My most important meeting was with Dieter Stein. I got on very well with him in those years. He ate at our table and helped me a great deal with Ivan. When Ivan got drunk, he had a way of pacifying him, but when it turned out that he was a Jew and a partisan, I thought his helpfulness had not been out of kindness but only because of the need to conceal who he really was. I was the first to say, when Ivan brought him home, that he was a Jew. It was only when I saw how he sat in the saddle that I was persuaded he was a real Pole. Now everything is the other way round. Dieter is a hero and for everybody Ivan is a war criminal. They were looking for him and if they had found him, they would have put him on trial. He died at just the right moment. After his death there were several trials in England of Belorussians who worked for the Germans during the war, and one was sent to prison.
But enough of me. Who was I for him? The wife of a nightmarish boss, and the sister of the girl he couldn’t keep his eyes off. He came, old, gray, dressed not like a monk but in secular clothes, in a sweater. He was always in the middle of a crowd of people. The same day I went to the church where uncle officiated. It was being repaired, there was scaffolding everywhere, everything was under dustcloths, but Mass was being celebrated in a side chapel. I couldn’t believe my eyes, could it really be Dieter? I had already heard a rumor that he had become a priest, but to see it with my own eyes was something else. He is a Carmelite. Brother Daniel!
He began giving a sermon, saying that he was in this church 50 years ago and, imagine, our name is among those he prays for. People were crowding around him, women were like flies around a honeypot, but I found a moment when he was alone, went over, and asked, “Do you recognize me?” “Beata, Beata, you’re alive! What a joy!” He rushed to kiss me as if I were his sister. Of course I began crying, and so did he. “All my life,” he said, “I have been praying for you as souls of the departed but you are alive.” I said, “And do you pray for Marysia?” “Of course.” He nodded. “For Marysia, too. It was a long time ago, and I loved her very much.”
“She is alive, too,” I said. “She lay one night in a pit under the corpses and climbed out in the morning. I myself thought for many years that she had been killed but she’s alive, alive!” “Jesus, Maria,” he whispered. “How is that possible? Where is she now?” I said, “The same place as you. She is a nun.” “Where?” he asked.
It was just like a film. I said again, “The same place as you, in Israel, in Jerusalem, with the White Sisters of Zion.” “At Ein Karem? In the House of Pierre Ratisbonnne?” he asked. “Yes,” I replied. “She is there.” “Don’t go away, Beata, don’t go away,” he said. “It is like the resurrection of the dead that you and Marysia are still alive. We shall be reunited with our parents and those we love just as we have met today.” Tears flowed down his cheeks.
Can you believe it, Marysia, he hasn’t changed at all. He still has that same childlike face and childlike heart. I had a wicked thought that if you had married back then, you would have been such a happy couple, but just at that moment he said, “See how it was fated for Marysia and me to be joined together in the Lord?”
My dear little sister, I felt so happy in my heart, although I felt a bit hurt on your behalf. I think he will come to see you soon. For you, though, it is less momentous. You have known for a long time that he survived and became a monk, and if you had wanted you could easily have found him. For him, though, this is nothing less than a miracle. For 50 years he has been praying for you as one of the departed, and has discovered that you are alive. Now we know everything is possible in our world, to be lost and to be found.
Then I went to see Daniel off. He left that day.
I also met Sabina. Do you remember the daughter of the agronomist who was in the same class as I was? She is one of the few Poles who have survived here. She told me how hard life was after the war. Many people who found relatives went back to Poland. Others were sent to Siberia. They always regarded Poles as nationalists. It’s perfectly true, we are nationalists. Ivan always respected Poles. He considered that we, unlike the Belorussians, were a strong people. Admittedly, he respected the Germans even more, but we shouldn’t talk about him, only pray. Maria, he was bad and cruel and a drunk, but he loved me. Perhaps in everybody’s else’s eyes he was a sinner, but I sinned against him. I married without love and never did learn to love him. I can truthfully say I was never unfaithful, but the real truth is that all through my life I loved a certain Czesław. It was fated not to be.
At first I was upset that you did not come to Emsk. I pictured us wandering through our childhood haunts, but now I think everything is for the best. I have found the path to your door and perhaps next year I will visit you again. We will sit on your hill beside the grille where there is such a lovely view.
When all is said and done, I am glad I went to Emsk. It brought about something like a reconciliation. For many years I looked into the past and alongside me stood hapless Ivan with all his war crimes. Is that what they were? I can’t say for sure, but his presence beside me was always burdensome. Now I feel free. I have been recognized, and most probably remembered, as the daughter of Walewicz rather than as the wife of Semyonovich. And of course, there is Daniel. It is he most of all who heals me and shows that out of this dreadful experience one can emerge joyful and pure.
I look forward to your letter. Think when it would be best for me to come. Perhaps in the spring after Easter? Or, indeed, for Easter.
Your sister,
Beata
33. September 1992, Tel Aviv
L
ETTER FROM
N
APHTALI
L
EJZEROWICZ TO
E
STHER
G
ANTMAN
My dear and respected Esther,
This letter is from Naphtali, if you remember such a person. For my part I remember very well also your husband, Isaak, who lopped my leg off in the forest, and just as well he did because gangrene had already set in and he saved me from death. The only anesthetic was a tumblerful of spirits and a wooden stick I chewed to bits before I lost consciousness from the pain. And you, respected and sweet Esther, handed your husband the tools, and he cut the bone with an ordinary hacksaw but sculpted such a marvelous stump that I have worn out many artificial legs but the stump has never once given me any trouble. It is as good as new. God gave Isaak, may he rest in peace, the hands of a craftsman, and you, too! Just a little about myself. With my one leg I made it to Israel in 1951, and before that was sent all over the place, to Italy, Greece, and Cyprus to camps for prisoners of war, then camps for displaced persons, then just camps. In 1951 I got home, met our lads, and found a place in the military industry, I can tell you as a secret.
I worked in a design office. They had great respect for me there, although I had no proper education. I married a Hungarian Jewess. She was a beautiful woman but had G-d knows what kind of personality. I had three children with her, two sons and a good daughter. One son is like me, he works, I’ll tell you in secret, in electronics in America. The second is in banking, but in Israel. My daughter, incidentally, is also a doctor. My wife died nine years ago, and at first I wondered whether I should get married again, then I stopped wondering and decided I was fine on my own.