that our letters were being opened and read. I was terrified of what I had written, of what my mother or Pepi or Christl might write. We heard about denunciations and deportations. Suddenly there was so much to hide. If my mother wrote to me and said, “Remember, darling, I am saving my fur coat for you,” maybe somebody would read that letter and come and steal the fur coat and hurt my mother. If Pepi wrote to me that he stayed in the little park near the old café and read his paper until the evening, maybe the Gestapo would read the letter and go and find him there.
“ Destroy my letters! ” I wrote to him. “ Read them and put them in your heart and then burn them! I will do the same with yours. And when you write, use abbreviations. Never mention places or people.”
We began to call the Gestapo “PE,” for Prinz Eugentrasse, where they had their headquarters. We said “going to school” to signify reporting for deportation, since people being deported were often assembled at school buildings.
By now I had begun to beg Pepi to marry me, hoping that if he did, we would be able to emigrate like Milo and Mimi, or at least that we might be happy together. “A married woman with a ring on her finger!” I thought. “Able to have children! What unspeakable joy!” I treasured the notion that even if we couldn’t get out, I would be safer married and sharing Pepi’s invisibility. He said he loved me. He spoke of his passion. But in response to my proposals, he said nothing, neither giving me hope nor ending it.
We all thought about converting to Christianity. What would have once seemed unthinkable, a shameful betrayal of our parents and our culture, now seemed like a perfectly reasonable ploy. I thought of the Marranos in Spain, outwardly converted Christians, waiting for the terror of the Inquisition to end so they could follow their true faith again. Perhaps I could pretend to be a Christian too. Surely God would understand. And it might help. Why not try it?
I took myself into the town of Osterburg and stared at the statue of Jesus in front of the local church, trying to will myself to love him. It was wartime. Men were at the front. And yet I saw no candles in the church, no kneeling worshipers praying for the safe return of sons and husbands and fathers. The Nazis had done a wonderful job of discouraging faith in anything but the Führer.
I wrote to Pepi for instructions on how to convert. What papers did I need? What affidavits? What signatures? I read the Parables. I found pictures of the Holy Family. I waxed poetic when I wrote to my lover: “Look how beautiful the mother is! How content and sweet! Look how proud the father is, how delighted with the child, the gift he has been given! How I wish we could have a family as happy and close as this one!”
Somehow what had started out as praise of the Holy Family had evolved into a celebration of the family Pepi and I might have, if only he would marry me … if only he would say he wanted me … if only he would leave his mother—and if only I would get my menstrual periods again.
For you see, I had lost my periods. They had gone, disappeared. “You should be happy,” I said to myself. “Think of the convenience.” But in truth, I was in despair. At night, I lay on my straw bed, trying not to think about the pain in my back, trying to force my stiff fingers to make a fist, and I prayed: “Come back! Come back!” But they did not.
I SAT ON an animal trough, writing letters, the laundry flapping around my head. Trude sat down beside me.
“Stop writing, Edith; you are always writing. Listen to me. How long has it been?”
“Since June.”
“Me too. Liesel and Frieda and Lucy too. I wrote home and told my mother and she asked the doctor and the doctor said it comes from overwork. What does your doctor say?”
“Dr. Kohn told my mother I must be pregnant,” I answered.
We laughed until we wept.
From Vienna, Pepi wrote obliquely in
“ Destroy my letters! ” I wrote to him. “ Read them and put them in your heart and then burn them! I will do the same with yours. And when you write, use abbreviations. Never mention places or people.”
We began to call the Gestapo “PE,” for Prinz Eugentrasse, where they had their headquarters. We said “going to school” to signify reporting for deportation, since people being deported were often assembled at school buildings.
By now I had begun to beg Pepi to marry me, hoping that if he did, we would be able to emigrate like Milo and Mimi, or at least that we might be happy together. “A married woman with a ring on her finger!” I thought. “Able to have children! What unspeakable joy!” I treasured the notion that even if we couldn’t get out, I would be safer married and sharing Pepi’s invisibility. He said he loved me. He spoke of his passion. But in response to my proposals, he said nothing, neither giving me hope nor ending it.
We all thought about converting to Christianity. What would have once seemed unthinkable, a shameful betrayal of our parents and our culture, now seemed like a perfectly reasonable ploy. I thought of the Marranos in Spain, outwardly converted Christians, waiting for the terror of the Inquisition to end so they could follow their true faith again. Perhaps I could pretend to be a Christian too. Surely God would understand. And it might help. Why not try it?
I took myself into the town of Osterburg and stared at the statue of Jesus in front of the local church, trying to will myself to love him. It was wartime. Men were at the front. And yet I saw no candles in the church, no kneeling worshipers praying for the safe return of sons and husbands and fathers. The Nazis had done a wonderful job of discouraging faith in anything but the Führer.
I wrote to Pepi for instructions on how to convert. What papers did I need? What affidavits? What signatures? I read the Parables. I found pictures of the Holy Family. I waxed poetic when I wrote to my lover: “Look how beautiful the mother is! How content and sweet! Look how proud the father is, how delighted with the child, the gift he has been given! How I wish we could have a family as happy and close as this one!”
Somehow what had started out as praise of the Holy Family had evolved into a celebration of the family Pepi and I might have, if only he would marry me … if only he would say he wanted me … if only he would leave his mother—and if only I would get my menstrual periods again.
For you see, I had lost my periods. They had gone, disappeared. “You should be happy,” I said to myself. “Think of the convenience.” But in truth, I was in despair. At night, I lay on my straw bed, trying not to think about the pain in my back, trying to force my stiff fingers to make a fist, and I prayed: “Come back! Come back!” But they did not.
I SAT ON an animal trough, writing letters, the laundry flapping around my head. Trude sat down beside me.
“Stop writing, Edith; you are always writing. Listen to me. How long has it been?”
“Since June.”
“Me too. Liesel and Frieda and Lucy too. I wrote home and told my mother and she asked the doctor and the doctor said it comes from overwork. What does your doctor say?”
“Dr. Kohn told my mother I must be pregnant,” I answered.
We laughed until we wept.
From Vienna, Pepi wrote obliquely in
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