The Light in Hidden Places

by Sharon Cameron

  I got my purse and filled it with as many eggs as it could hold, the package of butter on top, where I hoped it wouldn’t melt, then wrapped the chicken in brown paper and a long string, the other end of the string tied to my wrist. I did the same with the sack of flour and carefully slid my arms with the strings into Mrs. Diamant’s enormous old coat. Now I had a chicken and a flour sack hanging under each arm, hidden beneath the coat. I filled the pockets with the remaining eggs, grabbed a handkerchief, and picked up my purse.

  The Germans had taken the mirror, but I didn’t need it to know I looked silly.

  I crept down the stairs, avoiding the creaks, just in case Emilika was home from work, then out into the empty grass of the courtyard, through the passage, around the corner, and across the bridge that ran over the train tracks. And there was the ghetto with its guarded gate, but I avoided that this time, slipping along the fence line to a narrow alley between two buildings, where there was only a small section of fence. I looked over my shoulder. There was no one around. So I went close.

  Two wooden posts had been set into the ground at the corners of the buildings, barbed wire strung thick between them. But the posts weren’t put in very well. In fact, if you just wiggled and pulled …

  The post came free. I swung the whole fence out like a door, stepped inside, and put the post back again, scraping my shoe over the fresh dirt. I was inside the ghetto.

  I fished the handkerchief from my pocket and tried to tie it around my upper right arm. This was harder than I thought, and in the end, I used my teeth. Then I turned and stepped out from between the buildings, heart hammering in my chest.

  And three old men with black coats, white armbands, and sidelocks sat on the stoop of the opposite building, staring dispassionately at me from across the street. Then they looked down, muttering among themselves. I heard the clip of boots. A policeman was coming. I crossed the street with my shoulders hunched and my head down. Like everyone else seemed to do. The policeman switched his gun from one hand to the other and passed me by. I lifted my head, watching him go, and smiled.

  I wasn’t afraid anymore.

  Which only goes to show how foolish I was.

  “The Diamant family?” I whispered to the old men. “Izaac Diamant, and Leah, his wife? And four sons …”

  “Gey avek,” said one.

  I was being told to go away.

  “Go back to where you came from, girl, before you get killed!” whispered the other, in Polish this time. They turned their backs on me, and I moved on down the street.

  People hung in clumps around the doorways, children playing on the sidewalks and in the gutters. It looked like a neighborhood on a holiday, when the factories are shut down, but without the fun of a party. And if a policeman walked by, people melted into the corners like shadows in the sun. I did the same. My pretend armband was only going to pass at a glance, not to mention my oddly bulging shape beneath the coat. I asked for the Diamants again and again, until finally a woman whispered, “Reymonta 2.” I found the street, and the building was like any other in Przemyśl, though small, only two stories. I pushed open the door.

  And the hallway was packed with bodies. In the corners, on the stairs, ducking beneath the laundry strung on ropes from door to door. There were babies squalling, children yelling and fussing, and it smelled like the toilets had overflowed. I passed a little girl on the stairs smacking a child even smaller than herself, telling it to stop crying. Which, of course, made the baby cry more. I paused, ready to pick up the baby and find its mother, but the little girl met my gaze squarely, ready to do battle, clutching the crying baby around its middle. And then I understood. The baby was crying because it was hungry. This little girl was hungry, had maybe been hungry before the ghetto. All these children were hungry, and I had a coat full of food.

  Guilt wormed its way through my middle. I should feed them. I wanted to feed them all. But how could I? I walked away from the children, step by step up the stairs, trying to focus my eyes on nothing but the Diamants’ door. I found it, knocked, and a stranger answered. A man with a full beard and a gruff voice.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m looking for—”

  “Fusia?”

  And there was my babcia, hurrying down the hallway, wisps of gray hair floating beside her cheeks. She hugged me to her soft chest. I sighed, instantly soothed. And then she pushed me away again.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I blinked.

  “Why have you come here?”

  “But you said I was to …”

  “Not like this! Do you care nothing for your life? You …” And then I opened the coat, just a little, and she caught sight of the chicken.

  Mrs. Diamant pulled me through the door and shut it, hustling me down a hall to a room that had probably once been a dining room and was now everything the Diamants needed it to be. Mr. Diamant was on the floor, his back cushioned by a rolled-up blanket. He held out both his hands, took mine, and kissed them, and then they were ripped away, because Mrs. Diamant was stripping off my coat.

  “Careful of the eggs …” I whispered, and then I closed my mouth. She was muttering angrily in Polish and Yiddish, untying the strings from my wrists, her eyes darting toward the hall. As if she was afraid someone might come and snatch the food from her hands.

  Maybe they would.

  “Foolish girl,” she said over and over beneath her breath. “Stupid, foolish girl …”

  “But you said I was to come to you!”

  “I said to give these things to Max, not paint a target between your shoulders.” She turned circles with the flour sack, finally shoving it behind Mr. Diamant’s back. “Do you want to be dead? What would I do if you were shot in the street?”

  I felt ashamed. Maybe I had been reckless. If I got myself killed, maybe they would starve. I opened my purse, meek, and Mrs. Diamant stared down at the squashed butter and the eggs. Then her face crumpled up, and she took my cheeks in her hands and kissed them.

  “You are a good girl, ketzele,” she whispered. “But you do not understand. How could you, when I did not understand? But you listen to me now.” She held my face and looked me in the eyes. “They will kill you. And they will like killing you. Do not give them the chance.”

  “Fusia!” I looked past her shoulder and saw Henek coming into the room, a girl right behind him, and he was smiling. I wasn’t sure whether it was more surprising that he was smiling in the ghetto or smiling at me.

  “People said there was someone asking for us in the street. Was it you? You should be careful. Did you bring any—”

  “Hush, Henek!” Mrs. Diamant said. She patted my hair and stepped back. “Fusia is going now.”

  The girl with Henek peeked around his shoulder. She had dark curls around a pale face, though I wasn’t sure if that was her usual color or the color of the ghetto. “I’ve heard all about you,” she said in a soft voice. “You’re the Gentile of the family, isn’t that right?”

  My eyebrows went up a little. “This is Henek’s girl, Danuta,” said Mrs. Diamant quickly. The girl stuck out her hand, and I shook it. Since when did Henek have a girlfriend? Mrs. Diamant started bundling me into the coat.

  “Where’s Izio?” I asked.

  “Working,” she said. “At least he will get soup.”

  “Can I wait? I …”

  “Are you not listening? No!” She put a hand on my back, and I waved goodbye as she started pushing me down the hall. We stopped in front of the door.

  “What else do you need?” I asked.

  She thought quickly. “Soap. And a little food each day. You give Max only what he can carry, yes?”

  I nodded.

  “And you will never come here again. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. She adjusted the pretend armband on my sleeve and kissed me on the forehead. Like my mother did when I was two.

  “Sholem aleikhem,” she said. I thought she might cry. “Go quickly now. Be smar
t, and be careful, and do what you can to keep your life. Do you promise me that?”

  I promised, turned, and made my way around the crying children. Each step down felt heavier and heavier, like I’d grown or gained weight. But the weight was only fear. Because I was afraid.

  I was afraid I would never see them again.

  On my way out of the ghetto, I saw a girl beaten to death with the butt of a rifle. I couldn’t tell how old she was, what she’d done, or if she’d done anything at all. But the SS man smiled while he did it, then left her body and her blood on the street. It was all I could do to come out of the shadows, to make my feet walk down the sidewalk, to wait for the right moment and lift the fence post out of its hole. I ran home and I shook.

  And that night, for the first time, I understood what I was facing. Before, it had been easy to imagine that all these terrible things were some kind of mistake. The misguided ideas of a misguided leader who in turn was misguiding his army and his people. Hadn’t there always been people who were poor and hungry? People who were hated and despised? Hadn’t there always been wars where the young men fought and the innocent died? It was horrible, and it was the world. But that was not what I saw in that officer’s face. What I saw was the joy of hate. The happiness of causing another person’s death and pain.

  What I saw was evil.

  And every part of me defied it.

  The third part of my education in Przemyśl had begun.

  The workers, we discovered, were being searched on their way back into the ghetto, and any extra food was being confiscated. So I met Max every morning on his way to shovel coal, not to give him food but to arrange a signal. I did it so often, the guard got used to me, just shaking his head and keeping one eye on me until I went away again. I blew him a kiss. Then, in the evening, Max would whistle or cough, sneeze or sing, letting me know there were no police, and I would pass him food through the weak place in the fence. This was dangerous. But not as dangerous as a non-Jew entering the ghetto, and it didn’t break my promise to Mrs. Diamant. Or didn’t break it much.

  What I brought was not enough. I could see that on Max’s thinning frame. But it was better than nothing.

  Emilika still slept in my room, though during the week she often stayed late at the photography shop, developing the film, sometimes breezing in only just before curfew. So I was surprised to hear her knocking before the sun had even gone down. Only when I went to the door, it wasn’t Emilika.

  It was Izio.

  I didn’t know how he’d gotten there. I didn’t ask. And he didn’t say anything, not even hello. Just wrapped his arms around me. He was like the ghetto fence post, thin and tough and so easily pulled in my direction. I locked the door behind him.

  The sun sank and the evening came down, but it was a long time before I bothered to light the lamp. Oil came cheaper than bulbs, and the flicker of the flame made the dark dance. And I was happy. So happy. Izio pushed the hair from my face and kissed my forehead and my cheeks.

  “You know I love you?” he said.

  I nodded. I did know.

  He rolled onto his side, head propped on his hand, his other arm still holding me tight. “I came to tell you that the Germans are taking a thousand of us away. The younger men. To work in a labor camp.”

  “Where?”

  “Lwów, I think. I don’t know how they chose, but Max’s name is on the list.”

  I felt my heart squeeze. People disappeared in Lwów. Like their sister.

  “The coal yard has been hard. Men are dropping with their shovels in their hands, and Max doesn’t eat enough for the work. I think the camp will be worse.” He twined his fingers through mine, his forehead wrinkling in a grimace. He closed his eyes. “We’re not all going to live through this, Fusia.”

  I frowned. “Of course we are. Something will happen …”

  “You mean Russia will come? Didn’t do us a lot of good last time, did it? Not in the long run. Not for the Jews.”

  I wanted to say that Germany would be defeated, that the war would end and everything would go back to the way it was. But I wasn’t sure that was true.

  I knew it wasn’t. Even then. Nothing would ever be the same.

  “I want you to know,” Izio said, “that I want it to be me who lives. And you. Don’t forget that’s what I want. More than anything.”

  I didn’t know why he said that. I didn’t even think about it. I was too blind with love. Not until the next time I saw Max, going to the coal yards with the other men. I blew a kiss to the guard, who looked in the other direction, and stepped into line, timing my steps to the march. Max looked terrible, a deep purple shadow underneath each eye. He wasn’t going to the labor camp in Lwów after all, he said.

  Because Izio had taken his place.

  * * *

  The next morning I went to see the German with the wire-rimmed glasses at the city hall. It turned out to be a different man, though the glasses were the same. Only this one looked like the weasel that used to steal our chickens.

  He scowled at the question of how a person might find out who was in which labor camp. Poles from Przemyśl were going to Germany and what used to be Czechoslovakia, doing their duty for the glory of the Fatherland, while our city’s dirty Jews were earning their keep in Bełżec and at the Janowska work camp in Lwów, he said.

  Janowska, then.

  I thanked him instead of spitting on him, and when I went back to the apartment, a poster had been pasted at the entrance to Mickiewicza 7.

  DEATH PENALTY FOR ALL WHO GIVE AID TO A JEW.

  DEATH TO ALL WHO HARBOR A JEW.

  DEATH TO ALL WHO FEED A JEW.

  DEATH TO ALL WHO PROVIDE TRANSPORTATION TO A JEW.

  DEATH TO ALL WHO TAKE PAYMENT FROM A JEW, IN MONEY, OR SERVICES, OR VALUABLES.

  I read the poster three times. I’d done most of those things. Some of them that day. And now I needed a train ticket, and it was more money than I had.

  I ate nothing but bread for a week to save part of the money and, in desperation, sold a skirt from Mrs. Diamant’s box. There was almost nothing left in there now, but I had to know if Izio was okay. If he was strong enough. If he was alive. And the rest of them would want to know that, too.

  It was early morning, and the sun hadn’t risen high enough to get into the windows yet. When I’d chewed four of my nails to the quick instead of drinking my tea, Emilika got impatient.

  “What’s got a fly up your nose? Are you fighting with your boy?”

  “Not fighting,” I replied. The glasses man had told me that Janowska was also for political prisoners as well as Poles, Romanies, and even some Ukrainians. People from all over. Emilika wouldn’t have to know Izio was Jewish. “He’s been sent to a labor camp in Lwów. I want to go and see him, but the train ticket is expensive, and even when I’d saved enough, they wouldn’t give it to me. I need German papers.”

  “So, switch them for your Polish ones.”

  “I tried, but I never showed a birth registration, and I need a new photograph.”

  “And?” urged Emilika.

  “I don’t have a birth record, and I can’t afford the photograph. Not for a while. It took two weeks to save up the train fare …”

  “Is that why you haven’t been eating? Oh, for Christ’s sake, Fusia.”

  I winced for God and myself. I hadn’t told her she could call me Fusia. But Emilika was a girl of action and didn’t notice.

  “Stop sulking and put your clothes on,” she said. “We have things to do.”

  I thought she meant the laundry until she tied a scarf around her hair. As soon as I was decent, she led me past the dirty linen and out into the baking sun.

  I had to trot to keep up with her. Emilika nodded in a friendly—though not too friendly—way to two German soldiers smoking cigarettes beside a pile of fallen bricks and kept a brisk pace, as if we had business their army would do well not to delay. They didn’t question us. We passed the yellow star on the cracked window of what
had been the Diamants’ shop, and then a booming clang made me start. Cathedral bells. It was Sunday.

  Emilika stopped in front of the photography shop, took a stealthy look around, slipped a ring of keys from her pocket, and had us inside, the door shut and locked again, before I even knew what was happening. The shop was dark with the blinds down, but I could see framed portraits, film canisters, and camera parts on the shelves. Emilika lifted a curtain that divided the front of the store from the back.

  “Hurry,” she said, going to a camera standing ready on a tripod. “Sit there.” A stool posed in front of a backdrop painted with shades of swirling gray.

  “But …”

  “Sit!” she ordered. “So I can see where to aim the lights.”

  “But …”

  She flicked a switch and blinded me with the beams. “Sit!” she said again.

  “But I can’t pay you!”

  Emilika raised her head from behind the camera. “Of course you can’t, you idiot. That’s why we’re here on a Sunday! Now, do you want to see your boy or not? Sit!”

  I sat. Emilika adjusted the camera, adjusted me, clicked the shutter twice, and shut down the lights.

  “That should do it,” she said, shoving me to the door. “Mr. Markowski will never notice two extra frames, and I’ll sneak the prints into my purse as soon as they’re done.”

  She locked the shop, dropped the keys into her apron pocket, and smiled.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  She took my arm in hers, and we walked down the sidewalk.

  I learned three things from Emilika that day: First, walk as if you have important business, and most people will assume you do. Second, always have your hair curled. And third, help can come when it’s least expected, and that’s good to remember, because it means you’re never really alone.

  Even when it feels like it.

  On Tuesday, I sat again before the little man and his wire-rimmed glasses. His hat was off today, showing a bald spot on the crown of his head.

  “What is your birthday, Fräulein?”

  I said the birthday I’d concocted, with a year that made me sixteen. I was fairly certain that part was right. The man peered at me.