We Were the Lucky Ones

by Georgia Hunter

  She’s grown up so much, her Halina, since the start of all this. Maybe she really will be the one to get them out of here. Halina. Nechuma closes her eyes and tries to rest. As she drifts toward sleep, she imagines herself at the window of her old home, looking out over the tops of the chestnut trees bordering Warszawska Street. The road below is empty but the sky is animated with birds. In her half-dream, Nechuma watches them as they dip in and out of the clouds, touch down on a branch every now and then to survey their surroundings, then take off again. Her breathing slows. She falls asleep with thoughts of Halina soaring over her, arms spread wide as wings, bright eyes alert as she figures a way out for them all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Halina and Adam

  Warsaw, German-Occupied Poland ~ May 1942

  ‘Do you think someone’s ratted us out?’ Halina whispers. She and Adam are seated at a small table in the kitchen of the attic apartment they’ve rented in Warsaw.

  Adam removes his glasses, rubs his eyes. ‘We barely know anyone in Warsaw,’ he says. They’ve been in the apartment for a month and had felt safe there at first. But then yesterday, the landlord’s wife had trounced up the stairs unannounced, sniffing around like a hound onto a scent as she pelted them with questions about their families, their jobs, their upbringing. ‘And our papers are flawless,’ Adam adds. He’d taken extra care in making their IDs. The name they chose, Brzoza, is as Polish-Catholic as they come. Thanks to their false identities and their looks – Halina’s blonde hair and green eyes and Adam’s tall cheekbones and fair skin – they easily pass for Aryan. But there is no getting around the fact that they are recent arrivals in Warsaw, with no friends or family nearby, and these things alone make them suspicious.

  ‘What do we do? Should we move?’

  Adam slides his glasses back over his nose, peers at Halina through thick, round rims. ‘That would be like admitting we’re in the wrong. I think …’ he pauses, tapping his forefinger on the blue-and-white checked cloth draped over the table, ‘I think I have a plan.’ Halina nods, waiting. They need a plan, desperately. Otherwise it’s only a matter of time before the landlord’s wife reports them to the police.

  ‘Aleksandra suspects we’re Jewish, despite our papers … I’ve been trying to figure out how we can explain that we’re not – and the only way to prove it, I mean to really prove it … is for her to see that we’re not. Well, that I’m not.’

  Halina shakes her head. ‘I don’t follow.’

  Adam sighs, fidgets in his seat. ‘I’ve been experimenting with a way to …’ He glances uncomfortably at his lap but his words are interrupted by a sound. Someone climbing the stairs to the attic. His chin snaps toward the door behind him. ‘It’s her,’ Adam whispers, as the footsteps grow closer. He and Halina lock eyes. Adam points at the light hanging over the sink. ‘The light!’ he says. Halina looks at him quizzically. ‘The light by the sink, turn it off.’ He unbuckles his belt.

  ‘Why?’ Halina asks, hurrying to the sink. There’s a knock on the door.

  ‘Coming,’ Adam calls.

  Halina pulls a chain to extinguish the light. Adam’s hands are in his trousers, moving quickly.

  ‘What in God’s name …?’ Halina breathes.

  ‘Just trust me,’ Adam whispers. The knocks grow louder. Adam stands and hurries to the sink, buckling his belt. Halina nods and makes her way to the door.

  ‘Are you there? Let me in!’ The voice on the opposite side of the door is shrill, on the verge of hysteria. Adam gives Halina a thumbs-up. A moment later, Aleksandra barrels into the apartment, glaring at them.

  ‘Hello, Aleksandra,’ Halina offers, glancing at Adam, whose hands rest nonchalantly on the porcelain sink behind him.

  Aleksandra ignores the greeting and crosses the room toward Adam, trailing a cloud of dissent. ‘I’ll make this brief,’ she says, pausing an arm’s reach from him and narrowing her eyes to slits. ‘Someone has led me to believe that you’ve been lying to us. They claim that you are Jewish! And you know what?’ she points a long finger at Adam, ‘I defended you – I told them your name, assured them you were good Christians like the rest of us – but now I’m not so sure.’ A little white bead of saliva clings to her upper lip. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’ she barks. ‘You are Jews, aren’t you?’

  Adam holds up his palms. ‘Please—’

  ‘Please what? Please forgive you for putting our lives in danger? Don’t you know we could be arrested and hung by our necks for harbouring Jews?’

  Adam’s spine stiffens. ‘Whomever you spoke with is wrong,’ he says, his voice cool. ‘And to be frank, I’m offended. There’s not a drop of Jewish blood in our family.’

  ‘Why should I believe you?’ Aleksandra snarls.

  ‘Are you calling me a liar?’

  ‘I have a source.’ Aleksandra wraps her fingers around her hip bones, her arms forming triangles at her torso. ‘You say you’re not a Jude. But you can’t prove it.’

  Adam presses his lips together into a tight, thin line. ‘I don’t have to prove anything to you,’ he says, willing the words to come slowly.

  ‘You say that because you’re lying!’ Aleksandra spits.

  Adam holds her glare. ‘Fine. You need proof?’ He reaches for his belt. Halina hasn’t moved from the door. Behind Aleksandra, she gasps, covers her mouth. As Adam wrestles with his buckle, Aleksandra makes a strange noise, like a hiccup. But before she can object, Adam, in a fit of fury, unzips his trousers, tucks his thumbs under his waistband, and in one motion pushes them, along with his underwear, down to his knees. Halina covers her eyes, unable to watch.

  Aleksandra’s jaw drops. She freezes.

  Adam lifts his shirt. ‘Is this enough proof for you?’ he shouts as his pants fall into a heap around his ankles. He glances down, half expecting to see his camouflage gruesomely exposed. He’d attached the skin-toned bandage that morning with a solution of raw egg white and water, studying himself in the mirror. In the shadows, he hoped, it would pass as foreskin. The bandage, to his relief, has stayed put.

  Halina squints through her fingers at the silhouette of her husband by the sink. In the shadows, she can just make out the shape of his genitals. She understands now why he’d asked her to extinguish the light over the sink.

  ‘Good God almighty, enough!’ Aleksandra finally huffs, turning her chin away in disgust. She slinks toward the door, looking as if she might be sick.

  Halina exhales, dumbstruck that Adam’s plan had worked, and wondering how long he’d been walking around with a bandage adhered to his groin. She clears her throat and opens the door, an indication that it’s time for Aleksandra to leave.

  ‘Calling us Jewish,’ Adam mutters under his breath as he bends to pull his trousers back up over his thighs.

  The landlord’s wife pats nervously at her blouse, the skin on her neck smeared with hot, red blotches. She avoids eye contact with Halina as she steps through the door to the stairs without a word. Halina locks the door behind her and waits for the footsteps to recede before turning to look at Adam. She shakes her head.

  Adam lifts his palms to the ceiling, shrugging his shoulders toward his ears. ‘I didn’t know what else to do,’ he says.

  Halina covers her mouth. Adam glances at his feet and up again at her, and as their eyes meet, the corners of his mouth curl into a smile and Halina laughs silently into her palm. It takes her a moment to collect herself. Wiping tears from her eyes, she makes her way across the room. ‘You could have warned me,’ she says, resting her forearms on Adam’s chest.

  ‘I didn’t have time,’ Adam whispers. He loops his arms around her waist.

  ‘I wish I could have seen Aleksandra’s face,’ Halina says. ‘She looked wretched on her way out.’

  ‘Her jaw nearly touched the floor.’

  ‘You’re a brave man, Adam,’ Halina says softly.

  ‘I’m a lucky man. I’m actually surprised the bandage stuck.’

  ‘Thank God it did! You had me nerv
ous.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Is it still – on?’ Halina glances down at the space between them.

  ‘I slipped it off as Aleksandra was leaving. It was driving me crazy. I’ve been wearing it for hours – I’m surprised you didn’t notice me walking strangely.’

  Halina laughs again, shakes her head. ‘Did it hurt coming off? Is everything all right – down there?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Halina narrows her eyes. Her adrenaline has made her skin electric to the touch and Adam’s warmth against her is suddenly irresistible. ‘I’d better have a look,’ she says, reaching for his belt, unfastening it. She kisses him, closing her eyes as his trousers fall once again into a pile at his ankles.

  AUGUST 4, 1942: Late in the evening hours, Radom’s Glinice ghetto is cordoned off by police and lit with searchlights; 100-150 children and elderly are murdered on the spot; the following day approximately 10,000 others are sent by railway to the Treblinka extermination camp.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Jakob and Bella

  AVL Factory, Radom, German-Occupied Poland ~ August 6, 1942

  Standing precariously on a toilet seat in the men’s lavatory, Bella listens for Jakob’s knock. She keeps one hand on the stall wall for balance, her winter coat draped over her elbow, the other hand by her side, clutching the handle of a small leather suitcase. The washroom door is small, her position excruciating: if she rights herself, her head will show over the top; if she steps down off the toilet, her feet will be visible below; if she moves at all, for that matter, she’ll risk falling, or worse, slipping into the fetid hole between her feet. Thankfully, no one has come to check the lavatory in the past thirty minutes. But Bella holds her position anyway, trying her best to ignore the sweltering heat, the throb in her lower back, the overwhelming stench of faeces and stale urine. Hurry, Jakob. What’s taking so long?

  Their plan, if it works, is to escape the confines of AVL unnoticed and make their way to the nearby Glinice ghetto. A part of her still clings to the thread of hope that she’ll find her parents there, alive. Spared. But she can feel it. They’re gone.

  The ghetto has been liquidated. Bella and Jakob had been warned that it would happen, by a friend in the Polish police force. They’d been close with Ruben in school and were hopeful when he was assigned patrol duty at AVL; perhaps, they thought, he might be of some help to them. But the two times Bella had run into him, he’d walked by without so much as a nod or a glance in her direction. It was no surprise, of course – this was common now, this new dynamic between old friends. And so it caught Bella off guard when a week ago Ruben took her by the arm, pushed her into a storage closet, and followed her inside, locking the door behind them. Bella, who by now expected the worst, had prayed that whatever he had planned for her would at least be quick. Instead, Ruben surprised her by turning to her with a look of abject sorrow. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you, Bella,’ he said in a voice just barely above a whisper. ‘They’d have my head if – anyway, you have family in the ghetto, yes?’ he’d asked in the darkness. Bella had nodded yes. ‘I heard today that Glinice is meant to be liquidated within a week. There will be a handful of odd jobs left, a few may be spared, sent to Wałowa, but the rest …’ he looked at the floor. When Bella asked where the Jews would be sent, Ruben spoke so softly Bella had to strain to make out the words. ‘I heard a couple of SS officers talking about a camp near Treblinka,’ Ruben whispered. ‘A labour camp?’ Bella asked, but Ruben didn’t answer, just shook his head.

  With this news, Bella pleaded with Maier, the factory foreman, to allow her to bring her parents to AVL. Somehow he’d agreed, and even issued her an ausweis so she could walk the two kilometres to Glinice one night. Ruben escorted her. But her parents had refused to leave. ‘If you think we can just waltz out of here, you’re crazy,’ her father told her. ‘This Herr Maier says we can work for him, but tell that to the ghetto guards – tell them we’re leaving our jobs here to work for someone else, and they’ll laugh, and then put a bullet through our heads, and yours, too. We’ve watched it happen before.’

  Bella could see the terror in her father’s eyes. But she was persistent. ‘Please, Father. They’ve already taken Anna. Don’t let them take you, too – you must try, at least. Ruben can help,’ she pressed, her voice unnaturally high, pinched with desperation.

  ‘It’s too dangerous for us,’ her mother said, shaking her head. ‘Go, Bella. Go. Save yourself.’

  Bella hated her parents for dismissing her plan, for surrendering hope. She’d given them the chance to escape – to take fate into their own hands – but rather than grab the reins, they’d balked and slumped in the saddle, overcome with fear. ‘Please!’ Bella had finally begged, sobbing into her mother’s arms, tears flooding her cheeks, but she could see it in the pitch of their shoulders, in the downward cast of their eyes – they had lost the will to fight. What strength they had left in them had been siphoned when Anna disappeared. They were shells of their old selves, empty, depleted, and afraid. When Bella and Ruben finally left Glinice without them, Bella was beside herself.

  Just four days later, at midnight on the 4th of August, the Glinice ghetto liquidation began, as Ruben had predicted. Two kilometres away at the factory, Bella could hear the faint gunshots, the ensuing bone-chilling screams. Helpless, frantic, and barely functioning after days without sleep, she collapsed. Jakob found her in the factory barracks, curled into the fetal position and refusing to talk, or even to look at him. She could do nothing but sob. Without any comforting words to offer, Jakob lay down beside her, wrapped himself around her, and held her as she wept. It was hours before the pop of gunfire finally let up. When it did, Bella went silent.

  At dawn the next day, Jakob helped Bella back to her bunk, and told the guard assigned to the barracks that his wife was too sick to work. ‘Are you sure she’s alive?’ the guard asked when he leant his head into her barracks and found Bella lying motionless on her back, a wet cloth over her brow. An hour later, Maier declared over the loudspeakers that AVL would be closing, that the Jews would be sent to a different factory, and they should pack their belongings. They were to prepare to leave, Maier said, the following morning at nine o’clock sharp. But Jakob knew exactly where they’d be sent. They needed a way out. That night, Jakob forced Bella to eat a crust of bread, and begged her to gather her strength. ‘I need you with me,’ he said. ‘We can’t stay here, do you understand?’ Bella had nodded, and Jakob had explained his plan, which included a pair of wire cutters, although Bella had a hard time following. Before he left, Jakob begged her to meet him in the morning at eight-thirty in the men’s lavatory.

  With the summer sun beating down on the corrugated metal roof overhead, the air in the washroom stall is stifling. Bella fears she might faint. It had taken all of her effort to rise that morning, and when she did it felt as if she no longer inhabited her own body, as if her muscles had surrendered. When the loudspeakers crackle, she blinks, thankful for the distraction. It’s Maier’s voice.

  ‘Workers – make your way to the factory entrance for your rations. Bring your belongings.’

  Bella closes her eyes. A line will soon form at the front of the factory.

  She pictures the guards gathered to escort the Jews to the train station, and wonders if they were the same guards who oversaw her parents’ trip toward almost certain death. Her stomach turns. Where is Jakob? She’d managed to arrive at the washroom at eight twenty-five, five minutes early. At least a half hour has passed. He should be here by now. Please – Bella prays, listening to the faint slap of sweat dripping every few seconds from her chin to the cement floor beneath her and shaking away the inclination to burst from the washroom and scream for the guards to take her, too. Please, Jakob, hurry.

  Finally, she hears a soft tap-tap-tap-tap on the door. She exhales, and steps gingerly from the toilet. Her double knock is met quickly with another four. She unlocks the door. Outside, Jakob nods, looking relieved
to find her there. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he whispers. He takes the suitcase from her and guides her around the outside of the washroom, hugging the wall. Wiping the sweat from her face, Bella gulps the fresh air, grateful to put herself in Jakob’s hands now, to simply follow.

  ‘You see that field, just beyond the men’s barracks?’ Jakob asks, pointing. ‘That’s where we’re going. But first we have to make it to the barracks.’

  Bella squints at the barracks, which appear to be some thirty metres away. Beyond is a fence, a wall of chain link and barbed wire surrounding the property, and on the other side of that, their target – a field of overgrown wheat.

  ‘We’re going to have to run,’ Jakob whispers. ‘And hope that no one sees us.’ He peers cautiously around the corner of the washroom facility toward the backside of the factory, narrating what he sees: the tail end of a line of people stretching around the building from its entrance; three guards bringing up the rear, motioning for the last few workers to join the back of the line. After a few long minutes, Jakob reaches behind him and takes Bella’s hand. ‘They’re gone,’ he says. ‘Quick. Let’s go!’

  Bella is jerked forward and soon they are kicking up dust as they sprint toward the barracks, their backs now to the factory. Within seconds Bella’s lungs begin to scream, but she is aware only of holding tight to Jakob’s hand, and of the temptation to turn and look back as she runs, to see if anyone has spotted them – but she fears that if she does she might panic and stop dead in her tracks. Thirty metres shrink to twenty, then ten, then five, and then their pace slows as they duck behind the men’s barracks, pressing their backs up against the weathered wood, sucking fistfuls of air into their burning lungs. Bella leans over and rests her hands on her knees, feeling her heart thrashing in her chest. The run has nearly put her over the edge, but it has also stirred something in her. For the moment at least, it has brought her back into her body.