We bathed irregularly in the shared hallway bath, as we had to heat pan after pan of water on the small kerosene stove in order to fill it. Also, the water was often turned off in the evening, or at random times for no discernible reason. I had never appreciated water more than I did once I knew we could lose it at any moment. The things we learned to appreciate in Bolivia—oxygen, water, heat—were things that had hardly crossed our minds in Vienna. My mother kept large pans of boiled water on the floor next to the stove so that we could drink it and use it for cooking when the water to the house was shut off.
I knocked on the door. We were a modest family, afraid of catching each other naked, which made living in such close quarters particularly mortifying. “Mutti?” I called. When there was no answer I reluctantly turned the knob.
My mother lay on her back in the bath, her bare skin dotted with patches of soap bubbles. Staring up at the ceiling, she apparently hadn’t noticed the ebbing of the water. She turned her head to me when I stepped into the room. The tiles of the floor were cold on the soles of my feet. “It all ran out,” she said tonelessly. “All of the water ran away.” Her skin was shriveled and grey, as if the color of her lips and cheeks had drained away with the water.
“I can see.” I backed out of the room and ran down the hall. “Vati! Can you come?” My father stood, laid his viola gently in the case beside him, and walked to the bathroom without questioning me.
I heard my father’s voice, soft and coaxing, as he got my mother out of the bath, dried her off, and wrapped her in a dressing gown before leading her back to our rooms. “You’re going to scare Orly,” I heard him say. I found it odd that he used the future tense, as if she had never scared me before.
They walked by as if they didn’t see me standing there, and sat on the edge of the mattress in the next room. My father pulled back the sheet and tucked my mother underneath it. He sat there next to her, silently stroking her hair, until her eyes finally closed.
In Vienna, music had propelled my mother through the day, through her own practice, her rehearsals, her performances, and her cooking. She was a warm, living radio, projecting melody as she moved. It was difficult to get her to sit down with us; she was always keeping time with some internal rhythm. Even when she was cross with us she would chastise us with a song. “Orlanthe Charlooootte!” she’d trill. “Have you finished all your maaaath?” or “Whose wet skaaaaates are these in the hallway, beloved son of mine?”
But in Bolivia, our house felt silent, despite the flights of my father’s viola. My mother not only resisted adding her voice to his melody, but now left the room when he took out the instrument, as if his playing was painful for her. As if it were possible for her to avoid it, to remain in our two rooms without her ears filling with its sound.
When I came to bed that night, she was curled in a tight ball, facing away from the window. Often when she slept beside me I would shift to curl around her, but tonight something in the rigidity of her back kept me at bay. I rolled over toward the window, through which I could see the stars beginning to appear. Nowhere on earth had as many stars as Bolivia. Nowhere on earth was so close to them.
Thirty-two
One morning I walked all the way to the German School. Miguel was at the nearby Catholic school during the afternoons and I was bored and impatient to return to my own studies. My mind was restless. I kept track of the months of classes I had missed in Vienna, the months I was already behind. I wondered what Anneliese had learned since I left. I wondered if I would ever be able to study in my own language again. My fingers itched to write things, to put words to paper. My stack of letters to Anneliese grew daily.
But that isn’t why I went to look at the German School. I went because I had to see for myself if the rumors were true. The children I met in the Plaza Murillo, while our mothers exchanged news from home, had told me that it was a Nazi school. This should not have shocked me—naturally a German School would be run by the current German government, meaning Hitler—yet it did. How could the Nazis be here, so far from Germany, so far from Austria? Why had Bolivia let them in? A fear I thought I had left behind took hold of me. Were there Nazis in La Paz?
I had never seen the German School, nor had I met any children who went there. Refugee families knew to stay away. There was no Jewish school for kids our age yet, though there were plans to open one. Some families sent their children to Bolivian schools. The youngest ones could attend a day school the Joint Distribution Committee funded in Miraflores and many of the older children worked. I asked Miguel about the German School but he didn’t know anything. It was the only question I ever asked him that he couldn’t answer.
It was early, before breakfast. I left before my mother was up, stopping to buy a marraqueta to eat on the way. No one had told me I couldn’t go out alone. The bread ladies were always up earlier than anyone, waiting at the corners of the streets with their sacks of hot rolls.
I wished Miguel were with me. “What if they are Nazis, and they come after me?” I said as we sat on our stairs sharing a marraqueta.
“Wait until later and I’ll come with you.”
“It will be closed by then.”
He shrugged. “You’re a pretty fast runner.”
He was the only person I had told. He couldn’t miss classes, so he couldn’t accompany me. But he asked around for the address of the school and drew me a map. The school was uphill from us in Sopocachi, and though La Paz was relatively small, it was a farther and steeper walk than I had anticipated. I took several wrong turns and kept stopping to ask the way. My skin flamed with heat. My legs began to ache and my feet hurt in my old shoes. When I finally reached the street Miguel had circled, I saw mothers with children hurrying ahead of me toward a gated brick building. Feeling suddenly shy, I hung back so they wouldn’t see me. The gates were not yet closed and locked, and mothers were still kissing the blond heads of their children and ushering them inside.
I waited until the street was quiet, then sneaked to the gate.
When I peered through the black bars, I saw the German children lined up in rows, arms rigid by their sides. A moment later, the Nazi flag slithered up the flagpole across the schoolyard. I saw the children’s arms rise in unison, heard the Heil of their salutes, and the first few bars of “Deutschland über alles.” For a moment disbelief froze me in place. Here? Here?
I turned and I ran.
My legs had new life as I sprinted downhill—thank God it was downhill—through the city. I didn’t want to allow myself to think about what I had seen until I was safe in our rooms, but my mind raced. I thought we had left those flags and salutes behind when we boarded the boat in Italy. I slipped on a pile of rotting garbage and nearly fell. We had traveled so far! How could they possibly be here? I ran faster. I imagined what those children would do to me on the playground. I imagined who their parents were. Would they try to take control of Bolivia? They were taking everywhere else. We heard it on Fredi and Mathilde’s radio. Hitler had taken Czechoslovakia. What was to stop him from taking over a small city named Peace?