by Liz Tolsma
“Nie. I can’t.”
Her refrain these days. Natia grabbed Rachel under her armpits and dragged her into the cheery blue kitchen.
The glow of the light inside highlighted the condition of the two. Red bite marks covered Rachel’s arms and legs. Natia opened the top two buttons of her dirty blouse. A red rash covered her chest. Her collarbone jutted out under paper-thin skin. The baby wailed.
“My child. Please. Give me him. All I have left.”
Natia picked up Solomon and brought him to his mother. Rachel smoothed back her baby’s dark, curly hair and kissed his olive, dirt-streaked cheek. “My little one. Moja miłość. My love.”
Natia’s chest constricted so she had a difficult time drawing a breath. How many times had she crooned those words to her children? Always at the point when they were about to be separated forever.
Elfriede sat hard on the chair at the table. A sparkle of a tear tracked down her face.
Natia knelt beside Rachel. “Where are you from? Are there relatives to watch over the child?”
“None of that matters.” Her breath rattled in her chest. “Take care of my son, my Solomon. Please help him. You can save him.”
Natia bit her tongue to keep from speaking the child’s Jewish name. Wherever they came from, whatever happened to them, they were Jewish. No wonder there were no other family members. She glanced at Elfriede. She didn’t flinch, didn’t show any emotion. Good. Maybe she didn’t hear or maybe she didn’t know.
“Promise me.”
“What? Promise you what?”
“You take care of him.”
“You’ll recover and take care of him yourself.”
“Nie, I won’t. He needs a home. Please.”
Natia wasn’t the one to give it. She didn’t have one of her own. Not one she was in control of. How could she take care of a Jewish child when she was a prisoner? What about the risk if Pan Fromm discovered Solomon’s race? She would join Teodor in the camp. Or worse. Her ears rang.
The baby whimpered and stroked his mother’s sunken cheek. The woman kissed her child’s forehead and whispered something into his ear Natia didn’t understand. Yiddish, perhaps.
All her love in those few gestures.
“I love you, my little one.” With one more raspy intake of air, Rachel stilled and then went limp.
“She’s dead. She’s dead.” Elfriede screeched. She jumped up and strode a tight circle. She said some other things Natia didn’t understand.
What should they do? They couldn’t have her lying in the middle of the floor when Pan Fromm returned. They had to get rid of the body. How? Where?
Natia scanned the room. A sheet. That was the first thing they needed. She pulled a clean one from the hall closet.
“Nie. Not that.” Elfriede tugged the linen away from Natia, but she held fast.
“Tak. We use this.” She yanked it free of Elfriede’s grip, picked up Solomon, laid the sheet over the woman’s lifeless body, and tucked the ends underneath her.
Now what? If only Teodor were here. He would know what to do. She needed his direction right now. Nie, she needed God’s direction.
Please, Lord, help us.
An idea struck her. “Doctor?”
Elfriede gave her a frightened-child look, eyes wide, mouth open.
“Doctor. Where is the doctor?” Natia clasped her hands together to keep from striking Elfriede.
She pointed to the right. “Green house. Big. Flowers. Two minutes.”
The infant wailed again, no doubt hungry, wet, and afraid. Natia held him out to Elfriede who shook her head.
Natia choked back a scream. Pan Fromm could return any time. She had no choice. She bounced the child. His damp curls clung to his forehead. Natia crooned a children’s lullaby. “Go to sleep, my little doll. Time for you to go to bed. I’ll be rocking you, and you’ll close your eyes.”
The little boy blinked three times and drifted to sleep.
Natia didn’t waste a moment but dashed out the door and raced down the street to the doctor’s home.
Pawel and Antonina sat at the small, round table in their kitchen’s alcove, the green-tiled stove bringing welcome warmth. Tonight, she had cooked him sausage, pickled beets, and sauerkraut. Though meat was scarce, she’d managed to come up with some and even a few herbs and spices to make his favorite meal.
No sooner had he taken his first bite when a knock came at the door, a rapid pounding. Even more than four years after the SS had carted away Józef, his heart stopped beating for a moment whenever anyone banged like that. The shouts of Nazi voices from that night still rang in his head.
He could never silence them.
He dug his fingernails into the soft wood of the chair’s seat. Antonina stood, but he motioned her to sit. “I’ll see who it is. By the sound of it, I’ll need my medical bag.” And hopefully nothing more. He kissed her on his way by.
He opened the door to a young woman clutching a sleeping child. She panted.
“Come in. How can I help you?”
She stumbled over the threshold. “I’m Natia Palinska. I—I work for the Fromms. You know them?”
He could guess her story. She wasn’t in their employ in the usual manner. “Tak, I do.”
“A woman . . . She came with this baby . . . And then . . . And I don’t know what to do.”
“Please, come sit and have a cup of tea.”
“There isn’t time. The dead woman is in the middle of the kitchen.”
He stepped backward. “She died? The child’s mother?”
“Tak. And I suspect typhus.”
“Where did she come from?”
“I have no idea. I stepped outside to feed the cat, and there she was. We brought her in, but she didn’t live long. She made me promise to care for her child.”
He finger-combed his few remaining strands of hair and sighed. No telling where she’d picked up the disease. Or if she brought along the fleas that carried it. If he wasn’t careful, he could be looking at an epidemic. “There isn’t much I can do. Scrub the child to kill any vermin he might be carrying. And dispose of the body.”
“We can’t let Pan Fromm find her. Or the child.”
“Why not?” A pain started behind his left eye.
“You can see the child is starving. So was the mother. Her name was Rachel, and the child’s is Solomon.”
“Jewish.” He whispered the word.
“Tak. I met them twice before and gave them a little food.”
He made a circuit of the room. He’d helped some Jews, but never anyone living under a German’s nose. “I suppose you want to keep him?”
“I made a vow I intend to fulfill.”
“How will you prevent Pan Fromm or his wife from discovering his racial heritage?” One look at the circumcised child during a diaper change or a bath, and there would be no hiding his secret.
“Come. Help us with the body. While we work, I’ll tell you the idea buzzing in my head.” She shifted the child on her shoulder.
“I can bring her here and arrange for her burial. Does she have papers?”
“I didn’t look. My guess would be she doesn’t.”
He grabbed his gray felt fedora and his black wool coat from the hook by the door. He turned to his wife. “I have to go out. I’ll be back soon.” He’d done some crazy things during the war, took some risks to help people, but this might be the craziest. He hadn’t been able to help his Józef, but he gave assistance to those he could, in honor of his son, who had been a promising lawyer, and those intelligentsia who weren’t spared. To make him proud of his father.
His wife stopped him on his way out. “Take care.” Her usual admonition. Tonight, it took on special significance.
He followed Natia through the darkened streets to the Fromm residence on the edge of town. Before the war, it belonged to the local school’s headmaster. He disappeared in the early days of the occupation, along with both the village’s priests.
He shuddered as he entered the home. Elfriede reclined on the couch with her feet curled underneath her, whimpering. Above her, a Bavarian cuckoo clock ticked. Pictures of her and Pan Fromm sat on the end table and on the piano in the corner.
He and Pani Palinska moved to the kitchen. In the center of the room was the body covered with a sheet.
A chill raced through him when he examined the dead woman. Her ribs and pelvic bones protruded. An angry, red rash covered her neck, chest, and upper back. Bug bites spotted her extremities. Typhus. No doubt about it.
“I’ll take care of her.”
“You can’t tell anyone. You have to keep it quiet.”
“I know a man with the utmost discretion. But what about the child?”
She pulled him deeper into the kitchen, beyond the small table and near the door. “Frau Fromm has been distraught since the woman arrived. I’m not sure she caught the child’s name, and I don’t want her to start piecing together the puzzle. You fill out birth certificates. Can’t you falsify one? Give him a nice Gentile name? Maybe even a more German-sounding one?”
“That’s illegal.”
“Everything right these days is illegal. To do good, we are forced to break the law. I know it’s a risk, but I’m begging you to help. It’s the only way to save the child’s life. If Pan Fromm finds out his ethnicity . . .”
He patted her work-roughened hand. It wouldn’t be just the child’s life. Pani Palinska’s was also at stake.
“I lost three children of my own.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. “The last one just days before we arrived here. Please, don’t send this child to his death.”
As if he could. This woman understood what it was like to bury her own flesh and blood. He rubbed the back of his neck, the pain behind his eye intensifying. “If your employer discovers what we’ve done, it will bring dire consequences for us both.”
“There is nothing more precious than a child. Every little one born into this world deserves a chance at life. Give this one his chance.” Pani Palinska’s voice was thick and husky.
How could he say no to this woman? How could he turn his back on a human being created in God’s image? When he took the Hippocratic Oath, he swore to protect all who came to him.
He steeled his midsection. “I’ll do it. What name do you want for him?”
When the older doctor asked her to name the child, Natia released a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. He was going to help them.
What to call him? She and Teodor had a long list of boy’s names they liked. And they’d used two of them so far. Two boys for Teodor to go fishing with, to play chess with, to work on the farm with.
But this one? He needed a special name. A meaningful one. One Teodor would like. “Dominik. ‘Belongs to the Lord.’”
The older man gave three small nods and touched the baby’s head. “Tak, that’s very beautiful. He belongs to no one else. And for a last name?”
“Palinski.”
“Nie. You can’t use yours. That would tip off Pan Fromm in an instant. You couldn’t explain the sudden arrival of the child.”
“But I want him to be mine.”
“Natia, I need you.” Elfriede wandered in from the living room. “You talk. Why?” She looked from Natia to the doctor and back again.
“What do you need?”
“Dinner. When?”
“Soon.” Natia balanced the baby on her hip and moved the pork and cabbage to the warm part of the stove. She focused on the doctor and spoke fast so Elfriede wouldn’t understand. “Give him any name you like but get those papers to me right away.”
“Kedzierski.”
Natia pinched her lips closed to keep from bursting out in laughter. The doctor wanted to name him curly hair? She smoothed back one springy lock from the child’s forehead. It did fit. She nodded.
“I’ll return in a while with the cart to take his mother away. Scrub him well to kill any fleas. I’ll bring delouser when I return.” He made a move to leave.
“Wait. How old is the baby? What do I feed him?”
The doctor bit the inside of his cheek. “Maybe about six months. He’s malnourished, so it’s difficult to tell. Feed him some bread sopped in milk. I’ll return soon.” He placed his fedora on his graying head and shuffled out the door into the chilly night.
Natia turned to Elfriede. “Pan Fromm. What time?”
“Ten or eleven.”
Good. That gave them several hours. Elfriede sat on a white ladder-back chair and held Dominik while Natia put a large pot of water on the stove to warm and finished dinner preparations. Once Elfriede had her meal and the water came to as hot as Natia dared put a child in, she stripped the little one, threw his clothes in the fire, and dunked him in the water. At first he squealed, and not in delight.
But worse than that, the child was circumcised. If Elfriede or Pan Fromm ever saw, they would know right away this one was Jewish.
Natia couldn’t let that happen. Ever. She moved to block Elfriede’s view of the baby. So far, no reaction. She must not have noticed.
Natia poured water over the boy’s head, and he sputtered, coughed, and cried. His mournful wail cut Natia’s heart. For him, she ached. And for herself. If only her own children had cried.
She cleared her throat and sang a silly little song, one Zygmunt and Helena had loved when they were small. “Splash, splash, we’ll take a bath. Shiny clean and smelling sweet. Wrap him in a towel and hug him tight.”
Dominik stopped crying and stared at Natia, his dark eyes large in his thin face.
She scrubbed him with disinfectant soap until his skin reddened. Then she deloused him with the nasty-smelling medicine the doctor brought.
He had taken Dominik’s mother away.
Natia kissed the baby’s head. When Dominik grew up, what would she tell him about the woman who had given him life? She knew nothing about her. Where was she from? Did she have any family? Probably not, but Natia couldn’t be positive.
Elfriede’s fork clinked on the plate. “What’s his name?”
Good, she hadn’t caught the mother’s answer. “Dominik. ‘Belongs to the Lord.’” Her back to Elfriede to block her view of the child’s naked body, Natia lifted the little boy from the water. She wrapped him in a towel and gave him a vigorous rub to keep him warm.
“That’s a good name. I like it. Your babies. You cry?”
Every day. And every night. “Tak.”
“Me too.” The light in Elfriede’s pale-blue eyes dimmed. “My baby is gone.”
With a thump Natia sat in the chair across from Elfriede. “Boy or girl?”
“Boy. Frederich.”
For a moment, they both sat in silence. Across the cultural divide and differences in station, they shared a commonality. Sometimes Natia had believed only she and Teodor understood the pain of losing a child. But it happened every day, all around the world. She wasn’t alone. And she’d found a tie with Elfriede Fromm.
Dominik stirred. Natia pushed back her chair. What to clothe him in?
Elfriede tapped her arm before disappearing into the main bedroom. A room Natia wasn’t allowed to enter. The only one she didn’t have to clean.
A moment later, Elfriede emerged with an armload of clothes.
Baby clothes. Had they been for the child she’d lost? Natia nodded. What a great sacrifice Elfriede made. Natia had never been able to give away the tiny clothes in the dresser at home.
With a shaking hand, Elfriede passed Natia a stack of diapers. “Small.” She motioned to the pristine-white nappies. “Big.” She gestured in Dominik’s direction.
But they might be able to make it work. Natia got out her needle and thread and stitched two diapers together to make a larger one before pinning it on Dominik, careful to be sure Elfriede was out of the room. Some of the clothes were larger, like Elfriede’s baby would be this age at this time of year. Natia slipped a long
nightshirt on the child. Though meant for a younger infant, it fit the skinny little one, and it would keep him warm.
As Natia cleaned the kitchen, Elfriede fed him bits of bread. “He likes.”
In fact, he devoured piece after piece. Natia gripped the dishcloth tight. What if Elfriede decided she wanted to keep Dominik? What could she do about that? Natia had no claim on him. She was little more than a slave. Elfriede could do whatever she pleased.
But if that’s what she decided, it would mean Dominik’s death. Natia couldn’t allow that. No matter what, she would protect this child. She wouldn’t lose him. Not ever.
She picked up her dish towel to dry a plate. The baby giggled. Love flooded her.
Later she tucked Dominik in her bed for the night. How could she not fall in love with a child who slept beside her? She crawled under the covers and rubbed his cheek. “Oh, little one, sleep well. Dream about happy things. I’ll try to do the same.”
She’d just dozed off when Dominik cried, a pitiful mewl. Though she walked the floor with him, he didn’t settle down. “Are you hungry again?” She went to the kitchen and pulled out the loaf of bread.
The front door clicked open and then shut. Heavy footsteps approached.
Pan Fromm.
“What is a child doing in my house?”
Teodor sat sweating over the drill press despite the chilly temperatures in the unheated factory. So far, their sabotage scheme had worked to perfection. The holes they drilled were off enough so the supervisors didn’t catch on. To the naked eye, you couldn’t tell anything was wrong.
And it sped up production not to have to be quite so precise with the template location or drilling. Even Fromm hadn’t bothered Teodor for a few weeks.
And that suited him just fine.
Plunk. He dropped another piece into the box beside his work station and picked up the next hunk of metal. He leaned over to Jerzy as he pulled on the lever to lower the drill. “It’s time.”
Jerzy furrowed his brow. “For what?”
“To let the rest of the men in on our scheme.”
Jerzy glanced around the room.