“Go screw yourself.”
“Look, they want us all dead. I can promise you that,” he says, matter-of-factly. “I know. I have connections. Every fucking last one of us. Dead. Won’t matter what you got in your pants. Hell, six of my gang got picked off the streets for the work parties. Only one came back and you don’t want to hear his stories about the other five. I heard of one man, had a rare blood type and guess what? They took it all! Yep, just drained him dry. Huh,” he adds, with a thoughtful smile, “Wonder what a body looks like without any blood in it.”
He looks at a passing line of Germans and flicks the core of his apple off his knife toward them. Two little boys run to it and fight over who gets to gobble it down. “I tell you, Arab, it’s a whole new world. On the other hand, this keeps up, you and me’ll be the only operators in Warsaw.” He leans into me and I scoot away. “Hmm, that could be very lucrative. Maybe we should team up again.” He inches even closer.
I give him the coldest, hardest look I can.
“I tell you, that Lizard is just a cheap punk. You keep ganging with him, you’ll never get anywhere—probably get yourself killed—all those snot-nosed boys to look after. Come with me. Where the real men are. After all, this is war.”
“You’re right. This is war. And it always has been.” I jump down off the wall and look back up at him. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
“Be seeing you, Arab! Think of me as your …” He pulls out a small dictionary, “No wait, wait. Got it right here. Does us all good to speak German now, you know. Here it is. I am your Schutzengel.” He mangles the word.
“I don’t need any damn guardian angel, least of all you!”
“Gonna be watching you, sweetheart. Here! Have an apple on me!”
I turn in just enough time to catch it.
I fade into a busy crowd, wondering why the makeup of one’s crotch causes so many problems. Either you’re a male Jew with a circumcised shvantz or a female ripe for the picking.
Either way, you’re screwed.
MARCH, 1940
I.
It’s been a pretty dreary occupation so far. The Germans have been busy with upsetting and reorganizing everything for everyone. Every day a new decree! I even wonder if it’s to keep our eyes on the right hand while the left hand creates more havoc. Of course, rumors fly around every corner, especially the rumors of a wall going up around the Jewish Quarter. If all us Poles didn’t have reasons to hate the Germans before this, we sure have them now.
Holidays? What are those? Days when no one you know gets humiliated, deported, or shot? No, there aren’t any holidays anymore. First to go are the Jewish holidays. Every single one of them. Verboten. Done! Thousands of years of history, gone with one tidy German decree. If any Jew dares to celebrate or honor God, or even sing a prayer, it’s done like everything else is done in Warsaw—in secret and behind locked doors. And if you’re discovered? That’ll earn you a front row seat to a firing squad or a one-way ticket to Elsewhere.
Then Hitler puts the kibosh on the Polish holidays. So what’s left? Oh, the Germans do love their Christmas! But that first Christmas of occupied Warsaw? Pretty damn sad. No songs sung, no candles lit, no prayers whispered, no food prepared, no gifts exchanged.
Too bad, because December is usually a great month for me and the trades. But our first Christmas of the Hitler Holy Occupation? Pitiful! Pitiful to see people eke out anything in the way of a holiday spirit. I stockpiled little things all fall to sell on my corner through the winter, and Lizard had his boys cut cedar boughs and holly sprigs to make into corsages to sell. Just the smell of pine or a splash of red and green—that’s all most people had to honor the season by. The whole season was taken up with survival, anyway.
But our little gang made it through. Me in my home hole, and Lizard and his boys in their church basement hideout. We’ve gotten this far.
There are some people who think hope springs eternal—or they have an eternal hope for spring. They think food will somehow return, homes will somehow heat, businesses will somehow reopen … Well, they are dead wrong. Or just dead. It’s nearly spring now, and it isn’t getting better—it’s getting worse.
I laugh at those eternal, infernal optimists—mostly the few people who still have full bellies and warm hearths. Probably have already sold out to the Krauts.
Then there are still people who insist this can’t go on much longer—As soon as spring comes, wait and see! The world will come to save us. Well, it’s been seven months since Germany flew into town, and no one has even sent a get-well card.
We are on our own.
II.
“Only half a pack?” Fritz asks. Over the months, he’s become one of my best customers for weekly cigarettes and whatever else I can pilfer for him, and for his horse—souvenirs to send home to his family. Even through the dreary Christmas and New Year’s seasons, Fritz would come to buy, smoke, get his boots shined. Looking at him today, I chuckle to myself. He’s almost single-handedly supporting our gang.
He dismounts, slings Hummel’s reins over his arm, pulls out a cigarette and lights it, then grimaces as he inhales. “Then again, who wants a full pack of these?”
I’m thinking my Fritzenheimer’s usual calm, elegant manner is dwindling right along with tobacco supplies. This occupation thing must be wearing him down, just like the rest of Warsaw. I’ve noticed the change in his handsome face. He looks harder, older. Only seven months of this, and we’re all so much harder and older.
“Look. I have something for you,” I say.
“What’s this?” He holds up the silver spider I picked up, along with other confiscated holiday items. He holds it up by the fine silver chain. “A spider?”
“It’s a good luck. Who doesn’t need luck these days?”
“How much?”
“It’s solid silver.”
“So are the cleats on my boots,” he says, unimpressed. “Well, I do have a sister who collects good luck charms. Two zloty.”
I’m envisioning the smiling faces in the locket. Which sister, I wonder? I watch him dangle the charm. “Well, sisters are special. Tell you what. How about I give it to you and then you give me some information?”
He looks around. “You know, I’m not the soft touch you seem to think I am, Arab.”
“Of course. I know that. All I want is a slight nod of your head. You don’t even have to say anything. That way, if your Hitler comes and asks, you can honestly say you said nothing.”
“Get to the point. I’m on patrol.”
“Are the rumors true? Are they—are you—really going to build a wall? Make a ghetto?” I hold Hummel’s reins, letting him nuzzle around my heavy wool capote looking for whatever treat I might have for him.
A huge crash—very close and very loud—startles all of us. Hummel rears back and Fritz is quick to grab the reins.
“Easy, boy, easy.”
My heart should be used to these sudden noises by now, but it’s not. Hummel calms and Fritz looks across the street. He nods to the work party. They’re hauling a cartload of bricks and stones, chunks of concrete from the bombed-out church. Loading all of it into the bed of a truck. “There’s your answer.”
I’m still getting my senses back. “Dropping concrete?”
“Ever wonder what they’re going to do with all that rubble?”
I look across the street and shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe take it back to Germany and build one of those castles you—”
“Or other things,” he says, breaking me off with a chilly glance.
I look at the rubble, the weary men consigned to haul it. “Can I take that as a yes? A ghetto?”
“A ghetto? Heavens, no. Ghettos are barbaric. Just a place where Jews can … congregate.” He takes another puff of his cigarette and makes a face. “Where the hell are you getting these things? Can’t you get anything better?”
“No, matter of fact, I can’t. I was lucky to find those.”
; “Well, work on it, will you? Or I’ll have to find another supplier. And tell your gang of pickpockets over there I’m on to them,” he adds, pointing to two of our boys, who are stalking a man standing on the corner.
I give a sharp whistle and the boys quickly turn in a different direction, leaving the man untouched and unaware.
“So, tell me, Herr Obersturmführer, if you were to build a wall around someplace—and I’m not saying you are—where would that be?”
He pockets the spider, tilts his head east. In Polish, he repeats, “A place to congregate. You’re smart. Figure it out.” Fritz tosses his cigarette butt, mounts, and rides off. My two newspaper boys are fast on the smoldering butt, fighting over it, then settling on trading puffs until their fingers burn on the last bit of tobacco.
I feel a chill. So the rumors are true. They are going to build a wall, and soon. I look east—toward Warsaw’s Jewish Quarter. Where they “congregate.” Toward home. Toward Ruthie.
III.
It takes me less than twenty minutes to weave my way to this building. It was a high school library not far from Three Crosses, and now it’s an infirmary for Polish factory workers. I walk inside and head to the woman at the information desk. She takes one look at me and points her pencil to the back of the room. I look around at the empty shelves—all the books were probably burned by the Nazis. That, or looters burned them for fuel over the winter. No matter how you look at it, the books are ashes now. The shelves may be empty, but this space is full. There are cots in organized rows and only dingy muslin curtains for privacy. The windows are open to the warm spring air, but I still get whiffs of disinfectant and illness.
But look at that! Finally! A tip I got on the street was right. There, at the back of the room—telephones! There are five booths, but the wood doors, the seats, and the phones themselves in four are gone. Salvaged, stolen, who knows?
A working phone is as rare as a leg of lamb here in Warsaw. There are sixteen people in line ahead of me. This could take all day. But I have to find out. Just find out.
There’s an old woman—maybe one of the librarians?—who sits next to the queue. On her lap is a cigar box. I grin at her sign: WORKING PHONE—20 REICHSMARK—NO POLISH CURRENCY—ONE CALL. Sure didn’t take her long to goose step into the Reichsmark world. If I were smart, I’d charge people to stand in line for them, and take any currency. There’s a line for everything in Warsaw—even to get buried. I could make a killing.
“Lines! All I do is wait in lines!” a woman in line behind me me says. “Identification cards, food ration cards, passes to get across town to work. By the time I get to the front of the line, they’ll close, and I’ll have to start all over again tomorrow. Look at this line, and just for a damn phone call! And would it kill them to heat this place? Fucking Germans,” she says, holding her hands over her child’s ears. “Say, my daughter needs a potty. Would you mind holding my place for just a minute?”
She doesn’t give me a chance to say no. Off she drags her little girl. The woman in front of me says, “That woman’s wrong to complain. This is all temporary.”
“It is?”
“Of course. The Germans don’t mean us any real harm.”
“They don’t?” I’m holding back my smirk. What rock has this woman been living under?
“No. We just do as we’re told and things will get back to normal. You wait and see. Say, do you have a cigarette?”
I pull out a pack, one of the six I stole off a counter this morning. “Four zloty.”
“I don’t want a crateful. Just a cigarette.”
I sigh and shake one out for her. She lights it with her own lighter. “See, my husband knows all about Germans. Says they’re here just to organize some things, get us settled. Why, deporting all those thousands of Poles from the Muranów district will take months. My husband’s with the relocation office. He knows all about these things.”
“Why are they moving people?” I ask. This strikes me as odd.
“How should I know? My husband can’t tell me anything more. I just know he’s got a good job. The paperwork must be enormous! And already the Germans are helping us rebuild the city. Maybe they’ll have to arrest a few malcontents, but things’ll be just fine.”
“Like Jewish malcontents?” I ask her. Let’s see just how stupid this woman is.
She shushes me and looks around. “Don’t even say that word.”
“Malcontents?”
“Jewish,” she says, between pursed lips. “It’s bad luck.”
“Seems to me it’s the Jews with all the bad luck.” I lean into the wall and wait for her response to that. I’ve run into hundreds of anti–Semites all too happy to point fingers at Jews as the cause of all their problems. I can’t change them. But I can mock them.
“Well, they deserve it,” she says around her cigarette. She fans away the smoke.
“Do they? How so?”
“Well, they’re always everywhere. Mixing and mingling. Let’s just say, I’m happy they won’t be in parks, schools, theaters, buses! Well, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“So,” I wave my hands to indicate the room, the world, around us. “This is all their fault?” I need to keep my voice down. Others are looking our way.
“Well, if Warsaw didn’t have so many damn Jews, then we wouldn’t have all these lines, all these inconveniences, would we? Can’t even get a decent smoke these days.” She doesn’t seem to care who’s listening.
I’m not sure how to respond, or if I should. All I can do is blink at her in disbelief. “You know,” I say, my voice low. “I can sell you ration cards and other papers. Can I show you something in a nice work permit?” I indicate my pockets.
She takes a step back. “Well, that would be illegal!” she yips. Then, she looks around. “For what shift?” she whispers. “Our oldest wants to get on the night shift at a factory.”
“Oh, drat the luck! I only have work permits for the day shift.” I love watching her righteous face dissolve into a flustered embarrassment. There are no differences in the shifts for work permits. One size fits all. I pat my coat hem, where two passes for factory work now safely reside. Just that morning they were in the wallets of distracted men.
The woman and her child come back. But there are several more people in line now.
“Hey, back of the line, lady!” a man calls out.
“Yes, but …” She points to me.
I shrug my shoulders. “Sorry, lady.”
She exhales a huff, covers her daughter’s ears, and curses her way to the back of the line.
The woman in front of me smiles. “Serves her right. Malcontent.”
I don’t have time for this. I offer the woman the pack of cigarettes for her spot ahead of me and then trade my place further up—four cigarettes for each spot ahead. Finally, I’m next. But the woman on the phone right now is sobbing uncontrollably. Telephones these days aren’t for chatting and catching up on family gossip—they’re to share bad news. She’s talking in Yiddish—risky, here, where the words echo in the bookless room.
I light a cigarette and hand it in to her. She looks at me, smiles weakly, then takes it and smokes. She’s nodding as she listens, shaking, and pulling her hair away from her face. Her red hair dye is now a weary pink, her dark roots six inches grown out. Her face is blotchy and her lips are stained with yesterday’s lipstick. If she was smart she’d dress like me. Get rid of that ratty fake-fur collar and tweed skirt. Find some pants, sweaters, hats. Cut that hair and start over. This is no time, no place, to put one’s beauty on display.
She hangs up the phone and rushes out of the building, sobbing.
My call won’t take long. If it rings, good. If the maid answers, better. If the line is dead, I’ll get over there fast. I wonder if the telephone operator is on the take, too. Seems like that’s a lot of coins to submit for calling just a half mile away. But it’s always worth it.
Ringing—good. They have power.
“Słucham
?” a tiny voice answers.
I freeze. I was always forbidden to answer the phone growing up. That’s the maid’s job. Surely Father doesn’t allow Ruthie to, either.
“Are you there? Say something!” she says. The static on the line makes her sound so far away. “Mama, no one’s there!” She sounds a little insulted.
What do I do? Spying on them from a distance, checking up with Officer Winicki and other neighbors, is one thing—but hearing Ruthie’s voice is another. There’s a rustle of something.
“Słucham?” My mother’s voice. God, my mother!
Words catch in my throat. The man behind me in line taps my shoulder. “Hurry it up, boy!”
“Słucham? Who’s there? Halo?”
I can’t. I mouth the word mother, but nothing comes out. I hear another rustle. “Do not answer this phone, Ruth! What has father told you?”
Click. She’s hung up. Slowly, I replace the earpiece. I stand up and can barely get of the booth out before the man behind me barges in.
Stunned as I am to hear their voices—Mother’s and Ruthie’s—at least I know. They’re alive. They still have electricity. They’re still okay.
I bolster myself against the spring chill and set out to find Lizard.
I hop on my bike and pedal toward Lizard’s hideout. Now that I know my family is safe, at least for another day, I need to think about what Fritz told me. The Jews, the wall … and the cigarette shortage.
I stash my bike and light a cigarette, watching the smoke disperse as I travel in and out of the shadows to Lizard’s hideout. “A smoke,” I think out loud, blowing on the tip of my cigarette to make it glow. “Everyone needs a smoke these days.” I’ve seen a starving man trade his ration of bread for two cigarettes. A smoke is what a condemned man asks for before facing the firing squad. It’s the last thing people have at night, the first thing they want in the morning. Tobacco—the great equalizer on the streets. Even those sturdy, straight, thick Germans don’t think of it as a weakness. Supply and demand. Christian, German, Gypsy, Jew. Face it, everyone needs a smoke.
The Girl Who Wouldn?t Die Page 7
