CHAPTER 2What You Put in Your Mind
ey come in the dark. ey pound on the door, they yell. Does my
father let them in, or do they force their way into our apartment? Are
they German soldiers, or nyilas? I can’t make sense out of the noises
that startle me from sleep. My mouth still tastes of seder wine. e
soldiers storm into the bedroom, announcing that we’re being moved
from our home and resettled somewhere else. We’re allowed one
suitcase for all four of us. I can’t seem to ĕnd my legs to get off the cot
where I sleep at the foot of my parents’ bed, but my mother is instantly
in motion. Before I know it she is dressed and reaching high into the
closet for the little box that I know holds Klara’s caul, the piece of
amniotic sac that covered her head and face like a helmet when she
was born. Midwives used to save cauls and sell them to sailors as
protections against drowning. My mother doesn’t trust the box to the
suitcase—she tucks it deep into the pocket of her coat, a good luck
totem. I don’t know if my mother packs the caul to protect Klara, or all
of us.
“Hurry, Dicu,” she urges me. “Get up. Get dressed.”
“Not that wearing clothes ever did your ĕgure any good,” Magda
whispers. ere’s no reprieve from her teasing. How will I know when
it’s time to be really afraid?
My mother is in the kitchen now, packing leover food, pots and
pans. In fact, she will keep us alive for two weeks on the supplies she
thinks to carry with us now—some Ęour, some chicken fat. My father