28 Days

by David Safier

Suddenly I realized that this boy was trying to save my life. Was he a Jew, too? Or a Pole, maybe? He could even have been German with his blond hair and blue eyes, and his freckles. At any rate, he was a fantastic actor. It didn’t matter what he was. He was risking his life for me—a total stranger!

  “You’re the rose of my life,” he said. He sounded so happy.

  The hyenas had no idea what to make of him. Could someone pretending to be in love overdo it like this? I had to start playing along if I wanted to convince them and save us both.

  But I was too flustered. I tried to take the rose, but I couldn’t move. It was as if I’d been paralyzed by Hannah’s poison worm Xala from her story about the crazy caterpillars who hated butterflies.

  The boy could feel how tense I was and pulled me closer. He held me tight, and his arms were far stronger than I would have thought possible for such a skinny guy. I still couldn’t react. I was all fear and surprise, like a dummy in his arms. He increased his antics to cover for me, and all at once he kissed me.

  He kissed me!

  His rough lips pressed against mine, and his tongue pushed into my mouth as if it had done so a thousand times before. As if this was the most natural thing in the world. I had to answer his kiss. This was my last chance. If I didn’t, then everything would be over, for both of us.

  The knowledge that I was going to die if I didn’t react gave me a new lease of life, and I kissed him back just as wildly.

  I had no idea if I liked being kissed, but when the boy finally stopped, I pretended to be over the moon.

  “Thank you for the rose, Stefan.” I’d made up a name for him in an instant.

  “I can’t live without you, Lenka!” He had a name for me, too. He must have been relieved that I had started to play along.

  The hyenas were pretty impressed by our performance. The young szmalcownik even looked a bit envious. He’d probably never kissed a Polish girl like that.

  “Are these guys annoying you?” Stefan asked, pretending that he hadn’t noticed them before.

  “They think I’m a Jew!”

  Stefan stared at them as if they were completely mad. But he wasn’t laughing like me on my first attempt to get rid of them. He scowled at them.

  “Are you trying to insult my girlfriend?”

  He was a proud Pole now, whose girl had had her dignity offended. A Jew? No one would dare say something like that to a decent Pole!

  “No … no,” the leader stammered. He stepped back a bit. So did his men.

  “Well, they did!” I said in an angry voice. I was only pretending to be offended, but my anger was real enough.

  Stefan shook his fist at the szmalcowniks. They stepped back again. Of course, they could have simply beaten him up. Three against one would have been no problem for them. But they didn’t touch Poles. That would have got them into trouble with the police. They even looked slightly shamefaced to have been so very wrong about me. They didn’t bother to apologize, but the leader turned away from us without a word and signaled the other two hyenas to follow him.

  Stefan picked up my heavy bags like a real gentleman and put his free arm around my shoulder. We pretended to be two people in love, strolling through the market with me holding his rose.

  I did worry that he might run off with my goods. Maybe he was a smuggler, too. But would an ordinary smuggler risk his life for someone like me? And if he did steal the food, wasn’t it a small price to pay for my life?

  “Thank you,” I said to him.

  “It was my pleasure,” he laughed, and I almost believed him. “You’re a great kisser.”

  He said it with all the authority of a boy who knew what he was talking about, who’d kissed a lot of girls.

  “I am if my life depends on it,” I whispered so that the passersby wouldn’t be able to hear. This wasn’t the right time or place to be swapping compliments. “Our lives! You risked your life for me!”

  I still couldn’t believe it. In a world where everyone only thought about themselves, someone had put everything on the line for me!

  “I knew it would work,” he said just as quietly. He wasn’t play-acting anymore; he was smiling honestly now.

  “Well, you knew more than me, then.” I gave him an apologetic smile.

  “For two reasons,” he explained.

  “Oh?”

  “Your green eyes…”

  I was flattered, which surprised me.

  “And?” I asked.

  “Anyone out smuggling in times like this must be a really quick thinker. Or else he’d be dead. Or she would be.”

  He was impressed! And that pleased me even more and made me feel a tiny bit proud. Of course, I didn’t want him to know, so I said, “A really quick thinker or truly insane.”

  He laughed. A lovely, natural laugh. Nothing like the laughter in the ghetto. Was he a Pole after all? Maybe he really was called Stefan.

  “Are you a smuggler, too?” I asked.

  He stopped walking, grew serious, and hesitated for a moment, as if he was wondering how much he should let me know. In the end, he said, “Not like you.”

  What was that supposed to mean? Did he smuggle for the ghetto’s black market kings? Was he one of the Polish criminals who supported those people?

  Stefan took his arm away.

  “It’s better if you don’t know anything about me,” he said, and suddenly he seemed much older than seventeen.

  “Oh, I can handle it,” I replied.

  “I used to think like that,” he answered. His eyes had lost the bold sparkle. I would have loved to know what he was talking about, but it was none of my business. He handed me my bags. Good! I wouldn’t have to go home without any food.

  “We should say goodbye,” Stefan said.

  All at once, I felt sad. I wanted to know more about him, but I knew it wasn’t going to happen. “Yes, we should,” I said quietly.

  He looked so serious. Was he sorry that we were going different ways, too? But as soon as he felt me watching him, he switched his smile back on.

  “When you get home, you need to wash.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You stink of fear!” he said, and gave me a broad grin.

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or hit him, so I did both.

  “Ouch!” He burst out laughing.

  “Mind what you say,” I said, “or there’ll be more where that came from.”

  That made him laugh even more. “There you go!” he said. “Never trust a pretty woman.”

  Damn, I was pleased again!

  Stefan planted a kiss on my cheek and disappeared into the crowd. Out of my life forever, probably, without telling me his name or ever knowing that I was called Mira.

  And I still held his rose in my hand.

  Sometimes when something exciting happens, the feelings don’t catch up with you until after it’s over.

  The rose thorns pricked the tips of my fingers, and suddenly I was overwhelmed by the memory of our kiss. The way Stefan had kissed me. The way I’d kissed him back.

  I was shocked. Daniel had never kissed me like that.

  Daniel.

  I felt guilty all of a sudden. Why on earth was I so overwhelmed by a kiss from a stranger?

  Daniel was the only person in the world who gave me any strength. He was the most decent person I knew. And he was always there for me. Unlike everyone else.

  I probably wouldn’t see Stefan ever again, and even if I did … Daniel and me! We were going to go to America together. Someday. We were going to walk down Broadway with Hannah, and see that great city for real. I’d only ever seen it in black and white, in the cinema we used to watch before the Nazis invaded.

  Daniel and I had made a New York vow.

  I pulled myself together and tried to block off the emotions caused by the kiss. I blamed them on all the danger and excitement, and forced myself to stop thinking about Stefan. The day wasn’t over. I hadn’t survived yet. The hardest part was still to come. I had to get
back into the ghetto. Without being caught by the German guards.

  2

  The wall the Jewish slave workers had built—it’s true, the Jews were forced to build their own prison—was three meters high. It was topped with broken glass and another half a meter of barbed wire. It was guarded by three different units: German soldiers, Polish soldiers, and the Jewish ghetto police on our side of the wall. Those pigs did anything the Germans wanted, just to have a slightly better life than the rest of us. They weren’t to be trusted, not even my charming older brother.

  Professional smugglers bribed the guards at the few gates that led into the ghetto—guards were always prepared to take money, no matter which group they belonged to. Once the guards had been paid, the carts with the smuggled goods could pass. Often these were stowed under false floors, but sometimes the animals pulling the carts were the goods themselves. Carts could be pulled into the ghetto by horses and back out again by men.

  It wasn’t as easy for me to get in or out of the ghetto. I didn’t have enough money to bribe the guards, and although I was slim, I was too big to fit through one of the gaps under the wall used by the smaller children who had to help make ends meet. These ragged little creatures were the unsung heroes of the ghetto. They forced their way through cracks and holes, crept through sewers, and even climbed over the wall, cutting their hands open on the broken glass. Most of them were under ten years old, and some no more than six. But if you looked into their eyes you’d have thought they’d roamed the earth for a thousand years. Whenever I saw one of those poor old-young creatures, I thanked my lucky stars that I could give Hannah a better life.

  The little smugglers were all doomed. Sooner or later, they got caught by someone like Frankenstein. Frankenstein was our name for one of the more brutal German guards. He enjoyed shooting the small smugglers down off the wall with a cold smile, like sparrows.

  In order to get into the Polish part of the city without ending up like a dead sparrow myself, I used the one place that had actually been designed to transport people from one world to another: the graveyard.

  We are all the same in death—even if the different religions don’t think so—and the Catholic and Jewish cemeteries lay side by side, separated by just a wall. Ruth had told me how to get through. One of her favorite customers, a notorious ghetto gangster called Shmuel Asher, had boasted to her about his smuggling tricks.

  I left the market, walked along a couple of streets, and went into the Catholic cemetery. There was hardly ever anyone here, and today it was deserted. The Poles didn’t have much time for their dead at present. Maybe people never did.

  I headed straight toward the wall. I looked at the graves on the way and was surprised how luxurious some of them were. Some of the tombs were larger than the room I occupied with my family. And they probably had fewer bugs, too. I was thinking about this when I noticed a blue policeman on patrol in the distance. Whatever happened, he mustn’t speak to me or ask for my papers. I couldn’t afford a forged passport like the professional smugglers, and I’d be caught at once.

  I went on my way without hurrying and stopped at the next grave. I put down my bags, laid my rose beside a wreath, and started to pray quietly. I was a good Catholic girl taking a moment to remember the dead after visiting the market. The man who was buried here was called Waldemar Baszanowski, born on the twelfth of March 1916 and dead on the third of September 1939. He was probably a soldier in the Polish army, shot by the Germans in the first days of the war. I was Waldemar’s little sister now. God rest his soul.

  The policeman walked past without speaking to me. He left me alone to say my prayers for the dead. Once he’d gone, I let out a sharp breath. I was sorry that I’d have to leave my rose on this stranger’s grave. Stefan had used it to save my life, after all. I picked up the rose and toyed with the idea of taking it back to the ghetto. But that was unwise. If I met the policeman again, the rose would give me away. I’d never be able to explain not leaving it on the grave. I could hardly say, “Oh well, the dead man won’t mind.”

  I told myself I had to stop getting distracted by that boy. I left the rose on the grave. “Thank you, Waldemar,” I said, and went up to the wall bordering the Jewish cemetery. I looked around, but I couldn’t see any soldiers or police, and so I hurried over to a certain spot where the carefully arranged stones could be removed to make a passable hole for the professional smugglers. This was where they brought tons of smuggled goods into the ghetto, including cows and horses. I took out the smallest stone and peered through the hole. As far as I could see, there was no one on the other side, so I started to pull out more stones, as quickly as possible. This was the most dangerous part. I could be discovered on either side as I removed the stones. And there would be no chance of explaining myself or escaping.

  My heart beat wildly, and I started to sweat again. I could be caught and shot at any moment. Well, at least I’d be close to my grave.

  As soon as the hole was big enough, I squeezed through and started to put the stones back, as fast as I could. I didn’t want the guards to notice the hole while they were patrolling the wall and close it for good. And I didn’t want the smugglers to suspect that someone was using their secret passage, or they’d pounce on me the next time I went over to the Polish side. Ruth had warned me that they were a nasty bunch of people.

  My hands shook. I was more nervous than usual, probably because of my encounter with the szmalcowniks. I dropped a stone on my foot and gritted my teeth, so as not to make a sound. I wanted to be gone, but I had to seal the hole in the wall.

  To calm myself, I touched the moss growing in front of the wall. It was soft and damp. Once again, I could sense that there was more to the world than just my fear. A bit calmer now, I picked up the stone from the ground—my hands weren’t shaking quite as much anymore—and put it in the gap. Only five stones left: In the distance I could hear prayers being chanted loudly all of a sudden. Somewhere, there was a funeral going on. People died all the time in the ghetto. Only four stones left: One of the mourners sneezed. Only three stones: I could hear heavy steps coming from the other direction. Guards? I didn’t dare look. Looking would take up invaluable time. Only two stones left: Were the footsteps getting closer? One more stone left: No, they were moving away. The hole was closed. At last.

  I turned around and saw that the footsteps came from two German soldiers. They were heading toward the funeral party about two hundred meters away from me. Maybe to torment the mourners. They liked to do that.

  I ducked away from the wall, taking my bags with me. Two graves to the left, then two to the right. I stood still to take off my chain with the crucifix, and threw it in with the things I’d bought. Then I reached into a bush, felt for a little piece of cloth, and pulled it out. It was my armband with the Star of David. I put it on.

  Now I wasn’t Dana the Pole anymore; I was Mira the Jew.

  The Germans could do whatever they wanted with me. So could the Poles, and even the Jewish police.

  Whenever I put the armband on, I was reminded of the very first time we had had to wear them. I was thirteen then; the ghetto didn’t exist yet, but there were other cruelties toward Jews. In 1939, the Nazis had ordered that every Jew had to wear the star.

  Of course, the armbands weren’t handed out. The Jews had to make them themselves or buy them. On the very first day of this order, I was walking through the freezing November rain with my father and brother, on our way to the market. We still had our good coats, so the cold couldn’t get to us.

  Until the German soldier appeared.

  He walked toward us on the pavement, and we children didn’t know what to do. Should we walk past or stop and say hello? A friend had told my father how he had been beaten, just the night before, because he had dared to pay his humble respects to a German soldier. So Papa said, “Lower your eyes.” We walked on, staring at the ground, past the German soldier. But the soldier stopped and started shouting, “What’s wrong, Jew, you refuse to greet
me?”

  Before my father could say anything, the soldier hit him. He hit my father! This honorable man, a respected doctor, the father we looked up to and who seemed so powerful and almighty to us—was beaten.

  “Forgive me,” he said, while he tried to get up and the blood dripped from his lip down onto his gray beard.

  My strong father was apologizing for being hit?

  “And what are you doing on the pavement. Your place is in the street!”

  “Of course,” Papa said, and pulled us into the road. “Barefoot!” the soldier ordered.

  We looked at him in disbelief. He took his gun off his shoulder to underline his order. I stared at the enormous puddles in front of us.

  “Children, take off your shoes,” my father insisted, “and your socks!”

  He did so himself and stood barefooted in a freezing puddle. I was too shocked to react at all, but Simon, my brother who was seventeen, got angry. Papa’s humiliation made him go red in the face. He went up to the soldier, even though he was small like everyone in our family, and shouted,

  “Leave him alone!”

  “Shut up!”

  “My father saved a German soldier’s life!”

  Instead of an answer, the soldier took the butt of his gun and struck Simon in the face. My brother fell to the ground, and Papa and I ran to him at once. His nose was broken and a tooth knocked out.

  “Take off your shoes!”

  Simon couldn’t move. He was crying in pain. It was the first time my brother had ever been hit. And it was so brutal.

  My father took off Simon’s shoes and socks to prevent the soldier from hitting him again. I was terrified and took off my shoes and socks, too. We helped Simon, who was still crying, to get up. Father took hold of each of us by the hand and squeezed our fingers tightly. As if he hoped to give us strength, somehow. We walked through the freezing puddles.

  And the soldier shouted, “I hope you have learned your lesson.”

  We had. Father realized that the Germans weren’t making rules anyone could rely on: Greeting, not greeting, it didn’t matter, the rules were only there to torment us. And Simon knew from this moment on that he was never going to stand up to the Germans again. One blow, a knocked-out tooth, a broken nose, and his will to fight had disappeared. I had also learned something. As I walked through the icy puddles in my bare feet, and my toes ached with pain and then slowly went numb, my father, full of shame, watched me, and I realized that the grown-ups couldn’t protect me anymore.