My Bridges of Hope Read Online Free

with
barishnas
and
tovarishes,
Russian soldier girls and their male counterparts. While they wait with enthusiasm and good humor for Mommy to put finishing touches on their garments, they sing Russian songs to the accompaniment of harmonicas and balalaikas. I love to practice the Russian I learn at school, and to sing along with these robust, good-natured young women and men. The local people despise the Russians, calling them primitive occupiers. I love them as heroes who helped defeat the Germans.
    So I am not concerned about Mommy being home alone while I spend my afternoons and evenings in the Tattersall, waiting for a few precious moments with Miki.

Daddy’s Coat
    Å amorín, November 1945
    Winter has arrived early. Frost covers the bare, spindly branches of our acacia tree, and everything shimmers in silvery white. The window-panes that our Russian friends installed have grown translucent with the intricate white-on-white pattern painted by winter’s artistic brush, and even the interior walls glitter with a crystallike patina. Only the kitchen window and walls are free of a frozen sheen. We cannot afford to heat the rooms. The pile of firewood Mr. Plutzer brought when we arrived must be saved for cooking.
    My habit of racing to school proves an ideal solution for keeping warm. The coat I received in Augsburg has grown threadbare and provides little protection against the ferocious wind. Fortunately, the classrooms are heated, and by the time the first class is halfway over, the chill evaporates from mypuffy joints. An American army doctor who examined me after the liberation told me I had arthritis and advised me to keep my limbs dry and warm during the winter.
    I am lucky. I have a coat and sit in a warm classroom several hours every morning. But Mommy and Bubi have no winter coats. Bubi’s rented room in Bratislava is not heated. He warms up at friends’ homes where he does his studying. Mommy warms herself near the kitchen stove.
    â€œWe must find our winter coats,” Mommy declares with determination. “We must get them back.”
    Before deportation, Mommy gave some of our best clothes and valuables to our closest Gentile neighbors for safekeeping. Nightly, during blackout, our Gentile neighbors would open their doors a crack for Mommy to slip in under the cover of darkness, carrying our things. Our Gentile neighbors risked their lives by hiding “Jewish things” in their attics and back rooms. It was an act of true courage and kindness to conceal “Jewish” garments, furs, blankets, embroidered tablecloths, and bedspreads.
    And it was an act of kindness to give our things back to us when we returned. After all, we had disappeared without a trace. More than a year passed without a sign of life from us: Our Gentile neighbors were justified in believing us dead. They were justified in believing we would never return and our things would become theirs.
    When they received news of our arrival, several neighbors hastened to bring back a number of essentials. Others did not volunteer to return any of our things; they feigned ignorance.
    All at once Mommy remembers that she gave her fur-lined winter coat to Mrs. Fehér, and Daddy’s to Mrs. Patócs for safekeeping.
    â€œThank God,” she exclaims. “Now we all will have coats. You can share my coat, and Bubi will have Daddy’s.”
    Mommy and I, a delegation of two, arrive at the gate of the Patócs’s farmhouse to claim Daddy’s fur-lined town coat. Mrs. Patócs is cordial, even friendly, but has difficulty remembering that Mommy gave her “anything at all” for safekeeping. As a matter of fact, she is quite emphatic in her denial.Instead, Mrs. Patócs suggests names of other neighbors who “might harbor a Jewish treasure or two.”
    At the Fehér house, the scene repeats itself with a minor variation. Mrs. Fehér does remember Mommy’s “lovely navy blue coat