Read Online The Birthday Buyer by Adolfo García Ortega - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Adolfo García Ortega
Ads: Link
can’t forgive, or consent to life, or allow what she remembers to pass.
Raca Cèrmik, Zelman by her maiden name, is in her house in Rzeszów that looks over Targova Street, and is drinking her fourth cup of Turkish coffee of the day and smoking a long cigarette, and is looking back and wondering what became of her family.
What became of her little children whose photos in all sizes and frames fill the tables and shelves of her home?
What became of the soul of her cheerful, joking Aaron, who was always so mischievous, and dead aged twenty-six in Auschwitz?
What became of the soul of her impressionable, hard-working son Stefan, who was sickly and shy, and dead aged twenty-four in Auschwitz?
What became of the soul of her fragile, delicate daughter Sofia, her sweet, little Sofia, and dead aged twenty-three in Auschwitz?
And what might her elder children, Anna and Max, be doing, the survivors so far way, wherever they happen to be? They left this land and now write her letters and want her to go and live with them in a place called Detroit. But she won’t go.
What became of the soul of her relative, elegant, strong-minded Samuel Pawlicka who died in Auschwitz?
What became of the souls of the children of Samuel, David and Yakov, good Yakov who loved Sofia. All dead in Auschwitz too?
What became of the soul of her friend Gork Vigo, and her sisters Sara and Mikaela Zelman, who all disappeared in the oven of some concentration camp?
Where did each and everyone of them end up? How did each and everyone die? Did each and everyone suffer as they died? Raca Cèrmik, Zelman by her maiden name, tortures herself alone.
But she will never wonder after the soul of Hurbinek, her grandchild, because she doesn’t even know he existed. Life kept that hidden from her.
V
THE LONG JOURNEY FROM BLACK
TO WHITE
1
I was going to Auschwitz, but not anymore.
Dr. Voghs touches my knees as he examines X-rays of my legs carefully against the light. The expression on his face beneath rimless spectacles is worrying because it is like the defensive smile of a second-hand car dealer.
Voghs is on in years, possibly approaching retirement. He has replaced the young, rosy-cheeked doctor I had when I was admitted who is doing his training here with a mixture of indifference and conviction. On the other hand, Voghs reminds me of that terrifying type of person who lives in terror and whose immediate physical peculiarity is never to look you in the eye as they tell you something drastic related to what remains of your life, such as “You’ve got cancer” or “You will be executed tomorrow” or “Your daughter has died” or “You will never walk again.”
I have felt reduced to an object more than once in the Frankfurt Universitäts-Kliniken where I am hospitalized. The nurses, naturally, do their best to create the very real impression that you are a nobody.
Like an old country doctor, Voghs forces me to move my toes that stick out beyond the plaster casts completely paralyzing my legs. For the third time over the last few days since my accident, he asks me if I was traveling through Germany as a tourist. It’s become a routine, police kind of enquiry,“Going to Berlin, right?” he asks.
He thinks he is amusing. I think about what Joseph Roth said when the Nazis were ruling the roost in Germany with majority support. “Who in their right mind goes to Berlin of their free will?” Roth was referring to the
Ostjuden
, the Jews from the East, but I fear that his question, albeit a rhetorical one, still holds today.
I reply to Dr. Voghs that I was heading to Auschwitz. But not anymore. “To see the ossuaries?” he asks keeping his eyes firmly on my X-rays, though I surmise it’s out of clumsy innocence. I reply, surprised and hesitant, that I don’t know if there are ossuaries in Auschwitz. “I don’t know either, it’s what I’ve heard, I’ve never been,” he continues as if that were an end to the matter.
“Of course,” I
Raca Cèrmik, Zelman by her maiden name, is in her house in Rzeszów that looks over Targova Street, and is drinking her fourth cup of Turkish coffee of the day and smoking a long cigarette, and is looking back and wondering what became of her family.
What became of her little children whose photos in all sizes and frames fill the tables and shelves of her home?
What became of the soul of her cheerful, joking Aaron, who was always so mischievous, and dead aged twenty-six in Auschwitz?
What became of the soul of her impressionable, hard-working son Stefan, who was sickly and shy, and dead aged twenty-four in Auschwitz?
What became of the soul of her fragile, delicate daughter Sofia, her sweet, little Sofia, and dead aged twenty-three in Auschwitz?
And what might her elder children, Anna and Max, be doing, the survivors so far way, wherever they happen to be? They left this land and now write her letters and want her to go and live with them in a place called Detroit. But she won’t go.
What became of the soul of her relative, elegant, strong-minded Samuel Pawlicka who died in Auschwitz?
What became of the souls of the children of Samuel, David and Yakov, good Yakov who loved Sofia. All dead in Auschwitz too?
What became of the soul of her friend Gork Vigo, and her sisters Sara and Mikaela Zelman, who all disappeared in the oven of some concentration camp?
Where did each and everyone of them end up? How did each and everyone die? Did each and everyone suffer as they died? Raca Cèrmik, Zelman by her maiden name, tortures herself alone.
But she will never wonder after the soul of Hurbinek, her grandchild, because she doesn’t even know he existed. Life kept that hidden from her.
V
THE LONG JOURNEY FROM BLACK
TO WHITE
1
I was going to Auschwitz, but not anymore.
Dr. Voghs touches my knees as he examines X-rays of my legs carefully against the light. The expression on his face beneath rimless spectacles is worrying because it is like the defensive smile of a second-hand car dealer.
Voghs is on in years, possibly approaching retirement. He has replaced the young, rosy-cheeked doctor I had when I was admitted who is doing his training here with a mixture of indifference and conviction. On the other hand, Voghs reminds me of that terrifying type of person who lives in terror and whose immediate physical peculiarity is never to look you in the eye as they tell you something drastic related to what remains of your life, such as “You’ve got cancer” or “You will be executed tomorrow” or “Your daughter has died” or “You will never walk again.”
I have felt reduced to an object more than once in the Frankfurt Universitäts-Kliniken where I am hospitalized. The nurses, naturally, do their best to create the very real impression that you are a nobody.
Like an old country doctor, Voghs forces me to move my toes that stick out beyond the plaster casts completely paralyzing my legs. For the third time over the last few days since my accident, he asks me if I was traveling through Germany as a tourist. It’s become a routine, police kind of enquiry,“Going to Berlin, right?” he asks.
He thinks he is amusing. I think about what Joseph Roth said when the Nazis were ruling the roost in Germany with majority support. “Who in their right mind goes to Berlin of their free will?” Roth was referring to the
Ostjuden
, the Jews from the East, but I fear that his question, albeit a rhetorical one, still holds today.
I reply to Dr. Voghs that I was heading to Auschwitz. But not anymore. “To see the ossuaries?” he asks keeping his eyes firmly on my X-rays, though I surmise it’s out of clumsy innocence. I reply, surprised and hesitant, that I don’t know if there are ossuaries in Auschwitz. “I don’t know either, it’s what I’ve heard, I’ve never been,” he continues as if that were an end to the matter.
“Of course,” I
Similar Books
