The Light in Hidden Places

by Sharon Cameron

  “I’m sorry, I …”

  But Mrs. Krawiecka is busy hugging Sala. “I thought you were dead,” she says. “And your dear papa. Is he?”

  Sala nods.

  “Sit here and tell me what’s been happening.”

  She does, while I sit on a sofa so soft I sink down inside it. Mrs. Krawiecka says things like, “Great God,” and “Mother Mary!” and without being irreverent. I not only don’t have to apologize, I don’t have to speak. Or even ask for help.

  “Thirteen above, the Nazis below, and you in between,” says Mrs. Krawiecka. “Well, well, Miss Podgórska. You are quite the little manipulator after all.”

  I think I’m being complimented.

  She goes to a desk, gets out a piece of paper, and starts to write. Quickly.

  “Take this note to the back door and give it to the girl there. She’ll know what to do. Hurry now. I’ve kept a business partner waiting for a very long time, but it was worth it, and we’re going to get you safe inside before curfew. Can’t have you being seen, can we?”

  She kisses Sala’s cheeks.

  “You were right to come. You’ve barely got flesh on your bones. I’ll take care of everything. Goodbye, Miss Podgórska. I’m glad we have such a good understanding.”

  And before I know it, we’re practically running down the hall, giving our note to the girl in a white cap who waits there. She reads it and ushers us straight out the back door and into the rear seat of a car. Then the girl says, “Wait here!” and disappears into the fading light. It’s nearly dark.

  “Do you think she’s doing business with the Germans?” I ask Sala.

  “Probably. And taking them for all they’ve got.”

  “Do you think she’s doing business with the Germans right now? As in, in the house?”

  Sala looks up at the house, all four floors, and her mouth opens.

  And then a man opens the car door, puts some heavy sacks in our laps, gets in the driver’s seat, starts up the engine, and we’re off in a blast of exhaust.

  I’ve ridden the bus a few times, and the train, of course. But I’ve never experienced the smooth speed of a car when you need to get somewhere.

  I want one.

  We take the hill up Tatarska like it’s nothing, and I ask the man to pass the house and stop around the corner, near the convent. I don’t want the nurses seeing us dropped off by a car. We take the sacks he gave us, slide off the seat, and hurry back down the street while he drives away. It’s just a few minutes until curfew.

  “Do you think there’s food in here?” whispers Sala.

  I nod.

  “Do you think we can cook it now?” she asks. And then we’re in the courtyard, passing the radio glow in the window, and I unlock the door of Tatarska 3.

  There are two German officers sitting on my sofa.

  Sala bumps into my back.

  I smile. Like I’m going to sell them everything I’ve got.

  I probably am.

  “Hello,” I say. One of the Germans stands up.

  “Miss Podgórska? Do you remember me?”

  I pull Sala through the door with me and shut it.

  “No, I don’t remember. I’m sorry …”

  “I am one of the doctors you saw at the hospital. I observed your procedure.”

  One part of my mind shoots straight back to that moment on the table, and I blush. Another part thinks this man speaks good Polish and he never told me what was happening to me. The other part of my mind wants to stuff Sala under the sofa.

  My only hope is that it will never occur to these German doctors that I might walk through the door of my house right before curfew with a Jew carrying my shopping.

  “This is my friend Sala,” I say. Sweat beads up on my neck. “Here.” I thrust the rest of the sacks into her arms. “Would you put these things away for me?”

  She nods her head, mute, and takes the sacks to the table.

  Please don’t fall apart, Sala. Please.

  I bring a kitchen chair near the sofa and sit on it.

  I want to know where my sister is.

  The German doctor sits back down, and then Karin comes rushing in. Her gaze roves right over Sala and straight to the food. Then she turns back to the doctors and says something in German.

  The doctor says, “Karin has been keeping up with your progress …”

  I glance at Karin. Has she, now?

  “… and we think your case should have more study.”

  “I’m not interested in having more study.”

  “But we insist that you need it. For your future healing.”

  “The injection you gave me didn’t heal anything. It caused me pain for a long time.”

  “Ah,” he says. “Such a reaction means you should be under observation, Miss Podgórska.” He goes on, like the matter is settled. “The hospital is being shut down and moved back to Berlin. We are catching the last train from the station this evening. Karin will help you pack.”

  Karin is watching me. They all watch me.

  I study the face of the doctor and remember it as eager. Curious. While my insides burned like fire. What have these people done to me?

  And when I glance toward the kitchen, I see that the sacks are unpacked and Sala has disappeared. The silly girl has gone up the ladder.

  I focus again on the doctor, smile, and swipe a bead of sweat from my temple when I adjust my hair. “It’s not possible for me to leave tonight. I’m sorry.”

  “It must be tonight,” he says. “It is very important for your health.”

  Somehow, I think the opposite is true.

  “You will bring your sister, of course,” he adds.

  The other doctor has not spoken all this time. He lights a cigarette and watches, head tilted, as if I am interesting. He has a gun on his hip.

  My options are limited.

  I keep my face pleasant. “I’ll just need a few minutes to pack,” I say.

  The first doctor looks relieved. “Most of your needs will be taken care of at the hospital,” he says. “We will wait and escort you and your sister to the station.”

  I smile again and walk toward the bedroom. Karin follows, and the doctor looks around.

  “Where is your friend?”

  I turn. “Oh, Sala? She left a few minutes ago, didn’t you see? It’s after curfew. She was afraid of getting into trouble.”

  I step into the bedroom, and as soon as I shut the door, Karin makes hurry motions with her hands. The door to the second bedroom is open, and there are clothes everywhere, Ilse throwing shoes haphazardly into a suitcase.

  “All right, all right!” I say to Karin, and wave for her to go hurry herself. I shut the door to the other bedroom. Like I’m going to change. Like I have something to change into.

  “Hela!” I whisper. I look under the bed. I look under the second bed, and one of the floorboards pushes up just a little. She’s in the bunker.

  “Come out,” I say, grabbing the floorboard. “Quick! Before the nurses see you. We’ve got to pack.”

  “But where are we going?” she whispers.

  “Nowhere,” I say.

  I get one of the bags we used to move from Mickiewicza, which is really an old potato sack, and stuff a blanket inside it, along with my hairbrush and Helena’s doll. So we look like we’re ready to go somewhere. In two minutes, Ilse and Karin come out with their hats and gloves on, suitcases in their hands. Karin seems pleased when she sees Helena and my bag. Ilse looks worried.

  We walk into the living room, and the smoking doctor is examining the hallway with the ladder. But he turns away when he sees that we’re ready. I take Helena’s hand.

  “Good,” says the other doctor. “There is a car waiting across the street.”

  He opens the door and lets Karin and Ilse go out first, and then I shuffle around while holding on to Helena’s hand so that the smoking doctor leaves next.

  “Oh!” I say. “Helena, you forgot your hat!”

  Helena’s
eyes meet mine. She nods and scurries off to the bedroom to get her hat.

  Helena doesn’t have a hat.

  She doesn’t come back.

  “She can’t find it,” I tell the doctor. “I’ll help her.”

  I walk back toward the bedroom, bag still in my hand, and someone—the smoking doctor, I think—shouts words that include “schnell.” The doctor lets go of the knob and steps through the door to answer him, yelling German that probably means we’re hurrying, or the girl is getting her hat, or something like that. And when he does, I take three quick strides across the room, grab the knob, shut the door, and turn the lock.

  Two seconds, and the doorknob rattles. The whole door shakes. And there’s a fist banging. Shouts. The doctor bangs harder. Whatever these people did to me, they’re not going to do it again. I walk calmly through the room and check the locks on the windows. And then Max is coming fast down the ladder with that heavy plank of wood.

  “Move!” he whispers. “He’s got a gun!” He pulls me away from the flimsy walls toward the stone of the bedroom, shuts the door, grabs Helena, and pushes us both down on the floor to one side of the bedroom window. Where a bullet can’t reach us.

  The doctor is still shouting, hammering his fist on the door, and there are other voices in the courtyard, too. And even though I don’t understand the words, the tone is easy enough. They’re annoyed. Or afraid. They have to go. They want the doctor to leave me behind. And after a few minutes, he does, and we hear brakes squealing their way down Tatarska.

  I turn to Max in the silence. The wonderful silence. He’s still bare-chested and sweaty from the summer heat of the attic.

  “How did you know he had a gun?”

  “Sala said one of them did.”

  “And you came down here to defend me with a piece of wood.”

  “It’s what I had.”

  “I think if there was a fight,” says Helena, “Max would win.”

  “Always my girl,” says Max.

  I lean my head against the wall and smile. And then I laugh.

  No more boyfriends. No more pilfered food. No more dreading every creak from the ceiling.

  The nurses are gone.

  I jump up from the floor, climb the ladder, and stick my head through the little door of the attic.

  “Come down!” I whisper. “The nurses are gone!”

  They appear one by one, like ghosts coming to life, and I’m scared to see how much trouble Old Hirsch and Schillinger have just getting down the rungs.

  But it feels so good not to have any Nazis in the house.

  I investigate the sacks from Mrs. Krawiecka, and there are four kilos of beans, four kilos of flour, kasha, butter, salt, a sack of potatoes, and two cabbages. Riches. We boil potatoes with their skins, so we won’t waste a thing, and eat them with butter and salt. I watch Monek stretch to his full height and Cesia walk from room to room with her arms out, feeling the space. Janek finds a corner and lies on the floor. As if he’s still in the attic.

  It’s so easy to believe the nurses might come back.

  Max watches the window. Just in case. But he does it standing up.

  I go to sleep. The Gestapo could still come. We could all be killed. But not having the enemy in the same house with us feels peaceful in comparison. I relax into my bed.

  And in the late night, as the early summer sun is just beginning its rise behind the hills, I hear a rumble. A boom in the distance.

  I sit up, listening. To a whistle and a whine. Max steps back from the window, and the boom hurts my ears. The light hurts my eyes. Tatarska 3 trembles underneath us. Dziusia screams, and another yellow-orange light flares beyond the curtains.

  And I know what this means. If Przemyśl has taught me anything, it has taught me to know this.

  We are being bombed.

  I can only hope we are being bombed by the Russians.

  Most of the bombs fall on the lower city and the train tracks, but a few make the dust crumble from our ceiling. We huddle together against the far wall of the bedroom, and it reminds me of the cellar of the apartment building, when Izio held my hand where his mother couldn’t see. So I wouldn’t be scared.

  Now Max is the one sitting beside me. He’s not scared of the bombs. Not as much as who might win this fight. If the Germans keep Przemyśl, then there’s no hope for him. For any of them. I look at our little mass of people. At the remnants they have left. Dziusia with Dr. Schillinger, Old Hirsch with Siunek, and Monek and Sala. Mrs. Bessermann, with an arm each for Janek and Cesia, Henek beside Max but holding Danuta, and Jan Dorlich, who has no one left at all. But they have survived. Against the odds, and for reasons I don’t even understand. They have outlived everything. And if the Russians come …

  They will be free.

  And so we sit. And we wait. And Max just thinks, fingering his plank of wood. He’s so skinny and dirty. And brave. Determined.

  I don’t want to love him.

  But I think I do.

  I think he might love me.

  But I don’t know if he wants to.

  The bombs stop falling. Smoke drifts over the city. Quiet. And Przemyśl has taught me what this means now, too.

  The soldiers are coming.

  We hear the machine guns in the streets. Jeeps. The deeper blasts of tanks. We move together, staying in a group, to the safer wall, out of reach of bullets that might come through the window.

  We wait.

  We pray.

  For days.

  And I am hoping. Hoping.

  The city goes quiet again. For a long time.

  Max watches carefully from the edges of the curtains. And then he says someone is coming. A soldier. Right down the middle of Tatarska Street. He doesn’t even have his gun out.

  And he is German.

  The Germans have won.

  No one wants to look at each other. No one speaks. We close our eyes. Or stare at the floor. Helena lays her head in my lap.

  I had thought, for a little while, when the bombs fell, that maybe we might come out on top. That this nightmare life of hunger and fear that we’ve been living might be over. That I might win this game I’ve been playing against hate. And now, family by family, I watch my thirteen decide to go back to the attic.

  I hold Helena’s hand while they climb, slowly, rung by rung, up the ladder.

  Except for Max. He stands with me, and he says, “I won’t go back.”

  I nod. I can’t make myself speak. But I understand.

  “I’ve asked you for so many things, Fusia. And I’m going to ask one more time. Take Helena and go back to your farm. Find your mother and your brothers and sisters. Will you give me that?”

  I don’t want to leave him.

  “Please give me that …”

  I don’t think he’s learned that I cannot leave him.

  A man yells in the courtyard. Right outside the window.

  Max grabs his plank of wood, steps toward the curtain, and I’m turning Helena, ready to run to the bedroom, when the door is kicked open, a little explosion of splinters flying from the lock. I scream, Helena screams, and the room is suddenly full of men and machine guns.

  And I stare at them.

  They aren’t German guns.

  “Russians,” Max says. “You’re Russian!”

  “Drop away … weapons!” says the leader. He’s got soot and sweat on his face, and his Polish is terrible. I take a step to put Helena behind me, and two guns swing my way.

  Max drops his piece of wood. “Where are the Germans?”

  “Who has the city?” I ask. “Does Russia have the city?”

  “Przemyśl belongs to Russia,” the man says, straightening a little over his gun. “We are … looking for Germans …”

  I turn to Max. “The Russians have won. The Russians have won!”

  “Where are the Germans?” Max insists. “Are they coming back?”

  The Russian officer shakes his head. “Germany is …” He looks for the word and settl
es on “… finish in Poland.”

  Max looks at me. “It’s over,” he says.

  “It’s over,” I tell him. And Max rushes across the room, grabs me by the waist, and picks me up. “Russia has won!”

  “Russia has won!” Helena shouts.

  The officer smiles, motioning for his men to stand down, but then the guns jump back up again because people are pouring down the ladder from the attic.

  “Stop! Who is—”

  “They’re Jews!” I shout from the air. Max is turning me in circles.

  The Russian soldier lowers his gun again. “Jews? I am a Jew.” He looks around at Old Hirsch, clapping his hands, at Henek swinging Danuta, at Janek and Dziusia, jumping and jumping and jumping up and down. “You were hiding?” He looks at me. “You were … hiding Jews?”

  And now the Russian soldier takes me from Max, picks me up around the waist, and bounces me up and down. “Hero!” he shouts. “Hero, hero!” And the rest of his men shout with him.

  Max laughs, and Jan Dorlich laughs, and I laugh, and when the soldier puts me down again, I throw my arms around Max.

  It’s over.

  And then we run outdoors. All of us, into the sunshine. And we don’t care that the air is hazy with smoke and stinks of burning and war. We don’t care that the German soldier walking down the street is now being searched by the Russians, his hands on his head. Or that Mr. Krajewska is poking his head out his door, frightened of what’s going on. We are shouting for the fun of shouting, running for the fun of running. Old Hirsch lies on the ground, staring at the sun, Sala sings, and Max hugs and hugs his brother. And then Siunek finds a full bucket and tosses water into the air, making it splash and rain, and everyone is wet as they scream and squeal. He throws a bucket on Cesia. He throws a bucket on me, and we drip and cry while Helena dances because the war is over.

  The sky is so full and bright above us, shining down in all the hidden places.

  Because somehow, in some way, we are alive.

  * * *

  We feast on the rest of Mrs. Krawiecka’s bounty that night and laugh when Dziusia yells, “Max! Put a pot on your head!” We listen to Karin and Ilse’s radio, getting the Polish broadcasts on the news of the war, which is still going on in other places but not for us. The next day, a man comes to the house, delivering more food sacks, with Mrs. Krawiecka’s blessings. Sala and Danuta make bread, hot from the oven, and Max and Siunek find an unbroken tub in a bombed-out house and drag it all the way up Tatarska Street, joking while they stop every few feet to rest. Then we all take turns having baths. Real baths, warm and luxurious. And slowly, as the Russians begin to reorganize Przemyśl, and we get used to living again, the talk turns to what might happen next. And one thing is certain.