Warsaw

by Richard Foreman

  "Secular and religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or else firm finance held in check the passions."

  I say you should've witnessed my face, but who am I writing this to, or for?...

  I, along with others in the cafe, heard some shots fired from around 500 yards away this afternoon. We thought it was just another bout of drunken or triumphal exuberance from our German victors. It was soon reported however that the soldiers, although drunk, had not fired into the air - but into two young Jewish men. An explanation for the act was given though. The Jewish men were looters, it was reported by a German Corporal. There are some pieces of irony that even I will not be amused by...

  ..."Just because it's a losing battle, does that mean that it's not worth fighting?" I heard someone exclaim the other day, trying to rally the once God-fearing, now German-fearing people. There was both a certain nobility and stupidity in his call to arms I warrant...

  ...Where do we draw the line? No, of course we are not going to draw a line - no matter how much we descend into hell. But where should we have drawn the line? The knocking off of a cap? Beard pulling? A law restricting kosher slaughter? A ban on using the trams? Forced labour? Robbery and extortion at gun point? Indiscriminate beatings? Murder, in the name of enforcing all of the above?...

  ...For half of my adult life I've been bemoaning my fate, or rather my anonymity. How I'm neither as rich nor famous as I deserve. For once I'm grateful for my lonely, unlauded existence. I understand the Gestapo have been methodically, rapaciously driving around the city, visiting Jewish families and "confiscating" their possessions. Many have been shot, whether resisting or not. So too I have heard that many of our so-called intellectuals have been silenced...

  ...What might have been considered a strange event - some two weeks or so ago - occurred today. Three young SS soldiers sitting outside a cafe decided that they'd commandeer every Jew in earshot and make them bow down to them. Around forty people meekly stood in line as, puffing out their chests in mock-imitation of their own officers inspecting them, the self-labelled Master Race made each of us bow before them. An old man - who probably could not have bowed even if he wanted to such was his decrepit state and arched-back - refused to comply. Defiance and terror fought for control of his expression. He was killed. For all of the thunder and horror I experienced upon hearing my first ever gun shot at close range I believe that I am now getting used to it. Am I alone in this? Another man was hesitant, or just slow in complying - and he was similarly dispatched. There were around forty of us, just three of them. We could have overpowered them easily. It just needed one or two to spark things off. Suffice to say my bow was perfect. No actor, of the Stanislavov school or any other, ever had a greater motivation in playing his part... I hate myself... I can take any comment dished out by my neighbour, and suffer any slight, for I know I'm more loathsome than they can possibly imagine. And I am far too proud to let my fellow Jew punish me. That's my task - or God's. In actuality though, it's the Germans who do it.

  ...I'm ill. My innards are empty, but for the agony which boils and stiffens inside. Soon the rest will be silence. I'm thankful. I'm afraid of looking at myself in the mirror. Have I those same dead eyes and hollow features that I saw - and ignored - on those children in the street? I passed them by as if they were already dead. Would people do the same to me now? Do I care? No. Only now, perishing, have I realised what it takes to survive in this Darwinist's paradise."

  After reading this final entry, dated a couple of days before Thomas descended upon the dying Jew's apartment, Jessica eagerly went back to read more of the conceited and despairing student's diaries. She could not help but laugh though sometimes at his sarcastic humour and be fascinated by his wild, unorthodox intelligence. Reading further back she even felt sorry for the angry young man, sympathising with both his fury and sadness. There were tears in her eyes as Jessica read about the death of his mother, his loneliness and bouts of depression (where this prodigious student who could have had any career he wanted - this teacher - just wallowed in self-pity at times, not eating or sleeping). He kept writing how he was wasting away and couldn't do anything about it. More than once Duritz articulated his desire in regards to suicide being the answer to his prayers. Half the time he spoke to God, the other half he was concerned with all the rational arguments as to why God didn't exist. Thoughts were disjointed, as was the regularity of entries. She surmised that Duritz had lost or discarded large portions of his writings.

  Lastly she discovered and devoured - as if the perfect dessert to a moreish meal - reams of poetry which Duritz had composed in his youth. The pages were limp and yellowing yet still eminently readable (most seemed to be works in progress, such were the crossings out and editing exhibited on some of the pages). The last verse in one of the pieces caught the once spirited girl's eye in particular. She then carefully read the fragment in its entirety.

  "Beach Combing.

  The amber eye sulks indiff'rent

  Upon the indiff'rent azure

  As I plot upon the dark sand

  And, vacant, gaze out from the shore.

  I know not if the maiden tide

  Is riding to or from old me,

  But I feel fated to rest here -

  Let my vexed souls kiss the sea.

  And she heaves and softly lets go

  And pouts and waltzes back and forth.

  More regular than Dian's moods

  Does her lap and lull keep its course.

  But in this measure for measure,

  Tho' it seems to keep perfect time,

  Something in her form must progress

  For she must other beaches climb.

  So too must ev'ry grain of sand

  Within my thorn suffering feet

  Shift; surely one day in my life

  I will again ------- meet?

  But are the sands of time moved so

  By Love's invisible spirit?

  Or by Chaos, a gaping void,

  Is she moved? - O God - I fear it!

  And so I wallow here tonight

  As lonely as a grain of sand;

  'Mong billions and billions

  I search, but do not find. I'm damned."

  For a moment or two Jessica just held the poem in her hand, impressed upon by a sense of wonder, compassion and something else. He was so lonely. She briefly wondered about who the girl in the poem was (did each dash stand for a letter of her name? Or was she a muse?) - but then Jessica just read on, absorbed by a dozen other thoughts and feelings. A new Adam Duritz began to appear before her eyes, as if she were following the numbers upon a dot-to-dot picture. Jessica suddenly realised that the man needed sympathy, not condemnation. Such was her immersion in the illuminating writings of the deep-feeling student that it took a moment or two for the girl to realise that the candle was flickering and taking its last breaths before dying out. For the first time, in a long time, the young Jewish woman forgot about her hunger, parents, prison and Thomas. From that evening Jessica vowed that she would try to be nicer to the ex-student. She instructed Kolya not to sell all of Duritz's papers the following morning.

  The vow was honoured and made considerably easier to keep the evening after as Kolya somehow managed to get his hands on a bottle of vodka. Jessica and Duritz neither asked where he had come by it, nor did they criticise the boy for his profligacy (though she wanted to). They played cards and enjoyed themselves. The next night she watched with the lustre of wonderment on her face as, put up to it by Kolya, Adam recited and performed some Shakespeare. Yet whereas before in his youth he would choose passages from the great tragedies Adam now recited what little he remembered from the comedies.

  And the subsequent night the woman was grateful for the ex-policeman's presence in the house when a couple of families who had been moved out of their own tenement building tried to co-opt their apartment. As much as they would not take no for an answer when Jessica refused to accommodate them, they backed off when
Duritz appeared and threatened to send for a policeman to deal with the disturbance. The bluff worked. Both Jessica and Adam felt a little guilty at having turned the wretched people away, but equally they knew it had to be done. In a small but significant moment Jessica thanked him, placing her hand on his arm.

  A couple of evenings on, after cooking and serving her guest turnip soup with half an apple for dessert, Jessica and Duritz grew closer still - literally and emotionally - as she sat next to Adam and tried to teach him how to knit, much to the amusement of Kolya and his giggling sister. By now Jessica owned a conscious desire to show Adam that she was willing to give him a second chance (without wholly forgiving and forgetting). Duritz offered to be taught in order to take on some work repairing garments so as to bring a little more food into the household (an eight hour day spent working brought in a couple of finger-sized pieces of bread). Duritz was slow at the work - and his inability fed his antipathy for the task - but he didn't want to be seen as being idle during the day and Jessica seemed to appreciate his gesture. He smiled attractively - as his maternal sewing teacher did so too - upon commenting after finishing a piece of work

  "I dare say my brow's more knitted, but it's an improvement is it not?"

  Jessica laughed not just at what he said, but more so she was touched by the self-deprecating humour of the way the Adam said things - as if everything was either a source of amusement. She thought him funny, vulnerable and maybe even a little attractive all at once as the intellectual held the knitting in his hands. She would later consider how she had never known one of her boyfriends to make her laugh so much. Nor could they be mentioned in the same breath as Adam in terms of how cultured, creative and engaging he could be. She had but courted rich, pretty boys - whose vulgarity and vanity had ultimately proved unattractive; their hearts matched not their wealth. Perhaps Jessica's change of heart concerning the once reviled ex-policeman had something to do with her looking at Adam through Kolya's eyes. He acted as a big brother, friend and teacher - without ever patronising the teenager. She couldn't help but note the difference between how Kolya behaved towards Adam and how he had been with Thomas. But maybe Adam was right and that, after all, the German was an outsider - he couldn't truly understand what it was to be Jewish and live in the ghetto, as much as he asked questions and wanted to sympathise with their fate.

  Slowly but surely Adam displaced Thomas in the woman's thoughts.

  Whilst Duritz and Jessica sat talking that early evening about what had happened in the factory that day Kolya was making his way home. Desperate to regain that warm feeling - and also the cheer in the household when he had obtained the bottle of vodka last time - Kolya had spent the last couple of hours searching those apartments that had just been evacuated for another find. The elixir gifted a high - and blissful forgetfulness. Kolya knew full well how hopeful he was being but the reward would be worth it. He predicted that such a task would bring some spoils regardless, which it did: a crust of stale bread which would be fine dipped in soup; a pair of scissors; a couple of worn cardigans and a bag which he put them all into.

  Such was the birdless, pigeon-grey firmament and epidemic of rain that the city suffered from one couldn't tell nowadays what time it was but dusk was currently drawing itself across the sky. Another cold shower. Each drop pelted onto Kolya's head like a pellet of ice. Because of the dull light and dirty rain Kolya and Yitzhak Meisel were slow to recognise each other. Thankfully Kolya saw the policeman first yet such was the boy's reaction of stopping dead still and making a face of being all but petrified the "vulture" (as some of the inhabitants of the ghetto called Meisel) spied his quarry. An ugly grin broke out upon Meisel's wet face as he fastened his gaze upon his prey twenty yards away. He even lifted his eyebrows in playful acknowledgement and delight at spotting the boy. The policeman clenched his cudgel tightly, ready for use.

  Kolya ran. The satisfied smile fell from the corrupt constable's face. He grunted and screwed up his features - cruelty unmasked. He was disgruntled, in that Yitzhak would now have to give chase having failed to paralyse the boy in fear with his glare. In his hastiness Kolya slipped a little on the grimy cobble stoned street in his first couple of steps but Meisel was soon taken back by how quickly the boy sped off. Before he even got off the pavement and onto the street the policeman was delayed slightly by someone getting in his way. He shoved the ageing Jew aside, not even looking to see where he fell. Kolya had thought about this moment before - and even discussed it with Adam. Frantic, Kolya tried to rein in his thoughts. He glanced back to see that he had a greater head start to what he could've expected. As Adam had instructed he tried to regulate his breathing so as to fill his lungs and heart with oxygen. Kolya decided that he did not have that great a gap to pace himself and let his pursuer tire out. He needed to sprint to safety. Meisel, his strides long and determined, soon gained ground though. The policeman shouted out to the flotsam and jetsam of people ahead of him to stop the thief, offering a reward to do so. But no one believed the hoarse-voiced villain. They either ignored the policeman out of a small act of resistance or because they didn't have the energy to help. Kolya could hear from the increasing audibility of the shouts emanating from Meisel that the policeman was getting menacingly close. The boy's breathing soon turned to panting, he even whimpered a couple of times; a lump fed its way up from his stomach and into his throat.

  Another five seconds and Kolya would've been caught. He was even tempted to give up - a certain defeatism arguing that the policeman might then go easy on him. But thankfully another voice inside of the boy overruled such follyful thoughts. Meisel closed in on the boy to the point of readying his arm to thrust out and grab his collar. But Kolya suddenly threw the cloth bag carrying the cardigans at his feet. Kolya could have attempted the same throw a dozen times and he would not have been as fortunate. Sometimes David fells Goliath. The mouth of the bag munched itself into the policeman's feet and the he tripped as if someone had kicked his heels from behind. His hands naturally whipped themselves out in front of his face to protect himself but, as well as scraping his palms and drawing blood, Meisel crucially bashed his kneecap upon an obdurate cobblestone. He grimaced. Cursed. Kolya but sweatingly glanced over his shoulder and then darted around the first corner, still running as if his life depended on it - which it did. Every second that the policeman lay stationary upon the road was precious to the fleeing teenager, but as much as Meisel knew this also he did not re-start his pursuit immediately. Seething, he stood up and bent his knee a few times to assess the extent of his injury. It was after wiping the iced rain from his face with the back of his stinging hands that the policeman noticed the wonky horseshoe of people staring at him. Some were amused. Some looked at him with thinly disguised contempt. Some were curious. In reply to all he sneered and cleared his nose, making a grunting noise. He limped off after the boy (who he now cursed under his breath and vowed to damage even more), determination feeding his pace and subduing the pain.

  Kolya's narrow escape caused him to quicken his pace rather than lessen it as he raced down a long alley between two great tenement blocks. When reaching the end of the side street he allowed himself to stop and look back. He bent-over, gasping for breath - wheezing as he did so. For a few euphoric moments Kolya was seduced into believing that the policeman had abandoned his pursuit. But in that split-second when he had begun to truly hope, his hopes were dashed. Although but a distant figure, the figure was inescapably Yitzhak Meisel. As physically beaten as Kolya was he still possessed his wits. Deciding that he would not be able to out-run the policeman - and conscious of the fact that he could at any moment come across another constable - Kolya scanned the street for a possible hiding-place.

  Yitzhak Meisel's breathing became laboured by the time he reached the end of the alley where he had last glimpsed the rodent of a boy. Again he wiped the rain from his maniacal face. Initially he studied the street to his left, for it was on that side that he had last seen Kolya run down at the other end
of the alley. A half a dozen figures trundled up that way but none of them resembled the boy. Surely he couldn't have been fast enough to make it to the end of the street? If he decided to dart into one of the apartment buildings then it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Yet still Meisel glanced at the first few doorways on either side of the street to check if any were open. There were no drains he could've dived into he surmised. The sound of the policeman's gurgling breathing increased with his frustration. He spat out both spittle and a curse. Thinking that he could've missed the boy crossing to the other side of the alley way without him having noticed Yitzhak surveyed the rainy view to his right. It was much the same as the one to the left. Again he told himself, with slightly less conviction this time, that surely the boy couldn't have made it to the end of the street. There were another couple of alleys, albeit leading to dead-ends, that he might've darted into. He walked towards them both, regaining his breath but not his composure. Yet his investigations proved in vain. Just at the moment when the policeman started to think how potential eye-witnesses were notable by their absence he realised why. Half-way down the street he noticed a fifteen foot high pyramid of bodies stacked up upon each other. What caught his eye simultaneously was the trio of handcarts, each covered with a dust-coloured sheet of tarpaulin, parked in a line behind the pile of corpses.

  Thankfully, by now, Kolya had ceased drinking in the air to satisfy his heart and lungs. His breathing was regular, albeit he was conscious of breathing in the fetid air through his mouth. He even pinched his nose between his fingers for fear that the nauseous smell could provoke him into vomiting. Crouching into a ball Kolya also closed his eyes in some form of a prayer that the policeman would walk past. He could not see where Meisel was - but the terrified boy felt he was close.