While he is gone at the coffee machine, the story continues without him. Grandpa Yosef and Ahasuerus pass through Mielejewo camp. Ahasuerus gets out to surprise the personnel with an inspection. His appearance is harsh, but his steps slacken, this whole adventure is a loss. If only he could turn back the wheel of time. He cannot. The obligations. The damned Jews. At home he has a wife and child, but without his beloved, life is intolerable. The officers salute, the car is welcomed with respect and amazement. The general’s presence is unwanted — in this damned place there is no good time for an inspection. Fortunately, he only goes through the list of staff, enquiring, where is this one? Where is that one? Transferred where? And where was this woman transferred to? Ravensbrück? The answer satisfies him. He gets up and leaves without even finishing his meal. Did they pass the inspection? Would he give a good report? Ahasuerus leaves. The gates shut. And the journey continues. Pruchnik camp, Nadbrzeże camp. Tiny satellites of Stutthof camp on the shores of the Baltic Sea. The journey has only just begun, it transpires. They are traveling to Ravensbrück. Ravensbrück. In Germany, not in Poland. A long journey west, to the heart of the Reich, less than seventy miles from Berlin. Ahasuerus oscillates between relaxation and anger.
Grandpa Yosef comes back with a cup of coffee.
“I feared for my life. This Ahasuerus, there was no telling what he would do when he was angry. Again I found myself afraid to look up, trying to diminish myself. During my hours of rest, I thought up a job for myself: I would sweep the floor of the car and polish the windows and mirrors with my sleeve. That was my instinct — to be necessary. Learn it once, and it will never leave you. I tried out different ideas. I very much wanted to open the hood and glance at the engine, at the bird’s hidden organs. I was innocent, I had hardly ever seen cars, and to see one exposed beneath its robes, I had not even imagined possible. I was so close, longing to get to know the mechanism, the technique, to reach out and touch it, to see where the power flowed.
“And so we drove on, swallowing up countries. And then finally we were close to Ravensbrück, where the Little Lover was — where, my heart fluttered, my Feiga might be. But just before the camp, Ahasuerus stopped, as if to gather his strength, to remind himself who he was, an omnipotent general — why should he fear one woman, a minor staff member? He got out of the car with great momentum and walked out into the cold air. He strode confidently, his SS boots creaking in the mud. He stood beside a bush, his hand hovering over the leaves, as if examining his fingers to see whether he was still capable of touching a delicate body. His hand flitted over the bush and I could see he liked the touch. His chin was turned down, his eyes shut tight. And suddenly I saw that Ahasuerus was crying. His hand made a fist around the tendrils of that poor bush. His entire body was trembling.
“Thoughts spun through my mind. Nu, such a general, a creature in love, and he was a murderer. How could these two things flow together in his blood? Hot and cold, poison and tenderness. How did his strength not run out? Every hour without her was worse than death and harder than hell.
“Ahasuerus walked away from the bush and came back. Upright, he opened the door and sat down regally. Only his face disclosed the shock, the annihilation to which he was leading himself, betraying his duties. This whole journey was just false hope, and there was no telling how it would end. A moment passed. Another moment. Ahasuerus sat without making a sound. I felt that time was running out, convinced that in Ravensbrück camp I would find Feiga. Ahasuerus would soon start the car and our hearts would be reunited. But Ahasuerus was lost in thought. His breathing was quiet, slow. I turned to look at him, thinking perhaps I could divine his intentions. Would he have the strength to start the car, to go as far as the camp gates? And then another thought ignited — what did he need me for? Once he found his Little Lover, what would he need me for? My fright increased. He will kill me. Why not here? What need is there for me? Two trees along, the side of the road grew large in my eyes. Perhaps he would shoot me beneath one of them, without the traditional escort, without a kaddish prayer, without a Jewish burial. Nu, Jews were dying in the thousands, and I wanted a Jewish burial. And where were my parents? I no longer believed, of course, that they had been taken East. The truths that had penetrated my ears in the Lodz ghetto, the killings, Chelmno, had slowly connected with my parents who had been sent away. What Chelmno had been for the Jews of Lodz, Belzec had been for my family. Lost, all my loved ones were lost, and there I was, dressed in fine clothing.
“I sighed. And my sigh drew a look from Ahasuerus. He quickly turned back to look at the road, removing me from his field of vision. I froze. I had reminded him of my existence, my unnecessary existence. A mistake.
“He turned and looked at me. ‘It’s hard…It’s hard for everyone…’
“And silence. Emptiness around us. He had not spoken only to me. Around us were woods, and behind them camps, and somewhere in the distance the Lodz ghetto, and more camps, and the whole world was at war. It was hard, it was hard for everyone.”
Grandpa Yosef stops talking. He gets up and goes to the window. He looks at the clouds. No rain, no rain. What will be the end? Clouds gather, the sky presses down to the earth, the cold deepens and still the rain does not come. Grandpa Yosef stays by the window but his story does not wait. Behind his back, details slip through, little pieces of morse code that he has already told me an era ago, and they take me through the rest of the story without him.
Ahasuerus starts the car and drives it up to the camp gates. In the women’s camp of Ravensbrück there is hunger and disease. The inmates are exhausted. Those who do not join a group, die. Any woman who makes the mistake of standing out in front of the murderous female SS officers is killed. Death is a method, a solution. In the heart of the camp, the “bunker” provides a solution for those whose death the SS murderesses want to slow. But the main point for us — for Grandpa Yosef, for me, for Ahasuerus — is that the Little Lover is there, serving at Ravensbrück.
The car crosses through the gates. There is not even a moment’s delay before the meeting. Ahasuerus walks into the staff building. Then he goes to one of the huts. A conversation takes place there for a moment or two. A fair young woman emerges and walks away with heavy, angry steps. He follows her, pleading. She pushes his hands away, speeding up. She is not tall. Pretty, let us say. Her face is flushed with anger. She disappears behind a hut.
“There, in the savagery, they were not bound by their rules of etiquette,” Grandpa Yosef mumbles. “I had not imagined such a thin little thing. She wasn’t huge or red-faced, like so many of the cruel SS female officers. And it was clear that she was unhappy with Ahasuerus’s advances. Unaccustomed to such crudeness. She had been taught that a woman should be treated politely. Gently. And he, the villain, would not let her alone.
“In the car I could see little and hear nothing. The minutes passed and I felt a strong desire to get out and look for my Feiga. But it was good that I didn’t, because here was Ahasuerus marching towards me, getting into the car, slamming its door. He started the engine in a fury, in a storm. His face was red, evil, as if nothing else mattered in the world. The car’s tires screeched on the road, burst through the gates, the sentries barely had time to fling them open. Ahasuerus made the car gallop. Imposing the roar of his heart upon it, he strained the engine to its limits. His face was determined, as if there were great intent in his driving, but I sensed that our journey was over. He looked right and left, his driving seemed very purposeful, but I could sense the truth in the regal car. She acquiesced to having her pedals pressed, her wheel turned, but her senses had been weakened, and she was no longer searching for a route but rather she was fleeing. It was over and done with — the search for Feiga had failed.