Displaced Persons by Ghita Schwarz Read Free Book Online Page A

driver had laughed. Everyone saw the Americans too made divisions. The British did not permit the camp newspaper to publish any stories about the military, but on the radiocould be heard the stories of the skirmishes among the Americans, the Negro soldier left beaten on the street, the white soldiers protesting shared meal tables. When Lazar had been liberated, a brigade of Japanese from America had marched into his camp, frightening some inmates who thought the war had been lost to the Axis. Lazar laughed about it now, he confided to Chaim, but even he had been confused. But one could not be confused when one saw a black soldier. A black man was American, immediately recognizable for who he was, a symbol of freedom. When Chaim had first come to Germany, his heart had still jumped at the sight of a uniform, any uniform—but after the momentary shudder he knew to feel relief at the glimpse of a dark face, for he could see at once that these men were Americans, liberators.
    Now in Bremen, Chaim sipped his coffee, feeling it spread through his chest. Towns people bustled away from him. Even with his clean clothes and straight hair, he felt himself recognized. What was it? Perhaps his face gave out the light of accusation when a German hurried down a street of the American zone, carrying bread or holding a child’s hand. Or perhaps—yes, he knew it—they could see the fear, a look he no longer had the confidence to hide. Towns people could see who he was, could see through the calm mask of a young man idling, their quick glances registering German from refugee. For a long time he had forced himself to forget the faces of his family, the names of the companions with whom he had fled the ghetto. His talent for disguise had erased the fear from his face. But now it seemed that fear revealed itself like a caption below a photograph. Now it seemed he could be named.
     
    M Y DARLING SISTER . A letter came from Fela’s sister in Palestine, the diminutives and nicknames falling off the page in Yiddish, mixed withthe Hebrew that Bluma, so smart, so clever, now spoke every day. Bluma had heard nothing. She too had been writing to the synagogue in their hometown, to HIAS and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee for word of sisters, brothers, nephews, nieces, cousins. Bluma had heard nothing until the short letter from Fela, her dear one, her beautiful sister.
    Fela wept as she read her older sister’s letter. What chain was more strong than the chain to a sister, even one whom she had not seen since childhood, when Bluma had defied their father and left? Flesh of the same flesh. Bluma had gone to gymnasium when no Jewish girl in their town could dream of it—the eldest, Pnina, had gone to work to support Bluma’s schooling, expensive even when the family store had prospered. And what had Bluma learned among the other students? She had picked up ideas, become a socialist, and at last joined a group of young Zionists and sailed off. It had been terrible at the time, the horror of her father and mother at the rebellion of their most gifted child, but now it seemed wise, prophetic.
    Two sisters, one chain. And yet the relief that Fela felt when she opened Bluma’s letter, the gratitude for a word from her blood, my darling sister , did not fill her. It was as if she were still starving and given just a morsel of bread to eat. She longed to see a family face in the refugee camp, longed to read even a distant cousin’s name on a list of survivors. She longed for Moshe, the touch of him covering her, his breath like a blanket to warm her. Fela too had defied her father when she ran away, in the first weeks of the bombing, when it was still possible to flee to White Russia. But it was not for politics that she had disobeyed.
    Thanks to Pavel’s trading, Fela now had clean clothes and an adequate amount of food; the bloating in her legs and belly had subsided; she looked almost as she once did, and she had begun to menstruate