If I Should Die Before I Wake (23 page)

"She looks terrible," said the girl. "If we took a week we could never get her cleaned up enough."

"I think she's very ill," said another, as if I weren't even there. Then they all started in on me.

"She would be selected for sure if she played on Sunday."

"She's being eaten alive with lice. She might have typhus, look at all those sores."

"She doesn't even have any shoes or socks."

"She's way too thin and her head has bald patches. They won't want to be watching her. Claire is right, she will be selected."

"She looks too Jewish."

I had let all of their comments just wash right over me—what did I care what they thought? I didn't want to be in their orchestra—but this last comment startled me. I looked up and noticed for the first time that the chairs were grouped together into two sections. Jews were sitting on the left and non-Jews on the right. This had to be the only block where they allowed non-Jews to work alongside Jews.

The orchestra leader waved her hand. "We can clean her up, you will see. And she will be wearing different clothes, and a scarf over her head like the rest of you. It will work out."

"If Alma were still alive she would not take her," said an enormous girl who looked as if she had eaten an entire warehouse of food.

The conductor slammed her baton down on the girl's music stand. "Alma would take her because she is a good musician, unlike most of you here; and anyway, I am the conductor now, I am your
Kapo.
"She turned back to me. "You can take a seat over there." She pointed her baton at a chair in the front of the other violinists.

I hesitated.

"Don't worry. We take showers here every day. You will be ready by Sunday," she said.

We rehearsed all day, breaking only for our midday meal. In this strange place the
Lagersuppe,
with its foul odor and sickening taste, was the only thing familiar to me.

We repeated the same simple phrase over and over, until everyone could play it correctly and up to tempo. Then we'd move on to the next phrase and do the same thing. When we returned to the music the next day it was as if most of the girls had. never seen the music before, and again we repeated each phrase a hundred times until it was correct.

It wasn't all our fault, however. I soon realized that Sonia, our conductor, was not very good at her job. She tried to cover it up with a lot of knuckle slamming with her baton, but she left me alone. Everyone did. They didn't know what to make of me, and for the first three days I moved from place to place in a kind of trance. The existence of this block in this camp was beyond my comprehension. We took our showers daily with warm water and soap, and dried ourselves off with towels. I got not only a clean skirt and blouse to wear, but also a bra, underwear, dark stockings, and real shoes. We had to stand for
Zählappell,
but it was indoors, inside the hut. The only time we ever went outside at all was to go to the lavatory, the showers, or to play for the workers as they marched through the gate.

It was during the morning of my fourth day there that Sonia came up to me and told me I was to play for the workers that morning.

My
Shvester
was standing by my side when I shook my head and told Sonia I wouldn't play outside.

"You will play or go up the chimney."

"But I cannot. To play and cause someone to fall, or force someone to hurry who can't even pick up her legs so that the dogs are set upon her and she is eaten alive, I cannot do."

Sonia smacked my wrist with her baton. "Where do you think you are? You are not at home. You have no choice unless you want to die. Do you? Is that why you look as you do? Is that why you act as you do?"

All these months I had been here in the prison camp fighting with all I had to stay alive, fighting to keep from becoming a
Muselman,
only to come full circle. Again I was questioning everything, again I was trying to make sense out of nonsense, reason out of no reason.

The girls were gathering up their instruments and filing out of the hut.

"Well, what is your answer?"

I went over to my chair, put on my jacket, picked up my violin, and followed the others outside. It was simple—no need for questions or reasons; more than anything, I wanted to live.

I NEVER GOT USED
to playing for the workers. I refused to look at them as they marched in front of our platform each morning and again each night, but I could feel their hate, their misery. I wanted to throw down my violin, run down to the line, and march along with them. I wanted to tell them, "I'm with you; I belong with you," but I didn't have the courage. If it weren't for the warmth of the music block, the comfort of having my own bed with a mattress and blanket, and the daily showers, I never would have survived. I was sick, spending many a morning and evening before
Zählappell
with my face over a lavatory hole.

Although I could see Bubbe almost every Sunday now, she could do little to help me. Either before or after our Sunday concert, which nurses and doctors and even some prisoners were allowed to attend, Bubbe and I would exchange hurried tidbits of information. She told me about Rivke dying, and I told her about Matel. A few times she managed to hand me a couple of pills,
instructing me to take them right away, but they were never enough for a cure.

One Sunday, I was feeling so ill, I pleaded with Bubbe to let me go to the
Revier.

"No, not now. Now is the worst time. They are making selections at the hospital daily. If you can still walk, it is best you stay where you are."

"But what is happening? Why are the Germans so jumpy all of a sudden?"

"The Allies are advancing. The war could be over any day. Think of it, we could be liberated any day now."

Her words were full of hope, but her eyes were not.

"I fear they will not let us survive," I said. "The Germans will kill us all before they surrender to the Allies."

Bubbe grabbed my hands and closed her eyes. "Just hold on, Chana. Please hold on."

I tried to do as Bubbe said, tried to hold on, but my body was refusing to cooperate. Our daily ritual of seventeen hours of practice had become unendurable, my fingers fumbling on the strings, my left arm trembling as I tried to keep the violin in position.

One afternoon, as we were going over "The Charge of the Light Brigade" for the thousandth time that day, my feet slid out from under me, and I felt myself slip out of the chair and onto the floor. The next thing I knew, I was on top of my bed and Eleni, a pretty Greek girl, was bending over me.

"I am supposed to see if you are all right now," she said in a monotone.

I sat up. "Yes, sorry."

"If Alma were' here, she'd send you to the
Revier.
It is not fair, your special privileges."

"If I went to the
Revier
now, I would be selected for sure."

Eleni nodded. "Yes."

"So that is why I am here."

"My sister was selected from the
Revier,
"she said, still in her monotone.

"Yes, that is why I am here," I repeated.

"Why should you be so special, Jew girl? Because you are an old number? That is no reason."

"Because I am a human being."

She laughed. "That is nothing here."

I watched her pick up her violin from the foot of my bed. When she tucked it under her arm, a glint of gold caught my eye. She turned to leave.

"Wait," I called her back. "That is—that is my violin! I do not believe it, you have my violin!" I popped up from the bed and the room spun around. I fell back onto the bed.

"This is my violin," she said. "Your violin is back at your seat, where you should be if you will not go to the
Revier.
"

"No, you do not understand, that is mine. Those are my initials on the back, C.S. See the gold letters on the neck? My tata had it made for me. That is mine!"

Eleni grabbed the violin by its neck and backed away. "You are sick. You do not know if this is yours. You are sick, stupid Jew." She turned and ran back to the other side of the hut.

I tried everything I could think of to get Eleni to trade violins with me, but it gave her too much pleasure to see me so miserable; she would never hand it over to me. Whenever she caught me looking at her, at the violin, she'd pretend to bang it accidentally against her stand, or into a chair. She'd tighten the strings so much they'd pop, and when she was through for the day, she'd wait until I was looking her way and toss the instrument into its case. She used the case to rest her muddy feet on, claiming that it made her uncomfortable to sit in a chair with her feet dangling for so many hours.

I felt guilty for feeling so upset about my violin. I was being childish, I told myself. What did a silly wooden case with some strings matter compared to what was going on all around me? However, everyone that fall was on edge. We felt certain that each day was going to be our last.

At night we could hear planes flying overhead and we knew they weren't the usual run of Messerschmitts. These planes belonged to the Allies, and the bomb drops were getting closer.

The Germans worked at a frantic pace. The crematoria were no longer able to burn all the people who were gassed each day, so they began tossing them into ravines, dousing them with benzine—not even bothering to kill them first—and setting them on fire.

From my bed at night I could hear tortured screams intermingled with the distant bombs, and all I could do was shiver beneath my blanket and pray.

During the day, a
Lagersperre
could last up to six hours, while the SS made their selections. When it was over the SS would often come to the music hut to relax, expecting us to play for them, to help them unwind.

Usually it was the
Laqerführerin,
head of the women's camp, and
Herr Kommandant
Krammer, commandant of Birkenau, who came to hear us play. They were the true music lovers of the camp, the reason the music hut existed in the first place. But one day, after a four-hour
Lagersperre,
Dr. Mengele and
Rapportführer
Taube came strutting into our hut. Taube looked drunk. He kept knocking into Mengele as they made their way to the seats behind the conductor's platform.

"
Singen! Singen!
"Taube ordered.

Sonia bowed to the two men, turned around to face us, and signaled for us to rise. We went through our usual repertoire of German folk songs, but I could not sing. I could feel myself mouthing the words but nothing would come out. I could not perform for these two men.

I don't know if Taube could tell I was not singing, or if he recognized me from before, but when the songs were over he called me forward. I patted down my skirt, licked my lips, and stepped up next to the platform.

"You play the violin?"

I nodded.

"Then play. Play me some—some Bach."

I couldn't think of any piece to play. I couldn't remember anything. I suddenly wasn't even sure I knew how to play the violin anymore. I stared down at the bow in my hand and wondered which way to hold it. I looked up at Taube. He had taken several steps toward me. I could see his bloodshot eyes. He clenched his teeth, his lips pressed up against his gums. I twisted away just as he raised his rifle and rammed it into the back of my skull.

"Play!" he growled as I fell forward onto my knees and then down onto my face.

My head was reeling, the floor beneath me seemed to be tilting, then dissolving, and then tilting again. I could feel something warm moving down the back of my head.

"Play!" Taube repeated.

I got up onto my hands and knees and crawled forward. I searched the faces of all the girls sitting before me for my
shvester,
but she was gone. When I needed her most, she was gone.

Dear God,
I prayed,
be with me.

I found myself kneeling in front of Eleni. I gazed up into her eyes, my mouth open. I tried to speak. She leaned forward, grabbed my arms, and pulled me up off the floor. Then she handed me her violin, my violin, turned me around to face my audience. "Play, Chana," she whispered. "Play for your tata."

I closed my eyes and I played my violin. I played Bach's "Chaconne," and when I was through everyone stood up and applauded. They rushed toward me and formed a line; they all wanted to shake my hand. I stepped forward and thanked each person there: Tata, Mama, Zayde, Anya, Mosze, Jakub, Matel, Rivke, Mr. Hurwitz, Mrs. Hurwitz, Mr. Krengiel, Mrs. Krengiel, Mr. Liebman—I stopped.

"How long is this line?" I asked Mrs. Liebman.

"It never ends," she replied.

"
TAUBE MUST HAVE ASSUMED
you were dead," Bubbe told me when I came to in the
Revier.
"He told Sonia to leave you for the
Leichenkommando.
"

I ran my hand down the back of my head. Bubbe had sewn it up and the thick bits of thread felt strange beneath my hand.

"I will be selected," I said. "Maybe they should have left me for dead."

Bubbe shook her head. "Everything is upside down. Even the Germans don't know what they are doing. The whole camp is being evacuated. The music block has been cleared, they are gone."

"Gone?"

Bubbe nodded.

I tried to imagine the hut empty, the instruments left on the chairs. Where had they been taken? Were they still alive? I remembered my dream, my vision of all my dead friends and family lined up in front of me. Would they be in that line now? I told Bubbe what I had seen. I told her that Mama and Anya and Jakub were in that line.

"I am sony, Chana."

"But it does not mean they are dead, does it? I was just dreaming."

"You have the gift," she said.

"Your gift?"

"Yes."

Someone from another bunk called for water, and Bubbe left me.

I thought about her gift. She knew so much. She knew people so well. She could read their lives, past and future. She could understand them and love them, all of them. I was not like that.