And then I came to the room that had been mine. The hinges creaked as I pushed on the door. There was different paint on the walls, a pair of faded yellow chintz curtains fluttering at the open window. And in the center of the floor, on a bare mattress where I had once slept, was a brown-haired girl curled up into a ball.
“Helena!” I said. She started to cry.
* * *
“Where’s Mama?” I asked her for the tenth time, but she only cried, letting me carry her downstairs like a newborn calf. I turned a chair back onto its legs and sat her on it, looking for something, anything, to boil water in. All I could find was an ancient chamber pot that had been the drinking bowl for the cat. There was no electricity. There had never been electricity, but I found matches on the mantel that no one had bothered to take, and there was some firewood still in the pile. I hauled water from the well, boiled it, threw it out the back door, and started again with a clean chamber pot.
All the while, Helena sat, hands folded together, watching me. Her short brown hair was tangled, her dress so torn it was barely decent. The gaps showed me bruises on her arms and the backs of her legs. I fished the one cup I owned out of the knapsack and poured in hot water and a spoonful of sugar from my supplies, plus a sprig of mint from Mama’s window box.
I told Helena to blow on it before she drank. She did, and then she drank it in one gulp. I made her another. Her eyes were huge. Was Helena six or seven now? I decided she was six.
“They took them away,” she whispered. “The men with the broken cross.”
I realized she meant a swastika. I sat down in a chair. “Who did they take?”
“Mama and Stasiu.”
But we’re Catholic, I thought. “Was anyone else here?” I asked. “Did they take anyone else? Was Marysia here?”
“No. I don’t know.”
“When was the last time you ate, Hela?”
“This morning. I found raspberries in the woods.”
They must have been overripe. “How many raspberries did you find?”
“Four.”
“And when was the last time you ate before that?”
“Yesterday morning. I found raspberries.”
“And where did you sleep before that?”
“At Mrs. Zielinski’s. Mama left me there.”
Ah. Now we were getting somewhere. “And you’ve been here by yourself since yesterday?”
She nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Why did she leave me there, Stefi?”
I didn’t know. Because she didn’t know what else to do? I felt like crying, too. About everything. Only I couldn’t. I smiled for Helena. “Let’s have something to eat.”
“Do I have to go back to the Zielinskis’?”
I eyed her bruises. Mrs. Zielinski had been a great friend of my mother’s, dandling baby Helena on her knee. But ever since the German Army had come, it seemed like anyone was capable of anything.
The Germans. They’d taken both my families. My insides writhed. Hot.
Helena was waiting for my answer. I didn’t know what to do with her any more than Mama had, so I only said, “Let’s stay here tonight.”
I let her eat the rest of the crackers the people in the cemetery had given me while I cut a green stick from the hawthorn bush outside the front door and managed toasted bread and cheese with the food I’d packed. She ate slowly, savoring each bite. I made do with an apple.
Then I banked the fire, locked the doors, and took her back upstairs with a chamber pot of warm water and a lantern I’d found in the barn. I scrubbed her off as best I could, being gentle with her sore places, combed her hair, and let her wrap up in one of Mama’s leftover shirts. There were no linens. I lay down beside her on the bare mattress, and she was asleep in seconds.
Every part of me ached. I’d barely eaten, hadn’t slept more than a few minutes since Lwów, and I’d walked nearly thirty kilometers in a day. I’d lost Izio, and my mother and Stasiu. Maybe others I didn’t even know about. My feet hurt. My head hurt. And in my chest there was a well of grief that felt worse than the sickness.
I watched Helena sleep in the lantern light. She was thin, but her face was still soft, round with childhood. And all I could think was that she was my sister. My family. And she was here. Right now. She needed me. Everyone else was beyond my help.
I pushed Izio into some deep, deep place inside me and built a dam across my sadness. I would deal with it later, when I knew how. I put my arm around Helena and slept.
In the morning, I took the paths through the fields. It’s funny, what isn’t forgotten. I knew their twists and turns like the streets of Przemyśl. After half a kilometer or so, Helena slid from my nearly numb arms to the ground in front of the Zielinskis’ gate. Her face was solemn above her indecent dress, and she held my hand so tight it hurt. I knocked, and an old man, a stranger with a few strands of white and rumpled hair, peered blearily into the sunlight.
“Could I see Mrs. Zielinski, please?”
“No,” replied the man. I felt my brows come together.
“Why not?”
“Because she’s dead. I’ll get my son-in-law.”
The door shut again. This was Mrs. Zielinski’s father, then. He’d never lived here before. I looked down at Helena. “You didn’t tell me Mrs. Zielinski died.”
“You didn’t ask,” replied Helena. She was close to crying again, her hand shaky in mine. I held it tighter. The door opened again, and there was Mr. Zielinski. Helena shrank back.
“Oh, ho. Another Podgórska. What do you want?”
The man was drunk. Before eight o’clock in the morning. And I don’t think he’d even noticed Helena. I was remembering why I’d never liked Mr. Zielinski. “I want to know what happened to my mother and my brother.”
He shrugged. “Soldiers came, dragged them off. A labor camp in Germany. Working for Hitler now, and the farm going to the devil.”
Germany. In a labor camp. Like Izio. The sickness inside me flamed.
“How long ago was that?”
He shrugged. “Six, seven weeks.”
While I had been taking care of the Diamants. If I had been here, maybe I could have warned them. Told them what the Germans were like. Hidden them. Made them run.
I shoved this guilt behind the dam inside me. To punish myself with later.
“You’ve been caring for my little sister,” I said.
“Who?”
“My sister, Helena.”
He leaned on the doorframe. It helped him stay upright. “That was my Ela’s business. But she’s gone now.”
I didn’t know if he meant Helena or his wife.
“So do you think it’s your business to beat innocent children and turn them out to starve in the woods, Mr. Zielinski?”
He raised a pointed finger. “Your mama said she would pay, and she hasn’t sent one zloty. No money, no food. And if the girl won’t clean, she’ll take the back of my hand.”
I stared at his smudges of whiskers, the bags under his eyes, and the fat that had collected at his armpits. He smelled. When he didn’t have to. I held Helena behind me and took a step forward.
“God is going to pay you back,” I said.
He looked a little startled.
“For every time you hit her, I’m going to pray that a German soldier comes and beats you ten times with a club. And for every day you made her go hungry, I’m going to pray that you go ten days with nothing to eat and especially with nothing to drink. I’m going to pray that you break out in boils. That you’re bitten by a rabid dog. That your teeth turn black and your … your parts fall off …” I glanced down, and so did he. “And that the nasty vodka you brew in that barn of yours rots you slowly from the inside out!”
Mr. Zielinski opened his mouth. And closed it again.
“And between the two of us, Mr. Zielinski, I think you know whose prayers God is going to answer, you miserable schmuck.”
I picked up Helena, turned, and marched away from the house, ki
cking the front gate shut behind me with a bang. The door to the house slammed, and with a glow of satisfaction, I heard the thump of the lock bar coming down. Helena’s arms gripped tight around my neck.
“Do you have any shoes or clothes in that house?” I whispered.
“No. They sold them.”
“Good.” I was hot with rage.
“I don’t have to go back?” Helena asked.
“No.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
She laid her head on my shoulder, her feet dangling around my knees. And then she giggled.
The farther we got from the Zielinskis’, the less Helena clung. After a while, she walked beside me. A little longer, and she skipped. Three kilometers later, and I started to think about what I was doing. How was I going to feed a little girl? Clothe her? Was she supposed to be in school? I had no idea how to take care of a child.
But there was only me to do it. And so I would.
If God had any justice, I thought, tromping up and down the hilly road, he would answer my prayers for Mr. Zielinski. And then I prayed a thousand times more agony on the Germans. For the ghetto. For taking my mother and brother. For stopping trains. And for what they had done to Izio.
Helena needed to rest every kilometer or so now. She said her head hurt and her feet hurt, so I carried her on my back, and then I needed to rest. I split the last piece of bread with her, drank from a stream, and we walked on. We didn’t see a car or cart all day, and with all the stopping, it took twice the time to retrace my steps, come down through the hills, and see the lights of Przemyśl spreading out on either side of the river.
Only there were very few lights. The city was dim, the windows dark, just a streetlight here and there, half-hidden by the buildings. I didn’t have a watch, but it had to be well after midnight. I held Helena’s hand, biting my lip. Thinking.
I’d come back to the city after curfew before, once or twice, when there was a better price to be had for Mrs. Diamant’s goods in the villages than the city shops. I’d slept in the fields on those nights, waiting for the sun and the right to be on the streets. But it was still a long time until dawn, and I didn’t like the look of my sister. She was silent and staring, swaying on her feet, and our sweat had turned chill. She shivered, and I made a decision. There hadn’t been any German patrol the last time I went home after curfew. We could stay in the back alleys.
“Come on, Hela. Not far now. We’ll have tea and a warm bath, and you can sleep in a bed all night …”
She nodded like she was dreaming, half-naked in her fraying dress. I bit my lip again. She couldn’t go among people like that, even if they were already in their beds. I steered her behind a tree, pulled my own dress over my head and threw it over hers. She woke up a little, putting her arms in the huge sleeves while I cinched the belt tight. The extra material bulged over the tightened belt, but at least she wouldn’t trip. I got my coat out of the knapsack and put it on over my slip.
“See,” I told her, “no one will know. But you have to be very quiet, walk fast, and do exactly what I tell you, yes? It’s like a game. We’re going to see if we can get to the door of my house without anybody seeing …”
I started off at a trot, Helena stumbling along beside me, and we slipped into Przemyśl. We ducked behind the first buildings, staying out of the light, pausing to listen and look around each corner. The city was as silent as I’d ever heard it, only the rumble of a train in the distance. Then we came up on Mickiewicza Street. This was a main road, and there was little cover.
“Hurry, Hela!” I whispered, dragging her along by the hand. We skirted the yellow circles around the bottoms of the streetlights, running past the steps of shops and apartment buildings.
“Stefi …” Helena panted. “I can’t …”
“Come on!” I whispered.
“I can’t … breathe …” Helena made a choking sound that was much too loud in the quiet. And then her hand went limp, and she fell face-first onto the sidewalk.
She didn’t get up. She didn’t move.
I dropped to my knees and flipped her over. She’d scraped her forehead, and the blood looked bright against her white, white face. Her cheeks were cold. Her hands were cold. I couldn’t see her chest move. I couldn’t find her heartbeat.
And suddenly the dam inside me burst, and grief gushed out in a torrent. I was going to lose them all. Every single person I loved. And it was always my fault.
My fault. My fault. My fault …
I looked down at Helena’s still face, and I screamed.
I screamed again. I screamed her name, but Helena was still. Even when I shook her.
And then she opened her mouth and sighed.
I gasped, hand to my chest, and a voice in the darkness said, “Halt! Wer ist da?”
Beams of light played across my face, blinding me. A pistol cocked.
Helena wasn’t dead. But I had just killed us. I slowly raised my hands.
“Please,” I said, squinting. “My sister, she’s sick. I need a doctor …”
I could see boots and the little tunnel of the pistol coming down the sidewalk. A dog barked.
“A doctor!” I said. “Please!”
The boots stopped, and a German toe prodded Helena’s side. She coughed, and the boots leapt back. There was muttering behind the lights.
Then the voice that had spoken before gave another order in terrible Polish that might have been “pick her up” and “come with us.”
I scooped Helena into my arms, staggering to my feet. She was heavier when she was unconscious, and I was shaking, but I managed it. A German policeman walked behind me, his gun pointed at my back while I followed the rest of the patrol down the sidewalk in a slow parade.
We were being arrested, and I knew what would happen. They would beat me, torture me. Find out I had been feeding Jews. That I had tried to help a Jew escape. That I had false information on my papers.
That looking at them made my stomach sick and my blood run hot and every bone in my body burn.
Telling them that part might actually feel good. But only, I suspected, for a minute or two.
We got to the police station but used a back entrance instead of the front. I laid Helena on a bench in an austere hallway bright with electric light, and two of the policemen searched my knapsack. I saw them pull out the cup and the matches and half a piece of bread. Half a piece of bread. That was Helena’s share. From the stream. I glanced down at my sister’s still face. Why hadn’t she eaten her bread?
One of the policemen came and searched my pockets, then tried to take off my coat. I slapped his hands away. I was wearing nothing but a slip, and all the money I had in this world was tucked inside my bra. And I had no idea what they would make of that. I slapped the man’s hands away again, and the other policeman laughed. They talked a little, probably about me, and left the way we’d come in.
One German with a pistol stayed with me. He didn’t speak. He didn’t even look at me. Probably he knew what was coming. I was less afraid than I thought I’d be.
Probably much less afraid than I should have been.
I sat down beside Helena. She was breathing, but she hadn’t opened her eyes. I stroked her hair, wondering what would happen to her.
A door opened at the end of the hallway, and a man stuck his head through it. He looked at us both, then beckoned for me to come. I glanced at the guard, but he gave me no sign. It was time, then. I bent to pick up Helena.
“Nein, no. Let me,” said the man. He came down the hall and scooped her up himself. He was in a German officer’s uniform, but his Polish was very good, only a trace of an accent. I followed him into the room behind the door, which was not full of police and SS and guns and clubs. Instead it had a desk, some shelves, and an examining table, where he laid Helena.
“I am Dr. Becker,” he said, pulling a stethoscope out of his pocket. “This is your sister?”
I nodded, numb with surprise.
&nbs
p; “Tell me what has happened to her.”
I told him while he undid Helena’s ridiculously large dress and looked her over. I was afraid to have him touch her, but I was also afraid not to have help. He asked questions about what we had eaten and when, and what her behavior had been before she fainted. He examined her bruises. Helena began to stir a little and opened her eyes.
“Lie still,” Dr. Becker told her. Then to me, “Please. Sit down. Would you like to hang up your coat?”
I sat and shook my head, holding the coat closed.
“Wait here, please,” he said, and left the room.
And this is where the police come, I thought. They’ll take me away, and I’ll never see Helena again. I broke out in a sweat.
The door opened again, and the doctor came back. With two cups of tea. He handed one to me and took one to Helena, sitting her up and holding the cup so she could sip.
“Your sister is undernourished and exhausted,” the doctor said. “Mostly she needs rest and good food.” He pulled a package of biscuits from his pocket, helped Helena stand up, and gave one to her. “Drink,” he said to me. “It’s full of sugar and a little milk. You look as if you need it.”
I did what he said, watching him intently over the cup. Waiting for the trick.
“She does have a small fever, and I do hear something in her lungs,” he said. “So I will give you a course of antibiotics and some aspirin. You will give it to her? You will not sell it?”
I looked at Helena, eating biscuits much faster than was polite, and shook my head. “I’ll give it to her.”
“Good. I will come and see her tomorrow, to make sure all is well. What is your address?”
I was so stunned, I gave it to him. Then he called two policemen, who escorted us home so we would not be bothered by the patrol. I locked the door and washed Helena’s face and hands, gave her one of the antibiotics and an aspirin, and tucked her into my bed. Emilika wasn’t there. I hoped her visit to her mother had turned out differently than mine.
I fell asleep in a chair, waiting for the Gestapo to bang on the door.
When someone did knock the next morning, it was Dr. Becker. Just as he had said. Helena was sitting up in bed, hair combed and in my clean nightgown, and he chucked her chin and listened to her lungs and said she was a mouse and a little fairy. Then he told me I should keep taking good care of her with no more long journeys and left behind a sack of meal and a bottle of vitamins.
The Light in Hidden Places Page 7