“So let’s see them. Show us your papers,” Yankev says.
Otto sighs, pulls out his wallet, and hands Yankev a paper.
“I don’t read German,” Yankev says, handing it to me.
“General Government Department of Utilities.”
“In case your toilets back up.” Otto looks at Lizard and smiles. “So think of me every time you flush a toilet.”
“That won’t be hard,” Lizard says. “So, Arab, where did you find this Messiah? Walking across the Vistula? Or at the morgue raising a few dead?”
“I didn’t find him. He found me.”
“Sounds like a fucking szkop!” Yankev growls at me, pointing at Otto. I watch Yankev’s face. Hardened? Braver? Or just angrier?
“I warned you we’re not your common garden-variety Poles,” I say to Otto.
“Speak Polish, dammit!” Lizard says.
“And I am not your common garden variety ‘szkop,’” Otto says to Lizard, his Polish impeccable.
He tells them about the well-funded American charity, the underground links and connections, the goal of getting as many Jewish children as possible out of Poland and into safe hands throughout Europe, England, and the United States.
While Otto describes his big plans, I watch Lizard and Yankev. Their reactions are nearly identical to mine. Nothing breeds skepticism like diminished odds.
“And why should we risk our skins to save total strangers?” Yankev asks. It’s a good question.
“Because they’re children,” Otto states.
“So are we,” Lizard quips. “Least, we were before the Germans marched in.”
“Well, then, you should do it because you can,” Otto replies, offering each of us a cigarette. “Here. American.”
I pull out my silver lighter and offer it to Otto. “Allow me. SS.”
He turns the lighter over in his hand and smiles. “And because you and your gang are very, very clever.”
I turn to Yankev. “What do you think?”
“Too risky.”
“Let me tell you about Auschwitz,” Otto says.
“For political prisoners and dissidents,” Yankev says with a dismissive jerk of his hand. “All Nazi fearmongering and propaganda.”
“The hell it is! I’ve been out there. It’s called the final solution for a reason. Fuck Nazi fearmongering and propaganda, Yankev! The fact you’re a Jew is a slight inconvenience to Hitler.”
I want doubt. I want all the what-ifs out in the open, because I’m still not sure if we should team up with this well-dressed Nazi stranger who has all the identifications and American connections. “You know, Messiah, not all the Jewish children in Warsaw are in the ghetto,” I say.
“I have six brothers and sisters,” Yankev says. “What about them?”
“And what about our gang?” Lizard asks. “If we get anyone out, it’s going to be them, not some half-dead brat from the ghetto who’ll probably die on you. Or worse, give you away.”
Otto takes a thoughtful puff of his cigarette. His eyes land on me. “I did agree to your two boys.”
I feel Lizard and Yankev’s eyes on me. “Stefan and Lorenz. I want them out. You don’t have to go along with anything. If this man says he can get them out and safe, then I’ll do what I can.”
“I say all or nothing,” Yankev says.
“But you and your gang are surviving here. They’re not.” Otto points in the direction of the ghetto. “You and your gang have cigarettes to sell. What do they have? Nothing.”
“We’ll run out of tobacco by March,” Lizard says. “What will we sell then?”
“Pretty soon we’ll being selling sawdust-and-cabbage cigarettes. Even the Germans won’t smoke those,” I add.
“I say we save our own. You say you have people outside Warsaw to take ghetto children to England and America. Keep them safe. Why not our children?” Yankev says.
Otto tosses his cigarette down. “We have found,” he begins slowly. “We have found that work of this nature is … easier … if carried out by strangers. If …” He looks into each of our faces. “If something goes wrong, then each child stands equal odds of survival.”
“In other words,” Lizard snaps, “no favorites.”
“In other words,” Otto counters, “no heroes.”
“In other words, forget it!” Yankev says. “My own come first! How can they survive if I get my head blown off trying to save strangers?”
“He has a good point, Messiah,” I say. “So why not? Why not take our children—all our children—first?”
“We can only take so many. A dozen—tops—at a time,” Otto warns. “It’s not as easy as ‘Quick! Run! Get in the truck!’ and bang! we’re suddenly sipping sherry on the Queen Mary to England. Things have to be coordinated the entire journey. Transports need to be arranged. Underground connections notified. Children can’t walk all the way to Danzig. And the documents. We need forged documents, birth certificates, passports.”
“Most of our gang already have their papers,” I say. “Yankev’s family doesn’t. They’ve been in hiding for over a year now. They’re too Jewish-looking to even bother with forged documents. They could never pass for Aryan.”
“Leave that to me. I’ll be able to make arrangements,” Otto said.
There’s a silence. “There’s something else you need to know.” Otto’s voice is now low and troubling. “No babies. In fact, no one under four.”
Yankev looks stunned. “Leave the babies behind?”
Lizard and I exchange glances. He knows. I know.
“A crying baby,” Otto explains softly. “Well, a crying baby or fussing child could get us all killed.”
“Mother will never agree,” Yankev says. “She’ll never split us up.”
Otto smiles. “That’s her decision. Let’s let her make it.” He looks around. “All right, it’s agreed, then. Your children first, then we work together to get as many out as we can. But remember, when things go wrong they go very, very wrong.”
“Don’t tell us about when things go wrong! You don’t look to me like you’ve even suffered a hangnail,” Lizard says.
Otto approaches him. I move to separate them.
“I’ve been working Nazi resistance in Germany since just after Hitler became Chancellor in ’33. I was thirteen. I speak German, Polish, English, and French. I knifed my first Nazi informant when I was about your age. It’s what I’ve been trained to do.” He gestures at the room around us. “Do you think this all just happened overnight? Hitler just woke up one day and said, ‘Gee, I wonder what Poland’s like this time of year?’”
Silence as we all assess him.
“There is resistance! Planned, organized, financed resistance! Only we call it Widerstand. I should know. I grew up with it. My father is—was—a highly respected industrialist in Germany. He died defying Hitler. They hung my mother alongside him. I was in London at the time, or they would have hung me, too. I stayed there, allied with the resistance, and I learned. When I did go back to Germany, it was to prepare and organize all of this.” He takes his glasses off and polishes them casually. “One on one, I could take any of you. Two on one might be tougher. Three on one, well, I’d like to think you’d fight fairer than that.”
Otto points at me. “And don’t think just because you’re a girl I’d give you any quarter, Arab.”
I’m not sure if I should be insulted or flattered. “And don’t think I’d take any quarter, Messiah. When things are at their worst, it’s every man for himself here. I hope you understand that.”
A light dusting of snow has begun, and the skies foreshadow more to come. We shake hands. My army of four.
VII.
New Year’s Eve and our second meeting—hardly a party—is not going well. The bitter cold seems to heat tempers, not cool them down, especially in this small, stuffy office of a cigarette factory. Yankev has caught a cold from one of his siblings and Lizard’s friendship with his nurse has hit a snag. Serves him right. This
is no time and no place for romance, turquoise shawl or not. Mrs. Praska cradles a cranky child. None of us has bathed in weeks. Food ration? A laugh. Sleep? What’s that?
“Hear her out,” Otto says, quelling the argument that’s brewing. “Arab says she has a plan, and I want to hear it.”
“What does a dog watch when he finds a rat?” I ask.
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Yankev snaps.
“Yankev,” his mother warns.
“A dog will watch the rat hole,” Lizard says. “Get on with your point.”
“Right. And the dog is too stupid to know every rat has an escape hole somewhere else. Which is why the German guards watch the gates in and out of the ghetto like a dog watches a rat hole.”
“Some Nazis are at least as clever as rats,” Otto says. “Some have been known to be more clever.”
“A broch! They’re all stupid!” Mrs. Praska swears, repositioning the baby.
“But I have the escape hole. I know it well. There’s a cemetery not far from where I grew up on Pawia Street. On the northwestern side of the ghetto.” I show them the map I’ve drawn up. “Messiah and I agree, it’s easier getting into the ghetto than getting out. But here, you see how the cemetery faces the route Otto has planned? His people will meet us in a small village south of Palmiry forest, up here.”
“What village?” Yankev asks.
“No names,” Otto says. “The less details known, the less the chance of discovery.”
“That makes no sense at all! Why not just take the children out from this side?” Yankev demands.
Another good question. “Because all the major roads have checkpoints,” Otto says. “If we get stopped and inspected—the orders are for Jewish children to be taken into the ghettos, not out of them. Anyway, we need little more than a path, a trail, maybe a small farm-to-market road. We can’t chance taking any main roads. But it’s all in the timing. My people have to know, to the meter, where to meet. To the minute when. I’ll need lead time to make sure the connections are lined up.”
“How? Just how do you signal your contacts? Light a bonfire? Send up a flare? Drop pamphlets from a plane?” Lizard asks.
“I have my ways. And so do they.” Otto points north, toward his so-called connections. “Arab, I thought you said your people would be cooperative.”
“Well, now that they bring it up, just how do you contact your connections? I hear the telephone and telegraph lines are all tapped.”
“If you can even find a working telephone,” Yankev says. “Ours stopped working during the siege.”
All eyes are on Otto. “Don’t you think it’s interesting?” he says. “All the bombing, the fires, the destruction … you’d think more of those damn pigeons would have been killed. Yet, everywhere you go—bird crap!”
“What’s that got to do with—” Lizard stops and looks up.
I smile. “Homing pigeons?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Otto says, giving me a sly wink. “Those went out with the Great War.”
“All right.” Lizard points to my crude map. “We get the children into the ghetto, and then what? Hang around the bistros, attend a few soirees until his people give us the high sign?”
“Yes. And what about the matter of that nine-foot wall?” Yankev asks. “Or haven’t you noticed? The guards, the machine guns. Those German dogs would just as soon rip your leg off as piss on it.”
“Let Arab finish,” Mrs. Praska says.
“My family is buried in this cemetery.” I tap the map. “Hell, I’m buried in this cemetery,” I mutter. “Headstones were used for a section of the wall.”
“How do you know? That’s in the ghetto,” Yankev challenges.
“I’ve been there a hundred times.” I’m starting to tire of Yankev’s doubts. “Haven’t you ever wondered how I get our cigarettes sold over there?”
“Bribe the guards,” Yankev answers. “Hell, drop them by airplane for all I know. Who knows how the great Arab of Warsaw does anything?”
Lizard and I look at each other and sigh. “The sewers,” I reply flatly.
“The sewers!” Yankev shudders. “Well, I’m not going through any sewers. And neither are they!” He points toward his family. “Not after all the horror stories I’ve heard!”
“I said let her finish!” Mrs. Praska barks. “What about the cemetery, Arab?”
“I had to help them build that section of wall using Jewish headstones.”
“Desecrate a cemetery?” Yankev gasps. “I would have died first!”
“No, you wouldn’t have, Yankev. You’d like to think you would, but you wouldn’t. You do just what the gun at your head tells you to do.”
“Can we save the morality lecture for after the war?” Otto cuts in. “What’s this section of wall have to do with our plan?”
“Like I said, I was forced to help build it last spring. It was pouring rain. That section was behind schedule and the Krauts were pressing to get it finished. We got the headstones in place, all right. With lots and lots of watered-down cement. I’ll bet that section will practically melt into our hands.”
“And who do we have to thank for that miracle?” Yankev asks with his usual snort.
“A lot of rain, diluted cement, and some wet, overworked, impatient soldiers,” I reply, exasperated. “I also know hiding spots. The cellar of my parents’ home is a maze of secret passages, storage rooms, and cubbyholes. I know that district like you know that face,” I add, smiling to Mrs. Praska and the child whose face she’s cleaning.
Yankev glares at me, disbelief in his eyes. “And you get there by the sewers as though it’s just a day on the Vistula!” He points toward the ghetto. “And those aren’t the Walls of Jericho, Joshua! Sure, the children will go into the sewers. Sure, they’ll keep quiet. Sure, they’ll be safe. Well, not with my family, you don’t!”
“Yankev!” his mother says sharply, disturbing the little one who’s finally asleep on her lap. “You disgrace me! We are saving lives. Our lives.”
“Not Pawel’s!” Yankev shouts, pointing to the two toddlers playing in the corner. “Not Hanna’s! They’re too young. Or did you forget?”
All eyes are on Mrs. Praska. Her face is hard, her jaw flexed as her gloved hand caresses the baby’s delicate, chapped face. Finally, she says with resolve, “I will save all I can save.”
Yankev stands up. “I’ll be packaging cigarettes. You heroes figure it all out.”
“Remember, only ten cigarettes in each!” his mother calls after him.
The atmosphere eases immediately after he leaves. Mrs. Praska sighs. “I apologize. Yankev is … young and very angry. But he might be right about the children going into the sewers. For generations we’ve told them monster stories about the sewers, just to keep kids out of them.”
“The sewers are only as a backup,” Otto says. “I’m going to escort the children into the ghetto through the gates.”
“We need a trial run, though. Stefan and Lorenz,” I say. “They go first.”
“All right. Bring me their papers. I want to make sure they’re good enough to get past the checkpoints. Do you have recent photos?”
“I can get them. There’s a photographer’s booth in the Square. He’s making a killing taking souvenir pictures of German soldiers posing with those schmaltzy painted backdrops of the Alps,” I reply.
“Can he be trusted?”
I glare at Otto for his stupid question. “I don’t do business with anyone who can’t be trusted!”
He understands my challenge. “No, you don’t. Now, where should we meet?”
I give him the directions of one of my old lairs, close to Three Crosses Square. Allies or not, I’m not giving away the location of any of my current holes. “Give me three days,” I say. “I have to go over and make sure the cellar of my parents’ home is still secure.”
“Then that means Friday, January third. Two o’clock? That’ll give us enough time to go over the plan so when the
workers coming out of the ghetto, we’ll go in. The gates are always hectic at five. Plus, it’ll be dark.”
“And who will take care of Stefan and Lorenz? Are you going to just dump them in the ghetto to fend for themselves?” Mrs. Praska asks.
“They can hide there just as well as they hide here,” I say.
“What about your Yankev?” Otto asks her. “Will he help?”
“He’s a good boy, but—”
“He doesn’t have what it takes,” I interrupt. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Praska, but he doesn’t have the courage. Or maybe he’s the only sane one here. Fact is, we can’t count on him.”
“I know. I know,” she whispers. She goes to the corner and picks up Pawel, her youngest. “But I don’t love him any less. I’d rather my son a living coward than a dead hero. Make the plans. I’ll handle Yankev. But, if this works, I want as many of my children to go as you can take.” She repositions the child on her lap. She looks dreamily down at the sweet face, nuzzles him close to her breast and says to him, “Don’t we, my precious? Don’t we?”
So, it’s set. We have our first plan. I have a lot to get done.
JANUARY, 1941
I.
I spring into action, getting identifications, food, and supplies ready for our test run. Lorenz and Stefan have their photos—it took three tries thanks to their camera mugging, the brats.
Next is securing the cellar at my parents’ old home. The upper stories have even more people packed in like sardines, but the cellar—cold, dark, and hard to get into—holds only garbage and memories. Like everything else in Warsaw, it’s been ransacked. The rows and rows of preserves my mother kept are gone; barrels of rags, old clothes, and outgrown toys are tipped over and rummaged through. The storage rooms are raided and riffled through. It’s as though giant rats have had a field day in the cellar. But it will be the perfect hiding hole for several people.
We’re packed and ready to go. I look at my watch. We agreed on 2:00 p.m., but it’s already 2:30. Otto is late and I’m beginning to get nervous. How could our plan fail before it even begins?
The Girl Who Wouldn?t Die Page 15