‘Kath never wrote it,’ Verna said. ‘She’s not the type to send anonymous notes.’
Verna was surprised that a shrewd old bird like Maude McNulty hadn’t figured out that even if Kath had wanted to send someone a note, she certainly wouldn’t have sent it to her.
‘If Kath saw something odd going on, she’d report it herself, not leave notes in someone’s letterbox,’ she added. ‘She wouldn’t do anything underhand or sneaky.’
A few days later Verna had seen two policemen knocking on Emil’s door and watched him getting into the back of their Holden. It had dawned on her then that the old busybody must have dobbed him in.
Verna watched as Emil compared several bolts of pastel-coloured satin, holding them up to the light one at a time to check the colours, and unrolling one of them to gauge how much he needed. When he’d made his selection, he lugged two bolts over to the counter, one shell pink and the other a baby blue.
She would have liked to go over and ask him what he was going to make, and perhaps offer some help, but there was something about his purposeful movements and focused gaze that stopped her. It didn’t look as if he’d welcome any well-meant advice.
Half an hour later, back in Wattle Street, she looked around for Kath, to tell her what she’d seen at Attwaters, and to ask if she knew anything about Maude McNulty’s note. Kath wasn’t home, but a flutter of the curtain next door told her that her neighbour was watching as usual. The only person she could see in the street was the tall foreign woman she called Sally, who was standing alone at the gate with a faraway look in her eyes, probably waiting for that nice husband of hers to come home.
Chapter 28
Sala was walking towards the tram stop after work, thinking about her conversation with Beryl that morning. She had put away the brooms and dusters in the closet and hung up her pinafore when Beryl planted herself in front of her. With her arms akimbo and her small eyes darting sideways, she’d said, ‘Ta for helping me out the other day. I’ve got a bit of a problem, see. Went on a bender the night before. Know what I mean?’
Sala had no idea what a bender was, but from Beryl’s changed tone she realised that she now regarded her as an ally.
Lost in thought as she walked, she didn’t notice that someone had fallen in step with her until she heard a man’s voice.
‘It’s Sala, isn’t it?’
She looked up and saw Alex Engelman looking at her with his searching gaze, and the blood rushed to her cheeks.
‘What are you doing here so early in the morning?’ he asked.
He didn’t take his eyes off her while she told him about her job.
‘You’re really something!’ he exclaimed. ‘Most women would have made up a story rather than admit they were working as a cleaner.’
He took her elbow in a firm grip. ‘I don’t know about you, but I could use a cup of coffee. Have you been to Repin’s? They’ve got the best coffee in Sydney. Let’s go.’
And before she could reply, he was already helping her into the tram.
As soon as they got off the tram in Market Street, she could smell the pungent aroma of roasting coffee beans, and although the department stores and offices weren’t open yet, the coffee lounge was already full.
Inside the café, Sala could see her reflection in a wall mirror with a sunburst design. She tried to smooth her hair, some of which had escaped from her roll and curled around her face. She hoped there was no one here she knew, and then told herself to stop feeling guilty. After all, there was nothing wrong with having coffee with a friend. It wasn’t as though she’d planned a rendezvous. She felt excited whenever she caught Alex looking at her with that admiring expression, and wondered what Szymon would say if he came in and saw her sitting there with him.
‘The Repins are white Russians,’ Alex was saying as she looked around the crowded coffee lounge with its snappy green-and-white decor. ‘They were the first to roast beans on the premises, and to charge for coffee. Everyone said they’d never get Australians to come to a place like this and pay for coffee, but look how wrong they were. Australians may not like us foreigners, but we’re dragging them out of their dull English existence. Before they know it, they’ll be a nation of gourmets.’
She nodded, but she wasn’t really listening because while he was gazing into her eyes in that disconcerting way of his, he’d picked up her hand and was massaging each finger in turn, with a touch that was light but tantalising. Then he started kneading her palm in such a sensual and intimate way that the blood rushed to her face and her body tingled. It was like making love in the middle of the crowded café.
He was watching her closely as she felt herself slipping into a languorous trance. With an effort, she withdrew her hand, but she could still feel the warm pressure of his fingers and their seductive touch. It was a relief when the waitress brought the menu.
‘The other night at Fela and Lutek’s, when Genia asked you about the war,’ Alex said, ‘you didn’t want to talk about it, did you?’
She shook her head. ‘I didn’t feel like being quizzed about my life at the dinner table.’
She looked down at the menu to avoid his gaze and wondered if he guessed what she didn’t want to reveal.
‘There’s a determined look comes over your face when you don’t want to say something,’ he said. ‘You must have looked like that when you were a little girl. Did you stamp your foot as well?’
They both laughed, and the laughter defused her uneasiness.
‘You’re a very interesting woman. I’d like to know all about you,’ he said.
She laughed again. ‘How long have you got?’
‘All day. And all night,’ he said, and she suppressed a smile at his insinuating tone.
She told him about her home in Łód, her parents who had both been doctors, her plans to study medicine, which had ended with the war, and her recent decision to enroll in a part-time course to become a medical technician.
The waitress brought their mocha coffee, and Sala breathed in the rich, dark aroma that brought back memories of afternoons in outdoor cafés with her parents in the main square in Łód.
‘If you want to be a doctor, why are you settling for being a lab technician?’ he asked.
She shrugged. ‘Studying medicine takes too long. I’d be thirty by the time I finished.’
He leaned forward until she could feel his warm breath. ‘And how old will you be in six years if you don’t study medicine?’
‘That’s all very well, but I have to earn some money.’
‘If medicine is what you really want to do, don’t settle for second best,’ Alex said. ‘Life’s too short. If you really want something, work out how to get it.’
‘Do you practise what you preach?’ she asked.
He lowered his gaze from her face and rested it on her breasts. ‘I always get what I want.’
Her face was still burning when she left the café.
Sala went over their conversation as she waited for the Bondi Junction tram. She had pushed the idea of becoming a doctor to the back of her mind, and had resigned herself to doing a part-time course, but Alex’s words had challenged her. Perhaps she should consider studying medicine after all. Franka Feldman had said that was what her husband was doing. Instead of going home, she caught the tram back to Darlinghurst.
But when she sat on the hard wooden chair in front of the social worker’s desk, she didn’t know how to begin.
‘Starting life in a new country is terribly hard, isn’t it?’ Franka Feldman said. ‘The worst thing is being torn in all directions and not knowing the right thing to do. When we got here, my husband and I quarrelled all the time. There were times I wanted to leave him, and times I thought he was having a nervous breakdown. That was the worst time in our married life.’
Sala listened with interest. ‘How long did that go on for?’
‘Until he sorted out what he really wanted to do.’
‘I just don’t know if I can do it,’ Sa
la said after a long pause. ‘Medicine, I mean.’
‘Do you mean because of the language? Or financially? What does your husband think about it?’
Sala looked away and bit the inside of her lip. She didn’t want to admit that she hadn’t talked to him about it.
Changing the subject, Franka asked, ‘What happened about that notice I showed you in the Jewish News? Did you ever find out why they were looking for you?’
Sala suppressed a sigh. That was another issue she had pushed away. It was too hard to tackle.
‘Lately I can’t seem to make my mind up about anything,’ she said slowly. She tried to blink away the unexpected tears that filled her eyes.
Franka nodded. ‘It’s hard to know what to do sometimes. Especially when you’ve been through so much. Everything here is so different and confusing, and there’s no one to turn to.’
Her empathy made Sala’s tears flow faster and suddenly her shoulders were heaving and she was sobbing aloud.
Franka let her cry without trying to console her. By the time Sala left the office half an hour later, she felt less confused. It was time to talk to Szymon about the notice in the Jewish News.
The late-afternoon sun gilded the front of the cottages on the eastern side of Wattle Street with a glow that transformed their usually drab façades, like plain girls enhanced by skilful make-up. The brilliance of the light made Sala shield her eyes with her hand as she stood at the gate waiting for Szymon to come home. It was only the first month of summer, and as she wiped beads of sweat from her neck she wondered how much hotter it would get.
The rhythmic thud of skipping made her turn around. In the middle of the road two girls in navy pleated uniforms were turning a skipping rope while a smaller girl jumped in and out, her plaits bouncing on her shoulders with each skip. ‘Blue bells, cockle shells, eevie ivy over,’ they chanted. Sala didn’t understand the words but found herself repeating the rhythm in her head.
Further along, Eda Kotowicz’s daughter, Hania, was drawing a hopscotch grid on the pavement with a piece of white chalk. Two boys were weaving among the girls, occasionally pulling their plaits and evoking a chorus of complaints as they whooped and shouted, playing cowboys and Indians. Another little boy stood on the edge of the pavement, a shirt tied around his neck like Superman’s cape, shouting, ‘Up, up and away!’ Sala smiled to herself. Children were the same the world over.
She watched the reclusive man who lived across the road as he turned into their street carrying a small parcel under his arm. He kept his head down as he passed the children and didn’t seem to notice them or, perhaps, Sala thought, he didn’t want them to notice him. Without appearing to move, he slipped inside his gate and disappeared. From the way he dressed, and his little hunting hat and brown shoes with white caps, she could tell he was a migrant. She wondered where he came from, but she’d never heard him speak.
The sun was going down, and mothers called their children in for tea. Within a few minutes the street was empty except for a lone tabby cat sprawled on a patch of sun-warmed pavement. Sala paced back and forth, too restless to read the newspaper or to look up new words in the dictionary as she did most afternoons. Several times she tried to plan what to say, but it sounded too rehearsed, too stilted. She’d have to come out with it in a normal, matter-of-fact way.
At last she heard Szymon’s light springy footsteps as he turned the corner into Wattle Street, the Daily Standard neatly folded under his arm. Her heart beat a drum roll against her ribs. At home, whenever she wanted to ask her father for anything, her mother always told her to wait until he’d hung up his hat, put on his slippers and eaten his dinner. ‘Men are more likely to say yes if they’ve had time to relax after a day’s work,’ she would say. It all seemed a hundred years ago, as though it happened in another world, and in a sense it had.
Sala watched while Szymon ate the schnitzel and potato latkes, but she couldn’t swallow anything. They chatted about their day, and she told him about Beryl’s surprising confession, but she didn’t say anything about running into Alex.
‘That was a terrific dinner, Salcia,’ he said, putting his arms around her, and for once she didn’t wriggle out of his embrace.
She watched him speculatively while he sipped his tea. Finally she decided that the time was right. She took a deep breath. ‘Szymon, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.’
Before she had time to say any more, his face lit up and he swept her up in his arms. ‘Don’t tell me! Let me guess! You’re expecting!’
His exuberance made her close her eyes and groan. Now he’d be disappointed, and the receptive mood she’d tried to foster by cooking his favourite dinner and being affectionate would be wasted.
‘It’s not that.’
The eager gleam went from his eyes. ‘So what is it?’
‘A few weeks ago there was a notice in the Jewish News. They’re looking for me. There’s going to be a court case in Łód, and they want me to give evidence.’
She paused to give him time to absorb what she’d said, then added, ‘It’s about Ernst Hauptmann.’
His eyes were flints. ‘Good. Now you can tell them what a Nazi bastard he was.’
There was a buzzing in her ears. ‘But Szymon, he saved my life.’
‘And what about the people he betrayed or killed?’
She was trembling now. ‘That’s nonsense,’ she said, ‘He was a Volksdeutsch, not Gestapo or SS.’
‘But he hobnobbed with them. You told me so yourself.’
He leaned towards her, shaking a finger in her face for emphasis. ‘I saw how the ethnic Germans welcomed the Nazis in 1939, with cheers and flowers. And you know how happy they were to turn the Jews over to the Gestapo.’
‘All I know is that if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be here.’
‘He saved you because he wanted to fuck you!’ Szymon shouted as he stood over her, his face contorted with fury. ‘Go on, tell them all about your hero, how good he was to you in that cellar of his.’
She thought she was going to be sick. With an effort, she said, ‘I couldn’t live with myself if I helped to convict the man who saved my life.’
Szymon gripped her arms. ‘If he was so innocent, how come they’re putting him on trial? How come he’s been charged with war crimes? Tell me that.’
She pulled free and looked at the imprint of his hands on her arms. ‘You’re being melodramatic. I just want to do the right thing.’
‘The right thing is to tell them how he kept you locked up in that cellar for eighteen months. That’s the right thing. Unless you enjoyed yourself in there with him.’
She sprang up and pummelled his chest with her fists.
‘How dare you say that to me?’ She was screaming at him while she lashed out with her hands. ‘You didn’t know him. You weren’t there. He risked his life hiding me all that time. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
He caught her wrists. ‘You’re right,’ he said sarcastically. ‘What would I know about what went on? I was having a picnic in Buchenwald at the time, watching everyone around me turning yellow and starving to death. And you know why some of us were in there? Because heroes like your Ernst Hauptmann turned us over to the Gestapo, that’s why.’ He gave her an ironic look and tapped his temple. ‘And you’re actually defending him! You’re not right in the head, you know that?’
Her body felt so taut that she thought it might snap. ‘I should have known there was no point trying to talk to you.’ She was sobbing now. ‘You’re vulgar, you don’t understand anything, and you drag everyone down to your own level.’
Before she could say another word he’d snatched his hat from the hook, flung open the door and slammed it so hard behind him that the walls shook.
For a long time Sala sat on the edge of the bed, shaking with rage. Then she sprang up, swiped their cups off the table and watched the tea spray all over the room, leaving brown stains on the greasy wallpaper as the china flew across the ro
om and shattered.
She sobbed as she pulled out the drawers where Szymon kept his shirts and underwear in neat piles and flung them all over the floor. Now everything was smashed and wrecked, like her life. Exhausted and out of breath, she sank onto the bed. She closed her eyes and she was in the cellar again. She could smell the musty air, feel the coolness of the tightly packed soil under her feet, hear the floorboards creaking overhead as the heavy footsteps came closer and closer.
Sometimes she heard them yelling at each other, Ernst and his wife Urszula, after he’d gone back upstairs and closed the trapdoor. Urszula would scream that she knew what he was up to in there, and she threatened to go to the Gestapo and tell them he was hiding a Jewish girl so they’d take her away and their life would go back to the way it used to be.
Sala would hold her breath and tremble. Then Ernst would yell that she was imagining things, nothing was going on in the cellar, what would he be doing with such a young girl, and a Jewish one at that, and anyway she was stupid because if she said anything about a Jewish girl hidden in their cellar, they’d shoot her as well. Eventually the arguing died down and Sala breathed out again.
They kept sacks of potatoes down there, and barrels of apples and pickled cabbage. Firewood was stacked up for winter behind bottles of wisniowka, the bitter-sweet spirit that Ernst made from the cherries in their orchard. He’d given her a drink that first time, when she’d cowered in the corner, pressing herself against the cool wall because she had never seen that look on his face before and she was frightened.
His face was red and distorted with lust as he unbuckled his leather belt and threw it down on the ground. It made a dull sound as it struck one of the wooden barrels. When he grabbed her by the shoulders she struggled to free herself and screamed, but he placed his large hand over her mouth and whispered for her to be quiet or someone would hear and know she was there. He pinned her against the wall and fumbled under her skirt.
She squeezed her thighs together and punched him, but he was too strong for her. He picked her up and carried her to the mattress, while she kicked and flailed her arms and tried to free herself. ‘Lie still,’ he kept murmuring, and she could smell the alcohol on his hot breath. ‘Lie still. It won’t hurt.’
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