Where or When

Where or When

The subway train riders in New York City often don’t have the courtesies of the earlier generations. Five days a week she still had to take the train back and forth to work, even at age 84 because she could not exist without that meager income from her sewing job in the coat factory.

She was lucky they let her continue at her age. Was it because they felt sorry for her and knew she needed the job, or was it simply because she was one of the best seamstresses they had? At least, her eyesight had not failed her. Moderately strong eyeglasses corrected her eyesight to an adequate degree to keep a straight stitch.

It was summertime in New York, yet she wore a thin sweater over her sleeveless dress because she was sensitive to chills from any source. She boarded the train at 5 PM, rush hour for New Yorkers. The train was packed and, true to the society of the time, no younger person rose to offer her a seat. She clung to a pole, thankful that her job allowed her to sit all day at a sewing machine. She could endure the standing for the half hour ride to her stop.

As chance would have it, an old man got onto the same car at the next stop. Of course, if the seated riders weren’t going to get up for an old woman, they certainly weren’t going to for an old man. He, too, was relegated to holding on to the same bar as the old lady.

They looked at each other but did not speak. He saw the aged, wrinkled face and gray hair of an elderly woman who appeared around his age. Her ears were rather large, he thought, but then, so are mine now, I guess. That’s what happens when you get old. He caught her eyes looking at him and he made a small smile of acknowledgement and nodded, but quickly looked down.

She stole another look at the old man. He was balding with just some gray left around the perimeter of what was once a dark head of beautiful wavy hair. He, too, wore glasses. His prominent nose had grown wider in his dotage. Both of them were frail and stooped. Neither was as tall as they once had been. It was no wonder that they didn’t recognize each other. 

New Yorkers are rather taciturn with strangers. A nod and a half smile are typically the most that can be expected on a train. Had not the man changed hands that held on to the pole, a conversation would likely never have occurred. But, as the first grasp became tired, he did. When his left hand reached up for the pole, it revealed a tattoo. Not a normal tattoo. No shapely young lady, no eagle, no flag, no oriental symbols embedded with the hope of appearing intellectual, and no name of a loved one or memorial to a dear friend.

But it was a name – of sorts. It was the name given to him by his captors . . . 196205 . . . tattooed inside his left forearm. It was the only name accorded him for two years in Hell. 

The old lady saw it and gasped. “Auschwitz?” she quivered. The man’s grimaced face and silent nod said ‘yes’ without a sound. With equal solemnity, she pulled up her sweater’s left sleeve. It revealed another ominous tattoo . . .207142 . . . “Birkenau,” she sadly whispered.

Seeing his obvious incredulity at the coincidence of two strangers meeting on a subway in New York who shared the horrors of Auschwitz and Auschwitz II, as the women’s adjacent camp was called, “You were in Birkenau?” he asked with guarded astonishment.

He stared at it with empathy. No, not merely empathy! Sympathy! He did not have to imagine the horrors she had been though. He knew exactly what she had endured.

“What is your name?” he anxiously asked.

She, being still the proper gentlewoman she had been trained from childhood to be, answered, “I am Mrs. Melnk Waszkiewicz.” This was the first of several unfortunate mistakes that would be made at this chance meeting. Even though she was a widow of twenty plus years, she clung to the proprieties of introduction and did not offer her given name nor her maiden name Estera Dziadzia.

A moment later, the old man made a similar mistake. After becoming a refugee in America following the war, he soon adopted the English equivalent of his hard-to-pronounce Polish name . . . Dodja Owczarz . . . and responded, “I am David Shepherd.” Old age brings with it the slowing of the mind. He gave her the English translation of his Polish name, a name he had been giving everyone else in America for the past 50-odd years without even thinking.

Nothing was exchanged that would give either a clue that they were once deeply in love and about to get married. Still, there was something each sensed in the other’s demeanor. Little forgotten nuances like Estera’s soft toned voice so full of compassion, or David’s twinkling eyes when he smiled. 

Had any of a dozen other things be said, it might have led to recognition of too many coincidences and an epiphany. But the two talked only about happier times. They talked about their life in America after the war. Still, there was something David vaguely recognized in her mannerisms. Her way of looking down frequently as a coy young girl would do instead of holding eye contact for long with a man, and the sweet, soft voice, though somewhat thinner and breathier. He thought of the old Rogers and Hart song with the lyrics:

It seems we stood and talked like this before

We looked at each other in the same way then

But I can't remember where or when.

Nothing about David reminded Estera of her young man. She saw an old, balding man, somewhat paunchy, with obvious false teeth too perfect to be real. They spoke in English. After 50 years of living in America, and neither living in a Polish community, the phenomenon of language attrition had made both more comfortable speaking English. They didn’t even try to revert to their common native tongue. Even the twinkle in his eyes had almost disappeared and lost their dark brown irises, fading to a gray beneath drooping eyelids.

As the train came into the next station, David said, “Well, this is my stop. It has been so nice talking to a fellow Polak. Goodbye, Mrs. Waszkiewicz, I hope to see you again.” The name would have been a challenge for a native born American to have remembered, but for a fellow Pole it was no more challenging than Washington or Weatherly.

No, nothing reminded her of her Dodja . . . until . . .

He got off the train before her station. She watched him as he walked away from the car. That walk! He limps just like Dodja!

Dodja (David) broke his hip as a child. The mending left him with a slight limp. He tended to rock to the left as his left foot hit the ground. Erect when the right foot stepped, then teetering slightly left again as the left foot took another step. It wasn’t severe, but so characteristic of her Dodja! It had to be him!

“Dodja!” she yelled out! But, alas, the doors had already closed, the train was beginning to move. Its noise, the crowd noise, the closed doors . . . all prevented him from hearing the shout.  

Her shoulders started visibly shaking. The contractures of her facial muscles showed deep emotion, though she tried mightily not to shed tears. A few of the other passengers noticed her apparent anguish. They felt sorry for whatever her plight was, but none spoke up.

Estera got off at her station and walked to her apartment wondering all the time how she could ever find him again. Did he get on the train at the first stop after I got on, or was it the second? What stop was it that I watched him get off?

“David!” Oh, what a fool I am! “David” is the English equivalent of “Dodja!”

“Was it just a coincidence?” she wondered. No! Too many coincidences . . . the limp, the translated name, the tattooed I.D. number, their common land of Polska, the mannerisms! It was her Dodja! She must find him again!

The next workday she took a note with her and some tape. As she returned home on the subway train, she taped the note up on the wall of the car she was in. Then, it occurred to her how unlikely this effort would be. She realized what the long odds were that her Dodja would board the same train. Even if he did, there were typically eight to ten cars on each train on her route. It could be one chance in 10 that he would get on the same car on which her note was posted. And how long would the note even stay up before some train personnel yanked it down? Or even one of those unsympathetic passengers.

It lasted until the end of the route. That’s when the second member of the two-member crew, the conductor (the other being the operator at the controls), would walk through all the cars and check to make sure no one was still aboard. The safety precaution was necessary to make sure no one had fallen asleep, passed out drunk, or even passed . . . away during their ride! He found the note, read it,  and took it down. But not for tidying up! It said:

Dodja Owczarz (David Shepherd)

I am your Estera Dziadzia! We were betrothed in Warsaw before the war.

We were separated when the Nazi’s put both of us in separate prison camps for their “final solution.” By the Grace of God, I have discovered we both ended up in American, incredibly on the same subway train car. We spoke when I saw your prisoner number tattooed on your arm, and I showed you mine. Yet we did not recognize each other! We are both old now and don’t look like we did in our 20’s.

Your name changed (I now realize you simply translated it to English). My name changed. I told you my married name. (Husband deceased now for 22 years.) I only put two and two together when you got off the train and I saw your old limp. It was then I recognized who you were! Oh, please, I so want to see you again. Please call me at 212-555-the nest two digits are my age when we first met; the last two are the age of your father when he died (I still remember the shock just 6 months before we were to wed!) I coded those last four digits so I wouldn’t get a bunch of prank calls.  Please, please, call me!

         No, the conductor did not take the note down for tidying up. He took it down because it was so moved by its contents that he wanted to help. He took it into the end-of-line office and used their copy machine to make dozens of copies. He always had the same route for the 4:30 PM train that her note had been on. He, too, realized the unlikelihood that her David would see it with just one copy on one car of one train. He encouraged his fellow conductors of late afternoon train routes to post it in several cars of their trains. Some trains only pulled two or three cars. He posted it in every car on his route.

He expected that some passengers might yank it down just for meanness, but he was pleasantly surprised how many would read it and smile and even touch it as if to give it their blessing. One man did yank it down, however. But not for meanness. He knew a David Shepherd and knew that he was from Poland. And he knew how to find him!

Soon, David was reading the note handed him by his friend. His eyes misted over, then tears, then outright weeping as he completed the note. He had never married. The memory of his beloved Estera.  Then, too, another reason was that the Nazis had “punished” him for some inconsequential “wrong” he had committed. They had cruelly castrated him! Taken away his manhood. He could not ask a woman to accept him. But now, at their age, it made no matter at all. Maybe he could end his years with the woman he had loved his entire life!

Some things that happen for the first time

Seem to be happening again.

And so it seems that we have met before

And laughed before and loved before.

“Now, I know where and when!”

He made the call.

End