“Not really,” he said. “Let’s sit down and eat.” He sniffed the air. “What are you cooking today, Golda?”
“Some kasha, and a few pieces of challah.”
“Any gravy?”
Mama shook her head.
“Never mind,” he said.
They all sat down to eat, and Papa spoke with hope for the first time in many months.
“I’ve signed Asher and myself up for it. It’s good, honest, physical work. And no . . .” He lowered his voice. “. . . no bodies.”
It gave Asher a warm feeling inside. He was going to help his papa provide for the family. He was going to be a true man at last.
“Asher too?” Mama said, frowning. “Hirsch, you know he’s not old enough for heavy physical work.”
“Pah!” Papa said with a laugh. “The boy can cope. He’s almost as strong as me.” He patted Asher on the shoulder. “Eager muscles. Young bones. He’ll be fine.”
“Don’t you think you should ask him first?” Rina said.
“Rina,” Mama said. “Don’t speak to your papa like that.”
Asher noticed that Rina’s stare persisted.
“I don’t mind,” he told his sister. “We need all the food we can get, don’t we?”
“But you don’t know what the work is,” she replied.
Asher shrugged. “I don’t care. It’s work, so it’s food.”
“So tell us,” Mama said to Papa. “Where’s this work?”
“The brick factory. They need to increase production.”
Rina laughed. “They build huge walls all around this place, then wonder why there’s a brick shortage?”
Papa continued. “They’ve just been granted a big order by the authorities. They’re allowing more coal to come in to fire the furnace, and also more food for the workers.”
“The furnace?” Mama said, slapping a hand down on the table. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Calm down, calm down. Asher and I won’t be anywhere near the furnace. We’ll be helping to load the bricks onto the trucks.”
“Are you sure that’s all it is? You can’t trust anyone these days. How can you be sure?”
“Sure?” he said. “What can anyone be sure about in these times? It’s a job. Even a chance of a job is good news.”
“We’ll see.”
Papa tutted at her.
“Have they told you what the bricks are for?” Rina asked.
“I don’t really care,” Papa replied. “But apparently there’s an important construction project to the east that needs a lot of bricks. It’s an urgent project so the work is all day, every day.”
“But that will kill you,” Mama said. “Both of you.”
Papa waved the thought away with the back of his hand. “Ah, so what’s happening now? Look at us, we’re all losing weight. Without food we’ll all be dead in six months anyway.”
Asher ate the kasha, but his mouth tasted something more. He imagined fruit, perhaps even meat.
“Come on,” Papa said. “We should be grateful for a drop of good news in an ocean of bad.”
At first, Papa’s optimism proved well founded. He and Asher worked like dogs at the brick factory and were exhausted at the end of every day. But there was food on the table. Compared to many around them, they ate like kings.
Nevertheless, by the spring of 1942 they were all still underweight, and Papa had developed a bad cough which was proving hard to shift. But, as he kept telling his family, they were all still alive when so many had perished. Weight could be put back on, and coughs could get better.
One day, Papa and Asher returned from work and washed while Mama prepared a meal. It was awkward with only one sink, but they managed.
Keren was reading a book.
“Hey, come on,” Mama said to her. “Help me. You can lay the table.”
Keren closed the book and put it down. Then she stopped. A glance out of the front window down to the street below had become a stare. There was also a grimace of disgust.
“Keren?” Mama said. “What is it?”
But Keren simply pointed to the street.
Mama came over and looked.
Asher came over too while he dried his hands, then Rina joined them.
“No, no,” Mama said. “Don’t look.”
But it was too late. They saw the body lying on the street outside. The woman’s legs were twisted, her head resting at an unnatural angle, her coat soaking up a nearby puddle.
“Is she dead?” Rina said.
They all knew the answer. But all Mama could say was, “Come away from the window, all of you. Asher, sit. Rina, Keren, help me prepare the meal.”
But they didn’t move, and soon Papa had finished drying his face. “What are you all staring at?” he said, ambling over. “What’s happened?”
His face dropped a little as he saw the sorry scene. He spoke softly. “Let’s all move away from the window,” he said, ushering everyone to the table. “I know it’s horrible, but what can we do? People are dying everywhere, inside houses and on every street. Asher and I must have passed a dozen dead bodies on the way home.”
“Sixteen today,” Asher said.
Mama turned to Papa. “Can’t you move her?”
“Who? Me?”
“Well, you and the authorities. Can’t you carry her away somewhere and bury her?”
“Carry her where? Bury her where?”
“Carry her off the street.”
“But to where?”
“Anywhere. She’s human. She deserves a proper burial.”
“But there’s no space. No land.”
“Yes, but—”
“And besides, we have the living to think of. The last grain delivery was three days ago, and they say half of that was weevils and beetles. Money or no money, soon there will be no food to buy.”
“I don’t care about that now. She’s a human being and if you don’t—”
“Mama!”
They turned to Keren, who had crept back and was peering through the window.
“Don’t interrupt your mama,” Papa said.
“But look.”
They all looked. A man and a woman were kneeling next to the dead body, searching through the woman’s pockets. Then they talked to each other and tried to lift the body up.
“Well,” Mama said. “Thank God there are some decent people left in this neighborhood.”
Asher noticed Papa exchange a knowing glance with Rina. They said nothing, but gave Mama a pitying look.
“What?” Mama said. “What is it?”
At first Asher didn’t understand either. But the five of them carried on looking outside. The two people kneeling beside the dead woman lifted her up to remove her coat, and then manhandled her to take off the rest of her clothes. They left the naked corpse splayed out, then got to their feet and scurried away.
Mama carried on staring out of the window. Even when Papa pulled the curtains shut she still stared.
A few minutes later, Papa started to scoop boiled potatoes onto the dishes.
“I can’t,” Mama said. “I’m not hungry.”
“And I feel sick,” Keren said.
“Listen,” Papa said. “Both of you. Sit. Sit and eat.”
“I agree,” Rina said. “You don’t have to enjoy it, but you have to eat.”
Keren shook her head. “I really can’t.”
“Sit down!” Papa gestured to a seat at the table. “It’s not a question of whether you want to eat.” He pointed toward the window. “It’s whether you want to end up like that.”
Mama shook her head and covered her face with her hand.
Papa continued. “Have you forgotten the starvation ten years ago in Ukraine? Just consider all those who died back then. If you aren’t eating for yourself, think of them.”
Mama sighed and guided Keren to the table.
“Just eat what you can,” Papa said. “It’s a duty, not a pleasure.”
Work at the b
rick factory continued, although the rewards were increasingly worthless.
Yes, Asher and Papa carried on loading bricks onto trucks, and yes, they brought home money. But, as Papa had said, they could only buy what people were prepared to sell, and now that wasn’t much. The bakeries, vegetable shops, and butchers that had once been well stocked now had little or nothing to sell. And what they did have was often barely edible.
Even more bodies lay in the gutters. More people were diseased. Papa still had his cough, and now Mama had developed it too.
While Asher and Papa worked for worthless money, Mama and the girls went out begging for food. But they only ever seemed to meet more beggars.
“Why do you still work?” Mama would ask Papa. “Nobody has anything to sell you.”
At first he would reply that he was buying food. Not much, but some. And some was more than none. He would also complain about the influx of people, about how still more people were arriving and were somehow being squeezed into that small area of Warsaw. “One dead body is carried out, two living ones arrive,” he would say. “Net result: one more mouth to feed.”
One evening, while Papa was resting on the bed, there was a knock at the door. Asher answered it, and a man asked for Papa. His papa groaned but he went out to the man, shutting the door behind him.
Asher listened. The two men argued for a few minutes, then Papa came back in, slamming the door behind him. He sighed and hesitated before speaking.
“Everyone, stop what you’re doing and sit down.” He waited until he had their attention before trying to continue. “They say . . . that is, the authorities say . . .”
“What?” Mama said. “What is it?”
“Well, they talk of a shortage of housing.”
She glanced around the room, at the sink at one end, the table in the middle, the bed and mattresses on the floor at the other. “And that’s supposed to be news?”
Papa looked down toward his feet. “We’ll be sharing this room with a young Polish couple.”
Mama laughed, but Asher could see it was an empty, desperate laugh.
“We can’t do that,” she said. “Tell them no. We won’t accept it.”
Papa held a hand up. “No. Look. It’s happening.”
“You mean, eating, sleeping, and washing with strangers? I don’t think so.”
“Please!” Papa roared.
Mama’s face trembled. She shook her head in dismay.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for shouting, Golda. But . . . this is not a choice.”
She nodded slowly. Papa put an arm around her and beckoned their three children toward him.
“We don’t have a choice,” he continued. “And neither do our new guests. We must welcome them.”
“Well, yes,” Mama said, huffing. “I guess you’re right. We can’t complain to them or blame them.”
“And we won’t,” Rina replied. “We all know whose fault this is.”
Oskar and Sala Slominski arrived late one evening. They were clearly weak and very frightened. They apologized for the inconvenience, speaking in short, nervous breaths, nodding hellos to everyone, and glancing furtively around the room.
Asher thought they were probably not much older than him, perhaps early twenties. Sala was a petite woman, Oskar was tall and thin, towering over the Kogans, almost threatening to fall over like an unstable building. The fact that he had a red birthmark on his face, covering one cheek and the side of his neck, made him look even more fragile, and at first Asher found it hard not to look at the mark.
“Sit down,” Papa said to them. “Relax. And you don’t need to apologize.”
They still seemed uncertain, clinging on to their suitcases.
“I’ll get you some sweet milk,” Mama said. “I’m afraid it won’t be hot; heating is in short supply.”
The Slominskis thanked her, settled their suitcases in a corner of the room as if they contained fragile ornaments, and sat at the table with the Kogans.
It turned out they only spoke Polish, but the Kogans had learned the language to varying degrees, so they found common ground to converse well enough.
“How far have you come?” Papa asked them.
“I’m not sure,” Oskar said, still a little disoriented.
Sala continued. “We’ve come from a small town in the north, not too far from Danzig. We were only told early this morning. We had to pack everything into two suitcases each.”
“At gunpoint, I suppose,” Mama said from the kitchen end of the room.
Sala nodded, her face pained.
Oskar held her hand. “It was more like the middle of the night when they came for us. Sala was very frightened.” He paused for a moment. “Me too. I don’t like guns.”
“We weren’t told anything about where we were going,” Sala said. “We’d all heard the stories of camps where the living conditions are unbearable.” She looked up at Oskar and squeezed his hand. “But I feel better now. This is a nice apartment. You’re good people.”
Papa raised his eyebrows at his children. “You’ve caught us on a good day.”
Mama brought over the two cups of milk. “I’m sorry, we have little food. We can only offer you a small piece of challah each.”
Oskar looked to Sala, and she gave her head a little shake.
“Thank you,” Oskar said. “But right now we need rest more than food.” He looked behind him. “Will we have a separate room?”
Mama and Papa exchanged glances. “What you see,” Papa said. “The one room. This is it.”
It took a few moments for the arrangement to sink in, then Oskar and Sala looked down at their cups of milk. Oskar took a sip and let out a gasp. “Delicious,” he said. “Thank you.”
“So what do you do for a living?” Keren said after a long pause.
“Oh, yes,” Oskar said, now a little animated. “Sala is a seamstress and I’m a chemical engineer with the local—” He stopped himself and his enthusiasm quickly drained away. “I mean, I was a chemical engineer.”
“That’s all right,” Rina said. “Papa once owned and ran his own farm. Now he’s only a laborer, reduced to breaking his back by loading bricks onto trucks.”
“Rina,” Papa growled. “I can talk for myself, and it’s a good job, an important position at the brick factory, helping . . .” His words trailed off to a guttural grunt. “Oh, she’s right. I don’t like it, but she’s right. I’m a laborer.”
“But the war will end,” Sala said, forcing a smile. “Because all wars end, and when it does, life will return to normal.”
“Of course,” Papa said. He gave an assured nod, and talk turned to the street layout of the Jewish district and the meager food provision, after which they all lay down and slept, the Slominskis using cushions from the two easy chairs.
Living in such close proximity to strangers was always going to be awkward, but after the first few days the worst of that feeling fell away. Mama borrowed a needle and thread from next door, and she and Sala created a makeshift curtain, which they put on a piece of string tied across one corner of the room, where Sala and Oskar slept and kept their personal belongings.
Keren designated that area “Slominski house,” and she also organized a schedule for “family hour,” whereby for one hour every day either the Kogans or the Slominskis would leave the house to give the others some space, and to allow some privacy for washing at the sink.
Over the weeks that followed, the five Kogans and two Slominskis gradually got used to sharing the room without bumping into one another too much as they walked around the table or approached the sink. They also tried their best to restrict complaining to “family hour.” At least, the Kogans did; Asher had no idea what the Slominskis got up to during their family hour—although they always seemed a little flushed and flustered when the Kogans returned home.
One day, while Asher and Papa were at the brick factory, Papa was called over by a guard. Asher carried on working, lifting the bricks onto a truck,
but stopped when he saw, out of the corner of his eye, Papa gesticulating wildly. There were angry words. The guard’s rifle barrel was raised for a moment. Papa returned and started loading bricks again, but didn’t speak or look at Asher.
On the way home Papa still didn’t speak—not until they were outside the apartment building, where he stopped and turned to Asher.
“I have some bad news,” he said. “And I feel I should tell you first.”
Asher felt his throat trembling. “Is it about Izabella?”
A deep frown appeared on Papa’s forehead. “No. No news of her, I’m afraid. The news is that there’s no more work at the brick factory.”
A hundred words of fear and apprehension played on Asher’s tongue, but he could say nothing, could do nothing except follow his papa inside.
Papa gathered the family around and told them that work at the brick factory was to cease. The one big order for bricks had been completed, so there was no more work for him and Asher.
There were arguments about what they would do, but all questions went unanswered.
“What do you want me to do?” Papa said to them all. “I don’t have solutions.”
After that, Asher and Papa stayed together during the long, miserable days, trudging through the walled area of the city, searching for food or work of any sort. “Let me do the talking,” Asher’s papa would always say to him.
Asher went along with that, but telling everyone they met that they would do absolutely anything in exchange for food for the family didn’t seem such a hard thing to say.
It didn’t take long, however, for Asher to realize that actually it must have been a very hard thing for Papa to say.
Soon after the brick factory closed, in the summer of 1942, there seemed to be a little hope. Many Jews were being taken out of the walled city within a city. The official story was that people were being taken somewhere else in Poland with more space and better housing—a heaven of sorts.
Asher heard the rumors of what was really happening, and assumed the others did, but the family didn’t talk openly of such things. Asher assumed this was out of optimism.
And Mama said it was good news for those who remained in Warsaw, with more space and perhaps more food.
Beyond the Shadow of Night Page 13