Shattered Crystals - Mia Amalia Kanner (that summer book TXT) 📗
- Author: Mia Amalia Kanner
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Three thousand marks remained in the bank account. I had spent a huge sum of money in eight months, almost fifty thousand marks. I had paid for Marthe’s smugglers, for the documents that freed Sal from Buchenwald, for the telephone calls. There was my fine and taxes. The export tax on our shipment was set at double the purchase value of everything acquired since 1932. Since ten marks was the limit each person was permitted to take out of Germany, I withdrew a final forty marks from the account and put the bills in my purse. All the rest of the money I signed over to my father, amazed that the Nazis permitted it.
Coming out of the bank, I met Kaese. “So, you are going to Paris,” he said.
“Yes, the day after tomorrow.” It no longer mattered to me that the police knew my every move.
“Only a handful of you are left in Halle now,” he said. “We will clear the remaining Jews out of the city soon. Yes, Halle will be Judenrein.”
I said nothing. After Kaese finished spouting the official Nazi line, he said as pleasantly as always, “Well, give my greetings to your husband. I congratulate you.”
I ran to my room at the seamstresses house to pack the few clothes I kept there. The sewing machine was whirring in the living room when I knocked on the door. “Frau Feldman, I am leaving. We have a visa for France.”
“You are fortunate,” Frau Feldman said. “The room shall remain empty. I do not believe my son will get out of Buchenwald. You did not disturb his things. I am grateful for that.”
“Frau Feldman, thank you for sharing your home,” I said. “I pray that God will help you and your son. Goodbye. I wish you well.”
“Thank you,” she said, and returned to her sewing.
In the time that I had lived with her, I had never seen her smile. I wondered what would become of Frau Feldman. She seemed to have no one and no place to go. Please God, don’t let the Nazis take away her sewing machine.
At the warm, windy airport, I embraced my father, my tears mixing with his. My only regret was leaving him. He looked old and frail, his wispy, white hair blown unruly by the strong breeze. Until this moment, selfishly, I had counted on him without really worrying about him. He had taken in my children, an old man caring for three little girls. I realized that my father had never asked anything of me. It was my mother who had shaped my early years, had told me how to behave and what I could expect in life; but it was my father who was there for me.
“Go, daughter. Have a safe trip. Don’t worry about me. I’ll get out.”
I thought, “I shall never see him again.” I don’t know where this feeling came from; nor can I explain my conviction that our parting was final, but I was certain it was true, and I was filled with immeasurable sorrow.
I entered the small, one-engine plane that would take us to Cologne. There, we were to transfer to a flight for Paris. Single seats lined the two sides of the narrow plane. “Lea, you have to sit,” I said over the roar of the engine.
We moved along the airstrip. There was a sudden bounce, like a car hitting a rut on a country road, and we were off the ground.
“My ears feel funny,” I heard Ruth say.
“Look, look at the little houses,” Eva shouted. “It looks like a toy village down there. Oh, it’s all spinning around. I feel sick.”
“Here, in the paper bag,” I told her.
The stench of vomit filled the plane. All of the twenty-nine passengers on the plane were sick except for Lea. The child skipped gleefully up and down the aisle. I felt too ill to stop her.
When the plane landed at Cologne, the Jewish travelers, identified by the “J” stamped in their passports, were led to a low stone building. Immediately, the men were separated from the women. A steely-eyed matron wearing a man’s uniform ordered all of us to undress. Lea giggled; the two older girls obeyed quietly. Wide-eyed, we watched the matron turn pockets out and shake each item of clothing.
I stood in the warm room, holding Lea by the hand and shivered helplessly. After an eternity, the matron allowed us to get dressed. She folded her arms across her chest and stared at us. Her eyes filled with hate. I buttoned Lea’s dress and tied the bow at the back. I stroked her hair and hoped she did not feel the malice that emanated from that woman.
In a small outer office, an official stamped our passports and pointed to the French plane. The seats of the first class compartment were upholstered and so wide that two children could sit comfortably together if they wanted. A steward offered me wine. I shook my head. I was afraid I would be sick again. The children ate little triangular sandwiches without the crust and drank milk out of wine glasses, chatting happily.
The plane circled over Paris. The landing was so smooth, I was not aware of the plane touching the ground. Walking down the ramp, surrounded by my children, I thought the girls looked just lovely in their new frocks. I felt glamorous in my stylish silk suit and gloriously happy.
“There’s Papa,” Eva shouted. “I see him. I see him.”
I looked toward the crowd behind the rope and saw my husband standing next to Hannah and Herman. I went toward them, the children running ahead of me. I felt elated. This is how it should be, I thought. I felt alive. For the first time in many months, I felt that I was a human being.
Paris
“We were swept up in an immense joyous celebration.”
We arrived in Paris in the middle of July, just in time to celebrate Bastille Day. Paris was the most beautiful city in the world. What was so marvelous about it was that after a separation of six months, Sal and I were together again. To be reunited in a land where Jews could stroll without encountering Juden Verboten signs, where Jews could sleep without fear of arrest in the night, where we could walk to shul openly, where kosher meats were readily available—all these made Paris wonderful.
For the first few days after our arrival, we stayed with Hannah and Herman in their apartment in Montmorency, a village some eighteen miles outside the capital. In her carpeted bedroom, my sister untied the short, pink silk cape that had protected her dress while she was applying makeup. We were getting ready to go to Paris.
She pushed away from the dressing table and scrutinized me carefully. “You should wear lipstick, Mia. All the women here do.”
“I don’t know, Hannah. In Halle, only actresses wore makeup.”
“You’re in France now, Mia. Come on, use mine.”
Hesitatingly, I obeyed. I sat in front of the mirror and rubbed the creamy, red lipstick along my lips. It smelled of lily-of-the-valley cologne.
“You’ll soon become so used to wearing lipstick, you won’t go out without it,” Hannah said. “The only other thing you have to do is move your wedding band to your left hand. Then you’ll look like any other French woman. If you wear your ring on your right hand, everyone will know you’re from Germany.”
On the 14th of July, everyone in the family, except Herman’s mother, Die Alte Felber, was going to Paris to join the Bastille Day celebrations: Hannah and Herman and their three-year-old daughter Rachel; my sister Edith; and Sal and I and our three children.
Sitting in the train next to Sal, I felt self-conscious. Under my white gloves, the gold wedding band was pressing against my left ring finger. Sal assured me that I looked “nice” but I felt certain people were staring at me.
All my discomfort vanished by mid-afternoon when we arrived in the center of Paris. We were swept up in the immense, joyous celebration. The sidewalks were mobbed with exuberant men, women, and children. Everyone was shouting, singing, and dancing. Two young men marched side by side, playing harmonicas. Seconds later, an impromptu parade formed behind them, a dozen people cavorting gaily in time to the music. I couldn’t help thinking of the contrast between this happy cavalcade and the ominous Nazi processions that had become so familiar to me.
We reached the Champs Elysees, where the tricolor and fleur de lis flags hung from the windows of the stately buildings. Herman bought ice cream for everyone, and my three daughters learned their first French word, glac�, ice cream.
Later in the afternoon, we found an empty bench in a small park. We ate the sandwiches Hannah had packed and waited for sunset. When it was dark, the fireworks began. Burst after burst of spectacular colors exploded against the dark sky: green, yellow, pink and white streaks of patterned lights. And still, there was music as bands played and people sang and danced.
It was almost midnight when we boarded the train back to Montmorency. Herman reversed one of the double seats so that he and Hannah could face Sal and me. On the ride home, all the children slept, Rachel on Hannah’s lap, Lea on mine, and Ruth and Eva propped up against Edith, across the aisle.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Sal.
“That was the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen at Bastille Day,” Herman said. “Everyone came because they don’t think there’ll be a celebration next year. There is a feeling that France and England will be at war with Germany.”
“War? Do you mean it?” I asked.
“Why do you seem so surprised?”
“I am surprised. In Germany, I never heard talk about war. We only knew what Hitler wanted us to know.”
“Just today, there was an article in the newspaper—”
“Not now, Herman,” I begged. “Don’t spoil the memory of this day. I want to remember the freedom and the excitement, the music and the fireworks, the feeling of camaraderie. Can you understand?”
“We’re almost at our station,” Hannah said. “I think we’ll have to carry our little ones back to the house.”
Although we stayed at Hannah’s the first few days, we could not remain with her indefinitely. After searching about, Sal rented a room in an ancient hotel in Montmorency. It was meant to sleep only four, but we pushed two single beds together to make room for a cot for Lea. Our clothes hung in a small wooden wardrobe with doors so warped, they were impossible to shut. The mattresses were infected with bedbugs, and I could find no disinfectant to get rid of them. The children scratched themselves incessantly while they slept.
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