End Notes

We are all tired. I am done with dead people and have slowed down on Haym Arbet. I can’t get my head around grammar. I simply forgot the terms and references in English. Either I hear something correctly or I don’t. I can’t make a chart. Fran and Susan and I make a quick dash in the rain to a museum, or the synagogue we haven’t yet seen. There, I ask a lovely 40-something with children how real live Jewish life is in Vilnius. (as opposed to non-living Jewish life) Although she is quite happy and feels relatively safe, the numbers are not in her favor. As the survivors die, there will not be enough self-identified Jews to replace them. Another city to honor a lost civilization.

It has turned decidedly cool here, and the day shortens by a very noticeable, and sad 5 min a day. Hot steamy DC will be a real shock! I wish this experience would never end. Most people are restless and anxious to get home. Fran, Susan and I are struggling to reach our end notes. I have to forcibly pull away from the city and this intense and vibrant unreality. I will miss this time and place. I try to imagine the -30 C winters, ice on the cobble stones, just to rub away the magic.

Looking back, I am amazed that we have learned to understand a lot, speak and read a little. I have words in my pen.

The cacophony of languages from tours passing by our corner has become soothing, French, English, German, Russian, Hebrew. Even languages I don’t understand are pleasant sounding. Judenstraase, Rue de Juifs, Zydu.

I chat with the Irish restaurant owner next door. She describes how she found a tunnel under her property when she was renovating. It runs from the Old Synagogue, behind her place, down through the old Ghetto and past the gates. Old Catholic catacombs, coal chutes, connected with deep tunneling? Smuggling? People? Goods? A survivor has stopped in for tea and pointed out the bedroom where his family slept. He said he would never return. I give her the name of a survivor to help clarify. Perhaps she will find answers. She says she sees and hears ghosts and asks me what to say to them. I say “Sholem Aleichem.”