“Budapest, Hungary.”
“I’m also from Hungary. I suppose that’s why your English accent sounds so familiar. Do you miss home?”
“Yes, and no. It hurts to say so because there wasn’t anything I disliked about Hungary until the war. In fact, I loved every part of the country very much—it’s a part of who I am, or it was a part of who I am.”
“I feel the same.”
Panic strangles me like an unbreakable grip around my throat when anyone stands or hovers over me. She’s far enough away that she isn’t hovering, but I still feel like a feeble prey while sitting. I shuffle down the bench to the farthest left side and rest my arm on the curled metal rail.
“May I share the bench?” she asks.
I offer an agreeable nod. “How do you speak English so well?”
My English gets me by, but I make many mistakes throughout lengthy conversations. I was taking English classes before we were no longer allowed in public classrooms, and continued to practice at home until we left for the ghetto. I suppose I had enough knowledge for it to stick around.
She takes a spot on the bench as far away from me as possible, leaning up against the right-side arm rail. She straightens her dress over her lap and crosses one leg over the other before clasping her fingers on top of her knee. “Years of studying. I took several classes while working to get a certification in mental health.”
I want to tell her she’s lucky to have done so. She can’t be more than ten years older than me, but since I was gypped of half my childhood, the age gap seems much wider.
“What does this therapy comprise? Will it be me describing each day I survived in a death camp?”
Miss Blum twists her head to glance at me. She squints against the sun and places her hand above her eyes. “How about I tell you what I already know, and we can go from there?”
I shrug so as not to agree or disagree. I still don’t want therapy but I’m wondering what she plans to say without a notepad or a file to corroborate my history.
“You are Arina Tabor, seventeen years old, with a twin sister named Nora Tabor. You are the daughter of Henrik and Danica Tabor from Debrecen, Hungary. In April 1944, you spent a short time in the Munkács ghetto with your family before they transported you to Auschwitz in Poland. Am I correct so far?”
I wish my story ended at the same point as her last statement. “Yes,” I answer.
“The Soviets liberated Auschwitz in January 1945 and they sent you to several refugee centers before they sent you here to Illinois.”
“Yes,” I say again. “I suppose you’ll want to know everything that happened between my arrival in Auschwitz and the day they released me?”
“Nothing that makes you uncomfortable to speak about. You can talk about your roommate here, the apple tree in the front courtyard, or even Mrs. Vallentine, if you choose. There aren’t any firm rules to our meetings.”
“The oatmeal has been quite runny this last week,” I say, waiting for a reaction.
“You aren’t the first to say so,” she says, a smile at the corner of her lips.
“My roommate seems to suffer from whatever thoughts are stuck in her mind. Her eyes seem hollow when she peers in my direction. It makes me curious, but I know better than to ask her what’s wrong. I don’t want anyone to ask me that question, so it’s only fair. The man who handles some of the maintenance—Dale—looks at me with an inquisitive stare each time he walks by me. It doesn’t bother me, but I ponder what he must think about me since they have assigned me to a room in the ‘extra care’ area.”
Miss Blum’s eyebrows lift with surprise. “You take in a lot of what’s going on around you, which is a good quality,” she says. “You’re empathetic, but also concerned with what others think about you. I haven’t seen this too often as of late, especially with the particular people I’ve been speaking with.”
“Particular?” I question.
“Surviving orphans who have emigrated to the States from Europe in the last year.”
I fold my hands together and rest them on my lap, clenching so hard my knuckles whiten. “I didn’t survive. To survive means pulling oneself through hardship and making it to the other side. It wasn’t a choice or a fight I fought. It just happened.”
Two Years Earlier
Auschwitz, Poland, May 1944
I’m not sure how long we’ve been standing in this dark train, but if it weren’t for the others pinned to each side of me, I don’t think my legs would have held me up for so long. My stomach is snarling from hunger, a sensation I’ve become all too familiar with these last few weeks. My hands have been trembling for hours. I can’t control the shivering even though I’m anything but cold. I need fresh air, water, and sunlight. It’s so little, but it’s everything.
The dull muffling sounds of shouts come and go past the train car, leaving us to wonder what they’re yelling about and who “they” are. I assume they are Germans.
The rickety door of the car whines as it opens, bearing the sunlight that I’ve sorely been missing. I squint against the brightness and wait for a breeze to kiss my skin.
At once, people funnel out of the small opening, some seeming to fall directly to the ground outside of the car. Without support, I might fall too. I shove my hand against Papa’s and like a magnet to metal, he wraps his fingers tightly around mine, just as he’s always done. He might fall too, but at least we’ll fall together. The commotion outside grows louder. After they tore us from our home, they sent us to the ghetto without a clue of where we were being taken. The German soldiers enjoy the element of surprise. Whatever is out there, we’ll be okay. We’re together and that’s what matters.
The sun’s glare is overwhelming as we near the exit of the carriage. It’s difficult to see anything past the hats and headscarves of other passengers cramming together on the curb. A shove of movement grows like an ocean wave behind us, giving us the push we didn’t need to jump down to the edge of the tracks. Shouts in German seem to come from every direction, telling us to keep moving, but we don’t know where we’re moving to.
I twist my head to the side, glancing over my shoulder to make sure Mama and Nora are still behind us. They are. Both are holding hands like Papa and me. We’re silent while we ebb against the tide of others.
We walk or float along for many minutes until we enter a set of iron gates. The landscape comprises pebble covered roads and short and wide brick buildings. Our path continues ahead until we reach a patch of grass and a cluster of trees, finding a line of others weaving around the narrow trees. With children sitting in the grass, women quietly chatting among themselves, and men pacing around to get a better look at whatever is up ahead of us, I’m reminded of the line for the Ferris wheel at the summer village fair in Debrecen. They look like they’ve been waiting for a while. Especially the lonesome mother of two young children, one squirming out of her arms, crying at the top of his lungs, and the other tugging at the hem of her dress. The woman doesn’t have a way to console her children and she’s staring ahead, her eyes wide, unblinking.
“You there, shut them up at once,” a Nazi shouts at her.