The room was bleak, dark, grey, silent, even though her room was in the middle of a house teeming with life. Agatha ignored the life. She focused on death.
Losing Andres unexpectedly; Having her country turn against her teeth bared, the threat of that inevitable bite; Not knowing if she lost her family in Germany; Not having her son by her side …. pain upon pain upon pain.
But the most excrutiating thing Agatha faced in that room was the fact that she could find no comfort in G-d. She had sold his torah, like Judas, and not even for coin but for the ability to be German.
Yet, the inevitable knowing returned daily. She would never be German and it was too late to save her son from her fate. She had never let him choose: German or Jew. And, now at ten years old he was lost in a Catholic orphanage, saying “hail mary full of grace” at night instead of the shema, far away from his people.
“Andres, bella, sara, agatha, john, her mother, her father, all of us exchanging breath,” but now Agatha wasn’t sure who really was breathing and who was gasping for air.