The Girl Who Wouldn?t Die

by Randall Platt

  “What way?”

  “You know. Sort of, born bad. Sure confused me back when I wanted to be a priest. Couldn’t quite fit those two together. The whole good-evil thing.”

  “We used to call you the Pickpocket Priest,” I say, trying to joke the serious tone out of his voice. He looks down at the apple in his hand. “Look, Lizard, think where you’d be if you were a priest. Is there a damn church even left standing here in Warsaw? Trust me, evil trumps good every time.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” he says, smiling over at me. “And where would those brats in my gang be?”

  “That’s the spirit!” I say. “Come on, let’s go. We can shortcut through the park.”

  We hop off the delivery wagon and enter the park. This area didn’t escape the bombing raids.

  “Oh, look. Poor horsey,” I say. The statue of some long-dead hero on horseback has been hit directly, by the looks of it. The hero is gone, pieces of him collected and stacked up in a tidy little pile by some idiot.

  “What were they going to do, put him back together? Humpty Dumpty style?” I ask Lizard, pointing to the remains.

  The horse is a different story. He still stands, looking ahead, unwavering and unaware that he only has two legs left to stand on.

  “Remember when we used to use that statue for target practice?” Lizard asks. “A beer says I can hit the horse right on the beak.” He winds up his arm with great drama and then flings his apple core toward the sad statue, missing it by a quarter mile.

  “You never were a good shot,” I say.

  “Let’s see you do it. Get back here. Girls don’t get closer shots.”

  I wind up and throw my apple core, hitting the horse square in the rump.

  “Okay, we’ll buy our own beers,” Lizard says.

  I lead the way toward my old home and we quietly hide, as I always do, in the shadows down the block.

  Everything is fine.

  “Let’s get that beer,” Lizard says, pulling me along.

  So many shops are closed now, boarded up, many with the finality of that damn yellow Star of David painted across each one. I pause to look inside a window. The shop—or what once was a shop—is torn up, the remnants of a fire visible in a corner. These days it’s a matter of wear it, sell it, or burn it. Someone’s scribbled on the window with soap: GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE! COMPLIMENTS OF THE KRAUTS!

  “Don’t turn around,” Lizard says, looking in the reflection of same window. “Sniper.”

  I see the reflection, too, now—he’s standing across the street. “That’s not Sniper. Look how that man’s dressed. He’s … God, that is him! What the hell is he up to?”

  “What are those uniforms?” Lizard asks.

  “Shit. SS,” I whisper.

  I pull my new scarf up around my face. Lizard pulls down his cap and we both slowly turn around. We watch Sniper chat cordially with the three soldiers. Even laugh.

  “Bet I know what he’s doing,” Lizard says. “He’s selling information.”

  “Bounty hunter?”

  “I heard he was getting into the hard trades. Whores, drugs. Look at the way he’s dressed. See that?”

  We watch the exchange of money. Sniper points to the apartment behind him.

  “And he’s selling out his own,” I say. “My father owns that building. Only upstanding Jewish families in there.”

  “He’d probably sell out his own mother, the bastard,” Lizard says. I recognize that hardness in his voice. He doesn’t use it very often.

  “Snakes don’t have mothers. Sniper was hatched, not born,” I remind him.

  Lizard grunts a snort of laughter. “Good point.”

  We watch Sniper and the soldiers share a joke or something. Laughter, back-patting, congratulations. I nudge Lizard. “The irony is Sniper looks so goddamn Jewish.”

  A scuffle on the sidewalk steals our attention. Soldiers appear, scattering people as they approach us. Then, soldiers from the other direction appear and trot up the steps of the apartment building. More soldiers appear from behind, surrounding the area.

  “Uh oh,” Lizard says, pulling me into the street to avoid the people beginning to scatter. There is a sudden chaos.

  “This way!” Lizard shouts.

  “No!” I pull my arm out of his grip. “Split up!”

  Traffic is stopped as more people spill into the streets, trying to avoid the same soldiers we are. I glance at Sniper.

  “He’s seen us!” I say. “Vanish!”

  Lizard melts into the crowd in one direction and I try to make my way toward the sidewalk, where I know I can duck into an alley or shop. I weave along, glancing over my shoulder. Damn! Sniper and one of his SS friends are not far behind. Do something, Arab!

  I enter through the first shop door I find open.

  “What’s going on out there?” a woman asks, looking through her shop window at the roundup outside.

  “Roundup.”

  “Oh dear,” she says. “Those poor people.”

  “Got a dressing room?” I ask, pulling a coat off a rack.

  She looks back outside. “Oh my God. I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Lady, please,” I say.

  “Through those curtains.”

  I disappear into the back of the store. Damn! No back door. A dressing room, small office and storeroom, and a bathroom. I hear the bell on the shop door ring.

  “May I help you?” the clerk asks. I hear the fear in her voice. Lady, careful.

  “Sir, you can’t go …” I hear the clerk say. “Ladies only!”

  “We’re not looking for a lady,” Sniper says.

  I slip through the stacks of boxes, nearly tipping over a naked mannequin. There’s an old desk, stacked high with boxes and papers. I hide under it, pulling more boxes around me. One thing is for sure. I’m trapped.

  I hear them pull the curtains aside. “No one here,” the SS soldier says in fractured Polish.

  “I told you that!” the clerk says. I hear a slap, a scream, her fall.

  The bathroom door opens and the footsteps come closer. I hold my breath, remembering the eternity I spent in the dumbwaiter not that long ago. I hear them looking around the room.

  “Are you sure you saw her come in here? This is a lot of work for just one street punk. I have to get back to my unit.”

  “No, trust me, you want this one!” Sniper says.

  “Ha! Look at this!” the soldier says. “May I have this dance, Fräulein?”

  Damn, I want to look but don’t dare to move. What the …? From the shadow on the wall I see what I think is the big, bad SS Nazi dancing with the naked mannequin!

  “Fine! You stay here and make love,” Sniper says. “I’m heading back out. I have work to do.” Footsteps, curtain screeching along its track, the bell on the door ringing.

  That leaves me and Fred Astaire.

  “Danke, Fräulein,” he says. I’ll bet anything he’s bowing to her. Then, finally, the same sounds—footsteps, curtain, doorbell.

  I count to thirty, then slowly rise from my hiding spot.

  I look at the mannequin. I take the coat I pulled off the rack and drape it around her. “Here,” I say. “It’s cold. Cover yourself up.”

  I walk over to the brave clerk, who’s holding her bleeding jaw. “You okay?”

  “I can’t wait until those szwabs get hell out of Warsaw!”

  “Here,” I say, giving her a handful of cash. “For the use of the dressing room.”

  “But …”

  “No, trust me. You’ve earned this.”

  She counts the money in her hand and looks back at me, astonished. “Look,” I say, “it won’t buy much once the Krauts outlaw Polish money and bring in their own, but see if you can buy your way out of Warsaw. Out of Poland, hell, get out of Europe. And take your naked friend in back with you. She’s earned it, too.”

  II.

  Funny, people weren’t nearly as panicked when the weather was warm and the sun was shining. Wea
ther changes everything. Things are getting serious here in Warsaw. Everything is rationed and our meager allotments are getting more meager every day. Supplies have dwindled to next to nothing. The Germans are requisitioning everything—from men off the street to gas cans in garages—for “government work.” Inconvenience gives way to concern, concern gives way to panic, and panic gives way to greed. And greed creates black markets. I’m already hip deep. Maybe I always have been. I know what people want, need. I find it and supply it.

  Doing my best to keep business as usual. Papers, shoeshines, cigarettes, knickknacks, anything I can get my hands on to sell on my corner. I’m not the only one in “the trades,” by far. Vendors are everywhere, mostly selling family treasures and clothes. Anything.

  Each day brings more deportations, more neighborhood cleansings, more roustings of Jews. An empty building is an invitation for the Krauts to barge in and look around for Jews in hiding and take anything they find. As I go about my day—exploring, bartering, requisitioning—I am always aware of the sounds that signal more danger. The bark of a loudspeaker, the pop of a gun, the screaming of neighbors, the shuffling of boot steps—all warning signs that another Jewish family is being hauled away.

  Like right now. I stop in my tracks and hide behind a tree to wait this one out. This neighborhood is nice. Before the occupation, probably the worst thing that ever happened here was a stray dog messing with someone’s fancy French poodle.

  Across the street a soldier is flashing his Luger about and shouting orders. An old man carries an even older woman out to a lorry parked on the street. The man slips on ice, totters, then drops the old woman. He falls into a heap on top of her, nearly tripping the Nazi. The soldier swears and sets down his Luger to yank them up. He tosses them both like sacks of potatoes into the lorry. Then there’s a gunshot from inside the building, and the soldier is called to help.

  A small, blanket-shrouded head bobs up from the bed of the lorry. The old woman looks around. It’s as though she knows I’m here, watching. At first, she looks confused, terrified. She touches her face where a trickle of blood runs down into her shawl. But now a very calm, peaceful smile comes to her face—like old people can look when they come to realize maybe they’ve lived too long and seen too much. She looks down at the gun at her feet on the lorry’s tailgate.

  Will the old girl have the chutzpah to reach down? Use the gun? Make a stand? Do something, anything, to save herself? Does she even grasp her fate?

  The old woman looks back at me. No, there isn’t any fight left in this woman. She’s going to be shipped off to hell in a handbasket with the rest of her family. Wait! What’s she doing? She slowly, slowly moves her foot to push the Luger until it falls to the gutter below the lorry.

  More people are herded from the sidewalk and are loaded in. The old woman grasps the side of the railing, making room for them. Between the folds of her scarf, I see her slight, toothless smile, and her gentle nod toward me. It’s a look of victorious surrender, if there can be such a thing. I return her nod, her smile. This is a godsend, and she and I both know it.

  I wait until the truck has vanished down the street and things return to normal. People go about their business—some people’s business is to ransack the house that family was just hauled out of. As for me, I venture to the gutter and sit down on the curb, keeping the weapon in my sight. I look like just another lost soul sitting in the gutter. Slowly, I use my foot to scoot the weapon closer. I toss my scarf down on top of it, look around again, then pocket the bundle, scarf and all.

  I’d like to think that doomed old woman knows her one act of defiance and bravery adds to my small arsenal. Her death, my survival.

  I pull a piece of chalk from my pack. I make my tribute to her, the chalk slipping on the sidewalk cement:

  THE WOMAN WENT

  WITHOUT A WORD

  HER SMILE THE LOUDEST

  I EVER HEARD

  III.

  I hear them before I see them. Another parade—only this one is different and dangerous and now daily. I blend into the mute bystanders so I won’t be run down. It’s a parade of Jews, at least a hundred, each wrapped in several thick layers of clothing—so many on the children, they look like fat, stubby mannequins. The adults pull handcarts of what bare necessities they are allowed to bring—bedding, food, clothing—and push children in carriages. Women rush to sell rings off their fingers, bracelets off their wrists, books, silver, furs. Word gets around quickly, and these people already know: Fineries won’t be needed. Cash will. I spot a jeweler buying for spit what I know will end up in his shop for outrageous prices. Occupation can be quite an occupation, actually.

  I fall into step with a limping German soldier. He looks me up and down. His face is weary, so I offer him a cigarette. He hesitates, looks around, then takes one.

  “Where are you taking these people?” I ask him in German.

  “Elsewhere,” he states wearily. We keep walking.

  “All of them?”

  “They go to factories.”

  “Factories where?”

  “Elsewhere!” he repeats with a snap. “Work shall set them free.” I can tell he has the same cold all of Warsaw is sharing. “You’ve heard the orders. Male Jews, fourteen to sixty, work.” He gives me a closer look. His eyes are red and weepy. “How old are you?”

  “I’m not a Jew. In fact, I’m not a male, and I’m only eleven. I’m big for my age.” I smile innocently.

  He gives me a pitying look as he shakes his head and puts his cigarette to his lips. “My sister’s that way. You both better watch it.” He coughs out the smoke.

  I know what “that way” is, and I change the subject. “Those children can’t work. What about those women?”

  “They’ll find something for them to do. They tell us everyone is going to be fine, if they work.”

  He stops and we both wait out his approaching sneeze. He lets go, sighs heavily, wipes his nose on his sleeve. “Damn Jews and their head colds!”

  “Yeah, those Jewish colds can be killers.” I keep a straight face.

  He stops and gives me a look of concern. “You mean people die from these colds?”

  “For some reason, only Aryans,” I say, trying to match his serious tone. “Just make sure you get lots of chicken soup.”

  “Great. I’ll probably end up back home at Stutthof.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Just a little village up by the Baltic. They built a new Jew camp there. My father got work there, and he says they built a wing to study diseases and, hell, make three-legged women, for all I know. Stutthof is the last assignment I want. I’m sick of sick people!”

  He coughs, not bothering to cover his mouth. “Goddamn Jews. Can I have another cigarette?”

  I press the pack into his hands and watch the procession continue on down the road, off to a factory in a place called Elsewhere, where their work will set them free.

  Several military trucks come barreling up the street in the same direction, honking their horns, the soldiers aboard shouting orders to move. I trot away to avoid being run down. More people, more trucks, some with people crammed into the backs. All guarded by soldiers with rifles at the ready.

  I hop up on a stone wall to sit and watch.

  “Well, I’ll be damned. It’s my old friend, Arab.”

  I whirl around, angry I’ve been caught off guard. Stupid! I’m a sitting duck here! My throat could have been slit and I would have deserved it.

  “Go to hell, Sniper.” I turn back around and keep watching the Jews’ exodus.

  “Now this is twice I’ve offered you the hand of friendship and twice you’ve rejected it. I’m beginning to think you don’t like me.”

  He hops up onto the wall and sits down next to me. I note his suit is clean and well-pressed. Not the same one he wore the other day. Bounty business must be booming.

  “You’re getting to be quite the gal about town,” he says.

  I don’t reply. I want li
ke hell to tell him I know all about his filthy new trade. But I hold it in. I won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing I’m trembling inside.

  “Yes, sir,” he goes on. “Seems like everywhere I go, I see you.”

  “Well, I never go anywhere, so you must be seeing someone else.”

  “My boys say the same thing. ‘Say, guess who I saw today?’ ‘My, that Arab sure gets around,’” he says, imitating different voices.

  He pulls out a knife and clicks it open. “Ain’t it a honey? Had to get me a new one.” He looks over at me. Clean-shaven, reeking of aftershave, teeth sparkling. He points the tip of the knife to my chin, smiles and says, “Someone lifted my old one. This one’s better, though. Gots lots of spring.”

  He pulls out an apple and begins to slice off sections. He spears one and offers it to me. I ignore it. “I’d think twice, Arab. This might be the last apple in Warsaw, for the duration.”

  I ignore him. He shrugs his shoulders and stuffs the apple into his mouth, then points his knife toward the street. “You know, who doesn’t love a parade? Say, did you see Hitler pass through town? Now, that was some parade!”

  A little girl falls in the road, starting off a chain reaction of tripping people. A soldier gruffly jerks them up, butting them along with his rifle.

  “Look at that,” Sniper says, shaking his head, munching his apple. “Lambs to the slaughter, I tell you. Those Jews are good as dead. Just thank whoever you worship you’re blond and blue-eyed.”

  “I don’t worship anyone.”

  He nudges me. “You could easily be one of those Jewish lambs.”

  “I’m no more a Jew than you.”

  “Liar. I knew you when, remember?” He points his knife toward my crotch. “Not only that, you don’t got a shvantz.” I can feel his apple breath on my cheek. “Too bad you can’t grow one. This getup ain’t going to work forever, you know. Pretty soon some horny Kraut’s going to find your crotch and have himself a good old time. Or has that fancy lieutenant already been there?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve seen you talking to him on your corner. Like hell you’re just selling him cigarettes. You wouldn’t be the first Jew bitch I know to be under—if you pardon the expression—a German’s protection.”