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PARTISAN REVIEW
the Fogels' curly-headed Itsik, wailing miserably the way he wailed when
they loaded him into the freight train that took them to the gas cham–
bers.
The room filled with a terrible, eerie, relentless sound, a
sh-sh-sh
coming at him from all sides; the room filled with voices speaking Yid–
dish. Slowly the voices condensed, taking the shape of the living as they
came in contact with the light. The chief constable could not tell
whether they were people or shades and did not dare touch them. They
floated about like
Jata morganas,
their faces merging. He could see them
all clearly; he hadn't forgotten what they looked like, not even after
thirty years. They emerged from the slanted afternoon light pouring
through the open window, even the Carpathian Jews in their bulky
black caftans with fur collars, their shiny silver canes and tall black hats.
But the eyes were what crushed him, eyes burning out of deep black
hollows like suns reflecting out of wells. What lay behind those eyes -
memory? death? - Blaha could not tell. All he knew was that the flames
were rising higher and higher, ready to burn him, brand him.
It's not my fault, the gendarme whimpered. Wallstein was put on
the train a week later, so we didn't even need to move him out. But I
didn't know he'd be gassed . How could I have? All I knew was I had a
wife and three kids and nowhere to live.
The dead did not respond.
Abraham Schwartz, the local grocer, was standing at the window, as
long and thin as a vanilla bean. About a year ago his relatives had taken
his remains back to America with them. Someone had sent them the
notice in the paper saying that the cemetery was to be flooded and rel–
atives could have their near and dear ones exhumed at their own ex–
pense. So the bones dear to his relatives were now near to them as well.
May he rest in peace.
Schwartz was beaten to death in 1940 by the Germans. Blaha had
been sitting in the next room in his Czech police uniform; he heard
Schwartz offer them four million to let him stay in business.
You swine! they shouted. You dirty swine! We'll take the four
mil–
lion and everything you own!
I had no gun! he was about to cry, but his voice froze in horror be–
fore the words crossed his lips. They wouldn't give us arms. They were
after us the moment they marched in. He broke into sobs of helplessness.
The Jews watched him as he called for help , standing there between the
former nursery and the former dining room, death wafting out of the
wardrobes. Blaha felt that he'd never lived there, that he'd been assigned
the house as a place of penitence once he died. It wasn't a house at
all;
it was a haunt for bad memories.
The Jews kept coming.
