Non omnis mori­ar — my noble estate,
My fields of table­cloth and expan­sive sheets,
My stead­fast wardrobe bas­tions, still replete
With pas­tel-col­ored dress­es will out­live me yet.

—Zuzan­na Ginczan­ka, ​“Non Omnis Mori­ar,” trans­lat­ed by Eve Bigaj

‘Hast du deinen Anhänger?” the moth­er asks, her voice low. Do you have your tag?

The girl nods, look­ing up at her moth­er as she turns, push­es the door closed, twists the key in the lock.

“Ja,” she says. ​“Na ja … dann zieh ihn an,” the moth­er says, test­ing the door­knob at the top of the dark­ened stair­well. Well … put it on then.

“I don’t want to,” the girl says, thread­ing her fists behind her elbows.

“Come,” the moth­er says, reach­ing out her hand and flut­ter­ing her fin­gers in a beck­on­ing motion, ​“give it to me. It goes right around your neck. I’ll put it on for you.”

“I’ll keep it in my pock­et,” the girl says, back­ing away, plac­ing one foot on the step below her.

The moth­er shakes her head stern­ly. The day she received the tag from the woman at the relief agency along with the news that the cor­po­rate affi­davit had come through — it was the first day since Selig died that she was able to take in a full breath of air, the first day her fin­gers did not trem­ble when she picked up a fork or braid­ed her daughter’s hair. The instruc­tions were clear: the train to Paris leaves in five days; make sure your daugh­ter is on the plat­form wear­ing the tag so she can be iden­ti­fied and processed quickly.

“You must wear it, Emma,” the moth­er says. ​“It’s vital” — lebenswichtig, she says, a word like a straw broom tak­ing out a cob­web in a high cor­ner that stress­es the impor­tance of over­com­ing obsta­cles in life, but one that descends omi­nous­ly in Emma’s ears.

“It doesn’t go with my dress,” the daugh­ter says, voice edg­ing up. ​“It’s not pretty.”

“Oh, is that all?” the moth­er says, grab­bing the han­dle of her daughter’s suit­case. ​“Viele Dinge sind nicht schön.”

Many things are not pretty.

The moth­er lifts the case and hands it to the daugh­ter. She may be sev­en, but she needs to get used to this, car­ry­ing the case on her own. The daugh­ter, though, push­es at the case with a rose in her neck — she has this in her, too, her Emmaleh, her quick tem­per — and they fum­ble the trans­fer. For a moment, the mother’s heart folds over on itself like the most intri­cate origa­mi as the case slips from her out­stretched fin­gers, crash­es into the met­al ban­is­ter, and clat­ters down to the land­ing one floor below.

Imme­di­ate­ly, the Pich­lers’ dog is at the door behind her, bark­ing, scrab­bling his claws. Right away, the moth­er thinks of all those stashed inside her apart­ment who came to live with them in Dis­trict 2 after the pogrom five months before: her moth­er; Selig’s moth­er and father; Selig’s sis­ter, Zel­da; her twin eigh­teen-year-old nephews, Immanuel and Michäas. It is Sun­day. The Pich­lers are at church.

Nev­er­the­less, the dog will freeze her fam­i­ly in fear. They will sit now, unmov­ing, lis­ten­ing to the walls for hours.

The mother’s eyes blaze down at her daugh­ter. Some­thing twists inside her with a vio­lence that could torque metal.

“You’ll get us all killed before you leave,” she hiss­es. ​“Is that what you want? You are so wor­ried about look­ing pret­ty? Did your father look pret­ty when he came home after scrub­bing filth from the streets? When they beat him? Did he look pret­ty when we wrapped him in his tallis and put his body into the ground?”

It’s aston­ish­ing how fast it hap­pens, how fast it has always hap­pened with her Emmaleh, the speed at which the deep brown eyes — like a bear pelt, she has always thought, her father’s eyes — fill with tears. The daugh­ter bites her low­er lip, try­ing to fend them off, but it’s no use. They spill over, run­ning down her cheeks in twin rivers.

The moth­er wants to berate her­self. Of course her daz­zling, inde­pen­dent daugh­ter does not want to wear this iden­ti­fi­ca­tion tag around her neck. But in the end it has noth­ing to do with the tag! Her daugh­ter does not want to leave Vien­na. To leave her. To leave her Jew­ish school and all her lit­tle friends. No mat­ter how many times Chana has tried in the last five days to make it sound as if Emma is going on an adven­ture. To Paris. And maybe after that to Amer­i­ca! The Gold­ene Med­i­na. A gold­en land! No mat­ter how many times she has tried to reas­sure her: I will fol­low you, Emmaleh, as soon as I can … her daugh­ter is ter­ri­fied. Some­times, even the moth­er for­gets — the way Emma secret­ly gives her por­tion of milk to her grand­moth­er with the bad back; the way her teach­ers say she looks out for the small­er chil­dren in the class­room when they are scared—her daugh­ter is only seven.

Emma noticed even before the Ger­mans came what was going on around them, as Selig and his father dis­cussed the lat­est head­lines in hushed tones, ask­ing what it meant, try­ing to make sense of the incom­pre­hen­si­ble. ​“Why are they march­ing with arm­bands, Mama?” she asked lat­er, return­ing one Shab­bat from syn­a­gogue. ​“Why can’t we go to the movies?” And then: ​“Why can we only play tag in the ceme­tery?” And what was Chana sup­posed to say? ​“It’s because the Nazis are in con­trol now — here, too, in Vien­na, and soon, maybe every­where”? ​“Why do they take Papa at night and make him scrub the streets?” her daugh­ter want­ed to know. Was Chana sup­posed to smile down at her and say: ​“They force Papa to bend over and lick filth from the pave­ment because Papa is Jewish”?

And now, still stand­ing at the land­ing as the world comes back into sharp focus: she hears again behind her the piti­ful hound in 4‑A that would betray them for a bis­cuit, bark­ing, enraged. Snarling, pant­i­ng at the space between the door and the floor just a few meters from where they stand.

She brought soup to the old lady when the woman was ill. Milk, cheese, and meat from the store. This is the fam­i­ly that denounced them.

“We must go, Emmaleh,” she says, soft­ly. ​“I trust you have the tag.”

The daugh­ter push­es her fin­gers into the folds of her pock­et, removes the tag, and hands it to her moth­er. 
 

Emma Alt­man
Born: 7 Jan­u­ary 1932
Meet­ing Ms. Rose Lef­ferts
Jüdis­che Kul­tus­ge­meinde
Trans­fer, Munich, Ger­many.
Des­ti­na­tion, Paris, France 
 

Emma bows her neck.

“It’s okay,” the moth­er says, tak­ing her daughter’s hand, fold­ing her oth­er hand over the tag, her thumb trac­ing a fleet­ing cir­cle around the grom­met, push­ing it back into her daughter’s pock­et. When the daughter’s eyes meet hers, the moth­er smiles, forc­ing her lips up into for­got­ten grooves. ​“You will look pret­ty in the taxi in your dress. You can put the tag on once we get to the station.”

The girl feels the lines come back into her brow. She has failed to under­stand her moth­er, since the Ger­mans came. One minute, moth­er is giv­ing her choco­late. The next, she is slap­ping her cheek for the small­est mistake.

“Ist jemand da?” calls old lady Pich­ler from just behind her door, sur­pris­ing them both.

Is some­one there?

The voice ban­ish­es the ten­sion between them and in an instant, they are friends again. The girl feels her mother’s hand land soft­ly on her shoul­der, urg­ing her down. They race, the click of their shoes on the steps, the click of a door­knob at their backs. At the low­er land­ing the moth­er picks up the small case and they move with pur­pose, tight around the cor­ners, zigzag­ging until they emerge out­side into the sunlight.

The girl blinks as they walk along the side­walk toward the taxi stand at the bot­tom of the hill, across the dis­trict line.

She hears the caw caw and looks up and sees him — it’s Kaiser, her favorite crow, danc­ing on the low­est branch of the biggest tree. He looks hand­some, with his fine coat of feath­ers. He looks to her as if he was cut with scis­sors from the bright­est patch of night sky.

Caw caw caw, says Kaiser, thrust­ing his head up with each syllable.

The girl feels the sad­ness of say­ing good­bye, but fights it off. She remem­bers what her teacher, Mrs. Susskind, told them: An old crow is as smart as a young girl. ​“A crow is the rebbe of birds,” Mrs. Susskind said.

“I have crusts,” Emma says, look­ing up guilti­ly at her mother.

“You didn’t eat your sand­wich,” the moth­er says.

“I ate my sand­wich,” the daugh­ter says. ​“I didn’t eat my crusts.”

Her moth­er sighs. She has told her daugh­ter: You must eat every crumb. She has told her to stop feed­ing the birds. Do not do any­thing, she has said, that might draw atten­tion. Do not look the phar­ma­cist in the eye. Do not cross the street in the mid­dle of the block. And for God’s sake nev­er, under any cir­cum­stances, stand beneath a crown of crows cry­ing out across the emp­ty streets of their city and toss food into the air. The moth­er sighs. Noth­ing is as it was. Soon, her daugh­ter will have plates and plates of food. And the moth­er is grate­ful for this chance — a last chance, per­haps — to make amends. In just over an hour, Emma will be gone.

“Go ahead,” she says. ​“We don’t have much time.”

The daugh­ter dash­es her hand into anoth­er pock­et and pulls out a fist­ful of stale bread. She flicks her wrist and the crusts rise and fan out, drop­ping and scat­ter­ing on the grass that slopes down to the mud­dy banks of the riv­er. The tree flicks her crow high up into the air with a dusky flash of anthracite coal. Beau­ti­ful, Emma thinks. She remem­bers a word that Ms. Susskind taught her: Majes­tic. Like an emper­or, she thinks.

“Danke, danke, danke,” Kaiser says—thank you, thank you, a thou­sand times thanks—because these days crusts are hard­er to come by, and there is a hard hol­low beneath his wings that makes him tear at his own mur­der with his beak when­ev­er his sis­ter comes too near, and because the girl they call Emmaleh, like the sound of the riv­er at the rock, has taught him:

“Man muss immer gute Manieren haben.”

You must always have good manners.

——

He had left them at home that ter­ri­ble night in Novem­ber, when the call came from the rab­bi: Come to the syn­a­gogue, quick­ly. We must save the Torah.

What’s hap­pen­ing, Chana want­ed to know, but he sim­ply shook his head, pulling on the over­coat that already looked two sizes too big for him.

He knew some­thing was seri­ous­ly wrong, he lat­er told her, the moment he stepped into the street — not just the smell of smoke hang­ing in the air, not just the crazed shouts that echoed between stone-faced homes, but the ragged snow falling inex­plic­a­bly from the sky. He held out his hand, caught a flake in his palm — it was ash, drift­ing in lazy arcs of fire that made him think of Pom­peii as he walked, that put him in mind of the bib­li­cal broth­ers Nadav and Avi­hu, Aaron’s eldest sons, incin­er­at­ed by God’s strange fire. He hur­ried along the riv­er in the dark­ness, a route they’d walked togeth­er as a fam­i­ly on count­less Shab­bosim, into the Neigh­bor­hood of Lau­rels, soot sift­ing around him, land­ing on his shoul­ders, press­ing him­self into shad­ows when mobs passed, until, round­ing a cor­ner, he saw the flames, ris­ing through three rec­tan­gu­lar win­dows where the stained glass had been — pan­els he had med­i­tat­ed over many morn­ings while deep in prayer — depict­ing Moses giv­ing the law at Mount Sinai and Joseph com­fort­ing his broth­ers and the Akedah, the bind­ing of Isaac, in car­nelian, topaz, and chryso­lite. Their Torah? It rose from the win­dows in long, lizard-tongues of fire.

The hus­band had come home that night with soot under his eyes and a bruise on his cheek that he would not dis­cuss. He bathed and dressed, let Chana min­is­ter to his abra­sion with alco­hol-soaked cot­ton balls. They put Emma back to bed and then he told her, in all of this, some good news: They’d been spared. The hooli­gans had passed over their gro­cery the way God passed over the homes of Jews in Mitzray­im when the first­born sons of Egypt were slaugh­tered. As if their door­post had been marked with blood. Their shop, des­tined to stand. Yes, there was some dam­age. Some­one had hurled a brick at the plate glass, shat­ter­ing it in a cob­web spi­ral. But it did not break. The con­tents of the gro­cery — the shelves of pack­aged goods, the glass case with the meat, his scales and knives and meat hooks and the walk-in freez­er — it was all there, intact. Their liveli­hood: intact. All those Jews who depend­ed on them for food? He reached and touched her face. It was a mir­a­cle, Chana, he said.

That night, Chana want­ed to weep. Her hus­band was home. He slept as he always slept, peace­ful­ly in her arms. But as her night dragged on into sleep­less­ness — even in their bed­room they could not escape the smell of acrid smoke, the sound of laugh­ter on the street below — her relief shift­ed into some­thing awful that churned in her stomach.

It was her yet­zer hara, the evil incli­na­tion that chit­tered inside. Lying on her pil­low star­ing up at the dark­ness Chana thought:

A sin­gle brick? Is that all Vienna’s finest hooli­gans could man­age? Their shop, among all the Jew­ish-owned shops in the dis­trict — the one thing that still teth­ered Selig to Vien­na — had some­how been spared … as if by the out­stretched hand of an Almighty God?

Selig spoke of duty. Of God’s will. There were not many places left where Jews could get milk and meat. Tomor­row, there would be few­er. They had an oblig­a­tion to feed the com­mu­ni­ty, he told her, as long as they could.

Chana believed they had an oblig­a­tion, too — not to the com­mu­ni­ty, but, first and fore­most, to Emma. What Chana want­ed, what she had want­ed since the day the Wehrma­cht crossed into Aus­tria — since she first turned the cor­ner onto Mari­ahil­fer Strasse and lost her breath at the sight of five-meter-high swastikas hang­ing from angled flag­poles, as far as the eye could see — was to get out. To join the lines that snaked along the side­walk from the police sta­tion, to apply for visas, to cross the bor­der by any means pos­si­ble, to escape … To where? he’d asked … To Great Britain, or even, if pos­si­ble, she said, America.

Even after the Anschluss, even after their coun­try­men wel­comed the Nazis with flow­ers and friends began to dis­ap­pear, Selig scoffed at the notion of leav­ing Vien­na. He had fought through the mud at the Bat­tle of Gni­la Lipa in Brudermann’s 3rd Army, shot in the shoul­der and hip ris­ing from a farm­land trench into a cloud of bul­lets fired by a Russ­ian infantry­man. At the time, Selig liked to remind her, the British and Amer­i­cans were their sworn ene­mies! Now she want­ed to pick up their lives and move there? To aban­don the shop and all who depend­ed on it, to uproot their par­ents, to fer­ry them to the land where the streets were paved with gold? It was a children’s fairy tale. They would nev­er get every­one out. The best they could do was lie low, stay out of trou­ble, and serve.

The army offi­cer who leased them their gro­cery was proof that there were still good peo­ple left. Peo­ple who would do the right thing. The neu­ropa­thy he still felt as a tin­gling in his feet and hands was a dai­ly reminder of his sac­ri­fice for the Father­land. Some­times, Chana came upon him sit­ting by the win­dow in his study hold­ing in his open palm the Wound Medal he received upon being decom­mis­sioned, star­ing silent­ly at the ter­ra-cot­ta rooftops of the homes across the way, trac­ing the sto­ic bust of Emper­or Karl I, knead­ing the tri­fold­ed rib­bon between his fin­gers over and over. As if this medal might actu­al­ly have been worth some­thing more than a few ounces of zinc as barter. As if he could have pre­sent­ed this badge to prove his loy­al­ty when the SS came to their door with pound­ing fists.

They took him by the shoul­der. That was what she would remem­ber most: a hand grip­ping the same shoul­der that had been wound­ed in the War. 
 

——

When it’s their turn, the taxi dri­ver looks at them through the open pas­sen­ger win­dow, and then shakes his head from side to side. Her daughter’s dark com­plex­ion, maybe, or the fea­tures in her round face — a fresh­ly mint­ed coin framed by black curls tied with rib­bons. Or per­haps it’s the slight trem­ble in Chana’s voice when she says it.

“Bitte, mein Herr, Westbahnof.”

Up goes the win­dow. Off goes the taxi. Chana retreats with her daugh­ter to the bench in the shade of a small horse chestnut.

Part of her is hap­py to wait, to have a few more moments with her daugh­ter. Yes, her daugh­ter has to be on that train. With war immi­nent, there might nev­er be anoth­er. At the same time, part of her wants Emma to miss the train alto­geth­er. To give up on the whole fan­ta­sy of escape. Wouldn’t that be a sign from God? If Selig’s God want­ed Chana to send their daugh­ter to Amer­i­ca, wouldn’t He send a taxi?

A moment lat­er, a sec­ond cab pulls up along the curb where the first had been, and Chana ris­es with her daugh­ter to the win­dow, only to be greet­ed by a smirk — a leer …

“Bitte, mein Herr,” she says again, too quick­ly this time. ​“West­bah­nof.”

Her daugh­ter glances up at her with a flat expres­sion, reach­ing to hold her hand. Chana tries to smile.

“Warum sind Sie nicht ins Taxi gestiegen?” the man asks, flash­ing a piece of let­tuce caught in one of his upper canines. Why didn’t you get into the taxi?

“He had anoth­er fare,” the moth­er says. ​“If you please, sir. It’s urgent.”

“Juden?” the man asks.

Now, the moth­er can hear her own heart­beat in her ears. The tax­i­man seems far away. Her daugh­ter at her fin­ger­tips, too — dis­tant, untethered.

She does not know the right answer. Or, rather, she knows it — ​“Yes, we are Jews, fourth gen­er­a­tion, my great grand­par­ents came to Vien­na from Bukov­ina in 1867, my great-grand­fa­ther helped build the State Opera House, and we need a ride to the sta­tion right away” — but she knows with equal cer­tain­ty that it’s wrong.

Chana opens her mouth to speak but finds her air­locks closed.

They have under an hour now to get to the sta­tion. Nor­mal­ly, a ten-minute ride. (Don’t arrive too ear­ly, the woman at the agency had said; we don’t want our Kinder loi­ter­ing, draw­ing unnec­es­sary atten­tion.) She has nev­er had a prob­lem get­ting a taxi before in this dis­trict, but then, she has light blue eyes and fair skin. Stand­ing at the curb­side now, she sees, through the driver’s eyes, the way in which her daugh­ter is far more obvi­ous­ly a Jew: the deep-set shtetl eyes, impos­si­ble-to-tame hair, and bushy eyebrows.

If they start walk­ing, per­haps they can make it — it’s forty-five min­utes to the sta­tion if they move swift­ly — but they have the case to car­ry, and they might get stopped at any point along the way for their papers. She can’t risk it.

Chana looks off down the street, beyond where a low brick wall curves toward town. She looks up the hill, in the oth­er direc­tion, along the road that leads to the park. There are no taxis to be seen. It has to be this one. They have no oth­er way.

“Arisch,” she says, press­ing the blood from her lips. ​“Das Mäd­chen ist eine Jüdin. Ich bringe sie zum Bahn­hof. Sie ver­lässt Österreich.”

Aryan, she says. The girl is a Jew. I’m bring­ing her to the sta­tion. She is leav­ing Austria.

“The girl is your daugh­ter?” he asks.

“No,” Chana says. ​“The girl is a Jew.”

The moth­er holds her breath. A fine cloud of ter­ror blooms inside her in a thou­sand tiny droplets, straight up to her ears. She has final­ly done it: denounced her own daughter.

Now, when she glances up, she dis­cov­ers the odd­est thing: a hun­dred-schilling note held aloft on her own light­ly trem­bling fin­gers. She rec­og­nizes the bill, the tight lines form­ing a cross where it had been fold­ed. It’s her last note. One she has been sav­ing, stashed inside her pil­low lin­ing for months. But how did it get here? Why is it hov­er­ing now before her?

For a moment, the tax­i­man looks at her with hate in his eyes. Then, his smile broad­ens. ​“Heil Hitler,” he says, salut­ing, reach­ing across the pas­sen­ger seat, unlock­ing the door.

The moth­er holds the door for the daugh­ter. The daughter’s brow creas­es—Why are we get­ting in a car with a Nazi? This can’t be right!—but her moth­er tells her with her eyes: Get in.

The daugh­ter throws her­self inside. The moth­er fol­lows with the case. The dri­ver snatch­es her last bill and then swivels in his seat, shift­ing the car into dri­ve and screech­ing off, leav­ing a scent of burnt rub­ber on a thin scrim of smoke in the air. 

—— 

The Torah has no begin­ning and no end, Selig had told them one Fri­day night as they set­tled down to a Shab­bos meal, can­dles gut­ter­ing, red wine stain­ing their lips. You can open the scroll to any page and begin read­ing. Start in the mid­dle. Read the Sh’ma back­wards, end­ing with God’s call to all of Israel to hear. (He was loos­en­ing up now, with the wine. The results of the sham plebiscite ear­li­er that week in which Aus­tri­ans had vot­ed to sup­port Adolf Hitler and reuni­fy with the Ger­man Reich were reced­ing. He was teach­ing with a wink, a hid­den smile.) You can read the Ten Com­mand­ments back­ward, begin­ning with thou shalt not cov­et—the rab­bis under­stood that all suf­fer­ing begins with envy — and end­ing with the com­mand­ment to have no oth­er Gods before Him. It’s the end­ing God wants us to remem­ber. Chaz­ak chaz­ak v’nitchzek, we say, when we fin­ish the last of the Five Books each year. Be strong, be strong, and let us strength­en one anoth­er. Start at the end, or the mid­dle, go back­ward and then for­ward again, see what you learn.

Chana want­ed to relive her own life this way, out­side of chronol­o­gy. She want­ed to move back in time from the moment they laid Selig’s body in the ground, to his sick bed, to the street where they col­lect­ed him, blood from his spu­tum min­gling with fresh snow in the gut­ter, pal­ing, becom­ing pink. She want­ed to move again through time to those moments just before, when his last strength was fad­ing but not yet gone. To the morn­ing before that, when she woke to the sound of his cough­ing in the draw­ing room. To the week before, when the cough­ing first began, a hor­ri­ble sawmill splut­ter she feared would split him in two. Chana want­ed to go back to a time when he was well. To a time before that, when she first knew they need­ed to get out. All the way back to Bukov­ina, and only then to begin to move for­ward again — not west to Vien­na this time, but south from Cher­nivt­si along the Prut Riv­er, fol­low­ing the foothills of the Carpathi­ans to Bucharest and Istan­bul and even­tu­al­ly to Pales­tine. To Jerusalem.

Chaz­ak chaz­ak v’nitchzek.

That first night they took him, three days after the pogrom, Chana sat upright on the couch try­ing to think.

She need­ed a plan. It had always been Selig, though, who had done the plan­ning, Selig who han­dled their finances and had the rela­tion­ships at the bank, Selig who pur­chased equip­ment and ran the store. It was Selig who knew the Jew­ish farm­ers ring­ing the city. The old Ukrain­ian who sold him meat. The young dairy farmer with the side curls who brought live chick­ens and crates of eggs. Selig would make a show of it. He would ask after the farmer’s young son. He would pluck an egg from a straw bed, hold it at arm’s length, close one eye and squint, as if he could see at this dis­tance the qual­i­ty of the yolk inside, as if this one egg could tell him some­thing about the val­ue of a dozen.

Chana looked across the draw­ing room at the door. It had been nine hours since they’d tak­en him. Nine hours dur­ing which she had done lit­tle more than sit, wait­ing. For the door to swing open. For her beloved to walk back in. For him to smile his warm shopkeeper’s smile and tell her he’d fixed it. He’d fixed every­thing! The Nazis were leav­ing. The ter­ror had been a test — not unlike those ordeals their peo­ple had endured in mil­len­nia past, when the first Israelites were con­demned by God to wan­der forty years in the desert wilder­ness — but by remain­ing sto­ic, by show­ing faith, they had passed His great­est tri­al. They could start again, as if at the beginning.

As she sat, her mind pol­ished the scene from the night before. Maybe they hadn’t slapped Selig so hard across the face when he told them he’d been injured fight­ing for the Father­land. Maybe they hadn’t turned him so rough­ly when he reached to get his hat and maybe he hadn’t tripped so vio­lent­ly, knock­ing over the hat rack and falling to his knees on the land­ing where he had once held her, cupped in his arms, as they stepped togeth­er over the veran­dah into their new home for the very first time.

Dawn broke the next morn­ing in the win­dow with the view of the gar­den patch like an acid wash over the parlor.

Where did they take him? Was he hurt? She glanced again at the door. What if he nev­er came home? Should she leave? Could she leave, with­out know­ing his fate?

In her mind, she saw a future: the three of them in a bright­ly lit apart­ment, a square wood­en table — there was music on the air, a child prac­tic­ing scales — and a leafy tree just beyond the win­dow, light­ing can­dles, Emma and she, clos­ing their eyes, waft­ing the eter­nal essence toward them, trans­form­ing the mun­dane into some­thing holy. They were in Lon­don. They were in Paris. They were in New York City. And then she was back again on their couch, waiting.

It was deep into the next twi­light when she heard faint foot­falls from the stair­well. She hadn’t slept. Hadn’t eat­en. A tepid cup of tea sat before her. At first, she wasn’t even sure she’d heard them. But as the sound grew loud­er she felt her­self com­ing up out of her stu­por — though all she could do was bow her head and scrunch her eyes, mov­ing her lips in silent prayer to a God with whom she was furi­ous beyond mea­sure that if this was her Zelig ben Yaakov com­ing up those stairs she would pledge her­self to Him, she would repent for her anger, seek His for­give­ness — and when she heard the door­knob and turned her head to look, she under­stood that noth­ing would ever be the same again.

His coat, gone. His shirt, sweat-stained and filthy, top but­tons miss­ing. He approached her with a limp she hadn’t seen since he first came home from the War. His hands when she turned them up in hers were bright pink, creased with blisters.

But what tru­ly ter­ri­fied her were his eyes. Eyes that once flick­ered with Shab­bos mis­chief were vacant hollows.

Chana held him up by the armpits when he col­lapsed against her. He cried with­out a sound. He tried to speak — I’m sor­ry, he whis­pered, papery against her neck — but then his voice fell away like the side of a moun­tain and he could speak no more. No mat­ter. She’d heard him any­way. Pirkei Avot, The Ethics of Our Fathers 2:21: We may not com­plete the task, but nei­ther are we free to desist from it.

The next morn­ing, as Selig lay in bed, Chana rose, bathed and dressed, put a ker­chief around her head, descend­ed four flights to the street, and crunched across bro­ken glass six blocks to their shop. With Selig’s key, she turned the lock. Flipped the sign hang­ing by a wire in the win­dow so that it announced to the Jews of Dis­trict 2: OPEN. She flipped the switch, illu­mi­nat­ing a row of bronze fix­tures above the meat case, spilling light in wide cones. She touched her hand to the near­est of three racks, saw the straw bas­kets of nuts and legumes dashed with sil­ver scoops, and closed her eyes. His shop, their shop, had a sound, a low buzz like a hive of hon­ey­bees shak­en from a high nest. Their shop had a taste — cold iron and husked wheat and the earthy wal­nut oil Selig used to pol­ish his butch­er blocks.

Each night before din­ner, he left them to scrub the streets. Each morn­ing when he returned and slipped into bed stink­ing of fear and sweat, she told him sto­ries of the store. Not the store as it was — shelves going bare, dwin­dling sup­plies, the cracked whelk in the win­dow spread­ing a few cen­time­ters more each day — but the store as it had once been: lav­ish, boun­ti­ful. A store where you could buy the foot of a chick­en, the neck of a lamb, the tongue of a cow.

The Juden — they still have schillings? he asked her one morn­ing, lying with his head on a pil­low, eyes closed. She could no longer lie to him, so she told the truth. They bring what they have as barter. They bring gloves and horse­shoes and sewing scis­sors. Alco­hol and san­i­tary pads, nails and screws, cord and a bit of rope. Chana would pluck an item from her inven­to­ry — a two-by-four, a bot­tle drop­per, a pair of den­tures no longer in use — and she would make a show of it, hold­ing it at arm’s length, urg­ing Selig to close an eye and squint, so he could see the qual­i­ty of her mer­chan­dise, as if one bent nail could tell him some­thing about the val­ue of her service.

Chana went to the store. She went to the store when the snow came. She went when their city was sheathed in ice. The morn­ing after they put Selig’s body into the ground, Chana rose, bathed and dressed, tied a ker­chief around her head, and went to the store. It had snowed again overnight, a few cen­time­ters of fresh cov­er, but that morn­ing her ribs ached and her neck was stiff and her gaze had nar­rowed — and she did not notice the neat row of boot prints stamped into the snow lead­ing straight up to her front door.

She twist­ed the key in the lock. Shoul­dered the frame, brac­ing her­self against it. She heard the fis­sures in the win­dow, a high-ten­sile expan­sion, and winced, fear­ing the glass might final­ly explode out into the street. Gin­ger­ly, she stepped inside, flipped on the lights.

“Guten Mor­gen, Frau Alt­man,” he said.

Chana rocked back. Her hand came to her heart, five fin­gers spread.

“Ich wollte dich nicht erschreck­en,” he said.

I didn’t mean to scare you.

“I didn’t expect … ” she said. ​“I didn’t know … ”

“Of course,” he said, ris­ing from her creak­ing chair behind the cash reg­is­ter, mov­ing around the counter to stand before her. ​“I let myself in.”

She nod­ded, feel­ing her breath return lit­tle by little.

It was the army offi­cer. The man who had leased Selig the store. The man whose father fought with Selig in the Great War. She’d met him once before. He brought food from his own ice­box one morn­ing, a few scrawny eggs, a stale loaf of bread. She gave it all away for dust.

“Can I make you some tea?” she said. ​“I don’t have much. A few mint leaves … ”

He shook his head. ​“I can’t stay. I shouldn’t be here.”

“Well, you can see,” she said. ​“Every­thing is in order.”

“I’m sor­ry about Selig,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard her, and she nod­ded, clamp­ing down the anger that want­ed to rise up inside her: He was gone. Gone. Her Selig was gone.

“Ruhe in Frieden,” he said. Rest in peace.

“Danke, Herr Bunter,” she said.

He closed his lips, let air out slow­ly through his nose, then reached into his coat and pulled out an enve­lope, hand­ing it to her. ​“I’m sor­ry,” he said. ​“I don’t have a choice.”

There was an order regard­ing the use of Jew­ish assets. He’d held off as long as he could. But Par­ty mem­bers were mak­ing inquiries. The law was clear. The lease would be giv­en over and the prop­er­ty placed under Chris­t­ian man­age­ment. The con­tents, liquidated.

Now, Chana sur­prised her­self. She laughed, mirth­less­ly. ​“I don’t expect you’ll get much for it,” she said.

“I’m very sor­ry,” he said again. ​“I wish things were different.”

Chana looked up at him. He shift­ed, one foot to anoth­er, creak­ing the boards under his weight, glanc­ing out at the street beyond the window.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” she said.

“It comes direct­ly from the Par­ty,” he said, quick­ly. ​“There’s noth­ing I can do.”

“No,” she said. ​“The night of the pogrom. You were here. You saved the store.”

Now, the offi­cer nod­ded, hold­ing her gaze. ​“I stood in the door­way,” he said, point­ing over her shoul­der. ​“I wore my Iron Cross at my neck. Even so, the hooli­gans threat­ened me with their sticks. I wasn’t con­vinced it would be enough to save me.”

Chana’s jaw clenched. So … here he was, then, in the flesh: Selig’s mir­a­cle. A god bear­ing a Chris­t­ian cross.

“They were only chil­dren,” he con­tin­ued. ​“But so many of them. They threw stones. I was hit … ” He reached and pulled down the pouch of skin beneath his eye, reveal­ing a bright stain of blood in his scle­ra. ​“Late that night, I saw Selig. He’d come to check on the store. He want­ed to stay. To stand guard. He felt he had a respon­si­bil­i­ty. I told him to stand down. I told him I’d stay, as long as I could … ”

“There is always a choice,” Chana said, as much to her­self as to the grim-faced army offi­cer before her.

He pressed his lips togeth­er. ​“Selig men­tioned — you have a daughter.”

“Emmaleh,” she said, like the riv­er around the rock.

“She’s … how old now?”

“Sev­en.”

“That’s quite young,” he said. ​“But she can still go.”

“Go?” Chana asked.

“There is going to be a trans­port,” he said. ​“A Kindertransport.”

Chana closed her lips and drew air almost vio­lent­ly through her nose. First, they came for Selig. Now, they would take her Emmaleh away.

The offi­cer glanced through the spi­ral in the plate glass toward the street where a man leaned through the snow, then low­ered his voice. ​“War is com­ing,” he said, urgent­ly. ​“You don’t have much time, Frau Alt­man. Selig — he was a good man, a brave soldier.

“It’s all there,” he con­tin­ued, rais­ing his voice again, point­ing at the enve­lope Chana held in her hand. ​“It’s all in accor­dance with the law. Effec­tive imme­di­ate­ly, every­thing will be liq­ui­dat­ed, your store hand­ed over today to a Nazi Par­ty official.

“Viel Glück,” he added, loud­ly, shuf­fling around her to the entrance, glanc­ing back once before yank­ing open the door, ush­er­ing in a thin veil of snow, mov­ing quick­ly along the side­walk and dis­ap­pear­ing out of sight.

The let­ter sat unopened in her bed­room draw­er for days. She stopped wait­ing for the sound of his foot­falls on the stairs. Stopped hear­ing the door­knob turn the latch in her mind. Stopped wak­ing from her deep­est slum­ber to a sound that wasn’t there. Click … click … click. The Torah has no begin­ning and no end. Good luck, he had said. And before that, Selig was a good man, a brave sol­dier. And even before that he had said: She can still go.

It lift­ed inside of her like hope. A ray of sun­shine so sol­id it could bear them both, straight up into the sky. It’s all there, he’d said, at the end, and in the begin­ning: I didn’t mean to scare you. And Chana knew. She under­stood the mes­sage he was try­ing to send.

She found the enve­lope in the top draw­er of her bureau. Mov­ing quick­ly, she lift­ed the cor­ner, unsealed the flap, removed a sin­gle sheet of paper. A woman’s name, the name of a relief agency — Jüdis­che Kul­tus­ge­meinde — an address in the city. And a note, a sin­gle line scratched in slant­i­ng blue ink that made her heart hammer:

Ihre Tochter darf nach Paris fahren.

Your daugh­ter can go to France.

——
 

They fol­low the stiff-backed woman with the tri­an­gle nose and clip­board along the plat­form, two steps behind. The daugh­ter stands tall with the tag around her neck, lift­ing her head as high as she can so she can see. Sun comes down from slant­ed sky­lights, land­ing on the plat­form in fat trape­zoids. Smoke wafts from loco­mo­tive vents. The daugh­ter smells broiled meat from the com­mis­sary inside the depot. And cig­ar smoke, pun­gent as a grape­fruit. Her heart wob­bles. The train over her left shoul­der is huge, like a prowl­ing ani­mal. She feels it against her neck. She hears it, hiss­ing and purring. She doesn’t have to look at it to know that it’s there.

Emma has always want­ed to ride on a train. She can hear the sad-eyed whis­tles some­times when she’s down by the riv­er with the crows. Her father promised her one day they would. They would get on a train and let it whisk them away in a rum­ble of thun­der. But her father also told her sto­ries from the Bible she wasn’t sure were true. In the Bible, they have a don­key who talks. In the Bible, her father told her, God instruct­ed the prophet Eli­jah to hide in a wadi when he was in trou­ble and then he told the crows to bring him meat and bread twice a day and they did! Emma thought she under­stood the sto­ry. If ever you’re in trou­ble, hide in a wadi and wait for the crows. At this, her father laughed. Yes, my lit­tle one, the moral of the sto­ry is God pro­tects those who lis­ten for His voice. Well, now her father is dead. But in a moment, she will be sit­ting on that train. He will keep his promise from heaven.

Only then she remem­bers — alone. Her moth­er is stay­ing in Vien­na, with her grand­par­ents, her aunt, and her twin cousins. They’re all stay­ing. You’ll go to Munich. In Munich you’ll get off this train and board anoth­er that will take you through the green coun­try­side, over the Rhine to Paris. You’ll stay in a hos­tel — you’ll be safe in France — and as soon as you can you’ll get on a new train that will take you through Spain. Watch out for the bulls. And in Lis­bon, a ship! A huge ocean lin­er that will hold you ten sto­ries above the sea, my Emmaleh, with the wind tou­sling your hair, a ship that will cut the waves with its prow forg­ing a chasm across the ocean all the way to Amer­i­ca, may it be so. You will see birds with beaks like giant shov­els for catch­ing fish. Birds with wings that can car­ry them across the water on a slip of wind. You will see fish that fly. Not only birds, my dar­ling, fish! Blue-green fish that will leap before you in end­less rainbows.

The woman leads them to a small hud­dle of tagged chil­dren near the end of the plat­form. One, two, three, four, five, six, sev­en, eight … and Emma makes nine. The old­est is a boy, a teenag­er, Emma guess­es. There is anoth­er boy she rec­og­nizes from father’s shul. The youngest is a chick, lit­tle more than a puff of feath­ers in a nest. She clings to her mother’s leg with her face buried in her skirt as the lady shows papers to a Nazi man with a gun wag­ging at his waist. The girl cries, soft­ly, clutch­ing a hand­ful of fabric.

Emma stands in the hud­dle with her mother’s hand on her shoul­der. As they watch, the Nazi man and the agency lady find anoth­er child by his tag, flip­ping pages, over and back. A moment lat­er, his boots are point­ing direct­ly at her.

“Emma Alt­man?” he says, hold­ing the clip­board, flip­ping anoth­er page.

Her moth­er looks approv­ing­ly at the top of her head. ​“She’s right here,” she says.

“She has passed her health check?” he asks, glanc­ing at the agency woman, who answers for her moth­er this time, ​“She’s been cleared. It’s all here. And here, her den­tal exam.”

The man scans the papers. Then, he reach­es rough­ly for the tag at her neck, low­er­ing his face to check it against his clip­board. ​“You’ll go to Munich. And from there on to Paris.”

“I’m going to Amer­i­ca,” Emma announces, sum­mon­ing the words from her deep­est cav­erns, squeez­ing her mother’s hand.

There. She’s said it. Out loud, for the first time. Amer­i­ca. And say­ing it makes her heart wob­ble again, this time in a dif­fer­ent way than before.

The Nazi releas­es the tag, rais­es him­self up, shad­ow­ing over her, and hands the clip­board to the agency lady. She offers it to Chana, who signs her name on a line.

“Here is your tick­et,” the lady says. ​“We have per­mis­sion to board. Please board the train with your daugh­ter, car 2, and help her find her seat. You may say au revoir on the train.”

Emma looks across the plat­form and sees car 2, sand­wiched between the loco­mo­tive and car 3. That’s when they hear the high-pitched cry. She turns and sees the small girl try­ing to pull away from her moth­er, their hands cou­pled, her body bent sharply back.

“Noooo!” she wails. ​“Please, Mama. No! Please … please … please. Mama! I don’t want to go! I’m not going!”

The Nazi man looks up from his clip­board, star­tled, then speaks quick­ly to the agency lady and clip-clops over to the girl’s father, bend­ing in close to whis­per some­thing harsh into his ear. Her father nods, his face a blank mask. In a flash, the father grabs the girl with one arm around her waist, yanks her away from her moth­er, and toss­es her up and over his shoul­der like a sack of grain. He tries to qui­et her with a song—lu lah lu la luh, he sings, lu lah lu la luu­u­u­u­uh—but she kicks her feet and pounds on her father’s back with a swing of mighty fists, hair hang­ing limply. Near the entry­way, her foot con­nects with the side of the train, stag­ger­ing her father back­ward a step, then she lifts her head and screams and screams and screams as her moth­er cov­ers her mouth with both hands and watch­es, her eyes twin discs of horror.

From there, it’s swift. The girl’s father spins, low­ers his shoul­der, and bull­dozes his daugh­ter up the steps into the dark door­way of the train.

On the plat­form, Chana feels her body sway.

She’s envi­sioned this moment, a rail­way sta­tion part­ing, more times than she can count. She believed in it when it hadn’t seemed pos­si­ble. She expect­ed to feel relief. Instead, she feels some­thing much clos­er to dread.

Still, she urges her daugh­ter for­ward, a slight pres­sure against the del­i­cate wing of her shoul­der. ​“It’s time, Emmaleh,” she says. Emma clos­es her lips and looks from her moth­er to the train, then lifts her case, squares her shoul­ders, begins to walk. Chana tries to help her at the grip step, reach­ing for her elbow, but Emma twists away — ​“I’ve got it,” she says — grunt­ing as she climbs up the stairs, deposit­ing her suit­case on a wood­en rack in the stow at the front of the car. ​“To the left,” Chana points, check­ing the paper tick­et. ​“12‑B.” Chana moves ahead of her up the aisle, touch­ing seat­backs as she goes, count­ing up until she finds her row.

“You’ve got the win­dow seat!” Chana says.

“I like the win­dow,” says Emma, qui­et­ly, set­tling her­self on the cushion.

“You’ll remem­ber to write,” Chana says.

“Yes, Mama. I’ll remember.”

“Every week? You must write to me every week.”

“I promise,” Emma says. ​“I’ll write you a let­ter a week.”

“You’ll remem­ber to eat your sandwiches?”

“Yes, Mama. I’ll eat my sandwiches.”

“And if there’s any trou­ble, any­thing at all, if you need it … ” Chana taps the waist­line of her own skirt, approx­i­mat­ing the spot on Emma’s dress where she has sewn her engage­ment ring into the fab­ric, a sin­gle dia­mond, Edwar­dian set, in case of emergency.

“I know, Mama,” Emma says. ​“I’ll take good care of your ring.”

“Two min­utes!” the con­duc­tor says from the vestibule at the front of the car, before van­ish­ing into the shadows.

“Well, okay then,” she says, lean­ing for­ward, giv­ing her daugh­ter a final kiss on the fore­head, tast­ing hair, the sweet­ness of her skin. ​“I love you and I’ll see you, okay? I love you and I’ll see you.”

Her daugh­ter nods. ​“I love you, too.”

And then Chana is upright again — Frau Lef­ferts warned her not to linger; these part­ings are hard enough with­out dal­ly­ing — mov­ing quick­ly, back down the aisle between the seats, into the vestibule, down three steps to the stone plat­form, where— with a vio­lence that wants to crum­ple her at the knees — she thinks: I’ve made a ter­ri­ble mistake.

It will nev­er work. These Nazis who sprayed Selig with water from a fire­hose on the cold­est night Vien­na has ever seen — they will nev­er let a train filled with Jew­ish chil­dren cross the Rhine into France. And even if they do — if this lady with the clip­board some­how man­ages to present every nec­es­sary doc­u­ment sealed with every required stamp of approval … if they man­age to cross the bor­der and meet their new chap­er­one in Stras­bourg, if they make it to their hos­tel in Paris, if by some mir­a­cle Emma even­tu­al­ly finds her way through Spain and is on that ocean lin­er from Lis­bon when it departs. If if if if if if … what then? Is she going to find a new fam­i­ly in Amer­i­ca? Will they love her as much as she does?

Maybe, she thinks, as a man next to her rais­es his hand to wave good­bye, she isn’t meant to see their sto­ry chrono­log­i­cal­ly. This is not the end. This is but a begin­ning. The Nazis will march out of Aus­tria as they marched in. This mad­ness can­not sus­tain itself for long. Peo­ple will grow weary. All they want in the end is work. A few schillings in their pock­ets. Slow­ly, per­haps, at first — Jews will be allowed back in the the­aters … Emma and she will play once more in the parks — but, like a train, it will gath­er steam. The scales will fall from the eyes of the blind. Vien­na will pause to catch its breath before becom­ing again a bustling city of music and com­merce. Chana will find the army offi­cer, obtain a new lease, open a brand-new store.

Stand­ing on the plat­form, at long last her thoughts run clear. You want mad­ness? Mad­ness is putting your daugh­ter on a train with a tag around her neck and send­ing her across the con­ti­nent to the wolves. No, she thinks … I won’t do it. They’ll stay togeth­er. Moth­er and daugh­ter. Here. In Vien­na! They’ll strength­en one anoth­er side by side, in their home …

Chana is mov­ing again, across the plat­form toward the entrance. The Nazi has sta­tioned him­self there with his arms crossed. She is going to have to use her wiles to get back on that train now. Her wits. She will need to con­coct the sto­ry of her life.

The clock on the post in the cen­ter of the plat­form tells her she has six­ty sec­onds, give or take, before a whis­tle rends the air, before those giant steel wheels begin to turn and her daugh­ter is tak­en from her, forever …

Inside the train, Emma sits up straight, folds her hands togeth­er, and places them on her lap. She hears the soft snuf­fle of tears. There’s a space between chair­back cush­ions. If she peels the cush­ion back just so with her fin­gers and squints one eye, she can see.

It’s the lit­tle girl from the plat­form. Sit­ting next to a goliath in a starchy coat and striped tie. Emma can make out the name on her tag. She hears the leafy rus­tle of a newspaper.

“Ruhe!” the man com­mands. Qui­et.

Now, a sound comes up out of the girl, a sob or a wail. The man brings the edges of his news­pa­per loud­ly togeth­er and apart.

“If you don’t shut up, lit­tle Jew,” he says, ​“I’ll have you removed from this train.”

At this, Emma’s heart wob­bles a final time — not for her­self this time, but for that lit­tle girl who has to stop cry­ing — she just has to! — but can’t find a way. If she can’t stop they’ll take her from the train and leave her behind. Emma thinks again of her father, return­ing home that first night with a bruise beneath his eye he would not dis­cuss. And the sound the dirt clumps made slid­ing off her shov­el into his grave.

Her father was wrong. You can’t sit in the wadi and wait for the crows. The crows will nev­er come! It’s all mag­ic. Mag­ic can’t save a shrew.

“Con­duc­tor!” the man bel­lows, launch­ing Emma up and out of her seat, into the aisle. She stands at his arm­rest, look­ing direct­ly into his eyes as his wide nos­trils flare.

“If you please, sir,” she says, hold­ing her voice as steady as a steel beam. ​“I believe there’s been a mistake.”

He slaps his paper against his thigh, glar­ing at her. ​“Excuse me?”

In the far seat, the lit­tle girl turns to her, nose snuf­fling, eye­lash­es bright with tears.

“That’s my cousin, Sonia,” she says, float­ing her paper tick­et out before her just as she saw her moth­er do with the hun­dred-schilling note an hour before. ​“I believe this seat is yours.” Emma points. ​“Your seat was meant to be mine. I’m so sor­ry for the trouble.”

The man reassem­bles his face. Deep grooves frame his nose. ​“This is your cousin?”

Emma nods. ​“Sonia and I were meant to trav­el togeth­er. I have the wrong ticket.”

The man shakes his head, dis­gust­ed. But he’s already fold­ing his paper, press­ing him­self up by the arm­rest, slid­ing into the aisle. He reach­es over and takes Emma’s tick­et, push­es brusque­ly by, and heaves him­self into the seat in front of them.

Emma sits. The cush­ion beneath her is warm from his body. She takes Sonia’s hands in hers, hold­ing them on her lap. The girl’s mouth is open, just so. She has a con­stel­la­tion of freck­les under one eye, down­ward-dip­ping. Mucus runs from her nos­trils to her lips. But she’s stopped crying.

“We’re on the same train, to Paris,” Emma whis­pers, nod­ding at the lit­tle girl’s tag. ​“I’ll stay with you. I’ll be with you all the way to the end.”

There’s a com­mo­tion at the front of the car. Rac­ing up the aisle, the moth­er stops her­self, neck puls­ing. A man sits in her daughter’s seat. 12‑B. Moments before, she had left her daugh­ter in this seat, and now there’s a man there, read­ing a news­pa­per. Her daugh­ter is gone. Where is her daugh­ter? What hap­pened to Emma!

She scans the car, fran­tic. Hears a small rip­ple of laugh­ter, takes anoth­er step. At once, she sees them, one row back — Emma’s body turned toward the win­dow, hands clasped over the hands of that sad lit­tle girl from the platform.

“It’s a Gold­ene Med­i­na!” she hears her daugh­ter say. ​“A land where no one will hate you for being a Jew.”

Chana stills her­self. She backs away three steps, out of eye­shot, then turns and hur­ries off with­out anoth­er word, leav­ing her daugh­ter on the train.

This is what Chana will think of in the fall of 1941, when she is tak­en at gun­point from the mil­i­tary bunker in Kovno, told to strip naked, and marched out to the still-writhing graves of those who’d gone before her. This is what Chana will recall, her last lone­ly con­so­la­tion, peer­ing out into the dark­ness at the glint­ing bar­rels as the clicks of a thou­sand trig­gers echo across the night.

She backed away. She left her daugh­ter on that train.