by Gwen Edelman
She tugged her scarf up around her mouth and chin. Just before Easter, I walked to the ghetto Wall. What a beautiful spring day. The sun shone, it was warm, and everywhere the trees had pressed out pale young leaves. As I came closer, I saw that beside the ghetto Wall, a funfair was in progress. There were rides, a carousel; women in thin dresses were eating doughnuts; children dressed in their Sunday best lined up for the merry-go-round. There was even a sky ride where you stepped into little cars which swung around high above the ground.
Behind the Wall, the flames leapt up into the sky. Black ash rose in the air and floated over to Our Side. As the ghetto burned, the flames rising high into the air, you could hear the screams and cries coming from the other side of the Wall. That Sunday, as the Jewish fighters burned to death in their bunkers, couples were riding high in those little cars, shrieking with laughter, riding high above the walls where they could look down and see the spectacle of the Jews dying out. I stood watching the small cars turning faster and faster. They burned the ghetto to the ground. And everyone in it. There was nothing left. Finished. Kaput. The ghetto burned for days. Even weeks later it was still smoking . . .
Ach Lilka, said Jascha. Enough.
They heard the whistle and the train, its metal sides thick with snow, came into view. He picked up their suitcase and pushed her ahead of him into the train. Go, he said to her. We don’t want to be left behind.
They sat side by side in the compartment. The train lurched and began to move. When they had left the city behind, Jascha pressed back the pleated curtain and stared out the window at the endless white fields. Look, he said, a hare. He thinks he’s hidden, invisible. He doesn’t know I see him despite his pale camouflaged coat, despite his best efforts. And that I can flush him out at any moment. He turned to her. Have you any more of those chocolates? he asked.
We came up with all kinds of schemes to distract the German guards at the gates. Once, he said, we sent two people who could pass for workmen. They had come, we informed the Germans, to repair the policeman’s booth. The door needed work. There stood our people with their wooden toolbox. They couldn’t have repaired a door if their lives depended on it. We convinced the two guards that they had to go into the booth and close the door so the workmen could see how to fix it. And then, said Jascha, his cheeks shiny, while They were otherwise engaged, the driver gave the password and the wagon rolled through the gate into the ghetto. Beneath the cover lay bulging sacks of butter, oil, sugar.
He tore off the silver wrapper and pressed the chocolate into his mouth. When the #10 streetcar from The Other Side came down Zamenhofa Street, we were waiting. The driver and the conductor had been paid off. When it slowed at the turn we ran out. And pulled down linen sacks of kasha, wheat, flour, and rye that had been loaded on The Other Side. Right away we threw on sacks of bread, of knitted goods, of hand-stitched leather goods. Do you know how quick we had to be? It was a matter of seconds before the streetcar sped up again. That was in the early days, when the streetcar from The Other Side still went through the ghetto.
I was the quickest of them all, he said. And when the work was over we went to see the girls who were waiting for us. Before I met you, darling, he added. I was strong in those days. And quick. And every moment we were in danger. Women were mad for me. Were they? she asked. Sometimes I brought them something we had smuggled in. A pot of jam, a hair ribbon, a few cigarettes. What a hero I was. I still had dark curls. And I could run like the wind. He smiled. What adventures we had. He smoked and flicked the ashes onto the floor. In those days, in the ghetto, long long ago, he said, I was young.
The endless fields lay white and otherworldly in the pale winter light. Lilka took off her fur hat and laid it beside her. Before the war, she said, we had a bird. A blue and yellow parakeet in a cage. This bird was constantly cleaning itself. I used to open the door and let it out when my parents weren’t home. It would fly around the room aimlessly chattering and cheeping in a high-pitched tone. Marysia would come running in and try to catch it in her dish towel. I would laugh and clap my hands as she ran in circles with the cloth and the parakeet flapped its little feathers.
She looked at him. I’ll never come back, she said. No, darling, he replied, aren’t you glad? It’s over, she said. Yes, my sweetheart, he said, it is. I want to go home, she said. I thought Warsaw was your home, he replied. Isn’t that what you kept telling me? I have no home, she said. She stared out the window at the dark pines sagging beneath the snow. I did once but that’s long ago.
I’m homeless, she said. You and all the other Polish Jews, he replied. Well never mind, he said. We’ll have to do without. How can you be like that? she said. How? he asked. I’ve learned. London is not my home, she said. It means nothing to me. And Warsaw? he asked.
He took out a small bottle of vodka. Well well, she said in surprise, where did you get that? Drink, my angel, he said. Forget about all this. Do you remember all the tricks we used during the war to make ourselves forget? Even for a moment? He opened the bottle and handed it to her. Don’t be sad, darling. All good things come to an end. She took a drink and handed the bottle back to him. He put back his head and drank. Come and sit on my lap, my sweetheart, he said, wiping his mouth. Shall I try to comfort you?
There were SS everywhere checking papers, she said. And taking away anyone who looked Jewish. They weren’t very good at knowing who was a Jew and who wasn’t—if they didn’t have sad dark eyes and dark curls, They couldn’t spot them. But the Poles knew better and could always be counted on to help. They could identify the slightest gesture, expression, way of pronouncing a word. And again and again they pointed us out, informed on us, and collected their cash.
Do you remember, she said, how our fellow Poles waited right outside the Walls, the szmalcownicy, ready to blackmail anyone escaping from the ghetto? How they dug up paving stones from the street beside the Wall and hurled them over to Our Side, hoping to strike a Jew? How they robbed us blind? Stripped us naked? Betrayed us to the Germans? Our own Poles. Lilka, he said, stop it. Not everyone.
Lilka pulled at the fingers of her gloves. Why did they not help us? she asked. What had we done to them? A spark from Jascha’s cigarette fell on his scarf. He examined the scorched wool and scratched at it with his fingernail. They had lived with us and gone to school with us our whole lives, she said. Instead it was as though they had never known us.
Warsaw was the most beautiful city. Do you remember? Jascha smoked quietly, pressing out smoke rings in the airless compartment. Lilka, for God’s sake, he said. He reached out his hand to her. Come and sit beside me, darling. Warsaw, she said, her cheeks flushed, were we not loyal to you? Did we not love you more than any other city? Our beloved Warsaw. What had we done to deserve this? Out the window the snow covered fields stretched toward an endless white horizon. A hare leapt through the snow. Warsaw, answer me.
