Crossing the River

13. Second Year/Seven Journeys

13 Second Year/Seven Journeys First Journey/ Two Messengers/ To Vilno/January My daughter (age twelve): Dad, I don’t get it. How many places did you live in? First Messenger Things had begun to happen during that summer. One after another people were disappearing. Aided by the repatriation act that allowed former Polish citizens to return to their country, thousands of people in the Soviet Union began moving westward, whether with authentic passports or forged ones. My good friend Michael’s family went away, too, and I was left standing on the steps of their house with tears in my eyes. I do not like partings, as I have said before. One day the Gurvitches bade me visit them in the evening, saying a man was looking for me. When I arrived they informed me, cautiously, that the man apparently had greetings for me from my father. I do not remember being particularly excited, perhaps because I expected something like that to happen to me one day. I went into the backyard and there, under the shadowy arch of the gate, a man I didn’t know was waiting for me. He may have had another person with him. He questioned me at length about my identity, and only after I answered satisfactorily did he extend to me a small note with Father’s familiar writing on it. In angular letters betraying his effort to make them clearer, the following message was written, in words to this effect: “Dear child, this is your father, who by miracles was saved from hellish tortures and who is now in a survivors’ camp in Munich writing to you. Do not forget your people’s heritage and your family’s memory. Come join me for a new life in another country. I will love you to my last breath, your father, Israel.” The man hinted that on some unspecified day he could help me reach Father. 222 Chapter 13 Was I dumbfounded, shocked? I do not believe so. I had always thought my parents would come back one day. I was seized with an inner joy. From the moment I read my father’s note, a new era began. I was no longer forsaken and forgotten. I had an anchor; I belonged. A year and a half after Mother had cast my basket on the Nile, I was nearing my father’s shore. My life had a new purpose. As for my mother, no such message from her came from anywhere. Was she, perhaps, somewhere in the camps to the west after all? But I still had things to do. What would become of the charred remains of my father’s journals and the other contents of the tub from the ghetto? How could I bring Martha and her husband to justice? From that day onward I was filled with taut expectation. I waited for the airship that would land beside me, lift me up high, and take me into the distance. I began preparing for an escape, whenever it might present itself. I asked one of the children who worked in the wood shop to make me a small suitcase out of light wooden panels; in return I gave him some of my things. In this suitcase I placed, in advance, the things I would take with me. There was the album of ghetto seals and a few documents from the washtub. I chose documents that were likely, in my opinion, to be of help to my parents should I meet them—Father’s diploma from the Lithuanian university, and Mother’s matriculation certificates from the gymnasium and nursing school. I left the rest of the ghetto treasures on the shelves of the children’s home library. For years I was sorry I had not accepted Meir Yellin’s offer to take these things into his care. I wavered greatly over the wooden panel that had covered the tub, on which Mother had written her words—three times I put it in the little case, until at last, with practical sobriety, I left it out. Winter came gradually, and its ever-shortening days were filled with anxious expectation. At the time, the Gurvitches were feverishly and secretly preparing for the flight of their eldest, Bella, to a Zionist training group in Poland.Together we lit Hanukkah candles, ate latkes, and sang holiday songs. And meanwhile, in the children’s home, I was given a leading role in the play for the end...