In His Father's Footsteps Page 3
The crossing was smooth at that time of year, and the weather warm. They sat in old battered chairs in a small area on deck, looking at the ocean together. They saw dolphins on the second day, and on the third day, the captain made an announcement that they had passed the danger zone, and there would be no more risk of mines in the water from then on. The war was over for them. They were safe at last, on their way to their new home.
The crossing took eleven days, considerably longer than usual. It was a fully loaded ship. And on the last night, they sat together, looking up at the stars. Jakob kissed her and held her close. He put his suit jacket on her as she shivered in the chilly night air. They were due to arrive in New York by morning, and tugboats would guide them in. Among the fifty-eight passengers, only ten were immigrants, due to the stringent quotas. The others were Americans who had gotten trapped in Europe during the war and were desperate to return to the States. Jakob and Emmanuelle had been told that before the war they would have gone to Ellis Island, but it was being used as a detainment center for Germans, Italians, and Japanese. Instead they were being sent to an old army camp, near Oswego, New York, which was designated to process immigrants. They would be there to make sure their papers were in order, and for additional medical exams and vaccinations. The Rosens were planning to meet them in New York City after Oswego. They were as curious about the young couple as Jakob and Emmanuelle were about them. Whatever they were like, the Steins were infinitely grateful to them. Without sponsors in America, their life in Europe would have been a dead end, for a long, long time, with jobs scarce and the economy shattered. A new life in America was just what they needed.
Jakob could hardly sleep that night, as he waited to reach New York Harbor. He wanted to see the Statue of Liberty from the ship to prove that they were in fact there. He could never have dreamed seven weeks earlier that they would have a new world waiting for them in New York.
They knew they would have to undergo a superficial physical examination by officers of the U.S. Public Health Service on arrival, would be checked for trachoma, an eye disease, as well as other contagious diseases and mental disorders, and an hour or so later, they would board a small bus with the other displaced persons to go to the camp at Oswego. And after a day or two, they would be free to go.
Eventually they went to their cabin, deep in the bowels of the ship, and they got into their respective bunks. Emmanuelle slept fitfully, and heard them drop anchor at five in the morning. Jakob waited as long as he could stand it, and then put his shoes and coat on over his pajamas and went upstairs to stand on deck to see if he could spot the Statue of Liberty and the lights of New York. And when he got to a higher deck there she was, the statue that had been a gift from France, and had become the symbol of peace and freedom, and a welcome to the United States before they even set foot on land.
Emmanuelle woke up a little while later, and guessing where he was, she went up to look for him. He wasn’t hard to find. He was standing at the railing, contemplating his new city, and he smiled when he saw her approach.
“What are you doing up here?” she asked him gently.
“Nothing,” he answered at first, and then corrected himself. “Saying hello to our new friend.” He gestured toward the statue, as Emmanuelle took his hand and held it. They were in this together and it was the only option they had, and the best one, by far.
It was still dark when they went back downstairs to bed, to get another hour or two of sleep. They had a long day ahead. He slipped into the narrow bunk beside her and held her. The other couple were fast asleep. And Emmanuelle and Jakob drifted off, and woke up as they felt the ship move again as the tugboats slowly brought them in. They dressed quickly and went upstairs to watch, and there were tears in Jakob’s eyes as they glided slowly into New York Harbor and tied up at the dock. Their bags were already packed, and they waited as they had been told to do, and finally an officer came to get them for the medical inspection. He had another couple with him, who were older than the Steins. The other passengers had left the ship by then, and after the exam, Emmanuelle and Jakob followed them downstairs, across the passerelle, and off the ship to the dock, where the bus was waiting for them. They had their small suitcases in their hands. The military troops had been leaving the ship en masse since they docked. And the few civilian passengers had left in cars that picked them up. Jakob followed Emmanuelle onto the bus. And the other man did the same with his wife, and there were three other couples they hadn’t seen before. They thanked the officer who had helped them, and he handed them their papers, which had been stamped, making their entry into the United States official, and he wished them luck. He didn’t know where they had come from, but it was easy to see that they had been through a lot.
None of the couples spoke as they headed to Oswego, wondering what they would find there. When they arrived, it was an ordinary army camp, with barracks for immigrants and displaced persons, who were moving around freely and talking animatedly to each other. There were signs in several languages telling them where to go, and they walked into an office where their travel papers were examined again and handed back to them.
Emmanuelle’s eyes looked huge and she whispered to Jakob in French, “What if they refuse us?” He squeezed her hand and told her that wouldn’t happen now, and he was right. Emmanuelle had expected something to go wrong all along the way, but nothing had. The entire trip had gone smoothly. They walked into a large reception area, with their papers in hand. People were milling around, and every imaginable language was being spoken. They could hear Russian, French, German, there were many Italians, and several clusters of men with Irish accents. There were a handful of Poles and some Czechs, and they were handed information packets containing everything they needed to know. They were examined again that afternoon, tested for TB, syphilis, and leprosy, and given the smallpox vaccinations that were required in the United States.
During the exam, Emmanuelle had seen the doctor notice the number on her arm. He seemed puzzled, and asked her about it in halting French. She said it had been her identification number at Buchenwald concentration camp. He hadn’t seen any yet. And afterward, Jakob said that the doctor who examined him had said the same.
“Maybe we’re the first camp survivors to arrive,” he said. He wasn’t self-conscious about it, but Emmanuelle was. She hated the constant reminder of the camp, and had been wearing long sleeves ever since they’d been given clothes when they left. She wore a shirt whenever she went to shower, so the other women couldn’t see her arms. “You should be proud of it,” Jakob told her. “It means you survived the worst that the Nazis could dish out. It’s a sign of courage and strength and victory of good over evil.” To Emmanuelle, it was a physical reminder of two years of sorrow, pain, and loss. And she had physical scars that were evidence of it too. Jakob had those as well, the marks of many beatings, where he had been clubbed and whipped and bludgeoned, a broken shoulder that hadn’t healed properly and was noticeably higher than the other, and a broken arm that the camp medical staff had refused to set and said that Jews had no right to medical care and had called him vermin. His wounds meant nothing to them. He still felt the effects of them.
By the next day, they had completed all their entry procedures with the Bureau of Immigration, and all they had to do was wait for the member of the relief organization to arrive, to drive them to New York the following morning.
There were hundreds of people in the large reception area, some of whom had been there for longer, either due to their health or something missing from their papers. There were women and children, and there was an area for them to play outside, and they could see many children through the window. It was a relief to see healthy, happy children again, a sight they hadn’t seen in so long. They were told where the dormitories were and assigned two bunks side by side since they were married, and there was a large dining hall where meals were served.
They went
to find their beds after a while, and saw the long row of cots and double bunks. Their beds were in a distant corner, and there was a window nearby where they could look out at the campgrounds and the countryside beyond.
There were people their own age bunked around them, but Jakob and Emmanuelle kept to themselves. And a little while later, Emmanuelle went to take a nap while Jakob looked around. All immigrants to the United States had to come through here now, since Ellis Island was occupied. And by the time they went to bed that night after a plentiful dinner in the dining hall, they were both exhausted from the emotions of their arrival and concerns about what lay ahead.
The next day, a member of the relief organization arrived as promised, and brought a letter of welcome from the Rosens. Emmanuelle and Jakob were ready to leave as soon as the relief worker showed up. She was to drive them to the studio apartment the Rosens had rented for them on Hester Street on the Lower East Side.
Once there, they could see that it was a Jewish neighborhood, since the signs in all the storefronts were in Hebrew. There were kosher butchers and bakeries and grocery stores all around them, which meant nothing to Jakob. His family wasn’t practicing and didn’t get kosher food. His parents had had a French chef for many years before the war and had looked down at Orthodox Jews. Emmanuelle said they weren’t Orthodox either, and her mother didn’t care what they ate, although she lit the candles and sang the prayers on Shabbat, because she liked the tradition, and Emmanuelle and her sister, Françoise, helped her with the candles and chanted the prayers with her.
The address the woman stopped at was a narrow battered-looking building, with a long flight of steps to enter it, and more once they were inside. Their apartment was on the sixth floor and there was no elevator. The building was noisy, and there were the sounds of children playing and babies crying. It was a sound Emmanuelle and Jakob hadn’t heard for years. The sounds of normal family life. Emmanuelle looked shocked. She had forgotten what that was like. The children at the camp were mostly silent, afraid to attract notice to themselves. Most of the children at Buchenwald were killed when they arrived, since they weren’t big enough or strong enough to work. They only kept them alive if they were over twelve or thirteen, and a good size, big enough to be useful workers on the labor details. Both of them were quiet as they listened to the voices in the building, and at last, they reached the apartment.
It was a single tiny furnished room. Everything in it was basic and old. There was a bed that folded into the wall, as the woman showed them. There was a set of sheets, a few frayed towels, two thin pillows, two cooking pots in the kitchen, a dented kettle, and the furniture looked ancient and well-used. But it had everything they needed. They set their bags down and looked around. The apartment faced into a courtyard and was dark, with no direct sunlight. Jakob realized that the rent must have been dirt cheap, but it was a roof over their heads, and at least it wouldn’t be expensive once they had to pay for it themselves, after a year. They would have saved enough money from their jobs by then, which was the arrangement they had made with the Rosens. They expected Jakob and Emmanuelle to become self-supporting by the end of a year. Their gift to them had been their passage, entry papers, a studio apartment for a year, and a job for each of them. They had to pay all other expenses themselves, food, medical, clothes, transportation. In his letter to them, Harry Rosen had said it was the best he could do. Jakob was grateful to the Rosens. They had saved them from living on charity in their own countries, and perhaps not being able to find jobs at all, or a place to live at a price they could afford.
After they had looked around and seen the minuscule bathroom, which was infinitely better than sharing a latrine with more than a thousand people, they went back downstairs with the relief worker to her car. She drove them to the garment district where Harry Rosen’s factory was located. It was on West Thirty-Seventh Street, in an old brick building. They took a freight elevator upstairs, while the relief worker explained that the other couple the Rosens were sponsoring had arrived the day before, and had an apartment in a building less nice than theirs. She said that it was kind of the Rosens to sponsor two couples, and Mr. Rosen had given them jobs as well.
They waited for him in a reception area for twenty minutes, and finally he appeared. He was a round, short, bald man with smiling eyes. He was wearing a shirt and tie and a shiny gray suit, and stuck out a hand to each of them. Jakob was able to speak to him in fluent English to thank him, and Emmanuelle was tongue-tied the moment she saw him. She was terrified that he would change his mind and send them back. Harry looked startled by how well Jakob spoke the language, with a faint British accent, instilled in him by the elite schools where he’d been educated. And Jakob assured him that Emmanuelle would learn quickly and make every effort to do so. He was giving her English lessons himself.
Harry told them that they would be starting their jobs the next day at eight A.M. He was taking Emmanuelle to his sewing staff, so she could show them what she could do with embroidery, beading, her delicate hand sewing, and how well she could work with a sewing machine. She would be one of several sewers. And Jakob asked his new boss then to what job he had been assigned, and added that his strength was anything to do with math and finance, after periods of time when he had trained at his father’s bank.
“We have an accountant for all that,” Harry said, looking busy. “I didn’t know that you spoke English so well,” Harry said, looking faintly apologetic.
“I put it on my CV,” Jakob said matter-of-factly. Even if he was taking charity, he was still a man, and worthy of respect.
“I guess I didn’t read it carefully. Anyway, you’re on our maintenance team. It’s the best I could do. But it’s a job and you’ll get paid.” He brushed him off.
“We’re very grateful to you,” Jakob reiterated for both of them, and Emmanuelle nodded. She had understood. Her English had improved a little while on the ship, with Jakob’s help and diligent lessons, although she was too shy to speak. Jakob spoke English to her now whenever he could, so she would get accustomed to hearing it.
They left a little while later, walked around their neighborhood after the relief worker dropped them off, bought a few groceries with a small amount of cash they’d been given by the relief organization. And then they went back to their apartment, which smelled musty the moment they walked in. But however small, it was home. Emmanuelle couldn’t help wondering how long they’d have to be there. Even the apartment she had shared with her mother and sister had been better, and bigger, but all of that was behind them now. They just had to make the best of this, and if they worked hard, maybe one day they would be able to afford a nicer apartment. At least they were safe now. Emmanuelle never felt secure anywhere anymore. The worst had happened to them both before, and she was terrified it could again, even in New York.
Emmanuelle cooked dinner that night, and discovered that three of the burners on the stove didn’t work, and one of the saucepans had a tiny leak. The equipment was the most rudimentary but she didn’t let herself focus on that, as she put the meager leftovers from dinner in the tiny icebox. Jakob watched her do it, trying not to remember how different his life had been. It was a thought which haunted him from time to time, his parents’ beautiful home, the elegant, generous grandparents they’d visited, the chateau that the Nazis had occupied, the people who had tended to them in all their houses, many servants, important art, his parents’ lavish lifestyle, and now he was reduced to this. But they were alive, and no one else he knew or was related to was. He was the last survivor of a lost world. He would have liked to share it with Emmanuelle, who’d had a much simpler life in Paris.
Their first night in the apartment was the first one they’d spent alone since their marriage six weeks before. Emmanuelle looked shy when he helped her make the bed with the frayed sheets with mended tears in them, and moments later, they slipped into it, after taking baths, and discovered each other’s bo
dies as man and wife. He was gentle and loving with her, and they were tender with each other’s scars. Afterward, she lay peacefully in his arms and felt safe for the first time in years. Her nightmares were not as bad that night. Jakob had become her haven and the hub of her entire world.
After their loving night together, they rose early. He made coffee and she made toast. They arrived at work on time, and Jakob was shocked when the man he was assigned to help handed him a set of overalls. He discovered within minutes that he was the assistant to the janitor, which used none of his talents, experience, or education. He was given a mop and a pail, the lowliest jobs were assigned to him, including cleaning toilets and all the really dirty work. He spent the whole day mopping and scrubbing, and emptying garbage cans. He said nothing about it in complaint to Emmanuelle, when he saw her briefly at lunchtime. He asked her how her job was, and said nothing about his own. She told him honestly that the clothes were cheaply made, and she was sewing pearls, beads, and appliqués of roses onto ugly blouses, but the work was easy for her. She saw the crushed look in his eyes and guessed at the humiliation he was enduring but he’d been through worse, and there was no other choice for either of them.
They met the other couple the Rosens were sponsoring. Both of them were German. They had been in Auschwitz, had lost families too, had been married before they were deported, and had no children. But unlike Emmanuelle and Jakob, they were bitter and angry about their misfortunes, their time in the camps, and their jobs with the Rosens. They commented that their sponsor was using them as slaves. Their names were Hilda and Fritz. They had assigned her to wash dishes in the cafeteria, and he was on the crew that kept the factory machines running. His overalls and hands were streaked with grease and oil, and there was a smudge of it on his cheek. He had been an engineer before the war.