Pictures of the Past (26 page)
He was trying to be objective. Was he truly attracted to her again, falling for her—or did he need someone to rescue? If he could not save Sarah, could he save her?
And a year later, in a simple, but elegant ceremony, Emily Kendall became Mrs. Taylor Woodmere.
T
he newlyweds began their first years of marriage not quite as separated as most couples during the war, although Taylor and his father did travel extensively to oversee and coordinate certain supply operations for the War Department. After the armistice, Taylor’s father transferred many of the Woodmere Industries responsibilities to his son, as he and his wife began spending an increasing amount of time at the Palm Beach estate where the senior Woodmeres resided during the winter months. This left the main living quarters in Kenilworth for the younger couple for much of the year.
Taylor especially loved assuming his father’s place at the massive leather desk chair. On the weekends, he would work in the front study, enjoying the landscaped front view of the rolling lawn. He would anticipate the smack of the newspaper on the drive and allow himself the work break of the long walk down the driveway to retrieve it. And then one day…there in the headlines—Potsdam—where he walked with Sarah— where she fell in love with a puppy that belonged to a family of picnickers. The paper was plastered now with pictures of the Cacilienhof Castle, which they had seen in 1937, after touring Frederick the Great’s Sanssouci. Harry S. Truman, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, the three most powerful leaders of the world, the leaders of the Allied countries, the United States, Great Britain, and Russia, were meeting right where they had visited. Their mission was to deal with the future of Germany and the defeated Axis powers.
But his memories were much simpler.
“Promise me I can have a puppy and I’ll consider running away with you,” she had teased. “Papa is allergic and Mama is not a dog lover either. When she thinks dog—it is a German shepherd—a military dog. I think of a cuddly dog. What are your breeds in America?” He couldn’t even remember what he had answered, but it didn’t matter.
He couldn’t help it. He walked back to his desk and knew that he was done with any work for that day. His depression had returned. Outwardly, he had made a normal, contented life, but inwardly he could never release his memories, his pictures of the past. Had he given up on her too soon? What truly had become of her? What would become of him? He was a husband now and hopefully one day he would become a father. But already from the first years he could tell, it would never be as he had dreamed, as he had verbalized to Sarah—Just like her parents and like his—"that is what I want in a marriage.”
M
any times during her years with the Resistance, Sarah thought back to the day she was recruited and knew that her decision had been a rewarding, but difficult one. It was emotionally difficult, for she was saddened by her separation from her loved ones, her parents and, of course, Taylor, and she was no longer confident that she would be reunited with any of them. And it was physically difficult, not only with their work to bring the children to safety while eluding and even killing their pursuers, but also because the winter months seemed to offer no respite from the elements. And so she often found solace in remembering her own childhood.
For the first year, she missed books the most. No matter how inspired or exhausted she might be with her responsibilities during the war years, she would have loved to have ended a day either rereading the classics of her youth or raiding her father’s library for a book on history or technology. He was still there with her, protecting her wherever she went, and sometimes she knew she spoke aloud. “Papa, what do you think of this growing field of psychology? I think understanding the mind can cure the body. And maybe cure aggression.” By the end of the third year, she had only two desires. To be dry and to be warm. The cold wet chill of the damp forest was a thick blanket that she wore.
This is what she had once valued. Very, very soft pillows made of the most delicate plucking of feathers, the individual whispers of eiderdown so thin and threadlike that they often peeked through the weavings of her family’s finest linens and floated softly on her cheek to be blown away individually by an allergic sneeze or an instinctive hand movement chasing a tickle sensation. And now she had to redefine pleasure. Now it was the most basic thing that she cherished—the soft spot of a bed of moss in the hardening base of the winter earth.
In her childhood, she would have described the forest as magical, would have sought out the most enigmatic animal footprint paths to explore, anxious to see which obscure mammal would eventually reveal itself. And she would follow the meandering streams, hoping to come upon a creative beaver dam. These were activities that she would be strongly scolded for, as she would be missing for long periods at a time, causing great consternation among the adults charged to her care. When she reappeared, always minutes before the time that they would be contacting the authorities to help search for her, they would attempt to punish her, to limit her boundaries. But she returned to them with such complicated narrations of her journey during this fall from grace—"So have you ever seen the pattern of three pairs of steps and a hop and then a turn and a disappearance that could drive you insane, and then you look up into the trees and…” that they knew they could never limit her imagination, the spatial context of her environment, and so they hired only nannies with the strength and energy of youth to closely accompany her.
Often, this was her solitary entertainment, the sounds she could hear and the sounds she could produce. Uncle Laurent, of that massive compound near Potsdam, the town she had visited with Taylor, had introduced her to the secrets of the forest. How often she would accompany her uncle with his brood of six children, her first cousins, as he did his rounds. He was a wealthy landowner who her parents labeled “idle rich,” to his face and endearingly, while he shot back at them that they were “bourgeois intellectuals.” As an accomplished birdwatcher, a card-carrying member of the Audubon Society of Germany, and an amateur biologist and botanist, he had taught her so much. On their walks, he would quiz all of the children, challenging them to identify the calls of the indigenous wildlife and cautioning them to understand the rich vegetation around them. Eventually, they all knew which leaves embellished poisonous plants and which flowers and seeds and bark would provide nutrition and even medicinal qualities.
Certainly she had no idea that she would use that storehouse of knowledge for survival techniques in her near future, that her compatriots would be drawn first to the lyricism of her pastime, the trill of a warbler or the calling of a finch, and then that they would empower her to be a leader of signals. She established an elaborate coding system, with one call alerting them to the presence of an ally, another to a passenger for the underground railroad, another, ironically the voice of the most graceful of the avians, the nightingale, as the warning for an approaching Nazi.
The mounting acuity of her sense of sound was a revelation to her and it made her think of the admonishment of so many piano instructors in her youth not to have a lazy ear. Whatever did that mean, she wondered. “I am trying my very best,” her ten- or twelve- or fourteen-year-old self would whine back in her defense. As she grew older, she insisted that her ease with language must attest to her having attained a “good ear.” But she was told, “No, you have a way with words—your mind has the ability to process language.” Either she had not yet developed or they did not yet recognize her facility to interpret nuances of tones—to mimic the pattern of notes that might emerge from a classical piano piece. Oh, in this her classmate, the sallow-complexioned, spectacled, and dour-faced Helena wore the crown. And sometimes Sarah feigned self-deprecating appreciation and envy of Helena’s gift, understanding that the poor girl should have some small joys.
But now there were no pianos. Oh, the thought of music would be so welcomed. But her sharpened hearing had only to do with the percussive sound of the leaves and forest beneath her feet. And when she was alerted to the crunch of leaves, she craved her once innocent response of youth. She wanted only to be transported again to a time at her uncle’s home when they raked and gathered the leaves on the grounds at Potsdam and they would laugh and jump and play in the piles of elms and oaks and maples that had been the last of a fall too soon beckoning the crisp winter air. The oldest of the fallen leaves, the washed out brown ones replete with pinprick holes, those no longer bearing any green, red, or yellow tones of life and elasticity, would make the young group squeal loudest with delight. But now the images bore new meanings. In the stillness she would concentrate on the monotonous crawl of a beetle up a tree or a caterpillar inching its way along the ground. And then the crunch of the leaves became the sound of fear.
But in the forest there is also spring. There is renewal and rebirth, she continuously reminded herself—petals and blossoms and colors emerge from the brownish blackish compost. She tried to relive the experiences of her youth when she would have searched eagerly and optimistically for any small sign of burgeoning vegetation that would indicate the coming of the season, anticipating that around the next bend would be a meadow with hints of wildflowers. But now this forest was anything but enchanting; it was haunted and intimidating. And she held back from the pack, cautious now that each curve and line of the landscape would reveal a foreboding vision, not a fascinating treat.
Sarah had never met anyone like Gabriel Dressner. He had joined their ranks just weeks after the war had officially ended, when their group was transitioning from a war resistance pack to a Zionist band. He had been liberated from one of the concentration camps, one of only a dozen survivors from his location. Sarah had tried to befriend him, to get him to talk about himself, but he fought her efforts. Originally, he was from a small town outside of Prague; this was one fact he shared early on. But he was never satisfied with her pronunciation of its name.
“You are making fun of me,” she would say to him— but he returned no tender words.
“You are a fool. You are a fool to think I would waste my time making fun of you. I don’t even think of you. I think of killing Germans and I think of Palestine. I do not waste time plotting to antagonize a shiksa Jew.”
The others in the group jumped to her defense. “You are invaluable to us,” one of the leaders said to her quickly, as he physically took his place between them. And then he turned to Gabriel with a scowling, “Leave her alone—don’t take your demons out on an angel.” But everyone knew in their hearts what was going on. It was a strange courting ritual that would eventually play itself out and be resolved in love. Only the two main characters of the drama were in the dark.
Gabriel was proud to exhibit no manners. He felt he had survived by being strong and resourceful and he planned to continue in that mold. Although the term had yet to surface, he had no “survivor’s guilt.” He had “survivor’s pride"—a sort of entitlement for what he had endured. Sarah was thinking that he was the antithesis of Taylor, who had been so mannered, so modest, for the hypnotic memory of her first true love was what she clung to most during her times of solitary despair. She often tried to imagine how his life had played out after he received her final letter. Was it true that they had already enacted their final scene together? Certainly she thought of her parents as well. She was desperate to know where they were, if they survived. But in all of her fantasies, whether optimistic or pessimistic, she pictured them together, and that was the one image that gave her peace.
Their first month together in the group, Gabriel continued to antagonize Sarah. “I can’t stand you. I can’t stand your German speech—even your German accent. You don’t even look Jewish. Maybe you are a spy with your blond hair and blue eyes. If you were a man I would demand to see your circumcised penis.”
She was mortified. In her life, no one had spoken to her like this—so blatantly showed her such disrespect. But she was a bright girl and now an extremely mature young woman. She realized his outbursts, his accusations, were part of the constant resurfacing of his recent memories of the war and the camps. If he were a child she knew she could work her magic to calm and comfort him and so now she searched for a way to reach him.
And then it came to her. She looked for a kerchief around the neck of one of the men in their party. She untied it and then unrolled it and then smoothed it into its original square shape and refolded it into a triangle. Then she placed in on her head, and let it hang loosely as a religious woman would a prayer shawl. And she began:
“Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Ehad
—Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
Amen. “
It was the simplest and holiest and most identifiable prayer of the Hebrew litany.
After reciting it she paused and looked up at him. And then she continued. This time circling her hands three times over imaginary lit candlesticks in front of her, she said the Sabbath blessing:
“Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha’olam Asher Kid’shanu B’mitzvotav V’itzivanu L’hadlich ner Shel Shabbat.”
Now she could not look at Gabriel. She did not have to—she knew that he would have tears in his eyes and remorse on his tongue.
And then one night that was particularly cold—he came softly to her with his coat. And he wrapped it around her. But he was shivering so much that she felt guilty and made him take it back.
“Then please just let me put my arms around you. It is called body heat—it is always best when flesh touches flesh.” And so he asked if he might put his hand around her waist under her sweater. And she let him, for she knew now he was gradually starting to become a different person—the man he was destined to be.
It was a long time before he shared his story even with Sarah—and as he became more mature and mellower in the following few years, he would cry to her, not for what he had endured at the camps—but for how inappropriately he had acted toward her those first months together after liberation.
“I could have driven you away. Why did you stay? I was so mean and bitter and self-righteous.”
But she just held him in these moments. “No—I saw who you were always—you did not see it—you thought you escaped unharmed, but you were wounded. Not wounded like a puppy or kitten or bunny that crawls into hiding and licks its paws—but wounded like a tiger or lion or bear—a predator that comes out snapping. But yes, you are right.”
“Now right about what?” he asked, confused.
“Lucky—that I stayed—very lucky at that.” And then she ran her hands through the fullness of his revitalized, brown, wavy hair and brought his head to her breasts to rest as you would a sleeping child.
“Sarah—I loved you always, from the moment I saw you. From the moment I was introduced to you as Liesel Schultz.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You knew? Despite the way I acted?”
“You think you are the first to act crazy around me? Well, you are wrong—this is my gift—to cast those ‘love at first sight spells’ on all my suitors.” Actually, she had just said it as a joke. She was not, finally, even thinking specifically of Taylor.
When Gabriel shared his story with the group, he once again began by teasing Sarah, but finally with warmth. “I think you were a parent pleaser,” he told the group, but directing his introduction to Sarah. “But I was not,” he continued. “Not at all. I loved the outdoors. I was not a student. I loved the physical—the brawn, not the brains. Our town was known for lumbering, and annually there would be a festival that we would all attend. For one day each year, Jews and Gentiles mingled and laughed together. I insisted on preparing for and then entering the many contests of strength. There would be prizes for the man who could throw an enormous log the farthest. I would never be the winner, but I would have ribbons of second or third place.
“‘That is for the goyim,’ my mother would contend. ‘You should be studying. You are wasting your time. You should be more like your father, like your brothers,’ she would say. But you know the end of the story and they do not. This physical strength—this is what saved me. I was so good at hauling things, a favorite pastime of the Nazis, that they could not afford to lose their best worker. More than one of the foremen slipped me an extra portion of food to make sure I maintained my strength and their work details would be successful. So what did the Nazis need most to haul in a concentration camp? Yes, you do know. The bodies of the dead, from the showers to the crematorium—moving them, stacking them on wagons. Sometimes, I was so sickened by my own powers that I contemplated sneaking early into the showers and exterminating myself. But then finally I knew my purpose. In that time when even many of the most observant Jews felt they had been abandoned by God, I found religion, for I understood my calling. As I carried my fellow Jews, I would quietly recite
Kaddish,
our prayer for the dead, for them. I wanted to do it individually, not in groups. I was obsessed with it. So I would remember their faces and give them the dignity of names, not numbers. And I would be their son or their father or their sibling and I would fulfill God’s command—I would do it for them, of course, but mostly for myself. It gave me a will to continue, a reason to keep strong and survive.”