The Girl in the Green Sweater

by Chiger, Krystyna

  On most days, then, our routine went like this: we awoke from our sleeping boards in the morning and rearranged the planks to make our improvised benches. We did this hurriedly, as if we had someplace else to be. We were determined to be civilized, to lead a productive existence in our underground home. Jacob Berestycki, our lone observant Jew, used this time to say his morning prayers. Somehow, he had his tefillin in the sewer. His tallith, too. I had never seen these items before, and I did not know their purpose or their meaning. I had been to synagogue only a few times before the Russian occupation, and I was so young that it never registered to me what the men were wearing. I imagine Berestycki carried the phylacteries with him as we fled the ghetto on the night of the final liquidation. Every day he wrapped his arm with the leather straps and placed the box against his forehead and began to chant. This was very meaningful to him, and it was meaningful to us as well, for this was the reason we were here, after all, because we were Jewish. He prayed throughout the day, and from time to time one or more of the other adults would join him. I remember the Palace as such a spacious area, but in truth it was a small room, so we offered Berestycki the respect and solemnity he required to complete his prayers, and this was how we participated. This was how we were Jewish.

  We sat quietly in small groups as Berestycki said his prayers, and then we took our turns washing in the basin that we had positioned at the far corner of our chamber for just this purpose. Socha and Wroblewski would occasionally bring us small buckets of rainwater that we could use for washing. Sometimes we collected the runoff water from the street above, and once we determined that it had not mixed with the wastewater, we used this water as well. The rainwater was not suitable for drinking or cooking, but it was okay for washing. From time to time, if there was enough water, we would brush our teeth, using our fingers and some salt. Once each week, usually before supper, we would take a proper sponge bath using water that had been warmed on our Primus stove, and I remember feeling so refreshed and revived after I was clean. This was when I would change into the fresh underclothes that Socha’s wife, Wanda, would boil and clean for us, also once each week, and for a moment I could fool myself into believing I was like every other girl in Lvov, scrubbed clean from a warm bath, wearing fresh clothes. It felt so good! I could close my eyes and pretend I was someplace other than this mud-filled chamber, surrounded by vermin and raw sewage. I could close my eyes and imagine I was in a field of flowers.

  For breakfast, we would have the coffee substitute and sugar and a small piece of bread. After breakfast, we would straighten our compartment and wait for Socha and Wroblewski to arrive. This would become the highlight of our day. The longer our confinement, the more we looked forward to these visits. In the beginning, the sewer workers would not stay more than a few minutes after making their deliveries, but once we were in the Palace, once our living conditions were more tolerable, they began to stay longer and longer. It became more like a visit than a delivery. Initially, our benefactors said they were taking the time to rest before making the return trip through the pipes, but they kept extending these rests until they were an hour and longer. Eventually, these visits would continue for hours, until Socha and Wroblewski would have to leave and we would return to our plain existence.

  Soon they started to bring sandwiches with them, which they ate with us. Always, Socha would share his sandwich with me and Pawel. This was a fine treat. Wroblewski would share his sandwich with Klara and Halina. And as we ate, everyone would talk. It was during these talks that we learned of Socha’s dubious background. It had never occurred to my parents that our safekeeping was in the hands of a reformed thief, but they came to admire Socha all the more for the way he had managed to turn his life around. Even the story about how he robbed our family’s antiques store did not upset my parents, because they saw this as another time, another life, another Socha.

  I can still remember my first taste of pork, which I had never eaten until our imprisonment in the sewer. We were not terribly religious, but at the same time I had never eaten pork, so when Socha offered me and Pawel one-half of his pork sandwich one day, it was at once exotic and forbidden. Pawel and I did not question that we should eat the pork. My parents did not question that we should eat the pork. Even Berestycki did not question it. And so we ate, and it was delicious—so sweet, so juicy. I tried to make it last a long, long time. I was taking a very big bite of bread and a very small bite of the pork, and I continued in this way for a long while, until well after Socha had finished his half of the sandwich.

  Finally, Socha said, “What is wrong, little one? You are not hungry? You are taking such small bites. You do not like the pork?”

  “Oh, I like it,” I said. “And I am so hungry. But I do not want to finish just yet.”

  For dinner, we had only soup, which Weinbergova prepared for us each day. Cooking was her principal duty, and she did it without complaint. We had our one small Primus stove, which Genia used to heat the coffee in the morning and the soup in the afternoon. Socha brought us a full supply of benzene, which we used to boil the water. Every day it was the same soup. Sometimes Genia would mix in potatoes or barley or onions, if the sewer workers had been able to bring us the necessary provisions. Sometimes there was buckwheat and kasha, sometimes beans. Whatever she could use to chase the monotony of our meals, she put into the soup.

  One day we discovered our miserable companion Chaskiel Orenbach eating his soup in a particular way. First he sipped the liquid with his spoon. After this he mashed the beans or onions that Genia had included into a kind of paste, which he then ate separately. In this way, he had made a two-course meal from a simple bowl of soup. Everyone thought this was a good idea, and soon we were all eating our soup in this way.

  It was a difficult assignment, to feed so many people in such primitive conditions, but Genia Weinberg was quite capable. Of all the young women in our party, she was probably the most serious, the most harsh. She was quick to judge and often very critical of my parents for bringing two small children into this place. I do not recall seeing her smile more than once or twice during our entire time together, though this was probably because there were a lot of things weighing on her. There was the daughter she had left behind, the husband who had abandoned her, the baby she now carried in an open secret. We did not talk about this baby. Of course, it is possible that this matter was discussed beyond my hearing, and it is also possible that at seven years old I did not entirely understand the true nature of pregnancy and childbirth, but looking back, I believe it was as if the adults had pushed this truth aside and hoped it would not find us in this place. Weinbergova still wore her heavy black coat—probably to keep warm and to conceal her condition, both. Still, Socha and Wroblewski did not know she was pregnant, and my father and the others worried how to tell them, how they would react.

  Weinbergova’s heavy black coat was not so unusual among our group. All of the adults wore heavy coats. Despite the fact that it was summer, it was frightfully cold in our underground environment. The air temperature was considerably cooler than the summer air aboveground, but the wet stone walls also contributed to the chill, and there was often a heavy wind you could hear through the pipes and feel in your bones. I wore my precious green sweater and huddled for warmth alongside my mother or father or brother, so I did not mind the cold so much. I remember talking to my imaginary friend, Melek, about this one day. I said, “The others, they are so cold. How come you are not so cold?”

  He said, “I am as cold as you.”

  It was a very philosophical response, yes?

  Weinbergova’s closest underground friend was Halina Wind, who went from being a queen beneath the Mari Sniezna church to a princess here in the Palace. She was always brushing her hair. I do not know if she brought her own brush when we disappeared into the sewer or if she asked Socha or Wroblewski to collect one for her, but I have a clear picture in my mind of this young woman sitting and brushing her hair. All the time, brushing. Such a be
autiful girl! Such beautiful hair! And it did not seem to bother her in the least that there were hundreds of tiny lice hiding in her long, flowing hair. She completed her strokes each day on one side, her strokes each day on the other side, as if she had just come from a salon and her hair was fine and clean.

  The lice were a big problem. Every day, sometimes twice a day, my mother would inspect me and Pawel with a special comb Socha had brought for just this purpose. The grown-ups would take turns inspecting each other, although there was not much we could do to thwart these creatures. We could only know that they were there. The lice were so big, and so many, you could actually see them. Even in the dim light of our carbide lantern you could see them. And once we knew they were there, we had to scratch. It was psychological. Just knowing they were there, we had to scratch. I am scratching now as I write this, just thinking about it. But you can get used to anything, and eventually we got used to the lice as well. My mother discovered that the lice liked to hide in the folds of our shirt and coat collars, and when she found them she would brush them off and we would pretend that we were free of lice for the time being, and the next day they would be back.

  Mundek Margulies—Korsarz—had been a barber in Lvov before the war, and he began cutting everyone’s hair once we were established in the Palace. This was one of his special jobs, and he did it with good cheer. It was Socha’s idea to have the Pirate cut everyone’s hair, once he learned of Korsarz’s skills in this area, and Korsarz happily agreed. Everyone thought it would be a good way to lift our spirits and to keep us from looking and feeling like cavemen. We were civilized, after all. Korsarz was the perfect man for this job. He was always cheerful and smiling, a happy, boisterous presence in our dim surroundings. Socha brought him special tools and a small hand mirror for just this purpose. The men had full beards by the time we fl ed our hiding place beneath the Mari Sniezna church, and our hair had grown long. My mother asked Korsarz to cut our hair very short, to help with the lice problem, but the lice still found places to hide. The others also cut their hair very short, the men and the women. At least, my mother and Klara and Babcia had their hair cut short. Weinbergova left her hair long. She wore it in a braid. With all those lice festering inside it, she tied it up each day in a braid. And Halina, she was too vain to cut her hair. She just kept brushing it and brushing it, as if the lice weren’t there.

  Korsarz was the joker of our group. He used to wear a Greek sailor’s cap on his head, turned backward. This was why we called him the Pirate. He was always singing songs, always telling jokes, usually in Yiddish. “Whatever it is,” he used to say, “it is funnier in Yiddish.” Eventually, I learned Yiddish and understood what he meant. He was probably the most easygoing member of our group. He was willing to work hard, he was adventurous, and he was fearless. Once, when Klara Keler expressed a particular sadness over the fate of her sister who had been taken to the Janowska camp, Korsarz offered to go outside to find her. They had developed a bit of a romance, Klara and Korsarz. Even so, this was an astonishing gesture. It was courageous, and probably also foolish, but this was what Korsarz wanted to do for Klara. He told Socha about it, of course. Socha and Wroblewski even helped him make a safe exit from the sewer, and somehow Korsarz made it to the Janowska camp and managed to walk the grounds without being detected. For two or three days, he was gone from our group. We worried he had been captured. But then he returned with the news that Klara’s sister was alive and well in the camp and that he had informed her that Klara was also alive and well in the sewer. This was a great comfort to Klara.

  In addition to the news about Klara’s sister, Korsarz brought back a song he had learned at the Janowska camp from one of the prisoners. He was anxious to teach it to our group, and we were happy for the distraction. It was a silly song about a merchant from Shanghai, selling porcelain cups and porcelain chamber pots. I can still remember the words to this song:

  Jestem Chinczyk Formanjuki,

  Kita Jajec, skosne oki,

  Porcelane do sprzedania mam.

  Filizanki fajansowe,

  I nocniki kolorowe,

  To ja wszystko tobie mila dam.

  For years afterward, whenever we would meet, Korsarz and I would sing this song. It became our special form of greeting—a happy reminder of a tearful time.

  My father came to regard Korsarz as the most helpful, most resourceful, most reliable member of our group, and he probably viewed Halina Wind as the opposite. Halina did not work. She was not helpful. She went from being a difficult character who stole the biggest pieces of our daily bread for herself and her friends to a more benign character who still did not contribute to our welfare. She did not play with me and Pawel, as Klara and Korsarz did. She did not help with the heavy lifting and the retrieval of freshwater, like the men. But she was a good person, and my family came to like her. She began to care for us, we could see, once Weiss and the others left. And she proved to be my father’s favorite intellectual companion, because she was the only other educated member of our party. Chaskiel Orenbach was educated, but he was not schooled in general knowledge, so to keep their minds sharp, my father and Halina engaged in a constant game of Intelligentsia, a word game that was a cross between Boggle and Scrabble. My mother sometimes played as well, but my father and Halina were the main combatants. Someone would suggest a long word—for example, “Constantinople”—and from this word you had to create as many smaller words as possible, using only these letters. When our daily chores were complete, when we were sitting on our benches, our knees touching, there would be a good-natured back-and-forth between my father and Halina, arguing over the results of this game, or over some development in the war, or over the merits of some work of literature they had each read.

  Klara Keler was very different from the other two young women. She was not as classically beautiful as Halina or Genia, but I liked her much better. To me, she was prettier, because she was nicer. She took the time to play with me and Pawel. She was warm and genuine, and she made an effort to be helpful. Sometimes she took it upon herself to empty our chamber pot. This was usually a job for the men, but Klara did not mind. We had one pot for all of us. Socha brought it to us. It was big, like a cistern, with a handle so you could carry it, and we would leave it in the dark corner of the Palace, where we could use the shadows for privacy. And every day, one of the men or sometimes Klara would have to carry this chamber pot and empty it into the Peltew.

  I liked Klara a great deal. She was like a big sister to me. She was devoted to my mother and therefore to the rest of my family. She was always hugging me and Pawel, always telling us stories. Stories about birds, stories about children, stories about flowers. My mother was our favorite storyteller, but Klara did a fine job of it as well. Some of Klara’s stories were about the children we could hear playing in the small park by the Bernardynski church above the Palace. Some of her stories were about Baba Yaga, the witch I remembered from my time in the countryside. Some of her stories she pretended to take from the newspaper. She would open the paper and pretend to read a fantastic tale of a little girl who rescued her entire village.

  I did not recognize the romance between Klara and Korsarz, but I could see that they were close. Certainly, for Korsarz to put himself at risk like that, to leave the sewer for an inspection of the Janowska camp only to bring back news of Klara’s sister, was an indication of deep affection. Deep affection, courage, and foolishness, all mixed together. But this kind of affection was not limited to Klara and Korsarz. Over time, there was such a strong bond among our entire group that probably any one of us would have made such a sacrifice for any one of the others.

  I should say, most any one of us would have made such a sacrifice, because probably there was one exception. Chaskiel Orenbach remained disinclined to such affection, such selflessness. He was the most difficult puzzle. He was still disagreeable, even without his brother and Weiss and Shmiel Weinberg for support. He was against every plan, every objective, every initiative. Do n
ot misunderstand: Chaskiel did his part, he contributed, but he never did anything willingly. Even when there was nothing to argue about, he argued. Even the way he ate his soup was like an argument—first the liquid, then the beans and onions, not all together like everyone else. We all tried it this way and liked it, but with Chaskiel it was like an argument between the broth and the vegetables. Maybe he was not always this way. Maybe it was the Germans who had given him this sour disposition. Maybe it was the war and what his family was made to suffer. Or maybe there had been some particular hardship or setback that we did not know anything about. Who can say how such circumstances can change a man?

  It was always interesting to me that Chaskiel stayed behind with our group while his brother and his cronies sought a better fate aboveground. Even at seven years old, I was intrigued by this. Was it that Chaskiel wanted to disengage from those others? Or did he simply believe that his chances for survival were better here in the sewer than they were on the outside? I never had the nerve to ask him. He was not the sort of man who appeared open to such questions, especially from a child. And so, instead, I wondered.

  In his unpublished memoir, my father wrote that our group was such an intriguing collection of personalities, from Socha and the other sewer workers all the way down to little Pawel. We came together as in a menagerie, he said. In another life, at another time, we might never have associated with one another, but here we had been thrown together by fate and circumstance and the simple fact that we were all Jewish, all desperate to survive. And in this way we became a family.