Ida Fink Quotes

Once again it was quiet, too quiet after what had happened. ("The End")

She went for so long without talking that silence became a habit.

The days were filled with a kind of double waiting: waiting for news of Jadwiga and waiting for the police. I made myself get through the time, as if I were trudging through a snow drift: step by step, hour by hour, not a moment of rest from the hard labor of waiting, except perhaps at night. (p184)

at the time, even eighteen-year-olds were nostalgic for the past.

If the police didn't show up before then. Always that little word: if. (p178)

There are thoughts that wither under the gaze of others, that are wounded by the breath of others, that the slightest disruption destroys. ("The Other Shore")

He stood between a lawyer's apprentice and a student of architecture and to the question, "Profession?" he replied, "Teacher," although he had been a teacher for only a short time and quite by chance. His neighbor on the right also told the truth, but the architecture student lied, declaring himself a carpenter, and this lie saved his life—or, to be more precise, postponed the sentence of death for two years.

It was then-the old men of our town were already on their way and were passing their homes and the children and grandchildren hidden behind their windows-it was then that the door of one of those houses opened and we saw a woman running across the marketplace. She was thin, covered with a shawl, carrying her huge pregnant belly in front of her. She ran after those who were walking away, her hand raised in a gesture of farewell, and we heard her voice. She was shouting, "Zei gezint, Tate! Tate, zei gezint!" And then all of us hidden in the darkness began to repeat, "Zeit gezint," bidding farewell with those words to our loved ones who were walking to their deaths. ("*****")

Once again, after the second action, a postcard turned up. It was written in pencil and almost indecipherable. After this postcard, we said, "They're done for." But rumors told a different story altogether-of soggy earth in the woods by the village of Lubianki, and of a bloodstained handkerchief that had been found. These rumors came from nowhere; no eyewitnesses stepped forward.

Sabina was tall and thin, with a startled expression, as if she knew in advance that the world and its inhabitants had nothing good in store for her. (first lines of "Sabina Under the Sacks")

For the first time, I decided to break our most sacred rules, to let someone in on our secret. Perhaps I was too weak to bear one more blow alone. (p173)

It was silent in the forest. There were no birds, but the smell of the trees and flowers was magnificent. We couldn't hear anything. There was nothing to hear. The silence was horrifying because we knew that there was shooting going on and people screaming and crying, that it was a slaughterhouse out there. But here there were bluebells, hazelwood, daisies, and other flowers, very pretty, very colorful. That was what was so horrifying-just as horrifying as waiting for the thundering of the train, as horrifying as wondering whom they had taken. ("Jean-Christophe")

September came, and with it the war; the radio spoke a strange new language of exhortations and abbreviations.

Standing by the window, she thought: If only a star would fall. She was superstitious; in those days everyone was superstitious, each in a secret, private way. She had a great many personal superstitions, but shooting stars weren't among them--to wish on a shooting star would have seemed too romantic, too impossible. Nevertheless, that evening she thought: If only a star would fall—even though it was already late autumn, and everybody knows that stars fall only in summer. Still, she kept her eyes stubbornly fixed on the heavens and suddenly saw a flash of light on the horizon: some careless person had turned on a lamp without first covering the window. This flash in the darkness was not the star she was waiting for, but it could have been, and she took it as a good omen. (first lines)

It's hard to reconstruct those days, to push through the nebulous expanses of memory. The fog thickens and thins, the picture blurs and clears. All the bits and pieces must be assembled into one continuous whole, and the task is difficult, and, above all, painful. (p33)