Strewn in the middle of the street, a pile of suitcases, handbags, bundles and an over-turned baby carriage. I wondered why nobody was picking them up. For scrap, if nothing more. A scrawny three-legged dog pawed the foothills, and arched its spine in electric fright when the mound began to shift. I checked my tunic pocket for one of Erich’s biscuits, crouched in the gutter and called the mutt over. It gently nuzzled the shortcake out of my palm, then bit my wrist and bolted.
From a high balcony, an old woman let loose a rasping cackle at my expense.
At least I’d made somebody’s day.
Two, if we count the dog.
Outside number 37, a pimply Jew, peacocking in his beret and yellow ribbon, pushed an old man against the wall and tore his overcoat open to reveal nothing but a threadbare vest.
The boy reared back and dug his thumbs under his Sam Browne belt. ‘Don’t come the innocent old coot with me. I know your type. If you ain’t got the goods on you, they’re buried nearby.’
The old man hung his head and sighed. ‘Shame on your family, Shmiel. Such effrontery from a good Yiddische bocher.’ Looking up, he scowled into the boy’s face. ‘That I must stand to witness such cheek, such chutzpah!’
‘You don’t have to stand,’ the boy said, ‘Not if you you don’t want to.’ He swung his knee into the man’s groin and left him doubled up on the pavement.
The ground floor was filled with SS and Gestapo officers, NCOs and adjutants, not a Jewish yellow-beret in sight.
Past a steep staircase, the open room was sectioned into six pairs of clustered desks at which soldiers pounded typewriters and shouted into telephones. The left wall was covered with maps of the Ghetto and the right one was lined with filing cabinets, perhaps two dozen of them. Inches above our heads, the low ceiling bounced and shook as if hosting a training session for Olympic trampolinists. My arrival went unnoticed amidst the din. I circumnavigated the maze of tables until I came to a waiting area of empty chairs next to a lone filing cabinets and a swastika flag by the far window, and I sat.
If Oberführer Scherner had attended his party last night, then Commander Kunde would be expecting me. If for any reason the two had not spoken, I was going to have to find Kunde by myself.
I breathed deeply and focussed on the telephone conversation taking place at the nearest desk. The officer had a long, slightly crooked nose and a narrow mouth that puckered into a bored smile as he raised his eyes at me while he listened.
After a lengthy bout of silence, he spoke again into the black receiver, ‘Fair enough, but that’s Lublin. I don’t see what it’s got to do with us.’
Lublin.
My ears burnt like two electric coils at the city’s mention.
‘Do we have a name?’ The officer stopped smiling, made a note, then lay the phone on his desk and got up and walked towards me, stopping at the filing cabinets. He dropped to one knee to search the bottom drawer. Seizing a manila folder, he returned to his desk, and picked up the phone. The thudding on the ceiling was now so violent that a fine rain of plaster had begun to sift down, and the officer had to shout to make his connection heard.
‘Gusta Tova Draenger?’ He extracted a letter from the fat manila folder and scanned its contents.
‘You’re right, the bitch was definitely one of ours. Or she was.’
A pause.
‘According to this, she and her husband managed to get out the Residential District two days ago. A group calling themselves the Jewish Self-Help Society wrote to Chief Muller, asking for permission to set up a farm in Kopaliny.’
Another pause as he traced a finger down the letter.
‘I quote, ‘to study agriculture in readiness for immigration to the Land of Israel.’
Mocking laughter ensued.
The crooked-nosed officer said, ‘You’d have to ask Muller’s office that. To keep up the hope? Maybe it’s better to have troublemakers outside the District than in. Tents and pissing and all that - ’
The thumping suddenly stopped upstairs, and the office fell silent. A great screeching as furniture was dragged across the floorboards over our heads, then a series of grunts before a glass window smashed. I whipped round just in time to see a wooden chair plummet past and splinter on the cobbled courtyard behind me.
Then a typist resumed his clatter and slowly the office volume levels cranked back up to just short of where they were before the disturbance.
Returning the telephone to his ear, the officer said, ‘Your Lublin station man didn’t say anything more, I suppose?’
Lublin station.
A chameleon, my face blended right in with the red flag next to the window.
‘All right.’ The crooked-nosed officer scribbled on the letter. ‘We’ll add Kopaliny to the list. Thanks for letting us know.’
When he replaced the receiver, he looked up and said, ‘How can I help you, Oberführer?’
‘Harry Mohnke,’ I said. ‘Transferring in.’
‘Oberführer Mohnke, of course. My commiserations for your brother.’
‘Are you Commander Kunde?’
‘Me? No, no. The higher-ups are… well, they’re higher up, aren’t they.’ He smiled and pointed at the ceiling. ‘The Hauptsturmführer’s office is on the first floor. I’m August Brühl. Department of Civil Affairs.’
We shook hands across his desk.
‘Good to meet you,’ I said. ‘Is it all Civil Affairs down here?’
He began pointing off the other five sections. ‘There’s Bookkeeping, Intelligence, Archives, Vehicles and Statistics.’
‘And did you know my brother?’
‘Unfortunately not. Erich was based at Pomorska.’ He looked embarrassed to have no further consolation to offer. ‘Let me take you on up to the Hauptsturmführer.’
As we rose, two yellow berets crossed the courtyard behind me, approached the wall and bent down to retrieve the defenestrated sticks of furniture. A chicken walked across the cobbles and stopped to peck. When the Jewish Policemen came back up into view, Brühl and I saw they were clutching not the remains of a chair, but of the chair’s former occupant.
The woman – little more than ripped skin and bloodied bones – still out-weighed her wooden seat and must have hit the ground first.
‘Who’s that?’ I asked.
‘Just an old seamstress.’
‘A trouble-maker?’
‘Loitering during work hours.’
I sat back down rather too quickly.
Brühl said, ‘Kunde’s actually in quite a good mood for this time of the morning.’
‘Even so, I am a little early.’ This wasn’t true: my watch revealed it was already ten past nine. ‘Perhaps that telephone call of yours was fairly urgent business? Don’t mind me if you want to get back to it.’
‘I believe it might have been.’ Brühl looked down at his file. ‘Perhaps I should file a brief report.’
When Brühl had loaded a sheet of paper into his typewriter, I stretched my legs out, crossed my ankles and manufactured a yawn. ‘Trouble at Lublin? Sorry, couldn’t help overhearing.’
‘There was, two days ago.’
Clack clack clack.
‘Sabotage?’
‘A police translator was attacked.’
Good God – I was right. They were already onto me.
‘At the train station?’
‘Outside.’
‘Jews?’
‘A gang of Poles. Five gas-workers. They were involved in an altercation with the Belorussian Gendarme, ten minutes previously.’
Clack clack clack.
‘Previous to what?’
‘The Belorussian’s translator being found with his head caved in.’
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘And the Poles?’
Clack clack clack.
‘Executed yesterday. All except one. Houses seized by the Haupttreuhandstelle Ost. ’
The four syllables knocked against the bars of my heart, one for every dead Pole.
Ex/e/cu/te
d.
In switching clothes with Harry Mohnke, I had already caused the deaths of four men, guilty of no more serious crime than letting off steam to a pompous Gendarme.
I wanted to stop listening.
I wanted to crawl away and wait out the rest of the war in Mr. Popolowsky’s hole in the ground.
‘Let me guess,’ I said eventually. ‘At his hour of need, this wretched Pole suddenly remembers a piece of vital intelligence that might just save his life.’
‘Claims he knows a young Jewess in Cracow.’
‘Course he does.’ I nodded, squinting. ‘This Tova Draenger creature?’
Clack, clack, clack.
‘Apparently she’s a kashariyot.’
Brühl had used the old Hebrew word for connector, which I pretended not to understand.
‘A Communist spy,’ he explained. ‘Pretty young things who slip in and out the zoo gates, delivering weapons and whatnot. Most of them look about as Jewish as Marika Rokk. Tova Gusta Draenger would have been the perfect candidate.’ Brühl held up a photo of a striking beauty with her hair piled high in a ribbon. ‘Except…’
‘She’s not in the Ghetto – I mean the District – anymore.’
I managed to correct myself, remembering the German’s fondness for euphemisms.
‘As of last week, she’s a farmer in Kopaliny,’ he said. ‘Who knows, maybe they are just planting cabbages out there.’
Brühl pounded the last few keys, pulled his report from the carriage roller and lay the page on top of the folder for the ink to dry.
‘Finished,’ he said. ‘Ready to go?’
‘You stay. I’ve already taken up too much of your time.’
I weaved unmolested through the various crowded desks - Bookkeeping, Intelligence, Archives, Vehicles and Statistics – to the steep staircase by the front door. I was now twenty late. It would have been far saner to keep walking, out onto Jozefinska, to slink back through the Lworksa gate and return to Erich Mohnke’s apartment. Perhaps a day would pass before Scherer or Kunde sent somebody to check up on me. Time enough to dispose of the uniform and get out of the city. But what would happen to the prisoners of the Ghetto then? I had already abandoned one family; I would not do so again.
I gripped the slippery bannister and hauled myself up the narrow steps. Approaching the midway point where the stairs changed direction, a door slammed shut on the first floor and what sounded like a beer barrel began to crash through the building, once again causing a fine rain of plaster to sift from the cracks above my head. I stopped on the small platform and waited for the beer barrel to reveal itself as an enormous pair of jackbooted shins. They lunged down the last few steps, delivering me face to face with a broad and ruddy Aryan colossus.
We tried to pass each other on the cramped landing like feinting boxers. It was only when I stopped to flatten myself against the wall for the German to pass that his sharp blue eyes came into focus through fronds of blonde lashes.
‘So the Lesser Spotted Mohnke does exist after all.’ The colossus crushed my fingers in his palm, a punishment for my time-keeping.
‘Hauptsturmführer Kunde.’
‘I was beginning to think you’d gone back to Russia.’
‘Please forgive my tardiness, sir. Sorting through my brother’s possessions, I’m ashamed to say I lost track of time.’
He relinquished his grip. It would appear that Erich Mohnke’s death was still a valid currency.
‘You’re here now, that’s what matters.’ Kunde slapped a pair of white cloth gloves against his wrist. ‘Unfortunately, I have to go out. Let’s talk on the way.’ His powerful arm steered me back round to the stairs I’d ascended. ‘After you.’
I skidded down the steep steps quicker than the angle strictly allowed, compelled by the juggernaut at my back.
When we reached the bottom, Kunde gripped my elbow before I could open the front door. ‘I’d better introduce you to Civil Affairs first, or Brühl will throw a tantrum.’
Kunde had started out across the office floor when I said, ‘Not necessary, sir. We have already met.’
Instead of turning, he stood quite still. Seconds came and went. From the way his chin twitched on his bull-neck, I knew exactly what he was thinking.
How exactly had the Lesser Spotted Mohnke found time to gossip with a bloody clerk on the opposite side of the room if he was already running twenty minutes late to meet me?
It was a good question.
A better one: with so many enormous lies to worry about, why did I keep tripping myself up in the trivial ones?
‘I’m glad you two have already been acquainted,’ Kunde said finally.
I held the front door open and followed him out onto Jozefinska.
‘My brother worked at Pomorska,’ I said, hurrying to keep abreast. We headed north, into the grey heart of the Ghetto. ‘But Erich and I often talked about the Residential District - how effectively it was managed. He was full of admiration for your men, Hauptsturmführer. I can see why. It really is an honour to work for you. Thank-you for agreeing to have me, at such short notice.’
‘To be honest, it’s good timing. We took on another six informants last week. Brühl needs all the help he can get. The Lesser Spotted Mohnke will certainly earn his keep.’
‘The Department of Civil Affairs?’
‘Good title, yes? Took a long time to come up with something so meaningless.’
‘What’s the nature of the work?’
‘Think of it as a Snitch’s Paradise. Your King Rat is Symche Spira, a carpenter turned Ordnungsdienst, until last week when Pomorska saw fit to promote him again. Promised to make old Spira police chief of Tel Aviv in return, when we take the city. You’ll find him at the wireless every morning now thing, cheering on the over-nights from North Africa. Talk about geese voting for Christmas.’
‘Symche Spira,’ I marvelled, hoping the Hassidic syllables didn’t sound too smooth in my mouth. ‘He sounds like a cartoon character.’
‘Wait till you see him,’ Kunde laughed. ‘Strutting the streets like a South Sea Republic despot, more gold on his cap than the Vatican. A thoroughly venal and uneducated specimen, obsessed only with power and status. The most dreadful Jew you can imagine - an absolute gift for us. Old Spria’s handpicked a team of rats, men and women who’ll sell out their own grandmother for a shekel. They monitor unsatisfactory residents, plots of seditious affairs. Spira reports to Karl Brandt across the river, and Brühl in the Residential District. Brühl and now you. The security of the District is in your hands, Mohnke. I know how seriously you’ll take that obligation.’
‘Nothing is more important to me, sir.’
We turned right on Solna Targowa and doubled back past the rear of the police station and the courtyard where I’d seen the chair fall out of Kunde’s office window. A soldier was doing a bad job of reversing an olive platform truck out of the service entrance onto the street, its tyres chafing against the kerb like folded party balloons. The seamstress’s bare ankles rolled against the truck’s taut canopy.
‘Thirty streets, three-hundred-and-twenty residential buildings, and three-thousand–one-hundred-and-sixteen rooms,’ Kunde waved expansively. ‘One apartment allocated to every four Jewish families, but even with such generous provision, many newcomers find themselves standing on the streets.’
‘That seems to be the most popular occupation,’ I said. ‘Do any of them have jobs?’
‘The lucky ones. About 60% still work outside the walls, which they’re going to have to plug next year.’
‘The walls have gaps?’
‘No. At least, not unless the Lesser Spotted Mohnke knows something I don’t.’
‘You said they’re going to have plug the walls?’
‘They’re going to have to plug the jobs. And sooner rather than later.’
I didn’t understand what this meant. The Jews weren’t going anywhere. That was the entire point of a Ghetto.
Solna Targova had delivered us
on onto the square of Zgody Square, the Ghetto’s only open space.
‘We’re about to meet the one Pole crazy enough to live and work here. Tadeusz Pankiewicz. That’s his shop.’
Kunde pointed to a double-fronted corner store at the far end of the square, behind a crowd of young men who dispersed when they saw us. As we got closer, the Polish word Apteka assembled over the doorway.
‘A pharmacist?’ I said.
‘A dispenser of health and happiness, indeed. Rather ironic, no, after this month’s clarification from Berlin.’
‘What clarification, sir?’
‘That’s the spirit. You catch on quick, Mohnke.’ Kunde dropped his voice to a stage whisper, ‘The Jewish question. Old Tadeusz serves his purpose, keeping up moral, lending an illusion of permanence. Christ, we’ve spoiled the Jews rotten when you think about it. Their own pharmacy, hospital, café and cabaret… even had a stand up comedy show for a while. If they think 1941 has been funny, wait till they catch wind of 1942.’
The corners of my mouth furrowed in grimace and grin. What was this clarification? And what was going to happen next year? The only Jewish question I knew was what to do with us now that mass immigration was off the table. Julian Scherner had made a comment about an eventual end to resistance, and now this. I had to find out the truth, because my fears were at that moment ripped from the apocalyptic pages of H.G. Welles. The Germans were a cultured people, not crazed Invaders from Mars.
We had arrived at our destination: Apteka Pod Orlem.
Pharmacy Under the Eagle.
I remembered Shoshana telling me about an old-world druggist she’d visited in Podgorze named after the white-plumed Polish national symbol. Now the shop laboured under a very different bird of prey, the Imperial Eagle of the Third Reich.
Kunde pushed in, letting the door fall against my forearm, and immediately began haranguing the white-coated proprietor on the whereabouts and well-being of an undisclosed female, who was, I supposed, the object of our visit.
Rigidly perpendicular at his counter while the Hauptsturmführer jabbed, the pharmacist quietly closed his till and met Kunde’s ranting with an impressively stony face. Magister Pankiewicz was an assuming man in his early forties, marked by large deep eyes and a drooping black bow-tie. There was something about his posture – all backbone, that impassive gaze - that reminded me of a young Buster Keaton.
I Am Juden Page 27