moving pictures on the prison wall in Sighet—as cities of fantastic possibility, as an end to the drudgery of daily existence. Despite Helsinki, that enthusiasm for the great cities still trickled in his veins. He could drive on to the edge of the known world— everything was ahead of him.
Behind was home. A dull, continual humiliation. Ignorance and pain.
On the outskirts again, just before the unfinished workers’ blocks, he noticed a small shack on the side of the road. The one-room bar he’d seen before. A few carts were outside, some horses resting in the night, and when Emil pulled in he could clearly see bar painted sloppily over the open door, where light spilled out.
It was barely a room. Short tree stumps had been arranged as unstable stools around three small tables, and, at one, four stout farmers drank from shot glasses and played cards. The bar itself was a plank in front of a fat woman holding a bottle of clear, basement-distilled brandy. Behind her, along a single shelf, were three more bottles of the same poison. The place stank of sour liquor. He bought a glass and settled at a table in the dim back corner.
He tried to focus. On the case, the Crowder case. But he kept coming up with that round peasant’s face with three moles. Apple cheeks and propaganda mouth. He tried to evoke Lena Crowder’s face instead, those intense, elegant features. The product of another world.
She—yes— she could hold his attention.
There was a point in his life where his relationship with women had changed. As a boy growing up in the Capital, or even loitering in the Canal District, he saw women who struck him in a certain way. These women were in abundance. They had details that thrilled him: a face, a walk or the way a dress hung from their shoulders. In the summers between the wars he looked forward to the promenade of girls along the Tisa. They walked as if showing off their glory to the heavens.
It was enough on those hot days to see them pleased with themselves. Sometimes they gave him a smile. Not flirtation—not completely. Just an understanding that, for an instant on a perfect day, they could have the intimacy of eyes. Of a smile.
The effect was always devastating.
When the war came, the summers meant, instead, the sweating mothers of Ruscova. Women like his grandmother and her friend Irina Kula. Their smiles were obligatory: They meant nothing but the pleasure of seeing youth. Life, suddenly, had lost all sensuality.
The farmers shouted and he jumped, looking around as if waking. But then they were laughing—large mouths missing half their teeth—tossing cards on the table. He bought another shot from the barmaid—she gave it to him with a frown—and looked at the card players on the way back to his table.
In Ruscova the farmers were like that, men who worked like cattle and focused their pleasure into brief, intense games of luck. He sat down and closed his eyes.
Then the Jews came to Ruscova. They spoke Romanian or Hungarian, and French, and communicated as best they could. At first there was no need to hide them. Ruscova had not seen a single German since the beginning of the Occupation, so these immigrants wandered the village, taking work where they could get it, sometimes sleeping in the fields or renting a room from the locals. They were always planning far-fetched escapes to Paris. When the Germans took Paris, they wept and planned for London. For New York.
Then the Germans decided they could take Russia.
This brought convoys through the countryside. Fresh troops to replace veterans, bright-eyed Wehrmacht boys stopping in Ruscova for bread and pork on the way to Kiev, to Minsk, to Stalingrad. Sometimes German officers filled the dusty main square, smoking and joking, and the Jews had to be hidden. A few families latched their gates and shook their heads, but most, once they heard stories of the Bucharest meat factories, gave what space they had.
Tne convoys filled the center with
Behind was home. A dull, continual humiliation. Ignorance and pain.
On the outskirts again, just before the unfinished workers’ blocks, he noticed a small shack on the side of the road. The one-room bar he’d seen before. A few carts were outside, some horses resting in the night, and when Emil pulled in he could clearly see bar painted sloppily over the open door, where light spilled out.
It was barely a room. Short tree stumps had been arranged as unstable stools around three small tables, and, at one, four stout farmers drank from shot glasses and played cards. The bar itself was a plank in front of a fat woman holding a bottle of clear, basement-distilled brandy. Behind her, along a single shelf, were three more bottles of the same poison. The place stank of sour liquor. He bought a glass and settled at a table in the dim back corner.
He tried to focus. On the case, the Crowder case. But he kept coming up with that round peasant’s face with three moles. Apple cheeks and propaganda mouth. He tried to evoke Lena Crowder’s face instead, those intense, elegant features. The product of another world.
She—yes— she could hold his attention.
There was a point in his life where his relationship with women had changed. As a boy growing up in the Capital, or even loitering in the Canal District, he saw women who struck him in a certain way. These women were in abundance. They had details that thrilled him: a face, a walk or the way a dress hung from their shoulders. In the summers between the wars he looked forward to the promenade of girls along the Tisa. They walked as if showing off their glory to the heavens.
It was enough on those hot days to see them pleased with themselves. Sometimes they gave him a smile. Not flirtation—not completely. Just an understanding that, for an instant on a perfect day, they could have the intimacy of eyes. Of a smile.
The effect was always devastating.
When the war came, the summers meant, instead, the sweating mothers of Ruscova. Women like his grandmother and her friend Irina Kula. Their smiles were obligatory: They meant nothing but the pleasure of seeing youth. Life, suddenly, had lost all sensuality.
The farmers shouted and he jumped, looking around as if waking. But then they were laughing—large mouths missing half their teeth—tossing cards on the table. He bought another shot from the barmaid—she gave it to him with a frown—and looked at the card players on the way back to his table.
In Ruscova the farmers were like that, men who worked like cattle and focused their pleasure into brief, intense games of luck. He sat down and closed his eyes.
Then the Jews came to Ruscova. They spoke Romanian or Hungarian, and French, and communicated as best they could. At first there was no need to hide them. Ruscova had not seen a single German since the beginning of the Occupation, so these immigrants wandered the village, taking work where they could get it, sometimes sleeping in the fields or renting a room from the locals. They were always planning far-fetched escapes to Paris. When the Germans took Paris, they wept and planned for London. For New York.
Then the Germans decided they could take Russia.
This brought convoys through the countryside. Fresh troops to replace veterans, bright-eyed Wehrmacht boys stopping in Ruscova for bread and pork on the way to Kiev, to Minsk, to Stalingrad. Sometimes German officers filled the dusty main square, smoking and joking, and the Jews had to be hidden. A few families latched their gates and shook their heads, but most, once they heard stories of the Bucharest meat factories, gave what space they had.
Tne convoys filled the center with
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