“They will be sated
From the abundance of your house
And from the stream
Of your delights
You give them to drink.
For with you
Is the source of life
By your light
May we see light.”
Psalm 36:8–9
I get off the train in Satu Mare and I find Duvid right away. The first person I ask points me to a restaurant in the middle of town. Duvid is so happy to see me. Chanky and Duvid have started the restaurant. Everyone who comes home is so hungry, and there was no one here to feed them. They had a little money hidden and there are some organizations giving out money for the survivors to buy food and start small businesses. They rent a room with a kitchen in the middle of the town. Chanky is a master cook. Everyone who comes to Satu Mare looking for family flocks to her restaurant, and her food nourishes their bodies and broken hearts.
I stay in Chanky and Duvid’s one-room apartment. Chanky teaches me to make fresh pasta. I make the flour into a little mountain on the table, then I make a valley in the middle and crack eggs into it, sprinkle some salt and add a splash of oil. I mix the eggs in the valley, careful not to mix in the flour. Then I mix everything together, knead the dough, and then roll it out as thin as it can possibly go.
Eventually I realize Chanky is pregnant again. The pregnancy seems to remind her of the son she lost so she spends most of the day in bed, except for when she is cooking in the restaurant.
Finally, after a few weeks Leah gives up on waiting for Avrumi. She comes to Satu Mare and joins us in the one-room apartment.
There is a cousin that keeps coming to Duvid to discuss business that they are doing together. His name is Yitzchak Heilbrun and I realize he was engaged to Rivka. He said she never came home. He is handsome. His hair is blonde, and his eyes are blue. He exudes confidence and a sure, business-like manner. I cannot help that my heart speeds up when I see him. He is so full of life.
“Were you in Auschwitz, too?” I ask him as we all sit down together for dinner in the restaurant.
“I got papers,” he says. “There was a drunk lying on the platform at the train station and he looked like me and before I could stop myself, I asked him for his papers in an official voice and he handed them right over.”
“Wow, so you avoided everything?”
He shook his head. “I watched everyone I love go to the ghetto. They starved before my eyes. I knew where they were headed, I had heard about Auschwitz. I tried to get them to escape with me, but they told me to stop being such a troublemaker, to put my head down and follow the rules. So, I let them stay there. I let them die. And I went about with my papers.”
He looks haunted when he says this, as if he wishes he had gone along with them.
“Did anyone figure out who you were?”
“I moved around every few weeks. But my roommate was shot while I was at work. I came home and the land lady told me that he was really a Jew. She said it with such disgust.”
“Let us talk about something else,” Duvid says because Chanky is beginning to get that hollow look in her eyes.
So, Yitzchak tells us about his father, my Zaidy’s brother. He tells us how he loves to learn. He tells us about his family. They sound just like mine.
“I have a house in Csenger,” he says after the meal. “A few of our cousins are living there. Come with me?”
“Of course, you should go,” say Duvid and Chanky. It is clear that they want their privacy. It must not be easy having two nieces staying with them in a one-room apartment.
I look at Leah.
She nods.
“Of course, we’ll come,” I say.
When we get to his house in Csenger, the first thing I notice is the mess. There are four girls sitting on the couch in the middle of the room. Yitzchak introduces us to our distant cousins. There is dust everywhere, dirty clothing on the floor, and nothing on the stove. For some reason the mess fills me with a sense of purpose. I find a broom and start cleaning right away. Then I take the clothing to the laundry lady.
Yitchak leaves to go do his work, importing salt. When he comes home that night the house is clean, and the table is set.
His house is in Hungary, on the border of Romania, so all the survivors who stumble across, scrounging for loved ones, come to his house first. They all look like they are starving, and I want to cook for them, but I do not know how. My mother never let me in the kitchen with her. She was as fast as lightening, and I just slowed her down and got in her way. I wish she had taught me at least the basics, though, because now I have no idea what to do.
Yocheved, one of the cousins living in the house, tells me about a gentile woman who used to work in a Jewish home and knows how to cook and make everything kosher. She takes me to meet her. Her name is Wiig Nani, and she gives me a warm hug when I ask her to teach me to cook so I can feed all the survivors who come to Yitzchak’s house.
“Of course, you beautiful girl,” she says to me. She wraps her steady arm around my shoulder, and I hold back my tears. “Come,” she says, “let’s go to the market.”
Yitzchak makes good money from his salt business, so I can buy a chicken, some vegetables, a duck, and some eggs. My instructor shows me how to make the chicken kosher, how to make the cholent, how to make the letcho1 and how to make the kugel. I go to her every day to learn. Soon enough I am cooking huge pots of food for all the people coming in. I watch them as they gulp it all down with appreciation.
One day, I get a long letter in the mail. It is from Uncle Duvid. He writes that I should marry Yitzchak. He writes that Yitzchak comes from a fine family; he is smart and learned and Duvid thinks he would make a great husband for me. I think he is right. Yitzchak is self-assured and so manly. He is away all day working but at night we go out on walks, we scrub the big pots together and sometimes he sings while he dries the dishes. He reminds me of my family. I didn’t think I would ever feel anything again, but then I realize that I am (quite quickly) falling in love. A few weeks later he asks me to marry him. For the first time since I got home, I feel a true joy. I say yes.
One night on our walk Yitzchak looks at the faded, floral dress I am wearing and says, “My bride should have beautiful clothing to wear. You like nice clothing, right? Will that make you happy?” He reminds me of Yecheskel, with the way he wants to take care of me. The way he wants me to have fine things.
“I don’t think that is on the agenda for right now,” I say. We are just coming out of a war. No one is thinking about beautiful new clothing right now. But the next day Yitzchak brings home rolls and rolls of different kinds of fabric. He tries to hide his pride as he gruffly plops it all down on the table.
Leah’s eyes light up at the sight of the material. “Oh Rosie,” she says touching the cloth, “I’ll make you the dresses.”
She sits in front of an old sewing machine, day and night, for hours on end. She spins together the most beautiful suits and dresses for me. It warms my heart to see my baby sister hard at work making clothing for me and asking for nothing in return.
Then, it is Leah’s turn to get a letter. “It is from Duvid!” she says. “Avrumi is there! He is asking for me! Come with me to see him, Rosie!”
“Let us go tomorrow,” I say. “I need to wait until Yitzchak comes home so I can tell him.”
When we get back to Satu Mare, Avrumi is waiting for us at the train station. Leah falls right into his arms.
Just a few days later Leah walks down the aisle to Avrumi. She looks beautiful. Her hair is long enough to wear in a low bun, she is wearing a white silk dress, and carrying a small bouquet of flowers. Chanky and Duvid cook a beautiful meal and we eat it in their restaurant after the chuppah. Leah’s eyes are brighter than I have ever seen them. She leans into Avrumi and whispers to him the whole night through. It is their wedding, and I am so happy for her, but I cannot help that my heart stings because I know my sister will not be only mine anymore.
“We are going to Romania,” Avrumi says a few days after the wedding.
“We have to see if Avrumi’s grandmother is still alive,” Leah says.
“The war didn’t hit certain parts of Romania,” Avrumi explains.
I swallow my tears and they slide down my throat in a lump of acid. “Of course, you should go,” I say.
I don’t know what I am thinking when I tell her to go. I will have no way to contact them while they are in Romania, but Leah promises to write to me. We are about to do the one thing that we promised our mother, in the last moments that we ever saw her, that we would not do. After all we have been through together, we are letting each other out of our sight.
After Leah and Avrumi leave, I move back to Csenger with Yitzchak. We stay there for a few more months and I still cook for all the straggling survivors coming through. Then, the Russians take over Romania, they bring in their communism and Yitzchak’s business is banned. With no source of income and the growing hostile environment, we realize we must leave our home. The worst part of leaving is knowing that Leah won’t be able to write to me. In the chaos, however, I don’t have a choice.
We move to a displaced person’s camp called The Agudah. Jewish organizations have put together these camps for people like us. People with no homes, no country and nothing to call our own. We move there while we work on making more permanent arrangements for our lives that have once again unraveled at the seams.
Funnily enough, it is in the displaced persons camp where I start to find my place again. The people are nice, and they quickly become like family. The organization provides us with all our basic needs so we can focus our energy on moving on and not merely surviving. We spend Shabbos together with the people from our camp and sometimes we sing the Shabbos songs late into the night, just like we used to.
Our new family offers to put together a wedding for Yitzchak and me.
I go to a store and rent a wedding dress. It is not the gown I always dreamed of, but it is beautiful. I do not have enough money to buy a veil, so I get my hands on some lace and I sew one myself.
Everyone in the camp comes to the wedding. My heart aches for Leah, we haven’t heard from them in so long. I write to Duvid when we can get ahold of stamps, but he hasn’t heard from her either. I can only hope that they are OK.
Yitzchak stands under the chuppah waiting for me. As a young boy plays the flute, a kind older couple from the camp walk me down the aisle. Yitzchak looks nervous. I think it is hard for him to let himself be happy. He feels it is his fault that his parents died. I know he wishes they were here now under the chuppah with him. Still, as I walk down the aisle to him, and into our life together, I feel nothing but pure joy in my heart. After we are married, I look around at the group of strangers I’ve grown to love, and I watch them dance for us.
My Zaidy does not take my hand and spin me around like he promised he would. My mother does not fix my hair and bring me a drink when I need it. Yecheskel does not tell my husband to be good to me. I look around my wedding celebration and suddenly I feel a sadness that threatens to pull me down into the empty spaces of everyone who is not here. But then someone opens a window, and the room fills up with more guests. I hear the faint sound of birds singing outside, I hear the slight ripple of a stream lapping over colorful rocks, I hear frogs croaking in unison. I am home. I am alive. And slowly, so slowly, I feel my heart open to let the music enter, and I take my new husband’s hand, and we dance.