1983, p.22
Where Butterflies Go, page 22
“What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“It feels like you’re trying to get me to admit something that will give you an excuse to walk away.”
“I am not looking for excuses. I am trying not to be the excuse for a ruined family and a brokenhearted boy.”
Before I knew his intentions, Max pulled me to him and kissed me. When his lips covered mine, I wanted to resist him, but I couldn’t. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and kissed him back. I pressed my body against his and felt the way he shuddered in relief. When he held me this way, so close and so tight, I could almost forget all my doubts. Almost.
Max leaned back and looked down at me. “You’re not my excuse for anything, Meira. What can I say to make you believe that?”
I did believe it, but the hesitation tugging at my heart wouldn’t go away.
Reluctantly, I stepped out of his arms and picked up the folder on the table. “Sylvia offered me a new job. It will take me away from the city for a while.”
He glanced at the folder. “What job?”
I explained about the lecture tour. “It feels right. I need to do more and be more, and I think this is my opportunity. It is going to be difficult talking about the past, but people need to know what happened. It is important they understand.”
“It is important, and you’re the perfect person to do it.”
Even though he wanted to, Max couldn’t object. The cause was too good, but disappointment and uncertainty lingered behind his eyes.
“When do you leave?” he asked.
“Next week.”
“So soon?”
“I know it is quick. I wish I had more time to prepare, but it is already arranged.” I hesitated before saying the next part. “I think the timing is good, Max. I need to be on my own for a little while.”
He watched me as frustration came off him in waves. “You’ve been alone for a long time, Meira.”
“Yes, I have been alone. I have been lonely and sad. I have done nothing but wait to join my family. But this will be different. I will not only be marking time, but I will be making the time count. I know you say I am strong because of what I survived, but deep down, I do not feel strong. I need to feel that way for myself. I need to believe it. Until I can, it will always be me leaning on you. I want you to feel like you can lean on me too. If you are honest, you will admit that you do not feel that way.”
I could tell by the way his eyes stopped making contact with mine that I was right. He didn’t feel like he could lean on me, but he also didn’t think it was a problem. He released a heavy breath, and the fight seemed to drain from his body.
“When do you get back?” he asked.
“November twentieth.”
He nodded and looked at me with a hurt expression.
“This is not good-bye, Max. I would not be able to do this if it was not for you. You woke up a part of me that I thought died long ago. You are the one who made me want more again. Thank you for that.”
“I don’t want you to thank me, Meira. I want you to love me.”
My lips parted, but no sound came out. His words felt like a punch to the stomach.
Max swallowed hard, his deep green eyes stormy and vulnerable. “I want you to love me because I love you. It’s not fair to tell you that now when you’re leaving. The truth is, I’ve loved you for a long time, but I understand that you need to do this. I’m proud of you for doing it.”
He loves me. His words sank in and tried to wrap around my heart, but I resisted.
Max watched me closely, looking for my reaction, probably hoping to hear me say the same words back to him. But I’d been full of anger and sadness for so long, I didn’t know if I was capable of love anymore. Did I even remember how to love?
I was desperate not to hurt Max. He had to understand that I’d lost almost everyone I’d ever loved. If I let myself fall in love with Max and I lost him, I couldn’t survive it again. I wouldn’t survive it.
“Meira, stop. I can see the thoughts racing around in your head.” He took my hand. “I only wanted you to know how I feel. I didn’t want to upset you.”
Tears pressed at my eyes. This amazing man was consoling me when I was the one who had hurt him.
“I wish you all the best with your new job,” he said. “I hope it helps you believe what everyone around you already knows.”
He is saying good-bye. I blinked, and tears spilled onto my cheeks.
“The day after you get back, if you want to see me, I’ll be at Lenore and Charlie’s bench in the park at dusk. If you don’t come, you don’t have to feel bad. I’ll never regret loving you, Meira Sokolow.”
He pulled me into the warmest, tightest hug, and we stayed that way for a long time before he let go and walked out of the apartment.
Once he was gone, I sank to the floor and stared at the closed door. I cried harder and harder, until I couldn’t catch my breath.
That was how Blanka found me, on my knees, tears running down my face, afraid I’d made a terrible mistake.
Aaron placed the steaming cup of tea down beside me. “That should help.”
My throat was sore, and my heart was pounding so hard, I was sure it would pop out of my chest in the middle of my speech. That would certainly wake up anyone in the audience who was in danger of falling asleep from boredom.
I smiled politely at Aaron and sipped the hot tea.
“Relax, you’ll be fine.” He grinned and patted my shoulder.
The American Jewish League had assigned him to be my liaison and general caretaker throughout the lecture tour. He handled reservations and spoke with the organizers at each venue. He also arranged dinners with local synagogue leaders, which meant I wasn’t only talking all day about my life, I had to retell it again each night at dinner.
This was only the second stop on the tour. The first lecture in DC had very little turnout; fewer than a dozen people came, and even fewer than that attended the second night.
Perhaps it was a good thing. My first time speaking in public was an awkward, humiliating experience, but at least there weren’t many people there. For some reason, because I was so nervous, my accent got thicker. At one point that first night, I slipped into Yiddish, and Aaron had to come out and remind me to speak English. I turned bright red as I stood at the lectern and resisted the urge to run off the stage.
The second night, I did slightly better. I spoke English the entire time, and I knew better what to expect. I was able to put my thoughts together more coherently, having learned from my mistakes the first night.
Tonight we were in Cleveland, Ohio, which had a very large Jewish population. I could already hear the low hum of the crowd gathering in the auditorium. We were at one of the universities in the city, and Aaron hinted that they had nearly sold out all the tickets, but he wouldn’t tell me how many people were out there because he didn’t want to scare me.
Too late.
I missed Max terribly and wished he were here. I could have used his encouragement and his solid presence to lean on. But I was also glad he wasn’t here in case I made a fool of myself.
“Ten more minutes.”
Aaron buzzed with energy and that only made me more nervous. With his pale, almost translucent freckled skin, his every emotion brought a flush to his face. He wasn’t married. He’d mentioned that enough times for me to believe he was telling me for a reason, although I pretended not to understand.
Finishing my tea, I took some deep breaths and felt as ready as I was going to feel by the time Aaron returned to escort me to the lectern.
No one in this auditorium knew me, but they all clapped when I walked out onto the stage. This was the worst part. Getting acclimated to the crowd and trying not to squint at the lights all pointed at my face.
As my eyes adjusted, I could see the shadows of heads in almost every seat. There must have been hundreds of people out there. Who were they? Why would they come just to see me? I didn’t know the answer. I only knew that I had to paint them a picture, like Sylvia said. A picture of my life, and the colors had to be bright enough that they could see and feel everything I described.
That night in Cleveland, I spoke for two hours. I cried and laughed as the people I’d loved and lost became flesh and blood again. The audience came to know them by the stories I told. They laughed with me when I spoke of how badly Mama wanted to impress Avrom’s parents at dinner. They cried when I described the bullet that tore through my arm and pierced my daughter’s head. I had them in the palm of my hand the whole time, and their reactions made me feel less alone as I lived it all over again.
At the end, when the stage lights dimmed and the auditorium lights came up during the audience question-and-answer session, I spotted a tall, familiar figure slip out the doors at the back. Max?
I missed the first question as I debated running out those doors to see if it was him. Had I imagined him here? Had I conjured him up because I missed him so much?
“Meira?”
Aaron repeated the audience member’s question for me, and I shook off my thoughts, deciding I must have imagined seeing Max.
Thirty minutes later, Aaron greeted me backstage. “You did great, Meira. I have so many people here who want to meet you. Are you up for that? I can tell them you’re too tired, but I think you should talk to them.”
I truly was exhausted, completely spent after talking for two hours straight, but how could I say no to someone who wanted to speak to me? “I will stay until everyone who wants to meet me has done so.”
“Atta girl.” Aaron winked, and I shook my head. He was so eager and attentive, I couldn’t help but smile.
Mostly it was Americans who had only read about the war from a safe distance who wanted to talk to me. Some hugged me, even though they were total strangers. Their eyes brimmed with tears as they expressed their condolences.
I didn’t know what to think about that. Total strangers crying and embracing me? Some said they were crying for Tovah, and hearing her name spoken by so many people who never met her pulled at my heartstrings. Their tears meant they understood, or at least they understood as much as they could. Tovah would be remembered. All those who suffered would be remembered by the people here tonight.
Despite how I watched the door as Aaron ushered people inside, none of them were Max. I couldn’t help but look for him. By the end of the night, I decided that it must not have been him I saw leaving through the back. He wouldn’t come without saying hello. Would he?
“This is Raizel,” Aaron said, bringing the last person over to me. “She’s also from Poland and wanted to meet you.”
“I was in the Lodz ghetto,” Raizel said in Yiddish.
My eyes widened at the sound of my native language spoken in the familiar accent I knew so well. I took her hand when she offered it to me, and estimated her to be close to my age despite her bent posture. In the DP camps after the war, many people looked like Raizel, their bones brittle from years of malnutrition.
“I lost my family,” she said as she squeezed my hand. “Everyone is gone.”
“I am so sorry, Raizel.”
“But they did not win, because I am here and you are here, and we won’t stop telling the world what they did.”
“No. We will not,” I said as tears pooled in my eyes.
“This is my husband and my son.” She gestured toward a short, stout man and a boy who looked to be about nine or ten. “I met him here in Cleveland after the war.”
I smiled in their direction. “Nice to meet you.”
“Finding him and having my son was a blessing. I thought my life was over, but now I have another chance. So they truly did not win.” She smiled sadly, her throat working as she held back tears.
“No, they did not.” I thought of Max, and worked hard not to fall apart in front of her.
By the time everyone was gone and Aaron came back in, I had pulled myself together. Every time I went out there and told my story, it felt like I was breaking apart and then coming back together again piece by piece, but Raizel made that task more challenging. She made me feel like a phony tonight. She was brave enough to live her life to the fullest despite all she’d lost, and I wasn’t. It should be her giving these lectures, not me.
Aaron said it was time to head to the restaurant, and so I gathered my thoughts, tucked them away, and prepared myself for another night of nonstop talk.
Next, we were scheduled to move on to Chicago.
When I first looked at the itinerary Sylvia provided, I scanned it for November third, the anniversary of Tovah and Avrom’s deaths. I usually spent that day alone, wandering the city, using the noise to distract me from my thoughts. It was a dark day, filled with pain and memories.
As Chicago and November third approached, I wondered how I would get through my lecture that night. I knew I couldn’t repeat the same things I’d said before. This night was different. I had to do more than just talk about my life. I had to pay tribute to my family.
As I walked out onstage that night with the audience silently waiting for my first words, my hands trembled. I stared out at the people who sat so still in their seats as I moistened my dry lips.
How could I make them feel what I felt on this day every year? How could I reach into their hearts and make them understand the bitter injustice? How could I move them to spread this understanding to others so that everyone could know the terrible consequences of hatred? Lastly, how could I recount it all without feeling hatred in my own heart?
I wasn’t sure I could. All I knew was that I had to speak now, and it had to come from the very bottom of my aching soul.
After clearing my throat, I leaned toward the microphone. “My daughter’s name was Tovah. She was strong and brave and precocious and silly. She had blond curls that bounced around her face when she ran. She had pie-in-the-sky little-girl dreams, and a terrible sweet tooth. When she smiled, it seemed as if the whole room lit up. Today, November third, is the day I lost her forever. I lost my husband too, only minutes before. I often wonder how those Nazi soldiers did not hesitate when they murdered my baby. They terrified and starved her first. They did that for years. Then in cold blood, with blank expressions on their faces, they shot her and countless other children.”
Scanning the audience, I said, “It is hard to believe they were only men who did this. Flesh-and-blood humans who hid behind their uniforms and somehow justified their actions to themselves. When the Nazi soldiers who were on trial at Nuremberg were asked why they killed so many innocents, they said they were just following orders. That they had no choice, or they would have been killed for disobeying their superiors. Do you know how many Nazi soldiers were killed for disobeying orders?”
I paused and looked around the room. “None. There is no record of even one, and as we know, the Nazis were scrupulous record keepers.”
The audience reacted as I expected. It was a shocking statement that still made me feel sick inside, but it was the truth. When the various aid organizations came to speak with us in the DP camp, I learned that the war was so much worse than even I knew.
“Hitler’s Final Solution, as it was called, was the Nazis’ long-term plan to wipe the Jewish race from the face of the earth, and it almost succeeded. It came frighteningly close to its goal. Now, it is up to us to learn as much as we can from what happened, because if we turn away from it or try to forget it, it could happen again.”
I pulled in a deep breath and looked around the auditorium. “For a long time after the war, I was angry and lost, and filled with hatred. I still feel all of those things sometimes, but I have learned that focusing on them is not a good use of my energy. Carrying on the toxic hatred that fueled the Nazis’ actions would be another tragedy in itself. So I choose not to hate. It is not easy to make this choice, and I only came to it gradually after a very long time. But we all can choose, and if we choose not to hate, I have hope that this will never happen again.”
Stepping back, I looked around. The people were so quiet, I didn’t know what to think.
But then someone applauded, and soon, the entire room joined in.
The oddest feeling flowed through me then, like a cool breeze traveling over my skin. An image of Tovah smiling up at me popped into my head. She is proud of me. I sensed that as strongly as I felt the goodwill of the people who clapped.
Overwhelmed, I nodded gratefully at the crowd and walked to the side of the stage where a smiling Aaron waited. He patted my shoulder and told me this had been my best night yet. My best night on the worst day of the year. I supposed it was fitting.
Something made me turn and look out at the auditorium again. In the back was a familiar silhouette. Max. He seemed to be looking straight at me before he turned and walked out the door. Now I was sure I was seeing things, conjuring up Max from thin air.
He loves me. Those three words repeated in my head.
Max loved me, and all he wanted was for me to love him back. Why was that so hard to do?
When I thought I saw Max again in Denver, I wondered about my own sanity. Why would he come to each lecture and never say hello? Why would he travel around the country just to walk out at the end?
As the tour continued, I grew more confident with each lecture. The words came easier, and I learned not to hold back my tears because they punctuated the story. They were honest and true. As I spoke, there were times you could have heard a pin drop, because the audience hung on my every word.
They were with me in Warsaw when the bombs began to fall. They were by my side in the ghetto when Mama was shot, and they were with me in the ditch when I lost Tovah. Their reactions of anger and grief on my behalf made me feel less alone. They made me feel like I had an army of allies ready to come to my defense.
What surprised me the most was that people had heard some of what happened during the war, but most didn’t know the full extent of it. Those who had heard about the camps and gas chambers were sure the stories had been exaggerated. I told them that wasn’t the case.
