Vilna My Vilna

by Abraham Karpinowitz

  Me and the other guys couldn’t just do nothing. We walked around with knives, and blood flowed. I let it be known that Vladek had helped Zevulin. His good deeds protected him. Otherwise the guys would have gone after him. Vladek stopped coming into our territory. He and I grew apart.

  The war broke out. People scattered in every direction. The year the Soviets were stationed in Vilna wasn’t too bad at all. They harassed the rich but left everyone else alone. Almost everyone who was arrested and sent to Siberia returned after the war. When they were taken from their homes, everyone in Vilna was in tears except for Tsalel the Nose, who owned the big clothing store. He stood between two soldiers on a military truck, waving his cap and yelling, “Good luck, my fellow Jews. Soon you’ll envy me.”

  A few of our guys found good work for themselves. Peretz the Diamond became the superintendent of the covered markets and Osherke the Bootmaker, a tannery manager. I could have gotten myself a job, but the trade in watches was brisk and guys were raking it in. I decided to stick with the watches for the time being. I didn’t see Vladek in the city. I figured he was scared and lying low until things calmed down.

  The celebration didn’t last long. The Germans appeared in the city one fine morning. All year long, the Russians had bragged that if war broke out, they’d make mincemeat of their enemies. They had us convinced. And then suddenly there were Germans on Yatkever Street.

  The Germans started grabbing people and taking them to Ponar. Everyone was stunned. We weren’t used to violence like that. Even the gangsters were rattled. Our leaders were gone. There was no one to tell us what to do. People in the streets kept telling each other that things would change. They did change. They shoved all of us into three streets enclosed by a high fence. The Germans created a ghetto.

  As luck would have it, I was already living on Shavelske Street with my Freydke, so I stayed in my apartment. Shavelske was part of the ghetto. They rounded up all the Jews from the other streets. They just stood on the cobblestones. I went down to the courtyard and saw Mr. Ayzikov with a bundle in his hand, staring at the sky. Of course, I took him and his wife up to my apartment. I gave them a room and informed Freydke that we would share everything.

  Everyone in the ghetto worried about rustling up a crust of bread. Some people cozied up to the chimney sweeps—that trade was as good as gold. The sweeps moved freely through the city, so it was easier for them to find a little something to eat.

  I was in bad shape in the ghetto. My mood was bad. The guys suggested I set up a table at my place with a slit in the boards to hide marked cards. I could lure in stiffs with money and cheat them at rummy. But I was no longer the same guy. The ghetto had broken me. I was also concerned about Mr. Ayzikov. I joined a brigade and went to work at the Poribaniker airfield.

  In two roundups, everyone close to me was sent to Ponar. It was just me and Mr. Ayzikov left. His wife was sent to Ponar. He’d been in the ghetto hospital during the roundups, and the doctors kept him hidden. When people ask me how I managed to avoid death, I don’t know what to say. Intelligence made no difference in that situation. Everyone played a stupid game of blackjack with their life and took whatever blind luck doled out.

  Suddenly the apartment felt too big. I asked Tevke the Tapeworm to join us so I wouldn’t feel so lonely. He was also alone.

  One evening the three of us were sitting together, sharing a few smuggled potatoes, when Mr. Ayzikov said, “Children, you’ve got to get out of the ghetto. The Germans are going to kill us all.”

  Continuing to peal his potato, Tevke the Tapeworm asked, “What are you talking about? Where can we go? The Germans are everywhere. Things in the ghetto aren’t so bad—we can still get by.”

  With the patience he developed over years of teaching, Mr. Ayzikov explained, “Tevele, the Germans are going to murder every single one of us. They’ve confined us in the ghetto to make it easier.”

  Mr. Ayzikov had been sitting all bent over. Suddenly he straightened up and began speaking harshly, almost shouting. “I’m telling you to escape! Fight back! Take revenge!” He was breathing heavily. Tevke and I sat there completely dumbfounded. We didn’t dare say a word.

  After he calmed down a little, Mr. Ayzikov walked over to his bed. He hoisted the mattress, took out a little pouch, and gave it to us. “Here’s my wife’s fortune—a few gold ten-ruble coins. To help you on your journey. If either of you survive the war, go see my son in Palestine. You’ll find his address at the bottom of the pouch. Tell him that his father, the Jewish teacher, ordered his students to fight back. Don’t forget to tell him.”

  Then Mr. Ayzikov stopped talking and buried his grey head in his hands. We found him dead a few days later. He’d poisoned himself. Life in the ghetto was hard for a gentleman like him, especially when he was on his own.

  It was easy for Mr. Ayzikov to say, “Fight back.” It’s true that people were leaving the ghetto, but to get to Belarus. There was a rumor that things were calm there. Anyone with money made a deal with some wheeler-dealer and they went. The whole thing didn’t appeal to me. I found out that Kozshik Stankevitsh was running the show. They’d called him Kozshik the Scythe in the pool hall because he held his stick on the oblique. In the good years, he couldn’t go near the pool table until he put his money down. And now he was the big savior. We found out later what happened to the transports.

  I started to think about Vladek. Maybe he could help me. After all, we’d once been like family. We’d grown up together and spent years in the same cell. Been through good and bad together. Had he forgotten everything? Was he watching the massacres and drinking whiskey with the Germans? Maybe. In times like that, anything was possible.

  My fears were eating away at me. Eventually I said to myself, “What do I have to lose? If he helps me get where I need to go, good. If not, I’ll wash my hands of him and live with whatever God sends my way.”

  In the meantime, Tevke and I got into an argument. He asked me for a few ten-ruble coins to play cards. Four-eyed Estherke had opened a gambling joint and was taking stakes. Tevke said she had a room full of suckers just waiting to be taken for everything they were worth. Of course I didn’t give him anything. That money meant a lot to me. I’d stuck it under a beam in the attic and every night, when I shoved my hand into the crack to check if it was still there, the satin pouch stroked my fingers like it was alive. It felt like Mr. Ayzikov’s order to leave the ghetto and fight the Germans was pulsing between the coins. Tevke said he was a full partner. I told him if he came with me, he’d get half. He was angry and went to help Esther with her business. He tried convincing me that it made no sense to escape and look for death. As if we had to go looking when everyone was carrying death on their shoulders. But what did Tevke know? He had a glass of whisky in one hand, a playing card in the other, and he’d even snagged a caress or two from Estherke. What else did he need?

  I began to really look for Vladek. I asked everyone who worked in the city to find out what they could about him. One day Osherke the Chimney Sweep had news for me. He’d seen Vladek near the post office lugging sacks of mail. I told him to let Vladek know I needed him. Osherke was afraid. I couldn’t blame him, but I was determined. I reminded him that he owed me something.

  Osherke showed up two days later, looking very pleased with himself. He took some cream cheese from his bucket, scraped off the coal dust, put it on a piece of bread, and handed it to me. Then he told me he’d managed to see Vladek and have a few words with him.

  A week went by and Vladek didn’t show. Whenever I returned from work, I craned my head in every direction. Maybe Vladek was lurking beyond some corner. I started to think Osherke had conned me about Vladek and brought the cheese to be done with the whole business.

  In Lukishke prison, I’d once hatched a plan to saw one of the bars in two, but here in the ghetto I was at a complete loss. I’d given up. I felt I was betraying Mr. Ayzikov, and that really bothered me.

  Vladek finally showed up. When I’d given up al
l hope of ever seeing him, he walked into the ghetto with a municipal work brigade so he could speak to me. I remember every detail of our meeting. I was sitting at the table, sunk in my depression, when the door opened and in walked Vladek. He had a determined look on his face—his jaws were working. I stood up and walked over to him. He put his arms around me. We hugged each other for several minutes without saying a word. Then he walked away and dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief. Finally he said, “Okay, so here we are.”

  I got to the point immediately. “Vladek, I want to leave the ghetto. If you can’t or don’t want to help me, there’s no point staying.”

  Vladek got angry. “You think I risked my life coming here to listen to that? Sit down. Tell me everything.”

  “First you have to promise you’ll help me.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “What can I say? You turned against us in the good years. What should I think now that your people are close relatives at the big celebration?”

  Banging his fist on the table, Vladek yelled, “Shut up.” He stood up, grabbed me by the lapels and hissed through clenched jaws, “We didn’t ask the Germans to come.” Then he stepped back and spoke in a calmer voice, “Those animals will die. Things will change. Everything has become clear.”

  I told him what was happening. When I mentioned Mr. Ayzikov, he shook his head and muttered to himself, “He was a decent guy. Looked out for me in those years.”

  We agreed that he’d wait for me three days later, next to the Ostra Broma Chapel. He’d show me when it was time to follow him by kneeling and crossing himself in front of the religious icon above the entrance gate. I gave him a few pieces of gold to get me a revolver and some bullets. We agreed he’d take me to his mother, Yusef’s widow. She was staying with relatives in a little village. From there, it wasn’t far to the forest.

  The day I left the ghetto, Vilna was radiant. Summer had arrived. There were green leaves on the trees on both sides of the street, just like in other years. It was the first time I’d gone anywhere without the yellow patch. I felt like everyone was looking straight at me, thinking they were seeing things. I swallowed my fear and walked to the Ostra Brama Chapel dressed up in my Shabbes suit with Mr. Ayzikov’s pouch sewn into my belt.

  Vladek was standing with a group of men and women, praying silently. I walked over to one of the church pillars and stared at the picture of Mary with her child. The colorful ribbons hanging from the gilded frame made me dizzy. I waited for Vladek to kneel and cross himself. The ten minutes I stood there felt like a year. I was terrified. The ribbons looked like huge red tongues, dancing wildly. I found myself babbling, “God, have mercy. Show me a miracle.” Just then Vladek got down on one knee.

  The crowd turned their attention to God. Vladek saw me. For a second our eyes met. I waited for him to walk further and then I followed him. We left the city.

  Vladek didn’t live to see liberation. So many years have passed, but his cries still ring in my ears, “Berke, antloyf. Get going.” He was lying in the street covered in blood, but still he yelled. From a distance, he’d seen the two Gestapo soldiers arrest me at the edge of Ruzele to take me back to the city. Another person would have pretended he’d seen nothing and kept going. But Vladek turned back to shoot at them. For a moment they didn’t know what was happening. Vladek mowed one of them down, but the second soldier released a volley from his automatic. Meanwhile I ran back and forth in zigzags through a potato field.

  After the war, I learned that Vladek had set up a Polish organization in the post office to pocket important letters. I don’t know why he didn’t tell me when he came to the ghetto. Maybe he’d been sworn to silence.

  I gave Mr. Ayzikov’s letter to his son in Palestine. The gold helped me get weapons in the forest. I never saw Yusef’s widow. To tell the truth, I didn’t look very hard for her. I wouldn’t have been able to tell her that her son died because of me.

  9

  The Lineage of the Vilna Underworld

  When Mishke Napoleon was murdered, all of Vilna mourned. Mishke was the last of the dynasty and the pride of Gitke-Toybe’s Lane and part of Yatkever Street. Mishke was famous. Unlike the French Napoleon, who was short in stature, Mishke had grown very tall. But he was still a Napoleon.

  When Khaymke, Zelik the Benefactor’s younger son, murdered Mishke, he wasn’t thinking about lineage. Zelik certainly had reason to be angry with Mishke. Mishke ate kishke at Zelik’s tavern on Glezer Street and then blew his money on whisky at Orke Big Bucks’, Zelik’s blood enemy. But that was just an excuse. People in Vilna didn’t slit each other’s throats over something like that. Zelik suspected that Mishke had spilled the beans about an illicit deal to Orke Big Bucks so he could look like a big shot and get free whiskey. A tavern has open eyes.

  Zelik the Benefactor had treated Mishke like one of his own and even gotten him involved in a smuggling operation. Zelik took Mishke in, but he got nothing in return. Mishke’s needs were huge—he ran from one gang to the next. He had to maintain his reputation. After all, he was a Napoleon. He dressed in brand-new clothes, played billiards for high stakes, and drank whiskey with gusto.

  When Zelik’s cronies mentioned that Mishke was carousing at Orke Big Bucks’, Zelik’s blood boiled, especially after an important deal was bungled because Orke had stuck his hand in. Mishke was the only outsider who’d known about the deal. Zelik decided not to let Mishke cross his threshold ever again. If Mishke showed up, he’d break his legs. But wiping him out, doing him in—that hadn’t even occurred to Zelik. After all, Zelik the Benefactor had his own reputation that he worked hard to maintain. He’d earned his position as the first trustee in the Lukishke prison synagogue fair and square.

  But Khaymke, Zelik’s younger son, wasn’t willing to ignore Mishke’s behavior. He’d wanted to show Vilna who ran the city and use Mishke Napoleon to teach Orke Big Bucks’ gang a lesson. So Khaymke had lured Mishke to Pospieshk, outside Vilna, with the promise of a shot of schnapps and a shiksa for dessert. He’d slit Mishke’s throat at Oginski’s Estate, right next to the Viliye, and thrown him into the river. Khaymke had expected the current to drag Mishke downstream, past the city, and all trace of him to disappear.

  But the elegant Mishke Napoleon had shown up for his rendezvous with the shiksa wearing a flowered tie. The tie reduced Khaymke’s calculations to nothing. Mishke had, indeed, floated downstream from Pospieshk, but only as far as the Green Bridge, where his tie got caught in the barbed wire on a raft in the river. The next day Mishke was found, stretched out to his full length, under the bridge that connected the city with Shnipishok.

  If Mishke had floated a little further downstream and reached the brickyard, perhaps all trace of him would have disappeared in the waters of the Viliye and Khaymke could have avoided prison. But Commissar Rovinsky, who knew the Vilna underworld like the back of his hand, quickly found his way to Pospieshk and the shiksa who Khaymke gave to Mishke along with the whiskey. After only a little nudge from Rovinsky, she sang about her meeting with Mishke.

  At that point, Vilna remembered Mishke Napoleon’s lineage. Mishke was the great-great-grandson of Leybe the Fence. Leybe had had an inn in Shnipishok, right next to the city gate. The real Napoleon had stayed in Leybe’s inn in 1812, when he’d fled from the burning city of Moscow. Leybe started out as a shingle carrier and laid the roofs at Count Huvald’s estate near Mayshegole, not far from Vilna. A French immigrant named Monsieur Duval, a refugee from the French Revolution, insinuated himself into Count Huvald’s estate. The strapping fellow became a big shot in the count’s palace. The servants whispered that he was sleeping with the countess.

  Duval stole everything in sight, particularly silverware. He needed to market the stolen goods, so he befriended Leybe and even taught him to speak French. When there was nothing left to steal, Duval read French newspapers and magazines to the countess. After all, he was no simple peasant.

  Leybe marketed the stolen goods in the city. That’s how he
became a fence. All the thieves in Vilna trusted him with their loot. Over time, Leybe prospered and opened an inn. He stopped laying shingles for Count Huvald, but his friendship with Duval continued until the Frenchman closed his eyes for the last time.

  Shortly before his death, Duval read Leybe an article from a French newspaper that said that during his campaign in Palestine, Napoleon had issued a manifesto stating that the Jews should be given their land back. When Leybe heard this, he grabbed the newspaper and went to see Rabbi Abraham Danzig, the author of the book Chayei adam. At that time, Danzig was a judge in the rabbinic court in Vilna.

  Rabbi Danzig had arrived in Vilna after traveling the world. He knew many languages and was a learned scholar. He read the article and said quietly, “It could be. Maybe not now, but the time will definitely come when we’ll get our state back.”

  Judge Danzig was very impressed that Leybe had rushed to inform him about Napoleon’s manifesto. He trusted Leybe and asked for his help whenever a crime was committed, when a widow was robbed or some other heinous act took place. People in Shnipishok began to greet Leybe the Fence with a hearty “Good morning.” His word carried weight. After all, Rabbi Abraham Danzig didn’t associate with just anyone.

  But it was later, after Napoleon stayed in his inn, that Leybe’s prestige really soared. It was freezing when the defeated Napoleon retreated from Moscow. The emperor was sick: his bladder was weak, his hemorrhoids were torturing him, and he had stomach cramps from the terrible food. When he showed up at Leybe the Fence’s inn, he was frozen stiff.

  Leybe recognized the emperor immediately. He’d seen him the summer before when he’d marched through Vilna with his army on his way to Moscow. Napoleon was really taken with the city, especially the Church of the Holy Anna, which rose above the Vilenke. He told his entourage that he wanted to carry the church back to Paris on his own shoulders. But after his defeat in Moscow, Napoleon wasn’t thinking about the beauty of Vilna. All he wanted was a soft bed and a hot glass of tea.