The Light in Hidden Places

by Sharon Cameron

  “They’re right there,” she says.

  “Yes,” I say, “except it’s over there.” I point the other way, just a little to our left, away from the underground shelter. The skulls look confused, I’m not sure how. But the men underneath do not look confused. I see one of the mustaches twitch. They know I’m lying.

  They know I’m lying, they know I’m lying, they know I’m lying …

  The one closest to me raises his hand. His hand is a gun. He points it at me and then lowers it down, down. He’s going to shoot into the hole. He’s going to shoot Max.

  And I scream.

  And then I am awake in the tool factory, and I know I have just screamed, but no one has heard me in the racket. I curl beneath the table until the mechanic comes back and tells me nicely that I’m useless but he won’t tell, and I should go home.

  I don’t go straight home. I wander through Przemyśl until my feet find the cathedral. I push open the heavy doors, cross myself, light a candle, and sit in a pew, the dying Christ rising high above my head.

  Death really isn’t so terrible, I think. It’s losing the chance to live that’s sad. Like I did with Izio. Izio died because I didn’t come in time to save him. But what if I had never tried to come?

  If I live through this war, can I live with having done nothing, or will my life be poisoned with regret?

  How will I tell Helena when we find out Max is dead?

  How will I tell my mother that my choices have killed Helena?

  I’d never have the chance. Because I would be dead, too.

  But who else is there to save them but me?

  Oh Great God. Lady Mary. Give me the answer.

  The air is silent above me.

  I meander out of the cathedral, and now my feet take me to what was once a Jewish street, not that far from ours. The buildings stand empty, row after row of them, the windows broken, the doors gone—probably burned for firewood—and when I poke my head inside, even the floors have been ripped out and salvaged. These apartments would have been much like mine. Typical. With everyone knowing their layout. Everyone knowing how many rooms they’d have, and what size. You could never make a place to hide Jews in an apartment like these. Like mine. The difference would be spotted right away.

  I’d have to put seven people under the bed.

  The sun is almost down, the sky orange and fiery on one side, luminous and blue on the other. My shoes tap along the paving stones, the wind moaning through the missing windows. The emptiness is unsettling. Spooky. I hold my coat closed tight against the cold and think that this is what the ghetto will sound like someday. Echoes and wind. I stop walking and just stand. I close my eyes.

  And there is the silence. Like I’m the only person in Przemyśl.

  Only the quiet isn’t empty.

  I feel a little push against my back.

  I open my eyes and stumble, nearly losing my balance. Two women have come around the corner, brooms in their hands. Cleaning the abandoned sidewalk.

  Maybe they know of an empty apartment. Ask them.

  The other part of my mind says that’s a ridiculous thing to do. Why would they know of an empty apartment?

  It doesn’t hurt to ask.

  I should go to the housing department.

  Ask them!

  My feet move, and the two women look up from the pile of refuse they’ve been collecting. They watch me approach.

  “Excuse me,” I say, “but do either of you know of any empty apartments?”

  “Eh?” says one of them, squinting at me.

  “Do you know of any apartments that might be open?”

  I shift my weight to the other foot. I feel silly.

  “I know of one,” says the other woman, leaning on her broom. She is weathered and lined, her nose red either from cold or vodka, gray hair frizzling from underneath her scarf. “There’s an empty place at Tatarska 3. Not an apartment, though. It’s a house, almost …”

  “A cottage,” says the other.

  I look at their dirty, wrinkled faces and ask, “Where is Tatarska Street?”

  I walk around the outside of the apartment at Tatarska 3. The women were right. They’re more like cottages sharing walls than apartments, two stories with steep, peaked roofs made of tin. And it’s a short stretch of street, up a hill with very few houses. An empty college building stands directly across the street, a gated convent at the crest of the hill, and I can see the tops of two cathedral steeples and other lights sloping down toward the market square. The building pushes out into an L shape, and the empty section is the dark one around the back, in a patch of frozen dirt. There’s a well to one side and a long stinking shack that can only be toilets to the other.

  I haven’t seen people, but I can smell them.

  It almost makes me homesick for the farm.

  I go to the side and knock on the door the street cleaner described. It creaks open immediately. Someone has been watching from behind a curtain.

  “Yes,” says a woman, squinting at the dark.

  “Are you the custodian for Tatarska 3? Is it still empty?”

  The woman nods on both counts.

  “Could I see it? Would right now be all right?”

  She grunts and nods, disappears inside for a moment, and comes back with a set of keys and a lit lantern.

  “It’s nothing fancy,” she says. She’s a short, squat woman with neat hair and an apron that looks like it has beet stains. She leads me to a wooden door not far from the toilets and puts her key to the lock. It takes a little doing, but it opens, and she steps in first with the lantern.

  We’re in a small combined kitchen and sitting room, a later addition to the cottage, with wood walls and a rough planked floor, a stove, a sink with a drain but no faucets, and a bucket for the well hanging from a nail. No electricity. There are two other doors. The first opens into a bedroom, with another bedroom directly behind that. The next door, opposite the sink and the stove, leads to a small hallway with a dirt floor and a ladder.

  “What’s up there?” I ask.

  “Attic,” says the woman.

  I walk back and stand in the kitchen, turning a big circle while the woman watches me.

  “It’s nothing fancy,” she says again. As if I’ve accused her of something. But I can only smile. I smile like I haven’t smiled in a week.

  “It’s not fancy,” I reply. “It’s perfect.”

  * * *

  The custodian’s name is Mrs. Krajewska, and she warms to me as soon as she realizes I’m not put off by water buckets and outdoor toilets. She tells me to go to the housing department to fill out an application, and how much she would like to have a nice young girl as her neighbor. How nice it will be for her two little boys to have my sister to play with. I run back to the apartment like I’m skating on ice, like I’ve got the wings of a fighter plane, bursting through the door so quickly that Helena gives a little scream. Max is there.

  He stands up. “What’s happened?”

  “I think I found an apartment.”

  “You’ve found a place to hide Max?” Helena asks. “I knew you would.”

  She knew I would. I didn’t know I would. And I hadn’t mentioned anything to Helena about hiding Max at all. “How did you know?” I ask.

  “Because I asked God. Mama always said that’s what you do when you want something. So I did.”

  Yes, Mama did say that. “But how did you know I wanted to hide Max?”

  “Because you always hide Max!”

  She has a point. “And that’s what you want? That’s what you asked God for?”

  She tilts her head and looks at me funny. “Of course! Didn’t you?”

  Max is just standing there, listening to us talk. I raise my eyes to meet his gaze. I already know he is looking at me.

  “Yes,” I say.

  He blinks.

  “Yes, Hela. That’s what I asked for.” But I’m still looking at Max.

  He doesn’t speak. We just look at each o
ther for another long minute, and then Max nods. It’s like we’ve signed a contract.

  “What time is it?” he whispers.

  “I don’t know …” I look around like my room will have sprouted a clock. “Not seven,” I say.

  “Then let’s go see it.”

  “Right now?”

  He smiles. “Yes. Right now.”

  * * *

  We walk arm in arm down the street, like a couple out for a stroll, Max with my old wool scarf wrapped half across his face, as if he’s cold. Helena was disappointed to be left behind. I didn’t know if we could even get the apartment yet, I told her. I thought she was going to stamp her foot. And, I added, we didn’t want to bring any extra attention to Max. She gave in.

  Right now, I’m not even afraid.

  “Where is Tatarska?” Max whispers through the scarf. “I don’t know the street.”

  “It’s across from the college, the one they shut down. There’s no other reason to know it. There isn’t much there.”

  “That’s good. That’s very good …”

  “Alley,” I say, steering Max abruptly to the left. A German policeman has turned onto the street, on patrol, walking straight toward us. We scoot quickly down the little passage between the buildings before he passes, circle around the back, wait, and come right back onto the street behind the German’s back like we never stopped walking. Max grins and puts his arm around me.

  He enjoys fooling the Nazis more than I realized.

  When we reach Tatarska, Max looks carefully to the right, left, and across the street, craning his neck up at the roof while we walk around the courtyard.

  “Stay here,” I say, leaving him beside the door of number 3. I knock again on Mrs. Krajewska’s door.

  “Oh,” she says, opening the door fully. “You’re back?”

  “Mrs. Krajewska, I’m sorry to bother you, but you were kind earlier, and my older brother is here. He wants to see the house before I put in the application. You wouldn’t mind opening it up one more time, would you?”

  She sighs. “I’ll get a light.”

  When we come back to Max, still standing in the cold beside the door, she raises the light and looks him over in a way that would be frightening if she hadn’t done the same to me an hour ago.

  “Hello,” Max says. His hands are tucked into his pockets, and suddenly I wonder if he’s got a weapon in there.

  Mrs. Krajewska grunts and unlocks the door.

  “It’s not fancy,” she says as we walk in. I let Max explore. He takes the light and goes into the bedrooms, climbs the ladder to the attic, and even steps outside to examine the toilets.

  “You mentioned a sister,” says Mrs. Krajewska. “Will your brother be staying with you, too?”

  “Oh, no, he lives in Kraków,” I lie. “He just worries for me, maybe a little too much. But he’s a good brother …”

  Max comes back inside and sticks his head in the stove, trying to look up the chimney. Mrs. Krajewska’s face goes soft like melting chocolate.

  “Well, isn’t that nice,” she says. “Why don’t I leave the light and let you two talk it over, and just bring it back when you’re done, yes?”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Krajewska.”

  When she shuts the door, Max comes close to me. We whisper, in case Mrs. Krajewska is listening.

  “I’m worried about the neighbors,” Max says. “The bedroom walls are not very thick, and there’s another cottage on the other side. And all of them will have to walk right past the back window and door to get to the toilets. It will be hard to keep quiet …”

  “Maybe you thought I could find an apartment in a desert? Or the Himalayas?”

  “Don’t be smart, Fusia.” But he’s grinning at me. “The place was made for us. There’s dirt just an inch or two under the floor. We can dig a bunker, maybe, beneath the boards, for when someone comes to the door.”

  We look around at the room again, and suddenly I’m seeing the cleaning that needs to be done. The water to be carried. The food that will need to be bought and hauled up that hill. My doubled walk to work. Nine people in three rooms and the lack of privacy.

  Max says, “Are you sure?”

  I nod. “Yes. I am sure.”

  We walk back to Helena arm in arm again, posing as a couple. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Max look this alive.

  * * *

  Max stays at the apartment because it’s too close to curfew to make it safely back to the fence. Not that the fence is safe. There are two more men hanging on it, killed for leaving the ghetto to buy from the outside.

  It bothers me that Max knows this and came anyway.

  He’s pulling on his shoes the next morning when there’s a knock at the door. Sharp. Official.

  We freeze, and then Max drops to the floor and slides beneath the bed, taking his shoes with him. Helena goes to move his teacup, but I shake my head, a finger to my lips. I tiptoe to the hall and wait. The knock comes three more times, and I’m sweating before I hear the telltale creak of a board that means someone has just set foot on the second stair. Going down the steps. I creep back into our room, finger to my lips again, and get an eye around the edge of the rug nailed over the window, careful not to move it.

  And there comes Officer Berdecki, glancing up at my window before he walks away down the street.

  “You can come out,” I say, but Max is already grunting his way from under the bed.

  “Is it that policeman?” he asks.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “What? You have other boyfriends knocking at your door at six thirty in the morning?”

  “No,” I reply sweetly. “Mostly I just let them sleep over.” I see the little point of his eyebrow rise, his smile coming out into the open. He doesn’t mind being teased, because he’s happy. He’s happy because we found Tatarska Street.

  “But, Fusia, nobody stays here except Max!” says Helena. “And aren’t you late for work?”

  “I have to go to the housing department,” I say. “I paid the Szymczak boy to take a note to Minerwa.” Which they are not going to like. But the hours of the housing department and my shift are almost the same.

  “I need to go, too,” Max says, his cheerfulness gone. “Before the day soldiers get there. While the night ones are still tired.”

  “Max,” I say, and now I am serious, too. “You shouldn’t come back here again. You should stay in the ghetto until …”

  Until it’s time to risk leaving it forever.

  “I’ll need to know if you get Tatarska,” he says. “I don’t want to tell Henek or Danuta or any of them until I know how things will be. And we will need time to prepare.”

  “Is the mail still being read?”

  “What comes of it, yes.”

  We think about this for a minute. Then Helena says, “I can bring you a letter, Max.”

  We both turn to the table, where Helena is stacking the dishes to wash. Her job now that I am working.

  “I can bring a letter to the fence,” she says.

  I pull my coat on. “No, Hela.”

  “But I can do it! I’ve played there before, and the guards don’t pay any attention to the children. Even when we go right up to the fence.”

  “When were you at the fence?”

  “Last week. Looking for Max.”

  “She’s right,” Max says. “They don’t bother the children.”

  “We’ll think of something else,” I say. “Hela, do the dishes, and be careful. And the same for you,” I say to Max. “Except for the dishes.”

  “Come on,” I hear Max say as I’m hurrying down the hall. “I’ll help you dry before I go …”

  * * *

  There are no wire-rimmed glasses in the housing office. Instead there is a nice Polish secretary who brings me the right papers to fill out for Tatarska 3. Her eyebrows rise when I don’t leave, watching as I retreat to a corner to fill them out, chewing on the end of the pen. I give them back to her.
<
br />   “How long?” I ask.

  “Two days,” she says.

  “And you are certain it’s still empty? That no one else has applied?”

  The woman smiles. “I don’t think so, little butterfly. You will get a letter.”

  I run out the door, all the way across Przemyśl to the factory, and when I hurry onto the floor, Herr Braun is waiting. He stops the engines and yells at me in German and Polish. Notes are insufficient, and so are excuses. I am a stupid, lazy girl who will never consider coming late to work again. I will arrive five minutes early. I will exceed my quotas. If I do not exceed my quotas, I will be grateful and glad to keep on working until I do.

  Sometimes it’s best just to nod.

  I work through my break, and when I glance up, the blond boy is standing on the other side of my machines. Lubek is his name, or so says Januka, the girl who occasionally shares her sandwich.

  “Let me know if you need help,” he says, and saunters away.

  The next day I do need help, and Lubek brings me more metal stock to feed into the machines, so I don’t lose the time going to get them. I exceed my quota. Just. And as soon as I exceed it the next day, I hurry from the factory floor, getting my arms in my coat as I run across the iron bridge, scarf in my hand instead of on my head, because I don’t want to wait for a letter. I have twenty-three minutes until the housing department closes.

  I burst through the door. The little waiting area is full of people, and the room smells stuffy, hot and sweaty after my run through the clean cold. The secretary looks up from her desk. Her eyebrows rise. Then she picks up a stack of papers and shakes them at me.

  “I’ve got it?” I call through the bodies.

  She nods.

  I push my way through the crowd, grab the secretary’s face, and give her a smacking kiss on the cheek.

  “Stop that,” she says, laughing, and hands me the papers. And a set of keys.

  “If I give you a kiss, do I get an apartment, too?” some man shouts.

  “Kiss me!” says another. Now the whole room is laughing.

  I stroll back to the apartment under a sky thick with stars, and when I tell Helena the news, she jumps up and down. I go to sleep that night, thinking about how to move a bed.

  And I do not dream at all.