is our schoolroom. With what little knowledge I have, I mark the boundaries of the world. I pour water in the indentations which serve as oceans, rake up mounds to serve as ridges, carve out valleys and expose deserts. Look, Child, deep inside there hides a lost continent.
She listens, and is careful not to tread.
I stick crucifixes in the ground. We have brothers living there, with slanted eyes, and here there are brothers whose skin is dark as coal. At once she touches herself in astonishment.
Children, so I discover, demand absolute truths. I was once like this child, but now I am riddled with doubts. One thing she refrains from asking: where are her own brothers.
Every time I use the word Jew, she is horrified.
I tell her, Joachim and Anna, father and mother of Mary, were Jews. She covers her ears with dirt to keep from hearing.
After the lessons, I find her squatting in the niche, drawing on the walls with her piece of charcoal. When I try to peek, she hides it with her body.
Stash, she says, promise me something.
I am silent. Of all my promises, especially my promises to You, Father, none have been kept.
Stash, swear to me that you will never ever die.
I am so afraid she mistakes my embrace for a promise.
1 August 1944
Blessed is the child who has heard the laughter of a rat. Somewhere in the heart of the light that leads to the traces of the life that was, this memory too lives on. To expect laughter in pitch darkness is complete madness. But the rat continues to gape.
And God saw that laughter was good, and left the flawed world as it was.
Teach Him to laugh, Little Girl, and He will be forever grateful.
2 August 1944
The candle near my head is burning. The wind enters through a crack; the flame flickers and dies. Shadows follow the child, and I cannot make out her face. I do not remove my habit, and I jab my claws into the flesh underneath the garment. The body is a receptacle of sins – so I preached in my sermons. If only I could turn into a spirit too.
I am being depleted onto paper.
Why do we not come into the world equipped with a bundle of ready-made memories, a bequest that would nail a lesson into us?
What a monumental concatenation of malignant memories could be avoided if only man could contain the torments of his precursors, imprinted into him like an innate warning system.
But had the little girl known in advance what was waiting for her, wouldn’t she have refused to be born?
Only after she falls asleep do I light the candle. Every night I study her lips, to see whether a trace of a smile has begun to grow there.
3 August 1944
But nevertheless, I am at peace.
I who never thought I would be cradling a child or leading her to the serenity of peaceful dreams, am having a revelation. Her hand grasps mine, and I feel the light shine within me. She mumbles something in her sleep. Is it a comforting dream, or a nightmare? I hold my ear closer, prepared to slash through the horror and to draw her back to me.
Mama.
And again, Mama.
Do not forgive me, Father. For if I am the mother in her dream, then I am the happiest creature on earth. Despite all of Your efforts, You have not succeeded in keeping me from having this experience of parenthood. I thank You, Father. And I call out Your name with complete devotion.
10 August 1944
St Lawrence’s Day
In the early morning hours, the planes began circling overhead. The bombs fell so close that the blast caused the ground and the walls of the church to shake. The trees at the edge of the forest made a mighty roar as they fell. We huddled in the niche; the little girl shut herself in there at once. The smell of fires and smoke filtered through.
I want to live. Only now do I realize how desperately.
Today the farmers were supposed to begin the first harvest. Instead of sheaves they are harvesting death. Sinful priest that I am – I gloat over the dead who did not have a chance to receive extreme unction.
We lie there until nightfall, and I try to distract her. All day long I have been anticipating bitter sobs, but her tears are sealed in.
When the ground settles, I discover a charcoal drawing of the Last Judgment on the wall of the niche. She