In the fourth annual Indie Issue, we let the books speak for themselves in these excerpts from a trio of starred Indieland picks: a memoir by two sisters who survived the Holocaust; another memoir about a teen’s coming-of-age on a sailing-school ship; and a collection of short stories from a renowned Bengali author.
In Daniel Seymour’s From Auschwitz With Love, sisters Manci Grunberger Beran and Ruth Grunberger Mermelstein describe their arrival at the concentration camp:
“Father realized that we didn’t have much time together. So, he said to us, ‘No matter what happens, I want you to remember three things.’
“‘First,’ he said, ‘if anyone asks whether you have a trade, say yes, and they will put you to work. If you don’t have a trade here and you don’t know how to work, they have no use for you and they will probably shoot you. I was a wholesale grocer. That’s not considered a trade here.’ He knew a little something about being a locksmith, so if anybody asked him, he would tell them he was an expert locksmith.…
“He [said] Mother had taught us how to sew and cook. ‘If they need somebody to sew something, you know how to sew. If they are looking for a cook, you’re a cook. Whatever they’re looking for, that’s what you are.’
“The second thing he told us was to eat whatever they would give us to eat. Our family had always kept strictly kosher, but we understood that he was talking about our survival.
“‘Finally,’ he said, ‘I want you to make sure that you are mindful of the company you keep.’ I now realize that he was warning us, because you would be shot for the slightest infraction. So if we were going to stay out of trouble, we would have to be extremely careful of what we said and to whom we said it.
“There were many things I wished we could have said to each other, but the soldiers returned and ordered us away from the fence. My sister and I did not know then that we would never see Father again.”
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In Sailing at the Edge of Disaster, Elizabeth W. Garber recounts learning how to climb the rigging of the 360-foot Sea Cloud:
“‘I can’t.’ My legs wobble on the rope rung digging into my sneakers. I hold on to cables running up along the mast over one hundred feet above the ship’s deck. I close my eyes for a second but that makes everything worse; my chest thuds, my body trembles. I try to speak up; me, the pitiful teenager frozen in the rigging, ‘I can’t do this.’ I don’t care how pathetic I sound….The mast moves, a slow sickening sway. I glance down at the docks, boat yards, and the causeway to Miami, when nausea catches in my throat.”
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We’re lucky to have Brahma’s Weapon—award-winning short stories by Ashapurna Debi,translated by Prasenjit Gupta. (Read a recent interview with Gupta.) Jhumpa Lahiri provides the introduction: “To read Ashapurna Debi is to cross the thresholds of Calcutta’s inhabitants, to witness intimately their private scenes and struggles, and to encounter life in the city from a distinctly interior perspective.” Here, a protagonist plots a triumphant return to her home village:
“How astonished the residents of Shonapolashi will be when they see ‘Podi,’ the daughter of the Brahmin cook at Jodu Lahiri’s house, manifest herself as Poddolota! For seven years, day and night, seed by seed, Poddolota has fondly tended the mischievous desire to see that astonishment, indulged it in dreams of happiness. She’s pictured those few days in colours and moods luminous, dazzling.”
Karen Schechner is the president of Kirkus Indie.
