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Chapter 7: Iby's Homecoming
Autumn, 1945
It was dark in the apartment at night. There was one room where they had a solitary candle burning, a cherished source of light that was lit only at the last moment before darkness fell, then they all went to bed early. The warmth of their bed was the only way to escape from the dampness of their unheated apartment. There were no lights coming in from the dark streets below. They were one of the lucky ones, having the window panes unbroken. People no longer needed the black-out shutters but there were no street lights on the streets. Many of the lamp poles were still uprooted, but there were less cables to trip over as the slow cleaning of the rubble continued. At times Gittle could catch the light of the moon through the window, and she was convinced that it, too, was sick of the sight below and would rather hide behind the clouds. It was the end of the summer, and they were all concerned with the winter coming.
They were a house of women. The Aunt, her two teenage daughters and Gittle. Her hair was growing unevenly, but covering the scalp with a dark fuzz. She was skin and bones, as she was often told, although they now had food on regular basis every day. It had been a miracle the way Aunt Hermina was able to find food in a city where there was none. People took trips to the countryside to the farms, on overcrowded trains; everyone having the same idea. Few of the trains would run, and none directly from the city, since most of the rails around it were damaged by the bombings. The farmers, after fierce negotiations, parted with edible goods in exchange for a wedding ring or a necklace. There were stories, on the crowded trains, of survivors who had come back from the concentration camps. They didn't know of anyone who had. There was no news of her Uncle or any member of Gittle's family. Every night they stood at the window, facing East, and read from the prayer book, praying for the safe return of Uncle and The Others.
One night after dark as they were sitting around the candle-light, loud, impatient knocking came from the door. They all filed out to the hallway following the Aunt who carried the candle. Before opening the front door she cautiously called out, "Who is it?"
"It's me, Iby." came the answer.
"Iby, Iby you're alive!" The happy voices echoed in Gittle's head as her Aunt quickly unlocked the door for her sister.
The child was standing behind her aunt and her cousins in the darkness of the hallway. In the light of the candle the shadows on the wall moved like ghosts. The dark menacing figures encircled, closed in on her. The day of reckoning had come. She was alive. And her sister's little boy was dead. Before she realize what she was doing, she locked herself into the bathroom.
In the darkness she squatted in the corner. Her body shaking violently, she tried to squash into the wall and disappear. Inside her head her own voice was yelling and screaming in despair, but no sound escaped into the silence of the dark room.
The knocking on the door became louder than the noises in her head, and she heard her sister calling "It's all right. I know, I know. Come out My Sister." The whimper that was the answer filled the darkness. It could have come from a small wounded animal.
The hardest thing Gittle ever had to do in the nine years of her life, was to open the door and face her sister.
They went back to the candle lit room, and they set around the table, talking. Gittle learned that her parents had been killed, as was her brother. Iby pulled up her sleeve on her left arm. The bluish numbers looked as if they had been printed through blue carbon paper, slowly dot by dot... 80983 and a triangle under the numbers. Branded.
They stared at the numbers, speechless.
Iby told the story of what had happened when they were arrested in April, 1944. The local authorities, in their eagerness, couldn't wait for the official orders to come to round up the Jews, so they arrested my parents and Iby on charges of listening to foreign news on the radio.
My Father had a Document of Exemption, which meant protection for him and his family. Protection from military service, taxes, discrimination, ect. He was so privileged, because at one time when Hungary was in a dispute over land with Chechoslovakia, he gave up his land. His property lay in the zone the two countries had debated about. My Father, a true Hungarian, exchanged it all for the exemption papers that was to protect him and his family. How much choice he had had, Iby did not know.
My Father produced this document to the Chief Constable, who was not impressed. He laughed, tore up the paper, and called my Father a dirty Jew.
My Father punched him in the face. He was quickly restrained by policemen, and my Mother and Iby were escorted to another room and locked in.
After a while they could see from their window, my Father being carried out, his body limp and covered with blood. They had not seen him again.
Iby was twenty-five. She had lost not only her parents, but also her husband and her son. And, now, she was telling them, there was no one to wait for any more.
Iby had her arms around Gittle as the child was standing near her. She noticed how the girl was trying to free herself from her touch. She remarked that the places where the scabs were still visible on Gittle's body, were sensitive to her touch. But it was the unusual, close physical contact that bothered the child. Her sister's hands on her back felt strangely invading.
Then, as she continued gently stroking the child's back, Iby said, "I had never pictured finding one without the other. She took such good care of him. My son and my sister together... or neither." Gittle felt her feelings echoed in her sister's voice. This is what she had been telling herself all along, and now she knew her sister felt the same way. She wiggled her sister's hands off her back, and went to sit in the soothing darkness.
Her mind blocked out the adults’ low voices as they talked. She was emotionally exhausted and was unable to deal with the new developments. She withdrew into herself and let the dark void protect her.
x x x
Iby went back to their parents' house in Ragaly, and found the house empty of their belongings. The floorboards had been broken up in every room of the house as the town's people were looking for valuables. She found only some old photos scattered around, trampled on.
Maria, their one time maid, didn't know, or didn't want to say, where everything had disappeared, and Iby just couldn't face the job of hunting for their parents' possessions. Maria swore she had only taken Iby's wedding dress. She had the dress shortened and dyed green.
Iby left with the dress and the photographs she had found in the house--all that was left from the past.
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning
The end is where we start from.
T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets (Little Gidding)