Maybe it was when the people lining the streets started saluting the motorcycles. The way Germans salute. Even some people in the balconies across the way were doing it. Arm straight, hand open, fingers together. The whole thing shooting out diagonally from your chest. Almost like when you really want the teacher to call on you in class. I’ve done it myself, just to try it out. In my room, with the door closed. Because Mother and Father would kill me if they saw.
I can hear her now. In the kitchen with Christina, her friend from down the street. Now that they’ve turned off the radio, I can hear that they’re whispering about something. Even with all the noise from below.
And where is Marietta? Probably in her room reading. She acts like every other big sister, like she doesn’t care about anything. But how can you not care about this? An entire army, probably the strongest one in the whole world, right outside our window.
Here come the soldiers. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Marching in perfect rectangles. Seven soldiers across, and probably twenty from front to back. Twenty at least. Giant marching rectangles. Too many to count. And just like everyone’s arms when they salute, their legs are completely straight. The knees never bend. All their feet come up together, toes shooting straight out, the same foot at the same time. Up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down. Feet shooting out past their round metal helmets, which are dark, dull green. Almost gray even. And they don’t seem to move, their helmets don’t. Just like the guns resting on their shoulders don’t move.
“Leci,” I call her name, because I can hear her straightening out the living room, even though it’s already clean. There’s not much work for our nanny this afternoon, since I can tell Mother was straightening up nonstop from the second I went off to school this morning.
“Yes, Misha?”
I point down to the street. “What are those?” She comes over, bringing her Leci smell with her. Sugar and soap and something else I can never figure out.
“Those?” she asks, her long, thin face completely still.
“The shiny things sticking off the top of their guns. What are those?”
“Bayonets,” she says. “Attached to their rifles, Misha.”
“They look like knives,” I say. “But why would you need a knife if you already have a rifle? Can you shoot with them attached like that? Do our soldiers have them too?”
Only she doesn’t answer. She’s gone. The soldiers keep marching down below. More and more people are saluting, like they’re happy to have this huge army in our city. They’ve even stretched this giant red flag—I guess it’s a banner—across part of the crowd. All red except for the white circle with the black swastika in the middle. It’s a cloudy, cloudy day, but the red, it’s still so bright. The Germans must be pretty organized if they remembered to bring flags and banners with all this other stuff, too.
“Misha,” Leci says, back again, “have some.” And she hands me a small plate of cookies. Stars and moons and swirls. I bet she could make a swastika-shaped cookie, not that I’d eat it. So weird, just handing me a plate of cookies like that. She knows I’m not allowed to eat out here. She’s told me so herself a thousand times. Not that I’m about to say anything.
Then she’s gone again. The house is so quiet. Did Christina leave? It would be weird if she did, because she always kisses me on both cheeks whenever she leaves, her light blond hair covering my entire face while she bends over. Mother must have gone to her room. That’s okay, more cookies for me.
When will this parade end? How can there still be more soldiers coming? But no one outside is going anywhere. Not even the people in the balconies. And what is that one couple doing? Why are they standing on the outside of the railing? Even Jarek, the bravest boy in our class, wouldn’t do something that crazy. Not five stories up from the street he wouldn’t. No way.
They’re holding hands. Which leaves them only one hand to keep hold of the railing. My mouth opens to call out for Mother, but something keeps me from making a sound. And it’s not the half-eaten cookie in my mouth.
Only the edges of their feet are still on the balcony’s ledge. What are they doing? Why don’t they get down?! C’mon, don’t be stupid, get off of there already!
They jump.
They jump!
Or did they just let go? Doesn’t matter, because now they’re in the air, his hat flying off immediately, her dress opening up. Like a parachute. Only it’s much too small. It’s not going to save her, and she’s not going to save him. They’re falling so fast, even though their bodies slowly turn to the side at the same time. They’re falling!
I push my face right up to the window to see, but my breath immediately fogs up everything. So I run around to a different window, on the other side of the couch, only I trip on the edge of the coffee table. My elbow hits the floor hard, and suddenly I get this feeling that I made the whole thing up, because why would anyone jump off a balcony? Even if the Nazis are really mean, how could you just decide to jump, because what could be worse than jumping straight to the ground from that high? My eyes must be fooling me.
So I get back up, but I can’t decide where to go, because the smart thing to do would be to go get Mother. Especially if that couple really jumped, especially if they’re lying flat on the ground right now. I don’t want to think what will happen if I look and see them there, maybe with blood coming out from wherever blood would come out when you hit the ground that hard.
But if I get Mother and it didn’t happen, and I really, really, really hope it didn’t happen, then that’ll be bad too. Mother will look at me like I’m crazy, or get mad at me for even imagining such a thing, or will tell me, again, that I’ve been going to sleep too late since Father has been gone. Then she’ll make me go to sleep early, which would be the worst, because even if it didn’t happen, I already have a feeling I’m not going to be able to fall asleep tonight for a long, long time.
I stand there not knowing what to do, but soon that doesn’t matter. Because I see it. Them, actually. Out of the corner of my eye. The couple. Facedown, still holding hands, their bodies in the shape of a crooked V, which is barely five feet away from the marching soldiers. Who barely seem to notice. I don’t see any blood, but that doesn’t make me feel any better, not at all.
I take a few slow steps to the window and call out, “Mother,” but the word doesn’t make much sound. Dozens and dozens of soldiers are marching right past them, like that crooked V is nothing more than some sheets someone left outside by mistake. I try calling Mother again, but my throat won’t work.
What kind of army trains you not to notice people falling out of the sky? What kind of soldier marches perfectly straight even when he’s marching right past a crooked, dead V?
And that couple, did they know something the rest of us don’t? Is there a chance they weren’t just crazy? Like, I don’t know, maybe they were in Germany a couple of weeks ago and saw what it’s going to be like here. Maybe they were barely able to escape from Germany and thought they’d be safe here. Maybe they’re not crazy at all, because they know there’s nothing worse than living where the Nazis are in charge.
I know it’s not nice to think this, but I sure hope they were just crazy. Even if that means being crazy enough to jump like they did. Because if they weren’t crazy, if they knew exactly what they were doing, well, then I don’t even know what that means.
Suddenly I feel like going to my room too. I grab another cookie, but I have a feeling I won’t eat it. Mother walks out of the bathroom when I reach the hallway. My mouth opens to tell her what I just saw, but then it decides not to say anything. Maybe it thinks that if I don’t say anything, it still might turn out to be something my eyes made up.
Mother leans over to kiss my head, but I make sure not to slow down. I hear her say something about me practicing my violin, but I ignore it. Next thing I know I’m sitting on my bed, staring at a star-shaped cookie, one of its points broken off, the whole thing ruined by all that sweat in my hand.
&nbs
p; October 2, 1939
“MISHA,” FATHER SAYS ONE AFTERNOON after school, “how would you like to pay a visit to King of Railroads?”
I don’t even answer. Just hop up and grab my jacket. Because King of Railroads is the best store in all of Prague. And I haven’t been there in forever, since even before Father went to London, where he was for a bunch of months before finally coming back a few weeks ago.
While we’re waiting for the elevator (our building was one of the first in the whole city to get one), I almost say, I don’t think we’ve ever gone to King of Railroads during the week. But I don’t, because maybe he’d change his mind then. So I just look at him and smile. And he smiles back, but I’m not sure he really means it. Or maybe it’s just how tired he looks, even though if you saw him from far away you’d think he was the same as always, with his fancy suit and tie.
* * *
I rush out of our building before him and turn left, because ever since I saw that couple jump, I avoid the place they landed. Only he points with his thumb in the other direction and says, “Let’s take Simackova for a change.”
I feel myself start to make a face, but I stop it before he notices. Because I know why he said that. Because Veletrzni is off limits to Jews now. Because they won’t stop making up new rules and regulations. The stupid Germans. And almost all of them are just for us Jews. We can’t eat in most restaurants or swim in public pools or even go to German-language schools anymore (Marietta had to switch to a Czech one, but I was in a Czech one all along). They made us give up our radios, and starting about a month ago we’re not allowed to be out past eight p.m. And it’s not like I would usually be out that late, but still, it’s not fair at all.
We even had to let Leci go, because people who aren’t Jews can’t work for Jews anymore. Her last day was the worst. She arrived extra early and cleaned and cooked like her life depended on it. Mother kept telling her to stop, kept telling her there’s no need, kept trying to get her to come to the living room for tea. And when she finally agreed, Leci called out to me. So I went over, and she pulled me up on her lap like she used to years ago, even though I’m too big to be sitting on someone’s lap. But I let her, because I could tell she really, really wanted me to. She just hugged me tight. Then she started crying, which made my mom cry. And me too, almost. So I slid off and went to my room.
Father and I walk past the spot. Where the couple landed. A day after that happened, I went down there to look, but I couldn’t find any sign on the sidewalk. They didn’t crack it or anything. And so I finally asked Mother about it, but she just shook her head and asked, Why don’t we talk about it another time? Only that other time never came. I brought it up again once or twice, but I could see how just mentioning it made Mother really sad, so I stopped.
And honestly, it isn’t that hard to forget about them jumping most of the time, because so many other horrible things keep happening. Like the million rules the Nazis keep forcing on us. A bunch are about money and businesses and banks and courts and things like that. When Father got back, I asked him to explain those to me, and he tried, but they still didn’t really make sense. All I know is that we have a lot less money than before, because of what we eat (or don’t eat) these days. Also, I don’t think anyone in our family, including Mother, has bought a single new thing since the Germans invaded.
At first, even though the new situation was bad, I figured it wasn’t going to last long, so it wasn’t that bad. But now it is starting to last long, plus it gets a little worse every day, every time they make up some new rule, tell us some new thing we can’t have, some new place we can’t go. We can’t go to most restaurants, we can’t share a hospital room with a non-Jew. None of it makes any sense. Though maybe to that couple it did. Or would have, I guess. Maybe somehow they knew exactly what was going to happen here.
Plus, of course, there’s actually a war going on now. Because Hitler wasn’t satisfied with Czechoslovakia. He wanted Poland, too. Oh, and it’s not even Czechoslovakia anymore. Now we’re called the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Like we need their protection.
We turn onto Janovskeho, and I see Christina walking toward us. Her hair is so pretty today it’s almost glowing. Maybe she did something to it since the last time I saw her, which now that I think about it was months ago. I wonder if it will feel different too.
I raise my hand to wave hello, but Father pulls it down right away. Christina sees us anyway. But then she looks away quickly and crosses to the other side of the street. She doesn’t even say hi or wave. She just pretends she didn’t see us in the first place, even though I know she did.
I turn to Father to ask him why she did that, but the sad, tired look on his face tells me not to bother.
* * *
“Misha,” Father says when we reach the river.
“Yes?”
“I’m sure you’ve noticed that I haven’t been working much since I got back.”
I watch a boat glide under the Stefanikuv Bridge. It moves so slowly it barely makes any waves. Then I realize Father isn’t saying anything. I turn away from the river and see him straightening out his tie.
“Yeah, I noticed,” I say. “Of course I noticed.”
“Well,” he says, not moving his head. “I won’t be . . . for the time being I won’t be working at all.”
His voice is very soft when he says this, not like his regular voice. With the cars passing on one side and the river making its regular watery river noise on the other, I barely hear him. I want to ask him to say it again, just to make sure, but something tells me that’s not such a great idea.
“Oh,” I say. He takes my hand, and I let him. We walk for a while without talking.
Then I realize something. “Does that mean, Father, can we go on outings during the week now?”
“Perhaps,” he says.
“Hikes?”
“Possibly.”
“Because, well,” I say, my voice speeding up, “Lukas, a boy in my class, he says he has twelve badges on his walking stick. Including one from the Krkonosh Mountains. I don’t believe him, but he won’t bring it to school. He says his parents won’t let him. Anyway, I only have eight. Eight? No, I have nine. Anyway . . . but so I thought . . . maybe we could . . . now that you have more time . . . maybe we could do a bunch of hikes. Stechoviche and Lovos and even—”
“We’ll see, Misha, we’ll see.”
* * *
As soon as we turn the last corner, I race ahead and run inside King of Railroads. Right away the sound of all those model trains churning around and around the tracks pours into my ears. I rush up to the edge of the giant display. And there they are: a long, black steam engine pulling car after car of coal, and a sleek, silver locomotive with a half dozen red passenger cars behind it, and another train loaded with lumber and who knows what else inside its green cattle cars.
The trains snake around hills and past miniature forests and over bridges and through canyons. When they enter cities, white crossing arms automatically lower at every street. They travel so fast I’m always sure they’ll tip over at the curves, but somehow they never do.
The door opens and soon Father is standing next to me. Neither of us says a word for a while. I should have started collecting parts for my own railroad last year. Now, because of his work, or because of his no work, and because they’ll probably announce soon that Jews can’t have model trains, I bet it will be hard to get everything I need.
“Can we take a real train soon?” I ask him.
“Perhaps, Misha,” he says, placing his hand on my shoulder.
“The faster the better,” I say. “I don’t care where we go.”
And then I try to remember: Are there rules against Jews going on trains? There are so many regulations at this point, I can’t keep them straight anymore. And I’m pretty sure my parents can’t either. They bicker more than ever, their voices always just low enough for me not to hear. They whisper like that all the time, even when they should be sle
eping. I know, because sometimes, at night, I get up to go to the bathroom. And lately, every time, I see a light on under their door. It must be because of all these rules.
So I don’t ask Father whether we can still go on trains. I decide we can. Because if the Germans don’t like us so much, then of course they’d want to let us on trains. That way we could go somewhere else.
September 16, 1940
“HURRY, MISHA,” MOTHER SAYS TO me. “It is already three thirty.”
“One more minute,” I say. “I’m almost finished.” With my homework, that is. Even though it’s not real homework, because there’s no real school anymore. Not for Jews, anyway. At the end of the summer they said we couldn’t even attend Czech schools anymore. So now I go to third grade in the living room of Erik Laub’s family. There are six of us there. Two older girls, who are supposed to be in college, teach us everything. We sit on wooden chairs in a circle and play cards instead of going out for recess.
“Misha,” Mother says, suddenly standing in my doorway, not happy at all. “If we don’t hurry, we won’t make it in time.”
To the store, she means, because now Jews are only allowed to shop from three to five each afternoon.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming.”
“And you didn’t practice your violin, did you?”
“So?”
“So when we get back, first thing, do you hear me?”
* * *
The tram comes and we step into the back car, even though the front car is way less crowded. Because that’s another rule: Jews can only ride in the back now. There’s nowhere to sit, so we stand while the tram rattles down the street. Mother says hello to a friend, but then falls silent and stares out the window over my shoulder.
She looks tired. She used to dress so fancy, but now she’s in a plain gray dress. And no jewelry either. Over the last few months, she’s been going through everything in our apartment, separating anything valuable. Anything valuable the Germans didn’t take already, because they said we can’t have cameras, typewriters, wool coats, or a bunch of other things. Including ski boots, because I guess the Germans don’t want us Jews ruining their precious mountains. Which aren’t even theirs in the first place.
Somewhere There Is Still a Sun Page 2