The Choice

gold bracelet he gave me when Marianne was born, that I tucked into
Marianne’s diaper when we Ęed Prešov, the bracelet I wear every day.
It’s a token of triumph. We made it. We survived. We stand for life.
But not even Béla’s comfort, nor the kiss of the smooth metal on my
skin, can mitigate the dread collecting in my gut.
We share the train compartment with a German couple about our
age. ey are pleasant, they offer us some of the pastries they’ve
brought, the woman compliments me on my outĕt. What would they
say if they knew that when I was seventeen I sat on the top of a
German train under a hail of bombs, a human shield in a thin striped
dress, forced to protect Nazi ammunition with my life? And where
were they when I shivered on the top of the train? Where were they
during the war? Were they the children who spat at Magda and me
when we marched through German towns? Were they Hitler Youth?
Do they think about the past now, or are they in denial, as I was for so
many years?
e dread in me turns to something else, a ĕery and jagged feeling,
fury. I remember Magda’s rage: Aer the war, I’m going to kill a
German mother. She couldn’t erase our loss, but she could Ęip it on its
head, she could retaliate. At times I shared her desire for
confrontation, but not her desire for revenge. My devastation
manifested as a suicidal urge, not a homicidal one. But now anger
collects in me, a gale-force fury, it gathers strength and speed. I am
sitting inches away from people who might be my former oppressors. I
am afraid of what I might do.
“Béla,” I whisper, “I think I’ve come far enough. I want to go
home.”
“You’ve been afraid before,” he says. “Welcome it, welcome it.”
Béla is reminding me of what I believe too: is is the work of healing.
You deny what hurts, what you fear. You avoid it at all costs. en
you ĕnd a way to welcome and embrace what you’re most afraid of.