7:35 at the Beit Yehoshua Train Station.
The muzzle of a rifle aimed at me. Yes, aimed at the pelvis. The rifle of a sergeant in the armored corps, by the color and design of the cap on the shoulder. The sergeant’s face is sunburned and he sleeps with his back to a pole, a distance of about four-five meters from me. He looks like coffee on the stove. I miss hot chocolate. Sunburn fattens his lips, a broad jaw, impressive, looks like Kirk Douglas without the dimple in his chin. His hair is cut short, short, and the rifle is pointing straight at me, the magazine inside, ugh. I don’t have the energy for a rifle so early in the morning. Because of the rifles in the morning news I want to change my newspaper. I’m tired of reading it with the first coffee.
No rain, just the smell and fat clouds that hadn’t thinned for an hour. The eucalyptus trees stand tall as if on parade.
I take a small step back.
My ass is cold and I’m on my way to Nahariya. Yitzhak would say, what are you worried about, people have to walk around today with a rifle, hard times in Israel, and he’d laugh, say he was sorry, and get up to make a call about work. Dov would say, trust the soldier, he knows what a rifle is, he’s had training, he can sleep with an automatic in his hand, don’t worry and, in the meantime, why didn’t you go in for a drink. A small espresso?
If he’d asked, I’d have said, there isn’t even a kiosk, and I can’t stop worrying, each day and its own tragedy, and Dov would jump up, not even a tiny kiosk? No, Dov. Yitzhak would say, Beit Yehoshua isn’t important, come and see ours in Nahariya. There we’ve an organized buffet with wafer cookies and juice and sandwiches freshly prepared by the woman every morning, yes. But Yitzhak, how come you know what a train buffet has, you don’t travel by train.
If Yitzhak had heard Dov he’d scratch his neck and say, right. Can’t bear ramps, can’t bear them.
Ramps are a bad place for Jews.
A fast train cuts the wind in the opposite direction. A brief whoosh, and it’s gone. On the opposite platform is a young man in a good suit with a laptop on his knees. His eyes are alerted by a young woman who appears to be successful, judging by her jacket, small mini, nylon stockings and high heels. A cute woman. She notices him, straightens up, sticks out. He stares at her and immediately returns to his computer. Idiot. The cute woman with the mini drops her purse, waits. The laptop closes. The young man gets up, bends down to pick it up and points to the bench. They both sit down. He’s silent. She thinks. He opens the laptop and explains something to her. She has no patience. She pulls a mobile phone out of her bag and taps in a number. He blushes. A female soldier arrives with her rifle and stands to one side. Glances at the computer. She has a question. He’s glad. The soldier peers at the computer, and he explains. The cute woman with the mini closes her phone, glances briefly at the soldier, crosses her legs with an expansive gesture, and then the laptop falls. The young man jumps first and then the soldier. They pick up the computer together, not noticing how pretty the cute woman is when she’s smiling into nowhere.
The train enters the station opposite and the sunburned soldier’s rifle muzzle is still pointing at people in the station. I get up quickly, straighten dark glasses and check the clock. Eight. Where is the train to Nahariya, why should I wait for the sergeant to come in my direction. I just hope he doesn’t fire by mistake like the report in this morning’s newspaper. No reason. Someone was walking along and unintentionally shot someone else.
The train crawled into the station. Everyone pushes forward, I’m dragged forward and smell a sharp after-shave mixed with sweat. His gun presses into my arm, I feel its pressure against my coat. I move my arm, trying to push the gun away, but people are pushing from behind. He sticks to me like Velcro. The door to the carriage is closed. That’s it, I can no longer bear the press. I pull back forcibly, and the sergeant is pressed to a young girl who was standing beside me in a sheep wool coat, and the rifle disappears in the wool.
The door to the carriage opens with a sigh and I wait for people to enter before me. Enter last. The seats are taken. I quickly pass through a second carriage, a third, fourth, fifth, stop. An elderly man snores, beside him is an empty seat. About to sit down, I notice a revolver stuck in the belt under his gray battledress.
Lady, sit down.
Lady, sit down please. Nu, sit down. Tickets please.
Don’t want to sit down. A state like a weapon depot. Yitzhak would say, better that way, if I’d had a rifle during the war, I’d have killed a few Germans, and maybe I’d have killed myself. Dov would say, you don’t know what it’s like being small in a camp of adults. I wish I’d had a gun, I wish I had.
Yitzhak
At Camp Zeiss they prepared us for death by gas.
Three months of hard labor. In the middle, snow fell and everything was covered in white. The girl and the mother no longer stood anywhere. I’d walk to the factory feeling as if I was sinking into bottomless mud. My skin itched and bled and I had sores on my legs. The sores stuck to the shoe didn’t hurt. My mind was empty. I was like an automaton. They said walk, I walked. They said stop. I stopped. They said ten minutes for your needs, I sat over the hole and nothing came out. I felt my body was as thin as dirty glass. I looked at other prisoners and knew how I looked. Yellow and thin like a disease, the mouth falling inward, the chin without flesh. Everyone’s pajamas were all a uniform color, mustard brown like baby’s poop. We were on the ramp, waiting to be replaced, standing crowded in the fresh snow. We waited for the train to Auschwitz.
There were rumors of a change. The dogs of the SSmen barked halfheartedly. The SSmen irritably tapped their boots on the snow. For hours we stood on our feet and there was no pity and no chariots of angels.
A cattle train with large lights and a face like a hyena slowly, slowly approached us, I heard wheezing and whistles like suffering, Choo. Choo. Choo. Choo-oo. I remember thinking, the train doesn’t have any strength either. Prisoners saw the train and slowly began to move back, slowly, like a dark oily stain that doesn’t spread out. A prisoner near me began to tremble where he stood, said, the Germans have gone mad, they don’t know what to do with the stuff for the fire. Another prisoner with one eye closed, said, who knows if the train can take the whole ramp to Auschwitz. I knew that the fresh transport had already taken over our barracks, and I said, don’t worry, they don’t lack a thing, trains either, damn them.
Prisoners began to call out to God, to Mama, Papa, three fainted together, hop, hop, hop, they fell like dominoes. After them, two more intentionally fell to the floor. I heard whimpers, don’t want to die, don’t want to go to the cattle car, Mamaaa, Mamaaa. Rifle blows brought us quiet. Some tried to escape, jumping from the ramp, skipping over the track, running in a zigzag, I heard shouts, and a series of shots then silence and immediately God. Oy-vey God. God save us, save us, and Shema Israel, and weeping like a stormy sea, hummm hummm. And curses, a lot of curses in German.
The car door opened with a loud boom. I couldn’t climb up. Prisoners pushed me from behind. The Germans’ blows helped us advance, fast, fast. Prisoners grabbed one another’s clothing, grabbed the door, rifle butts beating their fingers, I heard terrible weeping, don’t want to, leave me alone, don’t want to, I fell on the floor of the car. I barely managed to crawl to the wall and stand up. The eyelids of a nearby prisoner were trembling, his head fell forward, dragging his shoulders, and he vanished. At the door they continued to force people in. I felt a trembling below. The door to the car slammed shut. The train didn’t move.
I couldn’t breathe. A large broad prisoner stood with his back to me. I saw his hand going into the pocket of another prisoner. He waited a moment, removed his hand, put it in his mouth. Swallowed potato peels. Then he pulled down the prisoner’s trousers, grabbed his ass, and rubbed and rubbed, rubbed, more and more. The prisoner in front of him didn’t move. I wanted to die.
We stood