by Jane Yolen
I never found that strange.
I missed my friends, of course. But I think I missed the evenings on our porch most of all.
2
Not asked,” Papa whispered harshly in the morning, when just the four of them were eating in the little kitchen, the Norenbergs still asleep.
Breakfast consisted of a thin gruel, thinner than usual, with ersatz coffee for the grown-ups and watered milk for the twins.
“We weren’t even asked,” Papa said again, though the coughs that followed his words were so strong, he couldn’t go on.
“Mrs. Norenberg was crying in the night,” said Mama sharply, as if trying to cover up Papa’s spasms. “When I went to the bathroom, I could hear her.” But she whispered, too, as if afraid to disturb the other family. “And he snores. Sounds like a train coming into the station. How any of them can sleep through that noise—”
“Perhaps exhaustion trumps snores, Mama,” Gittel said. Mama had been teaching Gittel and Chaim how to play durak and bridge, and Gittel had begun to adopt the vocabulary of the card games. She turned slightly and winked at Chaim.
He smiled back, remembering how he’d teased her just the other day about using card game terms. But that was BN. Before Norenbergs. Chaim wasn’t sure he had any teasing left in him.
“Just told us,” Papa said, but carefully, so as not to start coughing again. “Though we’ll be lucky not to have another family dumped on us as well, what with more people being brought in from other parts of Poland. Next week, we might have to host the entire Jewish population in this building. Stacked up like cords of wood.”
Of course Papa was exaggerating, but Chaim could tell how angry he was.
None of them had to ask how Papa got his news. It was no mystery. When they’d first moved to the ghetto, he’d worked nights keeping the books for a left-wing political party because he’d been the treasurer for the union in his school district. One of his workmates from the party lived in a downstairs apartment with five other men, so Papa often heard about what was happening in the ghetto from him, long before the rest of the apartment block heard the gossip.
Mama made a tch-ing sound with her tongue. “We could make up the sofa into a bed, I suppose. Take at least one more person in.” She had her chin resting in her hand, which was what she did when she was thinking. “It isn’t all bad, you know. With a doctor living here, maybe we’ll get a better food allocation, and perhaps he really can find you something for your cough, dear.”
“A dentist,” Papa reminded her.
“Dentist, doctor, I’m sure they can both write prescriptions.” Mama lifted her hands toward the ceiling, palms up as if sending a prayer heavenward.
“Not at all the same thing,” Papa said, but the agitation caused him to cough again, which made any further conversation impossible.
Chaim asked carefully, “Is Bruno a Jewish name?” Five words. Maybe his longest sentence for the day.
“Perhaps they don’t use Jewish names in Lublin,” Gittel observed. “Or maybe he’s named after someone German who was special in their lives.” She twisted one of her braids through the fingers of her right hand, a nervous habit.
“No German is special in anyone’s life. Though they are in everyone’s life these days,” said Papa, his voice sharp.
“Maybe we shouldn’t make judgments without knowledge,” said Mama. She ran a hand through her short hair.
“If the Norenbergs are German—” Gittel interrupted.
“German Jews,” Mama said quietly. “They had yellow stars on their coats.”
“Yekes,” Chaim and Papa proclaimed together, Papa adding, “Anyone can sew a yellow star on a coat.”
“They didn’t kiss . . .” Chaim made a motion of kissing his hand, and placing it on the wall over a mezuzah.
“Maybe they aren’t observant,” Mama said. “After all, we don’t kiss it either.”
“And maybe there isn’t a God,” Papa said. “So what’s to observe?”
Gittel broke in to change the conversation, as she often did when things turned testy.
“Mrs. Morovitz . . . apartment 106 . . . says,” Gittel said slowly, until she had the family’s complete attention. “She says that with Shavuot coming soon, the council will be distributing a special food bonus to every household—two hundred grams of white sugar, seventy grams of margarine. And, Mama—fifty grams of ersatz coffee.” She smiled at Mama. With her ever-ready smile, Gittel always seemed to get the gossip from the old women in the building, all of whom adored her.
Chaim knew that even if he’d had the ability to schmooze with the neighbor ladies, he’d never have been able to smile at them. Papa used to say he was a little old man in a boy’s short pants.
Well, Chaim thought, at least I don’t wear short pants anymore.
“With the extra food we should get for housing the doctor and his family,” Mama mused—as if, Chaim thought, it’s already a done thing—“it will be a holiday feast!”
“And candy, Mama!” Gittel crowed. “Mrs. Morovitz heard there was going to be candy! I miss candy.”
Chaim doubted the extra allocations were anything more than a wishful rumor. After all, the numbers simply made no sense. “That’s . . . a . . . a . . . lie!” Only three words, and emphatic. Though, alas, the stutter took away some of the power of his statement.
“Yah, yah,” Papa said in the breathy way he had after an especially bad coughing fit. “The rabbi told me before he left last night that there’s to be no extra food for Shavuot.” He drew a deep breath before adding, “As if anything can be celebrated in a city under siege.”
“But Mrs. Morovitz said . . .” Surprisingly, Gittel’s voice was close to breaking.
“So now Mrs. Morovitz knows better than the rabbi?” Mama shook her head. “Mrs. M is an old gossip. A yenta, Gittel. Don’t go listening to the house yentas. Listen to the rabbi or to reason.”
Reason, Chaim thought, is in short supply these days. It was something Papa once said, when all those people were suddenly being resettled back in February.
He signed reason to Gittel, right middle finger pressed against his right temple. Though he looked down at the table and acted as if he was scratching his head, to minimize the chance of his parents noticing.
Gittel ignored him, though she must have seen the sign.
“No extra rations either. They”—Papa nodded at the bedroom door—“will have to eat air.”
Mama put a finger to her lips and looked at Papa pointedly. “They are guests. We’ll find a way.”
“Not guests—” Papa began, his voice suddenly agitated and loud.
Mama hissed at him. “Shhhhh!” There was no missing the steel in that hiss.
Papa hushed.
The minute it was quiet around the table, the big bedroom door opened and out marched the Norenbergs. None of them was smiling.
I wonder, Chaim mused, if they’ve been listening all this time, like collaborators. Like . . . spies! He wanted to believe they’d been planted by the Nazis so he could truly hate them. But in his heart he knew that if he’d been in the same situation, he’d have had his ear glued to the bedroom door, too.
* * *
• • •
There was a lot of whining once the Norenbergs settled at the kitchen table, mostly Sophie complaining that she was hungry and hated the thin porridge, and Bruno going on about how small his portion was.
Bruno also volunteered to eat the rest of Sophie’s breakfast for her. “But only because you’re my sister,” he said, as if that made him some kind of hero, devouring leftovers to save her.
Chaim asked to be excused to help remove Papa’s clothes from his parents’ bedroom. “Papa?” He hesitated, pointed to the doorway. “Your things?”
Papa nodded and went out with him.
The minute they were in the hall, he whi
spered to his father, “He’s a pig.”
“Not kosher,” Papa added, and they both chuckled.
They took the few shirts, several pairs of pants, one suit jacket, two ties, underwear, and socks, and left them on Chaim’s bed.
“Until your mother can organize it,” Papa said. “She’s so good at that sort of thing. Not me.” He sat down before a coughing fit could begin. Sitting, he often said, seemed to constrict the airways, which helped.
Chaim couldn’t see that it made any difference. Papa coughed just as much sitting as standing or lying down. One day, Chaim thought, Papa will simply cough his lungs out. Then he mentally spat between his second and pinky finger, to ward off the evil eye. Not that he’d do that sort of thing for real. It was 1942, after all, and no one believed in that kind of magical stuff anymore.
“He’s dreadful, Papa,” Chaim said.
“He’s a boy, and he’s scared. That’s how fear takes some kids. Turns them into monsters, bullies.”
“Nazis.”
Papa stood again, took off his glasses, and cleaned them with the bottom of his cardigan. “There’s no explanation for Nazis. Except that true evil exists in the world and we Jews often feel the brunt of its lash. Bruno may be a boy making wrong choices out of fear, but he’s no Nazi.” He ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Let’s get your mother’s things now. That will take much longer. More time to be away from the Norenbergs.”
“Longer is good,” Chaim said, winking at him.
That made Papa chuckle, which turned into another coughing fit, but luck was with him, and it wasn’t anywhere as bad as the one before.
* * *
• • •
It took three trips to get Mama’s clothing moved. There were dresses and sweaters, blouses and skirts, cloaks and shoes. Papa handled the undergarments, as Chaim was too embarrassed to touch them.
“How many shoes?” Chaim asked.
“Five pairs. That was as many as we could carry from the old house, though she certainly had more,” Papa told him. “The rest she left for the Nazis, though goodness knows what the German soldiers did with her old shoes. None of their big feet would fit into her tiny slippers! Such a Cinderella! Your mother would want to haul a closet full of shoes, even in the middle of a war.”
“Papa, it is the middle of a war.”
Papa smiled. “A resettlement. Not a war.” But as the smile faded away too quickly, Chaim was sure Papa was only trying to comfort him.
They went back to clear out the bathroom. Papa was bending over the tub where many of Mama’s toiletries were stored. “We have to share the bathroom with them, but not the toiletries,” he said. “Keep these in our rooms and bring them in when you wash up each morning.
None of them took a bath. The water had to be carted up four flights of stairs from a central pump in the square. And no way to heat it except in a kettle on the hearth over an open fire. But each of them did a lukewarm—lukecold, Gittel liked to say—washcloth bath once a week. It was enough. It had to be.
* * *
• • •
Walking out of the bathroom door with the last box of Mama’s toiletries, Chaim all but bumped into Bruno.
He was going into the big bedroom, looking furtive, like a fox who’d just raided the hen house. There was something in his hand.
When Bruno saw Chaim, his eyes widened. “This is our room,” he said, first in German, then repeating it in Polish, adding, “You’ve no right to be spying—”
Not wanting to be called a sneak or a spy, Chaim muttered, “Emptying the bathroom,” before hurrying down the hall like the rabbi trying to make curfew. He passed Dr. and Mrs. Norenberg, but he didn’t even nod at them as he went past Gittel’s bedroom. He could hear his father already in the family bathroom, so he raced there.
Papa was picking out more things from the cabinets.
Chaim whispered, “He’s taken something.”
Papa turned. “Who? Who’s taken what?” His face was as furrowed as a farmer’s vegetable garden.
“Sneaky Bruno.”
“I’ll check the kitchen, then. Where else might he have been?”
But when they got to the kitchen, Mama was there and clearly already knew. With her were Gittel and Sophie. Gittel held Mama’s hand, but Sophie stood apart from them, her face red with embarrassment.
“That boy took my stash of sugar,” Mama said. “And the little round balls of candy that I have for you when your coughing really gets bad.” She had tears in her eyes. “I don’t mind him having the sugar. Though he doesn’t look as if he’s starving. Yet.”
Standing that close together, Mama and Gittel looked very much alike, as if they were the twins, not Gittel and Chaim. Gittel was softly round like Mama, while Chaim was thin, wiry, all angles like a smaller Papa.
His schoolmates—back when there was a school—had called him Ratskin, which hadn’t been a compliment.
It’s the way you squeak more than talk, one of them had told him. Like a rat! As if his meaning hadn’t been clear enough.
Chaim had actually considered hitting the boy, but deed didn’t follow thought, because thinking took so long. He liked to go over every possibility before acting.
Papa seemed suddenly fierce, his hands opening and closing over and over again. “I’ll speak to the dentist, to his father,” he said, but the effort was too much, and he began coughing so violently, Gittel ran over to the bucket and filled up an entire glass, heedless of the scarcity of water. Then she brought it to Papa, who took it gratefully.
“Never mind, I’ll take care of it,” Mama said.
Chaim watched Sophie, who seemed to sink into herself as if trying to disappear, and he felt sorry for her. But there was nothing he could do, so when Mama left, he ran after to help.
The door of the big bedroom opened suddenly, and Dr. Norenberg stood there, looking annoyed.
Mama skidded to a halt, and Chaim almost knocked into her.
“Dr. Norenberg,” Mama said, “your son has taken something of mine.”
“My son does not steal.” The doctor’s voice was iron. “My son speaks three languages fluently—German, Polish, and French. He does well in the mathematics and sciences. He is top of his school form.”
Dr. Norenberg probably removes rotten teeth just by speaking that way, Chaim thought. No dental instruments needed at all!
Mama seemed suddenly as tongue-tied as Chaim.
“Not steal,” Chaim managed, not even counting the words. “He just t-t-took.” As always, he was ashamed of his stutter. In his head he could spin out long, glorious sentences. On paper he could write a beautiful line. In his mouth, pebbles dribbled out. “Took!” he said more loudly, for emphasis.
That loosened Mama’s tongue. She added, “My stash of sugar for the coffee and the medicinal balls for my husband’s cough.”
“If you can call that horrible stuff coffee.” Dr. Norenberg shuddered.
Mrs. Norenberg peered around her husband’s shoulder. “Oh, Bruno said you gave him the candy.” Her voice was high and reedy, as if played by an inept musician. “He would never lie about that.”
About what, then? Chaim wondered.
“I did not give anything to him. We never spoke of candy. Not asked, not answered. He must have found them sometime in the night.” Mama’s voice was stern as if talking to one of the children. “They are medicine, not sweets.”
Mrs. Norenberg looked confused. “But we were all sleeping in the night. Yes? And it was only now he said . . .” The reedy voice rose higher, and she didn’t make a statement as much as ask a question.
By then Gittel was standing at the door of her room, twisting her right braid but adding nothing to the argument.
Dr. Norenberg was furious. Whether at his wife or his son, Chaim couldn’t tell, but the dentist’s forehead was suddenly deep with l
ines, as if they’d been cut there by a knife. His right hand clenched into a fist.
“Bruno!!!” he thundered.
The boy came forward. His face was an odd mixture of defiance and fear.
“So, you have these things?”
“Why would I have them, Father?”
Chaim noticed that he didn’t ask what things.
“But you gave me one—” Mrs. Norenberg began, then shut up under her son’s withering glance.
Bruno turned back to his father. “I didn’t want to say this in front of Mother, and especially not in front of these . . . people . . . Father. But Mutti was moaning with hunger during the night, so I went into the kitchen to see if there was anything I could find there to stop her pain. And in one drawer was a bag of candies. Such a little bag. Surely, I thought, no one would miss such a small thing.”
“Ah, as they were for your mother, then you did a good deed, son,” said Dr. Norenberg. He spoke quietly, but the brow lines had not disappeared even as the voice softened. “So you didn’t steal, my son, you simply . . . took.”
Chaim thought, Just as you have taken my words, sir.
“I took for Mutti. For Mother,” Bruno added, nodding. “Only for her.”
Dr. Norenberg looked triumphantly at Chaim. “As you noted.”
Chaim refused to meet the dentist’s eyes and saw instead that Sophie had come into the hall, too. She looked stricken.
But Mama held out her hand. “I need that bag of candies now. They are my husband’s only medicine.”
Dr. Norenberg nodded and held out his hand to Bruno. “The bag of sweets. Schnell! Now!” His voice was still soft, but the steel was back. “Do not disappoint me, my son. I do not appreciate disappointments.” He turned to glare at Sophie, who muttered, “I’m sorry, Papa.”
He softened for a second. “Not your fault.” There was a pause. “This time.”
Sophie bowed her head.
Just seconds later, Bruno returned and deposited the bag of sweets into his father’s outstretched palm.
