turns staring at us and then run to hide their faces behind their
mother’s skirt. We are containers for their fascination and their fear. I
am used to the blank-eyed, automatic cruelty of the SS, or their
incongruous cheer—their delight in power. I am used to the way they
li themselves up, to feel big, to heighten their sense of purpose and
control. e way the children look at us is worse. We are an offense to
innocence. at’s the way the children look at us—as though we are
the transgressors. Their shock is more bitter than hate.
e soldiers bring us to the room where we will sleep. It’s the
nursery. We are the orphans of war. ey li me into a wooden crib. I
am that small; I weigh seventy pounds. I can’t walk on my own. I am a
baby. I barely think in language. I think in terms of pain, of need. I
would cry to be held, but there’s no one to hold me. Magda curls into
a ball on the little bed.
* * *A noise outside our door splinters my sleep. Even rest is fragile. I am
afraid all the time. I am afraid of what has already happened. And of
what could happen. Sounds in the dark bring back the image of my
mother tucking Klara’s caul into her coat, my father gazing back at our
apartment on the early morning of our eviction. As the past replays, I
lose my home and my parents all over again. I stare at the wooden
slats of the crib and try to soothe myself back to sleep, or at least into
calm. But the noises persist. Crashes and stomps. And then the door
Ęies open. Two GIs careen into the room. ey stumble over each
other, over a little shelf. Lamplight strains into the dark room. One of
the men points at me and laughs and grabs his crotch. Magda isn’t
there. I don’t know where she is, if she is close enough to hear me if I
scream, if she is cowering somewhere, as afraid as I am. I hear my
mother’s voice. Don’t you dare lose your virginity before you’re married,
she would lecture us, before I even knew what virginity was. I didn’t