Six Thousand Miles to Home

by Kim Dana Kupperman

  “Dig,” he ordered. Father and son worked until an air-raid siren sounded. They ran for cover to a nearby trench, which other men had dug on another day. To return to the apartment on Bałuckiego, they took a circuitous route. This landed them, each time bombs fell anew, in different cellars and stairwells along the way. They never delivered the note. Other things happened to keep them from completing that particular task:

  They learned the Hotel Angielski had been bombed.

  They went to see for themselves, and were unable to find Greta and Ernst.

  Various streets in Warsaw were impassable.

  The phone lines were down.

  The Germans were at the outskirts of the city.

  Milly’s sister Margaret didn’t know where they were, and they couldn’t call her.

  By the time they were able to go outside, their goal was to leave Warsaw.

  From his wallet, Julius took the note for Margaret and the ticket for the furs. “Put these somewhere,” he said to Josefina. “One day …,” he said and then fell silent.

  WHEN THEY ARRIVED AT THE KOSINSKI’S, Josefina was grateful to see the modest wooden house on the edge of a small potato field. The Germans were advancing at a record-setting pace. You could hear the thundering of the front. The bombing was relentless. Every day on the radio, the mayor of Warsaw, Stefan Starzyński, urged the citizens to defend the capital. He called Hitler a barbarian. He dug trenches and never abandoned his city. How would his life end? This was the kind of question Josefina had started asking herself more frequently. Would he be shot in Warsaw? Or would he perish in a Nazi labor camp? She couldn’t imagine other outcomes, and this inability to see anything but terrible endings greatly troubled her.

  Between the first day of the war and the Kohn’s arrival at the Kosinski’s, Julius told his wife that she and the children needed to learn to adapt quickly to new and harsher circumstances. He spoke with a rare firmness, the exigency of his words causing Josefina to pay attention.

  “You must try to think through all the consequences of actions and choices you make, ready your minds to predict the correct path,” he said somberly. She and Suzanna, he reminded her, could each tote only one item, a rucksack, which they should never abandon. He and Peter also needed to carry small knives, but no one could notice them. They were to wear multiple layers of clothing, Julius said. Their bags should contain a blanket, gloves, socks, bandages, candles, matches, aspirin, alcohol, needle and thread, paper and pen, sausages, and as much tinned or dried food as could fit. “Two empty tin cans each. Utensils. And whatever pieces of rope you can find.” They were to keep valuables sewn into various items of clothing. Josefina, he advised, should carry most of the money and jewelry because if she were to be separated from him, she could always buy her way out. Especially with peasants, whose superstitious ways were unpredictable, and who, sometimes, could be hard-edged. Their poverty, Julius told Josefina, made them amenable to helping in exchange for money. “I don’t like thinking this way, Finka,” he added. “But you have to assume the worst about everyone during a war.” Be mindful, he cautioned, because they would switch allegiances rapidly if more cash were offered. He warned her about the Russian soldiers, reminding her of the rumor that they were coming from the east. “They are gruesome and coarse,” he said. “And women’s virtue means nothing to them.”

  JOSEFINA WASHED DISHES in the Kosinski kitchen. She had lost count of the days. There were no newspapers. She listened to the wireless whenever she could, tuning into Chopin’s Polonaise No. 3, broadcast repeatedly on Radio Warsaw as a way to assure Poland and its inhabitants that the city had not yet fallen. She liked hearing Mayor Starzyński’s voice, which had grown hoarse but was comforting.

  The night of September first—how long ago that day seemed—she and Julius had both called their daughter by her full name, Suzanna, instead of Suzi. It astonished Josefina to think of it now, that both she and Julius had the same impulse. As if by putting aside a nickname they could will their daughter into adulthood. She was too young for war, certainly, but too old now to be treated as a child. Besides, Suzanna had—and this pleased Josefina—risen to the occasion. In a quiet and steadfast way, Suzanna had grown up. She asked for nothing and always offered to help. She was observant of people and her surroundings and learned quickly. If she made a mistake, she worked twice as hard to avoid its repetition. Now Suzanna would have to learn the fine art of reading strangers. When to trust and when to suspect. How to be graceful in critical situations. And it was up to Josefina to impart this. She wondered what her own mother would have done. And, if she were alive, what she might advise. Karola Eisner had died four years earlier, and Josefina wished, more than anything right then, that she could reach for the telephone and talk with her.

  Before she could speculate on the advice her mother may have imparted, the sound of a plane in the near distance jolted Josefina into the present. At the kitchen table, Suzanna was mending her brother’s jacket. Peter was winding his watch. Josefina looked out the window and saw the faint outline of a light bomber. It was coming their way. The plane’s slim fuselage had earned it the nickname Fliegender Bleistift, or the Flying Pencil. These aircraft flew low and fast. They were so slender that the Polish soldiers had trouble hitting them with their anti-aircraft weapons. The light bombers carried four crew: a pilot, a bombardier, and two gunners. They shot at anyone and everyone. They dropped explosives on places of worship and schools and hospitals and factories. No one was safe when the Flying Pencils came.

  “Peter. Suzanna,” Josefina said, in a voice that was louder than she expected. In an instant they were up from the table, and Peter was holding open the cellar door in the pantry’s floor. “Just go down,” she said. “I’m coming.”

  But something was very wrong: Theresa Kosinski had not returned. Josefina felt nauseated as she recalled the conversation, only twenty minutes earlier. “It would be nice to have potatoes today,” the older woman had said to Suzanna, brushing a stray hair from the girl’s eyes.

  “I’ll fetch them,” Suzanna said.

  “That’s sweet, child, but I could do with some fresh air,” Mrs. Kosinski said.

  She left the kitchen.

  NOW THE GUNNERS IN THE FLYING PENCIL were strafing the women in the potato field beyond the house. Baskets and trowels abandoned in the dirt, the women ran toward shelter. From this distance, Josefina could not see their faces. But she could imagine the labor of their breathing and the heaviness in their legs. As her own heartbeat accelerated, she tasted metal and salt, the flavor of fear. How could they shoot at women digging potatoes? And where was Julius? In the cellar, with Mr. Kosinski, yes, that’s where he was, helping repair a leather harness. But when the plane returned, Josefina realized it wasn’t enough for those Nazi brutes to scatter the women from their task of gathering potatoes. The gunners were firing, again and again. And now she heard the women screaming. Josefina watched as a man emerged from one of the neighboring houses, holding in one hand what looked like a musket, his other hand shaped into a raised fist, shaking. But the German plane had moved on, leaving five women sprawled on the field.

  Josefina opened the cellar door. As soon as she tried to speak, she realized she had been holding her breath. And her throat was so dry that she could barely manage to call for Julius and Mr. Kosinski. “Children,” she ordered, “stay where you are.”

  When the men came upstairs, she pointed to the field beyond the window. “Flying Pencil …,” she started, but Mr. Kosinski was out the door before she finished her sentence. “Five minutes …,” she said to Julius, shaking her head, “… in five minutes … it all can end.” She felt confused by what she had seen. She did not want to believe that a real soldier could gun down women in a field. Matrons and grandmothers and young mothers. Women trying to feed their families. Her daughter could have been with them. “Only five minutes,” Josefina said again.

  She was disoriented from the shock of what she had just witnessed. Here was Julius, hol
ding her gently by the shoulders and looking directly into her face. He did not blink. Nor did she, and she took comfort in looking into the familiarity of Julius’s one eye.

  “Finka, you should sit down,” he said. He poured her a glass of water. “Drink this. I am going to help Mr. Kosinski.” He left. Josefina lowered herself onto the nearest chair. Her hands were shaking. She knew already, in a way she would not try to explain, that Mrs. Theresa Kosinski was among the dead on the potato field.

  Mr. Kosinski, Julius, and Peter dug the grave that night, after the all-clear signal had sounded. Josefina and Suzanna stood at the edge of the hole as the men lowered Mrs. Kosinski, draped in a sheet, into the earth. Afterward, they remained in the dark and were silent. An owl called in the woods beyond the field. The freshly turned soil smelled rich with autumn’s must.

  “No prayers make any sense,” Mr. Kosinski finally said.

  EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, the artillery was louder than ever. The Kohns and Mr. Kosinski sat at the kitchen table. They had just finished a breakfast of bread and tea.

  “The front is so close, it is almost in our laps,” said Julius.

  Josefina would never forget those words. They captured for her exactly how she felt about the war. That it was a thing at once too near and too familiar. She stood at the sink washing dishes and thinking of Mrs. Kosinski, who had baked the bread she and her family had just eaten. Just the day before, Theresa stood at this kitchen counter kneading dough, a plump woman with black hair graying at the temples and dark eyes. She must have been, Josefina imagined, quite lovely as a young woman. Perhaps because Mrs. Kosinski was without sons or daughters, she had taken an instant liking to Peter and Suzanna. She gave them the few sweets she had managed to procure before the many shortages. And just like that, she’s gone, Josefina thought.

  “Mother,” said Suzanna, who was drying the plates and looking out the window over the sink. “Who would be driving here?”

  Josefina looked and saw the car. She could make out two figures, Nazi soldiers, she guessed from the shape and gleam of the helmets they wore. The vehicle was approaching quickly. The Kohns put down what they were doing and proceeded to the cellar. To watch how they moved—with swift purpose—might have suggested a combination of instinct and rehearsal. Once they had descended the cellar stairs, Josefina heard Mr. Kosinski cover the door in the pantry floor with a braided rug, which his wife had made, probably during some long winter in the rapidly vanishing tranquility of the past. From her apron pocket, Josefina produced thick rags, which she handed to her husband and children. These were meant to muffle a cough. To keep from sneezing, Julius had advised pressing, with the tongue, on the roof of the mouth, though he knew that fear would keep them from coughing or sneezing. The advice and the rags were merely a distraction. They stood in the cellar and listened. First they heard only the shuffle of Mr. Kosinski’s shoes as he walked around the kitchen. Probably putting things away, thought Josefina, who then worried that maybe he hadn’t done that. What if the soldiers noticed five dishes drying next to the sink and not one? What would happen to them if they were discovered? How long could Mr. Kosinski last before revealing the Jews he was hiding in his cellar, a crime that could get him killed immediately? Her fretting was interrupted by the sound of a rifle butt pounding so harshly on the kitchen door as to loosen dirt from the rafters of the cellar’s ceiling. Josefina’s chest expanded as she inhaled deeply. Julius took her hand. Suzanna’s eyes widened with fear. Peter pulled her close to him.

  “Mach auf!” a man yelled. “Open up.”

  Again the rifle butt pounded against the door. Again fine particles of dirt fell through the floorboards. The soldier called again.

  The door creaking open was followed by the oiled-leather sound of well-made boots with new soles, a kind of click-slap on the kitchen floor just above their heads. Josefina detected the sounds of at least two pair. Then came a flurry of commands barked by one of the Nazis. They were demanding food from Mr. Kosinski. Saying they would kill him if he didn’t give them everything in his larder and pantry.

  “We are your masters now, stupid Pole,” one said in German. It hurt Josefina to understand—to love, even—the language of this imbecile who was insulting their kind host. The scraping sound of chairs being pulled away from the table followed. Josefina pictured how they were sitting, one tilting back the chair, the other leaning forward. Maybe an elbow on the table. They tapped their feet, accelerating the tempo, as if to hurry things along. Then the rapid steps of Mr. Kosinski as he filled one crate and then another. Josefina closed her eyes and saw him carrying eggs, butter, bread, potatoes, apples, sugar, and tea. And from the pantry shelves, all those beautifully arranged jars of pickles and preserves his wife had made.

  “Take them out to the car, stupid Pole,” one said. When Mr. Kosinski left, they joked about how they’d kill him slowly. “Bleed him like a pig,” said the other. They both laughed. When he returned, they demanded he make them tea.

  Josefina almost groaned. The longer the soldiers remained, the more likely it was they would find her family. Her knees shook. She set her hands palms down on her lap and willed herself into stillness.

  They heard Mr. Kosinski walk back and forth from the stove to the sink to the stove. Filling a kettle. He started toward the door when one of the soldiers pushed back his chair and stood. “Where are you going, little man?”

  A soft thud followed. Mr. Kosinski groaned, but answered anyway. “To get the tea I loaded into your car,” he said, his German quite adequate and likely surprising to the soldier, who made the sound of stepping back.

  “It’s good, little man,” he said. “You’ve passed the test. You didn’t try to keep any tea for yourself. I won’t kill you today.” The soldier laughed.

  Hearing the exchange in the kitchen above them, Josefina felt on the verge of heaving. She lifted the cotton to her mouth to absorb any sound she might make.

  The other soldier started to laugh, and just as quickly stopped. He pushed out of his chair and it fell over. “Guess you won’t need those,” he said, and the next sounds they heard from their huddle in the basement were shots, and china breaking and scattering. “You can forget the tea now, stupid Pole,” the soldier said.

  Suzanna let out the faintest gasp, but with the noise of the shooting and the breaking china, it was inaudible to the soldiers. Peter offered his hand and she gripped it hard and squeezed close her eyes. Josefina could tell that her daughter was trying to crush out the sound. Above them, pieces of porcelain shattered everywhere, and as they fell on the floor, they pinged, a little like coins. Mrs. Theresa Kosinski had saved for years to buy those dishes. Josefina couldn’t bear to think that everything the woman had done was being erased. She wondered how she might endure Nazis terrorizing Julius, or the children.

  “Little man, I didn’t hear you thank my friend,” the first soldier said. But before Mr. Kosinski could say that he wouldn’t need the china anymore, that it didn’t matter because his wife was dead and his life might as well end too, Josefina and her family heard another soft thud, a groan, and the fearsome noise of a body falling to the floor.

  The Nazis laughed, left the kitchen, and started the car. As they drove off, one of them yelled, “We won’t burn your house today. Better have supplies for us when we come back.”

  IN THE CELLAR, Josefina looked at her children. Suzanna, whose posture was a source of great pride, was slumped against her brother. Peter’s arm was around his sister’s shoulders, and Josefina wished her throat weren’t so dry, that she could speak now, to praise her son. Her husband, she knew, would be comfortless. During the gruesome exchange that had taken place above their heads, Josefina watched as Julius’s face grew as stormy as she’d ever seen it. She knew she’d be tending Mr. Kosinski’s physical injuries soon. The bruises and swelling would ache until healed, unlike the wounds to the psyche that Julius and Mr. Kosinski had sustained. It was a terrible thing to see a man undressed of something so central as his pride
.

  Getting Out of the Way

  SEPTEMBER 1939, EN ROUTE TO LWÓW

  IN HER POCKET, JOSEFINA RAN A FINGER along the folded edge of stationery from the Hotel Angielski. She had taken it from the desk drawer just before she and her family left.

  At the time she had an idea to write her father and Milly in Teschen, but there had been no time for correspondence. Now she sat in Mr. Kosinski’s horse-drawn cart, ever more reluctant to write to anyone about how or where she was traveling. Josefina didn’t want to imagine what had happened to her family members or close friends. She didn’t want to tell her father that Julius’s brother-in-law and sister, Ernst and Greta, had disappeared. She didn’t want Milly to know that her sister Margaret, whom she hadn’t seen, inhabited—if she were even still alive—a city in ruin. And though it was near to impossible, she didn’t want to think anymore of all she had seen or things she had heard.

  Dusk gave way to night as they moved along the road. Josefina sat with Peter and Suzanna in the back of the cart. The children were watching the sky, on the alert for any late-flying planes. Soon it would be dark—they were traveling on the night after the new moon, which meant decreased visibility and thus less likelihood of bombardment. The children would look at the stars, and Peter would name the constellations for his sister. And then she and her daughter would sleep, both of them seated upright, leaning into one another. It was a position that would become familiar to them over the next months and then years, as Josefina and her children made their way together through Lublin to Lwów and into the Soviet Union and back out again across Central Asia, and mostly without her husband, though she could not know any of that now.