28 Days

by David Safier

  “Well, how about I say it!” they heard a thundering voice behind them say. They turned around and found themselves standing face-to-face with a giant werewolf. There were bits of raw meat hanging from his jaws. They didn’t want to know what he’d been eating.

  “W … we should never have st … st … stolen that book,” Ben Redhead stammered.

  But Hannah disagreed at once. “I’d rather die out here on the great wide sea than have to live in the ghetto for another second.”

  My sister stopped mumbling at this point, said something that sounded like: “To be continued, or not, depending on whether we live to see another day,” and closed her eyes.

  A minute later, she was snoring loudly.

  But I couldn’t sleep. Hannah’s little story worried me. My baby sister would rather be dead than survive in the ghetto.

  I’d had no idea how unhappy she was. And then I had made things worse by not letting her kiss Ben. No wonder she had turned me into an evil governess in her story.

  “I know how much you do for us, Mira.”

  I jumped. All at once, my mother was talking to me. She hardly ever spoke. Certainly not at night.

  “You think I don’t notice, but I do,” Mama continued. “I watch you.”

  She was lying on the mattress next to mine and made no attempt to talk quietly. She knew that nothing could wake Hannah up once she’d fallen asleep. Not even shooting German gunfire.

  “You work so hard,” Mama said.

  Incredible: She’d said more in a few seconds than she usually said all day.

  By the light of the moon, I could see that she was smiling. Not in an absentminded way, which usually meant that she was lost in thought, remembering Papa. No, Mama was smiling in the present. Her approval pleased me somehow, although it was a real surprise.

  “Do you still feel ill?” she asked.

  What was all this about? She never asked me how I felt. On the other hand, I didn’t usually come home with a stitched-up wound on my arm.

  “Everything is okay,” I said. “It’s all right.”

  “Hannah’s wrong, you know,” Mama continued.

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “You are like a mother to her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re the one who looks after her and tries to give her an upbringing.”

  That was true enough.

  “I am so grateful that you are looking after Hannah,” Mama said.

  No, I didn’t want this. “You are our only mother,” I said.

  “I haven’t been for a long time now.” Mama sounded sad. “We both know that.”

  I didn’t want her thanks. All I wanted was for her to start being our mother again, damn it!

  “I should have been a better mother to you, too.”

  I sighed. It wasn’t the best time for this kind of conversation.

  I would have loved to crawl under the blanket and stay there for the next few days, I was so tired. But Asher was counting on me. If the smuggling action failed because of me, they’d make me pay for it.

  And Ruth would have to pay, too, for recommending me. And all my family. Asher was fond of making an example, to make sure that no one disobeyed his orders.

  I was in way too deep not to go.

  Why couldn’t I disappear into a magic book and take everyone I loved with me? Or be in England solving crimes with good old Lord Peter Wimsey?

  “I love you,” Mama said.

  A while back, I would have given anything to hear her say this, but not now. After all this time, listening to her just made me sad.

  “And your father loved you, too.”

  “So that’s why he only helped Simon, then,” I snapped.

  “Love isn’t easy,” Mama said.

  I sat up on my worn-out mattress and scowled at her.

  “No one can be strong all the time,” my mother said, “especially in times like these. You shouldn’t judge us too harshly.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Oh, get off your high horse.” Now Mama sat up, too. “Papa did everything he could, he tried everything. But he didn’t have any strength left. He was a good man. He’d have had to be a cold, self-centered person to last any longer.”

  She hadn’t just accepted that Father had killed himself. She’d actually forgiven him!

  I couldn’t do that.

  “I know you can’t force love,” she continued, “but when someone tells you they love you…”

  Like her now, and Daniel, too.

  “… and if you love that person, then it would be the right thing to let them know.”

  She had said more tonight than in all the time since Papa’s death. I knew that she would feel better if I said I loved her, too.

  But I was still angry with Papa, and with her. Why was it my job to comfort her?

  Plus I had to climb the wall tonight.

  Then she smiled again. She looked sad, but she smiled.

  “You can’t,” she realized, and gently stroked my cheek. She lay back down on the mattress, wrapped herself in her blanket, and closed her eyes.

  And I still couldn’t say, “I love you.”

  14

  Of course I didn’t get any sleep. I was cross with everyone: Mama, Hannah, Amos, and his stupid girlfriend. He’d called me a kid in front of her, and even worse, I’d acted like one. And I was cross with Daniel. He was my friend but I couldn’t tell him what I was up to.

  I felt so lonely.

  But I was cross with myself, too, for following Amos—and getting stabbed by Zaccharia—and for getting into all this mess. And now I was running through the ghetto in the middle of the night, in the drizzling rain, breaking the curfew, which meant that I’d be shot if I met a patrol.

  So I’d better not meet one.

  It felt strange to make my way through empty streets. During the day, there were so many people about that it was hardly possible to stand still, but now, in the light of an odd streetlamp or two, the streets looked uncannily large and wide.

  I approached the meeting point at the corner of Zimna and Żelazna Streets. Every section of the wall was guarded, including this one. So Asher’s men must have paid a lot of money to all the guards, both the German soldiers and the Jewish police. I wondered if my brother was one of the policemen involved. Probably not. Ruth had seen him at the Britannia Hotel in May, and he’d told her that he was too important to do guard duty anymore. He’d said he worked in the department that reported directly to the Polish police. Ruth didn’t know if it was true, or if Simon had just been showing off like a lot of the customers. At least he’d gone to bed with one of the other girls, not with Ruth. They’d made fun of his poor lovemaking afterward.

  I could see the silhouette of the wall at the end of Zimna Street. I knew that it had been built by human hands, but in the dim light of the streetlamps with all the drizzling rain, it was like a force of nature. An unconquerable barrier formed at the beginning of time that would still be standing when all mankind was gone, Jews and Germans included.

  At this distance, the barbed wire along the top reminded me of the forest of thorns in one of Hannah’s stories. It was about a man made of thorns who could never touch Maid Vera, his one true love, because he always hurt her.

  Although I couldn’t see the broken glass from here, I imagined it cutting my hands open. The mere idea stopped me in my tracks in the middle of the street.

  How was I going to get over the wall with a wounded arm? Already, the area around one of the stitches was so swollen, it felt as if it was going to burst. I’d put on my leather jacket to cushion it, but I doubted it would be enough to protect the wound.

  I slunk into a doorway and kept an eye on the street corner Asher had mentioned. No one was there yet. I had to wait.

  4:30, 4:35, 4:40. There was still no one anywhere. No smugglers, no Jewish police, no one at all. The sun would be coming up soon, and then my trip over the wall would turn into a suicide mission
instead of just a life-threatening one.

  Should I go home and risk Asher’s wrath? Or should I get closer to the wall to see if any smugglers from the Chompe gang were hiding in the shadows somewhere?

  I didn’t have any choice. If I gave up and angered Asher, I’d be putting Ruth’s life and my family’s at risk. Going to the wall risked only my life.

  I wasn’t cross for getting myself into all of this mess anymore. Now I was plain scared.

  I left the doorway and headed toward the wall. Cold sweat trickled down my face and neck, but I forced myself to go on and got as far as the street corner. The wall was less than five meters away. I still couldn’t see anyone else. What was wrong? If I’d been supposed to go on a mission by myself, surely Asher would have given me more exact instructions.

  Something fishy was going on. The sweat gathered on the back of my neck. I needed to leave. Asher wouldn’t blame me for breaking off a mission that had obviously gone wrong before it even got started.

  I had just decided to go home when I noticed a ladder lying on the ground. Was it meant for me? Was I supposed to put it up against the wall, climb up, and look over to the other side? To find the Polish helpers waiting to tell me what would happen next? But wouldn’t Asher have told me all this beforehand? Maybe not. What did I know about his smuggling tactics?

  If this was really what I was supposed to do, I figured, then I wasn’t going to be smuggling food into the ghetto. We’d have needed men waiting to load the food onto carts. Maybe I was supposed to climb over the wall to smuggle American dollars, the hardest currency in the ghetto and in all of Poland, probably. Perhaps in the whole world, even.

  Whatever my task was, I was never going to find out if I didn’t get the ladder and start climbing.

  I couldn’t afford to hang around doing nothing any longer. The time bought by bribing the guards could run out any second now.

  My hands started to shake, and I calmed down only when I touched the rough wood of the ladder. I leaned it against the wall in a dark spot well away from the light of the streetlamp. It was about two and a half meters long, so I would have to pull myself up the last meter—with a wounded arm! But at least the drizzle had stopped. This was one of those situations where every little bit helped. I started to climb up the ladder rung by rung. As fast as I could. If I was going to be a part of this madness, then I was going to get it over and done with as soon as possible.

  When I got to the second-to-last rung, I held on to the ladder with my good hand and reached up with my other arm to brush away the broken glass where I was planning to climb up onto the wall. The wound hurt like mad, but I ignored the pain as best I could. The chunks of glass were big, and I had to make sure that I didn’t cut myself—I’d forgotten to bring gloves—and that they didn’t fall noisily to the ground.

  Above the glass, I saw the barbed wire. I remembered stories about soldiers in the First World War who had lost their lives trapped in wire like this. Would I be able to squeeze beneath it if I lifted it carefully? And if so, how was I supposed to get down on the other side? Would my contact person—if there was one—be waiting with a ladder for me? I thought about calling, to see if anyone was there. But no! It was far too dangerous.

  I held on to the wall with both hands, and pulled myself up to check the situation. I peered over to the Polish side between the glass and the barbed wire. Immediately, I recognized what an idiot I was. I had misjudged the whole situation. There had been smugglers on my side of the wall who I’d been supposed to meet, but they’d left the ladder and fled once they’d seen what I could see now. German soldiers were approaching from every direction. They were quiet, controlled, swift, and efficient.

  Two hundred meters away from me, the chain of men had already joined up. Why on earth were the Germans surrounding the ghetto? I didn’t know, but one thing was certain. I didn’t want my head to be a possible target for another second. I climbed back down the ladder as fast as I could, left it standing where it was, and ran through the empty streets, while the sun came up over the wall behind me. I would never make it home without being seen, so I hid in a doorway and fell asleep in the end, totally exhausted.

  A couple of hours later, I woke up to the noise on the street. I scrambled to my feet—my arm was still hurting like mad—and set off. I soon realized why the soldiers had surrounded the ghetto. Flyers had been put up everywhere:

  NOTICE

  By order of the German authorities all Jews living in Warsaw, without regard to age or sex, are to be resettled in the East.

  I read this and all I could think of was: Chełmno.

  15

  Chełmno.

  Chełmno.

  Chełmno!

  I saw terrible pictures in my mind. Hannah, Mama, Daniel, and me being forced into a truck along with loads of other people, hounded by shouting soldiers and snarling German shepherds. The doors being slammed shut and us all standing cramped together. In the close space, there’s hardly enough air to breathe and our eyes take forever to adjust to the darkness. I can sense the others more than I can actually see them. Instead, I hear panicky breathing and can almost grasp the fear with my hands. Most of the people are wondering where they are taking us. But I know this truck isn’t going anywhere.

  We hear the motor start, but the van doesn’t move. Why should it? It is not meant to move. This is about the fumes from the exhaust. And they are being channeled into the truck!

  Initially, the people are baffled; the cleverer ones realize what is going to happen and start shouting. “They are killing us, they are killing us!”

  We start coughing, Hannah chokes for air beside me, Mama doubles up with cramps. I try not to be sick but fail. I start throwing up, and the vomit doesn’t even hit the floor because it is all so cramped.

  People start to panic and push through the smoke toward the door. But it is closed and locked, of course. Anyone standing near the front gets crushed by the others. But no one cares anymore. And Hannah is thrown to the floor. They tread all over her. And she screams and screams and screams.

  Until she stops.

  I try to pick up my little sister, but I can’t get to her, because the mass of people is pushing me away. Everywhere, people are gasping for help and mercy with their final rasping breaths. The first people sink to the floor unconscious.

  I can’t see Hannah anymore. Or Mama. The exhaust fumes are so heavy. Daniel tries to hold on to me with his last strength. Even dying, he is here for me. But he can’t speak because he is choking, too.

  I start to lose my senses. I can’t even manage to choke anymore. Then Daniel collapses beside me and we fall to the floor. Or rather, on top of other bodies. And people fall on top of us, those who lasted a moment longer than we did. We are crushed by them. And I can’t breathe … can’t breathe … any … more.

  I stood in front of the flyer fighting for air as if I’d already been crammed into one of the trucks.

  An elderly man nudged me. “It won’t be that bad,” he said. Despite the summer heat, he was wearing a coat over his shirt. He probably didn’t have a suit jacket left to wear. “The Germans don’t have enough field workers in Ukraine and Belarus. That’s why we are being resettled.”

  The way he said it, it sounded true enough. He believed what he was saying. Amos would have started shaking him, no doubt, and shouted at him, “Do you really think the Germans are going to send an old schmuck like you off to work in the fields?”

  I was wrong. Amos wasn’t an idiot at all.

  A jerk maybe,

  and a fanatic,

  but not an idiot.

  He and his friends had seen this coming.

  And everyone else had been blind, like me.

  “Maybe,” the old man smiled at me, “you will be one of the many exemptions, unlike me.”

  Exemptions?

  Yes, there were exemptions.

  The notice contained a list of people who would not be deported to the East.

  All Jews empl
oyed in the workshops

  of the German authorities or

  belonging to the staffs of Jewish

  hospitals, or belonging to Jewish

  disinfection squads. Also members

  and employees of the Jewish

  council and Jews belonging to the

  Jewish police …

  None of this counted for Mama, Hannah, Daniel, or me. But there was a further exemption in paragraph 2g):

  All Jews who are members of the

  families of persons covered by (A)

  to (F).

  I started to feel hopeful again for a moment. My brother, Simon, was a member of the Jewish police, and we were his relatives, which meant we wouldn’t get sent to the East, which really meant we wouldn’t be sent to the trucks.

  I sighed in relief. But then I read point 2g) to the end:

  Only wives and children are

  regarded as members

  of families.

  As far as the Germans were concerned, we were not my brother’s relatives. His mother wasn’t considered a member of his family and his sisters even less so.

  So paragraph 2g) was no use. My father was dead and my mother didn’t go to work.

  So Hannah and I weren’t the children of a Jewish person who was exempt from deportation.

  And I wasn’t someone’s wife, either. Maybe I could have found a rabbi who was prepared to marry me to someone because he felt sorry for me. There would be weddings taking place all over the ghetto at this very moment—for the sole purpose of turning someone into a wife or husband in order to save his or her skin. There was no room for love in those weddings. Unless they were all about love. Wasn’t marrying someone to save their life the highest form of love?

  But who could a willing rabbi have married me to? The only person prepared to marry me would be Daniel. But he wasn’t one of the people exempt from deportation. Oh God, what was going to happen to him and all the children at the orphanage? Would Korczak’s international reputation be enough to protect them? Would the Germans stop at hounding the world-famous man and his two hundred children out of the ghetto?