Starling

I stared through the chain link fence unsure of what I was looking for; Their faces were as grey as the clouds above that gathered like lint, both grew heavier, the former heavily drooping to their thin chests, the latter drooping heavily with rain. Rain as chilled as the dank puddles of medieval dungeons would not cleanse this place of its evil.

Would I even recognize the face of someone I knew once? A loved one even? These were skeletal with dark haunted eye pits and mouths downturned under cheekbones that looked more like elbows. They were living, breathing, shambling beings straight out of a painting by Goya. This group of about thirty men was headed to the pit to shovel the last batch of corpses into it.

The two soldiers leading the men were but mere boys. Generalmajor Schmitz stood by the open topped truck with hands behind his back, his heels lifting off the ground as he rocked back and forth, his lips curled at the edges as if relishing a secret. He barked something to the young recruits, and they hesitantly smiled and nodded. Even if I understood German, I was too far away to hear.

I sighed and looked to the sky for raindrops. I had always liked rain. Again, this dismal day, I had not seen a familiar face. What could I do if I had? Why did I torture myself this way? Why did I haunt this place and not move on? I’d seen plenty of others like myself, they soared from here as swiftly as they could, to be ‘in a better place.’. They were the only ones who could see me, and they regarded me with pity, some with confusion, most with sorrowful smiles as if I was daft…

I stared through the fence day after day, unsure of what I was looking for. I was no poltergeist. I could not throw knives into human hearts, let alone swipe a teaspoon to the floor. I admit I have tried. Over and over and over…to no avail. What was it those aggressive spirits had that I did not?

It was 1943, March, night had fallen and here I stood. Ghosts don’t sleep after all. As usual, when it grew too dark to see anything but the soldiers on guard under the lamps, I thought of my family.

We’d been Austrians living in Poland. In Austria, I’d met Ralph (pronounced Rafe) in medical school. I’d become a nurse and EMT after my four years, and he’d stayed and studied further until he’d become a surgeon. We were like brothers.

***

June, 1936

“Hey Franz! You workin’ too hard! Come out with me tonight. Nurse Nancy will be there with some of her friends.”

“I don’t know…” I said. I was beyond shy. I was downright terrified of women it seemed.

“C’mon. That new American band is playing, Artie Shaw. He’s really swingin’ man! C’mon, I’m really into this bird.”

Ralph didn’t do his normal ‘va-va-voom’ hands thing, shaping an hourglass. Instead, his eyes got really dopey looking. But, he had me at Shaw. I was aces with American bands.

I said, “Okay knucklehead. No prob.”

“I’ll pick you up at eight. Wear your best.”

Ralph looked aces. His pale grey suit was pressed and neat and he smelled of vanilla and leather cologne. I didn’t own a suit, but thought I cleaned up just fine in a pale blue long sleeved shirt (my nicest) and dark grey trousers. I didn’t care about meeting women but was excited to immerse myself in the music.

I sat at a table while Ralph danced with Nancy. She was indeed as lovely as he’d gone on about. Dark soft hair and big brown eyes and she did indeed possess a ‘va-va-voom’ body. Her and my best friend danced to the beguilingly frisky music of Artie Shaw. I sipped my old-fashioned, happy as a clam in a seabed of swaying fronds.

“Hiya sailor, come here often?” it was a friend of Nancy’s, one who’d been giving me eyes all night. Her black hair was cut short in a stylish bob that showed off a neck any giraffe would have envied. Her clingy dress was red, as she leaned towards me my cheeks caught fire as I tried very hard not to look down her decollete.

I stammered, “Well…uh…no…not---”

“Buy a lady a drink big boy?” she said as she placed a well-manicured hand on my bicep. She batted her dark eyes at me and I giggled. I fricking actually giggled! ‘Aaahhh! What a goomba.’

Her name was Matty, short for Matilda, and she looked me with a single sculpted eyebrow raised, then giggled along with me. “Oh my. You are too precious for words handsome. I’ll have whatever that is you’re drinking.” She sashayed to the bar with me, placing her arm through mine; her touch was electric. In the brighter light surrounding the bar, I noticed her eyes were not brown after all, but instead a deep hazel---chestnut amber with flecks of gold and green.

“…don’t you think?”

She’d been talking while I’d been lost in her eyes. I was afraid she’d think a deep red blush was my natural skin shade. “Oh yes, for sure,” I replied hoping it was the right response.

She laughed. She saw right through me. “I said that Ralph danced like a monkey.”

“Oh! Oh good---”

“I’m kidding! It’s not important what I said…it was just nervous babble.”

She was nervous too! Her hand trembled a little when she sipped from her straw. I was immensely relieved.

We danced like there was no tomorrow. It was the best time in my life. Except for my wedding night of course, a year later.

Ralph and Nancy were married a month after our night out with Artie Shaw. I do give Ralph credit for getting me out of my shell, but it was Matty who persevered with my introvertness. She made fun when it was funnable, and co-misrated when it was dire that I leave the house but thought the sky would fall if I did. That’s agoraphobia for you.

Six months after Ralf and Nancy’s wedding, the four of us celebrated New’s Year’s in a swingin’ nightclub. The Joe Loss band played as well as Sidney Lipton and an opening act I didn’t know but were a blast. Matty and I had found early on we had a love of dancing in common. For the life of me, I really felt this was our only true connection. But…that was just me being a man. She was a fireball: petite and energetic, with such a lust for life,,,I would swear she sucked me into the vortex of her comet’s trail through the skies of her life. In six months, she’d pulled me from my protective safe shell like a sea bird gently tugging a muscle from its shell---difficult but persistent and patient.

We danced like no one was watching. In reality, they all were. We were swing dancing and knocking it out on every floor that supported the tapping, pounding, sliding of our feet. We fit together in tango poses no one had seen before. I didn’t care if people stared anymore, Matty’s big toothy grin as we spun was all I saw.

Close to the countdown we rested at our table with Ralph and Nancy who were snuggled up close. My brother was happy, he was living his best life, and I loved Nancy for completing his circle---the ying to his yang.

As the scantily and feathered girls came by to deposit champagne glasses to our table, Ralph and Nancy shared a look. When she refused a glass in favor of her club soda (I had just realized she’d only been drinking soda) I knew what was coming. I pulled Matty closer and we both looked to our friends with brows raised.

“Yes! Franz…Matty. We are having a baby!” exclaimed my soul brother.

“Whoo-hoo!” cried my exuberant Matty. She stood up and all the spangled fringe on her silver dress threw fairy sparkles all over our faces.

I stood as well and leaned over to hug Ralf. “Well done my friend. The world is your oyster. I’m so happy for you.”

He looked so solemn when I took in his face, not smiling…

“What?” I said, “what is it?”

“I want you to be my kid’s godfather. Will you?”

“I would be honored. Yes. Yes!”

We hugged as the countdown to 1937 commenced.

In 1937 Matty and I married.

Try as we could, we could not conceive a child of our own. But life with Ralf and Nancy kept us busy. Nancy had a very large family. They were so close-knit, I actually felt jealous of them, my own being so abrupt, so small.

They were Jewish and gatherings with them were boisterous and fun. Even the most religious of practices was intriguing to me. Her elder relatives---grandmothers, uncles, cousins twice removed---spoke a language new to me. It was one that made me laugh when I asked the meaning of the words. It was called ‘Yiddish’ and it made her relatives laugh when I tried to speak it.

There were solemn affairs as well. Passover and Yom Kippur Matty and I observed and were present at tables laden with odd traditional but delicious foods while Nancy read from a Hebrew book called The Torah. And of course there was a lot of dancing and singing and clapping.

Ralph and Nancy had a baby boy. My Godson, Noah, named after Nancy’s grandfather. What a precious boy he was. He came out laughing instead of crying I swear. I was so proud to be his Godfather.

After the boy’s Bris was another party, though it would be a couple hours before I was able to eat anything. In fact, Noah was far less traumatized (as in, not at all) by the ceremony than I was.

Ralph helped me study every book and every paper we could find on conceiving a child; Matty and I were willing to try anything, but it turned out that the USSR was just now beginning to implement artificial insemination in farm animals and vitro-fertilization in rabbits.

To keep Matty’s mind occupied with good thoughts, she volunteered at the hospital. She needn’t a doctorate or license to give comfort to frightened young children or the people in hospice care. One day she brought home a puppy. He was German Sheppard, pure black, with a patch of gold on his chest. A child had brought him with him after his parents had been killed in an automobile accident. Alas, the child succumbed to his grievous wounds and passed on forty-eight hours later.

We named the pup Starling, for the nearly star-shaped patch on his chest---a single star in a field of dark. And indeed, he was a star in my life. I’d never had a dog before. I’d always thought they were cute but needy. The way this pup looked at me with his coffee-colored eyes, I knew he was seeing my soul, and I was honored to have his approval of it. I took Star everywhere with me. Though provided a collar, he needed no leash; he loyally trotted along beside me and was eager to heed every command, looking up at me with those eyes, ham-pink tongue lolling from a crocodile grin. This dog unexpectantly filled a hole in my heart I hadn’t known I’d had. Star was just as faithful to Matty but he was a daddy’s dog. When I was late at the hospital or on an emergency, he was Matty’s bodyguard. He was my best friend, next to Matty and Ralph of course, but a dog loves you a different way than humans do.

One night when I was in the ambulance headed to a three car pile-up, Matty was headed home with Star at her side. It was normally a pleasant walk but I was relieved to know she had the dog…and on this night in particular.

A man in black dress came out of the shadows of the drugstore as she passed. Star growled deep in his chest and turned, instinctively knowing he was there and a real scoundrel. He stepped towards Matty…

…”Oh Franz! He was truly a rakehell! He had a knife! It…it…it was long and thin…and he lunged and it came near to my cheek! Star leapt and chomped down on the cad’s arm! He screamed and was down on the ground. He’d dropped the knife but I left it there…on the sidewalk. Should I have picked it up? To show the police? Oh anyways…I pulled Star off, telling him over and over what a good doggie he was. The guy ran off. Oh, Franz! Thank goodness for our lucky Star!”

Star got steak for supper that night. And as usual, after making love to my wife, he slept spooned in my arms just as he had when he’d been a wee pup. I said an extra thanks to him in my prayers that night.

When Noah was two, Nancy gave birth to his little sister, my goddaughter, Anna.

Matty and I had begun talking about adopting a child. At the hospital Ralph and I worked at was a children’s ward for orphans. It was September, 1939, however, and Germany had just invaded Poland. I was kept very busy with my ambulance. Matty was spending time at the hospital now assisting nurses as well as comforting those who needed it. When I saw Ralph in between shifts he looked exhausted, I helped him when I could. Nancy had a toddler and a baby to attend to by herself, she’d sent the housemaid away to help the injured at the hospital. She was bravely doing her best to help in her way. We all were. Starling often stayed with her when things got really intense at the hospital. Starling gave us all peace of mind when he was with us. My love and admiration for this loyal humble creature increased tenfold in times of turmoil and tumult. War being the most extreme of all.

Life went on a tired day at a time.

Then the Germans, led by a madman, started gathering up people, herding them like livestock. It was 1941. Jewish people were being taken from their homes and places of work as if they were criminals. We were confused. At first, they said it was for safety from the war. But rumors went around. And I listened to the madman. This was worse than bad. This was a nightmare. My friends and neighbors were fleeing on trains, never to see their destination. Those left behind were hoarded onto buses…

…”Ralph! Nancy! You must come to our home, we will keep you safe.”

How foolish were my words.

“We have a cellar. It’s under our floors. We will take away the outside entrance. Board it up so it no longer designates a cellar opening. At night, we will live normally. Please.”

They had little choice but to hide in our cellar. Anna’s cries at being in a strange place were heart piercing. Little Noah tried his best to calm her and in fact was the best at doing so. He was a wonder, my godson…solemn look on his cherubic face towards us, to his sister, he gave a big smile…and she cooed and slept. Starling was the one who calmed Noah. Coming home from the hospital, my wife and I inevitably found the dog curled around the boy’s body protectively. That Starling knew instinctively where he was needed, I have no doubt.

In 1943 our world came to an end. Gestapo, led by the Generalmajor Schmitz, entered our home like a storm of grey-green uniforms. Matty and I Matty and I jumped tp our feet as the soldiers went immediately to the rug under our feet. They dragged the table off and found the trap door. We hadn’t been the only ones harboring our friends and family.

***

They were all long gone by now of course. Their souls gone up to…wherever it was I was supposed to go. And yet…I felt drawn to this spot at the fence, day after day, as souls passed by pitying me.

This was Chelmo. It was where everyone I loved was taken to. Including my loyal dog. Now that I could pass through walls and such, I knew Hans Bothmann was the ultimate leader of this death camp. I’d seen him a few times, and of course, I tried my best to be a poltergeist. To be able to throw rocks at his head…or command a young soldier’s bayonet to fling at his neck. But, alas, no.

Why was I here?

Standing at the chain-link fence, unwilling to drift over grounds that my loved ones, my neighbors, my friends, my family…my dog…had stepped upon, was keeping me from entering the yard.

And then Generalmajor Schmitz enters the yard. Again, I try my hardest to fling rocks at him. To no avail. “Aaah!’

He rocks on his feet, a smile curling his lips. Hans Bothmann emerges from the long black car he’s come in. He has a dog on a leash with him. He strides up to his general in charge of this…this…fucking Death Camp, the dog by his side.

The dog turns its head to me. We lock eyes. The dog can see me.

The dog is a gift for GM Schmitz. For his loyal service at this first death camp.

Bothmann hands the leash to Schmitz who is beaming with joy at the recognition.

I then flow through the chain-link fence and stand before the dog and mass murderer. Star looks me in the eyes. He turns and rips the throat from the GM’s body. Bothmann shoots my dog.