I wonder if those nurses picked up my mail by accident.
I wonder if they hid this from me. But why? Did they think if I was taken to Germany, they’d have the house to themselves?
Then Mrs. Bessermann screams for scrambled eggs, and I wonder if Mr. Krajewska is sitting on the other side of the wall.
I hide the medical card deep under my mattress, with the SS man and the picture Max drew for me, and the attic goes quiet. Mrs. Bessermann must have gotten her medicine.
We wait all day for the Gestapo.
Max can’t come down, so Cesia brings me the dirty bucket, crying because she thinks her mother is going to die. Helena watches the window while I wipe Cesia’s face and her eyes, and carefully comb the bugs from her hair. So much for keeping me away from my thirteen.
I send up two buckets of clean water, make a tasteless pot of porridge that will at least keep someone alive, and then Helena and I clean. I scrub while she sweeps, from one end to the other, and she does a good job with the broom. The rain comes down, and I’m grateful. One of the nurses will probably end her shift soon, and rain on a tin roof is loud.
I sit with Helena on the bed, and we play the string game, though I’m the only one who sings. And then there’s a commotion above us. A big one. Yelling. A thud. A scuffle. Helena’s eyes go big, watching the ceiling. I think Max has finally lost control up there. Then it sounds like someone is falling down the ladder. I get up from the bed. Our last two chickens squawk. The front door opens, and I yank back the window curtain.
Mrs. Bessermann is outside. In the courtyard. In the rain. Screaming for the Gestapo.
Time slows.
Some things are foggy. The sky. The shed with the toilets. The Krajewskas’ front door. The drips of water trickling down the pane. But some things are so clear, so sharp, they hurt my eyes. The car driving slowly up Tatarska. The electric lights in the windows of the hospital, men and women running in and out the front doors in a hurry. Max in the courtyard with his hands out. Mrs. Bessermann with straggling hair and dirt running with the rain off her cheeks, a faded, filthy blouse hanging off one shoulder. She has red spots on her face, neck, chest, and hands.
“I want bread!” she screams at Max. “And cheese, and scrambled eggs with horseradish! Do not put your hands on me!”
She staggers in the mud.
“You bring it to me, or I’m calling the police! I’m calling the Gestapo!”
“Stefi,” says a voice behind me. “You need to go out there.”
The voice is small. Creaking and dry. And it’s Helena’s. She’s still sitting on her bed with her doll. She looks at me. I look at her.
And I move. Like lightning through the house. The rest of my thirteen are huddled around the sofa. Danuta is crying. Monek is crying. Old Hirsch is wringing his hands. “We are killed, we are killed, we are killed …”
“Cesia! Janek! Come with me!”
I take them by the hand and pull them into the rain, into the enormous outside where people have ears and eyes and there’s nowhere to hide.
Max still has his hands out, his long hair slicked close to his head, trying to reason with Mrs. Bessermann.
“We can get those things,” he says. “Just not yet, not—”
“I want it now! And I don’t want to share! I won’t share! I won’t share anything with Hirsch!”
“You’re going to kill us!” Max pleads. “Is that what you want?”
Some people in the hospital yard are staring through the rain across the street.
“Yes!” says Mrs. Bessermann. “The Gestapo can come, and we can be done, and it can be over! Police!” she croaks. “Jews! There are Jews! Police!”
And then Cesia says, “Mama?”
Mrs. Bessermann pauses, swaying as she wipes the water away, her eyes focusing on Cesia.
“Mama, I’m not ready to die. And if you don’t come inside, you’re going to kill us …”
“But you are going to die, my sweet,” she says. “You’re going to die … so slow … Gestapo!” she yells. “I want my eggs now!”
“Please, Mama!” shouts Janek. “Please don’t call them! Don’t kill us!” He runs to his mother and throws his arms around her. His pants are at least four inches too short for him. “The trains haven’t come. Don’t kill us, Mama, please!”
“Come inside,” Cesia says, taking her arm. “It’s not like him. Not like Tata. The trains aren’t here. Please, Mama, come inside and get well.”
Mrs. Bessermann looks confused, but she lets Cesia lead her, Janek crying and hanging on to her waist.
“Max, get inside,” I say, and rush to get behind Mrs. Bessermann, to shield her from the eyes at the hospital. Because she looks exactly like what she is. A sick, crazy woman who’s been shut up in an attic. When we’re in, I turn the lock.
Someone has called the police by now. I just don’t know how long it will take them to come.
I can’t believe today is the day.
“Max, get them up the ladder,” I say. “I’ll clean up the mud …”
“You don’t have to do what she says!” yells Mrs. Bessermann, her huge pupils roving around the room until they land on Old Hirsch. “And I don’t have to do what he says! I don’t have to marry you … just because you say … just because I said …”
The old man’s brows are down, but his face doesn’t even register a reaction. Did Mrs. Bessermann promise to marry Old Hirsch? Was that their trade? A marriage for a hiding place?
“And I don’t have to do … what I said,” mumbles Mrs. Bessermann. “And you …” She swings her head toward Max. “You don’t … have to do what she says … just because you love her! You don’t … have to …”
“Mama, come with me,” says Cesia, looking away from my startled face.
“When you love them, it … doesn’t … mean you have to!” screams Mrs. Bessermann. “Max! You remember that …”
“Help me, Janek,” Cesia says. “Quick, before the police come …”
“You don’t have to, Max!” Mrs. Bessermann yells, and Siunek helps push her up the ladder.
Max doesn’t meet my eyes. “I’d tell you to run, but you’re not going to, are you?”
I shake my head.
“Okay. We’ll be ready when they come. Send them up if you want to.” He smiles, even though he knows it’s not funny, and he goes up the ladder. And he still doesn’t look at me.
The others file up slowly after him. Danuta is still crying on the sofa. Henek has his arm around her.
“Mrs. Bessermann was always muttering about bread and cheese,” he says. “The kind you could get before the war. Even when we weren’t supposed to talk. Putting us at risk, to lie there and tell the maid over and over again to bring her bread and cheese. I can’t believe it drove her crazy before it did me.”
“She’s just sick,” I say.
“Maybe,” whispers Danuta, wiping her eyes. “But it’s no different than what she always says. That she won’t marry Hirsch. That she’s going to give us away so we can all die and stop trying. She just really tried to do it this time.”
“She did more than try,” says Henek. They get up together and walk hand in hand to the ladder. They look delicate. Frail. Danuta tilts her chin to the hole in the ceiling and stares. She doesn’t want to go up.
“What did she mean?” I ask her quickly. “What Mrs. Bessermann said about Max?”
“She’s always going on to Max about doing whatever you say, as if it’s just because of that and not Max trying to save us. It’s not fair …”
“But what do you mean, ‘just because of that’?”
Danuta looks back, one foot on the ladder. “Oh, Fusia. Please.”
“Don’t be such a Dummkopf,” Henek says, and follows Danuta to the attic.
Do Henek and Danuta, Mrs. Bessermann, everyone in the attic, do they all think Max is in love with me?
When I look around, Helena is standing in the doorway of the bedroom. “Don’t you think we should
clean up the mud?” she says.
I kiss her because I’m so happy to hear her speak. Even though we’re about to die.
She helps me clean, and when the floor is tidy, the cloths rinsed out, and I’m dry from the rain, we lie down on the bed and wait for the Gestapo to come. Mrs. Bessermann has gone quiet. I don’t know if they gave her more pills or none, but it’s working. And then I think about Max.
I know Max loves me. I love him. We’ve been like brother and sister. We have lost the same people and cried for the same grief. We’ve been through the best and the very worst times of our lives together. He’s my best friend. But that is different from what Mrs. Bessermann meant. In love with me is different.
“Everybody knows Max loves you, Stefi,” says Helena, stroking the hair of her doll. “But nobody knows if you love him.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he looks at you funny, like Mr. Szymczak used to look at his wife. And because I heard Henek say so.”
I prop my head on an elbow. “What did Henek say?”
“That Max should let it go, because you were never going to forget the other one, Izio, and that Max can’t fight a ghost.” Helena looks up. “I don’t know what that part means. About fighting a ghost. How would you fight a ghost?”
“I don’t know, Hela,” I whisper.
I think of that kiss on the forehead. The one that wasn’t fatherly. Or brotherly. And didn’t make me think of Izio.
I told myself I wouldn’t love anyone. Not again. Not during a war. It’s too hard.
But maybe there’s no way to help it.
And then there’s a knock on the door.
I kiss the top of Helena’s head, a long kiss that says how much I will always love her, no matter what. And I get to my feet and go to the door.
But it’s not the police. Or the Gestapo. It’s Karin and Ilse. Mad because they were locked out in the rain.
They tromp into their room, dripping and without speaking to me, not even one look that might mean “I saw a crazed Jewish woman yelling in your courtyard.” And for once, no boyfriends come. The radio switches on, and not to music. It’s the news. All in German. I can hear the words “Hitler.” And “Americans.” And “Berlin.” They listen to the news low for half the night.
Something must be happening with the war.
I slip my nightgown over my head and wonder if they’ll notice that I found my medical card. I wonder if Max is trying to listen to the broadcasts with his stethoscope. If maybe he was listening to my conversation with Helena with the stethoscope. And then I wonder why the Gestapo hasn’t come for us.
Maybe they are busy.
I spread the blanket over Helena and let her snuggle in next to me. There are two beds, but right now, we sleep in the one. The radio hums low from the next room. It’s silent above us.
But I know that silence is full of breath and heartbeats. Thought and feelings that can’t be voiced. The silence above us is full of life, even if death comes in the next few minutes.
Quiet does not mean emptiness. Not always.
Not for me.
And in the morning, when the rain is gone and the summer sun shines in warm yellow streamers through the crack in the window curtains, the teeming silence is still there, and I wonder why we’re still alive.
I don’t know why.
But we are.
And then I wonder if Max took Henek’s advice and decided to let me go.
They keep Mrs. Bessermann asleep until her fever is nearly gone. She wakes up weak, half her size, but alive. Like the rest of us. Like a miracle. Because no one else has come down with typhus.
And something is happening in Przemyśl. Soldiers move in and out, knapsacks on their backs, tanks are driving through, and there are bare shelves in the shops. Nothing for sale in the market except from the farmers, and it’s too early in the season for there to be much of that. What there is for sale, the prices are expensive. More than expensive. They’re outrageous. We eat the rest of the chickens. I try to sell the sofa. The half table. The broken armoire. I offer to trade them with a farmer and even offer the shoes off my feet. But no one has any need for my shabby furniture or my shabby shoes. No one has money for anything but food.
Then the day finally comes. The one I’ve been trying to fend off since the beginning of the war. And it’s not the coming of the Gestapo.
It’s the day we have nothing to eat. Nothing at all. And no way of getting it.
I think we’ve survived only to starve.
When the nurses go to the hospital, I call down my thirteen from the attic. Max sits us all in a circle in the living room—except for Siunek, who is on duty at the window—and I’m reminded of a pack of snarling dogs.
I should have planned better.
Max should have planned better.
Max should have never listened to me.
I should go to the market and see what I can steal.
I should go in the nurses’ room and see if I can find their money.
There’s probably food across the street in the hospital, if I just had the courage to walk in and get it.
No one is at their best when they’re starving.
And then Sala Hirsch says, “We should go to Mrs. Krawiecka.”
They stop arguing. Max says, “How well do you know her?”
“I knew her well,” says Jan Dorlich. “My sister worked for her. She was all right until she thought I’d lied to her …”
Sorry, Jan.
“I think she would have helped me if she could.”
“She knows me, too,” says Sala. “Her husband did business with my father. She’s known me since I was a little girl.”
“But do you think she would go to the Gestapo?” Schillinger asks. Dziusia lies curled up, silent at his feet, smiling a little. She’s gone away in her head.
Sala shrugs. “She didn’t before.”
“But that was because Fusia scared the hell out of her,” says Max. He glances sideways, meeting my eyes for maybe the first time since Mrs. Bessermann, and the brow quirks. He smiles. I smile back. Losing my temper with Mrs. Krawiecka must be a fond memory for him. Danuta raises a brow at me, like, “See?”
I look away from her. “I’m not sure she’ll open the door,” I say. “Not the way we left things.”
“Then take Sala with you,” says Max.
“No,” says Monek.
“Stop being selfish,” says Mrs. Bessermann.
Sala puts a hand on Monek’s arm. “I think I have to, if we want to convince her to help us.”
“Are there any other ideas?” Max asks.
“Other than we eat each other?” says Old Hirsch. “Starting with you? Now, that is an idea!”
It’s nice to hear the old man being himself.
* * *
We decide to go that evening, in the twilight before dark, when most people will be hurrying to their homes and the nurses are in their bedroom. It means risking coming back after curfew and coming back while Ilse and Karin are home, but Sala doesn’t have decent clothes, and we are desperate.
Sala creeps down the ladder while the nurses listen to the news broadcasts on the radio. We’re lucky, because once again, there are no boyfriends tonight. Unless they’re at the door. Now. Sala seems to have imagined the same possibility, because she’s shaking just from being in the kitchen.
“Shhh,” I say. “Clean your face.”
We clean her up. Comb her hair. She hasn’t worn her shoes in so long they’re awkward on her feet. I put my coat over her fraying blouse, even though the summer air is too hot for it, and wave to Helena. Helena waves back and locks the door behind us without a sound.
We still have to get past the nurses’ window. Electric light glows from the radio behind the curtain. But we slip past and down Tatarska Street.
“You know the address?” I ask Sala. She nods. “You know the way?” I ask. She nods again.
“Smile,” I say. “It’s fun to go for a stroll,
remember?”
We’re supposed to be friends, out for a walk. That was the plan. But Sala is cringing, clutching my arm like a vise. If I were her, I’d face any danger for the opportunity to walk down the street and get out of that attic. But maybe I don’t know what it feels like to think that every person you meet wants to kill you.
A woman passes by with her packages, and Sala’s breath comes fast. She jumps at the train whistle. She jumps at the honk of a car. I think she’s going to faint.
“Sala, there’s not a sign on your back,” I hiss. “They don’t know.”
“But it feels like they know!”
“Okay. Let’s just walk faster then.”
It’s a long way to Mrs. Krawiecka’s. Almost to the opposite side of Przemyśl. Jan Dorlich must have been thinking about riding in a mail cart when he said we could get there in half an hour. I don’t think we’re going to get there without being questioned, not with Sala turning her face from every soldier or policeman on the street. But everyone seems busy tonight. Preoccupied. No time to bother with two young girls.
We reach the address. Finally. We walk up the steps. And I realize we’re not at an apartment building. This is a house.
Somehow I missed the information that Mrs. Krawiecka is incredibly rich. And anyone who has stayed incredibly rich during this war must be working with the Germans.
Mrs. Krawiecka may have a lot to lose.
Now I feel as nervous as Sala.
I raise my hand to knock, but Sala points at a button. An electric bell. I push it, hear a ring, and when the door opens, it’s a girl not much younger than us. Sala turns away, shrinking behind me.
I smile. “Could I see Mrs. Krawiecka, please?”
“Wait here,” she says, and shuts the door again. “Mother!” I hear her call.
I tap my foot. We need to get off the street. But what if there are Germans in this house? Right now?
The door opens.
“Well,” says Mrs. Krawiecka. The lines on her forehead go deep. “It’s Miss Podgórska, isn’t it? And … oh!”
Sala has turned around.
“Oh! Sala!”
* * *
Mrs. Krawiecka whisks us to a room in the back of the house and turns the lock. “To make sure we’re not disturbed!” she says. “You’re not being kidnapped, Miss Podgórska. I know you already think I’m a blackmailer.”
The Light in Hidden Places Page 31
