Artur Gold and his brother Henryk were Polish musical stars, especially Henryk. He survived. They performed with their eight-piece jazz orchestra at the Café Bodega in Warsaw. At first they played ragtime, then later waltzes and tangos. They cut records for Syrena, Electro and Columbia. Jerzy Petersburski played with them, author of the hits “O, Donna Clara”, “The Last Sunday”. There were quite a few musicians at Treblinka. The Schermann brothers were there, and little Edek who played the accordion…
One day in October 1942, while I was taking bodies out of the newly constructed gas chambers, a kapo came up to me with a violin in his hand and asked, Do you know anyone who can play? I know, I said, I play.
They immediately moved me into the kitchen to peel potatoes. There were six of us. One was Fuchs, who played the clarinet and who had worked for the Polish Radio before Treblinka. At first just the two of us played, Fuchs and I, from time to time during roll-calls. Then we were joined by a pianist and composer from Warsaw who played the accordion, and from that time we were a trio. The most popular song was the love song “Tumbalalaika”. That spring an S.S. man often came by whose nickname was “Blackie” (der Schwartze). He would sit himself down on a chair near the well and order us to play for him. He’d say, Play one for my soul. At Treblinka once we played at a Jewish wedding. That day there was a lot of dancing. Then the happy couple was led to the “showers”.
My name is Jerzy Rajgrodzki.
Lager zwei ist unser Leben, ay, ay, ay! Lager zwei ist unser Leben, ay, ay, ay! we sang in chorus, on the open area between the gas chambers and the mass graves. I am a singer and actor from Prague. My name is Spiegel. I died, too.
Pause.
It will be summer soon. Haya goes out for walks again.
The shop windows are full of women’s suits in pastel hues. Haya looks at them. The skirts are too short, she says. Women have fat knees. The suits close the construction and express a function as a power series of the argument x with the assumption that the function is infinitely differentiable at 0. That would be a Maclaurin series. In a Taylor Series, the function y = f(x) is expressed as a power series in a neighbourhood of point a, Haya says to a woman who is also standing in front of the display window.
I don’t understand, the woman says.
I’m not surprised, says Haya and walks on. Haya walks slowly. Her step is not unsteady. Haya is a hale old woman.
Haya walks and hums. The noise levels are mounting in Gorizia. Gorizia is loud, Haya says. Whenever she goes out, Haya senses more noise. The noise sits on her brow and weighs down on her head. Gorizia is full of exhaust fumes today. There are new cafés. Haya goes to the park. The greenery at the park is intense; it soothes her eyes. Haya sings to outnoise the noise rolling down the Corso. If she could, if she were younger, she’d chase the noise; she’d say to it Shoo! or maybe she’d say to it Come, lie on my bosom, because there is too much quiet in her breast. She is not younger. What can she do about that? Haya hums. How is it that Haya hums when she isn’t particularly happy? Generally when they sing people feel glad. They probably first feel glad, then they think, Ah, I’m filled with gladness, and then they sing. Is that it? But what if the songs people sing when they are glad, what if these songs are sad? It must be that they are moved then by a sorrow that mingles with their happiness. As with mathematics. Formulae. Planes interweave. Planes of sorrow and happiness melt to zero, to nothing. What is going on? Haya says, surprised. Nothing is coming out of my breast, she says. A big immobility is crouching inside. By the time she died Ada could no longer sing; something had happened to her voice box. When she tried to sing, though seldom, as she neared death, she could only squawk. She’d look at Haya and say, Something’s broken. She died wearing a yellow, short-sleeved blouse with Richelieu embroidery and red wine stains that had gone dark blue. A beautiful blouse. This is the blouse my mother wore when she brought the soldiers their macaroons, Ada told Haya, then she died. In that hospital. In Dr Basaglia’s ward. Haya did not bury Ada at Valdirosa. When Ada died the Valley of the Roses was in another country. Haya put Ada in a little niche, here, at Gorizia cemetery. There are poppies with silk petals in front of the niche. Now that they are sewing Gorizia back together again, Haya might be able to move Ada. She won’t. There is nothing left to move. Ada is now little more than a handful. It seems silly to move little objects, little things. Little things can be carried in the pocket; they go with us.
The weather is getting warmer.
A small white cat with one eye and no nose creeps by Haya’s feet at the Parco della Rimembranza. And breathes its last. Here, right at Haya’s feet. Deterioration lies everywhere, Haya says. Haya looks a little at the dead kitten, a little at her shoes. My shoes are so unsightly, she says. I won’t buy shoes with round shoelaces any more. Round shoelaces always come undone. I could play bridge. With whom?
Haya closes her eyes. There on the bench at the Parco della Rimembranza beneath her eyelids surfaces the large eye of an ox, a wrinkled eye, a horrible, open eye. There is no person who can gaze like that, that way, like an ox. The huge eye watches Haya from the inside. It draws itself in, squints, then opens even more. How unpleasant, says Haya and gets up. What will I do with my time? wonders Haya, then sits again. I am dragging time along like a dog on a leash. This is becoming an effort.
A woman walks by with a dog. The dog wags its tail. It wants to go to Haya. In a high voice the woman says, Be good! DON’T bother the lady. The woman has narrow hips. Women with narrow hips have more trouble giving birth. Haya has broad hips. Mothers talk to their children, especially in parks where the children like to explore, they tell them, DON’T bother the lady! Children do not bother Haya. Even dogs do not bother her. But the people in charge boss around children and dogs—DON’T be a bother! In general, they speak with dogs and children the same way. That’s a no-no, nasty! they tell them. Maybe I should go mushrooming? wonders Haya. Collect medicinal herbs, brew herbal teas?
In Berlin once, many years before, Haya got to know Jarmušek, a painter, who brewed her berry teas. Red teas and purple teas, nearly black. In Berlin that year, at a flea market, Haya bought an old doll whose eyes wouldn’t close. Jarmušek told her, Dolls keep secrets even when their eyes are open. Then Haya and Jarmušek went to Nuremberg. Let’s go to Nuremberg, Jarmušek said. Nuremberg is the city of toys. So Haya and Jarmušek went to Nuremberg in 1968 and looked at the toys, though they were already adults, over forty.
While in Nuremberg Haya studies the city. It is a green city; it has a lot of greenery. In Nuremberg Haya and Jarmušek discover stories about dolls. Nuremberg is an old city, almost a thousand years old. For seven hundred years people have been making dolls in Nuremberg; first little ones, then big ones. The little dolls are old, they are white clay dolls the size of a finger, they are little women and little men, little horsemen, little monks and remarkably little babies, who are little anyway. I would like to have a doll like that, says Haya, a little white baby. At the exhibition of dolls and toys someone says, Only Strasbourg dolls from the thirteenth century are older than the Nuremberg dolls. At the doll exhibition Haya and Jarmušek listen to the story of Nuremberg doll-making.