THE GROUND UNDER MY FEET

  This is what my father was doing in Baden in the fall of 1938: Made long lists of his assets in conformity with the new Nazi edict requiring Jews to report all valuables (stocks, bonds, jewelry, life insurance, real estate, etc.) to the Nazi authorities. Sorted through his tax papers. Wrote a profound apology to the authorities for having made a small error in his tax calculation for the previous year. Polished the medals he had won as an officer during World War I. Went to the doctor to seek relief for an ulcer that was burning up his insides. This is what my mother was doing during the same time: Went to the large public library in Vienna to check the New York telephone book for names identical or close to our last name. The pages of the telephone book were much worn and there were others standing on line, waiting to do the same. Once home, my mother wrote letters to those people who had our name, suggesting that we might be related and begging for affidavits. The language she used had to be oblique. The dangers our family was facing as Jews could only be hinted at. Wrote similar letters to people in other countries. Smuggled a few (unreported) pieces of jewelry for safekeeping to trusted Gentile friends. Wrote poems grieving for her beloved Austria, which had sold its soul to the devil. Hid those poems. Took a course in Swedish massage. Sorted out the children's clothes in the event of a sudden departure. This is what my brothers were doing: Steve, age fifteen, commuted to Vienna to learn the trade of a mechanic. He continued to live at home in Baden but didn't see anyone his own age. The boys he had gone to school with had joined the Hitler Youth, and even if they hadn't, it was too dangerous now to visit a Jew. Peter, age eleven, was boarded out to a Jewish family in Vienna where he liked the liver-dumpling soup and went to a little makeshift school in the house of a former professor. This is what I did in the fall of 1938: I entered the Bondiheim, a boarding school for Jewish girls in Vienna, in the third district. The Bondiheim had thirty beds. It was for girls ten to eighteen years old. I was thirteen. The Bondiheim was a three-story yellow building surrounded by a dark, scrubby garden. Yellow was a pervasive color in Vienna. They called it Kaiser yellow but it came in three shades: lemon yellow, egg-yolk yellow, piss yellow. The Bondiheim was a faded lemon yellow, comforting to the eyes, that spoke of age and fatigue, and just wanting not to be noticed. The halls are highly polished. A little girl comes to the door, greets us, and takes my hand. We always slide, she says. She takes my hand and we slide down the long corridor with the cubbyholes on each side. Another door opens, a gray-haired woman wearing an apron, who I later learn is Hanna, the housekeeper, comes out and says, Stop that, Gerti, but she doesn't sound as if she really cares. Give Eva locker number 23. I tell Gerti my nickname is Fev. Our Czech washerwoman had called me that when I was little, making the sounds of a goat as she bleated the name, Everl, Häferl, Feverl. It was a name that my new best friend, Renée, had revived, when she spent the summer months in our house in Baden and woke me up in the morning, stroking my arms and comparing her muscles with mine. Renée was to come to the Bondiheim too, as soon as her mother had decided what step to take next in their emigration Fev, Gerti corrects the housekeeper. I have never heard a child speak back to authority before. Another woman, this time younger, with reddish hair, enters the vestibule and introduces herself to my mother. Then she looks deeply into my eyes and smiles. Her name is Frau Doktor. She and someone called Mutuli are in charge. I have been assigned to one of the four large bedrooms. The other girls from that room, who have heard that the new girl has arrived, come rushing in to look me over. I feel shy. Will they be mean to me, as some of the children were in my old school because I was a Jew? But they are Jewish too. No, they crowd around me and ask me questions. Where do you live? Do you still have your house? Has your father been arrested? They investigate the contents of my suitcase. No menstrual pads? Miriam hasn't started yet either, though she's also thirteen. I do so bleed, Miriam says. I just don't show you. In Baden we lived in the country. Country children start later, I say with great authority. They are disappointed that I haven't brought anything to share. Helga had smuggled in a small salami wrapped in her underwear. Toni had brought a book with dirty pictures. I rack my brains about what I can bring the next time I go home. Walnuts? I ask, From our walnut tree? Yeah, they say. They are not particular. It's the gesture that counts. I am eating bean soup and bread at the long refectory tables in the basement dining room. It is raining outside. Dark green plants shake their leaves against the windows. For dessert there is rice pudding. A pitcher with cocoa is handed around. I let it pass. I don't like the skin on top. Take some cocoa, Frau Doktor says. It's good for you. I don't like cocoa. I have already learned that you can say no to a teacher here. Frau Doktor waves her hand into the air. It doesn't seem a matter of great importance to her. Mutuli founded this school. She is the director; Frau Doktor is second in command. Mutuli is a large woman with thick brown hair pulled back behind her head in a bun. She has large breasts and a warm smile. Frau Doktor is slight, with a pince-nez that she wears on a velvet ribbon and green eyes that you could drown in. The girls say shes in love with an artist who has lost his job teaching at the academy. Some say they have seen her eyes red from crying; all of them say that she smokes secretly in her room. Those who have gotten close enough to hug or kiss her swear that they have smelled cigarette smoke on her breath and loved it. You have to choose whom you are going to adore: Frau Doktor or Mutuli. Frau Doktor is a cat and Mutuli is a dog, the girls say. Cats are fickle and dogs are faithful. I have already felt the fascination of the cat when she looked deeply into my eyes but choose the dog. I am comforted by Mutuli's large breasts and her warm brown eyes, which remind me of our shepherd, Barri. Renée has arrived, though her mother says they will leave for England soon. Renée will share our bedroom of four for the middle children. With her sweetness and fun-loving nature, she is immediately accepted by the other girls. They respect our special friendship, though some of the girls want to become special friends with one or the other of us too. We live in the Bondiheim and go to a Jewish school nearby. The school is chaotic, with teachers changing all the time and girls who were there just a day or two ago suddenly gone. None of us from the Bondiheim likes the school. A few of us bolder ones have cut classes a few times and spent the time walking around Vienna or going to the Prater. But it is just a way of passing the time. We can't wait for it to be three oclock so that we can go home to our beloved Bondiheim. The school authorities haven't seemed to notice when we don't show up for the day or leave early. But once Frau Doktor got a call that Olga and Fanny and Renée and I hadn't been to class that day. She calls us into the living room of the apartment she shares with Mutuli. Why are you doing this? she says in a sad voice. Don't we have enough trouble without having to worry about you? We feel ashamed. Mutuli comes into the room. You are not to do this ever again, she says in a firm voice. I welcome this firmness. There has been too much looking the other way when we break rules.

Eva Kollisch