by Irma Joubert
She spent a long time looking for Switzerland, but she couldn’t find it anywhere.
“Sister Zofia?”
The teacher looked up. “Yes, Gretz?”
“Where is Switzerland?”
“Bring the book and I’ll show you.”
The teacher turned back three pages. “Look, this is Switzerland,” she said.
Gretl felt her heart sink. “All of that page?”
“Yes. There’s a piece of Austria over here, that’s Italy, and this is France over here. Switzerland lies between them.”
“Where’s Poland?”
“Oh, far from Switzerland,” said the teacher, closing the book. “The other classes are out now. You can look at the atlas again tomorrow.”
After fetching Jakób’s book and accepting a storybook from Mrs. Sobieski, Gretl ran home. She had to speak to Jakób. But when she opened the curtain, he was fast asleep.
“He’s been sleeping all day,” said Aunt Anastarja. “I think he sat in the chair too long yesterday.”
Jakób woke up when Gretl came in with his soup. “Is it evening already?” he asked, surprised.
“Yes,” she said and arranged the pillows behind his back. He could eat by himself now. “Jakób, Switzerland is very big and very far away.”
He ate a spoonful of soup. “We can make a plan to deal with the very far away. It’s the very big that worries me,” he said.
She waited. He ate his soup. When he had almost finished, he asked, “Gretz, what do you have in that flat bag of yours? Documents?”
She dragged the trunk in which she kept her belongings out from under Stan’s bed. At the bottom she found the bag and carefully took out the documents, one by one.
“This is a photo of my father in his Nazi uniform,” she said. Jakób studied the photo and held out his hand.
“And this is a letter.” She gave it to him. “It’s written in German.”
He gave a slight smile. “I see, yes.” He read the letter carefully. “It’s a letter the government sent your mother when your father died. They say he was a brave man who died for his country.”
“I know.”
He put the letter with the photograph on the bed. “What’s the other document?”
“I don’t know.” She handed it to him.
“This is a certificate of baptism to say you were baptized Gretl Christina Schmidt by Pfarrer Helmut Friedrich at the Deutsche Luthersche Kirche on December 18, 1937.” He turned the document over. “Nothing more. No place name.”
“Does it help?”
“Do you have anything else in your little bag?”
She turned the bag inside out. “Just a dead moth,” she said.
He shook his head. “I still don’t know how we’re going to find Onkel Hans.”
During the night of the first snowfall he had the worst nightmare. He woke drenched in sweat, his entire being filled with horror. He lay motionless.
“Did you have a dream, Jakób?” He heard the concern in the small voice that came out of the dark.
“Yes, but don’t worry, it’s nothing.”
“About the war?”
“Yes, Gretz.” He was glad she was there, a live being among all the phantoms in his memory.
“You must think about other things, Oma told me. It helps. I know, I dream about Oma and Mutti every night.”
“Tell me what you dream, please.”
“That they are burning in the oven at Auschwitz. They scream, but the angel of God doesn’t come.”
He weighed the possibility of telling her what he had known for months. “Would it be easier if you knew that they couldn’t have been in the oven?” he asked hesitantly.
In the feeble moonlight he saw her sit up. “They escaped? But Elza said they couldn’t have escaped.”
“No, not escaped. There’s something I must tell you, Gretz.”
He saw her lean back against the pillow, felt the cold little hand slip into his across the gap between their beds. He closed his hand around hers. “Yes?” she said.
Suddenly he couldn’t tell her after all.
“Yes, Jakób?” she insisted.
“Your Mutti and Oma’s train—the rail bridge exploded, the train fell into the ravine.”
Silence.
How could he say it? “All the people died, Gretz.”
Silence.
Mother of God, help me, please. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“How can a rail bridge just explode?” The small voice cut through him.
“Someone must have . . . I don’t know . . . planted a bomb.”
“But who would want to blow up a train full of people?” she asked.
Her words flooded his being, opening up what he had patched with difficulty. “People who didn’t know what they were doing,” he said honestly.
“Yes,” she said after a while, “people who didn’t know what they were doing.”
It was quiet for a long time. He would give anything to take away her pain, to make everything undone.
“Could they have escaped from the train, Jakób?”
He heard the explosions again, saw the carnage. “No, it fell too far.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw it,” he said.
After a long while she said, “I heard the explosion. I thought it was bombs.”
“But now you know they were never in Auschwitz. They couldn’t have burned in the oven, could they?”
She didn’t answer.
He wanted to comfort her. “I’m sorry, Gretz.”
After a while she asked in a small voice, “Can I get into bed with you, Jakób Kowalski? I’ll be careful of your wounds.”
She got in under the blankets and nestled in the crook of his arm. He held the thin, cold figure against him. She was a little duckling, his little duckling—his responsibility.
At first she cried softly, lost in her grief. “There now, Gretz,” he said.
Then sobs racked her body, coming from somewhere deep inside her.
“There now, Gretz, there now.” He awkwardly tried to comfort her. At that moment he knew he would do anything for this little person. Mother of God, he prayed, you gave her to me long before I was ready to take her. Help me always to do what’s best for her.
After a while she calmed down, though an occasional tremor still ran through her body. “It’s no good trying to find Onkel Hans,” she said. “I don’t even know him.”
Long after she had finally fallen asleep, he was still stroking her silken hair.
5
CZĘSTOCHOWA, DECEMBER 1947
Gretl would never forget the Christmas after she turned ten. She had been looking forward to it for weeks. There was no money for gifts, because Poland was still poverty-stricken. But Jakób was coming home from Katowice with Stan and Haneczka and their new baby. Gretl still thought of Haneczka as the big woman in men’s clothes. But Gretl liked her. Haneczka took no nonsense from anyone! Especially not from Monicka. And Stan was much friendlier now that he was married.
Haneczka had saved Jakób’s life. Gretl would never forget it.
The morning before Christmas she helped Aunt Anastarja with the food. On Christmas Day the kitchen would be too crowded for Gretl. She’d wanted to put up a Christmas tree, like the one she had seen in Sonja’s home, but Monicka said they didn’t have glittery paper to make chains. And there was no room for a tree anyway.
“Stan and Haneczka will have to sleep on the porch,” said Aunt Anastarja.
“It’ll be too cold for the baby,” Monicka replied.
“It’s better since Turek put in a door.” Aunt Anastarja was rolling out cookie dough. The cookies probably wouldn’t be very good, because there was hardly any sugar.
“It will still be too cold,” Monicka argued. She turned to Gretl. “Fetch the cabbage from the cooler. I want to make bigos,” she ordered.
At four, Gretl said, “I’m going to the station. I’ve already milked the goats.”
It was a long wait for the train. She sat on a hard wooden bench, looking at the locomotive huffing and puffing and shunting cars on a sideline, at the tall water tower where the train filled its belly, at the tracks at her feet. The smoke burned her nose and the back of her throat. A station was usually a sad place. But today the station was a happy place, because the train would be bringing Jakób home.
Once, when she told Jakób how she felt about stations, he said, “A station is just the beginning or the end of a destination, Gretz. It’s how you yourself feel at the station that makes it a happy or a sad place.”
“It’s almost always sad, because people go away,” she persisted.
“But at the other end they arrive at a new destination, and that’s good.”
“Sometimes.” She was thinking of the ghetto and of Auschwitz.
“Okay,” he agreed, “sometimes.”
At last the train steamed in, packed with people. Her eyes searched and searched. She climbed on top of the bench for a better view.
He came weaving through the crowd. She waved her arms wildly. He smiled, put down his bag, and opened his arms. She ran into his hard body.
They both laughed. “Your hair is long,” he said. “Here, I brought you something. Take a look quickly, before Stan and Haneczka come.”
Her fingers fumbled with the parcel. Inside were two ribbons for her hair, a white one and a red one. “Jakób, how lovely!” she said, overjoyed.
“I’ve brought shoes too, warm shoes. They’re in my bag.”
She didn’t know how to thank him.
Then Stan and Haneczka were there. “I’ll carry the baby,” Gretl offered.
At home they had supper. Just borsch, the usual beet soup, and bread. The real meal would be eaten the next day. They didn’t mention politics while they were eating. Gretl was glad, because it usually led to arguments. After supper she and Jakób carried in hay to sleep on. “Remember to clean up tomorrow morning,” Monicka said crossly.
At ten they set off for the midnight mass. They all walked together—everyone except Monicka, because she was going to have another baby. She stayed home to look after the little ones. The fields were covered with snow, and the moon cast a soft glow over the landscape.
The cathedral was lit up by candles, even more than usual. The organ music was beautiful. At times the boys’ choir sang along. At midnight they took communion, and then mass was over. Everything is perfect, Gretl thought. It’s impossible to be any happier.
It was a beautiful service, but Jakób couldn’t concentrate. Mother of God, why this? Why now? Couldn’t you have waited another year or two? he thought over and over again.
Outside it was cold. Snowflakes sifted gently to the ground. Jakób and Gretl hurried ahead to get home.
“I remember something,” she said, looking up at him with her blue eyes. “When I was very small Mutti made an Advent wreath and when we lit the candles, we sang a song. Can I sing it to you?”
“Yes,” he said, “but softly.”
“It goes like this: ‘Advent, Advent, ein Lichtlein brennt, erst eins, dann zwei, dann drei, dann vier; dann steht das Christkind vor der Tür,’ because it’s one, two, three, four Sundays and then the Christ child is standing at the door. I can’t sing very well now, because I’m a little out of breath.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “It’s lovely.”
When they had walked for a while, she said, “You’re very quiet tonight, Jakób. Are you cross about something?”
“No,” he said, “I have a problem that I’m thinking about.”
“Can I help?” she asked.
“In time, yes, but not right now.”
Earlier that evening, just after they’d had coffee, his mother had taken him aside. Ever since their arrival, he could sense there was something on her mind.
“The child can’t stay here any longer, Jakób,” she said without mincing words. “We can’t afford to feed an extra mouth, not even with the money you send. Look at her. She doesn’t have clothes to wear to school. The child must go. Especially now that Monicka is having a third baby.”
“The child has a name,” he said. “She’s Gretz.” Ever since Gretl had taken such tender care of him during his recovery, he had been disturbed by his mother’s indifference toward her.
His mother ignored the remark, as if a name might turn “the child” into a human being. “Mrs. Jurski has agreed to take her in, to help in the bakery.”
“And become their servant?” Jakób said. “I know the Jurskis. Under no circumstances will I allow her to go there.”
“She’ll have to go to work anyway. She’s almost twelve.”
“She’s barely ten!” he exclaimed, outraged. “She’s just a little girl! She’s extremely bright. She needs to take her studies as far as she can! I won’t allow—”
“Then why don’t you come up with a solution?” His mother raised her voice. “The neighbors are talking. She looks more German every day.”
Maybe he could take her along to Katowice. But the moment it entered his mind he knew that the idea was impractical. He shared a room with another engineer at the steelworks, as the Communist system decreed for an unmarried man of his age. And Stan and Haneczka didn’t have room for her either. Besides, Gretl was not their responsibility.
As Jakób and Gretl walked home together he asked off handedly, “Do you remember a lot of German things?”
“Not really, more Jewish things. But I’m not always sure of the difference. Please tell me why you’re angry, Jakób.”
He made up the first excuse he could think of. “Nothing is the same anymore.”
“Like what?”
“The farm, for example.” He walked on. “For more than a hundred years my forefathers have been on this farm. We’ve never been rich, but the farm was ours. We could do as we pleased. Now we’re suddenly part of a big collective farm. We’re told to produce beets, or carrots, nothing else, and the government decides how much we’ll be paid for our produce. We can’t keep pigs anymore. My mother can’t smoke ham. The government decides when we need ham. They seem to be watching us all the time, even when we’re going to mass.”
“If they do, they’ll have your mother to answer to!” she said. “She spends most of her time in the cathedral nowadays.”
Jakób made no reply.
“Your father and Turek seem content. Turek says we have enough food on the table.”
“Content? Life is about more than being content!” He suddenly realized what he was doing. He had no idea why he had gone off like that. “Oh, Gretz, forget it. Why am I spoiling a beautiful Christmas Eve for both of us?” he said with a smile.
“You must talk to me,” she said earnestly. “I talk to you too.”
“Yes,” he said, “we must
talk.” But he couldn’t find it in his heart to tell her what they had to talk about.
Two days later, just before he left for the station, Monicka asked, “Did your mother speak to you?”
“Yes, she did.”
“And?”
“I’ll be back at the end of May. I’ll attend to the matter then,” he promised.
Jakób was granted leave over Easter. He went home, knowing he had to break the news to Gretl. He knew what he had to do. He didn’t want to, but it would be for her own good.
“You can’t stay here any longer, Gretl,” he told her. “I must take you to an orphanage in Germany.”
She stood in front of him, gazing into his eyes. She looked fearless, just as he had seen her that first day in the doorway of Rigena’s house. “Why?”
“I’ve told you. The house is too full, especially now with the new baby. You’re growing up. Turek’s sons are growing up. There’s no money to send you to school.”
“I don’t understand why I can’t come with you to Katowice.”
He felt his patience wearing thin. “You know why not. You’re just being difficult.”
“I want to be the one to decide where I go,” she said crossly.
“Fine,” he challenged her. “Come up with a solution, then.”
She grabbed the bucket from the table and stalked across the field. Poor goats, he thought, and poured himself a mug of coffee.
“But why Germany?” she asked when she returned. She slammed the bucket down on the table, angrily mopping up the drops that had spilled. “If I have to go to an orphanage, why not one in Poland? In Kraków or Warsaw, or wherever?”
“The orphanages here are state controlled. Conditions are shocking. As soon as you turn twelve, you’ll be put to work. You’re clever, Gretz. You must study! In Germany, most orphanages are controlled by the church. They get financial support.”
She glared at him angrily.