O Chavi (The Child)

“Faster! Keep moving!” Mirela kept walking, despite the little space she had on each side of her. There were so many people, all of them walking just like her. But where they were being led, she did not know. Soldiers in the back and the front, screaming some command to them in German. They pass a sign that reads Bergen-Belsen.

            Mirela found her mother’s hand in the crowd and grasped it tightly. Her father and brother were nowhere in sight. When Mirela and her family first arrived at the “factory,” she called it, the men and women were separated. Since then, she has not seen either of them.

            Mirela looks over to her mother, who is looking straight ahead. Her eyes widen in fear and Mirela turns her head to see what her mother is looking at.

            In the distance, she catches sight of a pillar of smoke, climbing higher and higher into the sky. The smoke’s arms reach out and take hold of the clouds, and cling to them, as if they are afraid of ascending any further. As the crowd of people move closer to the building, the German soldiers begin to shove them and push them forward.

            Mirela coughs as the smoke fills her lungs and stings her eyes. As they approach the building with smoke, she catches sight of a group of children, covered in soot from head to toe. All of them are barefoot, their feet dirty and bloodied from walking. Mirela and her mother search the crowd of children, both looking for the same thing.

            But unfortunately, Mirela sees no sign of her brother, Hanzi. She looks to her mother’s worried eyes and shakes her head no, he is not there.

“Oh, my poor Hanzi.” Her mother’s eyes fill with tears and she looks away as they continue walking past the smoking building. She thinks back to when the soldiers separated her son Hanzi and her husband Besnik from them. Although it has only happened several hours ago, to Gianna it feels like several days.

            “What kind of place is this?” Mirela says out loud to herself as she scans the children entering the building with grim looks on their face.  

            “A place you never want to see the inside of,” says a voice from the crowd. “The children work inside.”

Mirela turn to the direction of the voice and finds a very tall and thin Gypsy woman walking beside her. She has a red rash on her neck that extends to her face. Mirela tries to listen and focus on what she is saying, tries to look past the rash on her face. But it creates an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Will all of us eventually look like this? What exactly is it? And how could someone have so much hate for an entire race, even if they do not know anything about that race?

            Mirela thought about these questions as she, her mother, and many other women are led to an unknown destination. She thinks back through her childhood, searching for a time when there wasn’t any prejudice towards her people. But she finds none.

What is it about Gypsies, Mirela thinks to herself, that people have come to hate so much? When she was about years old, she and her family traveled to Bonn, Germany to live. They had previously lived on the borders of Germany and Poland. But like all gypsies, their stay wasn’t permanent. They never stayed in one place for too long, because they didn’t like the idea of being tied down.

            So Gianna, her husband Besnik, and their two children Mirela and Hanzi set off for Bonn Germany. Their first days in Bonn gave no notion as to what would eventually happen, not just to their family, but to gypsies all over Germany.

            Little by little, stipulations were made and rules were established. First, gypsies were not permitted to travel in bands, or groups. Then they were not allowed on the streets after a certain time. Pretty soon, German soldiers appeared on the streets. They would curse and yell at Mirela and her brother when they walked to the market in the evening.

            “Why do they hate us so?” Hanzi would ask his sister. But unfortunately, Mirela had no answer for her questioning younger brother. Even their parents did not know what to say when their children asked them questions such as these. What could one say, to such an innocent child, who has no knowledge of the world, or what evil and prejudice it may hold?

            As for Mirela, these were things she wondered an awful lot about. Perhaps it is our copper skin. Or our dark hair. Maybe it is our language, our culture. When she looked around at the people on the street, she took note of their fair hair, fair eyes, and fair skin. She sometimes even wished to rid herself of her black hair and copper skin, as if bleaching herself and looking like the rest of the people would make things better for her and her family. But even if that were possible, Mirela knew that they would find somebody else that was different; somebody else who wasn’t the same.

            Suddenly, the crowd of gypsy women reaches the entrance to a building. Standing by the door is a German female soldier, dressed fully in uniform. Her eyes are blue, but in a cold way that makes Mirela shiver. She takes the women into the barracks, yelling at them and screaming if the pace is not quick enough.

            They line up and, one by one, the woman puts a mark on each of their arms. Each arm wears a different number, like a bar code. Then she commands each of them to strip naked and enter a small shower room. Afterward, they are given a folded pile of clothes to put on. Each wears the same gray shirt and pants, and they are not even given a pair of shoes. Then they head to the barracks where around 20 gypsies are forced to sleep.

            The next morning, Mirela wakes up to dead silence. She is alone. Her mind immediately thinks of her mother, wondering where she and the other women have gone. And why is she alone? Was everyone so distraught that they left her behind, and where did they go? Suddenly, she hears a soft whimper come from under one of the cots towards the back of the room. Slowly, Mirela gets up and walks to the back of the room to find the source of the sound. Soon enough, she reaches the cot and gets down on her knees. Then, she lowers her head and looks underneath.

            Under the bed, in the right hand corner, is a young Jewish boy no older than seven years old. He is so thin that his bones project from his body at frightening ankles. And his skin is a ghostly white. But the most stunning and noticeable characteristic of the young boy is his piercing blue eyes. They seem to possess a light of their own, so bright that it is able to shine for eternity. Mirela stares into the terrified eyes that shine back at her. She extends her hand toward the child and smiles.

            “Come on out, don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.” The boy stares back at Mirela with those blue eyes and doesn’t move. She attempts a genuine smile and continues to extend her hand towards him. After a while, the boy grasps the extended hand and crawls out from under the bed.

            “I am Mirela. What is your name?” Mirela stares into those blue eyes and he stares back at her, terrified. The boy looks toward to the door in the front of the room, as if he is waiting for someone to storm in and find him hiding. Tears stream down his face and he turns back to Mirela.

            “My-my name is Uri.” Uri wipes the tears from his face and moves closer to Mirela.

            “Uri,” Mirela repeats the name aloud and smiles at the boy.  “That is a very nice name. I like it. Is there any meaning behind it?” she asks him.

            “It means light,” he replies. My parents always use to say that there is a light at the end of every tunnel. I was their light. So they named me Uri.”

Uri moves closer to Mirela still. Mirela responds by moving closer to Uri. She wraps her arms around him in attempt to comfort him. Then she asks the question that has been haunting her since she first saw him underneath the cot.

            “Uri, do you know where you parents are?” For a while, the boy says nothing. He just sits there in silence as Mirela’s warm embrace calms him down. Then he looks up to her and answers.

            “They took me away from my parents when we first got here. I didn’t want to go, but the bad people made me. I haven’t seen them since.” Mirela then asks the next question she has been wondering about.

            “Why were you hiding under the bed?”

            Uri considers his response before answering. “It all happened so fast. The bad people told all of us children to get up and follow them outside. They said we were going to the showers.”

            Uri buries his head in Mirela’s shirt and continues. “But I didn’t believe them. The place had a funny smell. I didn’t want to go inside, so a man started yelling at me. He grabbed me by the arm and yelled for me to follow the rest of the children inside. But that only made things worse. The other kids saw what was happening and they started to cause commotion, too. Distracted by the other children, I got away from the bad man and started running. I didn’t even look back.”

            Uri brings his hand to Mirela’s face and for the first time she notices the red marks around his wrist. She also notices a gash on the palm of his hand. “When I was running, I tripped and fell, and cut my hand on a rock.”

            Using her motherly instinct, Mirela takes a piece of clothing and wraps Uri’s hand, like she has seen her mother do many times before when she and her brother were younger.

            But now, she and her brother are older. Hanzi is 16 and Mirela will soon be 24. She has always dreamed of having her own family. But something was always stopping her. First was the social barrier. The man who Mirela loves is a German soldier named Stefan Schmidt.

            Mirela had met Stefan in the spring of 1935, when she was seventeen years old. That first meeting is a day Mirela never forgot, a day she has written on her heart. Mirela thought that he looked haughty standing there with his chin in the air, probably wearing his freshly pressed uniform for the very first time. But Mirela also thought that he looked dashing. Never before had she seen such light hair and skin on an individual before. It both baffled her and marveled her.

            Little did she know that Stefan’s experience was not very much unlike her own. Stefan watched Mirela move through the market so elegantly. Never before had he seen such dark hair, or so long, which extended a little past her lower back. Stefan was baffled and marveled just the same.

He had been choked by a constant cloud of phrases such as “Aryan,” “superior,” and “inferior” since before he could eat solid food. Every family in Germany wanted to have a child with blonde hair and blue eyes. Stefan was told that was what he wanted as well. And he had bought it. But then they became friends and Mirela changed that. He discovered for himself that having darker hair did not mean that you were less of a person. But the only problem was that there were not many people who shared Stefan’s opinion. Thus they kept their friendship a secret. And then their love.

The only other people who knew about Stefan and Mirela were Mirela’s brother Hanzi. Her parents knew that they had been friends for a long time, but were not aware of the fact that they wanted to be so much more.

But when Stefan was called to fight in the war, he and Mirela said their goodbyes. If only had they known that this would be the last time they see each other, it might have been different. They might have run away together and gotten married, considering that it was against the law in Germany for them to marry. But they never saw each other again. Mirela got news that he had been taken captive by the Soviets and killed, never to return to her.

And staring into Uri’s eyes, Mirela sees the child she always dreamed of having. She hugs him tightly and doesn’t let go.

“Don’t worry. I’m going to protect you.” Mirela gets up from the bed and takes Uri’s hand. Together they walk to the front of the bunker. Slowly, Mirela opens the door and looks outside. Surprisingly, there is no one is sight, not a single soldier on guard.

“Is it safe Mirela?” Mirela nods her head and they quietly tip toe out of the bunker and start down the dirt road.

“I am going to find you something to eat, Uri. But we have to be extremely careful, okay?”

Silently, they come to a small building. A radio echoes inside. From behind a crate, Mirela sees that there is still not a single soldier in sight.

“Stay here. I am going to go have a look inside; there might be some food for you in there.” Mirela gets up from behind the crate, ready to go inside.

“I want to come with you Mirela.” Uri tugs on her pants and looks up with his blue eyes pleadingly. “Don’t leave me here, please.”

“No, Uri. It is too dangerous. I will be right back. You mustn’t let anybody see you. Do you understand?” Reluctantly, Uri nods his head yes and Mirela kisses the top of his head reassuringly, like a mother would her child.

Once inside, Mirela walks through each room quickly. She has only one purpose and that is to take care of Uri. In the room with the radio, she finds an apple. She grabs it from the desk. On her way out the door, Mirela suddenly hears voices, gradually getting louder.

She runs out of the building to the crate where Uri is hiding. She is almost there when the woman with the red rash on her face grabs Mirela and turns her around to face her.

“I thought that was you. What are you doing out here? They could have killed you! Luckily I found you when I did. Your mother has been so scared when she didn’t see you this morning. Come with me quickly. There’s no time to waste.”

“Wait! I have to-” The woman grabs Mirela by the arm and pulls her away.

“We must go now! Come on.”

They return to the bunker a few minutes later, tears streaming down Mirela’s face. I promised him that I would look out for him and protect him, she thinks to herself.

Once inside, Mirela’s mother Gianna rushes up to her and hugs her so tightly, Mirela can barely breathe.

“Oh Mirela, I was so scared. I didn’t know if they had taken you away or what. But thank goodness you are okay. What on earth happened to you?” Gianna looks at her daughter’s face, wet with tears.

“I left… the boy… he…” Mirela searches inside herself for the words. “I left him there.”

“What are you talking about, honey? And why are you holding a rock?” Gianna looks down at Mirela’s hand to find that she is holding a rock.

Mirela looks from her hand to her mother, confused. “I have no idea. What happened to the apple?”

“What apple?” Gianna looks at her daughter curiously. She puts her hand to Mirela’s forehead. No fever. “Are you okay, Mirela?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” Mirela walks over to her cot and lies down. She extends her arm and examines her barcode.

“Is that all we are to them, a number?”

…

            “Get up!” Mirela struggles to her feet as the soldier continues to scream in her ear. “Keep working, you good for nothing.” Mirela takes note of thick accent, Austrian. She disregards her weak, wobbly legs and goes back to work.

            The soldiers at this camp are even worse than at Bergen-Belsen, Mirela thinks to herself. She is now at a camp called Chelmno in Poland. Her mother Gianna is here, too. And the woman with the rash on her face, which Mirela found out the hard way was typhus. She too, has typhus.

            Most of the day she spends working, and she sleeps in the hospital at night. The doctor there is nice, Mirela thinks, but she knows he is not much different from the soldiers. The only reason he is nice to the patients is so that they won’t cause a fuss when he goes to examine them or perform operations on them. But Mirela, she causes a fuss no matter how nice Dr. Hans is.

            About once a week, Dr. Hans runs a “diagnostic” on Mirela to check and see if the typhus is progressing. In order to perform this diagnostic, he tells her, he must first put her to sleep.

This is what makes Mirela cause such trouble. She does not like the idea of being unaware of her own self and putting trust in the doctor to have complete control over her.

            So today, when Mirela enters the hospital and lies down on the bed, Dr. Hans straps her arms and legs to the bed. This takes Mirela by surprise, and she puts up a struggle.

Fighting her, Dr. Hans takes a syringe from the counter beside him and quickly gives Mirela the medicine. She continues struggling until the medicine kicks in and her body goes limp.

Mirela stirs a little and begins to wake up. She finds that she is alone in the operating room. Dr. Hans is nowhere to be seen. She gets up from the bed without a struggle, because her arms and legs are no longer strapped down.

Quickly and quietly, she leaves the hospital without and walks down the dirt path without being seen. A minute later, she reaches a little shack. She turns to check that no one is watching, and then enters inside. Behind a large plank of wood she finds Uri.

“Hi, Uri.” Uri looks up and sees her. He smiles widely and wraps his arms around Mirela’s neck.

“I knew you’d come today, I just knew it.”

“Of course I did. I told you that I would come every day to see you. When have I not kept my word?” But Mirela knows the answer to this question without Uri answering. She thinks back to that day at Bergen-Belsen, when Uri was waiting behind the crate for her and she never came.

“Listen, Uri. I know I said it a million times, but I have to tell you again. I am sorry about that day when I left you. Remember? I just want you to know that I am sorry.”

Uri shakes his head. “I know you are sorry, Mirela. I love you.” Uri hugs her once more and then his hungry eyes move to her pocket.

“I am sorry, I couldn’t get anything for you. I came right from the hospital.” Mirela looks into Uri’s blue eyes and she wishes that they could just run away. Go somewhere safe.

But she doubts that there is such a place. A place where no harm would ever come to him, where Uri could grow up like a child is supposed to.

“I am going to take care of you, Uri. And someday, you and I will be far from here, in our own house.”

“Can we live by the ocean Mirela?”

“Yes. We can live right on the beach! And every morning we will wake up to the sun on the horizon, the waves crashing against the shore. We will run across the warm sand and swim out into the never-ending blue. Just you and me.”

Suddenly, Mirela hears the sound of footsteps in the distance. “I have to go Uri. But I will be back tomorrow. I promise. I love you.” Mirela hugs Uri once more and then she leaves the shed as quickly as she entered.

The next morning, when Mirela wakes up, Dr. Hans is standing above her. He is holding a chart and is examining it.

“How are you today?” Dr. Hans smiles at Mirela. “Do you feel… different?”

Mirela does not return the smile when she replies “no.” But after she thinks about it, she notices that her vision is a little blurry and she is developing a headache.

“Wait. I can’t see very well and my head hurts.”

He smiles like he was expecting this. “I did an experiment during your diagnostic yesterday.”

“What kind of experiment?”

“I changed your eye color,” he replies. He looks at her proudly, as if this is an accomplishment beyond belief. “I also tested to see whether seawater is potable. Unfortunately, that test failed.”

Mirela considers this and then asks him “why?”

“You have to understand something” he replies, “I am a scientist. I conduct experiments. And your kind are perfect to test on, among others.”

“My kind?” Mirela sits up and throws the sheet off of her. “And what does that make you, Dr. Hans?”

She stands up and gets off of the cot. Then she turns to the door and starts walking. But before she can leave the hospital, Dr. Hans grabs her and pulls her back to the room.

“You are not going anywhere, 747. I am not finished with you yet. He straps her to the bed and puts her to sleep.

…

            Mirela runs as fast as she can to the shack where Uri is. Her feet are already covered in blisters, cuts, and the like, so it makes no difference now whether she runs or walks. Once inside, she hurries to Uri and hugs him tightly. The young boy feels at home in her motherly embrace and he is glad she is there.

            “We have to leave here, Uri.”

            “But how, Mirela? They will surely kill us if we try to escape.”

            “I don’t know, but we have to try! You can’t stay here another minute. If we don’t try to do anything then we will surely die.”

            “But how?” Uri looks up at Mirela with those blue eyes. She wants desperately to tell him that everything will be fine. But why do bad things happen to such good people? Why does Uri have to be here, in this awful place?

            She examines his most recent injuries along with her own. She knows that they must find a way out. Soon. She reaches in her pocket and hands Uri a piece of bread. His eyes light up at the sight, he takes it from her extended hand, and begins to nibble on it.

            “Not too fast, Uri.” She takes out another piece of bread and sets it beside him. “And save this one for later.” She gets up and takes him hand, squeezes it a little. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you.” And with that, Mirela gets up and leaves the shack.

            On her way back to the barracks, a soldier grabs her by the arm and pulls her towards a group of five or so soldiers.

            “I found her out near the buda.” Since Mirela has been at Chelmno for several weeks, she has picked up on a little Polish. And unfortunately, Mirela knows what the soldier is talking about- the little shack where Uri is hiding.

            Please don’t go, please don’t go, Mirela thinks to herself. But she is only being hopeful, not realistic.

            One of the soldiers in the group takes Mirela and says something to the other in Polish. Mirela can only understand bits and pieces: “Go check… all gypsies… immediately to…”

            The soldier that had found her now goes back the way they came, towards the little shack.

            “Nooo!” Mirela tries to break free of the soldier’s grasp and run to Uri, but he is too strong. His encloses around Mirela’s throat. Dr. Hans suddenly appears beside her with his syringe. He is wearing his usual maniacal smile. He inserts the syringe in the usual spot on her arm and she no longer struggles to get free. Her frail body goes limp within the soldier’s strong grasp.

            When Mirela wakes up, she is lying on the ground where she went unconscious. The doctor is no longer there, nor the soldiers. Once again, she is alone. Quickly, she gets to her feet and runs toward the shack. With her body moving as fast as her weak legs will allow, she reaches the shack breathless. Once inside, she hurries to where Uri is hiding. She does not dare call out his name in fear that they will be found.

            Uri is there, curled into a ball fast asleep. The second  piece of bread is still resting beside him. Mirela picks Uri up and carries him out and onto the dirt path. More than once, she stumbles and nearly falls.

            Uri wakes up and sees Mirela carrying him along the path. He eyes her questioningly, but she hushes him to keep quiet and keeps walking.

After a few minute, Mirela goes behind a crate to sit down. Uri, sitting on Mirlea’s lap, brings his hand to her face and touches the red rash.

“Are we leaving Mirela?”  Mirela nods her head and Uri continues. “Are we going to live in that house by the beach?” Mirela does not nod her head this time. Instead, she lets out a sob and cries into her filthy shirt.

“I don’t know, Uri. But you and I are getting out of here, I know that for certain. I love you so much Uri. If ever one day I would have had my own child, I would have wanted them to be just like you. Just like you.”

Mirela wipes the tears from her face and picks Uri up once more. They continue walking until they reach a wrought-iron gate. Mirela puts Uri down, walks over, and opens it up. Once Uri steps out, she closes the gate.

For the first time in a very long time, Mirela sees grass. She bends down and touches the bright green blades, still damp from the morning dew. Uri walks over and does the same. They are both speechless.

From there they walk along a rocky path into an unfamiliar land. There are a few patches of grass on either side, Mirela notices, as they continue walking. Several minutes later, they come to a field of flowers. Daffodils, lilies, violets and much more.

Baffled at the sight, Mirela and Uri run hand in hand down to the field. A fragrance fills Mirela’s nose which she could not recollect ever smelling before. They walk through the flowers, their green stems tickling their scratched and bruised legs.

Suddenly Uri bends down and picks a small white flower from the patch and hands it to Mirela. It is a white rose. Mirela looks around her and does not see a single white rose around her. She picks it up delicately and brings it to her nose.

But she does not expect the results. It does not smell sweet at all. Instead, it has a burnt smell like that of a fire after it has died down, or Mirela thinks, even that of Pine oil.

And when she brings it away from her face, she notices that the edges of the petals are beginning to burn and wilt.

  She watches as the rose catches fire. First the petals burn to a crisp, and then it spreads to the stem until it reaches Mirela’s fingertips.

She drops the flower and her fingers burn from the fire. Uri takes her hand in his and kisses is softly.

“Are you okay Mirela?” Mirela looks to Uri and isn’t quite sure how to react form this, but she replies “Yes. I think so.”

She and Uri walk through the field of flowers until they come to another rocky path. “Let’s go find that house on the beach.” And with that, she and Uri set off into the unknown.