I Have Lived a Thousand Years by Livia Bitton-Jackson Read Free Book Online Page A

something.”
    “Okay. In the morning.” Quietly he walked me to the bedroom door. And then he sat down at the kitchen table with a huge folio of the Talmud. He beckoned to Bubi, and the two of them began to study the Talmud in hushed tones. “This is how I wish to part from you,” he said to my brother, “learning a passage of the Talmud. Remember this passage when you remember me.”
    I hear the murmur in the kitchen, Aunt Serena’s restless tossing about on the sofa, and Mommy’s quiet preparations. Outside my window the ghetto has settled down. It must be about 2 A.M.
    The sound of clattering carriage wheels wakes me. The house is dark. The beds and sofa are empty. Everyone is gone.
    I run out of the house in my nightgown, barefoot. In the early dawn I can see the silhouette of a small crowd at the gate of the ghetto. I reach the gate, the crowd, out of breath. Mother, Aunt Serena, and Bubi are there among the handful of men and women. But Daddy is not. Daddy!
    I force my way to the open gate flanked by armed military police. Daddy!
    Carriages are clattering in the distance. The last carriage is barely visible now, but I can see Daddy’s erect figure sitting among several men. His back is turned, and the outlineof his head, neck, and shoulders is sharply etched into my mental vision by searing pain.
    A sudden, violent shiver shakes my body. The chilly dawn is rapidly brightening into shrill morning. All at once, Mother becomes aware of my presence.
    “Elli! In your nightgown! And barefoot!”
    “How could you do it? You promised to wake me! How could you do this to me? I did not even say goodbye to Daddy. I could not even kiss him goodbye. How could you do this?”
    My hysterical sobs surprise everyone. I am aware of the astonishment my violent display causes. But I’m powerless in the face of my savage grief. In the face of unbearable loss. I know what I wanted to tell my father in the moments of parting, and I was robbed of those moments.
    All the self-delusions of the ghetto suddenly evaporate with the vanishing dawn. Oh, Daddy! How could you leave without saying goodbye? How could you leave me, Daddy?
    The fathers are gone and the ghetto plunges into profound gloom. Every movement slows, every sound is muffled. Only the crying of the children is louder and more frequent. That’s the only prevailing sound.
    Then, another sound is added. The chanting of Psalms. The older men left behind in the ghetto now sit on the ground in the synagogue and chant the Psalms all day long. And all night long. The chanting of old men and the crying of young children blend into a slow rhythmic cacophony. The sounds reverberate in my aching belly and lull me to sleep.
    The chanting goes on for six more days and nights, until it turns into a dull refrain in my soul.
     
    C AN I K EEP M Y P OEMS P LEASE?
    NAGYMAGYAR, MAY 17, 1944
    Tables are set up in the middle of the synagogue yard. A row of Hungarian military policemen are stationed next to the tables.
    In obedience of the latest order, the ghetto inhabitants stand in long lines in front of the tables, their arms laden with piles of books of every size and color. They are delivering prayer books and Bibles, notebooks and picture albums, textbooks and novels, identity cards and passports, huge folios of the Talmud and the Torah scrolls from the synagogue.
    The tables overflow with mountains of paper. The spillage of human lives, loves, and identities now piled high in obscene casualness on the ground.
    “This, too?” A young woman clutches a pile of family photos.
    “Everything.” The Hungarian military man with a spectacular mustache is firm.
    “Can I keep this one, perhaps? Just one?” The trembling hand holds the picture of a baby.
    “Leave everything.”
    The glossy snapshot flutters on top of the pile.
    “Will we get these back? When we come back, I mean.”
    “Oh, of course. You’ll get them all back.”
    With hesitant footsteps the young woman moves on. My