I smile and agree.
She motions for me to bend over so she can whisper in my ear. I bend down. Her little hands are cold against my cheek and her warm breath covers my ear. “I love you,” she says.
I whisper in her ear, “I love you too.”
The next morning at breakfast we hear a sound. It’s a loud humming noise, like the machines in Papa’s shop. Like the machine he used to cut wood.
An older girl names the sound. “A car.”
Another girl corrects her. “Cars.”
Chapter 20
“Stay seated,” booms Sister Maria. Her arms are raised and it makes her look taller. She holds her head high and her shoulders back as she leaves the dining hall. A few other nuns follow her. The other sisters walk up and down between the tables.
The rumble of the cars grows louder and louder. It sounds so close, as if a car will burst through the wall and right into this room.
We’ve all finished eating now, but we don’t dare rise or make a sound. We hear only Sister Maria at first. “All is in order. There’s nothing of your concern.”
Then other voices reach us. Loud. Strong. Demanding. Speaking German. Soldiers!
Suddenly my hands are icy cold and a chill travels up my arms and through my entire body. I’m much colder than I was last night, spinning in the snow with flakes falling all around. I want to run to a hiding place. That’s what Anna Bauman would do. Anna Karwolska doesn’t need to hide. Anna Karwolska is Catholic, like the other girls here. She’s safe.
The soldiers storm into the room and line up on both sides. Sister Maria is nowhere to be seen. A soldier begins speaking in German. Sister Danielle translates for the girls who don’t understand.
We are lined up in the front of the room by our age. My toes are curled, pushed tight against the ends of my shoes. I shift from foot to foot. The soldier in charge splits us into groups. I’m with girls who are seven and eight in a line near the front of the room. A red-faced soldier sits at the table. He motions us forward one by one.
Sister Maria hurries into the room, her arms full of papers.
Inside my mind, I’m repeating everything Mama and Auntie taught me. I bite my lips to make sure they aren’t moving. My hands are ice cold and shaking. I clasp them together to keep them still. Someone moves behind me and I have a sudden fear that it’s Klara and she will announce to the soldiers that I’m a liar. I turn my head, relieved it isn’t Klara but Sister Maria.
I glance to the older girls and find Klara standing next to Monika. Her hands are clasped too. Her head is bent and her lips are moving as if in prayer. I study the girls in front of me as they speak to the soldier. They nod their heads, move their hands.
I hear Grandma’s voice in my mind. With lies you will go far, but not back again. Before the war, she shared her sayings to remind me to be good. Now I turn each word over in my mind. With lies you will go far—escape, be free. But not back again. It’s true. If I’m caught they probably won’t send me back to the ghetto, back to Mama and Papa. The truth is the safest lie. Maybe before the war, but not now, not for me. The soldiers could shoot me right here in front of everyone. The only way to see my family again is to stay alive, and to do that I must be the best liar in the world.
Most girls only talk to the soldier for a minute or two. But Veronica, a girl who sleeps two cots away from me, is questioned for a long time.
When it’s my turn, I hurry to sit opposite the soldier. The faster I begin, the sooner I will finish.
“Hello, little girl.” The soldier is just pretending to be nice. I can tell because his face doesn’t match his words.
“Hello, sir.”
“Tell me your name.”
“My name is Anna.”
“Your full name.”
“Anna Karwolska.” Just then Sister Maria steps beside the soldier and passes him some papers, my papers. She moves on to the next table.
The soldier asks the usual questions. All of the questions that I have practiced. I’m ready with my answers before he finishes asking the questions.
Then he asks a question that I’ve never practiced. “What type of work does your father do?”
“My father is dead, sir.” I don’t feel sad or afraid telling him that my father is dead. I never knew Anna Karwolska’s father. Maybe it would help if I share a little bit of truth. “He made furniture.” I want to catch the words as soon as they are out of my mouth. I don’t know if making furniture is a job only a Jewish papa would have.
But the solider just nods his head, as if he’s bored. “What type of food did you eat for Christmas dinner?”
“The very best of food.”
“What type?”
“All types. There were sweets and meat and vegetables and . . .”—I swallow, thinking of all the good food—“sweets.”
“What exactly?”
“I’m not sure. I was very young and it was so long ago.” It’s true. Anna Karwolska would have been even younger than I was before the war began.
“Anna. Anna. Anna.” I don’t like the way he says my name. “Have you answered every question truthfully?”
I swallow. “Yes, sir.”
The soldier reaches under the table and a moment later metal clinks against the wooden tabletop. “Do you know what that is?” I do, but I can’t speak. “It’s my gun.” He smiles.
It’s a shiny silver gun with a black handle. There’s a screw connecting the handle. It seems like if I had the right tool and a moment to myself, I could remove that screw and the whole gun would fall to pieces.
“It’s your gun,” I say.
“I will use this gun, Anna. If you’ve told me a lie, I will shoot you and all the other children here. Do you understand?”
The screw is a small silver circle on a black rectangle. “It’s not made properly,” I say, staring at the screw.
“What?”
“The gun. It’s not made properly. There’s a screw showing on the outside.”
“Anna. This is very serious.”
I know it’s serious. I understand that more than any of the other girls in this room. “My papa always said that when furniture is made correctly, no one can see how the pieces are put together. But with your gun—”
He laughs. “Anna, you really are the daughter of a carpenter.”
He takes his gun off the table and for a moment I think it means I’m caught.
But he looks past me and says, “Next.” So I scramble out of my chair and stand with the others who have already been questioned. We stand waiting for them to finish and leave us alone. But when they’ve questioned each girl, they don’t leave. The sisters cook an early lunch and serve it to the soldiers. We watch them eat what would have been our lunch.
They talk and laugh and eat. I can’t stop thinking about the soldier who questioned me and how easily he brought out his gun. Every soldier eating in this room has a gun. When they finish their meal, the one in charge gives his men an order. He says to gather the food. But they have just finished eating their food.
The soldiers go into the kitchen. And I know they will find the pantry. A minute later they march past us, each one with full arms. Some have a sack of grain on their shoulder, some have two. Others carry jars of vegetables or armloads of cabbages. Then they circle back empty-handed for more. We watch silently as they haul away every last bit of our food. There is crashing in the kitchen as if they are smashing everything to bits.
Sometime amid the chaos, Eva has found her way to me. She reaches up for my hand. When the engines start up again, we don’t move. After the sounds of the cars fade, Sister Maria speaks. “Girls, bow your heads. We will pray.”
We do as we are told and Sister Maria recites four prayers. I open my eyes, just a bit, and see her looking at the ceiling. She raises her voice and continues to pray. I don’t know these words. I don’t even understand the language.
All of us are openly looking at Sister Maria now. Her head is tilted up to the heavens. Her
hands are at her chest.
“What is she saying?” Eva whispers to me.
“It’s Latin,” a girl beside me answers. “She’s talking directly to God.”
I can feel her words, even though I don’t understand them. It sounds the same in any language. Sister Maria is begging.
Chapter 21
We wake with rumbling, impatient bellies. The little ones woke up often last night. Outside the windows is a thick blanket of snow. The snow is so white that it makes the world seem brighter. We file down to breakfast as always but the smell of baking bread is missing.
Instead of lining up for food, we simply sit in our usual places and wait.
Sister Maria stands in front of the room. She leads us in prayer. I’m surprised that her voice is so kind. We give thanks for our safety, for our home, for the abundance of the world around us. She offers us a bit of praise by giving thanks that we are helpful and caring for one another. Finally she thanks God for his love and attention. We slowly leave the dining room for morning service, as though the prayer was our breakfast instead of food.
After morning service, Sister Danielle steers me and Monika to the kitchen. The tall table where the vegetables were chopped is destroyed. It is just a stack of broken wood by the door. The basin under the sink is cracked and the water faucet has been ripped away from the pipe.
Sister Maria is discussing how to fix the faucet with another nun. Sister Danielle hands me and Monika each a large bowl. “Fill it up with snow. Clean snow.” Perhaps Sister Danielle chose us because we both have shoes.
It’s cold but there’s not a bit of wind in the courtyard. The snow seeps into my worn shoes; my feet are wet in three steps. I scoop up the clean snow with my bare hands, packing it into the bowl to get as much as possible.
When it’s full, I bring my bowl inside to Sister Danielle, who pours it into a pot. “Hurry, get more,” she says, passing me the empty bowl.
Monika and I scoop snow into our bowls as fast as we can. In time, Sister Danielle has two pots of melting snow. She lights the fire under each pot, giving thanks that our burners weren’t destroyed.
“Keep an eye on that snow as it melts,” she says, and slips out the back door.
Sister Maria is laying out tools by the sink. “It was made by man. It can be repaired by man.”
I watch the snow shrink into the pot as it melts from the bottom. I’m certain we will be drinking melted snow for lunch.
When Sister Danielle returns, she stands between us and hands each of us a potato peeler. “Do you know how to use these?” We nod. “Today, I want you to use it in a different way. Instead of removing the peel and throwing it away, I want you to peel the vegetable into tiny pieces and add it to the boiling water.” Vegetable. She said vegetable. We have food.
She hands us each a carrot. My carrot is thin. It’s also freezing and wet because Sister Danielle just scrubbed it clean with snow. She watches us shave our carrots, instructing us to make thinner strips. “Get as much from that carrot as you can.”
The boiling water warms my hands as I peel the carrot into the pot. Slowly. Slowly. Bit by bit. When my carrot is just a sliver, too small to peel, I turn it over in my hands. I want to put it in my mouth. Instead, I open my hand so it falls into the soup.
I glance to my left; Monika’s finished too. Sister Danielle nods at us. “You now know my recipe for one-carrot soup.”
That night after Eva drifts off to sleep, I become Anna Bauman again. I try to remember my old home without thinking of food. I focus my attention on my family. But I can’t help but picture Mama peeling vegetables, Aunt Roza cutting fruits, Grandfather blessing our meals, Papa slicing warm bread. Even my cousin Jakub, who has probably never helped prepare a meal in his life, reminds me of food. I picture Jakub standing next to a pile of apples, blowing the hair out of his eyes and throwing an apple so it splats against the side of Papa’s shop. He threw over a dozen before Mama and Aunt Roza caught on and made him clean up his mess.
Chapter 22
These past three nights, Eva tosses and turns before bed. We’ve eaten only watery soup at lunchtime. It’s not easy to sleep with a grumbling belly.
“Do you know how to spell your name?” I ask softly.
“I’m too little for school.” Her voice is full of regret.
I take her hand and draw a long line down her palm with three short lines running beside it. “That’s an E. Now you draw the same on my hand.”
She learns to spell her name in no time and drifts off to sleep.
I remember writing my grandparents’ address on the bottom of the brown paper before I left the ghetto. Grandma’s letters. Her first letter began: We have now come to be housed in the Lodz ghetto, crowded into a basement room with three other families. She listed everyone who was with her and Grandfather, my aunts, uncles and cousins. There is scarcely any food to be found. Mama read the letters aloud. She was reading to Papa, but I heard every word. My Grandfather refusing to eat, so others might survive. My Aunt Roza pregnant and losing weight. And Jakub! Each letter that followed was more terrifying than the last. Before signing her name she wrote: Consider any letter you receive from us to be our last.
When the morning bell rings, Eva doesn’t want to wake. I’m careful not to say the word breakfast as I coax her out of bed.
After morning prayers, everyone’s spirits lift because our only meal of the day is next. While the others sit and wait for soup, I’m by the stove with Monika, waiting for Sister Danielle.
I listen quietly as the nuns talk. One says, “The papers were an excuse. They came here for food because they are running low. The Soviets are defeating the Germans. The occupation will be over soon.”
I’m not sure about the word occupation. But I wonder about Germany losing. Is it possible?
An older nun responds, “The Germans know what they are doing. Poland was prepared with reinforced front lines and they plowed through. France was prepared with tunnels and barricades and they went around. They always find a way to win.”
“They can’t win if they can’t eat,” the first nun counters. I wonder if there will be a disagreement, but the conversation ends.
Monika peers into her pot as if her eyes have the strength to make her water boil. “Do you think we will have carrots or turnips?” she asks.
We only had carrots the day after the soldiers took our food. Yesterday and the day before, our meal was Sister Danielle’s recipe for one-turnip soup. Turnips are more difficult to peel and not as flavorful. But they are bigger. “Maybe there will be carrots and turnips,” I offer.
“Maybe Sister Danielle will find a potato.”
I stare into my water and try to remember what a potato tastes like. My stomach rumbles at the thought. I can’t think of the name of another vegetable so I say, “Maybe Sister Danielle will bring us winter boots.”
Monika peers into her water. “Maybe Sister Danielle will bring us warm blankets and winter coats and—”
Just then Sister Danielle steps into the room and sets a wooden crate on the basin. “I’ll need some help cleaning,” she says. Monika and I rush to her side.
“Cabbage,” says Monika. Her voice is barely above a whisper, as if she can’t believe her own eyes.
“Cabbages,” corrects Sister Danielle. “Two for each pot.”
Sister Maria fixed the faucet the day after the soldiers destroyed it. We clean and boil the cabbage leaves. The steam from my pot of two-cabbage soup smells rich and full. It grows as it fills the room, as if the scent alone could fill one hundred bellies.
As the cabbage boils, I listen to the nuns discuss business. Three babies have found homes with local families. Much more help is needed. We are short of blankets, soap and medicine in addition to food.
When Sister Danielle excuses us to go to the dining room, Monika and I almost skip to our seats, our stomachs anxious for the taste of soup.
Klara passes by me without a word. I can’t remember the last time she called
me Liar. Was it when she set the bell by my bed? Has she been unkind since the soldiers were here? This constant hunger is making all of us tired and forgetful. Maybe she doesn’t have the energy to start trouble.
Each day Sister Maria’s prayers are stronger. She’s more thankful than ever. She praises our kindness. She’s certain that God is standing near us and protecting us. I pray with all my heart, with all my soul. I pray with every bit of my strength. I pray that Sister Maria is right.
Chapter 23
Something is different today. I know it before I even open my eyes. No one is talking. Most of the girls don’t even sit up in bed when the sisters ring the morning bell.
“Eva, come on, up we go.” She closes her eyes tightly. “Eva, please. Help me with the little ones.”
Veronica says what we’re all thinking, “I don’t want hot water. I want food, bread.”
“Girls,” I say loud enough for everyone to hear, “we mustn’t lose hope. We must stay strong.” A few girls sit up, but none are getting out of bed.
“I don’t want to,” says Eva, tucking her face into the crook of my elbow.
“I guess you’ve never heard the story of the determined mouse who wanted a bit of cheese?” They sit up now. A few move out of their beds to sit closer.
“It goes like this:
“Once there was a little mouse who was so hungry. He was desperately hungry and weak. He searched everywhere for food, but there was none to be found.
“While searching, he smelled something—a bit of cheese, but it was way up high on a dresser and out of sight.
“So the mouse tried to climb the dresser. He made it as far as the bottom drawer and slid back to the ground. The mouse could still smell the cheese at the top so he tried again.
“This time he made it to the second drawer. And again he slid back down.
The Safest Lie Page 6