“Well, it was your plan,” Otto snaps. “Any other suggestions?” He squares off with me. He sounds so stiff, so … zealous.
“This whole insane thing was your idea, Messiah!” I snap back. “No skin off my nose if—”
“Quiet! Both of you!” Mrs. Praska shouts. “Bickering like children!” Mrs. Praska gives us each a hard, maternal look. Otto and I look at each other. I wonder if I look just as sheepish as he does.
“So, are we doing this or not?” Mrs. Praska demands, crossing her arms across her ample chest.
“Yes, of course,” Otto says.
There’s a moment of awkward silence between us.
I look around the room. “So where’s Lizard?”
“He said he had a connection for a handcart,” Otto says.
“What for?”
“You, Yankev, and Lizard will pull the handcart with the children and Mrs. Praska inside, and I’ll walk behind with my rifle. Just like with the children. Only this time, I’ll have flushed an entire family. All of us, and now.”
I look around the room—the children, quiet and solemn; Otto and Mrs. Praska, resolute. Yankev, arms crossed and leaning into a corner.
Moments later, Lizard arrives and calls me outside to look at what he’s hauled back.
“That thing?” I ask, looking down at the rickety cart.
“I won’t tell you what I did to get it.” Even he is sounding harder.
Within minutes, we’re loaded and ready to go. Identifications in pockets, Stars of David sewn on, cart filled with children and what belongings we can tuck into the corners.
The snow makes for difficult going, and we have to lift the cart over obstacles along the way. Who knows what sort of things—even bodies—the snow covers? The going is easier on the more-traveled roads. Still, it’s an hour’s trek.
I defy anyone to recognize us, wrapped in layers of clothing. Still, I have my false identification in case we get pulled out of line for a closer inspection. This time, I silently chant the name, birthdate, and occupation of my identity.
“Now what?” I whisper over to Otto. We’ve been stopped while the guards direct a work crew to shovel snow to open the tall wood gate. It’s bricked in on both sides, and the snow is forming high drifts as fast as they can shovel. People from both sides mill around, grumble, stomping feet to stay warm, anxious to just move.
“I don’t know,” Otto whispers back. “The snow is winning.”
“Maybe we should try another gate.”
Just then, a guard announces over a blaring loudspeaker, “Zurückgehen! Das Tor ist eingefroren! Zurückgehen!”
“The gates are iced over,” I whisper to Lizard and Mrs. Praska. “They want everyone to go back. All the gates are closing.”
Then, in fractured Polish read from a floppy book, the guard calls out, “Go home! Go back to work! Go! Zurückgehen!”
Otto approaches one of the guards. “So what am I going to do with these Jews? I have my orders. I can’t just let them go. It took me all day to smoke them out!”
“Shoot them, for all I care! But if you do, line them up behind each other to save bullets. You’ve heard the orders to conserve ammunition,” he barks back.
My head pops up at the guard’s suggestion. Otto growls some swear words and comes back to our cart. Mrs. Praska has the younger children under her arms like a hen protects her chicks under her wings. She’s ready for trouble.
“There’s been a change of plans,” he mutters to me.
“When hasn’t there been?” I mutter back.
“Turn this cart around! Hurry! Do you want me to freeze out in this?” he orders. We move to comply, but the cart has frozen in place in just the short time we’ve been stopped.
“Can’t we just go back?” Yankev asks. “This is insane! We’ll all freeze to death out here!”
I look behind us and the crowd fills the whole street, on the sidewalks and spilling into the side streets and alleys. I start moving.
“Where are you going?” Otto calls after me. I always have a backup plan and I’m walking toward it.
“Sewers,” Lizard replies, carrying one of the children, who’s hurt his ankle falling out of the cart. “Come on. It’s fun.”
“Maybe we should try another gate. It’s too dark. All this snow and ice, and these young ones,” Otto hedges, catching up to me and spinning me around.
We look back at the guards. One in the tower has cast his spotlight on us. “Careful, Lieutenant, you’re letting your colors show,” I tell Otto. He whips around as a guard comes our way.
We all stop. Otto’s face hardens as walks over to meet the guard, and they exchange some angry words. Then he comes back to the cart. He has his gun drawn and is motioning for us to turn and go off onto a side street.
“Otto, what’s happening? You’re scaring the children with that gun, you know,” I say out of the corner of my mouth.
“Just shut up and keep walking.”
Lizard shoots me a glance and I know what he’s thinking, because I’m thinking it, too. We round the corner and are out of the guards’ sight.
“Otto!” I move to grab the gun. “What the hell are—?”
He pushes me away and Lizard goes for Otto’s gun, now held high in the air. I have my own Luger halfway out of my pocket. Then Otto empties his gun into the air. The sound echoes off the walls of the narrow street and chunks of ice and snow pelt down on us. The children scream, huddle together, and begin to cry.
He holsters the gun. “He ordered me to shoot you,” he says. “You’re all officially dead now. Come on, before those guards come to take a head count and pick pockets!”
I have to take some deep breaths. The icy air stings my lungs. “Otto, I … I thought …”
“Forget it. I know what you thought. Now, where is this sewer of yours?”
Lizard and I exchange glances. We really did come this close to … I can’t think about that now. I look around to get my bearings. “Come on! This way!”
We bring the cart around and I lead the way. The snow is blinding now and we’ll freeze if we don’t get shelter soon. Where the hell am I? I look around.
“Don’t tell me you’re lost,” Yankev growls.
Everything has changed with so much snow. Finally, my eyes fall on the telltale steam rising from a sewer grate. “There!” We crunch our way across the street.
I pull out several lapel pins I’ve bought off a street vendor. They’re phosphorescent, and they glow in the dark. “Here. Put these on everyone.” I hand them to Lizard and stick one on myself.
“Look at me!” one child chirps, flapping her arms. “I’m a firefly.”
Otto seizes the child. “Look at you, you’re a target for a sharpshooter!”
We dig down through the snow to find the cover. Frozen shut. We chip away at the ice while Yankev holds the flashlight and the children stare down, their feet freezing to the snow under them.
“I’m not going down there, you know,” Yankev says, staring at the sewer cover.
“Then you’re not going,” I say, backing up. I feel no sensation from my frozen fingers as I try to get a grip on the manhole cover. “Come on, Otto! Help me with this thing!”
“Why can’t we just try again tomorrow?” Yankev says. “It’ll be warmer and lighter and—”
“Our connection is waiting, that’s why! I’ve already sent six birds and have just these three left!” Otto snaps back, pointing to the cage, well hidden in the cart. “Our transport is out there someplace right now. If the damn truck hasn’t frozen to the road. If they haven’t been discovered and shot!”
Yankev backs away, staring as we wheel the manhole cover aside. A gush of warm, moist, and foul-smelling air greets us. The children look down, their faces a mix of disgust and curiosity. Except Yankev, who backs up even further.
“You think about it, Yankev,” I say looking up at him. Then, to the others, “Come on! Hurry!”
Lizard goes down first and we pass the youn
ger children down to him. Then Mrs. Praska.
“When I was a girl, my brothers dared me to do this,” she says, carefully gripping the handles of the ladder. “I wish they could see me now,” she adds with a nervous mumble, her head disappearing into the black hole.
Then Otto. I turn to Yankev. Even in the dim light, I can see his face is the color of the snow around us. “Those children, those little girls, and even your mother, Yankev,” I say, pointing down. “Come on! Get down there! Hurry!”
“I can’t.”
“Yankev!” his mother shouts from below.
Yankev backs away, looking like he’s going to be sick. “I can’t. I hate small places.”
“Do you know how small a grave is?” I offer him my hand.
“I can’t. I just can’t.”
“Get down there or I swear I’ll leave you! You won’t see any of them again, Yankev! Think!”
“No. I’ll meet you in the ghetto. I can make it there on my own. Not down there, not down there.” He keeps backing away, staring at the black hole in the street.
“Yankev, for the love of God!” his mother cries out. Her words sound otherworldly, a muted echo from the underworld.
“Hurry!” Otto shouts up.
“Yankev!” I say. “Pawia 322. We won’t wait for you. Pawia 322!”
I scramble down the ladder. Lizard and I pull the manhole cover back over us, and I let my eyes adjust to the dark, take the flashlight, and lead my charges away. I hear Mrs. Praska trying to stifle her tears as she warns the children to stay quiet no matter what.
It’s never easy going through the sewers. The children are deathly quiet, considering where they are. I wonder if children recognize a life-or-death situation better than adults. Lizard has made it a game of Follow the Firefly Leader with the flashlight.
Sounds echo in the sewers and we don’t dare holler from a stubbed toe, or screech as the flashlight reflects dead, nibbled-out eyes, or whimper when cold, slimy globs of God-knows-what drip down on us. Even the pigeons are quiet in their cage.
I am first up through the sewer grate on the other side. I’m praying some soldier isn’t there to greet me with a gun pointed at my face. I circle the area with my flashlight. Clear! In moments we have everyone up and out and in a line, heading for our hideout, just a few blocks away.
Still strangely silent, we bring everyone down the coal chute and inspect faces. Mrs. Praska takes charge immediately and gets the children unwrapped and settled. Otto does a head count now that we’ve all made it over, excepting Yankev—twelve children, four adults, three pigeons.
Mrs. Praska keeps looking up, perhaps wondering if her Yankev might have followed after all. Our eyes meet. What can I say? I wonder if we’re both worrying about the same thing.
We give the children something to eat and some warm water. Soon, Stefan and Lorenz are showing the other children the interesting things they have found in their time exploring the cellar. As they warm up and find their beds, settle in, and fall asleep, I feel as though the entire cellar is encased in an atmosphere of … what? Peace? Not excitement, not tension, but—yes, I guess that’s it. Peace.
VIII.
At first light, I head out to check the wall and start searching for my gravestone. The snow is even deeper now, maybe about fifteen inches. The drifts are huge. I don’t see any fresh tracks, so at least that’s good. It seems pointless to cover up my own tracks around the cellar entrance. Judging by the dark clouds overhead, the snow will begin again soon. Besides, only idiots like me are out in this weather. I walk close to the wall, now even more of a mountain of snow and rock. I almost expect to see kids sledding down the snow bank the wall creates. So hard to tell what’s under all the fluffy, white lumps—a car? dead horse? child’s bike?
It’s hard going and I’m thirsty and exhausted after only a few blocks. I turn to head back and then I see it, a streak of red smeared down the wall. Blood frozen on the snow. I trudge closer and carefully poke my foot into a snow-covered lump at the base of the wall. Something half hidden and gray catches my eye.
I look around, then kneel and swipe carefully at the snow. The gray cap is frozen stiff, and I have to pull it loose from the grips of the icy snow. I know this cap. I dig a bit deeper, fearing, but knowing what I’ll find.
“God …” I whisper. I gently uncover Yankev’s face. He looks for all the world like a sleeping child. “No …” I swipe away ice crystals from his eyes and realize they’re his last tears. “I’m sorry, Yankev,” I whisper down to him. I pack snow around his head, then pull out a handkerchief to place over his face.
The sound of a horn honking several streets over reminds me where I am. I cover Yankev with more snow, encasing him entirely. I’m not a good Jew. If I ever knew the prayer, I’ve forgotten it. So instead, I sketch in the snow, just above his head:
DIE WITH HONOR
I stuff his cap into my jacket and return to my quest—finding our escape hole in the wall.
I look in both directions. Except for the streak of blood marking Yankev’s snowy grave, it’s all just one long, low mountain range. My chances of finding that one spot are … Damn it to hell! It’s hopeless! What was I thinking? I pace along the wall, kicking at the drifts. I look up at the trees, hoping I might recognize something from that work party so long ago. It’s … it’s hopeless.
Defeated, with Yankev’s cap tucked inside my coat, I make my way back to the cellar.
“Otto, I have to tell you something,” I say. I try to keep the urgency out of my voice. Mrs. Praska is watching me very closely.
“Jesus Christ!” Otto says. “There are sixteen of us.” He runs his hand through his thick shock of hair. “No, seventeen, when Yankev gets here!”
“One more, when I get my sister. Remember, she’s the whole reason I’m doing this. But Otto, come with me. We have to talk.”
“Go ahead and ration out something to eat, Mrs. Praska,” he says. Then, to me, “Okay, what is it?”
“Lizard, you need to hear this, too.” I lead them to the root cellar, where I know we can’t be overheard. I shove the ancient door closed and light a candle.
“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary!” Lizard says, looking at row after row of bottles. “We can bribe our way out of Poland with this stash! Arab, you been holding out on us?”
“Lizard! Listen! There’s been a slight change of plans,” I say. “Otto! Put that bottle down! Yankev is dead.”
They stop eyeing the liquor and look at me. Silence while that sinks in.
“What? How?”
“I saw him at the foot of the wall. My guess is he tried to climb over. Was spotted and shot.” I exhale, wondering how I’m going to tell Mrs. Praska.
“Poor Yankev,” Otto says.
“May he rest in peace,” Lizard says, crossing himself.
“Yankev isn’t the worst of it,” I say, low.
“What else?” Otto asks.
“There’s no way I can find my rat hole. The whole wall is covered with snow and frozen solid.”
“What do you mean you can’t find it!” Otto bellows. He points toward our covey of children. “We risked all those lives bringing them here, and now you can’t even find your fucking surefire can’t-fail rat hole? Your famous gravestone?”
“Arab!” Lizard jumps in. “Then how the hell are we going to get … Arab!”
I don’t know what else to say. They’re right. My plan has failed.
“Oh great!” Otto hollers. “Just perfect! Hell, what made me ever think this could work in the dead of winter? Look, I’m thinking about delaying everything for a few weeks.”
I point up. “Okay, I take total responsibility for the weather! But, Otto, we can’t wait! You’ve seen it up there! How many people can they cram into the ghetto? How much longer do you think we have? We can’t wait until the spring thaw. We have to come up with something, and we have to do it now.”
“And how are we even going to feed all those children? How long before someone upstairs t
urns us in?” Lizard says. “Hell, for all we know, there are bounty hunters—maybe even Sniper—just ready to cash in on us! We’d make quite a haul, wouldn’t we?”
“Sniper’s the least of our problems,” I say. I’ve kept that to myself, too. I turn to Otto. “Another thing. The Krauts will level the ghetto at the first sign of that resistance you say is germinating out there.”
“Otto, go over this plan again. Only leave out the part about the hole in the wall,” Lizard says. He pulls out a bottle of something, yanks the cork, and takes a swig. “We’re three reasonably smart men.” He looks at me. “Sorry. People. We can figure this out.”
Otto takes a drink from the bottle, hisses at the burn, then pulls out his multi-folded map. “By now, a transport has been delivered and hidden in a barn just outside of Warsaw—about here. They know we’ll be there in the next few days, Arab.” He points to the pigeons’ cage, being kept warm in the rafters. “Once those last three go, we’re committed.”
“How far a walk is that?” I ask.
“Half mile. It’s a bridle path most of the way. We’ve watched it and hardly anyone patrols it.”
“You’re going to walk those children a half mile in this snow?” Lizard says.
“We planned to walk through snow, just not this much,” Otto says.
Lizard takes a pencil from his pack and starts to draw a circle around Otto’s “about here.”
“No!” Otto grabs the pencil from him.
“What?” Lizard demands.
“Having a map is one thing. Having a marked map is another. You should know that.” He throws the pencil across the cellar.
“A truck will be waiting here.” Otto points to the map. “But trucks are different sizes. That’s why no more than twelve can go at a time. When I get as far as my connection here—a farmer and his daughter—someone else will get us to the next point. And then to here, then finally to Danzig, where we’ll have a boat.”
“Hope it’s more than a rowboat,” Lizard says.
“There’s a tug and an old freighter. And someone offered the use of their yacht.”
The Girl Who Wouldn?t Die Page 19