11
I’d entered the Britannia Hotel a starving girl, I walked out a starving member of a gang. The bouncer looked at me skeptically but thought it safer not to speak to me again. And he was clearly relieved to see me leave without any more Rubinstein antics.
The sun blinded me and it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the daylight. Now I could start to relax, more or less—even the stench of the ghetto air seemed fresh in comparison to the smoky atmosphere of the bar. And I suddenly realized: Asher hadn’t told me what I was supposed to smuggle. Or the names of the men I would meet at the wall.
For a moment, I thought about going back to find out more details. But Asher wasn’t the sort of person I wanted to annoy. So I decided to take my sawdust bread and head home. Though not just yet.
Whenever I had the chance, I took a detour through the book market. I enjoyed losing myself in the boxes and suitcases of books for sale: works by the likes of Thomas Mann, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, or Erich Kästner, all authors forbidden by the Nazis. And better yet, there were even books in English. I’d been able to teach myself some English using books, in case I ever got to America.
I’d started with picture books like Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, and Winnie-the-Pooh. But by now, I could read whole detective novels. My favorites were the Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels by Dorothy L. Sayers, even if she could only transport me as far as England in my mind and not all the way to New York.
I stopped when I came to a large trunk leaning against the curb. It looked as if it had traveled the world more times than I ever would, as far as I could tell from all the travel stickers from overseas stuck to its sides. The trunk was full of English-language books. And it belonged to a skinny man with a thin, wispy beard and bleak eyes. I rummaged through, and amid all the highbrow titles that I wouldn’t have understood even if they’d been in Polish, I found a Lord Peter Wimsey novel called Murder Must Advertise.
Now all I had to do was bargain well enough to get the book for free. My chances weren’t all that bad. Books were one of the few goods in the ghetto that got cheaper by the day. I looked at the bookseller. This man probably hadn’t managed to sell a single book so far today. And he was bound to be hungry, just like everyone else. I showed him the book. “I’ll give you a piece of bread for it,” I said. The man was far too weak to bargain. He fingered his beard and nodded. I was just about to pull the loaf of bread out of my bag and break off a bit when I saw Stefan.
He was hurrying along the sidewalk past the bookseller and didn’t look in our direction. For a second, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. But by then he had already turned the corner and disappeared into a side street. I quickly stuffed the bread back into the bag, pushed my way past the seller, and ignored him when he said, “—What about a piece of your bread?” I followed Stefan.
Stefan had reached the end of the street and disappeared round the corner. Wherever he was headed, he was in a hurry. I started to run but couldn’t call out. Stefan wasn’t even his real name. And I was afraid that I’d make him run away. I knew practically nothing about him, but I had a feeling that he was acting illegally.
I charged round the next corner without calling and found myself trapped in a narrow, empty lane. It was blocked at one end by the fence that sealed off the Jewish cemetery. Stefan was nowhere to be seen. Did he go over the fence?
I ran to the end of the lane and stared through the mesh, but I couldn’t see anyone in the graveyard. I thought about climbing the fence. But then I’d risk getting caught by the Germans without a pass. I wanted to see Stefan, but I didn’t want to risk my neck for the sake of a meeting. It was bad enough having to climb over the wall later tonight. Damn! What had I got myself into? The thought of climbing over all the broken glass and barbed wire made me sick.
After I looked through the fence again, I gave up and walked back down the lane. I kept turning round, hoping to see him. But it didn’t happen. I started to think that he hadn’t climbed the fence at all. So where did he go?
I stopped, realizing I was really thirsty. My new boss hadn’t offered me anything at the Britannia Hotel. A glass of water would be good right now. Or apple juice—imagine that! The taste of fruit and water all mixed together would be heaven. The only kind of heaven I could imagine these days.
I looked at the ghetto buildings around me. They were totally dilapidated in this section, even worse than in the rest of the ghetto. Practically all the windowpanes were broken. So many walls were crumbling, and one house had lost its roof. The German tanks had done excellent work.
I noticed an open door leading into a derelict house that looked ready to collapse sometime soon. Could Stefan have gone in there?
The vestibule stank; there appeared to be people living on the stairs. If one could call that living.
There was a haggard man lying on the first landing, staring into space. He looked ancient, but he probably wasn’t even forty. He didn’t notice me; there was no point in trying to ask him if he had seen a blond guy running past. Whatever his empty eyes could see, it wasn’t in our world.
I went farther up the stairs, past more hollow-eyed people. Although the stink of human waste made me feel sick, I couldn’t stop looking for Stefan just yet. For nine weeks, I’d imagined what it would be like to see him again—and been troubled by a guilty conscience because of Daniel. No way was I going to go home without being sure I’d done everything to find him.
On the first floor, there were three flats. Should I just knock and then, if someone answered, ask if there was a blond young man living there?
One of the doors was open a crack; the lock was broken. Probably some gang of thieves had broken in some time ago. Although what could they have been hoping to find here?
I opened the door with a gentle nudge. The flat didn’t smell terrible. It just smelled musty.
It appeared empty—no furniture, just broken floorboards and gray wallpaper with a faded flower pattern. Should I go in? Or should I get home, find something to drink, then get annoyed about finding Stefan only to lose him again? And then worry about what awaited me on the wall with the Chompe gang tonight.
I went.
I didn’t hear anything. No footsteps, no sounds of rustling. If anyone was inside perhaps they were asleep.
I opened the first door along the hall and went into an almost empty room. This was where the kitchen would have been in a flat like this, back in the days when only one family had lived here. But this room had no oven anymore, no kitchen cupboards, no plates and dishes. Instead, an old-fashioned printing press stood in the middle of the floor. Piles of newspapers were lying on the floor beside it. Although newspaper was too grand a word. These eight-page pamphlets were copies of an underground newspaper simply called News. There were all sorts of illegal pamphlets circulating throughout the ghetto, and this was one.
I noticed a commentary on page two: “The Warsaw Ghetto lives in constant danger of being liquidated. All energy must be focused on the great deed we need to perform and which we will perform. We must conduct ourselves in the spirit of Masada!”
Masada was a fortress in Palestine where ages ago a few Jews had resisted the siege of over four thousand Roman legionaries for months. When the Romans, who had suffered countless losses due to the resistance of the Jews, finally stormed the fortress, there was dead silence in Masada. All the residents had killed themselves. Warriors, women, and children.
The spirit of Masada—were the ghetto Jews supposed to fight against the Germans and then kill themselves? “Resistance unto death” didn’t sound like an option to me.
“What are you doing?” someone shouted behind me.
I jumped, hoping desperately that the voice was Stefan’s, even if it didn’t sound anything like him. I turned round slowly. A skinny young man was standing in the doorway leading to the hall. His brown hair was cut exceptionally short, and his eyes were bloodshot. I might have wondered why they were so red if he hadn’t been holding a knife.
“I just asked you a question,” he snarled. He moved toward me, thrusting the knife through the air like a madman. He didn’t look as if he knew what he was doing with it, but he seemed determined to use it.
“I … I,” I stuttered. What on earth could I say? That I was looking for someone called Stefan although that wasn’t his real name, and that I didn’t know if he had anything to do with the underground newspaper?
“Answer me!”
This guy shook the knife in front of my face. He probably thought that I was spying for the Germans. Desperately, I tried to think what I could possibly say to make him change his mind.
“Tell me! Tell me, or I’ll stab you to death!”
Each time he jabbed the knife at me, he seemed more violent. But somehow he didn’t seem 100 percent sure that he was going to kill me. Not yet.
“I’m not a collaborator,” I answered. My voice trembled and I started to shake.
“I don’t believe you. Why else would you be here except to sniff around for the Germans?”
I was so scared that I couldn’t think of any answer except the plain stupid truth: “I was looking for a boy who kissed me.”
My attacker was so surprised that he stopped waving the knife for a moment.
“It’s true!”
He scowled even more. He didn’t believe a word I said. I wouldn’t have, either, if I’d been him.
“Do you think I’m an idiot?” he yelled. His face had turned dark red with anger. The veins on his neck were throbbing. The knife! All of a sudden he was holding the knife steady in his hand. No more waving it about. He was ready to stab me now. To murder me. Telling the truth was the worst idea.
“I’ll kill you!”
My eyes filled up with tears. “Please don’t,” I pleaded.
Through my tears, I saw him raise the knife.
I panicked and charged at him, pushing him away as hard as I could. He stumbled against the wall, but managed to keep his balance. He swore in Hebrew, which I couldn’t understand. Unlike most of the Jewish children in the ghetto, I’d never learned Hebrew. I spoke Polish and my beloved English.
I tried to push past him toward the door. But just at that moment he stabbed me in the top of my right arm. The blade plunged into my flesh and I screamed.
The pain stunned me. I should have run for my life, but I was frozen, staring at my arm as the blood stained the sleeve of my white blouse in a matter of seconds.
I had never had a wound like this before in all my life. It hurt so much. I thought I was going to die.
I was crying and shaking, and I couldn’t see anything properly because I was blinded by my tears. My attacker was grunting like an animal, and I could tell that he was going to stab me again. And again and again. I wouldn’t be able to stop him.
“Zacharia!” someone shouted.
Was that Stefan’s voice?
“Zacharia, what on earth is going on?”
My assailant backed off. “She’s working for the Germans,” he snarled.
Relieved, I sank to the ground and cradled my arm. Now Stefan would be able to explain that I wasn’t a threat, that I was just a little smuggler.
But Stefan’s voice sounded grim. “Are you sure?”
“No!” I wanted to scream, but all I could do was gasp. My voice failed in despair.
“Why else is she here?” Zacharia snapped.
“I’ll deal with this,” Stefan said in a commanding tone. “You can go.” Zacharia obeyed. Reluctantly, but he obeyed. Whatever sort of underground organization this was, Stefan was obviously further up the hierarchy than my attacker was.
“Where were you, anyway?” Zacharia asked, and I heard the anger in his voice. He waited. He obviously didn’t like being ordered around like this.
“In the cellar.”
That was enough to shut Zacharia up.
Stefan held out a hand for the knife. Zacharia gave it to him and then left the kitchen.
Stefan turned toward me, holding the knife that was stained with my blood.
I tried to stand up. I didn’t want to be a whimpering wreck lying on the floor in front of him.
“What are you doing here, Lenka?” he asked.
He’d remembered the name he made up for me at the Polish market. Nine weeks ago!
At any other time, I’d have been so pleased. But his voice was cold, and he was the one threatening me with the knife now. His hand was steady, which made me think that he knew how to use it better than Zacharia did.
His blue eyes seemed to pierce right through me. They were bloodshot, just like Zacharia’s. Why was that? At any rate there was no warmth there. Just coldness.
To think that I’d been so enchanted by this guy that I’d chosen to dance down Broadway with him in my dreams instead of Daniel. I felt so ashamed that I forgot the pain in my arm for a moment.
“Am I going to get an answer or not?” Stefan asked. He was holding the knife steady, pointing in my direction.
That was far more menacing than any thrashing about.
“I saw you at the book market and followed you.”
“Why?”
“Because…,” I answered, but I felt so ashamed. I didn’t want to say any more.
“… I wanted to see you again.”
If he was even the tiniest bit flattered, it didn’t show.
Of course he wasn’t flattered. It was so stupid to keep thinking or hoping stuff like that. Totally childish! I was nowhere near as grown-up as I liked to think.
“You wanted to see me again?” Stefan asked, sounding surprised and suspicious at the same time.
“To say thank you.”
He wasn’t convinced.
“And instead of saying thank you, you discover our printing press?”
“I saw you at the book market and followed you, but you disappeared.”
“So then you stumbled across this house instead?”
“Yes.”
“What a coincidence!”
“Yes,” I said weakly.
He twisted the knife in his hand. He didn’t know what to make of any of this.
“Why would I lie?” I asked. “You know I’m a smuggler.”
“Oh, and smugglers never work for the Germans, do they?” he laughed bitterly. “You wouldn’t be the first person to be turned in a German prison,” he said bitingly. As if he had been betrayed by a smuggler that way before.
“It’s the truth,” I said. “Should I have lied and made up a better story to convince you?”
He didn’t say anything.
Was the man who had saved my life with a kiss going to kill me any moment so I wouldn’t reveal the hidden printing press to the Germans? After a while he nodded. He’d made up his mind, but which way?
“A collaborator would have a better story ready,” he said, and put the knife back in the pocket of his gray suit. His features softened, and he smiled as if nothing had happened.
“I’ll get some disinfectant and treat your wound,” he said.
“That would be nice,” I answered. I was so relieved that I could have burst into tears. My eyes welled up, but I pulled myself together. I wasn’t going to be that pathetic.
Before he left the kitchen he turned around and threatened me again. “If you disappear, I’ll be less inclined to believe you and I’ll follow you.”
But his voice was more friendly than it had been when he was interrogating me. He didn’t really think I was going anywhere.
“You could follow the trail of blood,” I said, grimacing. Now that the immediate danger was gone, I felt the pain again.
He smiled at that, but then he looked at my arm and his face grew serious. My sleeve was soaked through completely.
Stefan hurried out of the kitchen, and as I listened to his footsteps disappearing down the hall, I started to feel frightened. My wound was bleeding so badly, and I was afraid that Zacharia might come back. I felt totally vulnerable.
But Zacharia didn’t come back. He had probably disappeared into the mysterious cellar. That was one place I definitely should not ask Stefan about, if I didn’t want to arouse any more suspicion.
Stefan came back into the kitchen with a little bottle, a clean cloth, and a needle and thread. His underground group was prepared for battle injuries.
We sat on the floor, he rolled up my bloody sleeve, and I suddenly realized how deep the knife had penetrated the flesh of my arm. I felt so faint looking at it that I nearly threw up.
“You were lucky,” Stefan said.
“Lucky?” That was a strange way of putting it.
“Zacharia didn’t damage any muscles.”
Considering that then I really had been lucky.
“It will be better in a minute,” Stefan smiled at me kindly. He was trying to keep me calm. Or maybe he just didn’t want me to throw up all over his shoes.
He dribbled disinfectant into the wound. It burned terribly, and I gritted my teeth. Then he dabbed it with the cloth. Every dab burned as if he were holding a flame to my flesh.
“You’re doing very well,” he said.
“I wish I could say the same for you,” I gasped.
Stefan grinned. He knew I was trying to be funny, not criticizing him.
“At least the cut is clean now, Lenka.”
“My name is Mira.”
“Then Lenka was a good guess—it’s pretty close.” He smiled.
“And what’s your name?”
“Not Mira.” He grinned, and threw the cloth away.
“Idiot,” I said.
“No, that’s not my name, either,” he grinned some more.
“Moron!”
“Some people call me Jerk.”
“I can’t think why.” I tried to smile.
“They can’t have a clue about human nature,” he said with a glint in his eye. He picked up the needle and thread and said, “I’ll tell you my name, but you’ll have to be brave first.”
“My father used to give me sweets for being brave,” I said.
“I haven’t got any sweets, but I’ve got some apple juice if that’s any good.”
Apple juice? Oh wow!
“I’ll take the juice and do without your name,” I said as he threaded the needle.
“Oh, you’ve really hurt me now,” he replied, and pretended to look offended.
“If I start asking you questions about what’s going on here, will you think I’m a collaborator again, or just nosy?”
He looked at me closely. “Just nosy,” he said, and stuck the needle into my skin.
The pain was awful.
Even if he’d sewn a wound or two before, he wasn’t a doctor by any means. He was heavy-handed to say the least.
“Well?” Stefan asked, and started on the second stitch.
I nearly shrieked with pain, but I gritted my teeth like I’d done when he’d used the disinfectant.
“You were going to ask me some questions.” The needle went into my skin again. Questions … questions were good. Questions would distract me. The first one that shot into my dazed mind was “Can you dance?” In my mind’s eye I saw Stefan twirling me around to the sounds of “Night and Day” again.
At least I had the sense not to actually ask this out loud. Stefan wasn’t a dancer. My hero with the rose would have stabbed me to death if he’d thought I was a spy.
But I wanted him to be a dancer! It was ridiculous. Mira, you’re so pathetic. He’s got both feet on the ground while your head is stuck in the clouds.
“All these questions at once,” Stefan was teasing me. “Is it that bad?”
Instead of answering I managed to ask a question at last: “Masada?”
“Masada?” He was surprised and stopped stitching up my arm for a moment.
I needed the break and pointed at the newspaper. “Fight to death?”
“That’s right,” he answered without hesitating. “The Germans are going to kill us all. No exceptions!”
I studied his face, his eyes. He really believed this.
“That is … that’s crazy!” I said. Although the Germans had become even more high-handed since the “Night of Blood,” the idea that they could kill all the Jews in the ghetto was unthinkable.
Stefan’s blue eyes glistened with rage. He did the next stitch angrily.
I cried out in pain.
He relaxed a bit, but didn’t apologize, and moved quickly to the next stitch. Thankfully, he was more careful this time. All he said was: “Chełmno.”
Of course I’d heard about Chełmno. All the secret newspapers had written about it. In Chełmno, the Nazis were said to have locked Jews into a truck and suffocated them with exhaust fumes. Like most people, I was sure this was a made-up horror story, invented by someone with an imagination like Hannah’s, but with a dark and warped mind.
Obviously, Stefan believed that the crazy story about Chełmno was true and not just a dark rumor. I decided not to start an argument.
“What’s wrong with your eyes?” I asked instead.
“My eyes?”
“They are bloodshot. So are Zacharia’s.”
“We stayed up all night to set and print the paper. And we had no lights on, so we wouldn’t get caught. We worked by the light of the moon.”
Now he cut the thread. The ordeal was over, at last. I looked at his work. It wasn’t pretty, but at least I wouldn’t bleed to death. And the wound would heal over the next few days. The only thing was—I was going to have to climb over the wall with a damaged arm tonight.
“Let’s get you some of that juice,” Stefan said, and he was smiling at me again in his nice, cheeky way.
We scrambled back onto our feet. I was thrilled about the apple juice. I stopped thinking about Chełmno or the ghetto being destroyed, and forgot about the dangers I’d have to face tonight by the wall. All my worries were gone because of a bit of juice!
“It’s in the next room,” Stefan explained.
Just as we were about to leave the kitchen, a woman appeared at the door. She was at least twenty and had the austere, noble face of a queen. Even though she was even smaller than me, she had the aura of a leader who everyone would follow without question. Someone you don’t argue with.
“Zacharia told me we had an unwelcome guest,” she said stiffly, and looked at me as she spoke. I felt intimidated at once and stared at the floor.
“She’s not a spy, Esther,” Stefan said.
She kept on looking at me. She obviously had her doubts.
“We can’t afford to make any mistakes, Amos.”
Amos!
His name was Amos.
That was nicer than Stefan.
Much nicer.
“You know I’m always right,” Amos was teasing her.
But Esther wasn’t convinced.
“The kid’s okay.”
Kid! I didn’t want him to call me a kid. It was bad enough that Daniel treated me like a child sometimes. Or when I acted like one.
“Well, why is she here, then?” Esther asked.
Now he would tell her that I’d run after him like an infatuated schoolgirl. And show her what a kid I really was. I felt deeply embarrassed in front of this woman who seemed so superior. And even more embarrassed in front of Amos.
“I’ll tell you later,” Amos said.
I was relieved for a moment.
But then he kissed this Esther person on the cheek.
They were a couple.
Oh, I didn’t like that!
And I hated myself for minding.
The kiss didn’t really seem to change Esther’s mind. Her expression remained stern as she said, “I’m off to the cellar.”
“Okay,” Amos smiled, and kissed her on the lips this time.
I didn’t like that at all.
Esther smiled. Even she couldn’t resist Amos’s charm completely, not even—or so I supposed—if she tried.
She left the flat, and then I followed Amos into the next room. There were numerous mattresses on the floor; it had to be where Amos, Esther, Zacharia, and all those other people from their group slept. Amos bent down and picked up an almost full bottle of apple juice. He gave it to me and I drank and drank and drank.
“You’ll feel sick if you drink too fast,” he warned me.
“Do I care?” I asked when I stopped drinking for half a second, to catch my breath.
“No?”
“Right.”
He started laughing.
It felt good to make him laugh.
I drank the whole bottle. It was heavenly. Then I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. And then I suddenly asked: “What’s in the cellar?”
“Is that any of your business?”
“No?”
“Right.”
Now it was my turn to laugh.
Amos was pleased that he’d made me laugh. He leaned against the windowsill. Behind him through the filthy panes, I saw the graveyard. Because of the dirt on the glass, it looked as if it was raining ashes.
“You should join us,” Amos said all of a sudden. He was completely serious. He wanted me to be part of his life. That’s the first thing I thought. But I was just being stupid again. This was about politics, not about me.
“I don’t even know who you are exactly,” I said doubtfully.
“We belong to Hashomer Hatzair.”
I didn’t know very much about politics, but even I had heard that much about the organization. “So, you all want to emigrate to Palestine,” I said.
“This isn’t about whether you want to live in Poland or in Palestine…,” he said.
“Or America,” I added.
“Or America if you want. This is about how we’re going to die.”
“You really do believe that the Germans might kill us all?”
“Will, not might,” he said.
“The only question is how you want to die.”
“Would you rather be led to slaughter, or do you want to fight?”
“The last person to ask a question like that was a madman,” I said.
“We’ll all have to make that decision,” he replied, “mad or not, it doesn’t make any difference.”
“And you’ve found an answer?”
“I was almost too late,” he replied. He looked up at the grubby window toward the graveyard, as if he was ashamed. No, ashamed wasn’t the right word. It was more like he felt guilty about something.
Even if I didn’t exactly know what sort of person I wanted to be, or what sort of person Amos was, I did know that I wasn’t going to waste my nights printing useless appeals to resist and fight, getting bloodshot eyes for my efforts. I was a smuggler, not a fighter.
“The ghetto is going to survive,” I said. I was certain, but I was also trying to tell Amos that I didn’t want to join his group.
He understood immediately and said, “Then you should go.”
It was so abrupt and there wasn’t a hint of sadness in his eyes this time, although we were going separate ways, presumably forever. He wanted me out of his life. That hurt. Far more than it should have. Though not enough to make me join his stupid group.
“And if you do decide to betray us, I’ll find you,” he said. He was threatening me again.
His hand slid into the pocket with the knife. I wasn’t sure if it was a deliberate move or not.
I shivered.
“I’m not going to betray anybody,” I said, and left him standing between all the mattresses. I didn’t say goodbye. And I didn’t look back. I wasn’t going to look at this person who was ready to kill me, ever again.