I Have Lived a Thousand Years

Bitton-Jackson’s mother tries to inspire optimism by saying that at least being in a labor camp will allow the family to work for food, which they are running out of in the ghetto. No one is allowed in or out, and the family worries how they will replenish their waning food supply.

A commotion at the gate draws Bitton-Jackson’s attention. A woman is arguing with a young guard who exchanged names and hometowns with Bitton-Jackson, despite communication between soldiers and Jews being forbidden. The woman is Mrs. Kálmán, a Christian, and her daughter, Márta, a friend whom Bitton-Jackson helped with math and German. They have brought a goose, flour, and eggs. Mrs. Kálmán says she would have come sooner, but they did not know how to find the Friedmanns. The guard surreptitiously allows Bitton-Jackson to accept their gifts, and Mrs. Kálmán tells Bitton-Jackson, “God be with you” (47). Accompanied by “a large admiring crowd, she carries the goods back to her lodgings. Everyone is “[c]hoked by emotion and chagrin” at “the miracle they witnessed at the gate” (47). Bitton-Jackson thanks God “for the miracle of human kindness” (47).

After midnight, a knock on the door wakes Bitton-Jackson. Her father—and all men ageseighteen to forty-five— receives a summons to report to the gate at 5 a.m. for transport to a labor camp. The family has not anticipated being separated. Markus asks Bitton-Jackson to take care of her mother. He places his hands on either side of her face, and she thinks of their happy, shared memories—long walks, and swims in the Danube. She wants to tell him her memories and what she loves about him, but “pain and helplessness” render her mute and “numb with the horrible foreknowledge of finality” (49). She asks to be woken before he leaves to say goodbye then drifts to sleep listening to her father and Bubi studying the Talmud together.

When she wakes up, the house is quiet and empty. She rushes to the gate and recognizes her father’s upright posture in one of the departing carts. Her mother scolds her for coming outside barefoot in a nightgown. Bitton-Jackson sobs hysterically. She knows what she wanted to tell her father but did not get to say it. The men’s departure plunges those left behind “into profound gloom” (51). In the synagogue, older men chant the Psalms day and night for six days. Their chanting and children’s crying “blend into a slow rhythmic cacophony” (51).

A new order requires ghetto residents to turn over their books, photos, and documents. They pile them onto tables in the yard, “[t]he spillage of human lives, loves, and identities now piled high in obscene casualness on the ground” (52). A woman asks a Hungarian military guard if she can keep one baby photo. He says she must leave it and assures her they will receive everything back when they return. Bubi places their books on the pile and Bitton-Jackson their documents, including the honor scroll she received weeks earlier. She has planned to ask the guard to keep her poem notebook. After seeing him deny the woman, and suspicious of how their possessions could possibly be sorted from the mess, she slips her notebook into her blouse then hides it in her knapsack.

She returns to the yard and sees the pile of books and documents in flames. A crowd gathers. Sacred texts and documents “tumble and explode into fiery particles spluttering pellets of ash” (53). The rabbi weeps, “Almighty God, forgive our sins” and “[w]oe to us” who have seen the “Torah burnt to ashes!” (54). He rends a tear in his overcoat. The other men do the same and chant “El mole rahamin,” a “chant for the dead” (54). Bitton-Jackson watches traces of past lives—diplomas, letters, marriage certificates—turn to ash. She feels “devastating grief” that her poems are the only thing that survive. In the public toilet, she vomits repeatedly but cannot get the taste of ash out of her mouth.

The family prepares to leave the ghetto. They have been told they can bring only what they can carry on their backs, no suitcases. They must prepare for long distances. Laura makes them knapsacks from bedsheets. Bitton-Jackson is upset she cannot carry as much weight as her mother and Bubi, the latter of whom insists on shouldering the heaviest pack. Serena volunteers to carry more but is too frail. Bitton-Jackson reflects on happy memories with her aunt. Ghetto residents move about “[i]n mute stillness as they prepare” (57). Bitton-Jackson wonders if this is “the pall of defeat” (57). Boys, including Bubi, have joined the older men in their chanting. The “drawn-out sound of wailing ha[s] an eerie quality” Bitton-Jackson hates (57).

Her mother suggests they test their packs to ensure they are not too heavy. Suddenly, Serena screams that she will not leave and will not allow “them” to have anything. She begins smashing her fine china and crystal, repeating, “They will not have this” (57). Laura begs her to stop and tells her, “Everything will be all right. You’ll see” (58). Serena says, “They will kill us all” (58). She insists she will not leave, and they will take nothing more from her. She tears apart a pillow. Bitton-Jackson and her mother try to soothe Serena. Eventually, she sits on the bed crying softly. Bubi, Bitton-Jackson, and Laura clean up the mess. They must be ready for deportation at dawn.