by David Safier
Amos stood there not knowing what to do. In the end, he made up his mind, undressed down to his shirt and underwear, and crawled into his side of the bed.
For a while we lay there in silence, side by side, not looking at each other, and I stared out the window. During the bleak winter in the ghetto, the moon had been covered in clouds most of the time. But tonight it was shining in all its glory, surrounded by twinkling stars. Even the heavenly bodies seemed to prefer to shine on all the world except the Jews.
I turned round toward Amos, who was still awake, and asked, “Why don’t you take your shirt off at night?”
He looked like he’d been hit or something. He hadn’t expected this question any more than I had. As usual, I’d just opened my mouth and said the first thing that came into my head.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I said quickly.
“Don’t worry, it’s okay … we are married, remember?” He tried to smile but only managed a tortured look.
He sat up in bed and took off his shirt. It was a good thing that there were no lights on. Even in the moonlight, I could see the awful marks. He was covered in scars. The whole of his back had been slashed open at some stage.
“The Germans?” I asked, sitting up, too.
“The Germans,” Amos nodded, and put his shirt back on.
I didn’t know if I should ask any more questions, but then Amos started to speak of his own accord. “They caught me smuggling two years ago and wanted to know who my accomplices were.”
Despite the dim moonlight, I thought I could see tears in his eyes.
“I … I betrayed my friends,” he stammered, and now I really could see tears running down his face.
They weren’t just accomplices, they had been friends. How could anyone help him?
“They shot all four of them.” He tried to take a deep breath, but his guilt was blocking his windpipe and he shuddered instead. He used his sleeve to wipe away his tears. Then he looked at me. He was trying to read my face to see if I despised him as much as he despised himself. Hidden away beneath his clowning facade, I now realized, he absolutely hated himself.
But I couldn’t condemn him, with scars like that. Who had enough willpower not to crack? Mordechai Anielewicz probably, and maybe one or two other truly brave fighters. But apart from them, no one could hope to withstand such torture. I couldn’t. I had started crying the minute the fat pig had slapped me in the guardhouse.
“I … I never told anyone before,” Amos said in a voice so low I could hardly hear him.
“Not even Esther?”
“Not even Esther.”
He had been afraid that she would despise him.
“Why … why me?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps because you’re my ‘wife,’ just now…”
I held out my finger with the wedding ring to prove it. So he could see that I didn’t condemn him.
Amos didn’t say any more. He had revealed more of himself than ever before, and it had been a huge effort for him. He crawled back down under the blankets, and so did I.
After a length of silence, I said cautiously, “Amos?”
“Yes?”
“The Germans are responsible for the deaths of your friends. It’s not your fault.”
“If only that were true,” he answered after a while, “it would mean so much.”
He didn’t believe me. I took hold of his hand and he didn’t let go. We held hands like an old couple. Or like two little children. Two damaged souls giving each other something to cling to until they fell asleep.
I didn’t have any nightmares that night. The Mirror King left me alone.
50
Iwanski was true to his word. Together with several comrades from the Polish Home Army, he smuggled crates of weapons into the ghetto. Through the warren of sewers, where you’d lose your way without a competent guide. A mother there begged him to take her two little girls back to the Polish side, and although it was difficult—you couldn’t stand upright in the stinking sewers and the little children had to be carried to prevent them from drowning in the water, which was very deep in places—Iwanski had taken them with him and hidden them in his flat where his wife was now looking after them.
The captain told us all this, sitting at our kitchen table. When he was finished, Amos asked, “What is it like in the sewers?”
“It’s shit,” the captain answered dryly.
“I can smell it,” Amos laughed.
It was true. There was still a hint of sewage about him, although he’d had a bath in the meantime and was wearing clean clothes.
“Thanks for the compliment,” Iwanski grinned, and got up from the table. As he made his goodbyes he promised, “I will organize more weapons for you.”
We thanked him. I thought about giving him a hug, but then I didn’t dare because it might have seemed inappropriate. Once he had gone, Amos summed up my feelings in one crude sentence:
“Thank goodness there are a few Poles left who’ll go through shit for us.”
“How long do you think we will be able to resist the Germans with Iwanski’s weapons and the ones we’ve already got?”
Amos grew serious again. “A couple of hours maybe, if things go well.”
I should never have asked.
“It’s hopeless, no matter what we do.”
“No, it’s not,” Amos disagreed. “Just think how proud the Jews in the ghetto are now, ever since we killed the soldiers in January. If we wage war against the Germans, generations of Jews will remember us. We are like the Jews who fought at Masada thousands of years ago. It doesn’t matter how long we hold out. A day, a month, or even just a few hours. The main thing is: We will not go like sheep to the slaughter!”
I lacked his spirit. “If there are any future generations of Jews,” I said unhappily.
Amos gently touched my cheek. That felt good. “There will be,” he said.
He sounded so sure. I smiled.
“Mira, has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are when you smile?”
That wasn’t another playful compliment simply meant to cheer me up. Since Amos had confided in me, he was behaving differently. He was more serious than he had been before, and at the same time, he showed more feelings. He’d realized he didn’t have to put on an act anymore when we were alone.
“No, no one’s ever said that,” I answered truthfully. Even Daniel had never mentioned it. He hadn’t paid me compliments. What on earth had he seen in me? We’d never talked about things like that. We’d just been kids really. It had been a childish love that never went further than kissing.
I was a very different person from last summer, grown up in the saddest way.
And in the unlikely event of Daniel’s still being alive, he would be different, too. With a bit of luck, he wouldn’t hate me now, but we wouldn’t love each other anymore.
“If no one’s ever told you,” Amos said earnestly, “then everyone you know must be blind, stupid, or dumb.”
I laughed, and I touched his hand touching my face.
“You’re good for me,” I said without thinking.
“Same here,” he said, and he meant it.
We just looked at each other for a moment. Then we kissed. Not like the first time. In the market. This kiss was loving. Tender. More intense. When it was over, we were both trembling. And didn’t dare kiss again. Instead, we moved away from each other and got ready for bed without saying anything. When we’d gone to bed we just lay there holding hands. Until Amos whispered, “Mira?”
“What is it?”
“I … I’d like to kiss you again.”
It was my turn. I said: “Same here.”
51
We didn’t make love that night, or the next. Somehow it felt like we had a guardian angel. Like there was all the time in the world. Although everything was against us. I had never felt as happy as in those few days when we were the go-betweens with the Poles round Iwanski. My nightmares stopped for a while. And I even
went back to the 777 islands again.
The Longear sailed across the sea on a lovely sunny day. The waves rocked the pirate ship gently, and you could hear the sound of music and dancing. We loved to party in this world. To be fair, the sailors’ singing could be so dire that the dolphins would flee at times, but everyone really did enjoy themselves.
Hannah and I danced up and down the deck to the werewolf’s accordion music and she asked, “Where have you been?”
“I … I was back home,” I said, dodging the truth.
“You should not always leave me for so long.”
“No, I shouldn´t.”
“How are things in the ghetto?” Hannah asked. She was all excited. “Have things changed much?”
What was I supposed to say? That Mama was dead? That she herself was dead?
I knew she had the right to know everything, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her. So I said, “It’s complicated. I’ll tell you all about it, but not right now.”
“When?” Hannah asked suspiciously.
“As soon as…” I was searching for a ploy. “As soon as we defeat the Mirror King.”
“That’s not going to take much longer,” Hannah cried. “We wangled the third magic mirror off the Sandman, and we are on course for Mirror Island right now.”
I swallowed. I banished all thoughts of the monster. I tried to stop feeling guilty about being alive. Instead we danced round and round the deck and celebrated the third magic mirror. It was such fun. Life was wonderful. On the islands and in our little flat.
Until we heard that the Germans were transferring more troops to Warsaw.
52
“I’m going back to the ghetto,” Amos said that evening, telling me what I already knew. “When the fighting starts, I want to be with our comrades.”
“But someone has to stay here to liaise with the Polish resistance,” I said.
If we stayed on the Polish side, we could stay alive. At least for a while. I wasn’t afraid of dying, but in the past few days, I had found something worth living for. I didn’t want to lose Amos. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing another person I loved.
“You can stay if you like,” Amos said, and his eyes flashed angrily.
That look shot right through me. And made me feel ashamed. The resistance should mean more to me than our love, but it didn’t, not right now.
“I can’t stay here by myself…,” I started to argue.
“Mordechai will send someone,” Amos interrupted. He was angry with me. And I was angry with him. How could he think of leaving me behind?
“Mordechai can send someone for me, too,” I snapped, “I’m coming with you.”
I would rather die fighting by his side than live a single day in the Polish part of the city without him.
“Okay,” Amos said, and his face relaxed a bit.
“Okay.”
Without saying a word, we cleared the table, did the dishes, turned off the light, and lay down in our “marital” bed, all for the last time.
Amos stared at the ceiling in the dark while I looked out the window at the sky. There was a half-moon. I probably wouldn’t live to see another full one.
Then Amos said, “I’m sorry.”
I turned round to face him. “What for?”
He turned toward me, too. Our faces were almost touching.
“Everything,” he said.
“Everything?”
“And nothing.”
“You could be just a tiny bit more specific…,” I said.
It took him a moment, and then he said, “Mira, I think I love you.”
“You think?”
“It’s the only thing I believed in all my life.” He smiled.
And then we made love.
53
Mordechai seemed perfectly calm when we all met up on the stairs in 29 Miła Street. But he must have been feeling as tense as the rest of us. The Germans would be marching into the ghetto any moment now. The SS had deliberately chosen the beginning of the holy Jewish Passover festival for their final operation.
“The moment we have all been waiting for has arrived,” Mordechai said to us. “We will wear down the enemy, attacking constantly, from doorways, through windows, out of ruins, day and night.”
Amos was standing beside me. His eyes shone. Esther looked wildly determined, too. She had managed to ignore the fact that Amos and I were a couple now. There were far more important things than love. For her. For Amos. And even for me.
“The Germans,” Mordechai went on, “will have to fight continuously for months. If we get all the weapons, ammunition, and explosives we need, the enemy will drown in a river of blood.”
We weren’t going to get the weapons. I’d known this ever since our mission to the Polish side, and Mordechai knew it, too. But what else could he say to rally the troops before the battle? The truth? That we’d all be dead in a couple of hours?
We were a group of no more than fourteen hundred untrained fighters, spread out throughout the ghetto. We would have to face the Germans and their tanks with little more than a gun per person. We had a few hundred hand grenades and Molotov cocktails. There was going to be a river of blood, all right. But it wouldn’t be a river flowing with the blood of German soldiers—it would be our own.
I felt it would have been easier to die if spring hadn’t just arrived. On the 19th of April 1943, the sun shone over the ghetto with an assurance that made our life and death harder to bear.
After Mordechai’s speech, our group took up positions behind the designated windows, balconies, and up on the roof. Several other groups had dug in, in six surrounding houses, so about a hundred fighters had the crossroads at Zamenhof Street covered from all sides. The Germans would pass this point as soon as they invaded the ghetto.
Like most of us, I was armed with a gun and a hand grenade. Only Ben Redhead owned a rifle. One night, a couple of weeks ago, he had ambushed a soldier near the wall and taken his gun. Since then, he guarded it like a treasure.
I took up position beside Amos at a window on the fourth floor. At first, I’d not been sure if I shouldn’t choose a different position. Did I really want to fight and die beside the person I loved? Wouldn’t it be better not to know when the bullets hit him?
Amos didn’t worry about things like that. He was completely focused on his imminent revenge. If I’d tried to say goodbye before the Germans arrived, he wouldn’t have noticed. All I could do was say goodbye to my little sister.
“We’ll be reaching Mirror Island soon,” Hannah said, sounding pleased. She was out on deck. The Longear was sailing through a choppy sea. I hadn’t dreamed about the Mirror King in the past few days, probably because I’d stopped feeling guilty about being alive, seeing as I was going to die today.
“And then,” Hannah chatted away excitedly, showing me the three magic mirrors that were sparkling like diamonds, “we’ll defeat all evil.”
“But not,” Captain Carrot boasted, “without giving it a great kick in the backside first.”
“And in the groin!” the werewolf added.
I smiled. At least one world was going to be free.
“They are coming!” I could hear Esther shouting. “The Germans are coming!”
Her voice reached me in the world of the 777 islands.
I wanted to tell my sister so many things, but there was no time left. I hugged her and whispered, “I love you.”
She protested, “You are squashing me!”
“Because I love you so much!”
She returned the hug.
“Now you are squashing me!”
“Because I love you so much!” Hannah laughed.
Tears welled in my eyes.
“Why are you crying?”
“Because I have to leave.”
And then there was nothing left to say. It took all my willpower, but I let her go and left. Probably forever.
54
I peered through the broken window. I had a perfect v
iew of the street and an excellent shooting position, assuming I actually managed to shoot.
The Germans were able to gas us so easily because they didn’t regard us as human beings. We knew exactly what kind of people they were, though, and that was why the other fighters were burning to kill them. But I could still see the face of the young soldier begging for mercy, and I still didn’t know if I was going to be able to kill anyone.
In the distance, we saw a tank rolling into the ghetto followed by about twenty members of the Jewish police. Behind the traitors, the soldiers had shouldered their arms and were marching in rows of four. It was unbelievable, but they were singing!
Im grünen Walde, da steht ein Försterhaus,
da schauet jeden Morgen,
so frisch und frei von Sorgen,
des Försters Töchterlein heraus …
The swine were belting out a marching song.
They thought they could wipe us out and sing while they were at it …
Lore, Lore, Lore, Lore,
schön sind die Mädchen
von siebzehn, achtzehn Jahr …
The SS men marched with every confidence, without even one of them holding a gun at the ready. They obviously weren’t expecting any resistance. They were so used to leading Jews to the gas chambers without a battle that they weren’t even on the lookout for signs of an ambush.
We all waited for Mordechai’s signal to start shooting. But right now the soldiers weren’t close enough.
Der Förster und die Tochter, die schossen beide gut …
The tank rolled toward our window.
Der Förster schoss das Hirschlein, die Tochter traf das Bürschlein …
Jewish policemen walked past. Miserable creatures.
Tief in das junge Herz hinein …
Now the first soldiers marched past, right under our window. Amos couldn’t wait to start shooting, but Mordechai still didn’t give the order. He waited until enough soldiers were within shooting distance.