The Light in Hidden Places

by Sharon Cameron

  I didn’t want to do this tonight.

  Lubek tries to come in, but the door is locked.

  “Wait a minute!” I check the house for belongings, shut the door to the attic, and set the photograph upright beside the sugar tin. And open the door.

  “You left work quick today,” Lubek says, stepping in out of the rain. Not even a greeting.

  “I had somewhere I needed to be.”

  “You always seem to have somewhere to be.” He shakes off his coat just outside the door, then hangs it up and shuts out the rain. “You’re not avoiding me, are you?”

  “No.” I go and sit at the half table. Any minute now, he’ll make tea and reach for the sugar.

  I know I’m doing the right thing. I’ve chosen the seven lives above my head and the one below the floor. But I am dreading the moment he sees that photograph.

  Lubek grins. “I think you don’t want to talk about what I want to talk about.”

  One thing I do like about Lubek is that he gets straight to the point, without games. And right now, he’s sitting where he can look me in the face. With his back to the picture. I decide to be direct.

  “Lubek, you’ve been a good friend to me. But I’m not the girl for you.”

  “Why?”

  Because I lie to everyone, all the time. Even to you. Because I could be shot any day. Because I loved a boy once, and he was murdered, and I’m afraid that will happen to me again.

  I hadn’t realized that last one.

  “Because I like you,” I say aloud. “But I don’t love you.”

  There, Max. I hope you enjoyed that.

  Lubek frowns. I’m surprised he hasn’t pulled out a cigarette. “That could change.”

  Maybe it could. But it can’t.

  I shake my head at him. Lubek pushes back his chair, stands, and turns. To make the tea.

  And he sees the photograph.

  He goes as still as stone.

  I cross my arms over my stomach. I know what I have to do.

  “Who is that?” he asks.

  “Just a boy I’ve been seeing.”

  “You’ve been seeing … one of them?”

  “He’s very nice,” I say, thinking how stupid he seemed in the photography shop. “He’s … from Salzburg.”

  Lubek stares at the handsome SS man, paralyzed. “Is that where you’ve been going after work?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “And then you sit with me at this table.”

  To be fair, I have never invited Lubek to have tea with me at this table. But I haven’t minded.

  Lubek finally looks at me. And he is so angry. “I suppose he has money.”

  “Some,” I whisper.

  “I never knew you were so cheap.”

  I blink, but I don’t let him see me flinch.

  “I thought there was more to you. That you were better than Januka and those other girls. I thought you had a brain in your head. And now I find out you’re just up for sale like the rest of them.”

  He goes to the door and grabs his coat.

  “I told you I don’t change my mind. I was wrong. It’s changed.” He pulls open the door and looks back. “You disgust me.”

  And the door slams so hard it rattles the walls.

  I get up from the table, walk to the door, and turn the lock. Then I lean against it.

  That had hurt. A lot.

  It’s been a horrible day.

  When I open my eyes, Max is coming back into the room with an untucked shirt and bare feet. I’m sure he heard Lubek leave. I haven’t given the signal to the others in the attic yet, and he doesn’t, either. He just comes and puts his arms around me. I cry into his neck.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

  “He called me cheap,” I whisper.

  “I know.” He strokes my hair. “You’re not cheap. You’re the best person I know.”

  It feels so good to be held. Max puts his hands on either side of my head and kisses my forehead. Like his father used to.

  Only it’s not like his father at all.

  The feel of his mouth on my skin makes my breath stop.

  And everything has changed.

  We pause, his hands in my hair. I think Max is going to kiss me. Really kiss me.

  But he can’t. Because I’ve crossed the room to wipe my face and put away the teapot. He stands by the door where I left him.

  And my heart is beating like I’ve run a race.

  “I’ll let them know they can come down,” Max says.

  “Wait,” I say.

  He stops. Frozen.

  “You’ve got some dirt in your hair.”

  He runs a hand through his hair while I do something unnecessary with the teapot. And soon there are people down the ladder and the room is full and he’s reminding everyone to be quiet for the millionth time, because we have an SS man living next door.

  I take the photograph and shove it under my mattress.

  Lying in bed that night, I think over every conversation, every minute of time I can remember spending with Max. Had he really wanted to kiss me, or was I just upset? Maybe I made it up in my head. Had I wanted to kiss him? What would Izio think if Max had kissed me?

  I don’t want to love anyone. Not during a war.

  Love will make me hurt.

  Then Siunek is startling me from a deep sleep I didn’t know I was in. My neck aches. I’ve been sleeping on the textbook. And the fear wakes up, flutters in my chest, jumps into my throat. I sit straight up in bed.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “They’re coming to the door,” Siunek says. “Henek and Danuta!”

  “Get Max,” I say, and throw the covers off the bed.

  * * *

  I’ve kissed Henek’s cheek and hugged Danuta, and now they’re with Max, their three heads together, talking softly. Max is holding both his brother’s hands.

  And he’s crying.

  I want to stroke that dirt from his hair.

  Henek waited too long. Nearly. Hiding until the last trains were gone. And then the SS started clearing the buildings. Shooting whoever might be left. But Danuta had been ready. She’d saved a little food. Clothes that would pass in the busy streets.

  And then they’d decided to sneak through the city after curfew, giving the Germans all the best chances to spot them in places where they shouldn’t be.

  I’m just glad they’re alive. Especially for Max.

  But there are twelve of us now. And there are people who know we are here.

  I wonder how long we’ll last.

  The pain behind my eyes aches all day, and at work, Lubek treats me like I’m already dead.

  I go straight to the market after the factory and buy what’s left, which is a ten-pound sack of small potatoes, some carrots, and four onions. I haul it wearily up the hill to Tatarska, dealing with my usual flutter of fear. Maybe today is the day Mrs. Krawiecka has sent the Gestapo. Or that the officers of the Judenrat told what they knew, if they’re even still alive. Or maybe Ernst the SS man has stopped drinking long enough to figure out what’s on the other side of his wall.

  I wonder if today is the day I should make soup.

  When I lock the door behind me, tired, aching, worried, and frightened, Max and Siunek are milling around the table. Moving the dishes in the sink. Eyeing me. Eyeing each other. Shuffling their feet.

  Guilty.

  I drop my potato sack. “Okay. Who ate the butter? Because I’ve been blaming Helena.”

  They don’t answer.

  “Was it the sugar, then?” I drop into a chair.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?” asks Siunek.

  I decide to accept. My head is splitting open. He’s already got the water hot.

  “Is something wrong with Henek?” I ask. “Or Danuta?”

  Max sits down opposite me and shakes his head.

  “Dziusia?”

  “No, its …”

  “Hela?” I nearly leap from my chair.


  “No, no.” Max rubs his head. “I need to ask you a question.”

  I wish he would.

  “I want to know how you would feel about … hiding one more.”

  “One more who?”

  “Jan Dorlich.”

  I sit back in my chair. Siunek is making my tea, but he’s watching me carefully. I push on my aching temple and sigh. “If he needs help … then he needs help. And I don’t think that woman is going to give it to him. Not for long.”

  “So …” Siunek says. “You would take him?”

  “I’ll hang just as easily for eleven as for ten, I guess.” I look to Max. “Should I go to that woman?”

  “No need,” he says.

  “What do you mean, no need?”

  “I mean,” says Max, “he’s in the attic.”

  I look at Max and then at Siunek.

  “The mailman is in the attic?”

  They nod. Siunek puts the tea in front of me. I blow on it and take a grateful sip.

  “Then tell him we’ll have something to eat as soon as I drink my tea.”

  Max sits back in his chair. “You were right,” Siunek says, like Max has won a bet.

  Max glances up. Meets my eyes. Smiles. It’s almost shy. Then he goes into the bedroom with Siunek.

  I think he’s trying not to be alone with me.

  * * *

  The next day after work, I go to the market, because we are again out of food. I use the last of Hirsch’s money for the week and buy what I can find. Turnips and some kasha. I trudge up the hill to Tatarska Street, wondering if today is the day. If I’ll open the door and the house will be a grave.

  Maybe I’ll put the turnips in the rest of the soup. To make more soup.

  And when I lock the door behind me, and my back is tired and I have a cut on my hand from one of the screw machines, Max and Siunek are standing in the kitchen. Shifting their feet. They look like Mrs. Krajewska’s boys caught with a pack of cigarettes.

  I take off my coat and sit down at the table. Max sits down opposite. Siunek sets down a cup of tea.

  “Who is in the attic?” I ask.

  “Monek and Sala,” Max replies.

  It’s like the clouds are raining Jews.

  “They’ve been hiding in a cellar without anything to eat since the ghetto was closed,” Siunek says. “They had nowhere to go …”

  “But how did they know to come here?”

  More guilt.

  “Wait. What’s their last name?”

  Max hesitates. “Hirsch.”

  “I am sorry!” calls Old Hirsch from the ladder.

  I blow on my tea and sip it.

  Thirteen, I think. Thirteen Jews in the attic.

  It’s not like the Nazis could kill me more.

  Tatarska 3 is full. We have to start using the second bedroom, creating a private corner with a sheet. But one bucket is not really enough, and Helena has to empty it several times a day, just to deal with the smell. And it takes longer to get to the attic from there, and longer to get up the ladder. I have to tell Mrs. Krajewska or occasionally one of the girls at work to wait after they knock, that I’m getting dressed, while thirteen people snatch their belongings, line up, and go one by one up the ladder. And if my visitor is someone I’ve already seen that day, I really do have to change, so I’m wearing something different than the last time they saw me. Mrs. Krajewska, I think, has decided I am vain. But the worst difficulty is maintaining silence when thirteen people are arguing all the time.

  Monek Hirsch is Old Hirsch’s nephew, Siunek’s cousin, but that doesn’t mean that any of them get along. I’m not sure they got along before the war. Sala is Monek’s wife, and she and Danuta work together against Mrs. Bessermann, and Mrs. Bessermann sides with Janek against Dziusia. Jan Dorlich always agrees with Schillinger, whose mail he used to deliver, and Cesia just stays with Siunek. And Max defends Henek to the skies, even when Henek’s being unreasonable. Unless he’s having heated arguments with Siunek, Ernst or no Ernst, about the proper way to slice carrots for soup.

  Helena runs away when she can.

  And then there’s the laundry. Each person’s clothes and blankets must be washed once a week, or we have more arguments over smell than from the bucket. But it’s difficult to bring enough water without alerting Mrs. Krajewska, since the well sits directly outside her window. If two washings get done each day, I suggest, including mine and Helena’s, then everyone’s will get done in a week, and then the cycle can start all over again. Eight days into this, Max comes to me after work.

  “So Old Hirsch tried to pay Mrs. Bessermann to do his laundry with the food money, and now Mrs. Bessermann’s mad because she didn’t get paid, even though she made Cesia do her share. And now Cesia won’t go again, and Siunek says she shouldn’t, and it’s Danuta’s turn, too, but Henek says she’s too delicate and won’t do it himself.”

  I set down the bags I’ve just carried up the hill. “Max,” I say, “I have just made thirty-one thousand screws in twelve hours and walked five miles to find us dinner. This one is your problem.”

  And the shopping is mine. The farmer’s wife who sells me milk asks how two girls could possibly drink so much, and I get almost the same question from the grocer who sells me the eggs. And these comments are for only half a week’s supplies, because on other days I shop at different markets to avoid this very problem. Mrs. Krajewska mentions that she sees me coming with bags every day, and even Lubek noticed the kasha sack.

  So I create a business. A fake one. I am now buying food from farmers and having Helena resell it in the market while I’m at work. Because our mother needs money in Germany. Just like I told Lubek. Almost.

  This means Helena trudges up the hill in the evenings with two heavy bags of supplies from the list I’ve given her, and every morning leaves down the hill with two bags that look like they’re full when they aren’t, because Max has rigged them that way. He tacked two pieces of wood inside to keep them open, a board across the top where a loaf of bread or other things can balance. Full bags. Helena practices walking hunched over, as if she’s carrying a weight, and if Mrs. Krajewska asks why her bags are still full, she says she didn’t sell much that day and will take it back out tomorrow.

  The evening bags really are too heavy for her to carry up the hill, and the wind is bitter, even without the snow. We’re low on coal. And then Old Hirsch hides the food money because I refuse to bring home cigarettes.

  For two days, we eat cabbage and potatoes, and on the second day, there’s not much of that. The chickens are in danger. And then, Ernst or no Ernst, there’s a fight. Max, Schillinger, Henek, and Danuta against Old Hirsch, Monek, Sala, and Mrs. Bessermann. But Siunek finds the money. In a little hollow on top of one of the roof beams in the attic. Max takes over the accounts, making a careful tally on the wall where Old Hirsch can see it, and when I bring home dried fish and dried apples, and the chickens save themselves by producing four eggs, our little war is over.

  We need more grocery money.

  So the next time I get paid, I come home from the market with an investment. Four old sweaters, ugly and full of holes, and five pairs of knitting needles. The children carefully unravel the sweaters; Danuta saves the water from the boiled beets and re-dyes the yarn. And when the yarn is dry, everyone learns how to knit. The women who know teach the men who don’t, my thirteen are occupied, and Siunek is a surprise prodigy, able to finish a sleeve in just a couple of hours. I sell the first sweater to one of the girls at work, and within a few days, I’ve got orders for five more.

  Even Old Hirsch can’t think about cigarettes when he’s counting stitches.

  I use a quarter of the sweater money to buy more old sweaters. The next quarter of the sweater money I turn into something good, like chicken or cheese or, one memorable day, five jars of pickles. But the rest of the sweater money I hoard. Secretly. Because it’s nearly Christmas. And because Christmas Day is on a Saturday, I will have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday away from
the factory. And Jewish or not, my thirteen need a break.

  We need a celebration.

  I am full of secrets.

  On the Sunday before, I get up early. Cesia is doing her watch at the window, though I’m not sure she wasn’t asleep because she starts when I swing my legs from the bed. I tuck the blankets back around Helena, slip on my shoes and coat, and act like I’m going out to the toilet. But I lock the door quietly, wrap a scarf around my head, and take off down Tatarska Street while the cathedral bells ring. Curfew is over, and I have the sweater money already tucked inside my coat.

  One of the older ladies at the factory told me about a man. Eight kilometers outside Przemyśl and far off the road in an old house in the forest. A man who has things for sale. All sorts of things. Things you can’t get in the city markets. Things it’s probably best not to ask where they came from. And if you’re lucky, he’ll bargain with you.

  I’m going to try my luck.

  I keep a fast pace in the semidarkness, my breath coming out in a cloud, and when I find the turn off the main road, the sun is only just beginning to thaw the air. My body is warm from the exercise. Sweating even. But my fingers are numb, nose and toes tingling. There’s a house coming into sight through the trees. Not much more than a shack. Dark. No lights. But there’s a barn to one side with a lantern in the window. The barn door creaks open, and a man sticks his head out.

  “What do you want?”

  I stop short. “To make … some purchases?” Maybe I’ve got the wrong house.

  He looks me over, a black knit cap pulled down over his ears, and pushes the door open a little wider.

  “Quick, girl,” he says. “You’re letting the heat out.”

  I dart inside, and the barn is a warehouse. Bottles, cans, and boxes line shelves along one wall, and the horse stalls are like market booths with goods piled inside them. There are cows in the barn, too, helping with the heat. Maybe they’re part of what’s for sale.

  I have a long look at what’s on offer. Five dozen socks, army- issue. A crate of canned beans. Stockings. Perfume. One tube of lipstick. Vodka. Aspirin. Toilet paper, army-issue. And stack after stack of tinned pears. I wonder if Officer Berdecki shops here.