I never met her, of course.
Never even heard her name until I saw the photo in the
album, this young woman posing for her own future, that bright future one knows
nothing about but assumes is out there somewhere if one is young enough. Rebekka was her name, Rebekka
Steinberg, daughter of a cousin of mine so removed there is no trace of him
left.
She is old in the photo, crushingly old for that time and
place. Perhaps just twenty. This is nothing now, but
in Vilna in 1943 it was too many years in which to see things too clearly. And then there is that locket she is
wearing in the photograph, a small silver heart. That is in the album too, now tarnished, dented, rusted with
time.
What can all that mean?
Somehow, despite this photo not because of it, I can clearly
see her in my eye’s mind, so clearly standing there before that low concrete building
with the thick metal door. It is a
sunny day and the light makes the door seem lighter than it is, the thick walls less
impossible. She is standing in
line with all the other women, girls and ladies alike, waiting to go
through.
And I wonder…did she have hopes at that moment, did she know
what was on the other side? Did
she still have a future in mind?
Or any thought that the locket would survive her? No answers.
Yet there she stands for me, wearing a dress from her older
sister, one with a flowery print that looked so new once, now faded and ragged
from the long trip on the train.
The woman ahead of her moves forward and so Rebekka too takes a
step. She is thinking, of all
things, about that boy she had in mind during the bread run.
On Tuesdays, because that was the day the baker finished his
first batch of bread, she would arrive in her floral dress and dance shoes and
with that piece of red silk tying her hair into a tail, looking so pert and
perfect that no one would doubt her or stop her. Into her violin case they would slip the loaves of
bread. It was traditional bread,
Jewish bread, but baked in the French way, long and thin, for a better
fit. There was an idea at one
point of baking the bread in the exact shape of a violin but that seemed too comical to take seriously.
When the case was filled and the moment was right – when the
traffic in the street picked up because of the trucks – she began her journey
to the other side of the town. She
walked slowly but with determination, just another young woman going to a music
lesson. She did not, of course, play
the violin at all; she had been studying physics at the university
before the wall was put up. But
this was life as unusual in a world deformed and in this one, bent and
tarnished, she was going into the ghetto for her music lesson.
That is when the boy appeared, just on the other side. He was tall and lean and so
handsome. Like a movie actor with
his brown hair and deep dark eyes.
He stood causally there, leaning against a wall, hands in pockets,
squinting in the sun. This image
calmed her and her steps, which had slowed up to this point, now picked up
pace. She took the chain holding
the locket, which had been hidden under her dress, and moved it on top of the
fabric so that it was visible, glinting in the sun. This was a sign to him, a signal of yearning or perhaps just
a silly flirtation, yet it gave her momentum and amused the guards enough to
look away.
Just before crossing the threshold, as if to help her, the
boy on the other side took one hand out of his pocket and held it palm up in
front. A gesture to come through
or at least to not stop.
She stepped through that Tuesday, just like the others, not
knowing that the door would close behind her and never open again, not knowing
that this was the last bread run, not seeing the future coming, the sealing off
of the ghetto. Not guessing at the
train ride, and the line to the metal door in the sun, that moment so clearly in
my mind now.
His name had been Josef at first, then Elias for a
while. And for a long time his
hair was blond and he was older than her and he wore a gangster hat. But on that day, the last day, the last
time she would show the locket and see him again, his name had become John. Or was it Jacob? No matter, he was just a figment in any
case, something to help her get through.
And what was the point of all that, if there was nowhere to
go? If this, this one particular
doorway she was standing before – it might have been a window or a cliff or
even an oncoming trolley – meant the end of it. What was the point of all those bread runs or even
everything up until right now?
These are the thoughts she had standing there before the
metal door in sunlight, as I see it. Until the
woman right in front of her, the one with the round glasses, took another step
forward. And then the sun blinked
and the wind brushed her hair from her face and she seemed to know then, in a
flash, what she had never before known, even at the university.
About bread, about boys, about futures, about even the shape
of space and time. It all really
did fold back on itself but not around the gravitational singularity as she was
taught. No, it was the force of
memory that pulled it around, each memory like a quantum magnet, pulling and
tugging until the past was the moment and the moment was all there was. Memory pulled it all together, even if
it was all made up.
These were troubling thoughts, too grand for that instant,
but no matter. There had been
bread to deliver and that was all that mattered that day, she decided. Each instant its own explanation. And then the woman in front of her took
another step forward and Rebekka Steinberg did too.
I am sorry that I did not know you Rebekka. Sad that you were so young then, and
sorrier that you had to face that door and ask those questions.
How many many doorways I have stood before not going
through.
Not now, not yet.
Only to imagine a reason beckoning on the other side.
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