The Choice

thin.
e tang of peppers and cherries in my mother’s strudel; her
deviled eggs; the pasta she cut by hand, so fast I feared she’d lose a
ĕnger; especially the challah, our Friday night bread. For my mother,
food was as much about the artistry of creating it as it was about
enjoying the ĕnished meal. Food fantasies sustained us at Auschwitz.
Just as athletes and musicians can become better at their cra through
mental practice, we were barracks artists, always in the thick of
creating. What we made in our minds provided its own kind of
sustenance.
One night we enact a beauty pageant in the barracks before bed.
W e model in our gray, shapeless dresses, our dingy underwear.
ere’s a Hungarian saying that beauty is all in the shoulders. Nobody
can strike a pose like Magda. She wins the pageant. But no one is
ready for sleep.
“Here’s a better competition,” Magda says. “Who’s got the best
boobs?”
We strip in the dark and parade around with our chests sticking
out. Mere months ago I was working out for more than ĕve hours a
day in the studio. I would ask my father to beat my stomach to feel
how strong I was. I could even pick him up and carry him. I feel that
pride in my body now, topless and freezing in the barracks. I used to
envy my mother’s round, inviting bosom and feel embarrassed by my
tiny breasts. But this is how we prized them in Europe. I strut around
in the dark like a model. And I win the contest!
“My famous sister,” Magda says as we drift off to sleep.
We can choose what the horror teaches us. To become bitter in our
grief and fear. Hostile. Paralyzed. Or to hold on to the childlike part of
us, the lively and curious part, the part that is innocent.
Another night I learn that the young woman in the bunk next to
mine was married before the war. I pump her for information. “What