To them

When you think of dirt you think of brown. You don't ever think of the deep dark hickory or the lighter caramel. Rarely do you think of the umber or the chesnut. Dirt is just dirt. Inconsequential and trod on. We were dirt.

 To them.

1942

Izaak looked fondly at the painting in the store window. His last piece which he had sold before he had been made to clear out his studio. Tucking the new leather suitcase under his arm he made his way up the path away from town to the little house on the rise. Already the town had started to empty already the people had begun to leave.

“No Mia you cannot pack your candle sticks and furs. Please we need to be practical,”

 Izaak ran his hand through his hair gripping the back of his neck and counting to ten for patience. Mia bustled around the crowded kitchen taking her silver candle sticks off the mantle and repacking them in the leather suitcase. Days he had days to get them out. if what Eliab said was true he would be lucky if he had that long.

 “Maybe if you told me where we were going then I could pack better”, 

Babbe tuttered from her chair in the corner her hands clasped in her lap.

“I told you Mia we are going away. That is all you need to know; pack a simple. change of clothes and any of your jewelry that can be sold”

 Mia stopped packing and looked aghast, 

“Sold what do you mean sold? Im not selling my jewlry Izaak” 

he was losing his patience. His palms hit the scarred wood of the dinning table. They had sat around this table at every meal. There was a tiny notch out of the front leg where he had run his train into as a child. He could see the indents of his fathers rough drawn scrawl. Tracing those lines now he meet Mias eyes, 

“you will Mia. if it is a choice between food or jewels you will sell the jewels”

 Mias coffee coloured eyes widened and she clutched one of Babbes furs to her chest blinkining rapidly.

 “Food for Jewels what nonsense you talk”  Leonel frowned from the door way. He had finally decided to join the rest of the family in the kitchen and Izaak knew convincing Leonel of anything would be near impossible. Leonel took a step closer to the open suitcase on the table his glare fixing on Izaak,

 “what have you been telling them Izaak? What nonsense is this?”

“It is not nonsense Zeyde it is fact we have days to get out dont you see what has been happening?” 

“they are not coming here they are not-”

 “they are already here they have already started loading others into the trains Zayde they will be here for us next. If we do not leave” 

“Leave?!” 

Bubbe let out a soft wail,

 “I can not leave. This is my home,”

 again he counted to ten, they had been over this they had talked this to death and he had only just managed to get the family to accept the crisp chesnut leather suitcase he had bought them. Now because of Leonel he would need to start again.

“My home, Izaak, our home.” 

The rumble of the train as it halted at the station was roarous but the fear and uncertainty of those who waited with bated breaths, their silence was deafening. Izaak watched as mothers clutched their children their eyes wild darting from one spot to the next, they reminded him of the scared animals he’d seen once in the zoo. His hand hurt from holding his case so tight. The handle digging into his plam. Mia stifled a cry holding tightly onto his arm. She had relented, emptying the suitcase of Babbes furs and silver candle sticks. She had packed sensible clothes a few pairs of shoes and the three heavy photo albums that held their entire history within their pages. It was those albums, he supposed that were adding such weight and making his arms ache.

 Men in stiff suits and polished black boots barked orders at the masses. He hadnt managed to get them out. He had failed and now everything Eliab had said was coming to fruition. The crack of rifle cut through the low hum of panic. The scared silence stretching for seconds like a bow string pulled taught until it finally snapped and the masses stated screaming the mothers wails the childrens screams the volume increasing until you couldnt makeout a single sound. 

If terror and hopelessnes had a colour would it be dark? Would it be the colour of those black nights in winter where the darkness would swollow up everything, the kind of darkness that hid the world? Izaak didnt think so. If Izaak had to put a colour to the utter terror of the camp, the despair and hopelessness it would be the different shades of brown he had seen. The murky brown of the muddied path he slipped in on his way to the morning roll. It would be the yellowed brown of the soup they all slurped down as their aching bodies protested any movement. The reddish brown of the matted blood he had washed form Mikels hair as he craddled his friends broken body. It would be the chesnut brown of Mikels eyes as they blinked slowly toward death. 

2024

Suit cases of tawney leather, mahogany and chesnut. Their silver buckles tarnished and open. Stacks apon stacks of leather cases in various degrees of disrepair sat behind the glass. Hana searched the stacks, noting the faded white paint on some of the cases her husband had already moved on, now hunched over a plaque as he fixed his glasses on his nose. 

There too the left, slightly hidden under a dark brown case she could see it. Its corners less worn. The leather had been brand new when her great uncle had sold his painting to buy it, when her grandmother had packed it full of what she considered their whole life.