The Girl Who Wouldn?t Die

by Randall Platt

  I pull myself up and slip out, my knapsack slung protectively around my front. As always, I have my switchblade and Luger on me. One in each coat pocket. After all, a girl should never go out unless properly accessorized.

  I make my way north. There’s a café I used to frequent. Just a little workman’s hole in the wall, but they serve real coffee, not that corn coffee most of Warsaw is reduced to drinking. Also, the owner always looks the other way when he should be looking at armbands and yellow Stars of David. Who needs papers with those bull’s-eye targets sewn on?

  I step to the counter, rummage through my pockets for some money, and order a coffee, hard rolls, and a slice of cheese—light on the mold.

  “Identification?” the man asks, blandly.

  I show him a two-zloty note with the red stamp, indicating German currency.

  “Counterfeit?”

  “Of course. Pass it back to the Krauts.”

  He takes the money, then nods toward the window. I look in the reflection in the glass separating the counter from the bakery beyond. There are several German soldiers across the street, heading this way. He puts the money in an envelope under his till and nods his head toward the back of his shop. That’s my cue. We’re all masters of glances, nods, and winks. I grab my bag and dash out the back door.

  I feel safe enough to stop and eat a block down the road. I lean against a wall at a tram stop, just starting to get some early morning rays of light. A man, bundled against the cold, walks toward me, hesitates briefly as our eyes meet. He continues on.

  I stop chewing and feel a thud deep in my chest. I know that face!

  I watch him walk away. That gait, the swing of his arms. Then, as though he’s just figured out who I am, he stops, turns, and looks back at me.

  It’s him! That crooked nose, those scarred lips. Sniper! We stare at each other, as though waiting for the other to make a decision, a move. Or no decision, no move. Another group of soldiers comes up behind me and I obediently step aside to let them pass, never letting Sniper out of my sight. He smiles and tips his cap at the soldiers as they approach. God, he could be signaling them about me right now!

  Sniper shoots me a lopsided grin as I turn and quickly start walking in the opposite direction. I hear his footsteps coming fast behind me. He catches up, grabs my elbow, and whirls me around to face him. He looks ten years older.

  He stares closely at me. “Arab,” he whispers. “For the life of me, I can’t figure out how it is you’re still alive.”

  “Not for your lack of trying!” I yank my arm from his grasp. The soldiers have turned and are coming toward us. I feel my mouth go dry. Sniper releases my arm.

  “Any trouble here?” one of them asks.

  At this, Sniper throws his arms around me, then kisses me on the forehead. “No, sir, no trouble at all,” he says in clumsy German. “My long-lost brother.”

  They look us over carefully. If they ask me to empty my pockets, I’m dead.

  “All right. On your way then. No loitering,” the soldier says. Sniper tips his hat as the soldiers leave.

  Sniper takes my arm again, his grip tighter this time. “Come on. I’ll buy you a drink. Who doesn’t need a drink?”

  Any more disturbances and the soldiers might come back, suspicious and demanding papers. We cross the street to a café and go inside. I sit down, but keep to the edge of my seat so I can make a fast escape.

  “I can’t tell you what a surprise it is to see you.” He signals the man for two beers.

  “Warsaw is nothing but surprises.”

  “Still selling your cigarettes and little trinkets?”

  “I get by.” I keep my hands on my lap. I can’t let him see how they are shaking inside my gloves.

  “I see that. Tell me, what else are you selling to get by?” He reaches over and moves my head scarf aside. “Because I am still definitely very interested in buying. In fact, we clean you up a bit …”

  Fear ricochets through my head. How am I going to get out of this? This café is on a busy street, Sniper isn’t too much bigger than me, and maybe he’s grown a bit soft in the cushion of his new trade. Can I outrun him?

  Our beers come and I raise my glass to Sniper. “We’ve come a long way since our old gang days, eh, Sniper?”

  “I don’t go by that name anymore. I’m Jarek Paluch. Those penny ante days are over.”

  “Are they?”

  “Yes. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s a new world. Those who adapt win. Those who don’t … hell, people have to stand in line just to die.” He chuckles.

  “I heard you’ve been doing quite well.” I finger his lapel, then grab him a bit closer to me. “Selling souls, you fucking schmuck!”

  He leans back, as though offended by my sewer-breath, but not my insult. “Surviving any way I can, Liebchen.”

  “So, how much is it by now? Does a bounty go up in value over time, like everything else these days?” I ask, looking him square in the eye.

  He pulls a small black book out of his vest pocket and flips through some pages. “My, my. One thousand German deutsche marks. Coin of the realm. You’re considered, let’s see, enemy of the Reich, black marketeer, counterfeiter—I’d like to talk to you about that. Love to get into that racket. What else, smuggler—and oh, look here! Jewish to boot.” He looks at me over his book and winks. “There’s a nice bonus.” He casts me a crooked smile, showing off a shiny gold crown.

  “You sold me out twice, Sniper!” I growl. “I got sent to Vienna the first time and damn near got hauled in by the Gestapo the second time.”

  “Third time’s the charm. Told you we should have teamed up. I don’t like being told no.” He tosses some coins on the table, finishes his beer, and stands up.

  I know by his cocky smile, his stance, his treasonous black book, where I stand with Sniper or whatever he’s calling himself these days. He leans over as though to kiss my cheek, but I pull back.

  I watch him walk away with a confident stride. I know what I have to do. Even Jews know what a Judas kiss is. The two soldiers who approached us earlier are chatting over a cigarette across the street and Sniper is heading straight for them. He’ll collect my bounty a second time—in a heartbeat. I know any chances I have of getting Ruth out of Warsaw will die with me.

  I follow him. My switchblade bounces off one leg, my Luger off the other, beating a tattoo of courage.

  Damn! A policeman stops me on a corner as some official Nazi cars zing through the intersection. I try to keep Sniper’s hat in my line of sight, but lose him in the crowd. By the time we’re allowed to cross the street, it’s hopeless. He’s gone.

  I catch my breath and look around. Where am I? Some park or yard? My head jerks back as my scarf is yanked from behind. Off guard and off balance! He pushes me toward a wall.

  “I always knew we’d have our day of reckoning, Arab, but I never thought it was going to be so sweet.” I turn to face him and my scarf tightens against my throat. “But first …” He crushes himself into me and puts his fleshy, scarred lips over mine.

  I shove him away, loosen my scarf, and catch a deep breath. He catches his balance and comes back toward me. “Come on. Let’s do this the easy way.”

  “No easy way, Sniper.”

  “Sure there is.” He pushes me back and kisses my face. “Come on. I know you’ve always wanted to.”

  “Okay, just stop, Sniper. Let me get my breath.” I try to make my voice soft. “All right. Let’s work a deal.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “What do I need to do to get that page out of your book?”

  “Everything.” He runs his hand down my chest.

  “Team up again?”

  “We’ll see. You haven’t been very nice to me lately. You’ll have to prove your worth. Got to be worth more than a thousand deutsche marks.”

  “Well, this is hardly the place to … continue our discussion,” I say, adjusting my scarf. He looks at me very carefully, as though searching for—wh
at, treachery? Lust? I blink softly and offer a small smile. “In spite of what you see, I am a lady, you know.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.” He looks around, grabs me by the arm, and pulls me to his lips. “You’re just as valuable to me dead as alive. You just remember that, Arab.” He yanks me around. “Let’s go.” I feel his grip relax a bit as a group of women walk past. He tips his hat, then pulls me along and into a darkened alley.

  I know it’ll have to be the knife. No noise, no alarm.

  Sniper creeps toward the street. His grip is strong on my hand and he pulls me along. “Keep up!” he growls.

  I struggle to pull out my knife with my other hand. I stop and he loses his grip. I click the knife open. He whirls back to face me—and it’s done.

  “I said, keep …” He looks down at his gut where the knife sticks out. He looks back at me, horrified. He gasps and clutches his middle, but doesn’t seem to fully realize what’s happened.

  Slowly, his face contorts and he sort of shakes his head. “No …” He staggers a few steps toward me. “Fuck you! Fuck you!” He stumbles back out into the daylight of the street. “Police! Help! Police!” he screams, falling now on his side. Then up to me, “Arab … help … fuck you!” But his words are suddenly weak, his breaths coming deep and hard. People pass, but look the other way and speed along, skirting around him rather than getting involved. Being a witness can get you killed. He reaches up toward a man passing by. “Help …” he whispers.

  “Save your breath, Sniper. The last thing you care about is a dying Jew.”

  I haul him back into the alley and wait for his last shudder. Blood drains out of him and pools on the frigid pavement. His final breaths are weak puffs of steam. “And this, Sniper, is what a man without blood looks like,” I say down to his lifeless form.

  Once again, I rifle through his pockets and take his money, his papers, his pinky ring, his switchblade, and—most precious of all—his black book. It’s hard to say for certain if my face is the last thing he sees. It’s always strange with dying people. They can look right through you. German or Jew, we all die the same.

  I leave him in the alley for the rats to find.

  I hop on the back of a lorry heading west. I take my silver lighter and hold it to each page of Sniper’s bounty book, one by one, watching them all flame up and float away.

  Guilt? Hell, no. Guilt can get a girl killed. Sniper’s memory is just as it should be. Another X’ed out hash mark. Another life avenged.

  VI.

  I stop when I see the horse. Didn’t know horses had such good memories. Hummel sees me, lifts his head, and nickers a hopeful hello.

  “Arab,” Fritz says, dismounting. He looks more dashing than ever in his long black wool riding coat and white muffler.

  “Hello, Herr Obersturmführer. Thought maybe you’d be trotting Hummel at the head of some fighting unit by now. Didn’t I hear most of you cavalry men were getting into the thick of it?”

  Fritz smiles and strokes his horse’s neck. “What? And risk the life of this magnificent animal?”

  “Which magnificent animal? You or the horse?”

  We chuckle slightly, neither wanting to be seen looking too friendly with the enemy.

  I open my jacket, displaying cigarettes. “Smoke?”

  “Not sure what the point is anymore. Last ones I bought from your boys were just a puff of smoke wrapped in a postage stamp.” He shrugs and takes a cigarette, all the same. I go for the silver lighter in my pocket, then remember whose it is.

  “Got a light?” I ask.

  He brings out another lighter from his coat pocket, uses it, then tosses it to me. “Aw, don’t tell me you lost your pretty silver one,” I say, lighting up and handing it back to him.

  Our eyes meet. “Someone pinched it.”

  “No. Now who would do that?”

  “Just about anyone here in Warsaw. Including most of the men in my unit.”

  We smoke and look over each other’s shoulders. Such a habit, by now, for both sides of the war.

  “Hummel’s looking good. Thought someone might have pinched him for steaks by now.”

  “I guard him with my life.” He runs his hand along the horse’s well-groomed flank.

  “Good friends are hard to find here in Warsaw.” Damn, I didn’t mean that to sound so wistful. Feminine.

  “Maybe in the whole world.” He’s sounding a bit wistful, too.

  Again, our eyes meet. Both of us are showing too much vulnerability. Quick, I need to change the subject.

  “Oh! I found my sister!”

  “Did you? Where?”

  “In the ghetto! Hiding in …” I stop short, knowing I am about to break my own “trust no one” rule.

  Fritz smiles softly and crushes his cigarette out, “I’m glad for you, Arab. I hope you can keep her safe.” He nods east. “Over there.”

  “I’ll guard her with my life. Like you guard your Hummel here.”

  “You know, Arab … it won’t be long … until …”

  He catches my eyes, which suddenly feel damp. Why? The softness, the pity, the utter despair in his warning? The sorrow in his glance? My own fear?

  “I’ll keep her safe.” I hold Hummel’s reins as he mounts.

  He looks around. “Arab, sometimes I feel … you and me, we’re … well, we’re so different, but so …” He stops, nodding to some officers approaching. “It’s as though we’re all on a huge sinking ship. Some are in first class and others are in steerage. But we’re all going to drown.”

  “Except those in lifeboats. Nur für Deutsche.”

  “There are no lifeboats,” he whispers.

  “Is that what they teach you in Nazi school? Just go down with the ship?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, they do.” He pauses. The officers come within earshot.

  “You have enough cigarettes, Herr Obersturmführer?” I ask.

  “Ja, ja,” he replies curtly, as our dance around this sinking ship of his demands.

  The officers pass. Fritz leans down to me. “I’m in command of my unit’s night patrols and roundups, Arab. Not just here on the Aryan side, but over in the ghetto, too. I give you fair warning.”

  “People in the ghetto are already rounded up. Why …”

  Again, our eyes meet. “Work will set them free,” he quotes, as though reading it from a billboard.

  “Bullshit.”

  “If you or your sister or any of your urchins are caught in my net …” He looks down at me and is suddenly every bit the SS Nazi he’s been groomed to be. “There won’t be anything I can do to save you.”

  “Understood.”

  “You need to be very careful.”

  “When am I not?” I ask.

  He laughs. “Just about every time you get near a gun.”

  “I’ll take your warning and give you one back, Fritz. I’ll do anything I have to do to save my sister.”

  “Understood.” He snorts a laugh and shakes his head.

  Hummel is sniffing my pockets for his treat. I pull out a fuzzy piece of half-sucked candy cane and offer it to the horse. His gentle crunching of the offering seems to be the perfect ending to our awkward friendship.

  Fritz gathers up his reins, turns Hummel, and walks away, dispersing pedestrians as he rides through a crowd.

  The snow has started up again with a vengeance.

  VII.

  I can’t shake Fritz’s warning. And always in the back of my mind … Fritz knows what I’ve done. Twice. He could get a fine bounty for himself. I need to get Ruthie out, now.

  I make my way to the factory, where I find the remaining Praska children and the rest of our gang gathered in a corner, bundled, each holding a ration of bread. Otto comes out of the factory door. He walks toward me, looking down at several photos of children to match with the papers we’ve forged.

  “Otto, if we’re going to do this, we’ve got to do it now. The snow’s really coming down.”

  “Our thoughts ex
actly,” he says. “We have to move now. Get the children into the ghetto and out your rat hole. My connections are waiting for confirmation.”

  He points to a small cage housing three pigeons. “Mrs. Praska, please tell the children those aren’t toys.”

  “They’re probably hoping they’re dinner,” she grumbles. “Children! Away from those birds!”

  “How soon can you have everything ready?” I ask Mrs. Praska.

  “Everything’s ready now.”

  “My big worry is the snow. The ghetto gates are getting harder and harder to close,” Otto says.

  “But if the gates are snowed shut,” Mrs. Praska objects, “How can we—?”

  “We? I thought you were going to stay here with your two youngest.” I look at Otto, then over to Yankev, who just shrugs.

  “And do what? Send them out to sell the cigarettes we have no tobacco to make?” She points to her babes.

  Her eyes find mine and, for the first time, I see a hint of emotion in her glance, the tiniest of tears in the corner of her eye.

  “Mrs. Praska, you know … you know we can’t take them out of Poland. They’re—” I begin.

  “I know!” she cries. She takes her prayer shawl off, wads it up, and tosses it on the table. “Too young! Too young to die, too young to live. So I’m coming with you. To the ghetto. I’ll do what I can for those you can’t—or won’t—take out of Poland. I can do more good there than I can here. At least there I can care for the children—and fight, if it comes to that. I’ve shot a gun before.”

  “Arab,” Yankev says, “Mama’s made up her mind.”

  “That way, if all goes well,” Otto says, “You, me, Yankev, and Lizard can sneak back into the ghetto through your hole in the cemetery wall. We’ll do it again until we—”

  “You and your ‘if all goes well’ shit,” I say, cutting him off.