When we finally blow out the lamp, it must be two or three in the morning. I sink into my bed, and my pillow has never felt softer.
Then I’m thinking of everything. Of Hannelore and Inge. Of Josef and his sister. Of the conversation we had on the way home, about hope and happy endings and sad endings. And of Abek, always Abek, and all the last times I’ve dreamed I saw him.
I would like them to be better stories. Happier stories about last times. The problem is, my last times are inherently sad: The last time I saw my brother. The last time my family was together. The last time my city was Sosnowiec and not Sosnowitz.
I suppose there are stories about the last times of bad things. The last German uniform I had to help make. The last night I had to sleep, frozen in the barracks, before the Red Army liberated us. The last time I ate a raw potato with my bare hands, so starved I almost swallowed it whole. Do those count as happy last times? I don’t know. The absence of pain is not the same as the presence of happiness.
And what if the times I think are last aren’t really over? Some last times are open-ended. When I find Abek again, then our separation will no longer be “the last time I saw Abek,” it will only be “the last time I saw him before the war.”
I think of all this as Breine and Esther stop giggling in the dark and eventually fall asleep.
But I also think about a dress. A dress, and measuring tape, and tangy pins that leave indentations on my index finger, and the methodical work of putting something right again. It feels like a balm, a cool balm for my brain, to fall asleep thinking about a dress.
HIS BLURRY FACE APPEARS IN FRONT OF ME AGAIN. HIS VOICE IS so sad. And this time we’re not in a memory, not one I can identify. We’re sitting together in a dark space that could be my bedroom, or it could be my father’s office, or it could just be a dark space. And this time, somehow, I’m aware from the beginning that it’s a dream. Even while I’m in it, I’m aware it’s a dream.
“Is it time yet?” he asks. “Is it time to think about the last time you saw me?”
“I’m trying,” I tell him. “I’m trying.”
“You’re getting closer,” he says. “You’re getting closer, so please make a promise to me, Zofia. Make one guarantee: that this is the last time you lie about the last time you saw me.”
“How can it be a lie if I don’t know what the truth is?” I ask. “The absence of the truth is not the presence of a lie. I’m trying. I’m trying. I’m trying.”
TWO WEEKS LATER, THE PEOPLE FROM FELDAFING HAVE arrived. That’s why the extra cars were near the camp entrance when Josef and I returned—they carried the first round of Feldafing transfers. Over the next few days, the cars and a few trucks shuttled back and forth, bringing hundreds of new displaced persons to the camp.
In our cottage, the front room was rearranged to fit a third bed next to the sink. A young Austrian woman now occupies it. She slips off her shoes whenever she enters the front door. She walks on the balls of her feet more quietly than anyone I’ve ever seen. Later, someone told me she spent the war hiding in a crawl space under a neighbor’s floorboards. She didn’t see sunlight or stand up straight for three years. Now her spine crooks forward like an old woman’s, and her voice is an unpracticed whisper. I left a pair of socks for her on her pillow because I thought of how Breine made sure to share the rug with me my first night here, because she said we all stumbled through this together. I’m not the new person anymore.
Josef left again. Two days after we got back from the Kloster Indersdorf, I saw him drive out of camp, in a car this time, with a male camp employee. At dinner that night, Chaim mentioned vaguely that Josef had volunteered to help with something near the border of British-occupied Germany. But Chaim didn’t offer details, and I was too stung that Josef left without bothering to tell me to ask for more information.
The camp is becoming more organized. Mrs. Yost announced at dinner one night that they were transforming an unused room into a library, a central place to store all the books we receive as donations. The next time, she told us the telephone lines are back. Spottily, she said—but theoretically back.
For a few hours a day, we can now stand in a line that weaves out of her office and down the hallway, waiting to call a loved one or a relief organization or to inquire after an apartment. We talk fast and try not to waste too much time with pleasantries, hoping to finish our business before the line goes dead again.
“Miss Lederman?” says the fuzzy voice on the other end of the telephone line.
“Yes!” I shout into the receiver at the clerk from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee I’ve got on the line. “I’m still here! Can you hear me?”
“Hold one moment; what I said is, I was just about to check the files.” He disappears, and while he’s gone, the phone starts crackling again, which is usually a sign that it’s about to break down again. Come back, come back, I silently beg.
There’s a clattering as the aid worker picks up the receiver again. “Miss Lederman? I have your letter here. Unfortunately, we don’t have any matching records for an Abek Lederman.”
I close my eyes, trying to drown out the chatter coming from the queue outside the door. “What about Alek Federman? Did you check that, too?”
“There’s nothing on that name, either. I’m sorry.”
“I was calling to add something, too,” I hurry before he hangs up. “It’s possible he might have gone to the Kloster Indersdorf. Just for a few days after liberation. Could you add that?”
“We can add that to the file.”
I hear the faint sound of a pen scratch, so I know he’s doing it. “We encourage you to try back in a few weeks,” he says when he’s done. “We do hear from more people every day.”
As I’m preparing to say goodbye, there’s a knock on the door behind me, the next person waiting in line to use the telephone. I cover the receiver with my hand. I’ll be out soon, I mouth. But then I realize it’s not just anyone, it’s Miriam. Her face is white as a sheet.
“Miriam?”
“My sister,” she whispers, a mixture of stunned and elated. “I think I have found the right hospital.”
“You found… oh, Miriam, that’s wonderful!”
“Can I, when you are finished?” She reaches her hand out toward the telephone. “Outside, they say I could skip the line.”
“Yes, yes, of course!” I exclaim. “I’m hanging up right now!” I grab her outstretched hand, and she takes mine and jostles it in excitement.
“My sister!” she says again, now holding my hand with both of hers as we jump up and down.
“Miss Lederman?” The tinny, distant voice of the clerk in Berlin reminds me that I still have the phone pressed to my ear. “Miss Lederman, are you still there?”
“I’m still here, I’m still here,” I assure him. “I’ll try calling back next week, just as you said. Thank you.”
When I hang up, I pass the telephone to Miriam. She takes a deep breath before picking up the receiver, calming herself, smoothing down her red hair. Her index finger shakes as she starts to dial. I think about staying, but then remember how when I’d returned to Sosnowiec, I’d wanted my reunion with Abek to be private. Miriam gives me one last terrified, joyful look as someone picks up on the other end.