Art Keeps the World Alive

“Mom, I’m going downstairs to tell them about the dance practice.”  It was 1962, and I was 12 years old and living in an apartment building in New York City.  My friends were coming over tomorrow after school to practice some new dances we’d seen on American Bandstand—especially “The Mashed Potatoes”.  We were a noisy bunch and generally gathered at Ruthie’s house.  But tomorrow was my turn.  I thought the polite thing to do was to let Mrs. Green, who lived directly below us in 5L, know ahead of time.  I didn’t know her or her husband very well, but I had met them in the elevator a few times.  Mrs. Green with her thick German accent, curly gray hair, and bright blue eyes, looked and sounded a lot like my grandmother Annette who I had left behind in Uruguay when my family moved to The United States 4 years ago.  She died two years later, and truth was, I still missed her.  And my grandfather, Max.
When Mrs. Green opened her door, she looked scared and shaky.  “Come in dear,” she began, “I’m just waiting for an important phone call.”  I walked with her to the big yellowish armchair with doilies barely covering its worn arms and back.  I sat on the floor next to her.  “What happened?  Are you OK?” I asked wondering if I should call someone for help.  “No, I’ll be fine.  I just need to get my mind off of it until the call comes.  Tell me something about yourself.  Tell me a story,” she pleaded with her voice and her eyes, and continued, “Did you ever have to wait for news?”
I hung my head down and began, “I can tell you about last week.”  And so I explained how by accident I learned that my beloved grandfather had died a whole year ago and no one ever told me.  How I searched the mail for weeks for a letter from him and none came.  And finally, my parents gave me the letter from our relative in Montevideo explaining it all.  “I was so angry,” I said looking up at Mrs. Green’s eyes, “because he died, because I didn’t know, because they kept such a big secret from me.”  She looked down at me and said, “Ay, schatzi,” she began with a sigh, “sometimes things are kept from us because others think it will be too much for us.  Sometimes they think the truth is so big that it might swallow us up.”  I nodded in agreement and I continued, “my mom told me that after my grandmother died I was so upset that she couldn’t stand to tell me about my grandfather.” 
Mrs. Green sighed and swept her hand about the room, “Look around here.”  I suddenly noticed the faces and hands and landscape paintings jamming the expansive whiteness of the walls. She continued, “I painted all of these from my memory.  It’s all I have—my memory—of my homeland and my family.”
She told me the story of how in Germany as a young woman she saw children and families herded into trucks and trains.  She asked her parents what was happening, and they did not tell her.  She saw her father taking down all symbols of their Jewish religion—the mezuzah by the door, the menorah on the mantle—but they did not explain.  When the banging on the door came and she, her baby brother, and her parents were shipped to Dachau and separated, no one said what would happen. 
Now she looked up at her paintings, “They divided us up—sent me away again.  They found I could paint and draw, so I worked in a big room making Nazi posters.  Nazi posters.  My art talent saved my life but look what I had to do with it to survive.” 
Now she was in tears, but she continued, “When the tanks rolled in and I saw that American flag I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world.  People had come to save us.  To save us.  That’s when I met Jimmy.”  “Oh,” I interjected, “Mr. Green!”  She smiled.  “Yes.  It was the worst time of my life and then it became the best.  We fell in love.  He brought me here.” “What happened to your family?” I asked, hopefully.  “They were all killed right away.  No one was left but me.  And so I started painting my memories as soon as I could.  It was all I had, but it was a lot.   The more I painted the more I could bring them all back to me.”  I looked around. Even my own 12-year-old eyes could see the vividness of the colors, the clarity and precision on the hands, the hair, the eyes of the people on her walls.  “Ay, Liebchen,” she said, “art saved my life many times.  It saves me now.”
The sudden ringing of the black phone by her chair started us both.  She picked up the heavy receiver and nodded as she listened.  I stood up and walked around the room looking at the memories and remembering my own grandparents.  When she hung up the phone, I went back to her.  “Is it OK?” I asked.  “No,” she stated frankly.  It is not.  “The results of the tests are not good.  My health is not good.”  Right then Mr. Green came through the front door jauntily and stopped suddenly when he saw his wife’s face. “Gertie?” he asked—he pleaded.  I knew I was invading a private moment and quickly left.
Ruthie agreed to have the dance event at her house the next day.  I stopped in frequently to see Mrs. Green over the next few weeks.  By the end, she could not leave her bed.  A month after her death Mr. Green began moving out of apartment 5L.  “I will go to Michigan to live with my sister and her family,” he told me when I saw him in the elevator.  “I’m packing all of those paintings so carefully.  I want my nieces to know these memories—these stories.  Did I ever tell you how I met my Gertie?” We were now on the 5th floor and both got out and walked to the apartment where movers were wrapping and storing things.  He began, “she was Dachau concentration camp.  When our Army Division arrived to liberate them, the people there looked like ghosts.  They were so thin and weak and afraid.  Many threw themselves on the ground and wept.  We gave them food and they took it and hid it in their shirts or pants—afraid it would disappear.  But not Gertie.  I saw her, a woman who could barely walk and was carrying paint brushes in her hands, take the bread, smile, thank us and break it in two pieces, giving half to some small child who was holding her leg and crying.  I had never seen such kindness in my life.” Now Mr. Green was crumpled in a lone chair by the door.
He continued, “She never spoke ill of anyone.  But she wanted to keep the story of her family alive, and she wanted to remember beauty, and kindness, and humanity, and love. So she painted.  What art do you have in your heart, Sylvia?” he asked.  No one had ever asked me that before.  “I can’t paint, I can’t sing, I can barely dance.  I don’t think I have any.” I answered sadly.  And then I brightened, “I love words. I can paint with them and tell stories!”  He smiled.  “If you give life to people you love, people you meet, people who you care about, the stories will give you life.  Art keeps the world alive.”
He was right.

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