Armchair. The Foreign-Language Teacher
In what language will she tell these stories? Her grandchildren won’t understand Polish, and she won’t ever master Hebrew, so maybe English? After all, she took lessons at the Szwarcwalds’ three times a week for three months from a private tutor hired by Jurek’s mother . . . The man had a brilliant method: at their very first lesson he read Oscar Wilde out loud to his students, in English: High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince . . . the beginning of his favorite story, “The Happy Prince.” He was an elderly bachelor, somewhat shy and very polite. When he sat down to eat he bowed to everyone and said, “Bon appétit,” and after they’d finished he bowed again and said, “Thank you very much.” Mrs. Szwarcwald served him dinner in exchange for the lesson. Izolda learned fast and worked hard (she lined her notebook very neatly, filling the columns with irregular verb forms: to be—was—been; to eat—ate—eaten) and would have certainly mastered English if the teacher hadn’t hanged himself. The paper mentioned a middle-aged man committing suicide, but the notice didn’t give a last name, so she couldn’t be sure it was him. The column “Unhappy Accidents” frequently listed similar incidents, while the “First Aid” column offered medical advice, which in the case of hangings was to administer artificial respiration immediately after cutting the person down. Unfortunately, the brilliant teacher wasn’t cut down in time and artificial respiration was not administered, so Izolda R. will be able to say High above the city, on a tall column . . . but won’t be able to tell the story of her life to her granddaughter sitting at her knees.
. . . she hands fifty zlotys to the guard and walks out of the ghetto with an unhurried step.
She carries a handbag (which her mother bought for her at Herse’s right before graduation) and a small beach bag containing a nightdress, a toothbrush, and her favorite yellow beach robe, which can also double for indoor use.
She knocks, the door opens, and standing at the threshold is Captain Szubert’s wife, Kazimiera, their neighbor from the summer house at Józefów, whom everyone calls Lilusia. Lilusia is already dressed. She’s tied her braid up in a bun and is holding a cigarette. She’s neither surprised nor frightened. Come in, she says, and quickly chains the door. And don’t cry, please, we mustn’t cry. “We,” she says. To a person who shouts “save me” to a padlock. Who tries to hide in an undersized barrel. The wife of a Polish officer (her husband is a prisoner of war in Germany, she has a weapon hidden inside the folding table and underground newspapers in the sofa bed) and she says, “We.”
Izolda stops crying and eats breakfast. She feels increasingly better. Part of a better world—an Aryan world, tasteful and tidy.
A hairdresser friend treats her hair. First he bleaches out her natural color with peroxide and then he dyes it ash blond. She looks in the mirror, pleased: that’s perfect, not like all those other little Jewish girls with hair as yellow as straw.
She has nothing in common with the straw color of those other little Jewish girls. She becomes a blond, and a tall one at that, because her long, sturdy legs give her height. Satisfied, she returns to Lilusia Szubert.
Lilusia has company: the caretaker of the building and his son. It’s secret school in the kitchen, today’s subject is Polish history: King Władysław Jagiełło fought, conquered, and died . . . Where did he die? asks Lilusia. Władysław Jagiełło died in Gródek, very good, on the Wereszyca River, tomorrow we’ll look it up on the map, and what happened next? The boy doesn’t know what happened next, so Izolda excuses the interruption, greets the guests, and drops her bag on the table, the carefree gesture of a tall blond. Lilusia breaks off the lesson: Maria, take that handbag off the table, you can’t go tossing your bag around like some Jew girl. Izolda quickly picks up her handbag, excuses herself, and laughs out loud with all the others. The guests take their leave, and Lilusia explains that she was being crafty, that her remark was meant to clear any suspicions on the part of the caretaker. Izolda understands Lilusia’s cunning, but then she takes a closer look at the handbag and sets it on the floor. How’s that? Does the bag look Jewish there? She tries the sofa, the stool, the chair. Because if it does, what exactly about the bag is Jewish? The patent leather is thin and soft, the color of café au lait. The finish is scratched up and is coming off in places, but she can’t spot anything suspicious about the leather itself. How about the handle? Slightly bent, wrapped with braided silk, a little dirty, but it’s probably not about the braid. Or the lining, also silk, which can’t even be seen and which her manicure kit has torn in a couple places. Once again: on the floor, the stool, the chair . . . Does the bag look Jewish?
Passes for the ghetto are issued at Krasiński Square, inside the old theater warehouse (formerly used for storing sets and costumes). She steps up to the German clerk and introduces herself as Maria Pawlicka. She used to keep house for a Jewish family, she left some of her belongings with them and now she needs them back because she doesn’t have a thing. To prove her point she lifts her blouse a bit to show there’s nothing underneath. The German looks up from under his glasses. A civilian, completely gray headed except for two tufts of red hair sticking out of his ears. Those hairs make her feel a little safer; they remind her of a doctor she once knew who’d moved from Vilna to be with his grandchildren in Józefów. The doctor used to examine her when she was little, whenever she had bronchitis. He never had his stethoscope with him, so he’d hold his ear against her chest and say breathe, breathe, in his funny eastern Polish accent. The red hairs sticking out of his ears tickled so much that her mother had to quiet her down.
The German with the same coloring as the doctor from Vilna lowers his glasses and writes out, very meticulously: Maria Pawlicka. She takes her pass and crosses into the ghetto (through the theater warehouse) but right away is stopped by a German gendarme who doesn’t like the look of her permit. He rips it in half and sends her back to the Aryan side. She shows the torn pieces to the clerk. So is that all your piece of paper is worth?
She’s amazed at her own voice—fast, shrill, all the words in one breath—and is somewhat surprised to recognize the voice of Wandzia, the redheaded daughter of the caretaker at Ogrodowa Street. Izolda had been there once when Wandzia came back from a wedding and immediately wanted something to eat. Didn’t they have any food at the wedding? her mother asked. They did, but they didn’t exactly force it down our throats, the dogs—and then the girl burst into laughter. Izolda would occasionally imitate that laugh and that voice—high, provocative, self-assured. Just right for a tall blond, she thinks now, with satisfaction, as she places the damaged permit on the German’s desk. Repeating his earlier gesture, the clerk lifts his glasses. Without a word he glues the paper back together and stamps it once again. This time they let her in.
She hands the document to her mother and they both walk out of the ghetto. Her mother by way of the guard post, Izolda through the theater warehouse. The old clerk doesn’t stop her, he knows her papers are in order.
They take the train. Izolda’s hair is stylishly rolled up at the back. Her mother is dressed in black and is her usual sad, silent self. (Her silence is the good kind, from the old days when—mostly over dessert—she would prop her head on her hands and listen to her husband’s tirades on politics or life or love or smiles, especially female smiles—his favorite subject. That and roulette, which he played in Sopot. How the wheel spins and how women smile. The smiles come in two types: consenting and encouraging.