The Gravedigger's Daughter Part 52

I shouldn't be so greedy. I have no right. When I first discovered that you were living, last September, my thought was only "My cousin Frey-da Morgenstern, my lost sister, she is alive! She doesn't need to love me or even know me or give a thought of me. It's enough to know that she did not perish and has lived her life."

Your loving cousin, Palo Alto CA 30 January 1999 Dear Rebecca, We make ourselves ridiculous with emotions at our age, like showing our b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Spare us, please!

No more would I wish to meet you than I would wish to meet myself. Why would you imagine I might want a "cousin""sister"at my age? I like it that I have no living relatives any longer for there is no obligation to think Is he/she still living?

Anyway, I'm going away. I will be traveling all spring. I hate it here. California suburban boring & without a soul. My "colleagues/friends" are shallow opportunists to whom I appear to be an opportunity.

I hate such words as "perish." Does a fly "perish," do rotting things "perish," does your "enemy" perish? Such exalted speech makes me tired.

n.o.body "perished" in the camps. Many "died""were killed." That's all.

I wish I could forbid you to revere me. For your own good, dear cousin. I see that I am your weakness, too. Maybe I want to spare you.

If you were a graduate student of mine, though! I would set you right with a swift kick in the rear.

Suddenly there are awards & honors for Freyda Morgenstern. Not only the memoirist but the "distinguished anthropologist" too. So I will travel to receive them. All this comes too late of course. Yet like you I am a greedy person, Rebecca. Sometimes I think my soul is in my gut! I am one who stuffs herself without pleasure, to take food from others.

Spare yourself. No more emotion. No more letters!

Chicago IL 29 March 1999 Dear Rebecca Schwart, Have been thinking of you lately. It has been a while since I've heard from you. Unpacking things here & came across your letters & photograph. How stark-eyed we all looked in black-and-white! Like X-rays of the soul. My hair was never so thick & splendid as yours, my American cousin.

I think I must have discouraged you. Now, to be frank, I miss you. It has been two months nearly since you wrote. These honors & awards are not so precious if no one cares. If no one hugs you in congratulations. Modesty is beside the point & I have too much pride to boast to strangers.

Of course, I should be pleased with myself: I sent you away. I know, I am a "difficult" woman. I would not like myself for a moment. I would not tolerate myself. I seem to have lost one or two of your letters, I'm not sure how many, vaguely I remember you saying you & your family lived in upstate New York, my parents had arranged to come stay with you? This was in 1941? You provided facts not in my memoir. But I do remember my mother speaking with such love of her younger sister Anna. Your father changed his name to "Schwart" fromwhat? He was a math teacher in Kaufbeuren? My father was an esteemed doctor. He had many non-Jewish patients who revered him. As a young man he had served in the German army in the first war, he'd been awarded a Gold Medal for Bravery & it was promised that such a distinction would protect him while other Jews were being transported. My father disappeared so abruptly from our lives, immediately we were transported to that place, for years I believed he must have escaped & was alive somewhere & would contact us. I thought my mother had information she kept from me. She was not quite the Amazon-mother of Back From the Dead...Well, enough of this! Though evolutionary anthropology must scour the past relentlessly, human beings are not obliged to do so.

It's a blinding-bright day here in Chicago, from my aerie on the fifty-second floor of my grand new apartment building I look out upon the vast inland sea Lake Michigan. Royalties from the memoir have helped pay for this, a less "controversial" book would not have earned. Nothing more is needed, yes?

Your cousin, Lake Worth, Florida April 13, 1999 Dear Freyda, Your letter meant much to me. I'm so sorry not to answer sooner. I make no excuses. Seeing this card I thought "For Freyda!"

Next time I will write more. Soon I promise.

Your cousin Chicago IL 22 April 1999 Dear Rebecca, Rec'd your card. Am not sure what I think of it. Americans are ga-ga for Joseph Cornell as they are for Edward Hopper. What is Lanner Waltzes? Two little-girl doll figures riding the crest of a wave & in the background an old-fas.h.i.+oned sailing s.h.i.+p with sails billowing? Collage? I hate riddle-art. Art is to see, not to think.

Is something wrong, Rebecca? The tone of your writing is altered, I think. I hope you are not playing coy, to take revenge for my chiding letter of January. I have a doctoral student, a bright young woman not quite so bright as she fancies herself, who plays such games with me at the present time, at her own risk! I hate games, too.

(Unless they are my own.) Your cousin, Chicago IL 6 May 1999 Dear Cousin: Yes I think you must be angry with me! Or you are not well.

I prefer to think that you are angry. That I did insult you even in your American soft heart. If so, I am sorry. I have no copies of my letters to you & don't recall what I said. Maybe I was wrong. When I am coldly sober, I am likely to be wrong. When drunk I am likely to be less wrong.

Enclosed here is a stamped addressed card. You need only check one of the boxes: angry not well.

Your cousin, P.S. This Joseph Cornell Pond reminded me of you, Rebecca. A doll-like girl playing her fiddle beside a murky inlet.

Lake Worth, Florida September 19, 1999 Dear Freyda, How strong & beautiful you were, at the awards ceremony in Was.h.i.+ngton! I was there, in the audience at the Folger Library. I made the trip just for you.

All of the writers honored spoke very well. But none so witty & unexpected as "Freyda Morgenstern" who caused quite a stir.

I'm ashamed to say, I could not bring myself to speak to you. I waited in line with so many others for you to sign Back From the Dead & when my turn came you were beginning to tire. You hardly glanced at me, you were vexed at the girl a.s.sistant fumbling the book. I did no more than mumble "Thank you" & hurried away.

I stayed just one night in Was.h.i.+ngton, then flew home. I tire easily now, it was a mad thing to do. My husband would have prevented me if he'd known where I was headed.

During the speeches you were restless onstage, I saw your eyes wandering. I saw your eyes on me. I was sitting in the third row of the theater. Such an old, beautiful little theater in the Folger Library. I think there must be so much beauty in the world we haven't seen. Now it is almost too late we yearn for it.

I was the gaunt-skull woman with the buzz cut. The heavy dark gla.s.ses covering half my face. Others in my condition wear gaudy turbans or gleaming wigs. Their faces are bravely made up.

In Lake Worth/Palm Beach there are many of us. I don't mind my baldie head in warm weather & among strangers for their eyes look through me as if I am invisible. You stared at me at first & then looked quickly away & afterward I could not bring myself to address you. It wasn't the right time, I had not prepared you for the sight of me. I shrink from pity & even sympathy is a burden to some. I had not known that I would make the reckless trip until that morning for so much depends upon how I feel each morning, it's not predictable.

I had a present to give to you, I changed my mind & took away again feeling like a fool. Yet the trip was wonderful for me, I saw my cousin so close! Of course I regret my cowardice now, its too late.

You asked about my father. I will tell you no more than that I do not know my father's true name. "Jacob Schwart" was what he called himself & so I was "Rebecca Schwart" but that name was lost long ago. I have another more fitting American name, & I have also my husband's last name, only to you, my cousin, am I identified as "Rebecca Schwart." Well, I will tell you one more thing: in May 1949 my father who was the gravedigger murdered your aunt Anna and wished to murder me but failed, he turned the shotgun onto himself & killed himself when I was thirteen struggling with him for the gun & my strongest memory of that time was his face in the last seconds & what remained of his face, his skull & brains & the warmth of his blood splattered onto me.

I have never told anyone this, Freyda. Please do not speak of it to me, if you write again.

Your cousin (I did not intend to write such an ugly thing, when I began this letter.) Chicago IL 23 September 1999 Dear Rebecca, I'm stunned. That you were so close to meand didn't speak.

And what you tell me ofWhat happened to you at age thirteen.

I don't know what to say. Except yes I am stunned. I am angry, & hurt. Not at you, I don't think I am angry at you but at myself.

I've tried to call you. There is no "Rebecca Schwart" in the Lake Worth phone directory. Of course, you've told me there is no "Rebecca Schwart." Why in h.e.l.l have you never told me your married name? Why are you so coy? I hate games, I don't have time for games.

Yes I am angry with you. I am upset & angry you are not well. ( You never returned my card. I waited & waited & you did not.) Can I believe you about "Jacob Schwart"! We conclude that the ugliest things are likely to be true.

In my memoir that isn't so. When I wrote it, forty-five yrs later it was a text I composed of words chosen for "effect." Yes there are true facts in Back From the Dead. But facts are not "true" unless explained. My memoir had to compete with other memoirs of its type & so had to be "original." I am accustomed to controversy, I know how to tweak noses. The memoir makes light of the narrator's pain & humiliation. It's true, I did not feel that I would be one of those to die; I was too young, & ignorant, & compared to others I was healthy. My big blond sister Elzbieta the relatives so admired, looking like a German girl-doll, soon lost all that hair & her bowels turned to b.l.o.o.d.y suet. Joel died trampled to death, I would learn afterward. What I say of my mother Dora Morgenstern is truthful only at the start. She was not a kapo but one hoping to cooperate with the n.a.z.is to help her family (of course) & other Jews. She was a good organizer & much trusted but never so strong as the memoir has her. She did not say those cruel things, I have no memory of anything anyone said to me except orders shouted by authorities. All the quiet spoken words, the very breath of our lives together, was lost. But a memoir must have spoken words, & a memoir must breathe life.

I am so famous nowinfamous! In France this month I am a new bestseller. In the U.K. (where they are outspoken anti-Semites which is refres.h.i.+ng!) my word is naturally doubted yet still the book sells.

Rebecca, I must speak with you. I will enclose my number here. I will wait for a call. Past 10 P.M. of any night is best, I am not so cold-sober & nasty.

Your cousin, P.S. Are you taking chemotherapy now? What is the status of your condition? Please answer.

Lake Worth, Florida October 8 Dear Freyda, Don't be angry with me, I have wanted to call you. There are reasons I could not but maybe I will be stronger soon & I promise, I will call.

It was important for me to see you, and hear you. I am so proud of you. It hurts me when you say harsh things about yourself, I wish you would not. "Spare us"yes?

Half the time I am dreaming & very happy. Just now I was smelling snakeroot. Maybe you don't know what snakeroot is, you have lived always in cities. Behind the gravedigger's stone cottage in Milburn there was a marshy place where this tall plant grew. The wildflowers were as tall as five feet. They had many small white flowers that look like frost. Very powdery, with a strange strong smell. The flowers were alive with bees humming so loudly it seemed like a living thing. I was remembering how waiting for you to come from over the ocean I had two dolls Maggie who was the prettiest doll, for you, and my doll Minnie who was plain & battered but I loved her very much. (My brother Herschel found the dolls at the Milburn dump. We found many useful things at the dump!) For hours I played with Maggie & Minnie & you, Freyda. All of us chattering away. My brothers laughed at me. Last night I dreamt of the dolls that were so vivid to me I had not glimpsed in fifty-seven yrs. But it was strange Freyda, you were not in the dream. I was not, either.

I will write some other time. I love you.

Your cousin.

Chicago IL 12 October Dear Rebecca, Now I am angry! You have not called me & you have not given me your telephone number & how can I reach you? I have your street address but only the name "Rebecca Schwart." I am so busy, this is a terrible time. I feel as if my head is being broken by a mallet. Oh I am very angry at you, cousin!

Yet I think I should come to Lake Worth, to see you.

Should I?

acknowledgments.

Sections from Part I were originally published, in slightly different forms, in Witness, Summer/Fall 2003.

Chapters 6 and 7 were originally published in Conjunctions, Fall/ Winter 2003.

Chapters 16 and 17 were originally published, in different forms, in Childhood, editor Marian Wright Edelman, Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

About the Author.

JOYCE CAROL OATES is a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. She is the author of the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys, Blondewhich was nominated for the National Book Awardand the New York Times bestseller The Falls, which won the 2005 Prix Femina. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. In 2003 she received the Commonwealth Award for Distinguished Service in Literature, and in 2006 she received the Chicago Tribune Lifetime Achievement Award.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

NOVELS BY JOYCE CAROL OATES.

With Shuddering Fall (1964).

A Garden of Earthly Delights (1967).

Expensive People (1968) them (1969).

Wonderland (1971) Do With Me What You Will (1973).

The a.s.sa.s.sins (1975) The Childwold (1976).

Son of the Morning (1978) Unholy Loves (1979) Bellefleur (1980).

Angel of Light (1981) A Bloodsmoor Romance (1982) Mysteries of Winterthurn (1984) Solstice (1985).

Marya: A Life (1986) You Must Remember This (1987) American Appet.i.tes (1989).

Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart (1990) Black Water (1992) Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang (1993) What I Lived For (1994).

Zombie (1995) We Were the Mulvaneys (1996) Man Crazy (1997) My Heart Laid Bare (1998).

Broke Heart Blues (1999) Blonde (2000) Middle Age: A Romance (2001).

I'll Take You There (2002) The Tattooed Girl (2003) The Falls (2004).

Missing Mom (2005) High Lonesome (2006) Black Girl/White Girl (2006).

end.