"Can you come later?" My cousin asks from Israel.
Terrorist gunmen are killing people in the building below. She is in shelter.
It is October 7 again. I am on a jet tracking its route over the North Pole to France. I am going back, a return in time and space.
A year ago, on October 7, 2023 my thesis jolted, catapulting itself from a recapitulation of history, arts and cultures into a newly discovered entryway, a passage to a world of long-lost French relatives and a quest for "Sanctuary and Solace." I set off to produce paintings, essays and stories as a response to the war in Israel, my studies of the Holocaust, and a heritage rich in languages, art, film, literature. It is a journey into living memory, thriving, alive, a reconnection to family murdered and those who survived, a personal history. My thesis is a translation into dialects and words, kaleidoscopic wheels of color, rough and polished textures of paint.
In Paris, the Marais is ultra-chic, I find myself stepping along curvy alleyways and narrow crowded streets leading to museums of remembrance, of memorial, of art. I wander parks dedicated to Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel. I am in squares just slightly acknowledging the "the raffle" and deportation to death camps, small plaques with the number of Jews taken and killed affixed above doorways. I am eating kosher borekas, poppyseed strudel. Grabbing my overfilled falafel, I wrap its delicious mess and plop everything onto a bench. I spread my picnic in front of a school where 260 of its students and their parents were transported in the "Vel d'Hiv" "roundup", a word I hear where I live in Montana for culling cattle and livestock.
I am on a train of thought facing backward moving forward. Paris to Nice. My seat positions my view toward Paris. I take in a scene just having traveled through, already passed, passe, an instant retrospective. This reminder of past present future somehow feels comfortable. A positioning, a view, of time. Einstein's relativity a model of a train struck by lightning in two spots. I am traveling this warp of time.
Neat, tidy farms, beautiful green fields pasturing dairy cattle, rows of fruit trees boughs pruned elegantly extending figures as a ballet troupe, nurtured orchards beckoning harvest, vineyards of twisting arms and gnarled fingertips laden with a new yield. Fields and communities where my relatives found sanctuary provided by the "Righteous Among the Nations," those who risked their lives for others.
Pomegranate pinks and reds light up an entire museum, radiance, vibrance, a glow of love. "You are my mon pomme, my love," sings the signature: Chagall, illuminator of romance, desire and hope. These ancient red fruits dangle on Trees of Life in the artist's Gardens of Eden, as well as along the walkways just outside the galleries, and dot terraces and hillsides of Nice. Who could not help but be exuberant in this beautiful spot on the planet? It is the south of France, hot red earth and flaming sunsets, aquamarine blues of deep and shallow tossing Mediterranean seas, infinite shades that mingle without boundaries, where bleeding colors confuse themselves between clear skies and future horizons of eternity.
My seat faces back once more, my exit from Nice in review. The train moves more casually. I am returning to Paris, to share time with generations of my family. Soothing, the ride lulls as relationships of time and space seem to dance and switch partners along the tracks.
It is about to be Sukkot. My French relatives gather in the outdoor shelter, built for living outside, celebrating with prayer and reflection for this holiday, remembering ancient times and observing rituals. The opening prayers call for rain, and on cue thunder erupts, lightning illuminates the resemblances in our faces, and a sumptuous rain, a deluge, ensues.
I am sitting next to a mirror image of myself, my cousin a generation younger, in the women's section of the synagogue. "You look French now," I am wearing a blue and white dress she has given me, fitting our bodies the same. She moves the curtain aside to see the men's section, the sanctuary holding the Torah. A young woman shifts the curtain back, as rules decree. We eat torn pieces of a round challah and sip wine as the final blessing.
We are having difficulty, sharing tales after the holiday meal. A box tied in ribbon survives, harboring albums of those perished. It is a trove filled with unanswerable questions that escape when opened. Is that Ezekiel, is that Golda, Haia or Pecha? Who can decode the cursive Yiddish script on the back of a picture… asking for help? The wedding photograph, a glorious celebration where a floral wallpapered apartment wraps an overfilled party of friends and relatives. A gathering before everyone dispersed, sought refuge and went into hiding. Rachmil? Lichtenstein? A solace of silence responds.
I twirl a silver ring of roses on my finger, our family named for beautiful flowers and peel off layers of red paint. Pondering paragraphs, I smooth the year-old yellow ribbon around my wrist and type.
