by David Safier
I looked at the ghetto buildings around me. They were totally dilapidated in this section, even worse than in the rest of the ghetto. Practically all the windowpanes were broken. So many walls were crumbling, and one house had lost its roof. The German tanks had done excellent work.
I noticed an open door leading into a derelict house that looked ready to collapse sometime soon. Could Stefan have gone in there?
The vestibule stank; there appeared to be people living on the stairs. If one could call that living.
There was a haggard man lying on the first landing, staring into space. He looked ancient, but he probably wasn’t even forty. He didn’t notice me; there was no point in trying to ask him if he had seen a blond guy running past. Whatever his empty eyes could see, it wasn’t in our world.
I went farther up the stairs, past more hollow-eyed people. Although the stink of human waste made me feel sick, I couldn’t stop looking for Stefan just yet. For nine weeks, I’d imagined what it would be like to see him again—and been troubled by a guilty conscience because of Daniel. No way was I going to go home without being sure I’d done everything to find him.
On the first floor, there were three flats. Should I just knock and then, if someone answered, ask if there was a blond young man living there?
One of the doors was open a crack; the lock was broken. Probably some gang of thieves had broken in some time ago. Although what could they have been hoping to find here?
I opened the door with a gentle nudge. The flat didn’t smell terrible. It just smelled musty.
It appeared empty—no furniture, just broken floorboards and gray wallpaper with a faded flower pattern. Should I go in? Or should I get home, find something to drink, then get annoyed about finding Stefan only to lose him again? And then worry about what awaited me on the wall with the Chompe gang tonight.
I went.
I didn’t hear anything. No footsteps, no sounds of rustling. If anyone was inside perhaps they were asleep.
I opened the first door along the hall and went into an almost empty room. This was where the kitchen would have been in a flat like this, back in the days when only one family had lived here. But this room had no oven anymore, no kitchen cupboards, no plates and dishes. Instead, an old-fashioned printing press stood in the middle of the floor. Piles of newspapers were lying on the floor beside it. Although newspaper was too grand a word. These eight-page pamphlets were copies of an underground newspaper simply called News. There were all sorts of illegal pamphlets circulating throughout the ghetto, and this was one.
I noticed a commentary on page two: “The Warsaw Ghetto lives in constant danger of being liquidated. All energy must be focused on the great deed we need to perform and which we will perform. We must conduct ourselves in the spirit of Masada!”
Masada was a fortress in Palestine where ages ago a few Jews had resisted the siege of over four thousand Roman legionaries for months. When the Romans, who had suffered countless losses due to the resistance of the Jews, finally stormed the fortress, there was dead silence in Masada. All the residents had killed themselves. Warriors, women, and children.
The spirit of Masada—were the ghetto Jews supposed to fight against the Germans and then kill themselves? “Resistance unto death” didn’t sound like an option to me.
“What are you doing?” someone shouted behind me.
I jumped, hoping desperately that the voice was Stefan’s, even if it didn’t sound anything like him. I turned round slowly. A skinny young man was standing in the doorway leading to the hall. His brown hair was cut exceptionally short, and his eyes were bloodshot. I might have wondered why they were so red if he hadn’t been holding a knife.
“I just asked you a question,” he snarled. He moved toward me, thrusting the knife through the air like a madman. He didn’t look as if he knew what he was doing with it, but he seemed determined to use it.
“I … I,” I stuttered. What on earth could I say? That I was looking for someone called Stefan although that wasn’t his real name, and that I didn’t know if he had anything to do with the underground newspaper?
“Answer me!”
This guy shook the knife in front of my face. He probably thought that I was spying for the Germans. Desperately, I tried to think what I could possibly say to make him change his mind.
“Tell me! Tell me, or I’ll stab you to death!”
Each time he jabbed the knife at me, he seemed more violent. But somehow he didn’t seem 100 percent sure that he was going to kill me. Not yet.
“I’m not a collaborator,” I answered. My voice trembled and I started to shake.
“I don’t believe you. Why else would you be here except to sniff around for the Germans?”
I was so scared that I couldn’t think of any answer except the plain stupid truth: “I was looking for a boy who kissed me.”
My attacker was so surprised that he stopped waving the knife for a moment.
“It’s true!”
He scowled even more. He didn’t believe a word I said. I wouldn’t have, either, if I’d been him.
“Do you think I’m an idiot?” he yelled. His face had turned dark red with anger. The veins on his neck were throbbing. The knife! All of a sudden he was holding the knife steady in his hand. No more waving it about. He was ready to stab me now. To murder me. Telling the truth was the worst idea.
“I’ll kill you!”
My eyes filled up with tears. “Please don’t,” I pleaded.
Through my tears, I saw him raise the knife.
I panicked and charged at him, pushing him away as hard as I could. He stumbled against the wall, but managed to keep his balance. He swore in Hebrew, which I couldn’t understand. Unlike most of the Jewish children in the ghetto, I’d never learned Hebrew. I spoke Polish and my beloved English.
I tried to push past him toward the door. But just at that moment he stabbed me in the top of my right arm. The blade plunged into my flesh and I screamed.
The pain stunned me. I should have run for my life, but I was frozen, staring at my arm as the blood stained the sleeve of my white blouse in a matter of seconds.
I had never had a wound like this before in all my life. It hurt so much. I thought I was going to die.
I was crying and shaking, and I couldn’t see anything properly because I was blinded by my tears. My attacker was grunting like an animal, and I could tell that he was going to stab me again. And again and again. I wouldn’t be able to stop him.
“Zacharia!” someone shouted.
Was that Stefan’s voice?
“Zacharia, what on earth is going on?”
My assailant backed off. “She’s working for the Germans,” he snarled.
Relieved, I sank to the ground and cradled my arm. Now Stefan would be able to explain that I wasn’t a threat, that I was just a little smuggler.
But Stefan’s voice sounded grim. “Are you sure?”
“No!” I wanted to scream, but all I could do was gasp. My voice failed in despair.
“Why else is she here?” Zacharia snapped.
“I’ll deal with this,” Stefan said in a commanding tone. “You can go.” Zacharia obeyed. Reluctantly, but he obeyed. Whatever sort of underground organization this was, Stefan was obviously further up the hierarchy than my attacker was.
“Where were you, anyway?” Zacharia asked, and I heard the anger in his voice. He waited. He obviously didn’t like being ordered around like this.
“In the cellar.”
That was enough to shut Zacharia up.
Stefan held out a hand for the knife. Zacharia gave it to him and then left the kitchen.
Stefan turned toward me, holding the knife that was stained with my blood.
I tried to stand up. I didn’t want to be a whimpering wreck lying on the floor in front of him.
“What are you doing here, Lenka?” he asked.
He’d remembered the name he made up for me at the Polish market. Nine weeks ago!
> At any other time, I’d have been so pleased. But his voice was cold, and he was the one threatening me with the knife now. His hand was steady, which made me think that he knew how to use it better than Zacharia did.
His blue eyes seemed to pierce right through me. They were bloodshot, just like Zacharia’s. Why was that? At any rate there was no warmth there. Just coldness.
To think that I’d been so enchanted by this guy that I’d chosen to dance down Broadway with him in my dreams instead of Daniel. I felt so ashamed that I forgot the pain in my arm for a moment.
“Am I going to get an answer or not?” Stefan asked. He was holding the knife steady, pointing in my direction.
That was far more menacing than any thrashing about.
“I saw you at the book market and followed you.”
“Why?”
“Because…,” I answered, but I felt so ashamed. I didn’t want to say any more.
“… I wanted to see you again.”
If he was even the tiniest bit flattered, it didn’t show.
Of course he wasn’t flattered. It was so stupid to keep thinking or hoping stuff like that. Totally childish! I was nowhere near as grown-up as I liked to think.
“You wanted to see me again?” Stefan asked, sounding surprised and suspicious at the same time.
“To say thank you.”
He wasn’t convinced.
“And instead of saying thank you, you discover our printing press?”
“I saw you at the book market and followed you, but you disappeared.”
“So then you stumbled across this house instead?”
“Yes.”
“What a coincidence!”
“Yes,” I said weakly.
He twisted the knife in his hand. He didn’t know what to make of any of this.
“Why would I lie?” I asked. “You know I’m a smuggler.”
“Oh, and smugglers never work for the Germans, do they?” he laughed bitterly. “You wouldn’t be the first person to be turned in a German prison,” he said bitingly. As if he had been betrayed by a smuggler that way before.
“It’s the truth,” I said. “Should I have lied and made up a better story to convince you?”
He didn’t say anything.
Was the man who had saved my life with a kiss going to kill me any moment so I wouldn’t reveal the hidden printing press to the Germans? After a while he nodded. He’d made up his mind, but which way?
“A collaborator would have a better story ready,” he said, and put the knife back in the pocket of his gray suit. His features softened, and he smiled as if nothing had happened.
“I’ll get some disinfectant and treat your wound,” he said.
“That would be nice,” I answered. I was so relieved that I could have burst into tears. My eyes welled up, but I pulled myself together. I wasn’t going to be that pathetic.
Before he left the kitchen he turned around and threatened me again. “If you disappear, I’ll be less inclined to believe you and I’ll follow you.”
But his voice was more friendly than it had been when he was interrogating me. He didn’t really think I was going anywhere.
“You could follow the trail of blood,” I said, grimacing. Now that the immediate danger was gone, I felt the pain again.
He smiled at that, but then he looked at my arm and his face grew serious. My sleeve was soaked through completely.
Stefan hurried out of the kitchen, and as I listened to his footsteps disappearing down the hall, I started to feel frightened. My wound was bleeding so badly, and I was afraid that Zacharia might come back. I felt totally vulnerable.
But Zacharia didn’t come back. He had probably disappeared into the mysterious cellar. That was one place I definitely should not ask Stefan about, if I didn’t want to arouse any more suspicion.
Stefan came back into the kitchen with a little bottle, a clean cloth, and a needle and thread. His underground group was prepared for battle injuries.
We sat on the floor, he rolled up my bloody sleeve, and I suddenly realized how deep the knife had penetrated the flesh of my arm. I felt so faint looking at it that I nearly threw up.
“You were lucky,” Stefan said.
“Lucky?” That was a strange way of putting it.
“Zacharia didn’t damage any muscles.”
Considering that then I really had been lucky.
“It will be better in a minute,” Stefan smiled at me kindly. He was trying to keep me calm. Or maybe he just didn’t want me to throw up all over his shoes.
He dribbled disinfectant into the wound. It burned terribly, and I gritted my teeth. Then he dabbed it with the cloth. Every dab burned as if he were holding a flame to my flesh.
“You’re doing very well,” he said.
“I wish I could say the same for you,” I gasped.
Stefan grinned. He knew I was trying to be funny, not criticizing him.
“At least the cut is clean now, Lenka.”
“My name is Mira.”
“Then Lenka was a good guess—it’s pretty close.” He smiled.
“And what’s your name?”
“Not Mira.” He grinned, and threw the cloth away.
“Idiot,” I said.
“No, that’s not my name, either,” he grinned some more.
“Moron!”
“Some people call me Jerk.”
“I can’t think why.” I tried to smile.
“They can’t have a clue about human nature,” he said with a glint in his eye. He picked up the needle and thread and said, “I’ll tell you my name, but you’ll have to be brave first.”
“My father used to give me sweets for being brave,” I said.
“I haven’t got any sweets, but I’ve got some apple juice if that’s any good.”
Apple juice? Oh wow!
“I’ll take the juice and do without your name,” I said as he threaded the needle.
“Oh, you’ve really hurt me now,” he replied, and pretended to look offended.
“If I start asking you questions about what’s going on here, will you think I’m a collaborator again, or just nosy?”
He looked at me closely. “Just nosy,” he said, and stuck the needle into my skin.
The pain was awful.
Even if he’d sewn a wound or two before, he wasn’t a doctor by any means. He was heavy-handed to say the least.
“Well?” Stefan asked, and started on the second stitch.
I nearly shrieked with pain, but I gritted my teeth like I’d done when he’d used the disinfectant.
“You were going to ask me some questions.” The needle went into my skin again. Questions … questions were good. Questions would distract me. The first one that shot into my dazed mind was “Can you dance?” In my mind’s eye I saw Stefan twirling me around to the sounds of “Night and Day” again.
At least I had the sense not to actually ask this out loud. Stefan wasn’t a dancer. My hero with the rose would have stabbed me to death if he’d thought I was a spy.
But I wanted him to be a dancer! It was ridiculous. Mira, you’re so pathetic. He’s got both feet on the ground while your head is stuck in the clouds.
“All these questions at once,” Stefan was teasing me. “Is it that bad?”
Instead of answering I managed to ask a question at last: “Masada?”
“Masada?” He was surprised and stopped stitching up my arm for a moment.
I needed the break and pointed at the newspaper. “Fight to death?”
“That’s right,” he answered without hesitating. “The Germans are going to kill us all. No exceptions!”
I studied his face, his eyes. He really believed this.
“That is … that’s crazy!” I said. Although the Germans had become even more high-handed since the “Night of Blood,” the idea that they could kill all the Jews in the ghetto was unthinkable.
Stefan’s blue eyes glistened with rage. He did the next stitch angrily.
He relaxed a bit, but didn’t apologize, and moved quickly to the next stitch. Thankfully, he was more careful this time. All he said was: “Chełmno.”
Of course I’d heard about Chełmno. All the secret newspapers had written about it. In Chełmno, the Nazis were said to have locked Jews into a truck and suffocated them with exhaust fumes. Like most people, I was sure this was a made-up horror story, invented by someone with an imagination like Hannah’s, but with a dark and warped mind.
Obviously, Stefan believed that the crazy story about Chełmno was true and not just a dark rumor. I decided not to start an argument.
“What’s wrong with your eyes?” I asked instead.
“My eyes?”
“They are bloodshot. So are Zacharia’s.”
“We stayed up all night to set and print the paper. And we had no lights on, so we wouldn’t get caught. We worked by the light of the moon.”
Now he cut the thread. The ordeal was over, at last. I looked at his work. It wasn’t pretty, but at least I wouldn’t bleed to death. And the wound would heal over the next few days. The only thing was—I was going to have to climb over the wall with a damaged arm tonight.
“Let’s get you some of that juice,” Stefan said, and he was smiling at me again in his nice, cheeky way.
We scrambled back onto our feet. I was thrilled about the apple juice. I stopped thinking about Chełmno or the ghetto being destroyed, and forgot about the dangers I’d have to face tonight by the wall. All my worries were gone because of a bit of juice!
“It’s in the next room,” Stefan explained.
Just as we were about to leave the kitchen, a woman appeared at the door. She was at least twenty and had the austere, noble face of a queen. Even though she was even smaller than me, she had the aura of a leader who everyone would follow without question. Someone you don’t argue with.
“Zacharia told me we had an unwelcome guest,” she said stiffly, and looked at me as she spoke. I felt intimidated at once and stared at the floor.
“She’s not a spy, Esther,” Stefan said.
She kept on looking at me. She obviously had her doubts.