by Lily Graham
Eva’s hazel eyes widened in disbelief at the strange girl’s words, and even stranger ideas. ‘Get things out of the Germans?’ she repeated, ‘Like what, a bullet?’ She shook her head, and turned back to her drawing of the Vltava river, just after spring, when the kingcups were in bloom. It was where she wished she was, more than anywhere else. Back home. She carried on speaking as she sketched, ‘Don’t you see, they’ll never see us as one of them, that’s why we’re here.’
It was a simple fact. It was why they’d been rounded up and taken from their homes, and forced to live in this hellish Jewish ghetto.
‘Yes, they will never think of you as one of them, but you can give them one less reason to treat you like an animal. By knowing their language.’
Eva frowned as she considered. That made sense, and it might help her if she was ever to find where they had taken her husband. She looked up, lifting the pencil.
‘How though?’
‘I’ll teach you.’
‘Why? Why would you do that?’
‘Because,’ she grinned. ‘I have heard that you have room in your bunk – is that true?’
‘Yes.’
It had recently come available, as the woman she’d been sharing it with had been moved on – transported out to another camp, somewhere ‘East’ like the others, who knew where?
The woman leant forward from her seat by the edge of the bed. ‘So, it’s for me then, right?’ Then she grinned, and it transformed her face, made her young and impish, instantly likable. ‘I’m Sofie Weis, by the way.’
Eva stared at her, and she grinned in return. ‘All right,’ she agreed, and introduced herself too. ‘Eva Adami.’
Sofie was a hard task master. She was tough, and straight-talking, and tolerated no arguments, especially when it came to Eva’s pronunciation, and as the weeks passed she ruled with an iron fist.
‘No, Kritzelei. Flatten your lips, don’t round things out so.’
‘What does it matter?’ sighed Eva. She despised everything about the Germans, she couldn’t help it – look what they’d done to them, how they forced them to live, it galled her to learn it, to try sounding just like them. ‘So, I’ll have an accent, and won’t sound like them, so what?’
Sofie shook her head, exasperated. ‘Think, Kritzelei, and then they kill you because you sound different.’
Eva rolled her eyes. ‘They wouldn’t kill me just for that.’
Sofie laughed, and pushed back a long strand of dark blonde hair from her face. Eva’s eye fell on the thick wound on her forehead and scalp that had turned into a large pink scar. It was an involuntary movement, that had nonetheless proved Sofie’s point more than she realised. ‘What must it be like living in that head of yours?’ muttered Sofie. ‘All rainbows and fair play…’
Eva clenched her jaw. She wasn’t an idiot, she just chose not to focus on how bad everything was all the time. She’d made it here so far, hadn’t she? She’d managed to keep her name off a transport list, to eat, to survive. To do everything in her power to try find out where they’d taken Michal.
‘I’m not a fool, you don’t need to mock me just because I choose not to spend all my time here beating my head against the wall, because I have hope that someday I’ll get out of here.’
Sofie’s eyes softened, she looked sad. ‘I’m not mocking you. I admire it, honestly. I like your version of the world much better,’ she said, pointing to the wall by their bunk, where Eva’s sketches were tacked on, offering an escape from the grim surrounds. There were drawings of Eva’s beloved city, the Vltava river, and the Prague Castle. A touch of home.
‘But in the Westerbork camp that I was taken to, I met others who hadn’t been treated so kindly – who’d come from much harsher places. Where there were no concerts or friends or families getting to see one another – or bathrooms with showers and toilets. Where they were treated like scum, and could be killed just for being in the wrong place. I was meant to go to one of these places further east,’ she said, her eyes growing darker. ‘The only reason they took me here to Terezín instead, was because the train taking us broke down and in the mix-up, I joined the one coming here. Just pure luck that I chose it. I want you to be aware of that, and to be safe. You know the plan is to send everyone out of here to one of those places where we will work outside or in a factory for hours. So, I need you to be prepared, okay? At the station, I saw them kill a man just because he tripped and got in the guard’s way. Rather than move him, they shot him in case he did it again.’
Eva blinked, trying to take that in. That there were places where life had become so worthless that it could be scrubbed out just for getting in someone’s way, like an insect.
‘But if they hate us that much, why try to be more like them, why bother trying to sound like them?’
Sofie shrugged. ‘Because the smallest thing here can make a big difference. Which line you’re in, what train you end up on. The fly that sees that the window is open by a crack lives, Kritzelei. The one that doesn’t just beats itself to death against the glass.’
‘Translating?’ Hinterschloss repeated, his grey eyes turning to slits in his ruddy face. ‘Do you think I need translating? Do we have time to waste, scum?’ He spat, and the spittle froze before it hit her feet.
Eva shook her head, quickly. ‘No, you do not. That is why I wanted to help – so that the people you told to go work in the warehouse understood your instruction.’
He stared at her for a moment, ‘You wanted to help?’ he repeated, softly. His hand fluttered back to his pistol. He sniffed, then made a barely imperceptible nod of his head as if he were considering which course of action to take. It was freezing, they’d been outside for more than two hours already. Perhaps, he too was feeling that, or the effects of the whisky were wearing thin, because, at last, he sighed and said, ‘Fine, go with them then, make sure they understand where to go and what to do.’
Eva blew out her breath. Her knees were so shaky, if she moved she’d fall over. All she could do was nod with abject relief.
‘You either have a death wish,’ Vanda told her as they began the long walk through the snow to the warehouses, Eva’s heart still thundering loudly in her ears, ‘or the biggest balls I have ever seen,’ she laughed. A few of the others joined in.
Sofie huffed behind her; she and Helga had also been assigned to the warehouse, her eyes wide, serious. ‘Don’t be an idiot, she just saved your life.’
It was still cold, the kind that seemed to bite. They’d moved to a new barrack with the others assigned to the warehouse, which was a slight improvement on the previous, mainly at present, due to an extra ratty blanket they could share. Not that it helped much. The wind had picked up, making a howling noise that shook the rafters, and caused them all to shiver, miserably. In one of the other bunks a woman was loudly coughing, keeping everyone awake. ‘Your elbow is digging into me,’ complained Sofie, and Eva shifted over again.
Clearly uncomfortable, and unable to sleep, Sofie sighed, ran a hand over her shorn, scarred head, and said, ‘Tell me again, about the river, about the sun. About the day you met Michal.’
Eva looked up, a small smile butterflying across her lips, and she shuffled closer to lean her shaved head against Sofie’s bony shoulder.
There were other voices from the bunk, who echoed hers, asking the same. ‘Yes, tell us, Kritzelei, about the boy, and when you met.’
‘And the peach, don’t forget to describe the peach,’ said Helga, who had warmed to her over time. Perhaps some of Eva’s natural hopeful nature had rubbed off just a little on the old woman, who wasn’t nearly as sharp as she had been when they’d first met; the pair had become something of unlikely friends.
The other bunkmates groaned, their stomachs rumbling in their hunger, mouths salivating at the thought of the ripe, sun-warmed peach, with its golden flesh and sweet juice.
Eva smiled in the dark night, she’d told them the story already, but she didn’t mind telling it again. That’s
what she did most nights, tell stories. She used to draw pictures with her fingers, now she just did it with her words, and her memories. It wasn’t that different in the end.
‘It was 1938, and early April in Prague. Spring had arrived early that year, making up for the long winter. It was that rare sort of day, when the wind is cool, but not cold, and you start to dream that summer might just be on its way. The kingcups were in bloom, and you could smell them on the banks of the river. The old town was busy, people were going to the market, and I was sitting by a fountain.
‘I’d got out of the house early, trying to distract myself from the news – all we did at home was worry about what was happening with Germany since they had annexed Austria. Hitler had declared that he was looking at Czechoslovakia next, but we had faith that President Beneš would never allow it, or the allies for that matter, or at least, we were trying to keep the faith…’
‘Which was when you saw the most beautiful—’ interrupted Vanda, her short red hair bright even in the dark barracks.
‘No, when she heard the most beautiful music,’ corrected Sofie, narrowing her dark eyes at her. ‘And stop interrupting the story, I was just starting to feel the sun on my fingers.’
She held up her poor, red hands which were swollen and sore from the cold. Frostbite was a real problem in the camp, along with everything else.
Eva took them and cupped them between her own.
‘That’s right,’ she continued. ‘I was sitting by the fountain with my sketchbook, the sunshine was pooling down, and it was warm, out of the wind. In front of me was a peach that I was trying to draw, except my mind kept getting dragged back to my father’s worried eyes, to the fear that we would perhaps enter another war. I was wondering if I should just go for a walk instead, leave my gloomy thoughts behind, when I heard the most beautiful music. A violin began to play and I felt as if maybe I’d stumbled into a dream. It was soft at first, then haunting. The melody seemed to carry me away, and I must have sat for ten minutes just listening. I couldn’t see where it was coming from, so I got up to walk around and look. But there was no one. Then finally, I glanced up, and I saw that I was sitting directly beneath a studio and above me was a man playing. All I could see from my position were his shoes.’
‘You couldn’t see his face at all?’ asked Vanda.
‘No.’
‘Were they nice shoes?’ asked Helga.
‘They were old.’
‘Still, you decided to give him your peach?’
They all laughed.
So did Eva. ‘Yes, when I was finished drawing I left it on the windowsill, it was the only part I could reach.’
‘Why did you do that?’ asked Vanda.
Eva shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I wanted to give him something in return, something for what he’d just given me.’
‘What was that?’
‘Hope.’
Eva had come back to the square the next day, and smiled when she saw that the peach was no longer there. That maybe he had taken it.
‘It might have been carried away by a cat or a bird,’ said Helga, ever practical.
‘Maybe,’ Eva acknowledged.
Still, she waited by the fountain, with her sketchbook, and another peach.
It was some time before the music began again.
As Eva sat and listened, she closed her eyes. The weather had turned cold again, a typical fickle spring, but she was content just to sit and savour the music, wrapped beneath a thick scarlet shawl. Her long dark hair beneath a cream woollen hat. The melody was haunting, and beautiful, and it seemed to touch her very soul.
‘And still you never saw his face?’
Eva shook her head. ‘Just the shoes – and the rug, it was navy and bottle green, which he stepped on as he played. It was threadbare in the places where he moved.’
She came back every day after that to listen to him play. To sketch, whatever the weather. Each day when she turned to leave, she left him an offering. A peach. An apple. Once, a square of chocolate.
It was this that caused them all to groan now. ‘Imagine if he’d never taken it. The waste!’ one of the women cried.
No one wasted food here. They all nodded.
Then one day, she came back to the square, to take her seat by the fountain, and she saw that he’d left her something by the windowsill. It was a note, ‘For the peach-girl,’ it read.
‘And what was it?’ asked Helga.
‘Tickets to the symphony that night.’
‘Did you know he played in the symphony?’
‘Not until then, no. I didn’t have a dress that was suitable. So I borrowed one from my cousin, Mila, a blue dress. She was something of a socialite.’ She smiled at the memory of her favourite cousin, whom she missed terribly. ‘Silk.’
Eva shook her head at the memory. It had been so taken for granted. Fine clothes. Being clean. It was a world away from the scratchy, dirty rags they all wore now, each with some form of the striped uniforms that made them all look the same, like yet another number.
‘Who did you take?’ asked Sofie. Even though she knew the story now, by heart.
Eva grinned. ‘I took my mother.’
‘On a date!’ laughed Vanda. She had a deep, naughty, back-of-the-classroom sort of laugh that made them all chortle too.
‘I didn’t know it was a date! I was just going to the symphony.’
‘But you didn’t know which one he was? How romantic,’ she cried, her eyes dancing at the thought.
‘Though he could have been ugly and fat,’ argued Helga.
The others all rolled their eyes at her, but Eva acknowledged this with a shrug. ‘No, she’s right, he could have been anyone, well, anyone in the violin section at least.’
‘Did you think maybe you’d recognise him somehow – like if he played a solo?’ asked Vanda, as the wind picked up outside, creating a howling noise that swept through the barracks and made them all huddle closer together.
Eva played with the worn fabric on her wrist, her mind in the past, not feeling the cold, for once. Even now if she closed her eyes she could hear the violins, keeping time to the beat of her heart.
‘I hoped that was the case. But as soon as the evening’s performance began I realised that he couldn’t be the lead violinist – I’d only find out much later that it will take an act of divine intervention to become a soloist – it’s really hard, especially when you are young. But I didn’t know he was young, yet.’ She smiled.
‘How did you know he wasn’t a soloist?’
Eva’s eyes shone as she remembered. ‘Well, it was the music, he didn’t play like I’d heard. It was faster, precise, but the emotion wasn’t the same. So, I closed my eyes, and then, somehow, I heard him there in the front. When I opened my eyes, I found him. I remember grabbing my mother’s hand.’
‘How – how did you know it was him?’
She grinned. ‘I recognised the shoes.’
Chapter Four
Eva’s intervention on Vanda’s behalf had been the first bit of real good fortune she’d had since she’d arrived.
The set of warehouses known as ‘Kanada’ went on for what seemed like miles.
It was the land of plenty, and easily the most prized work assignment in the camp. It was where they stored the belongings that had been taken from all the prisoners when they’d arrived, all of which needed to be sorted and classified. These items – from the perambulators of Jewish mothers to the dentures of Jewish men – would be utilised by the German population. Waste not, want not.
She wondered if they even knew where the government’s supply came from, or if they cared at all. Seeing the vast number of things that had been taken from them, and realising that most of these people were probably now dead, was a horrifying thought.
Eva’s task was to go through the men’s coats and to search the lining for valuables; anything that could be potentially useful for those unnamed German people.
Theft was punishable by death. I
f you were caught.
Eva had learnt how to hide things well, from two years’ worth years of ‘sluicing’ in Terezín. Like how to unpick the stitches in a sleeve if it was lined, the perfect place to hide something small, like a slip of paper, or a flat watch. Collars could hold jewels, if you were lucky enough to find them, which could be traded for extra food or information. In the knees of stockings was a good place for hiding extra potatoes she dug up when she worked in the gardens of Terezín. Softer fruit like bananas, and vegetables like cucumbers, made excellent hideaways in brassieres. She’d taken things that could stand a bit of jostle and wear – tomatoes, not so much. She didn’t know if there were gardens here, somehow she doubted it.
In the vast piles of men’s coats she found money, and jewels, and sometimes bits of dried food, which could be useful for trading and bartering. She used this to finally get some new clogs – both the same size to fit her small feet, as well as several thick and scratchy pairs of socks, two sets of stockings and two long and thick woollen scarves. One for her and one for Sofie.
She was so quick that no one ever saw her do it, despite the fact that the guards patrolled regularly. The advantage of the warehouse being so enormous was that there were plenty of opportunities when the guards moved on for even the slowest of the bunch to take something, and they all did, despite the risks. Still, few were as good as Eva. She only took things she knew she could hide, and hide well.
‘If you’re going to steal, you’ve got to face the very real possibility that you will get caught,’ her uncle Bedrich had warned her, his dark eyes serious, when he’d turned to find her trying and failing to take his watch off him. He bent her arm back, playfully, but it still hurt. She winced, rubbing her arm.
‘That hurt! You told me to try it!’
He laughed, ignoring her protests. ‘No, dítě, getting your head blown off will hurt.’ He held up something in his other hand, eyes dancing.