don’t want to indulge it. I picture God as being like a dancing child.
Sprightly and innocent and curious. I must be also if I am to be close to
God now. I want to keep alive the part of me that feels wonder, that
wonders, until the very end. I wonder if anyone knows that I am here,
knows what’s going on, that there is such a place as an Auschwitz, a
Mauthausen? I wonder if my parents can see me now. I wonder if Eric
can. I wonder what a man looks like naked. ere are men all around
me. Men no longer living. It wouldn’t hurt their pride anymore for me
to look. e worse transgression would be to relinquish my curiosity, I
convince myself.
I leave Magda sleeping on the stairs and crawl to the muddy
hillside where the corpses are piled. I won’t undress anyone still in
clothes. I won’t tamper with the dead. But if a man has fallen, I will
look.
I see a man, his legs askew. ey don’t seem to belong to the same
body, but I can make out the place where the legs are joined. I see hair
like mine, dark, coarse, and a little appendage. It’s like a little
mushroom, a tender thing that pushes out of the dirt. How strange
that women’s parts are all tucked away and men’s are exposed, so
vulnerable. I feel satisĕed. I won’t die ignorant of the biology that
made me.
* * *At daybreak, the line starts to move. We don’t talk much. Some wail.
Some pray. Mostly we are private in our dread or regret or resignation
or relief. I don’t tell Magda what I saw the night before. is line is
moving quickly. ere won’t be much time. I try to remember the
constellations I used to recognize in the night sky. I try to remember
the taste of my mother’s bread.
“Dicuka,” Magda says, but it takes me a few hollow breaths to
recognize my name. We’ve reached the top of the stairs. e selection