Sarah and Solomon

by Roberta Kagan

  She was gripping his hand so tightly that it hurt. He never realized she had that much strength in her little hand. Solomon didn’t say anything or move his hand. He just let her. He knew how terrified she was. In her other hand she held the doll tightly. They walked for a long while before she spoke. “Are you angry with me?” she said in a small voice.

  “Why?”

  “Because I went outside when you told me not to. And . . .” Looking down, she saw the blood on her dress. “I ruined my new dress. Oh, Solomon, look at my dress.” She was crying again.

  “I’m not angry,” he said, stopping and kneeling down so that his face was at the same level as hers. “But you must listen to me from now on. Please. This is not a game, Sarah. We don’t have Mama to rely on. It’s all on me. I am responsible to take care of you, and the only way I can do that is if you listen to me, all right?”

  “Yes, I promise. I will try to listen to everything you tell me from now on. But please, don’t leave me alone again. It was terrible. So horrible. That man . . . I can still see his eyes . . .”

  “I know,” Solomon said. “I know.” Then he hugged her tightly. “And don’t feel bad. I’ll find a way to get you another dress very soon. I promise, all right?” He put his thumb under her chin so she would lift her face and look into his eyes. “Don’t cry.”

  She shrugged.

  “Come on, please don’t cry.”

  She looked so small holding the old doll he’d gotten for her. “I hate to see you cry.”

  She tried to muster a smile.

  “There you go. You look so pretty when you smile.”

  “Mama always used to say that.”

  “I know,” he said. “I remember.”

  That night, Solomon found an area in the park where there was a patch of trees and bushes. “Why don’t we sit here and have our meal. We can stay here until morning.”

  “It’s dark and it’s cold. I want to go home,” Sarah said.

  “We talk about this everyday, Sarah. And every day I tell you that we can’t go home. Here,” Solomon said, handing his sister an apple, “you love apples.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I can’t eat. I feel sick. And I won’t even try until you take me back to Mama,” she demanded.

  He didn’t force her to eat; he couldn’t even bring himself to try. Instead, he wrapped her portion of the food he had stolen in the cloth his mother had given them and hoped she would be hungry enough to eat it in the morning. But she wasn’t. And by the following night, Sarah still had not eaten. Solomon stayed by her side. His stomach growled with hunger, but he dared not leave her to go out and forage for food. Instead, he sat beside her patting her head the way their mother did when they were small. Finally, Sarah insisted he eat the bread and the apple that he’d saved for her. He wanted to be noble and say no. But his hunger won out, and he finally gobbled it down. As he watched her lay next to him without speaking, he tried to make-believe that everything would be all right. But a nagging voice in the back of his mind told him that nothing would ever be all right again. Little Sarah had been harmed, if not physically, certainly emotionally, and the change in her once feisty, argumentative personality worried him. She just lay still; she seemed to have lost all fight. And Solomon knew that if she didn’t eat, she would become physically weak and then susceptible to diseases. He’d seen it happen to plenty of children who were starving when they were in the ghetto.

  “Sarah,” he whispered, “do you ever want to see Mama again?”

  “I want to see Mama and Papa again,” she said.

  His father had been taken out of the ghetto on a transport, and he couldn’t be sure where he was. But even though he didn’t know if they would ever see their parents again, he promised anyway. “If you want to see them again, you have to eat. Because if you don’t eat, you’ll get very sick, and you might even die.”

  “Die?” She looked at him, her eyes wide. “Do you think I could really die?”

  “Yes,” he said somberly.

  “But we don’t have any more food,” she argued.

  “I’ll go out and get some.”

  “You can’t leave me here alone again. Please, Solomon. Please take me with you,” she begged.

  How am I going to steal food with her hanging on to me? I won’t be able to get away fast enough if I’m spotted. “I can’t take you, Sarah. I don’t think you will be able to keep up.”

  “Don’t leave me here alone. I would rather die than be here all alone. Please, Solomon.”

  Solomon looked at his sister and shook his head. “All right,” he said, “come on. Let's go and see what we can get for you to eat. But if I take you with me . . . I’m going to need a promise from you.”

  “All right. I’ll promise you anything, only don’t leave me here.”

  “You have to promise me that you’ll eat the food I get. Will you?”

  She nodded. “I will.”

  “And that you’ll do whatever I tell you to do without questioning me?”

  “I promise.”

  “Come on, then.”

  Solomon took Sarah’s hand, and they walked toward the village square where the merchants sold their goods. “Keep up with me. Don’t slow down,” he warned her. But he could see she was moving her short little legs as fast as she could.

  He easily stole two potatoes and a bunch of carrots from the cart of a vendor who was busy flirting with a pretty young housewife. Then came the baker. They walked inside the bakery shop. It was crowded, but there were loaves of bread on a shelf. Solomon’s eyes darted around the room. He felt his heart pound in his throat. No one seemed to be looking. He glanced down at Sarah. She is slow, he thought. Then grasping Sarah’s hand tighter, he grabbed a loaf of bread and shoved it into his jacket. A middle-aged woman with a red, wind-burned face and a wart on her chin, yelled out, “Thief! Stop him!” and pointed at Solomon.

  Pulling Sarah through the crowd, Solomon felt as if there were a thousand hands reaching out to grab him. “Run,” he told Sarah. “Run as fast as you can.”

  She tripped on a stone and almost fell on her face, but Solomon’s grip on her arm was so tight that he held her upright. Sarah winced but Solomon kept going. They raced through the streets. People stopped what they were doing to stare as the baker yelled, pointing at the children. “Get the boy! Stop him! He’s a thief!”

  A woman who had been standing outside a beauty shop shouted in a voice loud enough for Solomon to hear as he and Sarah ran by. “I think that boy stole a woman’s handbag. He’s a criminal. Who knows what else he is capable of . . .”

  Solomon didn’t know where they came from, but he saw that two Gestapo agents had joined the chase. They were yelling at him in German, telling him to stop or they would shoot. He didn’t stop. He pulled Sarah and ran as fast as he could. Even as he ran, he could hear her crying. This mistake could cost us our lives. She’s far too slow, he thought as he stopped for a single moment and lifted her. Already out of breath from running he found Sarah too heavy to carry, and they both fell down. Sarah skinned her knee ripping the old scab off. She began weeping even louder now, but Solomon knew there was no time to comfort her. He pulled her to her feet. Then he pushed her inside an apartment building, and pulling her arm he led her down the hall.

  “You hurt me,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.” He was leaning against a wall struggling to catch his breath. We are still not safe, he thought. We can’t stay here. The Gestapo could come in and find us any minute. I have to find somewhere that is safer. But where? The sweat from his brow stung as it ran into his eyes. He’d never paid much attention to God or religion. It had been something that his parents had tried to force on him on high holidays. He’d gone to the synagogue with them because his father demanded it, but he didn’t pay attention. Instead, when his father wasn’t looking, he played practical jokes on his friends or made faces at the boys who were sitting across the aisle. That was a more innocent time. But now as he stood in the dimly lit h
allway of an apartment building far away from his parents' protection, holding his sister’s hand, he was desperate. Solomon Lipman needed help, so he turned to God. Solomon began to pray silently. He begged God to help him, to ensure that no one would find them. Closing his eyes, he prayed as he had never prayed before. Sarah watched him silently, still holding the arm of her rag doll in her hand, her face stained with tears and her eyes wide with fear. The crowd was outside. Terrifying sounds of the angry Gestapo agents shouting in their guttural German penetrated the thin walls of the building.

  If we are caught, they will see that we have no papers. Then they’ll know we’re Jews. They could easily shoot us on the spot.

  But something in the prayers of the frightened nine-year-old attracted God’s attention.

  A young woman wearing a brown wool coat and carrying a toddler in her arms came out of one of the apartments. She glanced over at Solomon and Sarah. Her eyes met Solomon’s and held his gaze for a moment.

  “Are you two the reason for all the commotion in the street?” she asked.

  Solomon wanted to run, but he dared not go outside. “Yes.” He nodded, feeling his heart drop into his belly, but not knowing what else to do.

  She looked at him and then at Sarah and said, “Hurry up. Come inside before they find you.”

  Sarah squeezed Solomon’s hand. He looked at her and could see she wasn’t sure that they should go inside. “It’s all right,” Solomon told his sister, hoping it was. “Let’s do what the nice lady tells us to do.”

  Sarah followed Solomon inside.

  “Both of you, quickly, get under the bed, and stay there until this blows over,” she said.

  Solomon did as the woman asked. He listened to Sarah’s heavy breathing as they lay beneath the bed. His heart was racing. This woman had them captive. She could easily go outside and alert the Gestapo. But he had to trust her. He had no other option. Then he heard a knock on the door.

  “Yes?” he heard the woman say.

  “Have you seen two young hooligans come through here?” the man said in a mixture of German with a little Polish. This led Solomon to believe that it might be the Gestapo agent.

  “Hooligans?” she said. “No, I haven’t seen anyone.”

  “Well, you’d better keep your door locked,” the man said. His tone was almost flirtatious.

  “Thank you. I will.”

  Solomon heard the door close and the lock turn. This woman who didn’t know them at all had protected them. Why? he thought.

  “Don’t come out yet,” she whispered. “Wait for a few minutes. I want to be sure they are gone.”

  Solomon didn’t answer, but he did as she instructed.

  After several minutes of silence outside, the woman came into the bedroom. “You can come out. I think it’s safe. I think they are gone.”

  Solomon helped Sarah out.

  “What happened?” the woman asked.

  Solomon considered making up a story, but he couldn’t think straight, so he blurted out the truth. He even told this kind stranger that they were Jewish.

  She listened quietly. He couldn’t help but think she was very pretty with her soft and gentle eyes. When he’d finished, she said, “You can stay here until nightfall. My husband comes home from work right after dark. I am afraid he would not approve of what I did today. He would think it was reckless and that it put the baby and I in danger. I hope you understand. So you’ll have to be gone before he arrives. I’m sorry. I wish I could offer you more time here, but I can’t. I have a little boy, and I must protect him too. And I know that if I am caught harboring Jews, my child will be in danger. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “I understand. Of course, I understand,” Solomon said. “And . . . thank you for helping us. May God bless you.” This was God. God sent this woman to help us. I never understood before today, but now I think I do. His body tingled as he realized the miracle he’d just experienced.

  Chapter 9

  Ludwig hadn’t heard anything about escaped children; however, the quota had been short. Each day, as Hedy had suggested, he watched the hole in the wall to see if any of the children returned to their parents, but no one ever came back. He’d almost given up when one of the other Grüne Polizei officers told him about two children who had robbed the bakery shop that day.

  “They got away with all of the old baker's money. I heard they held a knife to his neck,” the other officer said. “They were a couple of cunning children who took everything he had. They sound like dirty little Jews, don’t they?”

  Ludwig listened carefully. He used the word cunning. Wasn’t that the same word Hedy had used? “Did anyone check the neighborhood to see if they were hiding somewhere?”

  “Yes, these two children, a boy and a girl, were seen going into an apartment just a few blocks away from the bakery.”

  “Who owns the apartment?” Ludwig asked.

  “Helmut and Irma Reinhardt.”

  “You have an address?”

  “Why, are you going to talk to them?”

  “If you’ll watch the ghetto for me, I’d like to,” Ludwig said.

  “I could do that for you, but I need a favor,” the other officer said.

  “Of course. A favor for a favor. What do you need?” Ludwig said, trying to hide the bit of sarcasm in his voice.

  “I need Saturday night off. I have a date. Will you cover for me?"

  “Yes, of course.” Ludwig nodded, relieved that the favor was not something that could cause him any problems.

  Chapter 10

  That evening at around seven, Ludwig made his way to the Reinhardts' apartment. He knocked on the door and waited several minutes until a man in a white sleeveless T-shirt, with thick tufts of hair spraying out from under his arms, opened the door.

  “Helmut Reinhardt?” Ludwig asked in the most authoritative voice he could muster.

  Irma came up behind her husband with the baby in her arms. When she saw Ludwig in his police uniform, she gasped and almost lost her grip on the baby.

  Helmut heard her gasp and turned to see that her face had lost all of its color. A quick glance at her hand told him she was trembling. He turned back to the officer. “I am Helmut Reinhardt. I am the man of this house. What is it you want?” he said, walking outside and closing the door behind him.

  Irma lay the baby down in his bassinet, which was really no more than an empty dresser drawer filled with blankets, then she put his pacifier in his mouth. Once he began to suck on the pacifier, she ran to the bedroom and got down on her knees to look under the bed. She had to be sure there was no evidence that the children had been there. She saw a spot of blood on the floor. There was no time to get a rag. Quickly, she took the bottom of her dress and wiped it. Once she was sure there was no other trace of the children to be found, she ran back to the door and leaned against it to listen. The speech between her husband and the police officer was muffled, but she made out enough to know that the Lodz ghetto police were still hunting for the children. As she felt the doorknob turn, she moved away from the door. Then officer Ludwig Beck came rushing inside with her husband at his heels. The baby felt the tension in the room and began to scream in a high-pitched voice. Irma picked him up and cradled him, but he was still howling. She rocked him until he was quiet, and all she could hear were Ludwig’s bootheels on the floor and her own terrified heartbeat.

  Ludwig went through the apartment searching like a bloodhound. He found nothing. Defeated and embarrassed, he apologized to Helmut and proceeded to make his way to the door. Then just as Ludwig opened the door to leave, the baby let out a loud wail. The sound startled him, and he turned. When he did, he saw the blood on the skirt of Irma’s dress. “It looks like you’re bleeding?” he asked.

  Irma thought she might faint. The words caught in her throat. She could not speak.

  “Oh, I didn’t realize that I’d gotten blood on your dress when I handed the baby to you earlier,” Helmut said to Irma. Then shaking his head he add
ed, “How clumsy of me.” He continued now addressing his conversation to Ludwig. “Our son is teething. I’m afraid my wife is better at taking care of this problem than I. So earlier when his tooth was coming through and he started bleeding, I handed him to her. It seems I’ve ruined her dress.”

  Ludwig didn’t know much about children so he smiled and left the apartment, but something didn’t seem quite right to him. His gut told him they were lying. But he had no proof.

  If these children were here, they did a very good job of hiding the fact. Hedy was right when she called them cunning little beasts. I will keep an eye out and contact all my informants to see what I can find out.

  Chapter 11

  While Sarah and her brother waited for nightfall, Solomon gave Sarah a hunk of the bread and two carrots they’d stolen. “Eat this,” he demanded. He was hungry but not hungry enough to eat. Instead, he tried to hold on to the food as long as possible. This time she didn’t argue with him. The young woman who was hiding them had given them water. And while Sarah ate, Solomon chewed on his lower lip and began to think. We can’t go on this way. It’s only a matter of time before we are arrested for something. Sarah is too slow to keep up. The only thing we can do is go back and find Wiktor. I am going to have to take him up on his offer to take us out to a farm. I am going to have to trust him. I know things could go badly because he has every reason to turn us in. After all, we are worth money to him, but he’s always seemed to be a decent man. I have to believe that he is not the kind of man who would put two children in danger. But then again, money does things to people. I’ve seen this firsthand. I’ve seen people turn their families in for money in order to buy food . . . to stay alive for one more day. And I know Wiktor is always looking for ways to earn money. Still, I am forced to trust him. I must. What else can I do? Solomon argued with himself.