“Sh, Ruthie, sh,” I hold her head next to mine. “I’m here. I have to leave again, but I’ll be back in just a few days.”
She leans back and looks at me in the face. “No! Don’t go, Abra, don’t go! You always go away! Take me with you! I want to go with you now. Now. I don’t like it here.”
“I know, but you’re safe. I promise. And this time I really, really do promise. Stay here with your friends and I’ll be back to get you. For forever this time. Promise me you’ll be good and stay here and wait for me.”
She places her forehead on mine. “Are we going to go home?”
“No. We’re going far away.”
“To find Mama and Papa?”
“Maybe we will. It’s going to be fun, but just our secret, okay?” She doesn’t need to learn the truth about our parents. Some truths can wait forever; others can fade away.
“Why?” she whispers, looking over my shoulder at her den-mates.
“Well, we don’t want those mean soldiers to come and ruin our fun, do we?”
“I hate them! One told me I was going to die because of my bad foot. I stuck my tongue out at him and he hit me really, really hard. I want to kill those soldiers. I want to kill them dead!”
“I’m going to find a place where there won’t be any soldiers. Won’t that be fun? A nice place, far, far away. Where we can all be safe.”
“Okay,” she whispers. “Can I bring Sofia?” She points to her doll, propped lopsidedly up on a blanket.
“Sure. You can bring Sofia.”
I carry Ruth back into the room. “Don’t worry. Okay? Your hiding spot is safe,” I tell the courageous girl with the knife. “I’m going to be back in two days to take Ruth. Be sure to tell the adults who check on you. Ruthie will be coming with me.”
It’s even harder now to put Ruthie down, tell her goodbye, and leave. My heart is filled with both love and fear.
III.
“Halt!” His words cut through the chilly night air. His flashlight is weak on my face.
I squint. I try to catch the color of his uniform. Who am I up against this time? I know life and death can hang on first impressions.
“Good evening, officer.” I’m hoping any fragments of femininity in my voice smile through. My eyes adjust; seeing the glint of his badge, I know I’m not up against a killer. Ghetto security. But armed, indoctrinated, well-trained.
“It’s past curfew! Identification!” His Polish is lopsided. Hmmm. Now they have the Krauts working these Polish security jobs.
“Certainly.” I shove my hands into my pocket, fingertips grazing the steel of my Luger. I pull out a folded wallet. I know I was careful to choose a gentile female’s identification for tonight’s intrigue, but I’m damned if I can remember her name, age, or occupation.
Another police officer comes up. I should have remembered they always travel in pairs. The first snatches my identification, screws up his eyes, and hands it to his partner. “This is in Polish. What does it say?” he grunts. His hands shake, and I figure he’s just as cold and miserable out here as I am.
The second man looks carefully at it, then at me. The Kraut pulls a handful of crumpled papers from his pocket and, looking at them, he seems to be scanning a list. He leans his rifle against his leg. “Here, shine on this,” he says, handing off his flashlight. He looks first at my identification, then at the papers. He jabs his partner. “Look. See? This is the same person. See?”
They debate the issue, German and Polish trading verbs, nouns lost in translation. And do I detect a bit of one-upmanship between them? Then the flashlight beam comes back to my face.
“Nein, nein, Alf. That’s not her. Look at those eyes. Totally different.”
My heart pounds. Her? Her, who? Oh lord, this can’t be! I’ve just found Ruthie and now I’m going to be arrested, hauled away, put up against and wall … and then it doesn’t matter whose identification I have. We’ll both be dead.
“Yes, yes, look here,” says the first to his partner, his German accent thick as he struggles with abbreviated Polish.
I shift my weight and the second officer flashes the light on me again, ordering in Polish, “Don’t move!” I wish I could see their faces. On the streets, sometimes faces speak louder than words.
“Ja, ja,” the first says, pointing to the papers. “See? Here! Arab. This girl here, see? Look, it’s her, I tell you.” He comes closer to me. I can feel the heat of his flashlight on my face. My smile vanishes as I run through my options. What options? What’s an option here in the ghetto with two armed soldiers—even if one is a fellow Pole?
The second officer looks at the paper and squints. “You’re crazy, Alf. That photostat is old and faded. This is just a common whore, probably making a house call.”
But the first officer isn’t so willing to let it go at that. “Or making a call to the Jewish resistance. You know our orders. Round up all suspicious people.”
“Well, I have my orders, Alf, from my hausfrau. She outranks everybody here in Warsaw. Be late again and no dinner, and no after-dinner mints.” He gives his partner a shove.
The German comes closer and pushes my shoulder. “Why are you out here?”
I venture a small smile. “A girl has to make a living somehow.”
“What did I tell you? Come on, Alf. Let’s go. I’m frozen.”
The German hands me back my identification. “Crawl back into your hole.” Then, to his partner, “But we still have to report this.”
“Danke, danke.” I lower my head humbly. I can seethe later, after I’ve crawled back into my hole.
They start off. I let out a huge sigh, hearing their boots crunch in the snow as they walk into the night. But the crunching stops. I turn. Damn! One is coming back! I reach for my Luger. Maybe it isn’t over after all.
I have the Luger halfway out by the time he stops.
“Abra,” he whispers. He puts the flashlight to his face.
“Gustaw Winicki?” I whisper back, letting the gun drop back into my coat pocket.
He hushes me, saying, “Alf thinks I’m finding out where you ply your trade.”
“You’re working for the Germans?”
“What choice do I have?”
“Winicki? You coming?” the other soldier calls out from the darkness.
“Ja, ja! Abra, listen. You can’t be seen here. You can’t be seen anywhere,” he says, his voice low and urgent. “That was you on the German’s list of agitators and felons. If it had been daylight, he would have hauled you in. You are wanted, Abra. You better go into hiding.”
“I will. Thank you.”
“Winicki?” the German calls out again. “Get your after-dinner mints at home!” He laughs, then coughs, spits.
Officer Winicki puts the flashlight down. “This is the last time I can warn you, Abra.” His voice is now hard, Nazi-like. “If you stay in this district and I find you, I’ll have to arrest you. There are no choices anymore.”
He turns and disappears into the darkness.
It takes me a few moments to get my breath and my wits back. I fade into the alley and tell myself, what do I care about any Gestapo list? I know I’m marked. I even have my file somewhere. It means nothing—because now I’ve found Ruthie! Or wait. I stop and stare down at the sewer cover, gushing steam up into the frigid air. Does it mean everything because now I’ve found Ruthie? Yes! The reason I’m still alive is to save Ruth. All my close calls, my minute-to-minute survival, my cunning and luck and planning and curses and blessings are all for this one purpose—saving Ruth.
I emerge on the Aryan side, making my way to my basement home hole. It’ll be morning soon and my close call in the ghetto reminds me to stick to the back streets, the alleys, and the plan. No matter how weary I am.
I use the piss can. I swear my pee is freezing as it hits the bottom of the can. I chip away some newspapers from the frozen stack in the corner, flap them out to make layers of defrosting blankets. I pull out a can of something from the stas
h inside the wall. I fall onto my bed of rags, pull the papers over me, and close my eyes. Sleep, Arab, sleep, I have to chant to myself. Sleep. Silent Night. Holy Night. All is calm …
IV.
I spring awake, not sure where I am. I’m shaking with the cold and I need something to eat—something warm to eat. Everything comes back to me. Now that I’ve found Ruthie, I have a reason to live. But as much as yesterday was a miracle, it’s also a warning. They’re circulating a photo of me. My Gestapo file must be the only thing in Warsaw getting fatter. All that’s missing is a big red stamp: EXECUTED.
I poke my head out of the basement door. The sun is almost blinding on the snow. My watch has stopped and I have no idea what time it is, but the sun is low in the west and that means I’ve missed my connection with Otto at our meeting place, blocks away. There are soldiers milling about everywhere. I remember Fritz’s warnings of increased searches, of roundups and deportations. I layer on another coat, check I have everything, shoot out of the building, and run through the back alleys to our rendezvous.
“Where the hell have you been?” Yankev growls, coming out from behind a snowdrift.
“Did Otto make it back in one piece?”
“Yes, and he took Michal and Golda back with him during this morning’s shift crossing into the ghetto. But he should have been back hours ago! Where the hell have you been? Don’t you know my mother is probably crazy with worry by now?”
“What time is it?”
“It’s after three o’clock!”
“All right, let me think.”
“I knew this wasn’t going to work!”
“Shut up, Yankev! Okay …” I walk around as I talk. “The plan was, if something went wrong, we’d meet at our hideout in the ghetto.”
“You and your damn ghetto! I tell you, it’s insane to go there! Insane! I’ve been against this from the beginning! What if Otto got stopped?”
“Otto can take care of himself.”
“Then why isn’t he back?”
“I don’t know. Let me think!”
“Meanwhile, I have to go home and tell my mother that we don’t know what went wrong, we don’t know where Michal and Golda are! Hell, they could be on some cattle car halfway to Auschwitz or Łódź by now! I should have known better to put our lives in the hands of a Kraut and a lesbijka!”
I’ve been called worse than a lesbian. I know he’s drawing my fire, but I don’t have time for his wrath and insults. “At least you have your lives, Yankev. So you go back to the factory. Tell your mother everything is fine. Just lie, damn it, Yankev. Can you just do that this once? Lie?”
“Where are you going?”
“Back over. Look, I’m sure everything is fine. They’re stepping up the deportations. Things are crazy out there. But just do like I’m telling you!”
He glares at me as though he might, just might, take a stand against me. Then he turns and runs off.
I get back over as fast as I can. Same sewer, same line, same quick dashes around corners, into shadows, and finally down to our cellar hideout, just as we planned if something were to go wrong.
I look around before going around to the cellar. There’s no answer to our knocking code. I lift one of the coal chute doors and slide down, Luger at the ready. I don’t see any light from one of the lanterns we have. I don’t hear anything, either. I step lightly and pull out my flashlight.
Nothing. Each corner is dark and empty. Then, I see a black pile of clothing in a corner. The light reflects off the brass buttons. Otto sits next to the pile, arms encircling his knees, drawn to his chin. He doesn’t even respond to my light. In the room behind him are the faces of four children. Silent and frightened.
“Otto?”
I come closer and see he’s dressed in a rumpled old suit I recognize as one of my father’s, from the pile of rags. “Otto. What’s this?”
“I’m never putting it on again,” he says, pointing to his SS uniform.
“What happened?” I kneel down and see his face is white, his hands are shaking. God, has he been crying?
“I’d … I’d just brought in Michal and Golda. I was on my way back. Then, another soldier sees me and shouts, ‘Trouble! You! Come quick!’ It was chaos, Arab. You know how it gets. Some Jews were, I don’t know, I guess acting up or fighting back or something.” He runs his hand over his face and takes a deep breath. “They had them lined up against a wall. I was ordered to shoot.” He turns his anguished face toward me. “Arab, I killed four people. An old man, two women, and—oh God, Arab, I killed a child! Four people! Dead!”
“You said you’ve killed before,” I say, keeping my voice low and calm.
“I’ve killed the enemy. People who needed killing. Not innocent people. Not a … not a child. Oh, God forgive me.” He looks to the rafters and I see tears escape the corners of his eyes.
I’m not sure if I pity or admire him for thinking of forgiveness or even God at a time like this. I sit next to him, light a cigarette, and hand it to him. Suddenly, he looks so young, boyish. In another life, a normal life, he should be celebrating a university degree and departing on a grand tour of the world.
“Good luck with God’s forgiveness.” I light my own cigarette.
“Don’t you ever think about that?”
“What? Forgiveness?” My gut tries to issue a laugh, but seeing the anguish in Otto’s eyes makes me think carefully before answering. “No. I mean, I did. At first. They say girls get forgiven more easily. After all, we’re just poor, weak, ignorant females. Maybe we don’t know better.”
“How many have you killed?” he asks, looking down at the glow of his cigarette.
“I don’t keep count,” I lie. “What’s the use? If I’m going to hell, I’m going for a good reason.”
“Is that what they teach Jewish girls?”
“With all the battles Jews have fought, you’d think they’d teach more about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I just look at the bodies up there, one on top of another.” I stop and look into the rafters, as though those bodies might come crashing down on us any minute. “Someday, when this is all over, maybe … if we live through it, which I doubt we will … we can bask in the luxury of guilt. Spend the rest of our lives on our knees. Praying for forgiveness.”
“Four innocent people, Arab,” he whispers. “I guess it’s true what they say—die now or die later.” Slowly his hand finds mine. “Four people.”
I take a deep, shaky breath and look at his hand on mine. I can’t lose Otto now. He’s everything to this plan. I squeeze his hand and nod toward Stefan, Lorenz, Michal, and Golda, huddled across the room now, playing with a top.
“Four lives for four lives. And more to come, Otto. I beg you, put the uniform back on. We have to get back. The roundups, the slaughter. And then they’ll start clearing the ghetto. You told me, Otto. You told me their plan. We only have a few days until we take them out. Please, Messiah …”
“Don’t ever call me that again!” He gets up and crushes out his cigarette. “I’m no one’s Messiah.”
Again, I point to the children. He shakes his head. I return his doubt by nodding. “You are.”
Otto takes the SS uniform and disappears into the darkness. He comes back fully changed again. Maybe it’s the uniform, but he seems straighter. I see a determined set to his jaw.
“You know, Otto, I have a few lives to redeem, myself,” I say.
He pulls on his heavy black coat and sets the lapels straight. “How do you redeem a life?”
“Maybe avenge is a better word.”
He looks at the children in the corner, now starting to argue over taking turns with the top. He goes over, kneels down, takes the top, and sets it to spinning with a fast twist. It hums across the cement floor.
“Look at it go!” little Stefan cries out, joined by the three others.
Otto tousles Stefan’s hair. “You be good, you hear?” Stefan ignores him. We leave Lorenz, the seasoned, bossy ten-year-old, in charg
e.
Otto and I go out into the night. The early evening sky is a black veil speckled with brilliant stars.
“I’ll get over to the factory and set Mrs. Praska’s mind at ease,” he says.
“Be ready for Yankev to give you a hard time. I tell you, Otto, he worries me.”
“We have bigger things to worry about.” I’m set to go back outside, but he pulls me back by the arm. “Look, Arab. About … you know … back in there.”
“As you said, we have bigger things to worry about.” He smiles, and I return it before I pull my muffler back around my face. “I’m heading over to the Solec District. Got a hidey hole there. Left a good stash of cigarettes and supplies, if no one’s raided it yet. We’re going to need everything we can get our hands on to bribe our way out of this war.”
“Meet at the factory?” I can’t see his face now, thanks to the shadows. But he raises his arm in farewell.
“Tomorrow,” I say.
V.
I make my way down the rows and rows of apartments, shops, and small factories toward my hole. I haven’t been to this district for weeks. Interesting how desecrated and desperate everything looks. A building takes on a whole different personality when it isn’t holding life. This area once had such bustle and commerce. Now, nothing.
This hiding hole is a half-crumpled home. A bomb must have shattered half, leaving the other half standing. A room off the kitchen has stubbornly survived the shelling and makes for a good hideout when I’m in this district. I don’t see the remnants of anything other than rats, and maybe some raccoons who’ve escaped someone’s box trap, skinning board, and cookstove.
I find my knapsacks of vital lifelines in the floorboard of a lopsided closet. I find cans of caviar—the Krauts will pay top dollar for these. And cigarettes, probably stale but still valuable. A small section of mirror still clings to the wall, and I step into its cloudy reflection.
“God, look at you,” I whisper. All of us in Warsaw are looking the same. Sunken, vacant eyes; pale, thin skin; scratches and bites that fester and can’t heal. Loose or missing teeth. Thinning hair, scrawny arms and legs. I don’t know—maybe it’s seeing how horrible I look. No, understanding this might be the best I’ll ever look … I sink down and lean against the bathtub, my legs out in front of me. I catch my own smell. Everyone in Warsaw reeks, but here, alone, sitting on someone’s ice-cold, bombed-out bathroom floor … did children once play in this tub? Did a mother once primp in that mirror? Did a father once shave in that sink?
The Girl Who Wouldn?t Die Page 17