Light Radiance Splendor by Leah Chyten

Author:Leah Chyten
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2017-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Benjamin

I’m told that the area where Schtetl Bedzew once thrived is now a land of ghosts, where the souls of the murdered wander about trying to comprehend what evil befell them. It is a land where the few remaining Jews are still unwelcome, and the property of the murdered, callously confiscated. I’m advised to leave the poisoned ground of Poland and not look back. Soon, I will do just that, but first I will keep my promise to Laiah.

I’m given a small donation, and a Red Cross truck carrying supplies to the eastern border offers me a ride part of the way. The young man driving is American. He doesn’t speak Polish or Yiddish, but he tries to be friendly. I try to return his friendliness, but I’m weary and preoccupied. He drops me in a town with a partially working rail line, and hands me a tin of condensed milk, all he has to give. Shaking my hand, he says something that I infer means “best of luck.”

The train is crowded, almost every seat taken. I sit next to a large woman who reeks of perspiration and garlic, and close my eyes as the train bumps along the tracks. The woman reaches inside her bag, retrieves two eggs and offers one to me. I’m famished and therefore grateful. I’m getting used to her odor and wonder now about my own. I have nothing, not even a change of clothing. Finally I doze and awaken to the screech of brakes. This is the last stop, the next stretch of train tracks having been damaged and not yet repaired. It is late in the day. I’m not sure how long a walk I have, likely quite a few hours. My body is not yet fully healed and may never be. I walk with a limp, and with shooting pain, but I can walk, and I will walk as far as I need to walk.

The world I once knew has radically changed. War is written in mounds of rubble, untended fields going to seed, roads and railways destroyed. I cannot see into people’s hearts and minds, or know their suffering, losses, anger, kindness. Nor can they see into mine. That is the problem. If only we knew one another, we would understand how similar we all are.

How do I know if I’m safe here, or if it is possible to feel safe anywhere ever again? As a child, I always knew that danger was immanent, but my family and community held me. Now I have nobody. My injuries are visible, and therefore draw unwanted attention. An eye patch, a marked limp, but so many are maimed and simply grateful to have survived the war.

The doors open and everybody disembarks. Wagons and a few cars, and even bicycles with carts line up at the station, ready for hire to transport people further. All the vehicles are taken, but one young man in a wagon promises to return for me. This town, I notice, is coming to life again.

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