I met her in 1946 in Sweden. Along with other Jewish survivors from Poland and Latvia, we were awaiting permission to emigrate to America or Palestine.

We had tried to immerse ourselves in the normal life of our surroundings, but the sight of a child playing in the street, or an old woman passing by, was enough to demolish the barricades we had so ingeniously constructed to shut out the years of death. With wistful glances, we would follow the child or woman to the very end of the street and then unwillingly wander off on another road, a road that had once led to our own home, where mothers waited at the window, and young sisters or brothers, or our own children played in the yard.

We continually reverted to the same doubts: if this or that had been done, perhaps they could have been saved. And as in the past, we would grow helpless and discouraged, ashamed of our own lives. To conceal the sense of doubt and inadequacy we affected an air of bravado.

When anyone recounted episodes from the all-too-recent war years, the words would rumble out like stones, threatening to engulf both narrator and listener. She would sit with hands hidden head lowered, smiling, as if she wanted to drink in anew the sorrows of each separate person, to extinguish them with her smile, which hung from each crease of her face, transforming it into a mask. I often wondered if she slept like that, her face covered with that smile.

No one living in the small town near Stockholm had known Bronia before the war. Rumor had it she was waiting for papers from her brother-in-law in New York, She ran for the mail each day like the rest of us; the only difference was the expression of distance in her face, as if the whole matter related to someone else, someone far removed from herself.

Every morning she took the electric train to Stockholm, where she worked in a factory, and returned about seven in the evening. One day she arrived carrying a huge bundle in her arms as if it were a child. As usual the women were sitting on the veranda, waiting for their husbands, who would soon be returning from work. From the common kitchen wafted the odors of freshly cooked supper. As Bronia was crossing the veranda, the women surrounded her and assailed her with questions:

“Bronia, did you see my husband at the stations?”

“What’s happening in the city?”

“And what did you buy? Something nice?”

“A dress? A coat?”

“Let’s see.”

Bronia’s light brown eyes suddenly darkened. A cloud was hovering over them; it seemed as if it were about to burst and release a downpour of long-restrained tears. But her eyes remained dry and the smile, the strange almost borrowed smile, suffused her entire face.

“Maybe it’s a present for someone and Bronia wants to keep it a secret? You know- a young woman, all alone,” said one of the women and winked significantly at the others.

In her room, Bronia untied the package with impatient fingers, and threw aside the stiff brown wrapping paper. She took hold of the two hands of the doll. It was a big, flaxen-haired doll with a painted smile, scarlet cheeks, and gaping glassy eyes which greeted Bronia’s disturbed gaze. They smiled at one another for a long time. Finally, Bronia sat down on the bed with the doll; she smoothed out its silk dress, then whispered something into its ear so quietly that not even the walls could hear it.

II

For the second time, the refugees saw the late northern spring through the blossoms of the variegated lilacs growing in the yards, along the roadsides, filling the air with a heavy scent. And for the second time, the ivory mid-summer nights broke through the curtained windows and stirred restlessness in everyone, like a white fever infecting their blood. These strange nights were so whit and starkly beautiful, they must have wandered through every graveyard of the world before settling on this northern land.

And we still scurried for the daily mail, hoping for news from countries so distant they seemed accessible only in dreams.

When the normal boundary between night and day had been reestablished and the birds once again heralded the real morning, the first affidavits and tickets arrived. Each week we accompanied someone else to the railroad station, and wondered whose turn would come next. As the weeks went by and our numbers thinned, life grew quieter in the small colony that had bound so many different people together and united them into one family.

With the hoarse cries of the departing wild ducks, summer came to an end along the fjords. Autumn rains effaced the contours of trees and houses, and wrapped the fjords in a gray mist. The rain was in no hurry to leave. It took its time, like a landowner inspecting every crease in the field, and each crack in the house, staying until it had washed away the last trace of dust from the trees in the fields.

Bundled up in coats, Bronia and I sat in a corner of the larger deserted veranda.

“It’s getting lonely; everyone’s leaving,” I said in an attempt to displace the emptiness with the sound of a few words.

“And do you think we’ll be better off anywhere else?” Bronia asked quietly.

I didn’t know how to answer her. She was right; how desperate we were to escape this friendly and quiet country. No matter where we might go, we would never escape ourselves.

Bronia drew the coat tighter around her knees and said with apparent indifference:

“My affidavit and ticket arrived today.”

“Where are you planning to go?

She didn’t answer my question. Like a fish out of water she opened and closed her lips; no sound came out. I too was silent. Bronia suddenly clasped her throat as if to force out the words that were choking her. Gazing into the distance, she spoke into the ear of the night which was rapping at the windows with heavy drops of rain:

“I’ll be leaving soon and G-d only knows if we’ll ever meet again, so please give me the strength to talk about it all.”

She began to relate events, quietly and calmly at the beginning, searching for each word. As she proceeded, the words came in a rush, as if to swallow each other and leave no memory behind.

The Germans captured her husband at the beginning of the war and sent him to a concentration camp. She never saw nor heard from him again. She was left alone with their five-year-old daughter, Dinah, whose blue eyes and thick brown hair constantly reminded her of him. Bronia’s older sister, Sarah, a widow, moved into her house. They vowed that if something should happen to one of them, the other would become a mother for both Dinah and Miri, Sarah’s fourteen-year-old daughter. Dark-skinned Miri with brown, sparkling doe-like eyes, could not and would not accept the fact that her youth coincided with this dangerous and chaotic time. She looked into the care-worn faces of her mother and aunt and shook her head with its black curly hair:

“Why do you worry like day and night? You’ll see, one day we will dance at Hitler’s funeral.”

Bronia’s sister was the first to go. An exhausted, prematurely aged woman, she could not produce what the Germans demanded of their slave-labor force. Bronia became the mother of two, and firmly resolved that no matter what happened she would save both children. When the ghetto was liquidated and the few remaining Jews were transferred to concentration camps, Bronia smuggled her daughter out in a rucksack. She dressed Miri in a long skirt to appear older than she was. Once in the labor camp, she had to flatter and bribe the guards and Kappos to keep them from handing over the child. She was forever gazing meekly into their eyes, anticipating each command before it reached their lips. Every evening she polished their shoes and boots until she could see her face in them. She even gave them her gold medallion which she had received from her husband as an engagement present. Somehow she managed to save her daughter from the frequent camp inspections.

Bronia knew that the Germans despised worried faces. Even those on the way to the gas chambers were required to sing and laugh. So she learned how to smile constantly, and the smile became her companion, even when it seemed that her wildly beating heart was in her throat.

In the workshop connected to the barracks by a long corridor, the Jewish girls and women worked at the sewing machines from morning to night. Dinah used to sit quietly in a corner, in order not to make herself conspicuous. Every morning Bronia instructed her how to behave; the child did not need her mother’s warning to sense the danger, but nodded her head with the earnestness of an adult.

The machine rumbled at Bronia’s feet with such momentum that the world seemed to exist purely for the sake of producing army coats on schedule. Bronia was the most deft of all the sewers; when it came time to deliver the coats, she had more than anyone else.

From time to time, the camp commandant would conduct and inspection. From a distance, the women would hear the heavy tread of the commandant and his entourage conversing in sharp tones. Bronia would hastily hide the child in a dark corner and cover her with a pile of half-finished coats. While the stocky Germans rambled through the workshop, Dinah would lie silently, without moving a limb. Bronia would sit with head raised and face beaming; no one suspected she trembled at their every step, several times drawing close, then retreating from the spot where her child lay concealed.

Once a German approached the heap covering Dinah and began pulling out the half-finished clothing. He examined a few of the coats to see if the women were cheating on the lining, then kicked the pile, perhaps in search of contraband. More likely he just wanted to show that he was boss. Bronia’s blood froze. In a moment they would discover the child; even if the German did not fin her, she was bound to be frightened and burst into tears, or crawl out of her hiding place to find shelter with her mother. But Bronia’s face dared not give the slightest hint of what was happening within her. Her smile warded off the hostile glances of the Germans. Only the sewing machine rumbled faster than usual under her feet, as if to drown out the hammering of her heart.

When the Germans slammed the door shut behind them, Bronia sat back frozen, unable to raise a hand to wipe away the perspiration clouding her eyes. Miri drew Dinah out from under the coats and brought her to Bronia. The child twined both arms around Bronia’s neck and boasted:

“You see, Mummy, I sat quietly the whole time just like you told me. You think I didn’t feel it when he kicked me with his boot? Right here, see? But I didn’t cry, because I don’t want to go to that place where Auntie Sarah is. What would you do without me, Mummy?” And so the child trilled away, like a bird just released from its cage.

Bronia didn’t have the strength to rejoice in the miraculous delivery of her child. She sat trembling, deathly pale, as though all her blood had been sucked out.

“Go and play, I still have a lot of work,” she pleaded with Dinah. But for a long while afterward the machine was silent, angry as Dinah, who had turned away from her mother, offended.

During the day, Dinah behaved like an adult; but at night, when she lay between Bronia and Miri, on the rotten sack of straw, she was once again the six year-old child. She would nestle up to her mother and whisper into her ear:

“Mummy, I want a dolly with long soft hair who would close her eyes when I put her to sleep.”

“You know Dinaleh that we can’t buy a doll like that here.”

“Then promise me that when we come home you’ll buy me a big dolly, a dolly this big,” she said, demonstrating the size with both arms.

“When we leave here, I’ll buy you the prettiest doll.”

III

After six months in the labor camp, Bronia was assigned to night shift. By the time she returned each morning, Miri had already gone to work and Dinah lay huddled under the cover, concealed from hostile eyes, waiting for her mother. Exhausted, Bronia trudged up to the bunk and, with trembling fingers, felt for her child’s limbs before whispering:

“Dina, Dinaleh.”

A rumor swept through the camp: a new selection. Again they would remove a certain percentage of the women, and as always it would be the older ones and those whose strength had been sapped by the relentless work. It was already known that the list, signed by the commandant, lay on the desk of the camp superintendent. So the women tossed and turned on their bunks and, in the long sleepless hours of night, strove to recall when and how they had erred. And when day came, hey strained to see themselves in the piece of tin that served as a makeshift mirror, and counted the wrinkles acquired since the last selection. They milled around Fanny Rosenbloom, who had the privilege of cleaning the camp superintendent’s room. Pleading with their eyes and with half-choked voices:

“Tell me, Fanny, is my name on the list?”

“No.”

“And me? Am I on the list?”

“I can’t say for sure. I only got a glimpse of it from a distance.”

But that was enough to strike the questioner dumb and leave her sitting on her sack of straw, as if she had suddenly been severed from her surroundings by an invisible wall.

One morning, when Bronia returned from the night shift, Fanny was waiting for her at the entrance to the barrack. Bronia immediately detected something in Fanny’s tremulous eyes; something had happened in her absence, something bad. Clasping the edge of a bunk, she barely managed to ask through parched lips:

“My Dinah?”

“No, no, not Dinah. The child is sleeping and doesn’t know anything.”

Bronia breathed more easily. Thank G-d it wasn’t Dinah, she said to herself as she strode over to her bunk. Yes, her child’s body lay huddled under the torn cover. Then who could it be? She ran back to Fanny, who was holding a broom and wet rag to make it appear that she was about to leave for work, in the event a guard entered. Bronia was afraid to ask. A hard lump formed in her throat, choking off her voice, but her eyes implored:

“Tell me, tell me the name.”

Fanny leaned close and whispered into Bronia’s ear:

“They took Miri – just before dawn.”

Bronia slumped to the ground as though her body had suddenly become too heavy a burden for her to bear. Only after some time did she manage to say:

“How, how is that possible? She wasn’t on the list – you said so yourself.”

“But Regina Berger was” said Fanny, more to herself than to Bronia. “Regina was given a pair of silk stockings by one of the Kappos of the men’s section. These days you can buy your life with a pair of stockings. The superintendent got the stockings. She erased Regina’s name and substituted the first good name she could think of.”

“But why Miri?”

“Sooner or later we’ll all go. It’s only a matter of two or three months difference.”

“But Miri has to be with us for those two or three months. I’ll go to the camp commandant. I’ll fall at his feet and explain that it was all a mistake.”

“They don’t make mistakes here in camp. Are you crazy? The ,aster race make mistakes? Listen to me Bronia, don’t go. It won’t help anyhow and they’ll take you too for daring to inform on a superintendent. And what will happen to your own child then?

“Maybe, maybe they’ll let me see her for a little while just to say good-bye. I beg you Fanny, take care of Dinah and don’t tell her anything. Do you hear? Nothing.”

IV

The damp earth yielded under Bronia’s hurried step. The November fog hung like gray cobwebs over the wooden barracks and the few saplings standing naked and helpless along the pathway near the barbed wire fence. An armed German soldier loomed out of the dense fog on the hill behind the barracks. He took three steps to the right, turned on his heels, and took three measured steps in the opposite direction. Then he paused awhile, motionless, as if he had turned into stone. Not until she had come quite close did she see the row of women who had only yesterday been dragged out of the barracks. It seemed the fog was thicker here than anywhere else; the mist almost appeared to be billowing out of their gray, sunken faces.

Then the soldier noticed Bronia.

“Back! What are you looking for?” he shouted, aiming his rifle at her.

Bronia pointed to the women.

“My sister’s daughter is her,” she said. “A young girl. She was taken while I was on the night shift. Please let me see her for a moment, to say farewell.”

The soldier was touched by Bronia’s boldness or perhaps by the imploring look in her eyes. He looked around to see if anyone was listening, then said quietly:

“Go, but make it quick. If you’re caught, I know nothing.”

Bronia moved along the row searching for the curly black hair and the pretty face of her sister’s daughter. But she could not find her; they all looked alike. The night they had spent together on the stone floor of the selection area had obliterated all difference between old age and youth, between beauty and ugliness, erased all individual features. They were all the same here, their bodies drooping toward the earth, as if they were suddenly too heavy a load to be carried through the last stretch of the journey and had to be abandoned along the way. Their eyes were glazed, faces drawn, their lips parted; their bodies wished only to submit to fate. Their partnership with the treacherous world had been dissolved. The attachment to life was over. Here it was the dead who were being led away to death.

At last she saw Miri in the row of bent bodies. Her face had also become creased and sunken in the course of this night. Her bloodshot eyes avoided Bronia’s glances. She stared at a non-existent point in the distance. Bronia stumbled up to her.

“Miri, you don’t recognize me?”

Miri was silent. What connection did she have to her aunt now? Those who stood with her were closer to her than Bronia; she was going with them and Bronia was staying. Bronia felt a sudden impulse to stand with Miri in the rank, to go with her on the final journey. Hadn’t she promised her sister to take care of her only daughter, never to be separated from her? She was duty bound to go with her! But she had another child to protect, her own daughter. What would become of Dinah without her mother?

Feverish thoughts chased one another through her mind. She had to do something! Was it possible to tear her out of the rank? There was one thing she could do to stave off, at least for an hour, the shadow of death. Let it be a lie. Yes, even a lie! But would she be strong enough not to betray herself?

Bronia took Miri’s forlorn face in both hands and whispered into her ear:

“Miri, I have something to tell you, but no one must hear.”

Miri’s face was expressionless and not one of her limbs stirred, as if she hadn’t hear, or did not understand what was being said to her. “Miri, I went to the camp commandant. He promised to take you out at the very last moment. He sent me here to tell you the good news.”

For an instant a glimmer of hope quivered in Miri’s frozen gaze, but then her lips twisted into a bitter smile and gradually, as if having to learn to speak again after a protracted illness, she blurted out:

“You’re only saying this! I don’t need you to tell me lies! Get away from here!”

Bronia bit her lips to fight back the scream that raged in her throat. It only took a moment; in the ensuing calmness which she had forced upon herself with superhuman effort, she said:

“It makes no difference to me. You’ll be convinced soon enough.”

Bronia’s feigned indifference utterly confused Miri. Those few cold words began to dispel her doubts. Then all at once she fell on Bronia and buried her dace in her shoulder, and her whole body shook with quiet sobs. The soldier approached them.

“Time to go.”

“Another few minutes, please,” Bronia entreated the soldier. He turned away without a word and continued measuring off the damp ground with his steps. Bronia lifted up Miri’s head.

“Look at her! What a shame! You want to show yourself like that before the camp commandant? He’ll think I lied to him. I told him you were a young girl, and he’ll see an old granny.”

Bronia talked on and on, afraid of giving Miri the slightest opportunity to ask a question. She drew a small broken comb from her blouse and combed Miri’s hair, which was tangled and had lost it luster. Then she dampened a piece of cloth with a few drops of water from a tiny container attached to her belt by an earring, and washed Miri’s smudged face. As a final touch she ripped open the hem of her dress, took out a fragment of glossy red paper, once the wrapper of ‘Frank’s Chicory,’ and rubbed it into Miri’s pale, cold cheeks.

“That’s better,” Bronia said, stepping back for a better look at Miri’s freshened face. “That’s the way I want you to look.”

The soldier apparently noticed someone approaching because he called out in anger:

“Disappear!”

Bronia immediately darted away. Then she stopped and gestured, as if Miri were about to leave for a vacation. It’s better like this, Bronia thought, as she slunk back to her barrack. If she had had time to take proper leave of Miri, the girl might have sensed the terrible deception in the trembling of Bronia’s body.

V

On returning to the barracks, Bronia fell on her bunk and bit into the sack of rotten straw so the guard would not hear her sobs. The vision of Miri’s brightened face and her uplifted head drifted before Bronia’s eyes. What else besides the deception could she have given her for the final journey? She had failed to protect her dead sister’s only daughter, but she had managed to keep her own child from the harm. Here she was, sleeping; she had only to stretch out her arm to feel the warmth of the curled-up little body, the softness of the disheveled hair. No, now she would not reach out for her child.

From the corridor came the sound of clanging pots, and through the cracks of the wooden walls the sharp scent of moldy cabbage. Dinah awoke with a yawn. She groped in the unoccupied straw sack with her skinny hands, then cried out in a frightened voice:

“Mummy, Mummy, where are you?”

“Sh, Dinaleh, you know we have to be quiet here.”

“Why didn’t you go to sleep near me, like always?”

“I’m not sleepy.”

"And why didn’t you give me a kiss?”

Bronia didn’t answer. The offended child turned her back to her mother. Suddenly there was the sound of heavy steps. Bronia ran to the bunk and threw the cover over Dinah’s head. The door was flung open and the arm of a soldier was seen in the entrance as a human form was thrust over the sill like a bundle of rags. The soldier slammed the door shut behind him. The bundle raised itself, remained standing for a moment on wobbly legs, then began to shuffle slowly along the bunks, pausing every few steps.

Bronia wanted to scream, but her throat constricted. Her lips moved, but were unable to bring out the words of gratitude: “Sarah! Sarah! You gave me back your child!”

Dinah, who had been watching from under the blanket was the first to run up to Miri. She hugged Miri with all her might.

“It’s so good that you came back-Mummy is so bad today.”

It took a long time before Bronia was able to comprehend what had happened in the hour since she had left Miri. As she listened to Miri babbling away, drunk with good fortune, Bronia kept touching her head and her arms to convince herself that it was not a dream.

“It was exactly as you told me,” Miri said excitedly. “The camp commandant was sitting at his desk with the list and was calling out everyone by name. He didn’t even raise his head to look at the women standing in front of him. He only pointed with his hand to the left, like a machine. It’s a good thing you came to tell me the good news, because it kept me from being afraid. When he called out my name, I answered loud and clear so that it would not ring in his ears and he would know that it was me and not make a mistake. Only then for the first time, did he lift up his head from the papers. He looked at me from head to toe, and he shouted:

“And you, what are you doing with all these old ones?”

“I don’t know myself, commandant sir, I was put on the list.”

“From which barrack?”

“Barrack number seven, commandant sir.”

“What’s your job?”

“I make coats.”

“Were you ever punished for disobeying orders?”

“Never, commandant sir.”

He called to the guard:

“Bring her back to barrack number seven and inform the camp superintendent that I want to see her in my office at two o’clock.” And to me he yelled: “Get to work! Quick!”

VI

Bronia sat breathing quickly, and on her face still floated the strange, borrowed smile exactly like the smile one sees on dolls in display windows. Something unsaid hung in the air. Bronia was silent and I didn’t dare to ask. In the stillness of the night we heard the patter of rain drumming on the windows, like children’s fingers tapping endlessly. Bronia stood up, stepped to the edge of the veranda, and gazed intently into the night. At last she turned to me.

“I still don’t understand how the lie occurred to me and how I found the strength to play it out to the very end. Miri is now in Palestine with her husband. She was married just after the liberation. But I still haven’t told you everything.” She trembled and covered her face with both hands as if to hide from her own words. “The camp superintendent took revenge. A few days later, when I returned from night shift, I didn’t find my child.”

When Bronia lowered her hands, her face was wet. For the first time since I knew her. I saw Bronia without her artificial expression. It was as if these first tears had washed away and freed her from the smile to which she had been enslaved for so long.