The Light in Hidden Places

by Sharon Cameron

  Ilse comes by at some point and checks Helena’s eye and then pulls back the covers to press on my belly. I yell, and she tut-tuts and brings us both some aspirin and some water.

  The good news is, I really am sick.

  The bad news is, I can’t get my note to the labor department to tell them.

  The other bad news is, no one has taken food or water to the attic, and we haven’t fed the chickens.

  I don’t have anything to give the chickens.

  I don’t have much to give the people.

  When Ilse and Karin are gone and Helena is asleep, I creep out of the bed and go painfully up the ladder. Max is watching, as always, and a plank moves, and his shaggy head pops out. “What’s happening?” he says. “How’s Helena?”

  “We’re both sick.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  I can’t tell him. I may never tell him.

  “Come down while you can and do what you need to,” I say.

  There’s not much to do, because there’s hardly any food. But they take what there is.

  I wonder how soon it will be before they actually start starving.

  The next day isn’t any better, and I make sure Helena has her hand on me before she wakes up. She still hasn’t spoken.

  I don’t have any wages. I haven’t sold anything. And there’s nothing to eat.

  I do have Old Hirsch’s money.

  “Hela,” I whisper. “We have to get some food, don’t we?”

  She nods, her hand in my hair.

  “Would it be better to leave you here, tucked in bed, to wait for me to come back, or would it be better if you came with me?”

  She shrugs, which isn’t an answer.

  “Can you tell me which is better?”

  She shakes her head no. Okay, so the questions need to be yes or no.

  “Do you want to stay here?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Do you want to come to the labor department and the market?”

  She shakes her head no. And then yes.

  We bundle up, because even though it’s April, it looks like snow, and the wind is an icy sharp knife that cuts right through clothes. I wrap Helena’s head in my scarf to keep her warm and to cover some of her bruises, and she holds my hand, and we move down the street like I’m one hundred and three years old.

  I get cold. I can’t move my body fast enough to warm my blood. And when we finally reach the bottom of the hill, I see the man with one brow, sheltering in the covered entrance of the cathedral. Only today he has a fur hat on.

  Oh, just follow me, then, if you don’t have anything else better to do. It will be funny to see you figure out how to do it when I’m moving this slowly.

  We shuffle our way across Przemyśl to the labor department building. Avoiding soldiers. And SS. And policemen. Anything in a uniform. And my shadow spends a lot of time walking in circles and staring into shop windows, pretending to look inside. When we get up the stairs and into the correct office, we have to wait. Of course. For the German at the desk. With his stack of papers. He’s not wearing the glasses, but I can see them lying to one side. Ready.

  I explain my situation. I hand him my paper from the doctor.

  The man tut-tuts. He sighs. He puts on the glasses.

  And says he cannot accept my note.

  Because this note is from a military doctor. From an army hospital. That will not be acceptable. And why will it not be acceptable? Because the note has to come from the city hospital. Those are the rules, and no, he doesn’t know why they are the rules, but his job is to obey the rules, so auf Wiedersehen, and enjoy Germany.

  We leave the office, and I am hurting so much, I want to sit on the paving stones and cry.

  Only we have no time for that. Everyone needs to eat.

  Because it looks like sleet or snow, the market is set up in the covered building just behind, which isn’t exactly indoors but is warmer than the outside. I look and look for what will feed us while the one-brow man slips in and out of the crowd. What I find is porridge and kasha for a quarter of our money. Helena carries the kasha sack, and we start our slow ascent to Tatarska 3.

  I stand at the bottom of the final hill, looking up. Helena holds my hand, silent, waiting for me to move, bent beneath the sack.

  I feel tired. Cold. Broken and defeated.

  And when I look down, I’m bleeding all over the newly falling snow.

  Now I have to do the laundry.

  And then a voice says, “Can I help you, miss?”

  I think it’s going to be the man with the eyebrow. But it’s not. It’s a policeman standing on the street corner. A Polish policeman.

  Helena shrinks into my side. She nearly knocks me down. But it’s not the man who hit her. I can tell from the voice. And it’s not a policeman I ever saw in the ghetto, either.

  “Are you Miss Podgórska?” he asks.

  There’s no point in denying it.

  “Then you are who I’m looking for. Let me help you carry those.”

  * * *

  I don’t know what my thirteen think when the police come to Tatarska 3. Again. But this policeman’s name is Officer Antoni. He brings in our groceries and lets me shut the door, change, and get into bed. Helena doesn’t take her hand off my arm, even when I take off my dress. She gets into bed with me. And then Officer Antoni knocks, brings in a chair, and sits beside us.

  He’s come because the Minerwa factory has contacted their office again to see why I’m not coming to work. I explain that I need a medical card, but no one will give it to me. He asks about my parents. He asks about what happened to Helena, and he is angry about that. He asks to see the letter from the hospital. He thinks it’s all ridiculous. The doctor says I’m ill. It’s obvious that I’m ill. They should be helping girls like me, not shipping them off to another country.

  Let him take care of it, he says. He will go back to the labor department. Or his superiors.

  “And poor little lamb,” he says, trying to touch Helena’s knee. She doesn’t let him. “Not all policemen are bad. Remember that.”

  “But how will I know whether I’ve gotten a medical card?” I ask.

  “You’ll receive a letter.”

  I sigh. In my experience, letters like that can take a long time to come.

  * * *

  A week later, when the food is nearly gone, Helena again makes the slow trip with me to the market. I spend a quarter of what’s left of Old Hirsch’s money.

  We eat tiny portions, and sometimes I go without. Ilse checks my belly, tut-tuts, and shuts herself in her room to eat cake with a Nazi SS officer named Rolf while my thirteen starve in silence above her head.

  Two weeks after that, we make the trip again, this time a little faster. I haven’t had a letter. But no police have come, and no smoke rises from the stacks at Minerwa. My one-brow friend joins us in the market, and I spend half of what is left of Old Hirsch’s money. I make a new hole in the belt for my dress.

  A week after that, we spend Old Hirsch’s money, and a week after that, we can’t go to the market at all, because Old Hirsch’s money is gone.

  But I am better. The swelling in my abdomen is down, and sometimes I can even carry Helena when she wants it. Other times I cannot, and she clings, to my arms, my waist. My clothes. She still doesn’t speak, cringing every time Rolf stomps through the house in his shiny boots. The weather has gone warm and soft. I still wonder, every time a uniform comes, if it will be to take me to Germany.

  There is not a moment I relax. At night, when it’s quiet, I sleep on the edge of fear.

  My body has healed, but I am tired.

  And then Max comes careening down the ladder.

  “Mrs. Bessermann has typhus.”

  Helena and I are not allowed near the attic. Because we cannot be sick. At least not with typhus, though I can’t help but wonder if typhus might have gotten me that medical card. Max comes down when he can, though he s
tays far away, and he tells me this is worse than Schillinger and Henek. Her fever is high. Very high. She’s covered in spots. Maybe she will die.

  If Mrs. Bessermann dies, what will we do with the body?

  We don’t think we’ll have to worry about it. Because Mrs. Bessermann is delirious.

  She can’t be still.

  She can’t be quiet.

  And that means we’re all going to die.

  The first night Mrs. Bessermann’s fever runs high, they put Siunek on her legs to pin them down, Henek on one arm and Jan Dorlich on the other while Max, Schillinger, and Cesia take turns covering her mouth with cold wet cloths every time she makes a sound. I don’t know how they aren’t smothering her. Or drowning her.

  The second time I hear a noise from the ceiling, I knock on Karin’s door and ask with vivid sign language if she would please switch the radio on to some music to help Helena sleep. Karin is embarrassed. Rolf is in there. And Ilse. And a brand-new SS man I’ve never seen. She thinks I want to mask the noise. What I really want is to mask the noise above her head.

  I go to bed and think that tonight is the night. It seems a sad way to end our struggle.

  But somehow the sun rises, the Nazis go to work, and we are all alive.

  I’m not sure how that can be.

  As soon as they’re gone, Max comes down the ladder with a slip of paper. He sets it on the table and backs away from me. So he won’t infect me. Or Helena, who is hanging on my skirt. The paper is from a prescription pad, and it has a fake signature. Of the German doctor who signed my letter.

  “You’re very talented,” I say.

  “Is there any way we can get that?”

  He’s not in the mood for joking. He hasn’t slept. He doesn’t have a shirt on. None of them are wearing much of their clothes, because it’s hot now and they can’t open a window—and what can it matter when you’re all doing your business in the same bucket, anyway? He’s covered in sweat. He could have typhus. He’s close to starving.

  He’s going insane from being stuck in that attic.

  “I sold three shirts in the market,” I say. “And that’s what we have to eat this week.”

  “If we don’t get something to keep her quiet, we won’t need to eat,” he snaps. And then he blinks and smiles at Helena. Like he’s just dropped in from the attic for a chat. “Did you dream about the beach last night, Hela?”

  She shakes her head no.

  “You should dream about the beach,” he says. “Before you go to sleep, imagine warm sun and sand and salty water and sharks …” He makes a little snapping noise with his fingers, like the snap of teeth. She smiles and leans into me, and when I meet Max’s eyes, he looks away. Embarrassed.

  And I want to tell him to hold up his head. He said once that I was the best person he’d ever known. But it’s not true. He is the best person I have ever known. I am nothing compared to him. Not the other way around. I want to tell him not to be ashamed. Because he is a survivor.

  But I don’t know how to tell him that. So I look at the forged prescription. Getting this is going to be dangerous. I will be questioned. And I’ve never even told Max about the man with one eyebrow. Sometimes I am so ready for the idea that I might die, I barely notice the feeling.

  “Max,” I begin. But I can’t say anything that I want to.

  They’re not going to give me this medicine. And if they do, we can’t eat. We are living on borrowed time, because at any moment, one of the Nazis is going to hear something. Or see something. Mrs. Bessermann is going to give us away.

  But maybe Max knows somehow. Just a little of all the things I don’t say.

  “So we’ll just fight on, Fusia,” he says. “To the end.”

  I nod. A fight to the end.

  I think it might be coming soon.

  * * *

  I take the forged prescription, put on my coat, and for the first time, Helena decides to stay home without me. She gets into bed with her doll and huddles in the corner. I tell her I’ll lock the door. That she doesn’t have to answer it, even for Karin or Ilse. I leave her the dental textbook and go out to see if I will survive the day.

  It’s been raining, and the streets are messy. Flooded in places. Though this hasn’t helped at all with the heat. I decide to cross the bridge to the other side of the city, to go to a pharmacy where I’m not known. The San runs fast beneath my feet, white froth on top of its waves, and the air smells like hot truck exhaust and steaming rain. And the mood is tense. I can feel it. There aren’t soldiers on the street corners, standing around with nothing to do. The ones I can see have their heads down, walking fast. Going somewhere. It reminds me of the day the blue-eyed Jewish girl was shot. A day when no one wants to look at one another.

  I quicken my steps. And there, reflected in the glass of a long-closed butcher shop, is the man with one eyebrow, hands in his pockets, pretending to look at an ugly poster about Jews.

  I am sick of the man with one eyebrow.

  I pick up my pace a little more, let a delivery truck rumble by, and make a quick dash to the opposite sidewalk, walking back the way I came. The man has to stop in his tracks, act like he’s going into a shop. Act like he’s changing his mind so he can turn and walk in the same direction as I am. I do it again. And again. And then I lead the one-eyebrow man on a wild-goose chase through Przemyśl.

  We go up hills fast and down them slow. I stand in one place in a grocery and look at maggoty cabbages for fifteen minutes while he tries to decide what to do. I go into the cathedral. And walk back out again. I go into a different cathedral. And walk back out again, just as he’s catching up. Then I put my hands in my pockets and walk in one big circle, weaving in and out of traffic, switching sidewalks, until we’re standing in the exact same spot we started from.

  And when he’s moving at a trot to catch up, I make an unexpected dart through the front door of an apartment building. And straight out the back of it, turning right down the alley, and stepping into the back door of the next one.

  I stand in the hallway of the building next door, watching through the side glass as the one-eyebrow man runs out the door I first darted through, turning circles in the street, looking for where I might have gone.

  All this time in Przemyśl, and he doesn’t even know that apartment buildings have front and back doors. What a Dummkopf.

  He settles on a bus bench to wait, and I turn to go out the back door. And then I turn back. And I go out the front instead, down the steps, and down the sidewalk toward the bench. My heels click on the stones. I don’t know who this man is. If he’s German police. Secret police. If he’s some sort of private investigator for Minerwa. I don’t know if he’s a Nazi, or hunting Jews, or maybe the man just wants a date. Whatever he is, he’s been following me for months, and I’m done with him.

  I walk up to the bench. The man has his back to me. He’s just pulling out a newspaper.

  “Excuse me,” I say.

  He jumps up, turns, opens his mouth in surprise. And I hit him in the nose. Just like Max taught me.

  His hat falls off, and he sits hard on the ground, while I turn and walk into the nearest apartment building, then out the back door and down an alley. I smile as I go, shaking out my fist, and hurry off to find a pharmacy that will sell me an illegal prescription.

  I find one in a part of Przemyśl I’ve hardly seen, and when I step inside, I know I’ve made a mistake. The store is empty. And the pharmacist has nothing to do but ask me questions. What is the illness? Who is the medicine for? Why do I have a prescription for such a strong pain medication from a German Army doctor? I pretend to look at bandages before I go somewhere else, and then a whole group of soldiers walks into the pharmacy, talking loudly in German. I move quickly to the counter.

  “Could I pick this up now, please?”

  The pharmacist glances at the prescription. He barely looks at me. He’s worried about the soldiers, because sometimes soldiers like to forget to pay. He gets the bottle from
the back, counts the pills right on the counter, writes it down in his book, and asks me for my zloty with an eye on the men sifting through the items on his shelves.

  He didn’t ask for enough. It’s not near enough. But I’m not going to be the one who corrects him. I give him the money, stick the bottle in my pocket with the change, and make a dash for it before he can notice.

  And I feel good. Better than I have in weeks. I buy the cheapest sack of porridge meal I can find at the market, and a little hope pierces my soul like sun through clouds. It starts to rain again. And when I get back to Tatarska 3, I can hear Mrs. Bessermann from the courtyard. Almost from the street.

  She’s demanding cheese.

  Today is the day, then. Because Mrs. Bessermann wants cheese.

  I put the key to the door and lock it behind me.

  Danuta practically slides down the ladder. “Have you got it?”

  I give her the pills, and she runs back up again. I hurry through the bedroom, where Helena has stayed huddled, and peek into the nurses’ room. Their beds are unmade, underclothes on the floor, clean stockings left draped and hanging to dry from the electrical wires dangling through the window.

  I knew they couldn’t be here. Because the Gestapo isn’t.

  That doesn’t mean the Gestapo isn’t coming.

  And then I step all the way into their room. Because there’s a green piece of paper sticking out from beneath the radio. I look behind me once and slide it out. Feeling guilty. And then I don’t feel guilty, because the paper has my name on it.

  It’s my medical card. Excusing me from work. The envelope it was mailed in sitting just underneath. The postmark is more than a month ago.

  The policeman must have done what he said. No wonder they didn’t take me to Germany.