Roz: What matters
(for Roz who as a small child lived hidden in an attic in Nazi occupied Prague)
Everything matters ……The sound of a siren….Getting louder …. Moving away.. Shouting from the street
Far away…..Getting closer….Whispers…..Outside the door……A child is coughing
I can see through a broken sliver in the boarded up window.….Sealing off my attic home
The city below stretches to the horizon and beyond……Below is a park
A young girl is skating on a frozen pond….Twirling, dancing…..Jumping high above the ice
Maybe one day I will also learn to skate
I think of the others that are always part of me….Would it be best to not make them matter?
Can I make them not matter?…..They are part of me and who I am
Everything matters.…..Nothing matters
Sneezing with voices nearby…….Matters….Waking up frozen…..Shouldn’t matter
Ssssssssh and holding my breath…..Matters….Time matters for now…….For how long
Tomorrow doesn’t matter…Screams matter…..Where to go when here is impossible…..That matters
The people I made up in my head….The imaginary ones that are with me and do what I say…They matter
I’m hungry.…My chill doesn’t stop…..The sound of my teeth chatter….Can that be heard?
How long for the sun to go down…Slowly or at once
In the morning I see the sun barely up from behind the black winter clouds
How many more mornings before I can see the buds besides the pond
It is quiet for now and that matters…Screeching tires matter more than a car horn
Steps that are loud and fast matter…..Shuffling heals passing along the sidewalk
The kind that move on don’t matter
How long has it been till now and how far till then?…..That can no longer matter
Or the life before now….I write equations for what matters and what doesn’t
I’m not alone……My head people the ones that I have invented just for me
They do what I want…..And my animals, the purple squeaker duck,….Tillie the snake
Nancy the turtle….and Dr. Fritz the deer……They are all for me today and forever,…..Maybe
Always alone……With memories from before…Alone to decide what is important
What matters?….And for how long….Everything matters so much that nothing can matter
From downstairs Selma brings me a dish,….Once a day…I eat what is in the bowel….Slowly
Later, each day…..One of my characters…Nina
Brings me hot spicy sausages and sauerkraut in a wine sauce….Dumplings in gravy
An apple tart for desert served with sweetened cream on top
My other people play games and make music after lunch…..They play chess with each other
I play Schubert’s Trout on the cello….Lothar’s violin needs to be tuned…I can tell him that and he won’t be hurt
Everything matters
Tomorrow I wake up cold…..Once again time to listen….To everything…..Everything matters
Roz
Part 2
Roz, along with her parents escaped from the attic in Prague. The Roz I met was beautiful. We were 17-year-old freshman at the same University. We hit it off and quickly became a couple. It was our first boyfriend girlfriend relationship and we were inseparable.
Roz and I understood each other in part because of a shared a history. I too was a ref having been barely able to leave Nazi Germany at the last moment just as the door slammed shut behind my family. Roz was not so lucky. She told me bits and pieces about her experience hiding in the attic in Prague. I knew she was sparing me some of the most frightening parts of her experience. I was familiar with what she had endured which is not the same as living it .
Roz saw me as colorful, artsy, imaginative, and funny. I could make her laugh, spontaneously. For me Roz was real, mature, warm, charming, giving and very attractive, sexy.
I understood that her history of hiding from the Nazis never left her emotional memory behind. How could it. Therefore, it robbed her of the freedom that eluded her since her past was always in the background and in the way. Roz was vigilant, super vigilant, and needed to be in tight control of her life. Everything mattered which meant that she was always on the alert to detect….what…didn’t matter. I shared her need to be forever vigilant and to be in control just in case…. . We knew the visceral feel of danger. Her bonds with the people in her life were tight. Her bond with the people close to her, her attachments, were made of emotional duct tape. Both of us knew how to blend where ever we were, to remain hidden from sight. Roz never escaped her attic hiding place.
Her parents accepted were fond of me and were quite explicit…. they wanted to see us married. They too were struggling to go on with their lives and see their daughter as the mother of their grandchildren. The problem was that I was a 17-year-old child while their daughter was a young woman ready to be a mother. I, on the other hand, had barely learned to tie my shoes.
Roz, in many ways was my mentor who taught me all sorts of things from how to drive a car to the value of underarm deodorants. I taught Roz less important stuff, such as the world of esoteric literature, a world of art and music, and avant-garde theatre. We adored, no, loved each other.
Loved each other. Roz was also my sexual mentor. She would sometimes stand in front of my in her lingerie and stockings, smiling. “Doesn’t this look ever so sexy.” She was most free in exploring the world of sexuality and I was her pupil. It was all so very innocent. I think there must have been times when her parents in the adjoining room heard us moaning.
We ran out of time, Roz time. I couldn’t join her in that attic in Prague. Roz met a man several years older than us. They married and had two children. I got married and had two children but in the decades that followed we continued to remain in close contact with one another. More than that. We never stopped loving and caring for each other.
I talked to her regularly and listened to her tell me about her very sick, disable husband. She took total chare of his care even as each of his body parts failed. Nothing she could prevent his death.
A few years ago, a week before her birthday I called her and left a message.
When I didn’t get a call back I knew, no dreaded, something was wrong. I called Roz on her cell phone number and I heard a voice that didn’t sound like Roz. I could hardly hear her but then I did “Oh Jakob. I Can’t talk. I am very sick. I am at GW hospital in Washington. I can’t talk.” The call creaked to a close with her repeating “I can’t talk, can’t. Please Take care of yourself. I love you”.
For the next few days I was with Roz with her as she lay dying. On the first visit I brought he one of my paintings which I hung on the wall just behind the hanging IV bottle like ornaments next to her bed. Each day when I arrived and when I left I kissed her on the forehead. I sat next to her holding her hand. Every few minutes she would squeeze my hand and I squeezed back. Just a couple of days later I again took a seat next to her and held her hand. She stopped squeezing my hand.