Karolina's Twins

by Ronald H. Balson

  “I understand,” Catherine said. She looked at her watch and stood. “Lena, it’s getting late. How are you feeling? Do you want to work this evening, or take a break for dinner?”

  “I’m taking a long time, aren’t I? You want to know about the two girls.”

  “No, it’s okay. A few years ago, our mutual friend chastised me for fixating on the ultimate question. We were sitting at the Chop House and—I’ll never forget this—Ben said to Liam, ‘Why does she have to be in such a hurry? How can a person understand something when she’s only interested in getting to the last paragraph?’ I’ve come to appreciate the value of that admonishment. You can take all the time you want.”

  “I am getting a little tired and I don’t want to take up your evening. Do you suppose we could pick this up tomorrow?”

  “Sure. I have a morning court call, but we can start at eleven.”

  FOUR

  “SO, WHAT DO YOU think?” Catherine said to Liam, who pulled the car into the lot of Café Sorrento and handed the keys to the valet.

  “I think I’m starving.”

  “I mean about Lena, smart guy.”

  Liam grinned. “I know what you mean. I think unless she comes up with some hard facts telling us who they are and where they lived, it will be impossible to locate these two girls. If they’re still alive after seventy years.”

  “She must have some basis for believing they’re still alive. She wouldn’t come in and use up her savings to locate her friend’s children unless she had reason to believe we’d find them. There must be something else involved.”

  “Like what?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “First things first,” Liam said as the waitress approached the table. “We’ll both have the eggplant Parmesan and the house salads. Vinaigrette. And water is fine for both of us.”

  “Liam!” Catherine protested. “I hate when you order for me. I’m a grown-up woman.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry.”

  “What would you like, ma’am?” the woman said with a smile, mocking Liam with her raised eyebrows.

  Catherine sighed. “I’ll have the eggplant Parmesan and a house salad.”

  “With vinaigrette dressing?” the waitress said.

  “That’ll be fine.”

  “Water okay?”

  Catherine nodded, and the waitress left to fill the order.

  “Why is Lena doing this, Liam? Why is she so driven to find these girls?”

  “I’m sure she’ll get there if you give her the time. Of course, you could always tell her to cut to the chase.”

  “Very funny, and I’m not trying to rush her. I’m taking copious notes.”

  “Good. You never know what piece of information will be important.”

  “That, and because she deserves it. She’s held this story in for seventy years. She’s a survivor, Liam. Just like Ben. I’m not going to cut her short. Her narrative may never result in finding these people, but the telling may very well be a catharsis for her, and I’m going to give her that.”

  Liam leaned over and kissed her. “That’s my Cat. That’s why I love you.”

  They clinked their water glasses and Liam added, “I can’t join you tomorrow. I have an appointment.”

  Catherine sighed and closed her eyes. “Isn’t that just like Liam. Bring a client to my office with a problem for us to work on and then leave it all to good ol’ Cat.”

  “Just tomorrow, Cat. I’ll catch up with you.”

  FIVE

  “I DECIDED I’D GO to the store first thing in the morning, when the fewest people would be out and about,” Lena said. “I didn’t want someone to stop me and ask me where my mother and father were. You know, ‘We haven’t seen them in the past couple weeks, how are they doing?’ Or, ‘We heard the Germans came for your family. How come they didn’t take you?’

  “Even more frightening to me was the prospect that other Jewish families were rounded up and my presence would be reported to the Germans. Nevertheless, those were the risks I had to take if I was going to stay in my attic. I would go shopping first thing in the morning.

  “The rain woke me up, like little pebbles dropping on my roof. A March chill had caused a fog to settle in and I could barely see across the street. What a lucky break! Rain meant fewer people on the sidewalks and my face would be hidden by an umbrella. I wore a knit hat pulled down around my ears and I yanked up the collar on my raincoat. I didn’t know what to do about my armband. If they had rounded up all the Jews, then my armband was a dead giveaway. If not, if the Jews were still walking on the streets, it was a criminal offense not to wear the armband and I would be arrested. So, I ended up putting it on.

  “Rossbaum’s Grocery was at the corner of the square, just three blocks away, but I knew Mr. Rossbaum well, and I didn’t want him to engage me in conversation. Not that I didn’t trust him, he was a sweet old man, but he might gab to others. ‘I saw the Captain’s daughter this morning. Didn’t they take the Captain? How come they didn’t take Lena?’ Or ‘Where’s your mother, Lena? Haven’t seen her around. If your family’s moved, why are you still here?’ But in the end, it didn’t matter, because Rossbaum’s was closed. The store was dark.

  “Four blocks farther and down the hill was a larger store, Olenski’s, that my mother didn’t like. She would tell me, ‘Olenski’s is overpriced and Mr. Olenski is unfriendly, especially to Jews. Better you should shop at Rossbaum’s.’ So, I’d never been in Olenski’s and he wouldn’t know me, and that’s where I headed.

  “I took out our ration card. I had a coupon for bread, meat and incidentals. Another dilemma. What would Mr. Olenski say? How would he react to the Jewish girl who came into his store? He was behind the counter when I arrived, a tall, crusty man with wisps of white hair. When it was my turn, I handed my card to him and he looked me up and down.

  “‘What do you want?’ he said. I stuttered: some chicken, sausage, beets, bread, marmalade, beans, milk and a carton of eggs.

  “‘Ha!’ he said. ‘Are you kidding me? Do you know about rations? Do you see butter or milk on this card? Do you want me to go to jail?’

  “I was nervous, shaking, turning my head around to see who else was listening. Then he wrinkled his forehead and said, ‘Why aren’t you in school today?’

  “I didn’t want to answer that Jewish children were banned from the public schools. He probably didn’t know. ‘I’m sick,’ I said.

  “‘Sick, and your mother sends you out on a day like this?’ he said, backing up a step.

  “I shrugged. ‘She’s sick too.’

  “He shook his head and looked askance at me. ‘I’m sure,’ he said. ‘Wait here,’ and he walked away from the counter.

  “By now my stomach was in knots. Though I stood perfectly still, internally my body was moving in every direction. I was panicking. I waited a couple of minutes, getting more nervous by the second. Every muscle in my body was screaming for me to bolt out of the store, but he had my ration card and he knew who I was. Everyone in town knew Captain Scheinman. It suddenly became patently clear why my father had told me to go directly to the Tarnowskis. Danger was lurking around every corner.

  “Just as I was about to run out of the store, Mr. Olenski returned. In his left hand he had a grocery bag and in his right, a small, covered pot.

  “‘Here,’ he said, handing me the pot. ‘It’s warm zupa grzybowa—mushroom soup—Mrs. Olenski made it this morning. Go home, get warm and eat the soup.’ He smiled, winked and beckoned me closer. ‘Milk, cheese and butter are off-limits to Jews.’ He smiled and opened the bag for me to see. ‘Fuck the Nazis. I put some in the bag and wrapped them in a white paper. But don’t ask me for those again. Too risky. Give my regards to his honor, the Captain.’

  “I paid him for the groceries, thanked him profusely and started out the door. ‘Bring the pot back,’ he called after me. ‘But not until you’re better.’

  Catherine smiled. “So he wasn’t such a bad guy after all?”r />
  “No, he sure wasn’t, and the soup was delicious. Mushrooms are quite the delicacy in Poland. So, restocked, I was ready to hunker down.”

  “What went through your mind when you saw that Rossbaum’s store was closed?” Catherine said.

  “I already knew the Nazis were either closing Jewish stores or appropriating them. I also knew that other Jewish families were being displaced and relocated, especially in our neighborhood. Families would disappear; new people would inhabit their homes. I’d often see Jewish families wheeling their belongings down the street, just like the old-time pictures I’d seen in school of Jews escaping the Russian pogroms.

  “As bleak as the situation was, I only envisioned internment, roundup, resettlement. What would be the point of ordering Jewish families to pack up their belongings and move if they were just going to be executed? I was sure that all the Jewish families were being grouped in a ghetto. I never suspected Operation Reinhard—the Final Solution, the death camps. What rational person could? An entire industry constructed by the Nazis to commit mass murders on millions of people? No one could conceive of such a demonic objective, certainly not a privileged seventeen-year-old who had been sheltered most of her life.

  “Days would come and days would go, and I was becoming more nocturnal. During the night I would eat in the kitchen, clean my clothes, take a bath—all in the dark. I tried to keep the house clean, dusted and in good order. I knew I couldn’t build a fire in the fireplace or put coal in the furnace. The Nazis would see the smoke in the chimney. For those cold, raw spring days, I would lie under the blankets with my coat on. But I was getting along okay.”

  “Pretty adventurous,” Catherine said. “Weren’t you afraid?”

  “Oh, yes. Mostly afraid of the unknown. We didn’t have a radio anymore, so I didn’t have a clue what was happening in Chrzanów and the rest of the world. But I knew I didn’t want to meet up with those Germans who’d burst into our house. Most of all, I was worried about my family. What had the Germans done with them? Where were they?

  “And I worried for Karolina. I hadn’t seen or heard from her since the Germans came for my family. My house was her safe harbor. Her father was missing, her mother was as good as missing, Madeleine was gone and now her adopted family had vanished. Karolina’s mental state was fragile to begin with, now what would become of her? I decided to go see.”

  “You were going to search for Karolina?” Catherine said.

  Lena nodded. “It was only a few blocks away from the square, across the train tracks and through a field. I could make it at night. After my evening chores, about three A.M., I dressed in a black coat and went out the back door. I saw no one on the sidewalks and no traffic on the streets. By this time, the only cars in Chrzanów belonged to the Germans. The tracks ran through town on a raised berm, elevated from the Chrzanów streets, perhaps as high as fifteen feet. I made my way over the tracks, down the embankment and through the field to Karolina’s.

  “The lights were off in her one-story home. I peered through the kitchen window and walked around the back to Karolina’s bedroom window. It wasn’t completely closed and I slowly lifted it. There was a man in her bed! He was sleeping, but he felt the breeze and turned on his side. I ducked down and then heard him snore. I slowly peeked again, and looked at this heavyset, baldheaded man. Obviously, the Neumans no longer lived on Drogarz Street. I crawled to the side of the house and dashed off through the field.

  “Now I was sure that the Jews were all being collected somewhere, in one area of the town. I knew it was just a matter of time and I would have to leave my house as well. Still, I procrastinated. I felt secure in my attic. So far, so good.

  “I visited Mr. Olenski one more time. I returned his pot and he asked how we were. Then he gave me a few items, including a chocolate bar, and whispered to me that I shouldn’t come in anymore. His store was now ‘verboten’ to Juden.”

  “Well, when you heard that, how did you plan to get food?” Catherine said.

  “I still had some food, so I put off my decision. I went back to my routine. But it all came to an abrupt end two weeks later in early April. I was awakened by the sound of people in my house. It was daylight, that much I could tell from the split in the roof. I heard the voices of a woman and two men. They were quite clearly walking around my house and commenting on what they saw. I couldn’t get all of the conversation, but I could get enough to know that the woman was planning on redecorating the living room as soon as she moved in.

  “The conversations got louder, and I knew they were coming upstairs. I heard the woman say, ‘Someone has to remove all the clothes from these closets. I’m certainly not going through some Jew’s clothes.’ The man laughed and told her not to worry, they’d be disposed of, just like the Jews. They laughed and walked away. ‘And I want all the toilet seats replaced,’ she said.

  “I made plans to leave that night.”

  SIX

  “FAMILIES WHO WERE LEAVING their homes and moving into the ghetto packed as much of their belongings as they could and loaded up a cart. But I was trying to sneak out of town after curfew and make it out to the Tarnowskis. I could only take what I could fit into a duffel—a few changes of clothes, a half dozen pictures of the family, and Milosz’s shoe.”

  “Milosz’s shoe?” Catherine said.

  Lena nodded. “That shoe was important to me. It belonged to Milosz, it was a part of him, it fit on his little foot. If I hugged the shoe, I was hugging Milosz. I was so afraid for him and I missed him so dearly. How was he getting along with only one shoe? I told myself that I’d keep it and return it to him when I caught up with the family. I prayed that we’d all be together soon.

  “Before I left, I walked around my house for the very last time. I had lived in those rooms my entire life. I said good-bye my parents’ room, to Milosz’s room, to the living room, where every piece of furniture held a story. I could see the past—birthdays, holidays, my family sitting on the chairs, guests eating at the dining room table set with Mother’s fine china, men philosophizing on the problems of the world. How I longed for those days.

  “I opened the door to my bedroom and walked around the room, touching all my things—my art, my books, my dolls, my desk, the notes I’d saved from friends. I laid on my bed for the last time, pulled the covers up over my head and bawled like a baby. Finally, I said good-bye to all my things and shut the door on my past.

  “When I reached the front door, I bid farewell to all the memories that inhabited this wonderful house and they said good-bye to me. Dressed in my heavy coat and knit hat, carrying a small duffel, armband in my pocket, I left just after midnight.

  “The Tarnowskis lived in the country on a dairy farm. I didn’t know how far I would have to walk, but I remembered my father giving me the address and telling me to follow Slaska Street. I’d only started up Podwamy when a black Mercedes rolled by with uniformed men in the front seat. I ducked behind a stone gate and waited until it had passed. At the next block, I saw it had stopped and the two Germans were laughing with other soldiers in front of a restaurant. Thank goodness they didn’t see me.

  “I stayed in the shadows until I hit the square. Bright lights from the restaurants, bars and the gas streetlights lit the popular area like it was lunchtime. There were still pedestrians, even though it was now past midnight, but as you’d imagine, the after-curfew foot traffic consisted only of the Germans and their ladies. Occasionally, a passerby would say something to me, but I tried not to make eye contact and marched on.

  “I was rather tall at seventeen and had grown into my woman’s shape. Even in my winter coat, I had a nice figure. Don’t think me immodest, but back then, I was very attractive. Since it was the early morning hours, many of the men on the street were coming out of taverns and most were intoxicated. Now and again, someone would make a pass at me. After all, what was a young woman doing walking the streets in the early morning hours unless she wanted to proposition a man, or had just left a romant
ic tryst? That would be the only acceptable excuse for breaking curfew. I kept my armband in my pocket, put my head down and plowed forward.

  “I was almost at the edge of the square when a young German soldier walked out of a bar and almost knocked me over. ‘Well, hello, sweetie, where are you going?’ he slurred. I shook my head and kept walking. He pulled up alongside of me and continued to make overtures. ‘Wait, what’s the hurry?’ His gray uniform blouse was unbuttoned at the neck and he stumbled as he walked step for step with me.

  “‘Hey, what’s wrong with me?’ he said with a slur. ‘Am I not as handsome as the one you were just with? Look at me. I’m a beautiful German boy of good rural stock and I’m lonesome tonight. Why don’t you have a drink with me?’ I continued to ignore him and tried to walk around him, but then he grew insistent. ‘Hey, don’t walk away from me. I’m a German fuckin’ soldier. It’s after curfew and you’re out and about. I could bring you in, you know.’ He grabbed at my arms and turned me around. He had a big smile on his face and wild drunken eyes. ‘C’mon, give me a little kiss and then I’ll go away.’

  “‘No,’ I said firmly, and tried to pull myself out of his grip. ‘Leave me alone.’ But he was strong. He opened my coat and stuck his hands up my sweater. I pushed him back, and that only made him more determined. He thought the whole thing was funny. He started to kiss me all over my face, and his breath stank of alcohol. It turned my stomach and with that, I gagged, spun around and threw up on the sidewalk. ‘Aach,’ he said with a sickened look on his face. ‘You are disgusting.’ He shivered and quickly walked the other way.”