For his part, he would use the time to complete his conversion to Judaism, in Mexico, where it was easier to accomplish it. To do so, he would complete his lessons with David and then would try to find a real rabbi in that country. After all, David was just an apprentice and interpreted the Talmud to fit his own preferences and interests. Carlos suspected that many of the tasks David required of him were ways to retard what was inevitable. On the other hand, David scared Carlos with the circumcision, telling him how, on many occasions, the man in charge of cutting the prepuce liked to drink and then failed with the knife, cutting much more skin than needed. "Poor Leoncio Xifer, during his bris 97
he lost half his potz," said David, terrorizing Carlos. "But you do not worry," continued Sikora, "your potz is much larger and the man will not fail." Carlos knew that it was not possible to convert without undergoing the feared operation and the more he thought about it the more he wanted to get away as fast as he could.
Notwithstanding these small problems, Carlos was still bewitched by the Jewish lady and agreed to wait and have the operation performed in Mexico. "Don David, if I must undergo the bris, I would rather have it done in a neutral territory, because you are such a rascal that I am sure you would even pay to have my balls removed. Besides," he added, "I do not think your lessons will end any time soon and you will not be satisfied until I can recite, by heart, all the volumes of the Talmud."
97 Circumcision
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Carlos did have to reach an agreement with Elena. To her and to her alone, he admitted that the Torah and the Talmud, which he had come to appreciate so much, should not be interpreted literally. He realized that as long as Elena attended meetings at the Feminist League, he should avoid references to the obedience demanded from women. So much so, that in his daily prayers he no longer thanked God for having created him a male.
During the evenings, once the lessons with David were over, the young lovers had time to be together in Elena's living room. She liked to lie on her boyfriend's lap and talk about world politics, a topic they both were keen on. However, as the saying goes, "faces do not tell the heart's real story."
Carlos had told her unpleasant news: The Nazis had threatened to detain Claudia's companion and to place her in a psychiatric hospital. The Baroness had written a letter to both of them earlier, saying that she feared they would commit euthanasia against her friend. It was a common practice in Germany during those days. People with mental diseases were killed in gas chambers, ever since the Nazis came to power. Now, Carlos had found out through the grapevine that Claudia's worst fear - her partner's detention - had happened.
The Nazis claimed that getting rid of the mentally sick was a way to save money for the State as well as for the families involved. They also wanted to seize the castles where the hospitals had been located since earlier times. However, many healthy people were included in those "medical" programs, like Claudia's companion who was accused of lesbianism and therefore of being ―mentally unfit‖.
"I fear the worst," Claudia had written to her son and to his friend; however, Max did not do anything to help her. Since the burning of the German and Italian ships, he had sunk into an alcoholic and drug crisis. Fortunately, the Baroness still had the protection for herself provided by her former husband, apart from her own rank and reputation. Elena was extremely worried for the fate of her painter's friend. That evening, tired after chatting with Carlos and brainstorming to find a solution for Claudia, she decided to listen to the radio, to relax.
Her parents went into their bedroom and the house came to a standstill. She sat on David's comfortable green armchair in the living room and at first listened to some romantic
" boleros." She closed her eyes and started daydreaming: She and Carlos were walking through a beautiful forest, on a path close to a singing brook. They stopped and hugged and kissed with a very long kiss.... Now they were lying side by side, near the clear running water. She put her head on his strong chest and wanted to sleep in his arms forever.
The music continued playing in the background, but soon she began hearing voices. The daydream was over. She was back in her living room and had dozed off but was alert again.
Some well-known politician spoke on the radio about current events in Costa Rica. Elena could not listen, it was past 10 in the evening and she was really tired, too tired even to go 258
to bed. The voice from the radio continued, but her eyelids slowly closed and she dozed off again.
The recently elected president, Otilio Youlate, was on the radio, calling all Jews to show up at the Central Park. According to the news, he would not allow them to have Christian pets, since the pets could be converted. To prevent it, all these animals would be sent to a farm in distant Guanacaste. "You Jews have 48 hours to pack your personal belongings, one suitcase per family. And then, all the pets must be removed from the houses and brought to the Central Park," were the instructions.
Carlos told Elena that, notwithstanding the thousands of complaints and questions, the President-elect would not retract his words and that he announced this determination just before last Sunday's mass. Moreover, Youlate had received support of the Christian masses, incited by Yadira and by Max: They were waiting outside the church, applauding and enthusiastically shouting: "We support your heavy hand against the Jews! Have them work on the fields!" Among those cheering were numerous foreigners, such as Jackeline Flecher, a Nordic woman who volunteered to help in the presumed agricultural farms. According to her, this task would help her obtain a promotion at her country's Embassy, where she worked: Her country had been invaded by Germany and was becoming more Nazi each day.
Elena suspected the worst. She had never believed the politicians' promises, much less those coming from Youlate. After all, he drank excessively and his main entertainment was accusing Jews of all the world's evils. On several occasions, she heard him claim that Jewish people were damned and should be expelled from Costa Rica.
Youlate constantly used his newspaper to publish libels: On one hand, Jews were described as revolutionaries and on the other hand as capitalist exploiters. "A Polish woman adulterates the milk she sells, to make more money from her cheese," claimed his newspaper one day. "Communist propaganda found in books property of an illegal Pole,"
was the headline the next day. People constantly read things against Jews and did not know what to think any more. Now, this journalist-turned-politician was attacking their pets for unknown ultimate purposes.
"Why would he want to take the pets away from San José?" thought Elena. What was even stranger was the fact that they would first take the newborns and the older ones. "If they want to put them to work, why would they first want the young and the old?" she wondered. However, the de facto rabbi of the community thought it would be better, as throughout the history of Jewish people, to accommodate the rulers of the day with what they wanted and not to offer any resistance. "What are they going to do with a bunch of pets?" asked the erudite in the synagogue, trying to address the community's concerns.
"They will not kill them," he would answer to himself, smiling like a wise man. "This country is civilized and Christian. They would leave some pets with us," he insisted, reassuringly.
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However, Youlate did not seem to make any exceptions in his radio speech. As it was usually the case, Elena's own mother did not trust the advice given by the religious men:
"They are always seeking answers in the Talmud. But, even if it was the most sacred book, there is no answer for what is going on now. If it all depended on me, I would get a rifle and would start shooting. I would never collaborate." Other times, however, Anita simply could not conceive how anyone would want to hurt small animals, since they were
"innocent" and "have not harmed anyone."
But Elena did not receive the support from her Christian friends and much less was she able to get a rifle. Apparently, the doors of the hall where the members of the Feminist League were meeting had been locked so that no one could provide weapons to the Hebrews. The women who were lucky enough not to attend the meeting the night the doors were locked, like Ana the foreign feminist, thought it would be better not to stain Feminism with unnecessary struggles in support of the Jews. She agreed that it would be better if the animals were taken away to Guanacaste. "We should not let the problems affecting some cats, dogs, or hen parrots take away the energies we need to carry on with the women's revolution," she used to say.
Elena had to leave her beloved dog Adolph's bed, plus two bones with Carlos, three collars and several other belongings. Although Carlos also opposed the decree, Elena did not want to endanger him and, aware that whatever they could do was hopeless at this point, she advised him to do as the de facto rabbi suggested. "It will be better if we obey the law, for then they will not bother us any more," Elena said, not really believing herself. Besides, she had a lot of work to do in order to auction off the store's clothes and, in this way, get some cash for her pet dog.
Many merchants at the Market got enthused with the last minute bargain prices Elena was asking for her goods. To top it off, the Government required them to buy the train tickets.
"We shall not invest one single penny to transport the animals that belong to Jews," said a lawyer named Facio who, strangely enough, at the same time was a distinguished advocate of human rights. "I congratulate Don Otilio Youlate for trying to establish some order regarding this pet problem," said Facio on the radio.
When the pets arrived at the station of the Pacific Railroad, a tremendous uproar in different languages could be heard: shouts, screams, children crying and all the different calls and noises of the pets, apart from the noises coming from the locomotives.
"Dogs and cats on this line!" shouted the policemen. "Birds and the rest on the other line!"
ordered the soldiers.
Notwithstanding the pleas and children's cries, the men in uniform would not budge. "Don Otilio has issued strict orders and under no circumstances will humans travel with their pets in the trains. He is afraid they might eat them or that they might take along Communist propaganda," explained an officer.
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When Mrs. Mishke refused to give up her daughter's Schnauzer, which was regarded as a very suspicious animal, the wicked policeman opened fire against it. But he did not kill the dog at once and the animal writhed in pain on the floor. Mrs. Mishkeś daughter tried to help her beloved pet. But another cop came closer and fired his pistol, finally killing the animal and then pushed the girl aside, shouting: "Why on earth can't Jews follow orders?"
While this pandemonium was taking place, some small animals tried to escape. Several lovebirds got in the peasants' pockets and thus were able to leave the platform. Seven hen parrots with long enough feathers managed to fly away. However, five were shot down by the police and died on the ground. Some small frogs, fast as fireballs, were able to get into the forest. And the most distrusting of the animals, the hamsters, hid in the sewers.
A few chickens were able to convince a soldier that they actually laid golden eggs and thus were able to stay home. Some neighbors rescued Siamese cats with blue eyes and white furs. "They are so pretty that it is a crime to send them to Guanacaste, where they would not be able to withstand the heat," said a devoted woman from the Church of El Carmen.
Some fine-breed dogs were also saved. However, most other animals were not that lucky.
The poor sheep (white, pure and innocent) were naturally tame and never thought that anyone could hurt them. They got in line without protesting. The owls, unable to see well during the day, could not hide because they did not know the terrain. The small tortoises, dependent on liquid milieu, could not react. And the situation was even worse for the small goldfish, trapped in water bags.
"To the trains! To the trains!" shouted the wild policemen and the soldiers, while pushing and shoving the innocent passengers.
The gendarmes used the trains that were normally used to transport cows. Conditions were terrible for the poor pets, which were accustomed to traveling in comfort with their masters.
They were squeezed until about 200 of them were packed inside each car. Using their batons, the policemen beat any of them who dared to resist. Since animals from different species were packed together, communication among them was difficult. The hen parrots spoke something that the owls could not understand and the dogs and cats were completely at odds regarding their respective languages. They all started to show the effects of the heat, the thirst and the urgency to tend to their physiological needs. But there weren't facilities of any kind in the cars. Soon the smells of sweat, excrement and vomit became unbearable.
Once the doors were closed and the locks were in place, the little animals desperately began screaming, "Where are they taking us? What is the crime they are accusing us of?" they asked one another in dozens of languages. The train began its long trip towards an unknown destination. "Do you know where are they taking us?" a rabbit asked a hare. "I have heard they are taking us to work in the fields," responded the hare, not really believing it.
Many of them began dying hours later. The first to die were those more accustomed to freedom, such as birds. The pheasants, for example, perished inside the train. Nobody realized their death because they were traveling squeezed so much that they died standing on their feet. The quetzals, famous for their inability to live with humans, decided to kill 261
themselves. Each one pecked another until, as the heroes at Masada, the last one died. The one who remained last cut its own throat against a nail in the wagon. Three beautiful kittens hanged themselves using their own tails. A pregnant squirrel began her labor. A seal sat on top of the innocent newborn squirrels and killed them one after another. "If they realize you are giving birth, they will eliminate you," she told the desperate mother.
After an infernal journey, passing several towns where the neighbors came out to see the train (but not daring to save anyone on board), the pets finally reached the farm in Guanacaste. When the doors were opened, only half the pets remained alive; the rest had died of starvation. However, the most optimistic among them, used to putting on their best face for people, hurriedly rearranged their feathers or started combing their furs. "Help me with my crest," one rooster told another. They had but a few moments, because some ferocious and despotic pit bull dogs began barking, demanding them to come out of the wagons. Once again shots, shouting, screaming and crying were heard. "Males on this side and females and their offspring on the other side," ordered the Doberman, head of the campground. At the entrance, a big sign read: "Work shall make you free."
The head of the campground had a reputation for being disloyal and aggressive. He said to the startled and shocked guests: "Welcome to our Animal Farm in Santa Cruz of Guanacaste. Here, you have come to work as you were always intended and not to continue living as parasites and vulgar pets. Each one of you will have a job to do: the chickens to lay eggs, the dogs to guard the place, the sheep to produce wool, the hen parrots to sing and the rodents to eat the leftovers. Whoever disobeys the orders will immediately be shot by our pig squadron, trained in the best slaughterhouses of Berlin," he angrily said.
"But I am a graduate nurse. Do I also have to lay eggs?" asked a small, smiling female duck. The dog laughed hysterically. "Here we do not have room for professionals. We do not believe that a female duck may ever be a professional; her duty is just to lay eggs," was the answer. While she was feeling deeply disappointed, some boars from Frankfurt, in charge of watching the stables, elbowed and looked at one another mockingly: "What an idiotic female duck!" they said.
Once the speech was over, some pigs brought from Saxony, members of the Nazi Party and all of them firm believers in their genetic superiority, took the pets to the "disinfection chambers." These shower rooms had been used a lot by former travelers. The Nazis had adopted the gas chambers from the old customhouses, where the migrants' clothes were deloused, into more sinister uses. The pigs ordered that first the female pets and their offspring, together with the old, would receive a ―special‖ treatment.
As was the case in the railroad station in San José, there was renewed chaos on the farm.
Pets about to be separated because of gender or age differences were screaming loudly.
They cried and begged not to be broken apart. But the pigs were determined to follow orders without exception. Giving the pets blows with the butts of their rifles, they pushed them towards the chambers.
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Other guards used deception, promising that once the pets had taken their "shower" they would get some hot soup and something to eat. Since the pets had gone days without water or food, these promises were exciting. Still, some pets could foretell their destiny, aware of the fact that if they were not good for working, then they would not be needed any more.
However, it was too late now to do anything. One pig said to another: "Once they are here, there is nothing they can do."
The pushing and shoving continued all the way to the shower rooms. Several dogs -pets themselves- helped to remove their furs. The poor minks and sables were left naked while the pigs could not wait to grab the treasure they were leaving on the floor. As they were doing so, a Shar-Pei with very sad eyes told a pretty chicken: "As soon as you get into the chamber and the ―shower‖ begins, take a very deep breath." The bird thanked him, because she sensed what would happen. However, some female turkeys that overheard this conversation scolded the chicken, telling her not to pay attention to what Chinese dogs had to say, since they were a bunch of tattletales. These turkeys believed that the wrinkled dogs were somehow paranoid.
Still, the chicken knew better. "These animals have suffered just like us. They must know why they are telling me so," she explained to the turkey hens. Some cats refused to take a bath, because they were afraid of the water, but the alligators looking after the showers forced them to get inside. Once some 500 pets were inside, the metal doors were closed.
While they waited for the water jets, they could hear shouting coming from the bathrooms.
A blue sphere began to grow in the middle of the room. Crystals falling from the ventilation system above were thrown to them as smoke projectiles. As it expanded upwards from below, the victims realized it was a poisonous gas.
"They are killing us!" could be heard in different languages. The prisoners piled up, banging at the doors, trying to open them.
Terror spread and many of the pets began urinating and defecating. Others attempted to climb on top of the smaller ones, trying to breathe whatever little air there was left. In this way, they crushed and killed the others. Soon, a layer of bodies covered the floor. The women tried to stand up and to put their children on their shoulders, to prevent them from breathing the poison. But the cloud continued to grow and inexorably surrounded them all.
After 20 infinite minutes, the banging, the begging, the praying, the crying and the shouting began to recede. The pets started to die. After 30 minutes, the hall was completely quiet.
The silence was broken when the big metal doors were opened from the outside and a pack of wolves, following orders issued by the pigs, got inside looking for gold teeth or dental bridges. They took these valuables and carried the bodies to the ovens. An hour later, the nice and beloved pets had become a dark and smelly smoke coming out of four tall chimneys.
"It can not be true! It can not be true!" Elena was screaming, when Carlos woke her up from her nightmare.
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She was sweating abundantly, breathing with difficulty and had a terrorized look in her eyes. The German man had never seen her this way. "What happened, honey? What terrible thing came to you in your dreams? Those screams were the most terrible I have ever heard!" The young girl looked at him, pierced by the most intense pain a heart may ever feel. "It is so terrible that I cannot repeat it!"
She started crying and sobbing disconsolately. Carlos called Anita and David and the three of them tried to calm Elena down. They had to give her some special tea made from sour orange, peppermint, linden, chamomile and anise. This remedy was Elena's when she was a little girl, especially during the year she was paralyzed. During her crisis, David and Anita would put Elena on their bed, between the two of them and try to reassure her that all was well. This time the tea had only a very short effect and Elena was not calmed. Neither Carlos nor her parents could convince her she had only had a bad dream.
Carlos decided to leave and have Elena remain in her parents' hands. ―Please, have only sweet dreams this time,‖ he begged her before kissing her goodnight. Anita would stay in Elena's room until she went back to sleep and she promised to take care of her daughter.
―Don't worry, Carlos,‖ she consoled him. ―She will feel better tomorrow.‖
Early next morning, Elena woke up crying again. She did not eat anything but put on the first dress she found and went out running like a fireball towards the Market. Minutes later, she passed in front of her fellow Jews' stores, like a somnambulant. Many of her female friends were there, all poor Jews like herself, all dreaming of a better future, trying to sell a few things to spare their children from what they themselves had had to endure.
She saw Dona Golcha, the yenteh, who was not a bad person even though she was always trying to snoop on other people's lives. As always, this woman was filling a crossword puzzle and, at the same time, was writing in her diary scoops to her favorite story based on Dona Anita's adventures. Elena also saw Dona Guita, a perfume seller who liked to flirt with the peasants and the policemen and who longed to run away with one of them. Then Dona Soberta, the Cuban woman who prepared concoctions, the only Jewish witch in the country who combined the powers of the dybbukim with those of Changó; Dona Patricia, the shoemaker that hoped to emigrate to Palestine; Dona Tula, who sold blankets and was addicted to lottery games (she always played the number of the day that she arrived in Costa Rica); and then Ana, Eugenia and Maria, the beautiful sisters who had been unlucky in love, daughters of Dona Sara, the jewelry-store owner. There was also Dona Rosa, who sold herrings and shared Anita's socialist ideas and hoped one day one of her sons would become a congressman.
She also saw Dona Marisha, a crazy Russian woman who sold radios and other electric appliances, who hated Stalin and who organized the first Yiddish choir in Costa Rica. Next to her was Dona Sarita, the Polish intellectual proud of her capacity to read Polish, Russian and Yiddish and who regretted not having a son who one day becomes a national politician.
Close by was Dona Sisa, who lived in Puntarenas and smelled like sea algae.
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Elena saw these and many other fellow Jewish merchants who left the Old World carrying one or two dreams in their suitcases and who ended up selling them in the streets or in the small stalls of the Market. "May God have mercy on us," she silently prayed.
When she arrived at La Peregrina, Elena did not know what to do. As she continued thinking about her nightmare, one event worsened things: A big rat came out of the butcher's shop and hid behind some brooms. This time, the young girl took courage from her own fears, seized a stick and attacked the animal. She hit it so hard that the rat did not have time to run away. It began vomiting blood and then died at Elena's feet. The woman never liked to cry, but for the second time in a few hours, she could not hold back her tears and felt the loneliest woman in the entire universe.
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XXX
As Elena ran towards the street, Susanita did likewise but in the opposite direction.
Desperate, he was looking for the witch's house. Susanita felt dejected, because Max was in the midst of an alcoholic and drug crisis and did not want to see him. Besides, The Duster did not receive him well either, since she hated to prepare love potions to attract such evil men as Max. But her customer would not stop and The Duster was already getting dizzy with Susanita's pleas: He needed his lover back and was ready to do all he could, first of all pestering The Duster, demanding to be armed with magic spells and potions. ―Make Max return to me, make him mine again,‖ cried Susanita, demanding the most powerful love elixir. "That man is so perverse that I am sure he was responsible for yesterday's bombing of that boat, the San Pablo," responded The Duster. Besides, the witch knew her party was planning to take revenge the day after next in a general demonstration against the Nazis.
―Susanita will probably have a corpse back if I make him a love potion,‖ she mumbled, not to be heard. But she did not want to say a word about it, since it was supposed to be "top secret." The witch decided, therefore, that it was better to play along and make the elixir for Susanita.
However, Susanita confessed that he was feeling guilty since he had disclosed his lover's plans to David Sikora. "The Pole's daughter has become "a very good friend" of Don Carlos, the German physician, if you know what I mean…. Thus, not all Germans are enemies of the Jews," said Susanita. For her part, the witch felt uncomfortable somehow since she had informed the Communist Party, betraying Susanita's trust. But, given that after all she was an ethical witch, she now wanted to correct the small moral indiscretion, warning her friend: "Dear Susanita, I have some reports from the Communist Party, which is planning a protest over the sinking of the San Pablo, that they might burn down the German businesses," she said. "Perhaps you should warn your friends...." added the witch.
Since Susanita would have doubts about betraying Max, The Duster devised a plan.
"I will send him to the shop across from David's store to buy the necessary ingredients. It will make him watch Elena and Carlos and feel guilty," she thought. Thus, she gave Susanita the "strongest" prescription available to recover Max's love. "You will find all the necessary ingredients at the herbal locale across from Sikora's store, in the Central Market,"
she told Susanita.
"Buy one sheet of parchment, one red pencil, two red ribbons of 30 centimeters each and one empty bottle of wine with its original cork. Then, copy the following poem on the parchment, using the red pencil, but do not write his name. Below the poem, write a place and a time where and when you two might meet. Then, put everything inside the bottle, close it with the cork and bring it here to me. I will then complete the secret procedures.
Here is the poem you must copy:
My heart has searched with each single beat
A love that is both fiery and neat,
A love like the sea, infinite and soothing,