from the paralysed people inside the shelter. They were sitting frozen in fear, listening to the commotion from the outside, wondering if the Germans will let them live, or empty their guns into their brains before they leave.
After a while as she had recovered from the fast pacing events, Gittle would start glancing towards the soldier sitting next to her. Without turning her head much she could not see his face, being so close, but as his body slacked she knew when the man fell asleep.
He smelled of cold, and sweat, of dust, and of burnt out houses. She slowly turned her head some, and she could see the hands resting on the barrel of the gun. Right on top of it where the bullets would soar out. His hands were dirty, dried blood covering the numerous cuts and scrapes, the nails torn and they looked cold. Her head was level with the bayonet, as he placed the gun on the floor, holding it straight up in between his knees, and she could see it was rusty, or muddy or both.
She had an urge, breaking through her apathy she felt a surge of anger and she wanted to provoke the sleeping soldier. She wanted to make him angry, she wanted him to use the gun. Slowly, but not too gently, she began to wiggle left and right to make enough space so she could remove her arms from the top of the table and push herself up. The soldier stirred and moved a little, enough for her to be able to step back over the bench. As she was passing behind the man, his relaxed posture caused his body to sag over the narrow bench, lessening the space between the bench and the wall even further. She pushed again and the man straightened some, and she defiantly looked into his face and met with a pair of sleepy, watery blue eyes as she passed.
She was astounded. The soldier wasn't a man, but a boy. Not young enough to play with, but not old enough to carry that gun. Even she could tell.
She was hiding behind the washroom door, ignoring the stink, watching the enemy. He seemed beyond caring. His face was grey under his cap as he slept. All their soldiers were asleep. At the other tables, the adults of the shelter kept vigil. She thought she saw Miss Margaret disapprovingly looking her way. She slowly went back to her seat reversing the process. The soldier didn't even stir.
The hours have passed listening to the clamour from outdoors. Suddenly, the shouting sounded like commands, "Achtung… Achtung."...and more. The soldier at the door began repeating the order, and the rag like figures came to life, running towards the entrance. More shouting and more gunfire from outside.
No one moved inside the shelter. They continued sitting in quiet, motionless, and drained of energy. Dawn began to win the battle over darkness, when someone, in a strong, clear voice said; "We shall always remember this day."
"What is the date?" Miss Margaret asked. "February 12, 1945"
Gittle didn't know much about calendars, but she recognized this date.
Today she was nine years old.
x x x
The following morning there were no shootings. The Germans were gone. They could occasionally hear them far away, and most people went upstairs. There were noises of hammering, and the breaking of wood. They were very jittery about whatever they found and whatever they were doing upstairs because they constantly argued about something when they came down to the shelter to warm up. That it would be colder in the house was inconceivable considering the temperature of the shelter.
There was also excitement about some food. A treat. Aunt Margaret had found some food upstairs. They'll have potatoes for supper.
Supper came in the form of grenadiermarsh. Gittle didn't know what that was. Someone suggested it was a German word. Everyone talked, and Gittle paid more attention than usual.
It was quite cold by the time it travelled from somewhere upstairs to the tables in the shelter, but no one complained. The strange sounding dish turned out to be square shaped noodles covered by mashed potatoes. It was much better than dry bread.
The real miracle came when they could have more. Second helpings. The adults had enough.
But eating really can exhaust you. So everyone became quiet and they fell asleep.
Not for long. The moaning and groaning of the people began not long after supper. There was constant traffic to the pee-room. Even those whose routine was to go upstairs, used the pails in the shelter, in extreme urgency.
Gittle couldn't quite figure out what was wrong with her, why she was feeling so sick, until her stomach gave unmistakable signs. She had dreadful cramps and a splitting headache. By the time she got to the door of the washroom she was sure of dying. The washroom was in the most repulsive, repugnant state. People couldn't make it to the bucket and vomit was everywhere.
That did it for her stomach.
And there was no water.
As it turned out the potatoes were rotten. Some of the adults could smell it on the dish and refused to eat it. That was the reason for the second helpings.
x x x
The sounds of war was no more. The Germans were gone. They didn't see any Russians, but they were keeping an eye on the big entrance door that was hanging on its hinges, half open, full of bullet holes. The day came when they could all leave the shelter and go to see the house.
To step outdoors, after three months or so, was a painful experience for Gittle. The light attacked her eyes with such force that she had to shut them. Thousands of needles under her eyelids seemed to keep her from opening them. She tried slowly, very slowly, but it didn't help. Everyone had gone upstairs, and she could hear the exclamation of their dismay at what they found.
She pulled back towards the door of the shelter where it was darker and waited for her eyes to adjust to the light. The pain spread to her head and back to her eyes. Her body was freezing by the time she started towards the stairs. It was extremely cold.
She followed the voices, her legs wobbling from the unusual activity of walking, and she could hardly catch her breath by the time she got to the top of the stairs. Her lungs seemed to want to burst as much from the cold air as from exhaustion.
She entered the room she used to sleep in and stood motionless in the doorway. The force of the cold wind rushing through the glassless window frames was so strong she had to strain to hold the door from slamming on her. Glass was scattered all over, it crushed under her feet even at the door as she entered. The wind was rattling the empty window frames. Someone with a broom was making an effort of sweeping it all up. In the corner a chest of drawers was being dismantled to use in the woodstove, the wood pieces in pile. One old man just took one piece, removing the nails carefully, then taking it over to the far end where the floor was already cleared of glasses, and began nailing the wood against the window frame to keep out the cold wind.
She wandered into another room, feeling lonely and lost. The beds were stripped and Aunt Margaret was shaking out the linen over the railing in the courtyard. "We can use the washroom up here from now on," she said, "although there is no water."
The one small window of the washroom was not broken. The place was relatively warm compared to all the others in the house. The bathtub was half full of dark yellow-coloured water with a bad smell, and there was a pail standing next to it to flush the toilet with. This is what the adults used all winter when they could leave the shelter. She tried the faucet of the filthy basin and drips of yellow water fell on her fingers. She looked at her hands mesmerized. She moved the fingers, touched one with the other to make sure they really belonged to her. In the near darkness of the shelter she could feel them, scratched them as they itched, but she couldn't see them. Gone was the colour she had remembered. Gone was the shape she had remembered.
Her hands were covered with grey patches of dirty skin that seemed baked on except where she scratched and scraped so hard that the skin came off, and there the bumpy, knobby red skin looked like sickly raw flesh ready to burst blood to cleanse it. The skin was darkest in the web of her fingers, in spots around the lighter knuckles.
Some places, where she had scratched the most, the scabs had dried into dark black patches.
She would have liked to rid herself of her hands, those monstrosities, to leave them behind, or even better, to wake up.
Confused and feeling sick, she looked up. She was just tall enough for the lower half of the cracked, dusty mirror above the basin.
Stunned, she dazed into the eyes of the girl in the mirror. Her hair was hanging in dirty strings to her shoulder, her face a sickly grey with dirty patches around the chin and forehead. Her face and eyes looked old and sad; and she was looking back at her. The narrow face with the long thin nose, the sunken chin and hollow eyes. She was a stranger. A waif.
She touched her hair, the stickiness of it, that have become familiar. Yet, all this time she had thought of herself as she used to be. Her Father's pride and joy, the little girl with the long, thick braids with ribbons. The clean white socks...the prettiest little girl in all the provinces of the country.
Slowly, without being noticed, she withdrew to the darkness of the shelter.
x x x
There is big excitement around the house. The decision had been made that it was safe enough to go out. The Germans were gone, they had lost the war. So far the conquering Soviet army have not been close by.
The little group assembled in the middle of the courtyard, dressed in their warmest clothing, which was exactly what they have been wearing in the last few months. Ready to go, they inspected each other in the light of the day, noticing, for the first time, how they all resembled in their poor, neglected appearance. Even in their excited state they were concerned about going out looking that way. They made futile efforts to button up properly, where there were buttons, and fixed their shawls or their hair.
The cold was biting, but the anticipation of the world outside gave them reason to brave it. They stepped carefully around the front door that was barely hanging on its upper hinges.
The statue was in view as soon as they stepped out, and Gittle faintly remembered the night when she had been left outside that door. There was broken glass everywhere and broken planks and broken bricks. Over everything a grey powder, like finely ground cement. It covered the ground, and the litter that was everywhere. This was a lost world waiting to be dusted off and put to use. Or was it ashes everything was covered with, and was this, really, a dead world?
They left their street and walked towards the river, not meeting a soul on the streets. Those were low buildings around there, only one story, or a few, two floors high, the windows all broken on every house they passed, and there were large gaping holes and some smaller once made by the weapons of the soldiers who seemingly had fought for every house.
There was a cat frozen in death, a small dog with his hind legs blown off. Both covered with rubbish. You guessed rather than knew what they were.
And the smell, that particular smell everywhere. The smell of dust from broken bricks and mortar, the smell of smoke, the stale air even in the wind and sometimes especially in the wind carried that special amalgamated smell of destruction and decay. Nothing identifiable, but a special smell that she came to know as the smell of war.
When they turned a corner, the sight confronting the small group was such that they all stopped abruptly.
There wasn't a building standing whole. There wasn't a single whole structure to be seen. Just ruins everywhere. The street was blocked by the rubble and masonry that spilled over from the demolished buildings onto the middle from both sides of the street. Grey on grey.
They were standing still unable to move. They forgot the cold, the hole on the sole of their shoes that just broke open, and stared without thought not quite comprehending.
Slowly, afraid to look at each other, they took tentative steps climbing the ruins and stopped, realizing there is no place to go. The heaps of rubble were very high, they could see some of the piles reaching up to the second floor of the skeleton of a house. The adults were quietly crying, their tears made tracks on their dusty face.
As if possessed, they began mounting the rubble, then stopped, again, realizing the futility of it, just stood there silently grieving. Gittle looked around, not feeling much, trying to understand. Were the houses blown up because the Germans were looking for Jews? What else was the war about? She will think about it later. A camera in her head took a picture of the destruction. Click.
She became aware of something moving between the ruins, not far away. She strained to see and realized it was a man. With his greyness he blended in with the ruins. There was a long stick in his hand, and he used it to push the broken pieces of rubbish. Occasionally, he bent to move something with his hands. He was looking for something... or someone. Click...click.
The building behind the man had been hit from this angle, and the wall on the far side was still standing. Like a doll's house in ruins, you could make out each storey of the four stories by the remnants of the floors. She gawked at the sight she saw right above the searching man.
On the third level the remaining part of the floor was jutting out, like a cliff, and there was a grand piano balancing on its edge. The piano was covered with the same grey substance as was everything else, only its distinctive shape made it more noticeable and the rather precarious position on the edge of the broken floor. The floor had broken away from under the third leg of the piano and there was nothing under that leg to support it. Click...
The man below was oblivious of the piano. He continued his scrutiny of the rubble, not looking further than his feet, searching the same area back and forth, poking with his stick. The piano seemed alarmingly close to falling and becoming part of the unidentifiable ruins below. Click...click...
She couldn't take her eyes off the sight in front of her. In her mind she saw the room as it might have been, two armchairs in the far corner with a table and a lamp. The fireplace was in the other corner, you could see its hollow inside as it broke and the broken tiles, in a heap, around it. Perhaps there had been armchairs around the fireplace. And people, of course. Faceless parents sitting in the armchairs beside a small table. Faceless, but she could tell they were smiling because their little girl was sitting at the piano, wearing a navy dress with white lace collar and white knee-socks...
Now that her eyes became used to the greyness of the world around, she could see other people around. Some women wearing expensive looking fur coats, some were in rags. They were all there to find something that would connect them to their world as they had known it, to their lives before all this destruction.
The little group silently turned to go back. They have seen enough. They climbed down on the hill of rubble slowly, watching their step, proceeding around the sharp objects, hanging wires, and broken rusted pipes. The bricks they disturbed often began moving under their feet, taking with them an avalanche of debris. At times part of some furniture was recognisable, the back of a chair, or half of an armchair that wasn't broken or buried. Someone in the front gave an involuntary shriek as she fell and had began crying out loud, incomprehensible words. They crowded to help her up, but she was pushing, backing away from the spot, pointing to the mound on her side.
There was, half exposed, the body of a man. His arm stretched out from his torn clothes, his leg seemed broken under him. His head was terribly mangled, but the rest of him covered as the walls collapsed on him. His eyes sockets were full of mortar, and the hairy arm half hidden, but the fingers were frozen apart pointing accusingly. Click... click.
No one spoke. The woman who first spotted the body became quiet. This was beyond words and tears. They looked around them, realizing there must be more bodies buried where they were standing.
They continued towards the convent, picking up firewood for the stove as they went. Taking care of the living before the dead.
x x x
It began to warm slowly. In past years, March had been a joyful month for most people. The end of winter, the national holiday on March 15, when you could start wearing spring clothes, making plans for the summer.
Nothing of that exhilarating feeling was felt this March, nothing to feel optimistic about, or to look forward to.
In the convent life was made busy by dealing with every day needs. The most urgent was food, then water. There was more water these days, but it still had to be boiled for consumption, it still smelled, and it was still rationed.
Hygiene was difficult, but each day they were able to wash their hands and face. There was even some soap the kind that was used to wash clothes, it had, probably, been found in the washhouse. It was a real luxury and the people were all smiles as it passed hand to hand.
The scabies on Gittle's hands and feet were still active, and she could not scrape off the dirty skin between her fingers. Miss Margaret had noticed and had said that in time it will wear off.
The old comb was found when they had cleaned the broken glasses off the floor. It was still wrapped in the newspaper, from months ago. Miss Margaret remembered and put Gittle in charge of the comb again.
She spent much time trying to comb her tangled hair. She tried from the ends up, inch by inch, slowly getting rid of the sticky knots. At times the comb would pull out the knot from the roots carrying dried crusts of the scabs. If she used the comb from the scalp down it would remove the scabs...and then the pus would just make it worse.
When the weather gets warmer they will be able to wash their hair, they planned. In the meantime the comb was another great luxury.
x x x
People were leaving the convent. There were only the nuns and Gittle left. Some of the people came back, not finding any one they hoped to find, not having any place to stay.
They were very quiet. There were no stories they wanted to share.
x x x
And then it happened. Miss Margaret came looking for her. She was so very excited her face became flushed and her eyes sparkled. Someone came to get Gittle. Her cousin.
Gittle was confused. Miss Margaret didn't know the name of the cousin, and the child couldn't think of anyone else, but the relatives she had already stayed with... and didn't want her anymore. It seemed so long ago. She didn't think anyone knew where she was, except Uncle Guszti who had sent her here. And why would he remember her now?
Miss Margaret was very eager, and she wanted her to look nice. She couldn't think of anything she could do to improve her appearance with in a hurry, while her cousin was waiting for her downstairs. She was running around to find better or cleaner clothes. Nothing would fit the small frame. The shoes. Yes. She could clean the shoes. As the shoes came off, it became apparent that no amount of cleaning will improve them. There was a large whole on each one, at the ball of the foot and, so, both socks had holes on them in the same place. Yet, she was full of good will and excitement for her, and kept talking, while she cleaned the shoes with some rags she had found. "If the shoes had feelings they must have fainted from this unusual attention." Miss Margaret said good naturedly as she was trying her best, and she even lined the shoes with newspaper to cover the holes.
She helped her to pull the shoes on, and this time they were much too big even with the newspaper padding. She lost more weight, it seemed. Miss Margaret noticed the spurs on her feet. There was an outgrowth of the bones on each feet above the heels, angry purplish, that had to stay above the shoe line. Miss Margaret stared at them, as if just realizing the futility of her efforts, and fastened the shoes lightly with a small string she had found.
Gittle carried no belongings when she came, and carried none when Miss Margaret, taking her by the hand, led the anxious child to meet her cousin.