Her anxiety reminds me of our ĕrst day at Auschwitz when she
stood naked with her shaved head, gripping strands of her hair. Maybe
she condenses the huge global fears about what will happen next into
more speciĕc and personal fears—the fear that she is not attractive
enough to ĕnd a man, the fear that her lips are ugly. Or maybe her
questions are tangled up in deeper uncertainty—about her essential
worth.
“What’s wrong with your lips?” I ask.
“Mama hated them. Someone on the street complimented my eyes
once and she said, ‘Yes, she’s got beautiful eyes, but look at her thick
lips.’ ”
Survival is black and white, no “buts” can intrude when you are
ĕghting for your life. Now the “buts” come rushing in. We have bread
to eat. Yes, but we are penniless. You are gaining weight. Yes, but my
heart is heavy. You are alive. Yes, but my mother is dead.
* * *Lester and Imre decide to stay on in Vienna for a few days; they
promise to look for us at home. Magda and I board another train that
will carry us eight hours northwest to Prague. A man blocks the
entrance to the train car. “Nasa lude,” he sneers. Our people. He is
Slovak. The Jews must ride on top of the train car.
“The Nazis lost,” Magda mutters, “but it’s the same as before.”
ere is no other way to get home. We climb to the top of the train
car, joining ranks with the other displaced persons. We hold hands.
Magda sits beside a young man named Laci Gladstein. He caresses
Magda’s ĕngers with his own, his ĕngers barely more than bones. We
do not ask one another where we have been. Our bodies and our
haunted eyes say everything there is to know. Magda leans against
Laci’s thin chest, searching for warmth. I am jealous of the solace they
seem to ĕnd in each other, the attraction, the belonging. I am too