by Jason Fields
The sight depressed Shemtov. It always did.
German bombs had damaged the grand masonry of the former courthouse. Some of the stonework still lay where it had fallen more than a year before. The blocks were either too heavy to move or no one had felt it was worth the effort. But what depressed him most was the crowd gathered at the building’s gates. People stood in a queue that never seemed to get longer or shorter. To Shemtov the line represented a precise balance between great personal need and near-perfect bureaucratic inefficiency.
Those in line were pitiful, even by the standards of the ghetto. Simply believing the Judenrat would be able to help — whatever your problem — made a person pitiful, Shemtov thought. He knew from the inside that the “authorities” had little charity to offer and even less justice to mete out.
He also knew that simply by joining the line, one stood a little taller than the rest of the grass, inviting the reaper’s sickle.
Shemtov and Finkelstein pressed through the throng, elbows and curses flying. Not knowing who was behind them, people fought to keep their place. It looked like things might take a violent turn until the guards at the door recognized the policemen and got violent first, using clubs to clear the way.
Once inside the building, the doors closed behind them, the warmth of the entry hall struck Shemtov and Finkelstein. It was enough to make them gasp in relief.
Two more of their colleagues stood inside, the last line of defense should the petitioners decide to press their cases though means other than unflagging patience.
Beyond a second double door sat a clump of clerks moving paper or listening to people who they were apt to disappoint.
The petitioners stood shoulder-to-shoulder, back to front, front to back, held upright by the weight of their own numbers. The press of bodies brought the temperature in the room to nearly 80 degrees, but the petitioners unanimously refused to remove their coats, instead hoarding the heat for their walk home. Sweat dappled most faces.
The heat and close quarters had another, less pleasant, effect as well. Shemtov recoiled against smells the warmth brought out of hibernation. Soiled, sweat-stained wool, yes, but he bodies themselves were worse. No one wanted to bathe in cold water while surrounded by colder air. It could be dangerous and what was the point? There was no soap, anyway.
As the officers slowly bulled their way across the room to the safety of the Jewish Police offices, Shemtov caught snatches of the sad stories being told at each overwhelmed desk.
“ … But there’s no more milk for the baby,” a woman said, sobbing as she pointed to her own breasts. “There’s not enough food … my body has dried up. There must be some powdered milk somewhere. Please!”
“There’s nothing. I have nothing to give you. I’d give you my rations, but I have to feed my own family. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is,” the famished, bespectacled clerk said.
“Oh please! My baby … ”
Another voice, another desk, another supplicant.
“But they’ve taken up the wires! There’s no electricity! Surely you can send some men around to fix it!”
“What do you think? You’re the only one without power?” a heavily bearded clerk answered, incredulity in his voice. “What’s wrong with you? People have real problems. Find someone else’s time to waste.”
Next into earshot, a small, elderly woman with an oddly jaunty hat clinging to her few remaining gray curls.
“ … a new ration card. My son stole mine! I’ll starve without it.”
The clerk was young, his face was kind, but his answer was something else.
“Do you think I haven’t heard that story before?” the man asked. “Do you think you’re the first person who’s tried to get a second ration card for themselves? Even if you’re telling the truth, it’s up to you to get the card back. You’re his mother! There’s nothing I can do.”
There’s nothing I can do. It was a phrase repeated a thousand times every day by every man behind a desk, Shemtov knew.
But then, as he continued his shoving, Shemtov heard something else.
“ … I have heard that sometimes — sometimes — something can be done in such a case. Yes, perhaps something.”
It was an older man talking. He was a stouter than the other clerks, though his desk was the same.
“Come back after we’ve closed. We’ll talk then. And make sure to bring it with you,” the clerk said.
It wasn’t necessary for Shemtov to hear the particulars. As always, there were ways to get things done, even here. He’d learned that business, if not hope, survives even the greatest tragedies.
Finally through the crowd, past another guard and another door, the officers reached a short hall where they could breathe.
“Go get yourself something to drink and eat — if there is something. I’ll join you after I speak to Captain Blaustein,” Shemtov said.
Finkelstein looked at him nervously, but then finding a time when the man didn’t look nervous — or at least shifty — wasn’t easy. Finkelstein nodded and headed in the direction of the little room that served as an impromptu lounge for the police.
Shemtov turned to an unmarked door, knocked, and was told to enter by a man who was dressed only in shirtsleeves. In the small but uncluttered office a portable heater radiated warmth and a sense of better times. It was needed because the room’s window was warped, making a proper seal impossible.
Blaustein was a large man. His face displayed shrewdness rather than intelligence. There was a subtle slyness that sat in his eyes and could be seen in the curl of his lip. He motioned for Shemtov to close the door behind him.
“So?” the Jewish Police’s commander asked, meaning something more like, Why the hell are you in my office?
“We found Lev Berson this morning, on our patrol,” Shemtov said, keeping his eyes down, his posture stooped.
“Found him how? I didn’t know he was missing.”
“I mean we found his body, sir. He was dead, in Leopold Street. His skull was cracked open and his hat was a meter away.”
Shemtov took Berson’s hat and armband from his coat and offered them to his superior by way of proof.
Blaustein made no move to touch them, so Shemtov laid them gently on his desk. For a moment, both men were trapped in an uncomfortable silence.
“Any chance he slipped and fell?” Blaustein finally asked, without much hope.
“No sir, no chance. You could see through the hole, all the way to his brains.”
More silence.
Blaustein stood very still, his eyes frozen on an invisible something. Shemtov knew that Blaustein was working through all the angles he himself had thought of, and probably others that he hadn’t.
After several minutes, Shemtov could see Blaustein’s mind slowly making its way back to his office.
“Witnesses?” Blaustein asked.
“None who would speak to us, sir,” Shemtov said.
That was little surprise.
“And where is Berson now?”
“I thought it was best if we took care of him ourselves, make sure there was no evidence in plain sight, sir,” Shemtov said. “We moved him to a basement just a few blocks from where we found him.”
“You thought it was best?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And how did you come to that conclusion?”
“I thought you’d want to keep the Germans out of it as long as possible,” Shemtov said, cringing under Blaustein’s glare.
It would take no more than a word for Shemtov to lose his position, and that was something Shemtov couldn’t face. He would miss the extra rations, but would probably miss what protection his armband offered even more. It wasn’t possible to be a policeman and not make enemies, especially here.
Berson didn’t get much protection from his armband, though, did he? Shemtov thought glumly.
But he needn’t have worried.
“In this case, your judgment was right,” Blaustein said grudgingly
. “We have to keep the Germans out of this. Do you have any idea what happened? Do you know what Berson might have been doing last night?”
“No, sir,” Shemtov said. “And there was nothing much to see at the scene. There was no sign of whatever hit him. No obvious reason why he was hit.”
“All right, it sounds like you did what you could,” Blaustein said, knowing just how poorly his men were trained. “Thank you, Shemtov, you did well. I may need to ask you more questions later on, so don’t go too far. For now, you’re dismissed.”
Shemtov left the room, relieved to have shifted the burden onto other shoulders.
Chapter 2
Blaustein sat. After a minute he turned to the small heater at his side, shutting it off. He rarely kept it going for more than a few minutes — fuel was too expensive — but he always made sure to turn it on when he heard a knock at the door. The warmth served as a reminder of Blaustein’s privilege and station.
This I didn’t need, he thought.
Blaustein knew the investigation would have to be quick, subtle and, most importantly, wrapped up neatly with a bow before it was handed over to the Nazis. To best protect the Jewish community, there would have to be a clear villain and a non-political motive. Anything else and the Gestapo would launch its own inquiry, resulting in random sweeps, torture of the innocent and their eventual murders.
The key question then became who should run the investigation?
Blaustein considered his options among the men who worked for him. He knew most of them to be the bottom of the barrel, for the most part weak, cruel or not particularly intelligent. Some were all three in one delightful package. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he realized there was no one on the force he trusted to do the job right.
The next option that Blaustein considered was appointing himself to the job. He quickly decided against it. Though he had contacts everywhere in the ghetto, he was no trained detective. Blaustein was a purely political appointee, previously known for his management skills and lack of scruples as a member of the Miasto city council.
He had always been a man to delegate work, especially if it was the kind of work that could lead him into danger. Blaustein could already foresee circumstances where the case’s investigator would have to become a scapegoat. It wasn’t a role he would volunteer for.
If only there was a way to play the whole thing off as an accident, to say that Berson had tripped and fallen. Blaustein had no deep desire to see justice. He wanted the case off his desk with as little damage as possible done to the people of the ghetto — especially himself.
But there were a few potential problems with labeling Berson’s death an accident. If Shemtov’s description of the body were accurate, the story wouldn’t hold up for a second under the eyes of a Gestapo officer. It was also unlikely the Germans would buy the idea that the body had been quickly cremated. It was widely known that Jewish law didn’t allow for cremation.
The other issue was potential informants. If someone took it upon him or herself to tell the Germans what had happened, any cover up would be exposed immediately. In that case, there was no chance Blaustein would survive.
Blaustein thought until he could no longer stand his own company and the closeness of his small, commandeered space. He stepped out of his office and headed for the lounge, struck by the change in temperature as he exited. The others in the hallway all had their coats on. Without the heat generated by the crowd in the main hall, the police offices were no warmer than anywhere else in the ghetto.
Today was a banner day in the lounge. Someone had found black tea and the samovar steamed with it. The smell spoke of days that had passed into oblivion — even the memories were fading. There was nothing to sweeten the bitter brew, but to ask for sugar was like asking for a personal visit from the beautiful Irena Solska. Or fresh pastry.
Blaustein poured himself a glass, savored the warmth in his hands, and brought the beaker up to his nose. For a minute, maybe more, he let the perfume of the Orient take him elsewhere and to better times. A single sip and the brown bitterness of inferior and ancient tealeaves shattered his reverie and made him shudder.
The only people in the room with him were Shemtov and Finkelstein, who had a guilty look, knowing he should be back out on patrol rather than sulking in comfort. Blaustein gave him a firm look that had him hastening on his way with a jerky nod.
Shemtov stayed where he was.
Blaustein gave him the evil eye, too.
“I’m sure there’s some paperwork you need to catch up on,” he suggested.
Shemtov gave a half-hearted salute and left the little lounge.
The tea provided Blaustein with little inspiration. In the end, all he could think to do was to follow Shemtov’s example and take his problem up the chain of command and leave it with someone else.
The Jewish Police answered to the Judenrat, which, at its core, was comprised of a council of twenty-five elders. Their charge was maintaining order and allocating impossibly inadequate resources to sixty-five thousand people crammed into the ghetto.
The Jewish population of Miasto had been thirty thousand before the German tanks had arrived. A further fifty thousand Jews had lived in surrounding towns, villages and farms. Those who had survived the initial days of the occupation had been herded into a small corner of the city.
Many of the members of the Judenrat had been prominent men long before the Germans arrived, through religion, law or medicine. The occupiers merely confirmed them in their positions, some, literally at gunpoint. If given a choice, serving the Nazis was an honor most Jews, however venal, would have declined. The president of the Judenrat, and the man Blaustein needed to see, was Mordechai Zimmerman.
Blaustein headed into the main hall, the hand with his tea held high above the throng, as if he were a waiter at a busy French café. He worked his way carefully through the crowd and clerks, heading for a doorway adjacent to the police suite.
“You weren’t next!” a voice cried out. “That lady was in front of you, and I was in front of her!”
Blaustein saw the person who had provoked the shout. It was an old man, pathetic in his threadbare religious garments, including a beaver fur hat that had balded badly.
There was a shove. A small shove, but the old man was frail and he stumbled forward. Everyone was packed so tightly they wobbled from the impact, though they had no place to fall.
The wavefront rippled outward, eventually reaching Blaustein. His cup tipped backward, tea spilled out on the tie he insisted on wearing despite the fact that no one was impressed.
Blaustein was instantly filled with rage. He growled and his body stiffened as if he was going to strike out.
But he didn’t.
There was no target. Not the small, scarred woman who had touched him and now looked terrified. Not the man in black wool behind her who had tipped forward just enough to make her sway. Trace the line as far back as he liked, all he could see were victims.
The officers from the front door hurried into the room to calm things. They looked bewildered at the chorus of accusations and counter-accusations, but quickly settled their interest on the old man who had stepped out of line. One of the officers grabbed the old man firmly and the other lifted a hand to strike him. He stopped himself as he caught sight of Blaustein, who simply shook his head. Instead of striking him, the officer spoke gently to the old man.
“Whatever business you have, you’ll have to come back tomorrow. Things are bad enough without you making it worse,” he said.
“I have no heat!” the old man shouted. It sounded to Blaustein as if the man was more deaf than agitated.
The officer spoke more loudly.
“Nobody has heat. Come back tomorrow, otherwise there’s going to be a pogrom in here.”
“I have no heat!” the old man said again.
Seeing there was nothing for it, the officer tightened his grip and pulled the man, now as confused as he was deaf, out of the room.
All eyes followed the old man back into the cold. After a few moments the room returned to its sullen usual.
Blaustein carefully husbanded his remaining tea — less than half the glass — through the doors and into the offices of the Judenrat’s president.
The rooms were luxurious by the standards of deprivation set everywhere else in the Jewish District. In the reception area, a lightly soiled Persian carpet lay in front of a desk made entirely of oak. Portraits of men in somber clothing with white beards hung on the walls. None of the frames were straight, and each was tilted in precisely its own way, leaving Blaustein a little seasick. He was unclear whether the men pictured were the ancestors of the man in the next office or just placed there to create an atmosphere of Talmudic wisdom.
Behind that oak desk was a man unremarkable in any obvious way. His yarmulke and studious look made him out to be observant but not so deeply religious as to remove himself from the world. The hair on his face and head was gray, and so was the man himself. Blaustein could easily picture him in front of King Solomon’s Temple thousands of years earlier, filling in the blanks of papyrus scrolls.
“Mr. Kaminski,” Blaustein asked. “Is Mr. Zimmerman available?”
Yitzhak Kaminski looked up from whatever form he had been filling out and peered nearsightedly at the police commandant.
“I’ll check for you,” he said, and was up and gone into the next office before Blaustein could blink.
It was several blinks before he returned.
“Mr. Zimmerman asks you to wait. He is on the telephone with the German officer in charge of the electrical supply,” Kaminski said properly. “Please take a seat.”
Blaustein took the short step to a wooden chair against the wall. At some point the green upholstery might have contained some padding. Now, it provided a thin veil over pointy springs.