by David Safier
Daniel managed to smile.
“I … I,” I stammered, “I can think of one.”
Beside me, Daniel closed his eyes gratefully, and I started to tell the story of the 777 islands, about how Hannah and Ben Redhead had discovered the book, Hannah’s claim to be the Chosen One, how she had discovered the three magic mirrors that would defeat the Mirror King, and on and on …
Sometime past midnight, I reached the point where the crew of the Longear reached the mountaintop.
Tonight in the sewers, the fate of the islands would be sealed. So would Hannah’s and mine. Would I dare face the Mirror King?
77
The Palace of Mirrors in front of us seemed to be never ending. The real size was impossible to guess as the reflections mirrored one another infinitely. Perhaps it had no size at all. There were no gates or doors; no entrance or gap to be seen. Only mirrors. Shiny polished mirrors everywhere.
“A door would be useful,” Captain Carrot said. Despite his fur coat, he was shivering in the cold at this height far above his beloved sea.
As if we had said the magic word, a mirror disappeared and revealed a long passageway leading into the depths of the palace. Of course, the walls, floor, and ceiling here were all made of mirrors.
“Do we really have to go in there?” The werewolf’s teeth were chattering. More from fear than from cold. The rest of us were feeling uneasy, too.
“I am afraid the answer is yes,” the captain said.
“I should never have left my pack of wolves.”
Hannah did her best to calm us all. “It’s a good thing the tyrant is a king of mirrors and not of manure.”
“Thank heaven for small favors.” The captain smiled.
Even the werewolf managed to grin, and his teeth stopped chattering.
We entered the hallway. Our distorted reflections were all around us—fat, thin, ugly, pulsating.
“One thing I hate even more than the Mirror King…,” I started to say,
“… is his sense of humor!” Hannah finished my sentence for me.
We smiled at each other. Two sisters who knew each other inside out. Here even more than in real life.
Step by step, the pictures became more and more menacing. After fifty meters, our reflections looked truly gruesome, like monsters with eyes bulging out of their sockets, crippled limbs, and faces rigid with hatred.
The Mira staring down at me with a vile expression was the one who shot soldiers. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to look at her. And I didn’t want to be her ever again.
I felt my way along behind the others. And then I heard Hannah calling, “Oh, this is beautiful.”
I opened my eyes again. We were standing in a great hall filled with glass crystals, diamond flowers, and mirror chandeliers. Beams of light were dancing in the glass. Everything sparkled. The play of colors was so magnificent, it took our breaths away.
A funny-looking man who seemed to be made totally of mirror glass climbed down from his mirror throne and came toward us. The Mirror King looked nothing like the monster I’d seen in my nightmares.
“So you are the Chosen One,” he said to Hannah in a friendly sort of way.
“Yes, I am,” Hannah answered, and grabbed Ben Redhead’s hand.
“And you want to break my hold over the islands?” His smile looked a little bit less friendly all of a sudden.
“I don’t just want to—I am going to,” Hannah said.
The Mirror King opened his arms wide, presenting himself as a target, and laughed. “Do what you must!”
Hannah let go of Ben Redhead’s hand, opened the knapsack quickly, and took out the three magic mirrors, although none of us had any idea how they were supposed to work. She pointed them at the Mirror King and hoped that something would happen, that the mirrors would make him disappear or at least paralyze him.
But the Mirror King seemed to relish reflecting the three mirrors on every part of his body until all of them were filled with images of him laughing. “The three magic mirrors,” he taunted, “don’t you know I created them?”
“You…? Why?” Hannah asked.
“So that you would look for them!”
None of us knew what he meant.
“I also allowed the story of a Chosen One to spread throughout the world of the 777 islands.”
“Are you saying…,” Hannah asked, “that there is no Chosen One?”
“Clever girl.”
“But why…?”
“As long as all the creatures in my kingdom believe that they will be rescued by a little girl with three magic mirrors, they will never try to fight me by themselves.”
“So it was all a lie…?” I couldn’t believe it.
“The second-most deadly weapon of a tyrant is the lie,” the Mirror King said triumphantly.
“And the first?” Hannah asked.
“Fear.”
Suddenly, he started to grow and expand in all directions.
“I wish she hadn’t asked that,” the captain groaned.
The tyrant continued to swell and bulge, sprouting more and more mirrors with razor-sharp edges that could cut you to shreds. He was the monster from my dreams after all. His grotesque head touched the ceiling. The mirror chandeliers crashed to the ground and shattered into thousands of pieces. In them, I could see myself shooting at the Germans, leaving the baby behind at the Umschlagplatz, and Mama lying dead in her own blood. With Ruth beside her. And Hannah beside them both. Hannah was in thousands of mirrors. Hannah was everywhere.
“What … what is this?” Hannah asked me. Her eyes wide with horror.
“Didn’t you tell her, Mira?” the monster asked in a cutting voice.
“Tell me what, Mira?” Hannah asked frantically.
I couldn’t say a word.
“Mira managed to survive,” the Mirror King said, “but you, my little Chosen One, are—!”
“Fight,” I shouted to stop him telling the truth, and pulled my sword.
“You can’t defeat me, Mira,” he laughed, “I am part of you.”
“Fight! Fight!” I cried desperately.
Then I heard a little girl calling, “No, please don’t.”
I looked at Hannah, but she was as confused as I was. It wasn’t her calling. The voice came from nowhere.
“No fighting!”
Then I recognized it. It was Rebecca calling from the dark stinking sewage canal where I was telling her the story.
“I don’t want there to be any more fighting,” she begged.
She was right. I lowered my sword. Let the Mirror King destroy me if he liked! If he killed me, I could stop feeling guilty for being alive, at least.
But no sooner had I lowered my sword than he started to shrink. He grew smaller and smaller, and when he was my height, he looked me in the eye and whined, “Fight is my elixir of life…”
Without it he would fade away, I realized.
Although he continued to shrink, my feelings of guilt didn’t completely disappear, and he didn’t vanish altogether. We could still see the horrifying pictures showing in his mirrors. There was still something I was fighting with.
“What didn’t you tell me, Mira?” Hannah asked again.
“You…” I admitted and my voice faltered, “Oh, Hannah! You’re all dead!”
Hannah was so stunned she couldn’t speak. Instead the captain asked, shocked, “I’m dead?”
“I am not feeling too bad,” the werewolf said.
“No, not you sailors…”
“Ah…” The werewolf wasn’t sure quite what to think.
“You never existed,” I explained.
“Well, that’s not much better,” the captain said. He could sense that I was telling the truth.
“D … d … d…?” asked Ben Redhead.
“We’re dead?” Hannah asked, and took hold of Ben’s hand again.
“I’ve brought you back to life in your story,” I tried to explain.
She didn’t blame me f
or not having told her the truth all this time. She just asked, “Whatever for?”
“I didn’t want you to be gone forever,” I tried to explain, heartbroken.
“But this isn’t me! I’m not a chosen hero. I never was.” Hannah pointed at the mirror showing her lying in the pool of blood and said sadly, “I’m just a girl who got killed…”
“But I…,” I was all choked up, “I don’t want to remember you like that!”
“It’s the truth…”
It felt as if a mighty weight had landed on my chest, which was stopping me from breathing.
“But I’m far more than just a hero in a story,” she continued. “Remember me how I was.”
Pictures shot through my mind. Pictures of the real Hannah: Hannah eating, kissing Ben Redhead, looking at me angrily, being cheeky, telling me stories when I wasn’t well, and, yes, lying dead in the pantry.
“Promise me that, Mira?”
“Yes,” I said quietly, and the weight on my chest fell away. “I promise.”
Hannah hugged me. “I’ll always be with you.”
“So will I,” the little Mirror King laughed behind me with a squeaky voice.
But I hardly noticed him.
I could live with the guilt of being alive if I let myself remember how things had really been. Hannah gave me a kiss, and I left the world of the 777 islands.
Forever.
I was back in the sewers, sitting in the water with Daniel, who was very weak now, asleep against the wall, and with Rebecca, who was staring at me.
It took me a while before I could say anything or give the story I’d just told the little girl some sort of meaning she’d understand.
“That was the story about how I found my sister again…,” I tried to explain.
“There’s no more fighting, is there?” Rebecca asked.
Stories are like that. They work differently for different people.
“No more fighting,” I promised the little girl.
And then I kissed the top of her head.
78
The next morning, the three of us made our way back to the drain cover in Prosta Street. Rebecca could manage to wade through the water by herself, but I practically had to carry Daniel. When we got to the exit, we waited for Amos and the truck again. In vain. Again.
Instead, Josef returned from the ghetto. His face was all swollen from crying. “The SS … is blowing up the entrances to the sewers in the ghetto … no one can get through to us now. Everyone in Nalewki Street is lost…”
His Masha was lost.
And we could not go back to the ghetto if the pickup failed. The truck had to take us to the woods or else we would die down here.
It was past nine when Amos came back again, at last. I was standing directly beneath him. He pretended to tie his laces and whispered, “You’ve got to wait again.”
“What is wrong?” I wanted to know.
“I couldn’t get a truck—the bloody Poles didn’t keep their word.”
“We … we can’t last any longer,” I protested.
“Mira, darling! I’m going to get you out.”
I still wanted to believe him.
“Give me till tonight,” he asked.
“Don’t you understand? This is the end.”
“Mira, any sooner is too dangerous.”
I looked at Daniel slumped against the tunnel wall, unable to sit up straight.
“You have to get us out now, Amos. Or else we’ll die down here. There’s nothing more dangerous than that.”
Amos understood. He worked out what he was going to do and said, “I’ll have to hijack a truck.”
“Then do it.”
He hurried away, and I looked at all the people standing round me or sitting in the stinking water. Not everyone had come back from the other entrances yet. I hoped they would be back before Amos returned.
If he returned.
Hopefully Daniel would last that long.
It was another hour later when I heard a truck stop beside the entrance.
Amos.
It had to be him!
The drain cover was dragged away. Amos stuck his head down and called, “Everybody out! Now!”
Although there were more escaped Jews than there had been an hour ago, not everyone was back yet. Samuel ordered Josef and Abraham to fetch the rest, but Abraham refused. “You’ll all be gone before we get back.” Josef obviously shared his doubts.
Samuel insisted, “There’s a risk and I can’t make you go. But it is worth it. Their lives are at stake.”
That was enough to make Josef start running. But not Abraham. “I’m not crazy!” he said. Samuel realized that there was no point in discussing it and looked at the skinny fighter. He just nodded and headed off at once. Samuel was the first to climb out of the sewer to coordinate the escape. I saw him and Amos hug each other briefly. Then Amos leaned down and shouted, “Go! Go! Go!”
He waved to me to come up next, but I looked over to Daniel and hesitated. He was only semiconscious and hadn’t noticed what was happening around him. Rebecca was clutching his hand and her marble as tightly as she could.
“Please get the little girl out,” I asked the bald man who was next in line to climb out after me.
“I promise,” he said.
I climbed up the rusty metal ladder step by step, dragging my hurt ankle behind me. As I crawled out of the hole, I was blinded by the sun. After more than a day in total darkness, I could barely see Amos. He helped me out, kissed me on the cheek, and said, “We have to hurry!”
My eyes grew accustomed to the daylight in a few moments. There was a covered truck waiting, and Amos had put up a barrier behind the drain cover. Polish passersby were standing staring at us. The fact that dirty smelly ghosts were emerging from the sewers astonished them. Some looked shocked, some suspicious.
The smallest ghost was Rebecca. Blinded by the sun, she staggered across the cobblestones with no sense of direction. I grabbed her and carried her to the truck as fast as my damaged ankle allowed. I set her down in the back.
“Daniel,” she said quietly.
He hadn’t emerged yet.
“I’ll go and get him,” I told her.
More and more people stopped to see what was happening. The Poles watched silently as one by one the living dead crawled up out of the earth … eleven … twelve … thirteen …
To try to placate their suspicion, I called out, “This is an action of the Polish Home Army.”
They would betray Jews, but not fellow countrymen. Or so I hoped.
“This is your chance to be heroes,” I shouted. “Support your countrymen.”
They didn’t help us. They didn’t believe me. But they didn’t call the Germans. Not yet.
“We have to go,” Amos said. “They won’t stay quiet much longer.”
“But there are still people down there,” I replied.
Sixteen … seventeen … eighteen …
Josef and the skinny fighter were still in the tunnels fetching the others. And Daniel was down there!
An old woman started hissing, “Are those cats?”
Cats were what Poles called fleeing Jews.
“Two more minutes,” Amos said. “That’s all!”
“As long as it takes,” I said.
“Two minutes,” Amos insisted.
I hurried back to the hole while Samuel and Amos helped everyone climb into the truck. More and more Poles were calling, “Cats, cats!”
I was just about to climb down when I heard Amos swearing, “Oh shit!”
At the end of the street, a single Polish policeman wearing a smart blue uniform was walking toward us. He hadn’t noticed anything yet. He was even eating an apple. But he would see us in a moment, hear the catcalls, and fetch the SS.
Amos ran over to him without hesitation.
I made my way down the hole. Before I disappeared underground, I checked to see what Amos was doing. He was talking to the policeman. What was he thinkin
g? I was so afraid that he would be arrested on the spot. But Amos showed the policeman the gun he was hiding inside his jacket without attracting any attention. If Amos pulled it out and pressed the trigger, the crowd might start to attack us and the Germans would definitely be alerted.
I climbed down the metal rungs and waded through the water to Daniel. More comrades and civilians hurried past me.
There were still so many down here. Fifteen, twenty people—maybe even more. Most of them were still making their way over from the other entrances.
Above me a Pole started shouting, “Jews! They’re damn Jews! Get the SS!”
I took hold of Daniel’s hand and tried to pull him up out of the water.
“Leave me,” he said, and started coughing. “You need to go.”
“Not without you.”
“I’ll die anyway…”
“We don’t know that,” I told him.
I dragged him to his feet, put my arm around him, and supported him as best I could. I needed all my strength to drag him the last few meters to the ladder.
Samuel yelled down, “We are leaving!”
Daniel and I were the only two left by the drain. I could hear the sound of footsteps coming nearer, hurrying through the tunnels. That must be Josef and the skinny fighter with the comrades they had fetched from the other entrances. They were going to be too late.
Daniel couldn’t stand. He was too weak. There was no way he would be able to climb up the ladder. And I didn’t have enough strength to climb up with him on my back. It was hard enough just supporting him.
“Go!” Daniel said. “Don’t die with me.”
I heard the truck engine start.
“You need to be there for Rebecca,” Daniel insisted.
The engine revved up.
Josef and a few other figures turned into our tunnel. They were a hundred meters away.
“Please, Mira!” Daniel pleaded. “She can’t survive without you.”
It was right to listen to him, but it felt so wrong.
“I’ll look after her,” I promised.
I let Daniel sink back down to the ground as gently as I could. He was almost lying in the water now.
Don’t waste any more vital time, I thought, don’t waste a single precious moment.