By Blood by Ellen Ullman

Author:Ellen Ullman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2012-03-24T07:00:00+00:00

56.

The line was strangely quiet—no music, no static—so that I feared the connection had been broken, and I would have to call again and again and never find my way back to her extension. I was alone on the line for perhaps a half minute, but a half minute during which my heart pulsed fifty times—more, for I started counting to distract myself.

Are you there? she asked, finally coming back on the line.

I had not yet composed myself. But I managed to say, Yes, yes. I am here.

What good fortune to find me today, Professor. The Belsen roll of internees. I was looking at it two hours ago. The file is on my desk still. So. Mr. Linder told me you were looking for a Maria G.

She turned pages. She hummed; said something in Hebrew; hummed some more.

I waited. The pages turned.

I have to say I am sorry, Professor, she said finally. Your good fortune was for the timing only. Not good for the result. In the list, I see no one named Maria G.

She smacked her lips. Was she eating? Eating while she destroyed me!

You see, said Mrs. Knobloch, to the sound of paper crinkling—wiping her sloppy lips? Belsen was not completely Jewish until some months after the British soldiers came upon it by chance. Notice, I do not say “liberated” because … I shall stop. Another story for another time, Professor.

You should know, she went on, that many Polish people were in Belsen at the beginning. Mainly Catholics. They were German political prisoners, suspect collaborators, women kept for pleasure—who knows why? So your Maria G.—Maria, a Catholic name—she must be one of them. Polish Catholics, I mean. And you may assume that she went back to Poland. Why not? That was not the graveyard of her people.

She said nothing for several seconds. And I thought: Do not stop there, you heartless woman! Then I was ashamed of the thought. The graveyard of her people.

Is there nothing more? I asked.

Ach! Such impatience! The search through records by now thirty years old, and the tumult of that time—this is not so simple. Maybe British records can help you. They were in charge of the camp. Maybe they cared enough to keep such records. Our concern, you must understand, was taking care of the Jewish people imprisoned there and seeing them safely to Eretz Yisrael.

Hold on, please, she said, then clicked me off into another ether of silence. I am not sure how I endured that moment—and it was but a moment—during which I felt despair enwrap me.

Then she returned, apologizing, going on to say:

Do not believe I am lazy, Professor. We are alike, yes? People who search to find truth. Is not that who you are?

Yes! I answered. How good of you to say so. Yes. We are kin.

She laughed. Are you Jewish? she said.

Ah. No.

Then I am afraid we are not kin. We are people with abilities and values we hold in common. That is not a little thing, ah?

Certainly.

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