An Afterlife. Frances Bartkowski

let them come, the tears. Whoever was playing this version was fast and amazing. She could hear that. Her mind interrupted her breaking heart and shattered soul.

      Thank god the phone wasn’t ringing and no one was there to interrupt the filing she was doing when the piano broke into her.

      Just concentrate on the alphabet and the calendar to make order of the chaos inside. That would tamp down the hurting and dry her out eventually. She let herself listen and let the thoughts float through her. There was no stopping them anyway. Or the memories they brought along. Her father. So proud. So smart. So loving. She couldn’t believe the moment that burned through the years—of him bargaining with the Gestapo. For what? Not his own life. What? Time? Another day in the ghetto? It wouldn’t work this time. It didn’t. His body bent in ways she’d never seen, as they shouted at her mother, her brother, and her and Pearl, dragging him away. That was not how she remembered him. She couldn’t forget it either. It was her last look. Their last time, reaching, unable to touch him, as doors slammed and shock silenced them, and fear for what else might yet come that night.

      No, Bach at the piano, on the violin. Those were her memories—not to be let go. They were her survival, yes, when she wasn’t in the fog of misery of those years after, before. Her father, his music, his face in ecstasy when it all came out right, and how sweet he smelled of his cologne when he hugged her, kissed her and Pearl goodnight. She knew that smell her whole life. She must know it now! Could she find it? Describe it to some shopkeeper? She could find a bottle. She vaguely recalled the dark blue bottle with a purple flowered label up on a high shelf in the dressing room her parents shared. The world as it was. Nothing changing but the clothes she wore, the new friends at school, and the seasons.

      • • •

      It was a night in April, spring that still smelled like winter. Ruby put on her wool jacket and tied the pink silk scarf that Ilya had given her for her birthday and left the office for home—a kilometer away. Home. She would pass by the bakery and see what cakes and chocolates they had. Just looking in the bright glass cases after dark gave her a thrill. But these were not the streets of her Krakow neighborhood with its coffee shops lit by chandeliers, their polished wooden floors and tables. She could remember the looks of the women working there who were usually round and red-cheeked behind their lace and linen aprons.

      As a child she thought this must be a wonderful kind of profession. When the grown-ups asked her and Pearl, her twin, what they wanted to be when they grew up she always said a bakery lady, and Pearl said a flower girl. In their family, with their father a lawyer, and Uncle Pinchas a rabbi, this never failed to get the girls a laugh. Not “Pearl and Ruby,” but the ‘girls’–that’s who they were–as if saying three words took too much time. “My girls,” she could hear her father’s voice calling them, waking them on a Saturday morning.

      In the shop window, the dark chocolate with almond beckoned. Maybe after dinner she would tell Ilya all about it. And maybe he would cover her with kisses to make her forget the chocolates. And she would. Nothing was better than Ilya’s kisses. The cool night would end in their warmth. They were like two animals the way they got as close as possible to each other’s skin and curled up, as if he were a snail and she the shell.

      Just the day before, Ruby had learned at the office that Motek, a man who knew her brother from before the war, was in a hospital in Munich. She and Ilya were taking the train to Munich tomorrow. They would visit Motek and maybe have lunch or dinner at a real restaurant. Not like the ones here where people came to drink beer and eat potatoes—but a real city restaurant. Surrounded by people speaking German, they would whisper, hold hands, and again feel glad to be there together. Ruby would wear her spring suit, a skirt of coral colored lightweight wool, with seams running down the front and back and the sides, swinging around her knees. The jacket had glistening buttons the size of 50 pfennig pieces, and under it she would wear her starched navy blue blouse. Ilya would look handsome in his special suit and tie.

      Motek would get to meet the man she loved, even if her brother never would. The news about Motek wasn’t good. He had pneumonia and wasn’t recovering. He had made it through the Lager, but getting sick now wasn’t a good sign. Like her brother Max would have been, Motek was thirty-five. Most of the DP’s were in their twenties. The really hardy ones were in their fifties and a few really old timers had made it. She wondered if their visit to Motek might be the first time he would see someone from home.

      • • •

      The train ride through Kaufering into Munich was just long enough to lose track of time, and the view was mostly of fields and farmhouses. The simple pleasure of looking out the train window never failed to make her count her blessings. The slowing down and hissing of the cars approaching the station and the arrival—the train has windows, we are going to pay a visit, walk, eat, sit on a park bench. She chanted these things to herself, and the panic rolled back. She let herself remember and say a prayer as the train stopped. The doors weren’t yet open. That was what set the memory trap. But now she and Ilya were hand in hand waiting in the group at the doors.

      Ilya always let others go first. He did it like a gentleman, but Ruby knew it was so he wouldn’t be overcome by his own memories of crowds, lines, noise. He just concentrated all his attention on Ruby’s hand in his own. He held it up to admire. It was small, a bit freckled on the back, pale, her fingers thin and beautifully shaped. They were side by side, standing close enough so he could catch the freshness of her hair washed that morning. He could see the top of her head as it rested leaning into his chest. He felt safe close to her. She’d take over when they got out of the station. He enjoyed watching her negotiate with merchants, strangers, the hospital officials. This city girl, she knew how to find her way around. They took the bus across town as instructed.

      The busy German nurses and a few doctors paid them no attention as they walked to Motek’s room. Ruby entered the room with her arms wide open to greet him. His eyes were shining with surprise, and maybe some fever, she thought.

      “My darling, Motek, how wonderful to see you! We came as soon as we heard news that you were ill. Motek, I want you to meet my sweetheart, and fiancé, Ilya.”

      She turned to invite Ilya into the circle of the three of them at Motek’s bedside. Ilya smiled, but with restraint. This was a new person for him, but for her someone as close as she might get to her past. What would Motek think of her man? They shook hands. Ilya was a bit strong for the grasp of Motek’s soft and warm hand. They greeted each other in quick Polish words of politeness. Ruby was eager to make this visit as easy as possible for all of them. She gave Ilya a look of satisfaction, with a slight nod of her head. Ilya was ready to wait while Ruby visited and offered consolation and company. She and Motek would trade stories. He looked very weak. It was too familiar a sight to Ilya. Some days his own emaciated self still looked back at him from the mirror. He’d had his own health back for less than two years.

      He didn’t want to interfere with their visit. He went to sit in the hall where there were chairs. He looked for someone to talk to, something to read. He paced a bit. He poked his head in the room and said he was going out for air and a cigarette.

      The front stairs of the hospital faced a wide avenue. Buses, trams, some cars, and a parade of bicycles. Pedestrians waited patiently at the stop lights. The leisure to stand there and watch the world go by felt like a holiday. He could feel anonymous but not alone, knowing Ruby was just inside. And that they would leave together. He hoped her visit didn’t leave her feeling too sad. But even if it did, he knew how to help make the sadness pass. There was time for tea or coffee and a long walk and later, a dinner before the last train back to camp. He and Ruby were free to stay in the city as late as they wished. Free? What did they know about being free, the passersby? Those years he had been in hell, they had kept right on living. Oh, he knew there had been hardships, wartime shortages, and some had lost family, men, mostly to the war. But he could see they had never been as afraid as he was for days and years. That, he could see, was foreign to the Germans and the American soldiers he had come into contact with.

      Ilya took pleasure in the scene, feeling a part of this ordinary day and released from the camp routines at the same time. These few trips into the city he and Ruby had taken for business always included time for some