The Book of Aron

by Jim Shepard

  “You want him to help you attack their office?” Korczak asked.

  “His price was getting you out,” the other boy said.

  “When was all this arranged?” Korczak asked me.

  “They came to the home yesterday,” I told him. “I talked with them on the front step.”

  “When did you imagine you would do this?” he asked me, in the voice he used when he talked to the Germans.

  “He’ll have to come now,” Boris said.

  “I’m not doing anything until he’s out of the ghetto,” I told them.

  “Do you have guns? Do you have bombs?” Korczak asked.

  “We’re getting guns. We’re getting bombs,” Boris said.

  “From where?” Korczak asked.

  Boris finally told him that his plan was for me to bring him to the wall at the end of Próżna Street at four the following night and there would be a ladder and someone waiting on the other side to take him out of the city.

  Korczak walked to the sink and stood with his back to us. “I’m waiting to speak until I’m not so angry,” he said.

  The other boy moved the tea glass from spot to spot on the table like a chess piece. When I looked at Boris he only shrugged.

  Korczak turned around. “And all the children in this orphanage?” he said to me. “I’m going to leave them now, when they have so little time left?”

  I put my hands on my face. “I just wanted to save you,” I said.

  The other boy said, “Boris chose the spot along the wall from your smuggling days. He picked a good one.”

  “When they argue with one another the children have a saying,” Korczak finally told us. “They say, ‘I’ll give you away in a bag.’ ”

  “Tell them the truth,” the boy said. “Tell them we can’t save them.”

  “Tell them they’re all just on their own?” Korczak asked, and his anger surprised even them.

  “They are all on their own,” the boy said.

  “They’re not all on their own,” Korczak said. None of us could look at anyone else.

  “So you won’t go?” the boy finally said to Korczak. “And you won’t help us if he doesn’t go?” he said to me.

  My hands were still on my face. Madame Stefa was now standing in the doorway.

  “Maybe he’ll change his mind,” I said.

  “But you have to come now,” Boris said.

  “And just leave him? And everyone else?” I asked.

  “Aron’s not a violent boy,” Madame Stefa said. She cleared her throat and said it again.

  “Sh’maya? Don’t tell me about Sh’maya,” Boris said. “Because of him my two best friends are dead. Sh’maya doesn’t care about anyone but himself. Do you, Sh’maya?”

  The other boy got up from the table and looked sad when he put the glass in the sink. “So you’re going to do as you’re told,” he said to Korczak. “And make everything simpler for the Germans.”

  “Gentlemen, it’s been a long day,” Korczak told them. Madame Stefa stepped over and put an arm on his shoulder.

  “And now he’s crying,” Boris said to the boy about me, as though he’d predicted it. I put my fists atop my head as if that would help.

  The Jews could fight better than anyone knew, the boy said. He said there was an anti-aircraft post near Mława during the first days of the war when everyone else had run away during an air raid and the Jews had shot down seventeen planes. “Seventeen planes!” he said.

  “You won’t go?” I asked Korczak. He looked away.

  “Make yourself useful,” Boris finally said to me.

  “Make up for what you’ve done,” the other boy said.

  “I’ve never been useful,” I told them. “And I can’t make up for what I’ve done.”

  They both stared at me. “I never thought he’d help,” Boris said, pointing at Korczak. “But I thought you might.”

  The other boy looked at me with hatred. “We have no chance without someone on the inside,” he said to Korczak. “Tell him that.”

  “It’s his decision,” Korczak said.

  Lice and bedbugs swarmed around on my head and chest. I raked my hands over them. “Can I take a day to think about it?” I asked.

  “You don’t have a day,” the boy said.

  “Then no,” I told him.

  KORCZAK WENT UP TO HIS ROOM AFTER THEY LEFT and Madame Stefa followed him. I sat below in the dark with the sleeping kids until I couldn’t stand it anymore and climbed the stairs.

  They were sitting together. He had pulled the blackout paper down from one of the windows and the sheets on all the beds gave off a pale light. The paper was still in his hand and when he crumpled it only a few of the sicker kids stirred.

  “What a marvelous big moon over this camp of helpless pilgrims,” he said to himself. It was as sad as I’d ever seen him.

  “I’m sorry,” I said from across the room.

  He nodded. “Do you even understand why I’m so angry?” he said.

  “I just wanted you to be safe,” I said. But he didn’t seem to have heard.

  “Can I get you anything?” Madame Stefa asked him after a minute.

  He shook his head. “Sit with us,” he said without looking at me, and patted the sheet.

  I went past the other beds and sat at the foot of his next to Madame Stefa and after he laid down we did too, though our feet were still on the floor. We listened to his breathing.

  “Did you know I met Madame Stefa on a trip to Switzerland when I was still a student?” he asked. I shook my head but he couldn’t see. She made an amused sound.

  “I told her on our first meeting during a long exchange on a park bench that I was the son of a mental patient but was going to become the Karl Marx of children,” he said.

  “Thank you,” I told him, “for calling me over.”

  “She was very self-assured,” he said.

  “I’m still self-assured,” she told him.

  “She was eating an unripe pear,” he said, and she stretched an arm in his direction. I felt his knee under the sheet.

  “Always at the back of your mind is the question of what you’ll do when they finally do come,” he said after we’d been lying there for a few minutes. He touched his glass and his cigarettes and then fell asleep.

  WHEN HE WOKE UP I DID TOO AND HE PROPPED HIMSELF up on his elbows. It was early. Gieńa was in her nightshirt under the window. “Good morning,” he said to her.

  “Good morning,” she said back.

  “Smile,” he told her, and she did. He said that today he thought he’d like a breakfast of sausage, ham, and buns. Madame Stefa got to her feet and walked to the staircase and shouted “Boys! Breakfast! Get up!” and down below we could hear beds moved and the wooden tables pushed together and the pot being filled in the kitchen. Then there were two whistle blasts and men at the front and back doors shouted, “All Jews out! All Jews out!”

  Gieńa put a hand to her mouth. Madame Stefa ran downstairs. Korczak struggled into his clothes and I followed him down once he’d stuffed his feet into his shoes.

  Madame Stefa was in the main room trying to keep the kids calm. She shook some who were making too much noise. The Germans and Ukrainians were still shouting. Korczak looked out the kitchen window and saw something that made him pull me out the back door into the courtyard with him.

  It was filled with men standing around: five or six SS, a line of Ukrainians, and two more of yellow police. The SS and Ukrainians were wearing long overcoats in the heat and sweating and yelling for water. Lejkin was bent over with his hands on his hips in front of his police. Korczak asked him what was happening and Lejkin told him to get everyone together. Korczak asked again and Lejkin repeated himself.

  When Korczak told him he needed time to allow the children to pack up, Lejkin said that he had twenty minutes.

  “Explain to him,” Korczak said to me. “Tell him that I need more time.”

  “He needs more time,” I said to Lejkin.


  Lejkin looked at me. “Ten minutes,” he said.

  Korczak pushed back inside and clapped his hands for everyone’s attention. Madame Stefa and the other staff members worked on getting those who were most upset to listen to him. He asked two boys to close the doors and when some Ukrainians tried to stop them he shouted, “We still have five minutes,” so they allowed it.

  Once the doors were shut the kids pushed forward as if whoever was closest to him would be the safest. I pushed forward myself. I was so panicked I was just calling, “Pan Doctor! Pan Doctor!” Mietek held my shirttail to keep his position. His head was so full of lice it was like he had gray hair.

  Korczak said it had been claimed this home was so filled with the well-behaved that at times you wouldn’t know there was a child in the house. He said his mother had told him he had no ambition because it always had been the same to him whether he played with his own kind or the janitor’s children and that there was no one with whom he would rather undertake what we were all about to do. He said where we were going there’d be no card playing, no sunbathing, and no rest. When some of the kids made noises he said he was telling us this because he’d spent his entire life demanding respect for the child and it was time to practice what he preached. More kids made noise and he quieted them with a hand gesture. He said not to forget that Moses himself had been a child under a death sentence. He told everyone of a time he’d convinced Jerzyk not to cover some ants with dirt. And who knows, he said: maybe even now those ants were back at their home, telling the story of how they survived.

  He told us to arrange ourselves in lines of four and the staff members helped. It took all of the time we had left. The doors burst open before we were finished and the shouting started again.

  Korczak waited for it to stop and then said he was already so proud of us that his heart was bursting. And who was to say that if anyone had a chance of surviving it couldn’t be us? And he said he’d use his old magic, we would see, to wheedle bread and potatoes and medicine for everyone. And that he’d be with us for whatever lay ahead.

  Madame Stefa was holding one of the sicker five-year-olds, and handed another to Korczak. He hefted her in front of everyone and said Romcia would be our standard-bearer. Along with Jerzyk who had spared the ants. He asked one of the staff to hand Jerzyk the bright-green flag with the Jewish star and two older kids helped him with the harness.

  Mietek was still in his rotten boots with his dead brother’s prayer book. Abrasha with his eyebrow had his violin in its case. Zygmuś was bare-handed. Other kids held toys or cups. Most had put their caps on.

  At the front door an SS man held a clipboard and took a roll call that took several minutes. The kids packed in tighter on Korczak. The SS man called out the door when he was finished that a hundred and ninety-two children and ten adults were accounted for. Korczak told the staff to spread themselves out and take every fifth row of four but Dora and Balbina had trouble finding their spots. Dora said that all her life she’d had to be first and just this once wanted to take her place farther back. Balbina said she’d never seen anything like it in her entire life and this was the first time she’d ever gone on a trip without knowing where she was going. They were still arguing when he led us out into the sunlight.

  It was hot. The sidewalks were so full that we had to walk in the street. Madame Stefa asked why this was and Korczak told her everyone was now required to stand in front of their homes when such operations were taking place.

  It was a gigantic procession, a rag parade, everyone staggering and squinting in the daylight, most carrying spoons and bowls. Some of the kids were cheered just to be walking all together.

  The sky was hazy. We were the only ones making noise, with our feet. Everyone watching was quiet. We went up Sosnowa, Śliska, and Komitetowa. After a few blocks people called, “Stay well!” or said goodbye to particular kids by name.

  All the shoes on the cobblestones made a clopping sound. There was a lot of dust. When we turned up Twarda the sun was in our eyes. Dora started singing “Though the Storm Howls Around Us” and held up her hand to block the sun while she sang. She didn’t have a very strong voice.

  She went on alone for half a block before Madame Stefa and Balbina and the rest of the staff and finally Korczak and the kids joined in. I started singing my younger brother’s name.

  “Those aren’t the words,” Zygmuś told me.

  “What do you care,” I said. One of the Germans escorting the procession pretended to sing along.

  The song stopped at Grzybowska Square when we saw all the others. We took a rest while the Germans tried to organize everyone. Korczak put Romcia down. People in the square looked as shocked to see him as he was to see them. We stood with a big group of older girls from the School of Nursing who were all dressed in their uniforms. Korczak told the woman leading them that he’d managed to secure a special wagon for his children.

  When they got us moving again at the intersection it was like two floods merging. As the crowd got bigger people had to work harder to stay in their groups. We took over the sidewalks and the Jews looking on had to retreat into doorways or courtyards or else get carried along. Almost everyone was carrying sacks and suitcases or dragging bundles, knocking into the kids and mixing into our lines. Zygmuś got pushed down a side street covered with abandoned bags and luggage and had to fight his way back into the procession. People shouted they’d forgotten their ration cards and had to go back or asked if there’d be water up ahead and if the yellow police had gone deaf.

  At Krochmalna an SS man with a cap shaped like a horse’s saddle watched us go by. Gieńa took my hand and told me she’d hidden some bread in her bag.

  At Chłodna Street there was another slowdown because kids fell going up the steps. The boards on the top of the bridge bent and creaked under everyone’s weight. Somewhere outside the wall an Aryan trolley clanged its bell. I could see our gang’s old gate. Jerzyk waved his flag when he got to the top of the bridge. He spat down at the street below.

  We kept walking. We’d been walking since seven. We were all walking and swaying, walking and swaying, walking and swaying. The sun was now straight overhead. My ears were ringing. Kids stumbled and fell into one another. How were they doing this with no food or water? I felt like I was flooding with something inside.

  We stopped twice on Zamenhofa. Every so often someone called Korczak’s name in surprise. The twine on my shoes came undone and I stepped out of them. Some kids had to be pulled off the pavement when we started moving again. They cried they were thirsty or wanted to rest or needed to go to the bathroom. Korczak was still in the front and still carrying someone. We passed my old apartment and I saw my house. I saw my window. Boris stood with his arms folded at the front door, next to his mother.

  The gate where the ghetto ended opened well before we got there. Germans and Ukrainians stood in lines on either side of it with clubs and guns and dogs.

  Everyone was shoved through and funneled across trolley tracks that opened onto a dirt field by a railway siding. Barbed wire wrapped around a cement post tore my sleeve. Jews already there were weeping and sitting and standing in the hot sun. Clothes and soup spoons and toys and throw-up were spilled around us. People shouted and hugged when they found someone. Some sat in circles facing one another and others wandered around spattered with blood.

  Korczak led us to the far end and sat the smallest kids against the wall for shade. He got some men to move to make room.

  He sat with the boys and Madame Stefa with the girls. One of the boys asked what would happen next and I heard him say, “Now we’re going on a trip to the forest.” A yellow policeman took the flag from Jerzyk and tossed it over the wall. Ukrainians came by saying that whoever had good boots should give them up since they’d be taken later anyway.

  Mietek was still holding my shirttail. The German Witossek stood over us and reintroduced himself to Korczak. His uniform was soaked with sweat even through the empty sleeve that was pinned up a
nd he said that wool was unsuitable for this kind of heat. He took off his cap and wiped his forehead with his sleeve and Korczak turned his attention to the children.

  Witossek apologized for the necessity of what had to happen and said he hoped Korczak understood the necessity was one thing and the people who had to carry it out were another. He said he wanted the good doctor to know that what was going to happen was going to happen and that how everyone chose to face it would be the point.

  “I agree with you,” Korczak said.

  I heard someone singing a song about the king of Siberia. “Pisher!” I shouted. “Pisher!” I stood up and looked around.

  The Ukrainians and the yellow police began loading those closest onto the train cars. People were screaming as they were pulled to their feet. Germans lounged against the wall and watched. Some teased the kids nearby. Witossek put his cap back on and walked over to join them.

  The Ukrainians and the yellow police kicked and pushed everyone they could into the open doorways. The Ukrainians used their rifle butts as well. Arms and hands stretched out the little window through the barbed wire. When it looked like there was no more room in a car a German walked over with his pistol and fired into the crowd and everyone near who was shot fell backwards and another six or seven people were shoved into the space.

  The train was filled and the doors banged shut and the Jews inside screamed until it left. Dust hung in the air from where the ramps had been kicked down.

  Korczak put his hands on Abrasha’s shoulders and told him something and other boys leaned in to listen. Madame Stefa put her arms around two girls. A Ukrainian bent over Gieńa and fingered her beads as she sat there with her hands in her lap.

  The yellow police gathered around a white enamel pail and took turns cooling off with ladles of water, some pouring it over their heads. Lejkin took the ladle and I put Mietek’s hand on Zygmuś’s shirttail and worked my way over to him.