The Winter Guest

by Pam Jenoff

But I prefer to keep my own company. Even back then, I never minded the silence.

Mine is not the story of the ghettos and the camps, but of a small village in the hills, a chapel in the darkness of the night. I should write it down, I suppose. The younger ones do not remember, and when I am gone there will be no one else. The history and those who lived it will disappear with the wind. But I cannot. It is not that the memories are too painful—I live them over and over each night, a perennial film in my mind. But I cannot find the words to do justice to the people that lived, and the things that had transpired among us.

Tata had been her counterpart, the one most like her, and with his death a part of her had died, too. But after he was gone she discovered a newfound clarity and purpose, slipping into his role, taking charge of the wood and the hunting and their safety. She found she was capable of doing things that she had never been taught, as though a part of Tata had left his body in the moment he was struck down and leaped into hers.

In fact, the war had stripped away so many civilities, given people a license to act on their deeper, baser selves. Many, she suspected with an uneasy feeling, would be only too happy to let the Germans get rid of not just Jews but neighbors they had never really wanted in the first place.

How could two people live the same moment but remember it so differently?

Under other circumstances, the man would be a desk clerk. But the war had given power to those who were most willing to cooperate, not those who were most fit.

But it wasn’t about being brave. Now that she knew the truth, standing by was no longer an option.

“You are wise to fear. Only the fool doesn’t. But don’t hide from your fear. Wear it like a cloak of armor.”