No Heroes Read online

  In camp, if it was not going the way I like, I never despair. I disconnect my thoughts. I don’t think about the tragic things. I think of something else which is more pleasant or nice for me. When I disconnect I think that just surviving is the most important and then forget about it. I have terrible fear. I suffered the most from fear. I was scared of everything around me, but when I disconnect, it’s like not me. Somebody else.

  We eat potato soup, the skins. That saved us because that’s the most healthy part, but they didn’t know it. Once a week a piece of bread. All the women stopped menstruating.

  As a girl I wasn’t very happy. My sister was dead and my father was dying. So my mother did everything for me. She picked my clothes. She pick my friends. She pick what I do, where I go, what I eat. In camp she picks nothing. For the first time, I have freedom.

  Beginning the Book

  The odd thing about this book is I never set out to write it. The audiotapes were intended for the kids and the rest came from my journals. When I hit on the idea of bringing these disparate narratives together, I called Arthur for permission to use the tapes. There was a long silence on the phone, until he said, “To write this book, Sonny, is like telling the lions not to eat the antelope.”

  Now I call him once a week to double-check facts and details. Spelling Polish proper nouns is confounding, and my attempts at syllabic representation produce gobbledy-gook. Our conversations trigger his memory and I take notes as we talk. Soon, I begin transcribing all that he says.

  Arthurs life is hard now. His neighborhood in Queens has changed and no one will shovel snow from his walk. His car inexplicably became filled with ice, his basement with water. Irene has Parkinson’s disease and requires a great deal of care. He is a little depressed. I ask if he’s reading, and he says yes, a book on the Spanish Inquisition.

  He is not angry at the German army because he was a soldier and understands the mentality of serving ones country. He feels most betrayed by his fellow Poles, especially members of the Jewish Police.

  As the conversation begins to wane, his voice takes on a tone of concern.

  “I don’t want to ask, Sonny. But something is nagging at me a little.”

  “It’s all right, Arthur. Ask me anything.”

  “What bothers me is this. How will you link the two stories. The war and Kentucky. What joins them?”

  “I don’t know, Arthur. I’m worried about that myself.”

  “You figure it out, Sonny. I have faith. Maybe something subliminal.”

  “The ending,” I say. “Maybe the ending will pull it all together.”

  “All endings are the same, Sonny. You die. The scene in the Titanic movie was the closest I’ve ever seen to the camps—one against the other. The good people don’t survive. You have to push a little to get into the lifeboat. There was one scene of two old people watching it all, then they went to their bed and lay down and waited to die. At that point, I could not look. It was my attitude exactly. But I lived. I always lived. That was the problem. I lived.”

  I hang up the phone, impressed by the prescience of his concern. At first I thought the notion of home would bind the narratives—my constant desire to return, his utter commitment to never go back. My original plan was for us to visit Poland together, but he refused. I suggested a trip to Israel, and again he refused. Traveling to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., was also dismissed.

  I considered making a trip to Poland alone, visiting Kraków, finding cemeteries, standing in the very room where Arthur was born. This seemed as depressing a prospect as reading about the Inquisition and I quickly abandoned the plan. In fact, all my ideas seemed pathetic. I finally decided that the ending would be whatever happened during my life while writing the book.

  The Library and Mrs. Jayne

  Mrs. Jayne lived all her life in Morehead, and if she had not always been content, she’d made her peace long ago. Occasionally she’d tell a story about going to Lexington with her girlfriends, referring to the trip as “a bunch of country women on the loose.” Mrs. Jayne was my first-grade teacher.

  She loved the boys and girls of Haldeman, and we loved her back in the fierce way of children who express elemental emotion with every cell in their bodies. Her house held photographs of people she’d taught, their spouses, their babies, their grandchildren. She was a widow with no kids of her own, and her former students served as family. Each year I sent Mrs. Jayne a Christmas card. I visited when I went home and several years ago I’d introduced her to Rita. All my grandparents were dead. I wanted Sam and James to know Mrs. Jayne.

  I drove to her house, thinking of the car I owned in college, a red Maverick that leaked Bondo at the seams. To save money I parked in Mrs. Jayne’s driveway, which was a block from campus. She said she liked seeing the car and knowing one of her first graders had made it to college.

  Now Mrs. Jayne was in her eighties. She never locked her door and was hard of hearing. To visit, you walked into her breezeway and began calling yoo-hoo to avoid startling her. Today she didn’t answer and I found her asleep in an easy chair. I gazed around the living room at all the photographs, including one of my sons propped on the mantel. When I was a kid her house was the most proper I’d ever been inside, containing stiff furniture that was uncomfortable to sit on. Later I understood that she lived among lovely antiques that she kept neat and clean, despite using them daily. Now I recognized that everything was a little messy—a pillow on the floor, a rumpled afghan, a water stain on an end table. I tiptoed out. The kids were disappointed and I told them we’d visit the Rowan County Public Library.

  I was the first kid to step inside the library when it opened in 1967. The head librarian was Frankie Calvert, related by marriage to Mrs. Jayne. One woman taught me to read and the other placed books in my hands each week. I loved them as a child and my devotion had never faltered.

  Due to the library’s limited holdings, you could only check out four books at a time per library card. Since I read at least one book a day, and more during school vacations and weekends, I circumvented the rules by getting library cards for all my siblings, two of whom were not yet in school, as well as a card in the name of the family dog. My mother went to town every Saturday for groceries. She dropped me at the library where I borrowed twenty books, stacked them in a grocery bag, and waited for her to retrieve me. By age ten I knew the Dewey Decimal System inside out.

  Now I entered the library with great enthusiasm. A woman from Haldeman was working there and I asked about her family. She hadn’t changed much and I wondered if she thought the same of me. Frankie came out of her office and we hugged briefly, a part of me disappointed that she was not thirty years younger. Frankie possessed a lilting accent native to the hills that is impossible to duplicate in writing. She looked at my sons and said, “They sure are good-looking boys.” She pronounced “boys” with two syllables, as if it were spelled “bo-eeze.” Another mountain trait is repetition and she said it again, carrying me into the past and hearing her tell my mother the same about me.

  Frankie showed Sam to the children’s section where he began browsing with the experience of a seasoned library kid. James shyly took her hand as she led him to a special spot. She perched on the edge of a tiny chair, leaned forward with a book in her hands, and read aloud to him. James stared at her face, enraptured by her attention. I recalled listening to her in the same way at his age. When Frankie read to me, she’d been younger than I was now. I felt as if time had altered from a linear progression to one of overlapping concentric rings. I had never left Morehead, but been bumped ahead, with remnants of memory all around me.

  I wandered the library, stunned to realize that no one else was there on a Saturday afternoon. During college I had put on magic shows for children here, using tricks I’d made from how-to books. The illusions were simple—cut and restored rope, the production of scarves from a tube, an empty bag that contained eggs. The magic books were gone, hopefully to a child busy at home folding cardboard into secret gimmicks. Inside a battered book, I discovered a check-out card. The signature was mine, dated 1968.

  Holding a book that had passed through my hands so long ago gave me a sudden chill that drifted into bliss. The protagonists name was Eddie. He liked to write notes and post them in his house. I copied his behavior, taping my words to various places in our home. I remembered the name of Eddies dog, his best friend, and his enemy. In books, I found kids who shared my interest and adults who appreciated me.

  I pulled the oldest books from the shelf and examined each card. Several bore my name from thirty years before, and I made a pile of these books for Sam, enthralled that he would read them at the same age as I had. The presence of my signature indicated that no new card had ever been required. Don’t be sad, I told myself. That’s why you came home—to help fix problems like this.

  We checked out the books and walked into the heat of summer. The hills were dulled by the humidity that hung in the air like old breath. Sam was disappointed in the library. He had carefully looked over the books and found nothing contemporary, nothing similar to what he’d been reading for the past year. I gave him the Eddie books.

  We returned to visit Mrs. Jayne who yoo-hooed back, fully awake now. I hugged her and she felt fragile as papyrus. She’d lost weight and her clothes didn’t fit, reminding me that she’d always taken great care of her appearance. She insisted on sitting in the backyard to receive summer guests. The boys adored her as if they’d known her all their lives. She sent me inside to pour glasses of “co-cola” for everyone. The kitchen smelled terrible. Dirty dishes filled the sink. The garbage had not been emptied in a long time.

  I scrubbed some glasses, poured the drinks, and carried them outside. Mrs. Jayne was talking to the boys with such
care that I suddenly understood why children were drawn to her. She would never judge a child, never criticize, never tamper with innocence. She behaved as if every child was her particular favorite. She still treated me that way and I still basked in her attention.

  I motioned Rita inside and showed her the state of the house. She said, “I’ll clean the bathroom, you do the kitchen.” We found supplies and worked for an hour. I was tidying the living room when Sam and James entered the house with fearful expressions. I asked what was the matter and Sam spoke, taking the lead as oldest, the way I always had as a child.

  “Something’s wrong with Mrs. Jayne.”

  “She might be dead,” James said.

  Tears flowed over his cheeks as he rushed to me and hugged my waist. I called for Rita, who sat with James on the couch while I went to the backyard. Mrs. Jayne sat in her chair asleep. I took the empty glasses inside and made the boys laugh with the truth of Mrs. Jayne. We walked to the car, but I didn’t like leaving her in the yard in case the weather shifted or the sunlight burned her pale skin. I went back through the breezeway to help her in the house. Her eyes fluttered open.

  “Well, Chris,” she said. “What a wonderful surprise. Sit down and let’s have a visit.”

  “Okay.”

  “When are you bringing those boys of yours for me to meet?”

  “Let’s go inside, Mrs. Jayne.”

  “We’ll have us some co-cola.”

  “I can’t stay too long.”

  “You have a busy life now, Chris. There’s one thing I want you to know. I’m just so proud of you for teaching at Morehead. I want you to park in my driveway. It’ll be easy for you to walk to work. I like seeing a man’s car in the driveway.”

  “Okay, Mrs. Jayne.”

  She eased into her chair, reminding me of a feather pillow slowly settling into comfort. Within a few minutes she was asleep again. On my way out I stopped in the breeze-way. Leaning against the wall were alphabet posters that had hung in my first-grade classroom, and I remembered writing words that began with each letter. I drove home, understanding that naively and perhaps foolishly, I wanted life in Rowan County to be the same as thirty years ago. I wanted Frankie to give me books and Mrs. Jayne to be healthy.

  Later, Sam said he didn’t like the Eddie books because they were too much like the old days. He wanted to read about the world of today.

  Arthur Works at a Labor Camp

  In labor camp I am helper to a master surveyor, running around with that stick, doing land surveying for the airport facilities. I had a job, and was able to wash myself every day. This is the best time of my war years. It was peaceful. They didn’t mistreat us. It was slave labor.

  My wife worked in the kitchen and in the evening I was able to visit her. We worked only about ten hours a day. We had Sunday off and we took old clothing and tied them into little pieces for socks. I could not sleep with her but I was able to take care of her. She smuggled potatoes to me and I traded on the black market. I buy panties for her, some soap.

  I was going with my boss by the hospital in the ghetto. There was a big driveway that was shut by a wooden gate. My boss asked me what’s that, and I said that used to be the hospital. He said, open the gate. I want to see what’s in that. So we opened the gate and inside is full of corpses, people shot. They were just laying maybe ten high. The courtyard was filled with corpses, children mostly. Piled up like lumber. Just thrown in the garbage. It was the first time I saw corpses piled up that way. The first time.

  They sent my brother to another camp and I did not see him again. I never saw him ever. I don’t know where he is buried. He was sixteen.

  I was working in the rain and lo and behold, I catch pneumonia. My boss likes me. He drove me to the hospital in camp where my wife is. And now I am happy. I have a clean bed. Out my window is the place where they bring the people every day and shoot them. Every day. Most are people who are caught in the resistance. When the sun came up, two guys came on motorcycles and then the trucks. Everybody off the truck, undress, line up in front of the pit, shoot them, fall in the pit. Sometimes they shoot into the pit if somebody was moving. Then they poured in gasoline and burned it. That thing was like a hell smoking, continuously smoking, day in, day out. They put in railroad ties because it is very difficult to burn bodies. The air has to circulate, otherwise they don’t burn. So the bodies from yesterday are still smoldering. The pit is smoking all the time. Fifty yards from my window. I could see faces. I could see everything. That was my morning.

  So I send out the good news that I am in the camp. An old man was dying, so I put on his uniform, and sneaked out to find my wife. She cut her own hair and it looks good. She has a little more hair than other women. Just a little more, but it makes all the difference. She starved herself and bought a comb. She took her uniform, which was shit, you know, and she tied it and made it fit her. It didn’t look like a piece of something hung on her. It looked good. She was very beautiful, my wife.

  She took me to her barracks. They had bunks stacked on top of each other and they run from one end of the camp to the other. There were curtains drawn between each of those. You crawled in from the front and you drew the curtains. They were, I would say, two hundred feet long. Thousands of people. They were shitting and pissing and vomiting and screwing and eating and washing, all in the same area. If a man or woman was able to organize something to eat, they cook it right there. It looked like some kind of pure hell.

  My wife remained untouched. She was like Mr. Magoo on the cartoon. All the chaos surrounding him and he is untouched. She has a certain naïveté in her left. She is Mrs. Magoo still. There is no malice in her. She was witnessing rape and murder by the day. My wife, when she was young, she was built like a statue. Very distinguished. She had nice features and she was courageous.

  We have one foot of privacy, and I spent the second night with my wife there. I was just holding her. I couldn’t protect her from this. She was an angel in hell. That was the last time I saw my wife till after the war. Three years.

  Irene Is Saved in Plaszow

  The first camp was the worst, Plaszow. It was very scary. Every week somebody beaten up, somebody killed. It was a lot of punishing, a lot of fear. From every corner, you look the dead in the eye. The worst part was the loneliness, the unexpected, the fear. I’m a coward.

  Goeth was the camp leader, chairman, or whatever you call it. He was shooting people weekly. He needed that blood. He had to have food for his soul. Every day was some explosion. Goeth was a devil. Goeth came to choose the people for death. He just pulled this one, this one, this one. There was no reason, no special reason why. You should not look at his eyes. When you look at his eyes, he was furious. Right away he was shooting. A real devil. If you saw Schindler’s List, you know who that was. He was the one with the young girl he was beating up.

  Goeth came to the factory where I worked. The manager from before the war, Nasia, she looked at me and said you go down in the hole to hide. That was all. I went and she put the paper over the hole. I was in the dark listening and hearing Goeth say, this one, this one, this one. All to die. When he left, she took me out of there. I was lucky.

  She died in New York, Nasia Geitshals. I was in her funeral. Beth-Moses Cemetery on Long Island. Where I will go one day. With Arthur. We go.

  No Heroes

  My editor inquires if Arthur is excited that I am writing a book about him. I don’t know, I say. I get off the phone and call Arthur and tell him my editor wants to know how he feels about the book. He says that he wears a nightshirt to sleep in. It is not so long, the nightshirt, and sometimes he has to pull it down to cover his uh-ohs. The book makes him feel like the nightshirt is rolled up. I tell him that is the nature of art. I ask him if he wants me to roll his shirt back down. It’s not too late.

  “No,” he says, “but one thing.”

  “What?”

  “No heroes.”

  “Why not?”