The God Who Sees - Chapter 4

I remained still for several moments with my eyes closed, hearing the man’s sonorous voice and rich laugh in my head.  Sighing, I opened my eyes and returned to my surroundings.  The device seemed to beckon me as I dropped my gaze to it, and eager to meet more people, I pressed the button again.

This time the voice was female.  A strong, almost forceful voice, yet not aggressive or abrasive.  Just firm and self-assured.

“What a question!”  She sounded amused.  As with the man I’d just listened to, her dialect was heavy and it sounded like she must have been from the same or a similar area of the world.  “How should I answer?”

Melody gave a brief response.

“So.  Maybe black.  For all those nights and all the fear.  So much darkness in the world.  But, for the sake of my daughters—” she paused.  “No, I think maybe it would be gray.  Yes, gray.  It didn’t end with the dark.  Day came.  But I will never leave the shadow.”

I heard Melody make a soft comment.

“You couldn’t give up, could you?  You couldn’t let them win.  You get up every day and you are thankful still to be here.  But the fear doesn’t leave you.  Who will be the next one?”

Melody’s voice was barely audible.

“No, no, we keep going.  I apologize.  I do get serious sometimes.  What else?”

The next question was asked.

“Hmph.  That one is easy.  God.  I could ask Him why.”  Her voice was heavy with emotion more intense than bitterness, more profound than sorrow.

I couldn’t imagine being in Melody’s position.  Would she continue?  Would she gracefully end the interview to spare the woman any more pain?

“I’m making you uncomfortable.  Here you are so kind to want to talk to me and I...my tongue gets the best of me.”  The woman sounded genuinely remorseful.  “We can go on now?  Yes?”

Melody responded and then paused before moving on to her next question.

“Are you aware of Simon Wiesenthal?  He once said, ‘For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.’  This I like.  This is truth.  How could so many people do nothing while we were being murdered?  This I will never understand.  Never.”  She gave a slight laugh.  “There I go again.  Much too serious.”

I felt the desire rising within me to reassure the woman that she was doing just fine, that she had every right to be serious, that she didn’t need to censor herself.

“I am grateful to you.  You are such a kind young woman.”

I could only hope that Melody had said something similar to what I was thinking.  She cleared her throat and asked another question.

The woman was silent.  I began to wish these had been video recordings and not just audio.  When she finally spoke, it was in a hushed voice.  “Hatikvah.  You know this?  The national anthem of Israel.  It translates ‘the hope.’  It beats in the heart of every one of us, this hope.”

Hope.  That’s something in short supply these days, I thought.  At least for me.  My thoughts took me back to what Rachel had said and I felt the tear drop onto my hand before I realized I was crying.

“.. not so much the prickles, you understand, but because they can survive in such harsh conditions.”

The woman and Melody were laughing, and I realized that I’d stopped listening to the recording.  Melody made a comment that made the woman laugh even harder.  It sounded like I’d missed something good.

“Oh, yes,” said the woman as the laughter faded.  “She was the one who kept me going.  She taught me how to keep laughing.”

Melody’s next question sounded rather lengthy.  I didn’t remember any of her questions taking that long to ask with the other two she had interviewed.

“Well,” the woman sighed.  She took several deep breaths before continuing.  “How does one describe it? How does one describe the indescribable?  I’m not sure.  I’m not sure.”

Silence descended.  A palpable, living silence, full of unspoken agony.

Melody murmured a few short words.

“You wouldn’t think it would be so difficult, not for me, anyway.  I didn’t suffer what so many did.  Μy sister and I, we had false papers.  We were able to escape.  But I never knew.  I never knew when we would be found out.  When a neighbor or a shopkeeper or just a person walking in the street would point to us and say, ‘You!  You’re one of them!’  Such fear.  I can’t...I can’t even say.”  She paused and took another deep breath.  “Have you ever been in a tornado?  I haven’t.  But I have been told that there is a stillness.  What do they say?  Calm before the storm.  A quietness.  And yet a sense of dread.  That.  I lived with that for years.”

Nothing was said for a few moments.  Then the woman added, “It wasn’t until I came to America that I felt, you know, like I could breathe.  But still, I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder sometimes.”

A short question was asked.

“Not so much now, no.  I catch that look, though.  Not all the time.  Only sometimes.  It always frightens me.”

I could hear Melody make what sounded like a rather forceful comment.

“Yes, so sad but true.  Some things never change.  Some people never change.”  She paused, then said with a sigh, “But we are in this world, aren’t we?  We have to keep going.  Always.”

Melody’s voice became softer as she asked another question.

“Oh no, please ask.”

Another hesitant comment was made.

“Please.  I would welcome it.  A chance to talk about something not so serious for a bit.”

Melody asked her next question.

The woman laughed and said, “Well, I did ask for not so serious, I suppose.  What to say?  This is not an easy thing to answer.”  She continued laughing softly.  “How about a lemon tart?  The sweet is not so obvious but it is there.”  This time her laugh was sparkling and light without that undercurrent of melancholy that colored her other laughter.  Melody’s laugh was the perfect complement.

“You wouldn’t think to hear such silliness coming from my lips, no?”

Melody was still laughing.  The woman had stopped but she joined in again.  Listening to them made my heart feel lighter.  Finally, the laughter died down and Melody made a short statement followed by another question.

“Ah, yes.  I wondered if such a question would be asked.  So.  You may think it strange because of what I’ve told you already, but I wanted my daughters to be fearless.  To live their lives without having to worry about the persecution.  I taught them to stand up for themselves and never sit down.  This was very important to me.”

Melody’s voice sounded sympathetic as she made a comment.

“Yes.  I didn’t want them to be like me.”  The anguish in her voice made me want to run and hide from her pain.  “I am thankful that they all turned out strong.  I’m thinking they have mostly their father to thank for that.”

Again, I felt an overwhelming desire to jump into the device and somehow reassure this woman.  I wanted to tell her that she had a strength I could never hope to possess.  I wanted to say that I was sure that whatever strength her daughters had, they had learned it from her as well as their father.  I had to content myself with wishing beyond all expectation that Melody had felt the same way.

“Thank you,” I heard the woman say in a quiet voice.  “It was good to talk.  Thank you for hearing me out.  You are such a lovely young woman.”

The device clicked itself off and I was left with a jumble of chaotic emotions.  My feet ached as much as my heart and I slowly sank to the floor.  I found myself longing for a distraction, any kind of distraction so I wouldn’t have to just sit on a glass floor with nothing but my thoughts for company.  I looked up at the pictures but discovered that the silver lights which had been illuminating them had been extinguished.  Nothing but darkness above me and silence surrounding me...which somehow seemed completely appropriate.