The Choice

what I knew. That I made the right choice.
But she can’t say that, or even if she did, I wouldn’t believe it. I can
forgive the Nazis, but how can I forgive myself? I would live it all
again, every selection line, every shower, every freezing-cold night and
deadly roll call, every haunted meal, every breath of smoke-charred
air, every time I nearly died or wanted to, if I could only live this
moment over, this moment and the one just before it, when I could
have made a different choice. When I could have given a different
answer to Mengele’s question. When I could have saved, if even for a
day, my mother’s life.
My mother turns away. I watch her gray coat, her so shoulders,
her hair that is coiled and shining, receding from me. I see her walk
away with the other women and children, toward the locker rooms,
where they will undress, where she will take off the coat that still holds
Klara’s caul, where they will be told to memorize the hook number
where they’ve stored their clothes, as though they will be returning to
that dress, to that coat, to that pair of shoes. My mother will stand
naked with the other mothers—the grandmothers, the young mothers
with their babies in their arms—and with the children of mothers who
were sent to the line that Magda and I joined. She will ĕle down the
stairs into the room with showerheads on the walls, where more and
more people will be pushed inside until the room is damp with sweat
and tears and echoing with the cries of the terriĕed women and
children, until it is packed and there is not enough air to breathe. Will
she notice the small square windows in the ceiling through which the
guards will push the poison? For how long will she know she is dying?
Long enough to think of me and Magda and Klara? Of my father?
Long enough to say a prayer to her mother? Long enough to feel angry
at me for saying the word that in one quick second sent her to her
death?
If I’d known my mother would die that day, I would have said a