“It’s a fine day.” I also removed my shawl from my mouth to take in some fresh air, alive with melting snow. “Let them enjoy themselves. The more they enjoy themselves, the better for us.”
“For you, maybe. You don’t depend on the weather. Your Fritz will find you something to do regardless of the time of the year.” A few women snickered but most began grumbling their support for their Fritz – didn’t he just double our rations, you miserable cow? And you’re still ungrateful? Sima wasn’t impressed. “Rations? For how much longer? Do you, a bunch of blind geese, think of the future at all? What of us? What will happen to us once it’s warm and they don’t need our services anymore? To the pit with us all?”
Silence fell over the column. A few inquisitive gazes darted in my direction. To be honest, Sima was right, at least in part. I hadn’t quite thought of the future. The truth was, pogroms, searches, and random shootings happened so often that I didn’t quite count on making it to summer and when one awaits death daily, one doesn’t acquire the habit of worrying about the future.
“They will need us again in October,” I began, not too convincingly.
Sima sensed it and snorted with contempt. “In October, she says. In October, they’ll bring more of you Hamburgs here. By October, all of us will be dead.”
I didn’t argue because there was a big chance that she was, in fact, right.
“I’ll talk to Leutnant Schultz today,” I promised, in a conciliatory tone. “He’ll figure something out.”
Inside the Government Building, bones didn’t ache any longer from the sudden change of temperatures. By the time I reached the seventh floor, I had shed my coat and shawl. The night brigade was truly giving it their all; perhaps, also sensing the spring, and with it – changes.
Schultz sat at his desk staring at a paper uncomprehendingly.
“An order just came through,” he said instead of a greeting. “A furlough.”
My heart suddenly dropped. My hands turned numb and cold, despite the coziness of the room which was even warmer than the corridor.
“Congratulations, Herr Leutnant.” The words came out weak and strangled. “For how long, if I may ask?”
“Three weeks.”
He was still perusing the paper as though trying to find a mistake that had crawled into the order and lodged itself between the lines. After a few moments of the most thorough inspection, his scowl grew deeper. Apparently, he didn’t find any such mistakes.
“I’m supposed to be leaving in one week.”
“Congratulations,” I repeated again, a broken record. In spite of myself, I tried to muster a smile. “Furlough is always great news, is it not?”
“I haven’t been home in a while…” he agreed, with a faraway look in his eyes. He didn’t see me any longer. I wondered what it was, precisely, that he was seeing.
“Your family will be thrilled to see you.”
I suddenly realized that I didn’t know if he had any children.
His thumb touched the wedding ring without him realizing it, a soldier’s instinctive gesture to remind himself that there was still a civilian life somewhere beyond the barbed wire and anti-tank trenches, someplace where people wore no uniforms and when the snow melted, the blades of grass fought their way toward the sun, not the stiff hands of dead soldiers.
“I will leave Leutnant Weizmann, the officer that you met before, in charge.”
“Otto?”
“Yes, Otto. He’s a grand fellow. We used to fly together until our command realized at last that, unlike him, I make a lousy pilot.” He tried smiling at me but the grin came out almost pained, water-downed, and miserable. “You’re early today. Marfa hasn’t brought breakfast yet.”
“It’s all right. You don’t have to feed me every day. I’ll wait till lunch. They give us a lot of soup and even bread now. Thank you for saying a word for us in the kitchen, Herr Leutnant. All the girls are very grateful.”
“Those ration cards are a joke. What they give you is hardly enough to feed a street mongrel, let alone a grown person. They won’t agree to anything more though. I tried.”
“I know you did. Thank you.”
He was lost in his thoughts once again, his gaze riveted to the official paper, next to which more letters lay, still unopened. Near the neat stack of ration cards, his letter opener glistened in the sun, a miniature copy of a sword with a swastika on top. He didn’t notice when I collected the cards or even when I silently closed the door after myself.
Foolish, foolish, foolish girl! I ran down the stairs – just to be out of there, the sooner the better. What have you been imagining yourself all along? That he was any different from them all? That he would fall in love with you and save you from this hell? And Vati always thought you were the savviest of all his daughters. The shrewd one, the survivor. Shrewd, my foot. A lonely soldier, who hasn’t seen his wife in months, kisses you once and you go thinking it’s the romance of the century.
I pushed the front door open and wiped my cheeks angrily. Street mongrel is right; that’s what you are to him. And he loves dogs too much not to feed even the filthiest mutt. And you’re worse than a mutt; you’re a Jew and an idiot. A sentimental idiot, on top of everything else.
In the boiler room, my appearance was met with a few raised brows.
“Why are you so early today?” Stepan demanded, the only man in our brigade. He had a face lined with wrinkles, in which coal-dust soot always sat, yet always smiling and ready with a joke. “We usually don’t see you till eight.”
“Get used to it,” I barked back. It came out much ruder than I intended. “Here’s your card, Abramov. And less jawing on the work. Adelman!” I shouted the name written on the second card.
“Present, Frau Kommandant.” It was Sima. She took the card out of my hands and crossed her arms over her chest. “You are early. I see the conversation went well with Schultz, didn’t it?” Her raised brow added words she left out of her question. I told you he didn’t give a hoot about us. Or you, for that matter.
I was suddenly incensed.
“Mind your business and keep your mouth shut, why don’t you? All you do is gossip instead of working!”
She pulled herself up. “If your Schultz is in a bad mood, don’t take it out on me.”
“Shut your trap, or I’ll report you right this instant!”
“To Schultz?” From Sima, a mocking sneer.
“To the SS.” I made a step toward the exit.
The sneer vanished, just like Sima, within seconds. I still heard her, Go on; you’re just like them, that she muttered under her breath on her way to her working station. Our exchange of pleasantries didn’t go unnoticed by the rest of the workers in the boiler room. Their usual banter subdued and soon died out completely. I pretended not to notice their peering eyes as I distributed the rest of the ration cards before going out in the street and giving the remainder to the rest of the brigade. They all sensed that something was wrong, and knew all too well that their well-being presently depended on Schultz and if something happened between their benefactor and the mediator – me – it would be them who’d suffer in the end.
Stupid lot. My vexation didn’t disappear in the warm April wind, only grew stronger and more bitter. Only thinking about their stomachs and what will happen to them. I won’t talk to him now, I won’t beg for our lives. The whole thing can go to the devil! Let the SS come and shoot us all and get it over with.
Away from everyone, I climbed into the furthest wagon with lumber and began dragging the heaviest planks towards the edge. Liza clambered inside after me, blocked my way, positively refused to move even when I began shouting at her; only inched her way to me among the wood and caught my hands in hers. Under her kind, penetrating gaze – what happened? – I dropped my heavy load and fell in a heap right next to it, hiding my face in my hands.
“Ilse, it’s all right, you can tell me. Did he say something to you? About summer? Did he say no?”
“I didn’
t get a chance to speak to him about summer.” I couldn’t quite understand why I was sobbing like a moron. “He’s leaving in a week.”
Her fingers clasped my shoulder tighter. “A transfer? Where to?”
“Not a transfer. A furlough. For three weeks.”
Her grip relaxed. I looked at her in stupefaction – she was laughing.
“And that’s why all the crocodile’s tears? He’ll be back in no time. You won’t even notice.”
“Like I care when he is back! He can stay in his Reich with his wife if he wants to! No one will miss him here.”
“That one could have fooled me but that’s a topic for another discussion. Is that why you’re crying? Because of the wife?”
I sat upright and wormed myself out of her friendly embrace. Tears suddenly dried on their own; wounded pride does that to people.
“I’m crying because he made me believe that he cared for us when in fact, he doesn’t give a damn. If they shoot us all in his absence, he’ll just go into the ghetto and hire himself a new brigade, in October most likely. In summer, he won’t even need us, as Sima correctly stated.”
Liza looked at me in an odd way.
“Doura ty, Ilse,” she finally said in Russian, shaking her head. I’ve heard the ‘courtesy’ far too many times, hurled at each other among the workers to not understand its meaning.
“Why am I an idiot now?”
“He’s in love with you, that’s why. And out of all people, you’re the only one who positively refuses to see it. Even Sima noticed it long before you and she’s as sensitive as a brick wall.”
I had just opened my mouth to tell her that it was her words that sounded like so much utter rubbish but she silenced me in her usual no-nonsense way. “I know that you’ll start arguing now, the pigheaded thing that you are but Schultz told me himself.”
“He told you that?” I rolled my eyes and made a motion to get up. Not in the mood for your tales, Liza.
“Not in those exact words, perhaps but…”
I hesitated in between wood planks.
“Last Tuesday, when I went up to clean his room – he’s never asked you to do it, have you noticed? – he asked me why the SS kill the Jews. I thought he was joking at first but then realized that he was very much serious. So, I said, I wouldn’t know. You’re the German here, you fight along with them, you should know better. He said that they, the Luftwaffe, aren’t supposed to poke their noses into the business of the SS and that he didn’t know anything about the ghettos or pogroms until he got transferred here. He told me, they tell them all in Germany that the Jews are all relocated here, to the east that is, to work on farmlands. He only saw what’s really happening once he received this appointment.”
I was listening.
“Then he asked what can be done to help you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, just you. He knows he can’t get all of us out so… I said, nothing. The best chance would be to get to the partisans but you don’t speak Russian or Byelorussian. You won’t probably even make it to the forest. You wouldn’t know how to ask directions from the locals and wouldn’t pass for a local in case a German patrol stopped you.”
“And what did he say?” I barely heard myself when I asked her that.
“He said he’ll have to find a way.”
Chapter Thirteen
The following morning, Schultz made a point of having Marfa serve the breakfast thirty minutes earlier than usual. I actually ran into her as she was leaving with her tray muttering in Russian under her breath, undoubtedly on account of the cursed fascists and their whims. Schultz rushed to take my coat and moved the chair up for me, attentive and apologetic as ever. I must forgive him for yesterday. He wasn’t himself. I assured him that it was really all right and he had nothing to apologize for.
“I thought everything through.” He served me today, with infinite gallantry and something else that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. “I’ll tell you everything after you eat. Weizmann will look after you; I have already arranged everything. I’ll show you everything later. Now, eat, please. You must be starving.”
He never touched what Marfa had set on his plate. He watched me eat instead, subtly and with a soft smile and only shook his head to all my questions as to whether the eggs were not to his liking that morning.
“You oughtn’t to worry about me. I really am not hungry.”
I wolfed my portion down and then his as well after he delicately moved his untouched plate toward me. After the second cup of coffee, again, served by my suddenly attentive host – no, no; don’t move please, let me do it for you – I folded my hands on my lap and patiently awaited explanations.
Schultz rose to his feet and motioned me to follow him.
“Do you know how to type by any chance?” he asked, opening the door to the room which served as his bedroom. I shook my head negatively. “I thought so. It’s quite all right. It’s very easy actually; I will teach you in no time. Weizmann hates typing reports so he’ll need someone to do it for him. All the paperwork, all the ‘administrative nuisance’ as he calls it and what I usually do, you will be typing in my absence.”
“But the brigade—”
“Liza Gutkovich will be in charge of it while you’re busy here. She’ll be getting a double ration for it, so I don’t believe she’ll complain.”
I didn’t think she would. One ought to have been quite barmy to complain about a double ration nowadays.
Schultz, meanwhile, was already arranging a typewriter on a desk next to the wall and motioned me to it. Reluctantly, I lowered to the chair in front of the black beast with a single word Continental written in its center and a big winged W just above the keys.
“First, you’ll have to insert a sheet of paper in it. This is how you do it. Slide the top of your paper between the roller and paper table. You’ll know when to stop – it just won’t go any further. Then you turn this knob counterclockwise to feed the paper into the roller.” Leaning over me, with his hands above my shoulders, he expertly arranged a sheet of paper inside the typewriter.
He stood so close to me that I could smell the scented starch of his uniform, the cologne on his cheeks, the faint smell of the cigarette smoke – the good kind, not the atrocious Soviet makhorka of which every man in the ghetto stunk. I silently thanked God for the soap Rivka helped me steal, even though I had to scrub my garments and myself in the ice-cold water and a small communal basin. At least I was clean.
“Now you’ll have to set the carriage. Move the roller as far to the left as it goes – it’ll stop itself. This will also set the margins. And after that, you just type the words, simple as that.” He typed the date in the top right corner. The typewriter made a dinging noise. “When you hear this sound, you need to return the carriage to begin a new line.” He pressed the silver lever on the side of the typewriter and pushed the roller to the right. “See? The carriage stops itself where needed. Now you try.”
He straightened behind my back. My fingers hovered over the keys.
“Office of an Administration Officer of the Minsk Air Supply Unit Leutnant W. Schultz, Luftwaffe HQ,” he dictated. I pressed the first uncertain O, which came out much too pale. “You have to hit the key harder. Don’t be afraid, it won’t break.” He got a smile out of me. After a good minute, I finally had the first line down and looked up at him inquisitively. “You’re doing great.”
I knew I wasn’t. “It’s a bad idea. I’ll never learn how to type in five days.”
“Of course, you will. I’m a good teacher and you’re an excellent student.”
I was grateful for the encouragement even though his statement about my being an excellent student was quite far from reality.
“Now, next line.” He patiently waited for me to adjust the paper. Surprisingly, I got it right. “Perfect. Now type, To General-Kommissar Kube, Reichskommissariat Ostland, Minsk HQ. Next line. Gauleiter!”
Little by little, I got the hang of it. Typing wasn’t that
bad of an affair but I still spent too much time puzzling over the keys and searching for the right one.
“You’ll pick up speed later,” Schultz advised, seemingly pleased with the progress. “All you have to do is practice.”
“What do I do if I make a typo?”
“You’ll have to retype the entire document, I’m afraid.”
“I’ll be retyping a lot of documents,” I remarked, examining my latest effort and spotting at least three typos just in the first line.
“You’ll do just fine,” Schultz assured me once again, with the same affectionate smile.
“Leutnant Weizmann will hate me. He’ll think me to be a right moron.”
“No, he won’t. You will have all day to retype them all. As a matter of fact, the longer you type them, the better. You’ll always look busy in case someone from the SS headquarters makes an appearance.”
My smile faltered. I knew that they were stationed in the same building but didn’t know that they had free reign over other departments. “They can come in here without permission?”
“They like to stick their noses where they don’t belong. So, yes. Don’t look so frightened now; I told their commanding officer about you and God knows, everyone around understands that Weizmann needs a secretary. He’s a first-rate pilot but the lousiest administrative worker you’d ever want to come across.”
“Are you good friends?”
“Very good, yes,” he replied fondly. “He’ll be your guardian angel for the time of my furlough. He’ll see to it that nothing happens to you.”
From that day on, I stayed in Schultz’s room daily and typed whatever he dictated to me from his chair by the round table covered by an embroidered tablecloth. He would drink his coffee and from time to time go for a cigarette into the hallway so the smoke would not bother me after I made the mistake of coughing in his presence – the ghetto air didn’t exactly do wonders for one’s lungs.
The Girl Who Survived: Based on a true story, an utterly unputdownable and heart-wrenching World War 2 page-turner Page 11