Tzili: The Story of a Life

33

SHE FELL ASLEEP again. In the meantime the soldiers and refugees crammed the hut until there was no room to move. The medics pushed the beds together and they moved Tzili’s bed into the doorway. She slept. Someone strange and far away ordered her not to dream, and she obeyed him and stopped dreaming. She floated on the surface of a vacant sleep for a few days, and when she woke her memory was emptier than ever.

The hut stretched lengthwise before her, full of men, women, and children. The torn partitions no longer hid anything. “Don’t shout,” grumbled the medics, “it won’t do you any good.” They were tired of the commotion and of the suffering. The nurses were more tolerant, and at night they would cuddle with the medics or the ambulant patients.

Tzili lay awake. Of all her scattered life it seemed to her that nothing was left. Even her body was no longer hers. A jumble of sounds and shapes flowed into her without touching her.

“Are you back from your leave?” she remembered to ask the nurse.

“I quarreled with my fiancé.”

“Why?”

“He’s jealous of me. He hit me. I swore never to see him again.” Her big peasant hands expressed more than her face.

“And you, did you love him?” she asked Tzili without looking at her.

“Who?”

“Your fiancé.”

“Yes,” said Tzili, quickly.

“With Jews, perhaps, it’s different.”

Bitter lines had appeared overnight on her peasant’s face. Tzili now felt a kind of solidarity with this country girl whose fiancé had beaten her with his hard fists.

At night the hut was full of screams. One of the medics attacked a refugee and called him a Jewish crook. A sudden dread ran through Tzili’s body.

The next day, when she stood up, she realized for the first time that she had lost her sense of balance too. She stood leaning against the wall, and for a moment it seemed to her that she would never again be able to stand upright without support.

“Haven’t you seen a haversack anywhere?” she asked one of the medics.

“There’s disinfection here. We burn everything.”

Women who were no longer young stood next to the lavatories and smeared creams on their faces. They spoke to each other in whispers and laughed provocatively. The years of suffering had bowed their bodies but had not destroyed their will to live. One of the women sat on a bench and massaged her swollen legs with pulling, clutching movements.

Later the medics brought in a lot of new patients. They reclassified the patients and put the ones who were getting better out in the yard.

They put Tzili’s bed out too. All the gentile nurse’s pleading was in vain.

The next day officials from the Joint Committee came to the yard and distributed dresses and shoes and flowered petticoats. There was a rush on the boxes, and the officials who had come to give things to the women had to beat them off instead. Tzili received a red dress, a petticoat, and a pair of high-heeled shoes. A heavy smell of perfume still clung to the crumpled goods.

“What are you fighting for?” an official asked accusingly.

“For a pretty dress,” one of the women answered boldly.

“You people were in the camps weren’t you? From you we expect something different,” said someone in an American accent.

Later the gentile nurse came and spoke encouragingly to Tzili. “You must be strong and hold your head high. Don’t give yourself away and don’t show any feelings. What happened to you could have happened to anyone. You have to forget. It’s not a tragedy. You’re young and pretty. Don’t think about the past. Think about the future. And don’t get married.”

She spoke to her like a loyal friend, or an older sister. Tzili felt the external words spoken by the gentile nurse strengthening her. She wanted to thank her and she didn’t know how. She gave her the petticoat she had just received from the Joint Committee. The nurse took it and put it into the big pocket in her apron.

Early in the morning they chased everyone out of the yard.