Morning.
An ordinary summer day in an extraordinary reality.
A morning after a war.
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10:34 Waiting for a bus that doesn't arrive.
Another test, another sign that routine is ours. Lost in thought. The head is still flying over "Protective Edge," and the heart is silent for the time being. Today there will be no more casualties.
Lost in thought.
""This bag is probably not from Israel...""
Thus, doubt asks doubt determines, the woman next to me who looks like any other adult woman. An ultra-Orthodox woman came along that day, interrupting my thoughts. A green floral suit, one of those that crosses eras and regions without tiring. A worn and dried-out blonde wig. Well-groomed.
""Exactly," I answered with a smile.
I feel her gaze on me and her breathing beside me. The lady wants to talk.
She asks and I answer. Buses, routes, hours... "And where are you going like that?" she asks.
Smile. Exams, university. No, not vacation yet. Exams in the summer. Yes, all summer.
""I remember the 4th grade tests, we had to work hard all summer. We only had seven grades..." While I was pausing on "4th grade," she begins to tell, with a heavy but unidentified accent playing behind her words.
""... I went to seven classes, and then I went to Auschwitz.".
quiet.
Shock, perhaps. From the light way in which such a heavy weight was said.
Not to high school, not to higher education. To Auschwitz.
Trying not to show the curiosity mixed with awe of her. Of the class. The too-big world we live in is probably to blame for that.
And the tap opened.
""Hungary used to be together with Romania. I immigrated to Israel in the 1950s. No, not immediately "after." "After" we returned home. Nothing remained there. Only walls. Everything was empty. The world was very small, we knew nothing. They told us to go to the ghetto, we went to the ghetto. We stayed for three weeks, until they told us: Come, we'll take you to a better place, where there will be work for everyone... We didn't know. And they took us to Auschwitz. We didn't know. "That's where they separated me, my sister and I on one side and my parents... and I'm only 16.""
Suddenly there is no longer a green suit. No dirty wig. No golden glasses either. Suddenly there is only a look, deep blue eyes.
She's talking and she's not with me. She's there. Her eyes are there. In the empty house, and she's 16.
An ordinary morning took on meaning. She speaks and in her eyes I search for the girl who was left there, the girl from whom everything was taken.
But one thing was not taken from her, she says.
""God wanted me to live, that's clear to me. With everything I've been through... He wanted me to stay.".
How great. How much appreciation.
The lady got up from her seat, the bus arrived. She greeted me and disappeared. She and her ruin, blue eyes and a green suit.
Then I understand. I understand what I didn't do. What I forgot to ask.
I pretended, I showed that I understood but was not moved. And why? Why didn't I ask more? Why didn't I help her immortalize what was slowly being forgotten and becoming another page in a textbook?
I'm already imagining myself chasing her and asking to meet again, but imagination remains imagination.
I'm lost in thought again, about fates and people I meet at a bus stop.
A normal morning.
The bus moves away and I receive a message from life.
