The Girl in the Green Sweater

by Chiger, Krystyna

  Nobody could say whether it had been a strategy on the part of the Germans, to lull the Soviets into victory on the streets of Tarnopol and at the same time coax the Jews out of hiding. Or maybe the Germans had been truly defeated and then gathered their resources and resumed the fight. However it happened, whatever it meant, the way the Germans recaptured the city left us wary of any future positive reports. It was a difficult paradox: we could not trust the Russians to win this fight, and yet without a Russian victory we were doomed to an eternity in this underground place.

  And then a strange thing happened. Jacob Berestycki arose early one morning and asked who among our group celebrated a birthday in July. It was an odd question, as if from nowhere. In addition to his religious beliefs, Berestycki believed in the power of dreams to help see into the future. However, he was also a pragmatist. He was all these things taken together, and on this night he experienced a dream that he felt would tell our fate. In his dream, he saw a vision of an elderly rabbi with a long white beard. The rabbi said, “In July, you will all be free.”

  We discussed this dream, over and over. We pressed Berestycki to share the details: who else was in the dream, what were they doing? We could not agree what it might mean, if it meant anything at all. Berestycki took it on its face, that we would be free in July. My father took it as an omen, that our liberation was indeed coming. Chaskiel Orenbach dismissed it as nonsense. Someone suggested that it was a dream of wish fulfillment, an indication only that Berestycki was hoping to be rescued sometime soon. Even Tola, our headstrong prisoner, had an opinion. Already he thought we were foolish, to live like animals in our underground chamber. Now he thought we were foolish on top of foolish, to give such careful thought to something as inconsequential as a dream.

  I did not venture an opinion, but I liked that an elderly rabbi with a long white beard had something to say about our future. It did not matter that it was an elderly rabbi in Berestycki’s imagination only. It was a rabbi, after all, and Berestycki was a grown man, after all. I liked that between the two of them someone had taken the time to consider our circumstance. It made me not feel so all alone.

  Still, we could not understand what had prompted Berestycki to inquire about our birthdays, because there was nothing in his dream to require this information. Berestycki himself could not say, only that it was the first thing on his mind when he awoke.

  We planned to ask Socha what he thought the dream might mean when he arrived later that morning with our daily delivery, but the hours passed with no sign of our sewer workers. The next day, there was no sign of them again. Of course, this became the new topic of our group discussion, what had happened to Socha and Wroblewski. It was more important than Berestycki’s dream, because it was not like Socha and Wroblewski to stay away from our chamber for two days in a row. Only once or twice in the year we had been in the sewer had Socha not come to us for such a long time. Something must have happened, we all agreed. Perhaps the Germans had announced a curfew to keep civilians off the streets and there had been no way for our sewer workers to pass undetected into the sewer. Perhaps they had been detained for some reason or other. There were any number of explanations for their absence, and none of them were good.

  Another day passed without a visit from Socha and Wroblewski, and our mood darkened considerably. For a few days more, there would be enough to eat. And yet we despaired. As we sat in the evening, my father did not even bother to take out his map and solicit opinions about the war, because there was no new information to add to the last discussion and also because no one could offer a positive report. There was nothing to do but wait and wonder.

  When the adults were quiet, I pressed my imaginary friend, Melek, for an explanation. “What do you think, Melek?” I said. “They have been killed?”

  “It will be okay,” he said. “They are coming.”

  For a fourth day, the sewer workers did not come, and our thoughts turned to the worst. Had our friends been captured at long last? At the very end of the German occupation? After everything we had been through? There was no other explanation for their continued absence from our chamber. We would have mourned for them, except that to do so would have meant to accept their sorry fate; so instead we prayed. Here again I encouraged Berestycki to do the job for us, because I believed he was closest to God. I said, “Pray, Jacob, pray.” There was the same urgency in my voice as there had been on the day of the great flood, such was my concern for my beloved Socha.

  The following morning, July 23, Stefek Wroblewski appeared through our tunnel, as if by some final miracle. It was my mother’s birthday, whether by a great coincidence or a divine hand that had somehow grabbed Berestycki’s dream. We were overjoyed to see our friend, who told us of the fighting in the streets of Lvov. He had been anxious to escape the bombing, and so he sought refuge in the one place he knew the fighting would not find him, the sewer. Our sewer. It was like a second home to him, he said. He knew he would be safe with us, he said. And so he came.

  Wroblewski had not been in contact with Socha, but he assured us that our friend was safe. Then he offered his account of the fighting. My father and the others tried to place this new information alongside what they already knew and made their own assumptions about the progress of the Russians and the retreat of the Germans. Later that day, with Stefek still in our company, Korsarz separated from our group in an effort to gather more information. He crawled through the pipes to an area of the sewer that would allow him to see and hear for himself the activity in the streets, and in this way he listened to a group of Russian soldiers assessing their circumstance. He pushed aside a manhole cover so he could see and hear clearly. He concluded that the Russians had indeed captured the city and returned to our group to report this happy discovery.

  This was indeed good news, but we were cautious in our rejoicing. We knew what had happened in Tarnopol. Wroblewski, too, was wary of the situation. He decided to return to the streets, to hopefully locate Socha and Kowalow and see about our rescue, but he told us to remain in the Palace until he returned. We did not wish to be so reckless that our premature celebration would lead to our execution, so we agreed to wait.

  Tola did not see the point of remaining in the sewer when it was clear to him that the Russians controlled the streets. He became enraged. The men were exhausted from keeping our prisoner silent and still. He kept shouting, “Let us go already! Enough!”

  For another few days, there was no sign of our sewer workers. This meant that it had been nearly a week since we had seen Socha, and this was by far the longest stretch of time we had been without his company since we began our confinement. We were filled with worry, but at the same time we were filled with elation, that our liberation would be soon at hand. The two emotions were knitted as one. It was like a birthday gift to my mother, my father remarked, to receive such news on July 23. Now we had only to wait, to unwrap this present when our sewer workers told us it was safe to do so.

  And so we waited. There had been no bread or other food deliveries for several days. We were getting by on our stores of coffee substitute and sugar, and these too were getting low. We could not remain in this place, in such a state of agitation, for such an indeterminate period; soon our patience would run out along with our resources. We were too excited to think about food, but in time, of course, we would need to eat.

  At this point, we could hear the Russian voices overhead. Where there had once been the playful shouts and cries of children in the square by the church, there were now the stern commands of Russian officers. More and more, we became comfortable with the notion that the Russians were now in charge. More and more, we thought of venturing out into the city on our own, without the guidance of our sewer workers.

  Still, we would wait for Socha and Wroblewski until we could not. We tried to keep to our routines. We woke each morning and established our sitting area. We washed. We watched as Berestycki said his morning prayers. We drank our few sips of coffee. The men took their turn
s guarding Tola, in the same four-hour shifts that had been established on the night of his arrival. Finally, in the early morning hours of July 27, my father took his turn with Tola while the rest of us tried to sleep. When my father completed his shift, he handed his gun to Korsarz. My father was tired and looking forward to a few hours of sleep before the rest of the day got under way. As he slept, we received the summons for which we had been waiting, praying, dreaming, hoping. . . .

  Until the end of his long life, my father would say that this was his greatest regret, to have slept through the announcement that the tyranny against us had been lifted and that we were free to rejoin the world that had forsaken us so very long ago. For months and months, he had imagined this, and when it was at last upon us, he was fast asleep.

  It was Socha who came for us, only he did not come to us through the usual opening. In fact, he did not come into our chamber at all. He came hollering through the sewer grate above our chamber. “Chiger! Chiger!” Socha shouted. “You are going out! The time has come! Your freedom is at hand! Everybody out! You are free!” Chiger! Chiger! Idzcie na gore, wychodzic—jestescie wolni!

  The words were too beautiful to be believed, but of course we believed them. We were not all awake, but the declaration found us through our sleep and we were awakened soon enough. We ran about our underground chamber in a fit of happiness. Korsarz was shaving while he was guarding Tola. My mother was already awake and beginning to prepare for the day. She shook my father to tell him of Socha’s declaration, and he could not believe he had slept through such a moment.

  In the commotion that followed, I cannot say for certain what happened next. Socha told us to leave everything behind and to come quickly, this I remember. He told us where to go. Korsarz led the way. For some reason, we could not exit through the manhole directly over our heads, so we crawled and crawled through the wet pipes. Through the forty-centimeter pipes. Through the seventy-centimeter pipes. The forties, as we called them, were not so difficult as they had been on the way in. We were all so much thinner than we had been a year earlier. Now we had no trouble slipping through these tight spaces.

  Pawel and I crawled just behind Korsarz. My mother was at our heels. Behind us came Weinbergova, Klara, and Halina, followed by Tola, Berestycki, Orenbach, and finally my father. Never before had a group of eleven individuals crawled so quickly through these narrow pipes. It was not such a long way. Before we knew it, we had climbed a small ladder and had arrived at the manhole opening Socha had described.

  We did not know it just yet, but we had reached a small courtyard behind a cluster of apartment buildings, where a large crowd had gathered. Korsarz climbed through first, and then we followed in order. When it was my turn, Socha reached a hand to lift me from the manhole opening, and with this hand he hoisted me toward him in a great hug. He twirled me about inside this hug, and I was dizzy with emotion. I had to close my eyes to the brightness of the day, and this of course combined with the twirling and contributed to my dizziness. I could hear clapping and shouts of congratulations, but I could not open my eyes. When I tried to do so, everything was colored in orange and red. It was like looking through a photographic negative. I could make out only vague shapes, so I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of our new freedom and imagined what it might look like.

  Next, Socha set me down and reached for Pawel, whom he also collected in a great hug. This I was told, because still I could not see. Little Pawel, he was so scared by all of the excitement and all of the people. He screamed in terror, and Socha held him close and covered him with hugs and kisses. When my mother climbed through next, Pawel raced to her and began tugging on her coat. He shouted, “I want to go back! I want to go back!” Ja chce isc z powrotem! He had been so long in the sewer that it had become his entire world. He did not understand all of this noise and commotion. He could not comprehend all of these people, or the open space of the courtyard, or the bright sunshine that seemed to me to wash everything in shades of red and orange. At one point, he let go of my mother’s coat and attempted to climb back through the manhole opening, until Socha once again lifted him up and tried to comfort him.

  Poor Pawel had been so young when we descended into the sewer. And he was still so young. For him, it was as if he had spent his entire life there. It was the only world he knew. This other world, this aboveground outside world, was strange and terrifying to him. It was a logical thing that he wanted to go back, but Socha was able to calm him down after a short time, after which Pawel did a remarkable thing. He raced to one of the Russian soldiers who had assembled to greet us and threw himself at the soldier’s feet. He began kissing this soldier’s muddy boots, as if in gratitude.

  One by one, the members of our underground family climbed through the manhole opening. Each time, there would be applause and shouts and astonished cries. We must have looked pitiable, our clothes reduced to rags, our faces worn and hollow, our spines bent and nearly broken. But we were alive! We emerged like cavemen, like some band of primal animals, but we were alive! The people, they could not believe it.

  Finally, my father’s head appeared through the opening, and the shouts and cries seemed louder still. My eyes had not yet adjusted to the daylight, but I could tell this excitement was for my father. I heard people calling his name: “Chiger!” He had been well-known throughout the ghetto before the final liquidation, and probably Socha had told of his efforts in organizing our underground escape. Then Socha called out to my father as he stood to his full height for the first time in fourteen months and called him the captain of our shipwreck. The two men embraced, and there was once again applause and congratulations all around. I opened my eyes to this and could see their shadowy figures well enough.

  Tola had been led away from this scene, probably by Wroblewski, so it was now only the ten of us in the open air of this courtyard. The ten of us, and Leopold Socha, our guardian angel. This was our underground family, and we were fairly surrounded by dozens of Russian soldiers and neighborhood residents and local officials and other workers. We stood in the center of a makeshift circle, and Socha lifted his arms and indicated our group. “These are my Jews!” he said proudly. “This is my work.” To sa moi zydzi, i to jest moja praca!

  Slowly, the onlookers who had gathered to witness our resurrection began to disperse, but not before a few of them came to speak to us, to hear firsthand some of the stories that Socha had already shared with them and to share with us some of their own observations. A woman who introduced herself as the superintendent of one of the apartment buildings backing onto this courtyard told us that she had often detected the aroma of soup coming up through the sewer grates, just over where we had been sitting. Another woman remarked that during winter there seemed always to be only the thinnest patch of snow near our manhole, as if it had been melted away by the warmth from our bodies below or from the constant flame of our Primus stove. Everywhere else, the snow was piled thick and full, but here in this one spot it was thin and soft.

  Soon, the other people disappeared into their own lives, and it was Socha and the ten of us once more. In this group, my parents found each other, and then they found us children, and we clung to one another as if the rest of this aboveground world had fallen away.

  One of the main reasons Socha had been so long in coming was that he had been making sure that the Germans had indeed been put down by the Russians and that it would be safe for us to walk the streets once more. Another reason was that he wanted to have everything organized for us once we left the sewer. He knew we no longer had any money. He knew we did not have a place to live or any proper clothes to wear, so he set about organizing our lives aboveground just as he had organized our lives underground. We learned this once the crowd of onlookers dispersed.

  Socha had worked diligently over the previous few days preparing a new home for us. One of the buildings that backed onto this courtyard had been occupied by the Germans during the war, but now that the Russians were in control the building
was empty. Socha had arranged for us to occupy the first floor of this building. He had gathered a full supply of furnishings for us as well. Chairs, tables, beds, and bedding . . . whatever he could think we might need. We had not thought of these things during our time underground because they were secondary to our survival, but Socha was clever enough to think of them on our behalf. Such was the depth of his commitment to us that he would make this extra effort even after our survival had been assured.

  There were four rooms on the first floor of our building. Socha assigned my family to one room. Korsarz and Berestycki occupied the second room; Halina Wind and Klara Keler occupied the third room; and Chaskiel Orenbach and Genia Weinberg occupied the fourth room.

  Almost immediately, some of the onlookers took pity on us and brought us food and other necessities. By the light of day, we must have looked frightening. Pawel and I especially became the objects of great concern. Our cheeks were pale, our arms and legs as thin as reeds. The hollows beneath our eyes were as deep and empty as a corpse’s. Our feet were wrapped in rags and newspapers, since we had no shoes. Even our hair, which we had taken great pains to brush and keep clean, appeared matted and unkempt, like a bird’s nest under siege. To the other adults in our party, who had become accustomed to our appearance, we were only Krysha and Pawelek, the indomitable children of Ignacy and Paulina, but to these strangers we were an unbelievable sight. One kind lady brought us a jar of honey, which Pawel and I devoured like hungry bear cubs. This woman was astounded that two small children could live in such desperate circumstances for such a long period of time and that we appeared before her as a pair of wild waifs. The very least she could do, she said, was to bring this jar of honey.