Free Displaced Persons by Ghita Schwarz

exaggerated gasps, then pointed to Sima’s mother, who smiled encouragingly at her daughter.
    “Kann ist gutt, ” he said. No good. German words spoken by someone new to the tongue. They came out thick, halting. Then he wentback to the other word. “Quarantine,” he said. “Quarantine, mutter, quarantine.”
    “Karutina,” Sima’s father tried to repeat after the soldiers. He said it slowly, breaking the word up into small parts. Ka. Ruh. Ti. Na.
    He said it again. And then Sima felt her father’s hand grip hers tightly and suddenly loosen. “Ah,” he said, almost pleased, Sima thought, with the clarity that suddenly presented itself. But then he pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his forehead and neck. He looked at Sima’s mother, who struggled to sit up, still not understanding.
    “Kwarantanna, ” he announced. They want to keep you here. Not for long, he continued, though beyond the one word that had miraculously translated itself into Polish, Sima knew he had no sense of what they were saying. Not for long.
    Quarantine, thought Sima. My mother has quarantine.
    She knew quarantine. There had been quarantine in Russia, in Siberia, the first place to which they had been deported. Typhoid. The deportees had spread it among themselves in the work camps, in the fields, in the factories. Sima’s father had worked as a night watchman in the hospital, and after his arrest for theft Sima’s mother had taken his place. There was a quarantine ward for the people who did not die first in their huts, who were kept in a spacious, rotting hallway of the hospital, where even the local doctor was afraid to stay for long. Quarantine was like prison: no one watching, just the hard labor of staying alive. You were left to die or to escape. From prison, Sima’s father had escaped. Sima’s mother had too, later, when it had been her turn to be arrested.
    Now, with the nurse chattering on to her father, Sima looked at her mother, waiting for her to explain her way out, charm the man with the white coat, or fall to the floor begging, or show them they had made a mistake, she had no fever at all. But her mother said nothing.
    Sima’s father spoke. Dvora, do not worry. Simale will be in schooltomorrow. When you get out, she’ll already be teaching you, you’ll see.
    Sima moved her hand from side to side. A wave. No words, no sounds. Quiet, stay quiet. It would upset her mother to see her cry. You could not let them see you afraid.
     
    B EREL M AKOWER WRAPPED HIS hand around his daughter’s as they walked into daylight. He was tired. The sheet he had hung to protect his and Sima’s corner had not blocked out the noise and mutterings of the others, who dreamed loudly and shook the wooden bed frames in their sleep. It was mostly a barracks for families, though it appeared there were some women alone as well, their hair painfully neat, freshly combed even at night, their faces smooth but gray.
    Near the main office swollen refugees bustled to and fro. After one night, Berel knew the bustling ones were like him, recently returned, only beginning to understand that the rumors they had heard in Russia, the propaganda, had been true. It was the men and women inside the barracks, who slept or stared in the day and who hardly spoke, so listless they could not even be angry, waiting, waiting for nothing. After months in the DP camp, their bodies had recovered from the torments they had lived through. They were the reverse of spirits, Berel thought, just bodies, clothed, more or less clean, not so hungry, but empty.
    He would have to keep the atmosphere from invading him. Register for school, register for work, register for visas. There were lists for all kinds of things here: for food, for clothing, for a better dwelling, for orchestra tickets. Orchestra tickets! Someone had told him in the barracks at night—the Jews had built a theater for plays and concerts, for music to keep the grief out—no, not the grief, but the