food. The only thing available in great abundance was typhus.
The British soldiers were overwhelmed. Many to whom they gave food died of eating it, their wasted bodies unable to digest it. The typhus epidemic raged. The dying continued their short path to death. In the first week after “liberation,” ten thousand more died. A BBC journalist reported what he had seen and ended his broadcast with “This is the worst day of my life.”
And yet there was also the miraculous: Five days after liberation, a Friday, the Jewish Sabbath, a religious service was held in the open air, reported the BBC. For most of those attending, it was the first time in a decade that they had prayed in safety as a congregation of Jews. Knowing they were being recorded, the group of survivors, many still too weak to stand, gathered to sing the Hebrew song “Hatikvah.”
I sat in a carrel; I put on headphones; I listened to the recording.
At first it seemed they would not be able to sing. There was a rumble, low voices in many keys, the words unformed, a confusion. Then one woman’s strong voice emerged: Kol od ba’le’vav. How long had that voice waited to sing this song? How brave she was in her reach for the high notes! The others followed her, found the key, found unison, breaking now and then into aching harmonies. I found a translation of the words. Od lo avdah tikvateinu. Our hope is not yet lost.
I was in tears before the song ended. I sobbed in the library carrel as I had not cried since my boyhood, with a sorrow that seemed as clear and pure as the bravery in that voice. Now I looked anew at the films and photographs, for there was more to see than horror and death. There was life to come, and hope. Somewhere was the patient’s mother. Some photograph might show her. Her face might appear in the British-army film, flashed by as the camera scanned the crowd. There she might be, very much alive, healthy, strong enough to bear a child. Our child. The patient.
There was one photograph I returned to again and again: a group of women in a rustic room, peeling potatoes. One woman, her hair covered by a scarf, is smiling at another. It was the sole image in which a camp inmate was smiling. In my mind, this was Maria G. This was the mother who had endured. If not she exactly, then someone like her. I decided I would send this picture to the patient, should find some way to deliver my findings, for through this woman’s smile, the patient would be able to see beyond the horrors of the camp.
Two more weeks went by: two patient sessions during which her life force continued to ebb, the therapist unable to kindle in her a motive for living. Please God, let her not attempt suicide! What a torture it was for me to know that I had information that might help her—and no means to convey it. Why did Dr. Schussler not direct the patient to parse her adoptive mother’s words more carefully? The answer was there, right there in front of her: Celle! But the doctor now had a more difficult task before her: keeping her patient alive. Both sessions ended with tremulous calls to Dr. Gurevitch.
Such was the situation as we came to April 16th. The session ended. Dr. Schussler left for her luncheon break, then I, too, left the office.
A piece of paper was lying on the floor in front of the elevator. It was a letter, I saw, as I drew closer. I glanced down casually, as anyone would. Then a name caught my eye: Charlotte. I knelt down. It was an envelope. Addressed to one Charlotte Cage. There was a penned slash through the address, and a hand-scrawled notice: Moved. Forward.
Charlotte.
Moved.
Forward.
This Charlotte had to be the patient’s ex-girlfriend! She who had maneuvered the patient into ending their affair, this coward’s mail still being delivered to the patient’s house, an affront. Now goodbye, Charlotte. Slash! Moved! Forward!
I picked up the envelope, then stood staring at it. The very words on the envelope penned by my patient, her mighty slashes ripping the paper. In my hand: my dear patient’s current and actual address.
51.
In my hand, I also held danger. The patient’s address: a temptation beyond all others. There could I follow her; there could I wait for her; there could I watch through the windows