“I couldn’t imagine being apart from my husband,” I said, looking at Willy.
He gave me the most tender smile, brought my hand to his lips and kissed it with infinite affection.
“You must be newlyweds,” the Hauptman noted, looking slightly embarrassed.
“Yes, we are. My first wife passed away a year ago. Ilse and I got married in March.”
A bit of a white lie. We met in March but were inseparable since.
Apparently, it was enough to convince everyone present. The Hauptmann left, expressing his regret that they were leaving Minsk to join the frontline forces of the 6th Army in Ukraine, promised to visit us if he happened to be in our parts again; the SS man simply disappeared after yet another sharp salute. The column with troops even waited for us to cross the road back to our car before they resumed their movement.
As soon as we were far enough, Willy outstretched his arm toward Lore, who occupied the back seat.
“Give me everything you have in that bag.”
Reluctantly, she pulled out a stack of papers, smelling of fresh ink. I stared at them in stupefaction while Willy gave them a cursory perusal before stacking them under his seat. So, Liza was right after all. They did resume printing them only three weeks later, while the bodies of the former printers still swayed from the gallows. And my little sister was now one of them. How did I miss that? How did I fail to notice her preoccupied ways, her suddenly serious eyes, her knitted brows as she worked something out in her mind? I was too busy daydreaming about Willy when I was away from him and I almost lost my sister because of it.
“Do you understand that you could have gotten shot?” I asked quietly.
Lore only nodded, very calm and collected. She did. She understood everything and decided that hope for the people was more important than her own life.
Willy never said another word, only slowed the car down and honked once he saw a column of the Ostjuden, repairing the road that the partisans recently damaged. Their supervisors were nowhere to be seen, at least from where we were standing. Beckoning one of the workers, Willy lowered the window, quickly shoved the papers into the man’s hands and sped away almost at once. In a rearview mirror, I saw how the man just as promptly shoved the stack into his jacket before returning to work. From the back seat, Lore saw it too and grinned. She was afraid Willy would throw them away and it was so difficult to type them!
“I’m sorry for hitting you,” he finally spoke to her directly.
I’m not like them, his eyes said as he looked at her through the mirror.
“You had to; otherwise they wouldn’t have believed you.” I know you’re not. She didn’t say it, but it was evident in her voice.
Chapter Fifteen
“It is impossible to estimate the loses, but…” Liza’s brows were tightly drawn in concentration as she translated what sounded like complete and utter gibberish to me, at the same time marking things down on a piece of paper. “Marshal Timoshenko says they underestimated the 6th Army’s potential and overestimated their own forces… Over two hundred thousand casualties.” She shook her head, her hands lying limply in her lap. Abruptly, she turned to the radio, which we shouldn’t have been listening to in the first place, and switched it off. “And those are censored numbers; Soviet Informbureau always ensures that they make Red Army loses appear smaller than they are. Nakrylos kontrnastoupleniye mednym tazom,” she added in Russian, with a note of desolate finality in her voice.
I understood her without understanding her language. The Soviet counteroffensive near Kharkov, in which the Stavka had such high hopes, along with our kin in the ghetto, resulted in a decisive German victory. When Superintendent Richter, who followed the events in Ukraine with great interest, read out the latest reports from the front last Sunday, we took it with a grain of salt. Didn’t they lie to us in the same manner about the German troops taking Moscow and planning a parade in Red Square, just a few months ago, in winter? Perhaps, the Kharkov disaster was the same type of lie, another means of breaking our spirit? Liza nudged me in my ribs as we stood listening to the obligatory “concert” after Richter’s address – it was Austrian waltzes that day, a good day for Richter – and inquired if Schultz’s office radio could catch the Soviet radio waves. I pleaded with her to abandon such a suicidal idea but she simply barged in with her bucket and broom the next day, boldly lied to Willy that the brigade needed his attention outside and began working the radio knob until Russian speech poured out of the speakers.
I had sat with my back pressing onto the front door, my hand on the handle holding it fast, beads of sweat collecting under my collar, while she listened to stern voices, interrupted by mechanical rustling from time to time. Now, I let go of it at last and crawled toward her on my knees. For some time, we sat in silence.
“Will you put it in your leaflet?” I asked her, regarding her notes dubiously.
“I will. People need to know the truth, whatever it is,” she replied with calm resignation.
“This is not the end of the war,” I tried to console her. Judging by the sympathetic look she offered in response to my attempt, the consolation came out as rather pitiful.
“I know it’s not, you innocent little baby.” She touched my chin. “The whole trouble is, we’re playing against time. Have you noticed how they keep pushing the borders of the ghetto towards the Cemetery each month? New Gentile tenants had just moved into the houses, in which our friends used to live before they ended up in yet another pit. They’ll clear it out entirely soon, the SS. Give or take another year. And if the Red Army doesn’t come and liberate us in time…”
She didn’t finish. The unspoken threat hung in the air, heavy as the smoke which came from the south whenever the wind changed direction. To rid themselves of the partisans, Einsatzkommando decided to burn as much forest as they could with flamethrowers. They didn’t get further than the swamps and now peat bogs were burning, contaminating the air around the city with the stench of smoldering turf. Willy had a few choice words to say, on their account; now, at the end of May, days stood stifling hot and we couldn’t even open a window to ventilate the room due to that smoke.
“What about the partisans?” I probed gingerly.
Liza only shrugged, sunk a rag into the bucket of water, twisted it and began scrubbing the floor. “What about them? We can’t exactly up and move the entire ghetto into the forest, can we? We used to send as many people as we could through various channels but now after the Gestapo did away with the Committee in the Russian sector, it’ll take time to establish a new connection to the partisans. It all takes time, which we don’t have. You wait and see how they come up with yet another pogrom.”
“God forbid, Liza!” I was knocking on wood like a mad woman.
“God may forbid, but the SS has special permission,” she remarked with bitter irony.
“What is your Nahum saying? Do they know anything in the Judenrat?”
The grin, which brightened Liza’s face at the mention of her beloved, didn’t escape me. She guarded him fiercely at first, from that day when I first saw them exchange those few glances in Jubilee Square but then, as habit has it among young women, she couldn’t help but talk about him, for long periods and invariably with a dreamy expression.
“The Judenrat is a rotten affair as of now, with all the collaborators Richter has appointed there. Except for Elder Yoffe, who replaced Mushkin, Nahum, and Dr. Kolb from the hospital, they’re all on the Gestapo’s payroll. Nahum says they can’t sneeze inside without someone reporting it to Richter.” She snorted in disdain. “And what of your Schultz?”
“He doesn’t know anything. That is, he’s in charge of the Luftwaffe supply and such. He doesn’t know much about the military operations or the SS except for the bits he gets from this department or that and official reports which their political leaders read out to them every week.”
“The Luftwaffe has their own Richter?” Liza broke out into mirthless laughter. “A veritable anec
dote.”
“You don’t say.”
“When did we become such bitter old women?”
“You tell me.” I tried to pull the rag out of her hands. “Let me wash at least the other room. You never let me do anything!”
“Leave off, you princess. Your hands will reek of dirty water. Your duty is to look pretty and keep Schultz happy. Look how he’s changed since you appeared. So kind to everyone, so generous with ration cards as though it’s his own soldiers he’s feeding and not some Jews from the ghetto. He used to be so stern with everyone and now look at him, all smiles and compliments. Jokes with us even, imagine that! So, keep doing whatever it is that you’re doing. It’s working.”
“I’m not doing anything,” I muttered, applying my utmost to conceal a smile. “Just a kiss here and there.”
“Nu y zrya,” like all of her pearls of wisdom, Liza expressed this one in her native language. “It’s not the peaceful times when things should follow a certain order. Meeting, courtship, parents’ blessing, all that rot. We can all die tomorrow for all we know. I should know what I’m saying; I lost my husband not even a year ago. Yes, call me a shameless wanton or what not but if I can feel alive in a man’s embrace for one more night, you can bet your ration card, I’ll do it. I’m still a woman; at least that they didn’t take away from me. Live a little, Ilsechka, while you still can.”
“Women will talk…”
“Women talk as it is. They think you are already lovers. Their opinion of you won’t change a bit as long as their stomachs are full. Trust me, they are all very grateful.”
In no time, she finished her daily cleaning routine and left with a wink.
Lovers. I brought my hand to my lips and touched them, remembering how his mouth felt on mine, how my heart was pounding whenever he held me in his embrace, how my body instantly responded to his caresses whenever he pulled me against him, his eyes dark with desire. I would always stop him before it would get too far between us but, instantaneously I would miss his arms around my waist and almost resent his respectful compliance. What if I didn’t stop him next time?
Not quite myself from both Liza’s words still clouding my mind with all sorts of inappropriate thoughts and my own confused feelings, I kneeled in front of the radio, working the knob and firmly set on distracting myself with some brassy propaganda pouring from a German station. But as luck would have it, instead of Goebbels’s shouts, I came across Lale Andersen singing the ode to all lovers on Soldatensender Belgrad – “Das Mädchen unter der Laterne” – in her beautiful voice.
Outside the barracks, by the corner light
I’ll always stand and wait for you at night
We will create a world for two
I’ll wait for you the whole night through…
I turned my gaze toward the door as it opened, a grinning Willy appearing in the threshold. The fates just had it against me that day, it appeared.
“Who listens to this type of music in such a manner?” He scowled in mock-confusion, walked up to me and offered me his hand. “When a song like this is playing, you ought to dance.”
I rose to my feet, smiling and placed my hand on his shoulder. He gently pressed my other palm, enclosed in his.
“Is everything all right with the brigade?” I asked.
“In exemplary order, as always. It is my profound conviction that Liza simply wished to be rid of my persona so you two could gossip in peace.”
“You are not far from the truth,” I admitted, smiling in embarrassment.
“You girls always gossip about us, poor miserable muttons.”
“It’s only natural. What else to discuss for two young women in love?”
Only when he stopped abruptly, did I realize what words had just escaped my lips. I looked at him in utmost horror unable to take another breath and cursing myself for such an idiotic slip of the tongue. Of all the things to tell him! My cheeks burning feverishly, I was ready to admit that we were listening to the Soviet Informbureau; anything to make him stop staring at me the way he was, in utter stupefaction, with a bare outline of a hopeful smile already forming on his face.
When we are marching in the mud and cold
And when my pack seems more than I can hold
My love for you renews my might
I’m warm again, my pack is light,
It’s you, Lili Marlene
“It’s you, Ilse Stein,” he sang along with Andersen, changing the name of the girl every soldier sang about in-between grisly fights of both wars. “I love you.”
Not waiting for my answer, he drew me to himself and kissed me with unrestrained desire, nearly crushing me in his embrace. I clung to him and kissed him back with the same primal hunger, not hearing anything any longer except for Liza’s words. Live a little Ilsechka, while you still can.
It can be my corpse that a black SS boot shoves into a new pit tomorrow and I want to die a woman who’s known love at least for a few stolen moments.
With my fingers tangled in his hair, I found his belt buckle with the other hand and stumbled over it, unsure. He moved my hand gently to the side and unfastened the belt himself, letting it drop with a dull thud onto the carpet. His jacket followed – he threw it impatiently onto the chair.
“Not here. People.” His whisper burned my ear as he pulled me after himself toward the bedroom, locking the door to the office as we passed it by.
He closed the bedroom door as well. I leaned against it, my entire body feeling as though engulfed in fire, either from my shameless behavior or even more shameless desire, reflected in his eyes that now shone with unspeakable brightness, on his suddenly pale face. It was unbearable to look into them for the intensity of the longing in their ice-blue fire terrified me yet excited me at the same time. His fingers trembled with impatience, undoing the buttons on my blouse. The tender cloth gave way and tore when he pulled it down my shoulder a bit too forcefully.
“I’ll get you a new one,” he whispered by means of apology, already claiming my mouth again.
I didn’t particularly care for such trifles, too consumed with his hand caressing my bare breast he’d just released from under my shift after pulling a strap down. Yes, let them kill me tomorrow; tomorrow, I will gladly die by their hand as long as they let me have my today – here, with him.
I worked my way out of my skirt and let it drop next to his boots and a shirt. He took my hand and pulled me closer to the bed, his clouded gaze full of desire and tenderness.
“You are impossibly beautiful.”
I must have been quite a sight, in mended stockings and a cotton undershirt which was so thin it might as well be non-existent, hanging off one shoulder. My hands moved instinctively to cover myself up.
“No, don’t,” he pleaded with me and pulled the blackout curtains closed at once, creating an artificial twilight in the room. He took me in his hands again and I lowered mine. “I don’t want you to be shy around me. You have the body of a goddess. I promise I will worship every inch of it.”
I grinned and hid my face in his neck; in spite of myself, flattered.
“You say such things to me…”
“It’s true. All of it.”
Both straps slid down my bare arms, guided by his hands. The undershirt stopped at my hips; he kneeled in front of me to remove it along with my underwear. I closed my eyes when he moved his lips along my inner thighs and grasped the iron frame of the bed as he parted them gently and put his mouth on me.
“Willy…” I hadn’t the faintest idea of how many times I whispered his name in the course of the next few deliciously tormenting minutes and how many times I moaned it, my fingers clutching at his hair when I couldn’t take it any longer.
I was almost relieved when he pulled me, barely coherent and still gasping for air, on top of the bed for I could swear my legs would give in had he not put me down. His hand in between us, he looked at me closely one last time.
“Are you sure about it?”
There
will be no going back.
I didn’t want to look back. I wanted only the future, with him, exactly where I belonged.
I nodded, kissed him instead of a reply and inhaled sharply as he guided himself in.
“Am I hurting you?”
I shook my head slowly, smiling. He could never hurt me and particularly now.
“I didn’t know it would feel this way. So… amazing.” Feeling you inside of me, the closest two people can get.
He beamed at me before covering my entire face in kisses. He began moving slowly, letting me get used to the sensation. I suddenly understood Liza and her invariably burning eyes each time she’d meet me at our “exit”; I knew she always saw Nahum before “smuggling” me inside her part of the ghetto. She teased me good-humoredly, implying that I was missing out a lot and I refused to believe all the fuss she made about it.
He was moving faster, harder now. I clasped the metal post behind my head with both hands and bit my lip to stop myself from making any sounds. Willy hid his face in the pillow as well, right next to my face.
“Ilse…” His hot breath burned my neck.
I only pressed my jaws tighter and wrapped myself around him, my legs, my arms; I couldn’t hold it any longer either. He clutched me tightly one last time; along with him, I released a shuddering breath.
We lay together, my back against his stomach, for what felt like a blissful forever. We drifted into sleep at some point and I woke up to his lips covering my neck and shoulder with light kisses.
“It’s almost five. I have to go and make a call to the airbase. They’ll be waiting.” The reluctance in his voice was palpable.
“Is it five already?” I rose on one elbow too to check on the alarm clock at the bedside table. “I have to go too. The brigade—”
“To hell with the brigade; stay here tonight.” He was holding me fast once again.
“I can’t.”
“You can. I’ll write a note for you and give it to Liza. She’ll show it at the gates and they will mark it down so that there will be no trouble with the inspection if they check on your house tonight.”
No Woman's Land: a Holocaust novel based on a true story (Women and the Holocaust Book 2) Page 14