men rolled barrels down the street; a man was feeding a fire; green Amazon parrots screamed from their perches. But they converged slowly, she like an angel gliding unseen through Jerusalem on a feast day. Her legs and arms were almost bare. She seemed to glide to him. They embraced and kissed in the shadow of the lambs, and her hat fell off her head and rolled away on the ground.
She believed strongly that all dreams are remembrances of circular time, windows into a future which has once passed. In this instance it may have been true, for when she finished secondary school she left for Leningrad to study at a conservatory there. And she did walk in the markets, where she met a university student with whom she fell in love almost as if it had been a repetition of the dream. His name was Lev: he was good-natured and naive. She had hardly begun to know him, when he was taken for the Army. Imagining that she would never see him again, she took it in stride because she was young and paid little heed to changes. After all, she had been used to looking at the trees in moonlight, and when she came to the city the electric lights seemed harsh and unnatural. But then she learned that in electric light the trees cast beautiful shadows as they wave and sway, and that the light washes the green into a very strange, almost new color. In the conservatory garden the leaves were like newly split emerald. There, lessons in the softest summer music were often shattered by the railroad whistles of a new military branch line which went right through the gardens, making the old professors despair of war.
Graduating in the late spring of 1941, she was sent to Riga for service in teaching violin and theory in a new Jewish secondary school. She had been put in charge of a summer session, which she determined to finish despite the threat of invasion. The children seemed extraordinarily beautiful. Their smiles and motions were her own depth unveiled. She watched them, loved them, and stayed with them even though she knew that they were all going to die. She taught violin in the little school (which had its doors flung open and was surrounded by planters and pots of searing red geraniums) as if no one would ever do so again. The students were just as intense; it was as if everyone had gone constructively mad, and they worked until all hours of night.
8
T HEY PASSED slowly through the hot parts of June when boats seem not to move on the water, when old men lean on their chairs, when black spots on the screens are flies too hot to move. Nothing stirred. Lovers sat silent and still with their eyes upon one another. On the first of July the Germans entered Riga.
For the Latvians it was liberation, and they were happy. But for the Jews it was no liberation. They waited, debating in the councils about which was the best course, knowing full well that if they turned left or right, went forward or backward, or did nothing, the results would be the same. This frustration, powerlessness, and anxiety prompted the Sonderkommando to spread rumors that the Jews would be relocated somewhere in the Ukraine. âWhy the Ukraine?â some asked. âRiga is a beautiful city. Why canât we stay? At least,â they said, âwe will not be sent to prison in Germany.â
Katrina began to go to synagogue. It was quite unfamiliar to her, the girl who had convulsed with the greatness of God in a Christian cathedral empty but for grain, who had been outstretched on the wheat, stiff and trembling, a total prisoner of the light. There was no practical reason suddenly to become religious. Indeed, some deliberately stayed away. But she and many others joined together at a little synagogue on the outskirts of the city.
It had a red roof, Latvian decorations, a lot of warm-colored woods, and a brass chandelier from Holland. A fine sky could be seen through the windows; clouds passed smoothly and quietly; every now and then the nicest, gentlest breeze would arise
She believed strongly that all dreams are remembrances of circular time, windows into a future which has once passed. In this instance it may have been true, for when she finished secondary school she left for Leningrad to study at a conservatory there. And she did walk in the markets, where she met a university student with whom she fell in love almost as if it had been a repetition of the dream. His name was Lev: he was good-natured and naive. She had hardly begun to know him, when he was taken for the Army. Imagining that she would never see him again, she took it in stride because she was young and paid little heed to changes. After all, she had been used to looking at the trees in moonlight, and when she came to the city the electric lights seemed harsh and unnatural. But then she learned that in electric light the trees cast beautiful shadows as they wave and sway, and that the light washes the green into a very strange, almost new color. In the conservatory garden the leaves were like newly split emerald. There, lessons in the softest summer music were often shattered by the railroad whistles of a new military branch line which went right through the gardens, making the old professors despair of war.
Graduating in the late spring of 1941, she was sent to Riga for service in teaching violin and theory in a new Jewish secondary school. She had been put in charge of a summer session, which she determined to finish despite the threat of invasion. The children seemed extraordinarily beautiful. Their smiles and motions were her own depth unveiled. She watched them, loved them, and stayed with them even though she knew that they were all going to die. She taught violin in the little school (which had its doors flung open and was surrounded by planters and pots of searing red geraniums) as if no one would ever do so again. The students were just as intense; it was as if everyone had gone constructively mad, and they worked until all hours of night.
8
T HEY PASSED slowly through the hot parts of June when boats seem not to move on the water, when old men lean on their chairs, when black spots on the screens are flies too hot to move. Nothing stirred. Lovers sat silent and still with their eyes upon one another. On the first of July the Germans entered Riga.
For the Latvians it was liberation, and they were happy. But for the Jews it was no liberation. They waited, debating in the councils about which was the best course, knowing full well that if they turned left or right, went forward or backward, or did nothing, the results would be the same. This frustration, powerlessness, and anxiety prompted the Sonderkommando to spread rumors that the Jews would be relocated somewhere in the Ukraine. âWhy the Ukraine?â some asked. âRiga is a beautiful city. Why canât we stay? At least,â they said, âwe will not be sent to prison in Germany.â
Katrina began to go to synagogue. It was quite unfamiliar to her, the girl who had convulsed with the greatness of God in a Christian cathedral empty but for grain, who had been outstretched on the wheat, stiff and trembling, a total prisoner of the light. There was no practical reason suddenly to become religious. Indeed, some deliberately stayed away. But she and many others joined together at a little synagogue on the outskirts of the city.
It had a red roof, Latvian decorations, a lot of warm-colored woods, and a brass chandelier from Holland. A fine sky could be seen through the windows; clouds passed smoothly and quietly; every now and then the nicest, gentlest breeze would arise
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