A Delayed Life Read online

  Once, my parents had a bright idea. The youth movement of the Social Democrats was sending its members’ children on a winter vacation to the Iser Mountains. The trip was meant for children of school age, while I was only five and still in kindergarten. But one of the accompanying adults was Giesl, a friend and upstairs neighbor of ours, so I was accepted and put under her special care. All the children were older than me, but I didn’t mind. We went sledding and skiing and had fun playing games in the rustic hostel where we lodged.

  The staff must have been forewarned about my food problem.

  I can still see myself sitting in the dining room, with a plate in front of me of something unidentifiable and suspicious. I didn’t touch it. Nobody got angry, and I was allowed to leave the table with the others. But at the next meal, everyone got a different dish, while on my plate was the thing I had left at noon. Again I didn’t touch it.

  The next day we dressed warmly and went on an outing to the woods. We walked through high snow and came to a little brook, all frozen over with only a narrow opening in the middle, where we could see the cascading water. There was a wooden plank across the brook with a handrail on one side. We started crossing it one by one—then suddenly my memory goes blank.

  I woke up in a big strange bed, covered by a huge eiderdown. Several adults were standing around, with Giesl bending over me. I didn’t understand what was going on. Later the children excitedly told me that I fainted near the brook and was carried back unconscious. They gave me tea and good things to eat; I had become the center of everyone’s attention.

  For the rest of the wonderful holiday, no one tried to make me eat what I didn’t like. My eating problem remained as before.

  * * *

  When we returned from shopping, Mother and Maria would start cooking. To this day I cannot understand what the two of them did in the kitchen for at least two hours every morning. There were always several pots steaming on the electric stove, both women with their aprons and flushed faces stirring, chopping, or peeling. Sometimes they made noodles, the dough rolled out into thin sheets that were put to dry on white tablecloths on every table and bed all over the flat. Later they cut them into thin strips for soup, broader ones, and also little squares for the wonderful Schinkenfleckerln. Mother used to make a dish from the broad noodles, sprinkled with sugar and poppy seeds or cinnamon.

  In summer Mother made preserves and jams for the winter. Apricots, strawberries, or cherries were cooked with sugar and then put in glass jars with tight lids. The jars in turn were placed in an enormous pot with a thermometer in the middle. When they cooled, Mother wrote the dates on stickers and stored the jars in rows on the shelves in the pantry. In autumn, when the plums were ripe, she made a marvelous black jam called powidel, which was used as filling in dumplings or in buchty, a kind of baked pocket, so beloved by the Czechs.

  On washing day, dinner was simple. Often it was Wurstgoulash, made of potatoes and cubes of salami with gravy. But the most common meal was stew, which my father was especially fond of. Mother always saved a portion for him, and in the evening he would dip pieces of bread in it to mop up the gravy. What I loved best was the dessert Mother sometimes made for Sundays, especially when Father’s younger brother, Ernst-Benjamin, came for dinner. It was called Dukatenbuchteln, small square yeast cakes covered with a hot, delicious, sweet vanilla sauce.

  The meals were served on the green oval table in my little room. The kitchen was too narrow for a table and chairs. It was most uncommon to have the servant share the table with the family, but when Maria brought the soup tureen, she would sit down and eat with us. My parents, being socialists, believed in doing away with class distinctions. Maria was an employee, but she was never treated as an inferior.

  After dinner Maria washed the dishes, and Mother went to lie down on the sofa in the bedroom to smoke a cigarette. I usually knelt near her and begged her to “leave a long ash.” She held the cigarette very carefully over the ashtray on her abdomen, not flicking the ash off, letting it grow longer and longer, until it almost burned her fingers. When it finally drooped and fell, I always let out a sigh of disappointment.

  Mother would rest only for a short while, and then we would go to the park. There were two parks near where we lived: one called Stromovka, the other Letná. Letná was a bit farther away and smaller, while Stromovka was the former Royal Park, stretching all the way to the Vltava River. There was a kind of bridge, made of a number of flat-bottomed boats tied together, and I loved to walk on it because it rocked gently on the waves. On the other bank was Prague’s zoo. In both parks there were children’s playgrounds with sandpits, but I preferred the Letná, while Mother always wanted to go to the Stromovka. True, in Stromovka there were little ponds with ducks and fluffy ducklings paddling frantically behind their mothers and creating a V on the surface. One could feed them with pieces of stale rolls. There were also a great number of brown squirrels, hopping quite near our feet. For one koruna (the Czech money) Mother sometimes bought peanuts from a man who carried a tray on a strap around his neck, with cone-shaped cups fashioned from newspapers. I was allowed to share the peanuts with the squirrel. It would sit on its hind legs, holding the nut in its tiny paws and nibbling delicately with its two long front teeth. Sometimes it would scurry away and bury the nut for the winter. I loved to watch the little creatures with their bushy tails, which undulated like a double arch.

  Mother liked the Stromovka because of its magnificent garden with rows of roses of all colors and sizes, some almost crawling on the ground, others in garlands or climbing on trellises, but I was bored with them. I wanted to go to the Letná, where I knew several children and where a man sold balloons. Mother sometimes gave in and bought me a balloon. Once, as I was transferring it to my other hand, it escaped and flew into the sky. I was expecting it to come down again, as did everything else one threw upward, and was distraught to the point of tears when my new balloon was lost.

  The children who played in the Letná Park were well dressed; some were accompanied by governesses with dark-blue veils hanging down their backs. A few owned shiny metal scooters—or corquinets in Hebrew—with rubber tires, while mine was the cheap wooden kind with bumpy wheels. My mother had won it at the Konsum, where she did her shopping. Here and there I would be able to borrow such a marvel, especially from a little girl with corkscrew curls like those of Shirley Temple. She let me have two runs on the downhill path, which was the best, because I could just stand and steer as the scooter rolled by itself and I didn’t have to propel it with my foot.

  But often it was Maria who took me to the park, when Mother had other engagements. It was more fun. Maria didn’t seem to educate me; she was like a big child herself.

  On the way to the Stromovka, we often saw “Handless Frantík,” an amputee who made a living by demonstrating his skill writing on a typewriter with his toes. Sitting on his low-wheel wagon, he was a familiar sight on the streets of Prague, and people would gather around him and throw coins in his hat. But the sight of suffering people or animals always caused me pangs of pity.

  Once, as Maria and I were walking back from the park, we met a woman with a girl about my age whose arm was in a plaster cast. It seemed as if the girl’s arm ended at her elbow and the white thing was attached to the stump, instead of to her hand. I had never seen such a thing before, and, horrified, I asked what it was. In a flash of inspiration, Maria said, “This happened to the girl because she picked her nose.” I was terrified. I knew I had this ugly habit. I used to try hard not to do it but could not overcome the urge; my finger just went to my nostril against my will. But after that day, I at least managed to do it only when I thought no one could see me.

  * * *

  When I was small I was not aware of class distinctions. The families I knew lived much like ours. We were what is commonly considered middle class, but Father’s salary wasn’t large, and so we had to calculate expenses carefully. For example, my parents put aside a certain sum for the whole
year to pay for our summer vacation.

  Later, in first grade, I met a rich boy. His name was Fredy Petschek. Fredy was brought to school every morning by a chauffeur-driven car, and at noon the automobile was waiting for him again in front of the entrance. He lived in a large villa with a park, surrounded by a high wall. His father owned coal mines and banks. One bank was in a huge palace in the center of town; it later became notorious, when the German occupiers turned it into their Gestapo headquarters.

  Fredy’s mother was a fine lady, whom we sometimes saw in the car. I overheard some adults saying she was so afraid of microbes that, when she went to buy dress material, she always took a servant along to feel the fabrics, lest she catch some infection.

  Little Fredy was a thin child, who held his head a bit sideways. He usually forgot to remove the satchel with his sandwich from around his neck and wore it there all morning. The children in class often mocked him; he had a funny walk with his knees close together. But somehow he didn’t notice or care, as if he were absentminded. He was a habitual nose picker. Once, we first graders were told to give one another small gifts; I don’t remember on what occasion. One of the boys gave Fredy a large box. We all watched eagerly to see the big gift. As he unwrapped it he found a smaller box and another, smaller again, until in the last one he discovered the tiny present. It was a toothpick with a cotton wool tip. “It is to help you pick your nose,” the little joker explained.

  The story about Fredy Petschek doesn’t end here. When I was in the United States a few years ago, say in 2010, I met a lady named Nancy Petschek. She must be a member of that family, I thought. I asked her if she was related to Fredy Petschek. She thought for a while and then said, “That could be Uncle Alfred.” Funny! I thought. Little Fredy is now Uncle Alfred! “I will ask him if he went to the same school as you,” she said. But unfortunately before she had a chance to do so, Uncle Alfred Petschek died.

  Another rich child was my classmate Annemarie Brösslerová. On her birthday there was a party with wonderful sweets and ice cream, and each of us little girls got a present. The party was presided over by a governess, and when we asked where her mother was, Annemarie said she was somewhere at home. That surprised me, but Annemarie told us that they had eight rooms and she often didn’t know in which of them her mother was at the moment.

  I envied Annemarie—not for the many rooms or the books and toys she had but because she had an older brother. Among my close childhood friends, she was the only one who had a sibling. The others—Raja, Gerta, and Anita—all came from one-child families like myself. Annemarie’s brother was handsome; he collected stamps and rode a bicycle. I admired him so much! I wished I had such a big brother.

  Poor Annemarie. When the Germans started to deport the Jews, she and her family were sent to the Łódź ghetto in one of the first transports from Prague. I never heard of her again. Before their departure, I went to say goodbye to her, and she pointed to her books, which I used to borrow from her, and said, “Take as many as you like. They will all be left behind.”

  I picked one I had read several times, a silly and sentimental girls’ romance. But as I was taking it, I already knew that soon I too would leave it behind, together with my own books and toys, when our turn came to be deported.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Anita

  We had not lived long in the Electric House when one day I saw a big moving van in front of the entrance. Workmen were carrying furniture into the building, directed by a lady. When she saw me, she asked me if I lived here, what my name was, and how old I was. Then she said that she also had a girl my age and we must become friends.

  Anita Steiner

  Anita became my friend for many years, although our relationship was a strange and uneven one. Anita was much taller than me, even though she was only six months older. It was always she who decided what we would play, and sometimes she had queer ideas.

  The Steiners lived on the second floor, two stories below us. Anita’s mother, Hilde, was fond of me and used to call me Shpuntl, a funny term of endearment for small beings. It was convenient that they lived in the same building; my other friends, Gerta and Raja, with whom I preferred to play, lived a few streets away.

  Anita planned a grand project: we would prepare a puppet theater show. She owned a collapsible stage with a curtain in front and various backdrop sceneries, including a wood, a room in a castle with a throne for a king, and a village street. There were plenty of puppets on strings: a witch, a beautiful maiden, a clown, a knight, a queen, and a king. Anita decided that we must paint another scenery on cardboard for her show. What the story was, I never learned. She changed her mind every few days, and each time, we began to make a new set. For weeks we were busy painting, sewing clothes for the puppets, and preparing the stage. The show never materialized. When I asked her what the play was about, she just changed the subject. Anita was the leader, and I, the reluctant but obedient follower.

  One day she made up her mind that I must stay with her overnight. She didn’t ask permission and said it had to be kept secret; otherwise the mothers wouldn’t allow it. She brought pillows and blankets into her room and spread them on the floor. Then she locked the door. When bedtime arrived, Maria came to fetch me, but Anita whispered that we should pretend to be asleep and not answer. Maria knocked on the door, then Anita’s mother joined her, and when that didn’t help, they called my mother. I felt terrible; I had no desire to sleep on the hard floor in Anita’s room, and on my part, there just was no reason to behave so obstreperously. But I obeyed Anita’s instructions and remained quiet. In the end, the three women somehow managed to enter the room, and Anita got into a fit of rage. I was led home, up the two floors, feeling guilt and shame, because I myself couldn’t explain why we did it.

  Yet apart from her strange conceptions of games, Anita was a loyal friend. She proved it later during the German occupation, when we already had to wear the yellow Star of David with the word Jude and the Aryan population was forbidden to have any contact with Jews. Since her father was a German and her mother Jewish, the parents thought it expedient to have Anita join the organization BDM—Bund Deutscher Mädel, or the League of German Girls—a section of the Hitler Youth. Mr. Steiner belonged to the three-million-strong German minority that had lived for centuries in Bohemia—a historical region in the present-day Czech Republic—most of them in the border area, the Sudeten. He worked in a bank and, as far as I know, was not politically engaged.

  Anita often came to visit me in our cramped one room, where we lived before our deportation. She told me about the activities at the BDM meetings, which resembled those of Scouts. She always brought something that we Jews no longer could buy, such as a piece of fresh fruit or some honey.

  When I came back from the camps after the war, I visited Anita several times. She told me how her mother was deported to Terezín during the last months of the occupation and her father, being the spouse of a Jewess, was interned in a labor camp. Anita was left alone in Prague and was extremely worried about her parents. When I visited her in July 1945, both parents were back, and Anita was solicitous of them like a mother hen. Mrs. Steiner saw that I had nothing to wear, having just returned from Bergen-Belsen, and she gave me a pair of stockings and a few other things she could spare.

  One day I arrived to find the door of their apartment sealed by the police. I had no idea what had happened and went downstairs to the janitor; perhaps he could explain.

  “Don’t you see?” he said. “They were Germans, and they escaped before they would be expelled by the government.”

  The entire German minority of Czechoslovakia was expelled to Germany a few months after the end of the war. The Steiners, however, would not have been among them, since they themselves had been persecuted by the Germans. Nevertheless, Anita vanished from my life, and I never heard from her again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Gerta

  Of all my friends, my truly close one was Gerta Altschul.

  I en
vied Gerta, too. She didn’t have a brother, but she owned two skating dresses, which her mother had prepared for the day when she would be proficient enough to dance on ice. Both dresses had tiny skirts that swirled prettily when she pirouetted; one was made of dark-blue velvet, the other wine-colored.

  We used to go skating together at the Winter Stadium, a few tram stops away from our street. I was obliged to wear thick trousers over my wool underwear, a knitted cap, and fur-lined gloves, which became caked with a crust of ice from the many falls. Gerta wasn’t allowed to wear her flimsy dresses. She too was swathed like me in warm clothes, but hers were more elegant than mine.

  Gerta took figure-skating lessons to become a second Sonja Henie, whom her mother admired. In the meantime, we put on the velvet dresses at her home, where we played almost every afternoon and danced on our tiptoes, humming waltzes in lieu of real music. Neither her family nor mine owned a radio or a gramophone. We sometimes also played in my home, but I liked it better to go to hers. Gerta’s mother understood little girls’ desires for fancy clothes, ribbons, shawls, and high-heeled shoes. And I loved the snack she used to make for us: a small bowl of homemade cottage cheese sprinkled with salt.