Blue as a Fedora

Chapter 6: To Germany

Even though they had left several hours previously, and even though his instincts had been telling him this would happen for the past week, Zamir remained frozen in the kitchen, held by shock, anger and misery. Elise, who couldn't bear sitting around, had ran out into the backyard, yelling and crying and sobbing. The house was quiet, the weather outside growing steadily colder, but still, Zamir sat right where he was in the kitchen.

His three little girls. They were the only things that his mind would allow him to think of. To think of the last look Malvina had given him, of numb disbelief and betrayal, as the soldier had taken her away. Every nerve in his body would cry in pain and guilt every time he remembered the look she gave him: he gave his word that she'd never get hurt.

And what about Malia, who was soon going to finish school? Zamir had tried to give her as much opportunity as possible, so she could live to have any career she wanted. Then they took her. Took her as if she were as unimportant as the dirt on the floor.

And of course, there was little Ella. How was Ella going to survive in a concentration camp? Zamir knew little about them, except that the Jews were sent there to be killed. How Zamir continued life normally, with this piece of information in his mind, he didn't know – but now horrid pangs of guilt reached him every second, when he rethought what he'd heard on the telephone calls, in the meeting. How had he not felt that he needed to do something?

No tears were falling down his face: the feeling – the absolute, disgusting, horrible feeling inside him – had numbed him so that the tears would not fall, his eyes would not cry.

Every time he saw his daughters' faces in his mind, he felt an extreme urge to get up and run all across France to get them. But that was impossible; wherever they were now, they would be impossible to get.

The soldiers that had kidnapped Zamir's daughters had left a few hours ago. The two that remained had stood in front of the door like some sort of guard for almost half an hour. Zamir suspected it was so that he and Elise wouldn't run back for their daughters. Then, the men had left, and Elise had darted straight for the backyard, breaking the sliding door in her haste and desperation to leave the house.

Going straight to the backyard was something his daughters had always done when they were stressed or scared. Whenever Zamir felt depressed or fearful, he usually preferred to sit down and stay still, pondering over his thoughts and attempting to sort them out. Zamir found, ever since he was a teenage boy, that this was an effective way to calm down. This time, however, it wasn't doing any good; in fact, Zamir felt that sitting down and doing nothing was making him feel worse.

He stood up very suddenly, as if an electric shock had just spread through his seat. He was breathing rapidly. He wanted to do something. He wanted to do something so badly – but... what was it that he wanted to do? Find his daughters? That was impossible.

"Okay," he muttered, now pacing through the kitchen. He didn't know what he wanted to do, but he wanted – he needed to do something.

He gazed through the broken, sliding glass door to the backyard. Elise was no longer screaming, but Zamir could hear her sobs from the kitchen. Not knowing what he was doing, his feet led him through the living room, through the sliding door and down the stone steps to the centre of the backyard, where sitting miserably on the grass was Elise.

Zamir felt that he'd lost everything: he'd raised his daughters for sixteen long, glorious years – and then, in less than a second – they were taken from his grasp, which he had promised would never happen. He'd promised his grasp would never let go. He lied. He lost everything.

Only he hadn't lost everything. The one thing that he still had was right in front of him, sobbing on the ground. Zamir loved Elise more than anything in the world. Why, then, was he standing behind her, watching her sob instead of doing something? He slowly bent down and gently took her arm away from her face.

"Elise," he said quietly, Elise's sobs beginning to subdue a little, "I'm sorry."

Elise, still choking back sobs, was trying to stand up. Zamir helped her up by grabbing her hand and tugging her up with him. They were both standing in the middle of the backyard, their eyes gazing directly into the others'.

Birds were swiftly chirping from above and the sky looked like an endless painting of mysteries, canopied up above. The trees swayed lazily in the wind and, just to the side, could Zamir see a little, purple flower beginning to grow. It was, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful places in the world. Why was everything so happy, while on the inside Zamir felt as though he were dying?

"I know," Elise whispered, putting her hands in his. "Zamir, we can't stay here. We need to find a way to get them. Please, you must have some idea as to where they are. Please Zamir."

She was starting to beg. Zamir could hear the pleading note in her voice. He wished, oh how he wished dearly, that he could tell her that there was a way – that he knew where his little girls were going, and that it was possible to save them from where they would arrive. Darkness fell upon Zamir's mind as he looked back into his wife's pleading eyes.

"Elise," he said softly. He didn't want to tell her... but no – he had to. No more lies. He'd learnt his lesson. "We – we can't."

"Yes we can," Elise said firmly, though her voice was trembling with sadness and her eyes were still dripping with tears. "There's always a way! We can't just sit here!"

"Elise! What can we do?" Zamir cried, pushing away Elise's hands and turning his back on her. He was looking at the trees, but nothing was stopping the ferocious beating of his heart. The numbness he had been feeling for hours was starting to ebb away, and now he could really feel what emotions were playing inside him. Sadness. Only it wasn't sadness. It was sadness times ten. Sadness to such an extreme that he immediately started to feel himself cry in despair and agony.

"There's nothing we can do!"

"Please! There has to be!" Elise shrieked back, sounding just as loud. "Where does that train go, Zamir? I know you know! We have to follow it! Then we'll take them out of one of those ghettos –"

"Elise..." Zamir said in a low voice. He turned around miserably to look at his wife, who looked back at him with a desperate gleam in her eye. "Elise... they're not using ghettos anymore. They're using... they're using concentration camps."

There was a silence that was only broken by the whistling of the wind, and the chirping and buzzing of insects and birds.

"What does that mean? 'Concentration camp?'" Elise said finally.

Zamir could hear the blood pounding in his ears.

"I'm not sure," he said weakly. Elise's face was now not only filled with sadness and fear, but horror and confusion too. He hated how he was doing this to his wife; the pain in her face looked immeasurable.

"I have a vague idea," he said slowly, and he saw as Elise started holding on to his every word, as if thinking that this could save their daughters. "They're collecting everyone and... and putting them in there. I don't know what it's like in there but I... I..."

He didn't know how he was supposed to go on. Before he could let his guard down, he quickly said the next few words as if they'd been in the back of his throat all day.

"I think they're killing them all."

Elise's reaction almost made Zamir cry again. She looked absolutely aghast.

"K – killing?"

"Yes."

Elise moaned weakly to herself and, hugging her chest, began sinking to the ground. She was shivering as if a cool breeze had flown past them.

Zamir couldn't sit there watching his wife suffer like this. He ran to her side and held her in a gentle, protective way.

"Hey, hey," he muttered softly, unconscious of what he was saying. "It'll be okay. It'll be okay..."

Elise didn't respond, but she was holding very firmly to Zamir's shirt, as if it were a life jacket and she was lost at sea. Zamir wanted so badly to go after them. But... how?

"Elise... get up... come on," Zamir muttered, gently taking his wife off the ground. With difficulty, and still clutching onto Zamir's chest, Elise rose off the ground slowly. They were back in a standing position. They were holding hands again, Elise looking desperately into Zamir's eyes, hoping, it seemed, to find an answer in them. Zamir felt another surge of emotional pain through his body, knowing that there was no answer to be found.

"Is there any chance..." Elise whispered, pausing, apparently looking for the right words, "...is there any chance that – that they will survive? That they'll be back in my arms?"

Zamir felt more tears forming into his already tear-filled eyes, and saw as the little spark of hope that had been conjured in his wife's face, for one fleeting moment, flickered out abruptly. 

Clearly, the look on Zamir's face had answered her question.

She immediately collapsed onto Zamir, giving him a bone-breaking hug, and the tears falling from her face as she hysterically broke down landed on Zamir's shoulder like rain droplets. 

Zamir felt as he too started breaking down. Images of his children lying dead on a dirty floor, surrounded by men and women in striped clothing flashed through his mind like photographs, paining him so much that he felt like yelling, he felt like screaming. And he did. He was screaming like he'd never screamed in his life. Birds flew away at the sound of the noise, Elise breaking into even more tears, as her sobbing grew louder and louder. The trees swaying peacefully, the clouds drifting lazily – and in the middle of it all, were two people tortured beyond repair.