The Good Doctor of Warsaw
Page 9
‘You took a risk, running round the ghetto trying to contact the Gestapo to get me out, Harry. And expensive, I think.’
‘A lot of people who love you helped, Pan Doctor.’
The bitterly cold wind carries a fine sand of snow. The Muranow tram appears through the stinging mist. Korczak sinks down onto the wooden bench and watches the street flicker by. But why are so many children out in the snow at this hour, huddling by the walls of the buildings? He glimpses an entire family sheltering under a blanket.
The light is leaching from the sky, curfew not long away. At Chlodna Street the tram goes no further.
‘I’m sorry, we have to get out here, Pan Doctor. The prison’s in the main part of the ghetto, the big ghetto and there’s an Aryan road cutting off the rest of the ghetto, the smaller area. We have to wait here until there’s a gap in the Aryan trams so we can cross over and join Stefa and the children in the small ghetto.’
They join the huddled crowd in armbands at the gate waiting to cross over into the rest of the ghetto. After the beatings he has seen and experienced in Pawiak, the German guards at the gate stand far too close for Korczak’s liking. He feels a sweat prickle down his back. They are bored and pick out a man on crutches to dance to a busker’s accordion, the man’s eyes glazed with terror as he stumbles around.
There’s a sudden commotion to the left. The sound of a child crying. To his horror Korczak sees one of the guards beating a small boy. Korczak starts forward, but Harry pulls him back sharply.
‘You can’t. It’s too dangerous.’
The guard signals for the crowd to cross. Bicycles and rickshaws surge across the street, past the Polish policemen barring the way into Aryan Warsaw to the right and left, and behind them follows the hurrying mass of people.
He knocks on the front door of 33 Chlodna Street, until recently a Polish technical school. A boy he’s never seen before opens it, takes one look at him and runs away shouting for Pani Stefa.
Little Szymonek appears in the hallway. His face lights up.
‘Pan Doctor is home,’ he yells at the top of his voice.
For once, Stefa does nothing to calm the chaos. The children crowd around him, calling out their news, jumping up and down. What a joy to see their dear, bright faces.
Stefa sits down at a table, her shoulders sagging with relief.
‘Why are you crying, Pani Stefa?’ asks Sara. ‘Aren’t you happy to see the Doctor?’
Stefa hugs the child. ‘I’m crying because I’m so happy. People can do that. We have Pan Doctor home.’
Clapping his hands high in the air so that all the children join him in the steady beat, Pan Doctor begins what has become the home’s anthem over the past year. ‘Black and white, brown and yellow, we are all brothers together.’ The children sing out, eyes shining, smiling at each other.
‘Was it boring? What did you do in prison?’ asks Halinka.
‘When the thugs and robbers in my cell found out that I was the old doctor from the radio, they made me sit on a straw bale and tell them all the fairy stories that their mummies used to tell them.’
He acts out how he taught the men to catch the fleas that plagued them day and night while the children yell with laughter.
‘I’m glad you are back, Pan Doctor. Now everything will be all right,’ says Sara.
Stefa’s eyes shine with a sad elation as she stands at the back, watching the commotion. It’s true, now Pan Doctor’s back, somehow, everything will be all right.
But does he understand yet how things are?
After a hot bath, his razor and clean clothes, Stefa makes him drink soup by the stove in the kitchen, her eyes with their soft pouches barely leaving his face, making an inventory of the damage inflicted by the past weeks. A bruised cheek, painfully thin ankles. She hovers close as if someone might spirit him away again.
‘Sometimes, I honestly wondered. The things you hear about Pawiak, so many people disappearing . . .’ Her voice breaks.
He reaches out and holds her hand in his. ‘This old dog’s not so easy to keep down. But Stefa, first thing tomorrow we must brick up the main entrance. We don’t want guards wandering in off the street, looking for trouble. We’ll use the side entrance in the courtyard. It’s less obvious.’
‘But who lives with their front door bricked up?’
‘Tomorrow, Stefa. We must brick it up tomorrow.’
She’s never seen him so nervous and agitated. ‘I’ll ask Henryk.’
‘And we can’t let the children out on the streets unless someone goes with them, the things that are happening out there, the risk of bringing back typhus.’
‘I agree. They hardly go out as it is. But shut away from the world, how will they cope with normal life when the war’s over?’
He thinks for a moment, frowning. ‘We must bring the world to the children. We’ll invite people here, from every walk of life, to come in and talk to our republic of children.’
‘It would certainly be good for the boys to see more men here. There’s our cook Roza Sztokman’s brother, Henryk, but of course he’s more like one of the boys. Hardly makes sense now he’s decided he’s in love with our medical intern, Esterka. And now we have you.’
‘Your most troublesome child, I know. What would I do without you, Stefa? In spite of everything, you have the home up and running in here, with the same spirit as the old place.’
‘The children still understand fairness and kindness in spite of living in this place. They remember what you taught them. But we are low on everything.’
‘Medical supplies?’
‘A vial of morphine and one syringe, a sock filled with warm sand for earaches, salt water for inflamed throats, and that’s it. And Esterka has been wonderful. She may only be a student doctor, but she’s so bright and the children love her. As for the rest, the children have enough clothes. But with the potatoes gone our remaining food won’t last much longer.’
‘And funds?’
‘Mostly from within the ghetto, but really, what can people do? The rich are becoming poor. The poor are becoming destitute. I haunt the offices of the aid agencies.’
‘Time for me to start getting out, making my rounds again, visiting friends.’
‘Not yet. You need to recover your strength before you face going out. It’s too dangerous.’
Outside there’s the whine and clank of Aryan trams passing through the middle of the ghetto. Korczak lifts the blind and looks down on the familiar red trams, people going home from work. Stefa joins him, looking down on the wall that runs along each side of the Aryan cut-through.
‘A sealed ghetto. Who could have imagined?’
‘I didn’t know how to explain it to the children when they sealed the gates. It was panic in here. None of us expected that. I’ll never get used to not seeing all our Polish friends.’
‘But they’re still our friends. And the Germans are good people at heart. Once the German people realize what the Nazis are doing here in their name, they’ll be horrified. They’ll soon put a stop to all this madness.’
‘Perhaps. And perhaps the rest of Europe will hear about us soon and do something.’
He takes her hands. ‘Until then, our children have only one childhood and we’ll do all we can to make it happy and safe.’
For the next few days as he recuperates, he stays in the home with the children, sometimes sitting outside in the weak sun as they play. Around the central courtyard is the main school building with several apartments taking up the other side. A German widow, a young Hebrew teacher and several other families live there. It’s reputedly the best-kept and cleanest block in the ghetto. A little world within a world.
With Michael, the Hebrew teacher who lives across the courtyard, as his guide, Korczak makes his way through an enormous bazaar of people hawking the most pitiful possessions, so many beggars bundled up in rags. A cacophony of shouts and street singers, the signs of starvation clear in people’s faces.
He p
asses endless musicians and singers busking on the street. In Tlomackie Street he pauses in front of the Great Synagogue. The synagogue doors are chained shut and the cantors are singing on its steps for pennies.
Karmelicka Street is a bottleneck, so crowded that Korczak is knocked off the pavement as the crowd suddenly surges in a panic. Michael pulls him into the shelter of a doorway as a black prison van barrels along the street in the direction of Pawiak, the guard beating people from the window. Afterwards, a woman staggers up from the road, her head pouring with blood. The truncheon was studded with nails.
So this is the ghetto, a square mile of hell containing half a million people slowly dying of hunger. Leaning against the wall, Korczak catches his breath, then he and Michael make their way back towards the little oasis of the republic of children on 33 Chlodna Street.
CHAPTER TWELVE
LVOV, APRIL 1941
One should not put any obstacle in the way of efforts at self-cleansing arising in anti-communist and anti-Jewish circles in the territories to be newly occupied. On the contrary, one should provoke these, leaving no traces, intensify them if necessary.
Reinhard Heydrich: Telegram to
Einsatzgruppen leaders 29 June 1941
Sophia comes down the steps of Lvov University to a cold dusk running with birdsong. Looking up at the trees around the square, it feels there’s a hint of better days at last, but she huddles into her coat and sets off quickly along the narrow street towards their apartment.
Perhaps there will be a letter from home waiting for her today. It’s been so long since they had any news from Warsaw.
A boxy black van approaches along the narrow street. Her palms grow hot and sticky but she makes herself carry on walking at an even pace. No good can come of attracting the attention of the NKVD, the Soviet police.
She quickens her step, almost there, the white spire of St Anna’s rising up at the end of their avenue. Soon she’ll be running up the stone steps of their apartment block, opening the door, safe inside.
The trick is to get into the tiny apartment before their Ukrainian neighbour, Mrs Yelenyuk, appears on the landing, peering inside the door, asking questions.
As Sophia puts her key in the lock, sure enough, Mrs Yelenyuk comes hurrying out.
‘Having something nice for supper?’ says Mrs Yelenyuk, craning to see in Sophia’s bag. With her yellowed skin and pale blue eyes, a faded brown woollen scarf wrapped around her shoulders, Mrs Yelenyuk is like an old print that has lost its colour.
‘Cabbage and potatoes again.’
‘I’ll show you how to cook my mother’s stew one day, a proper Ukrainian dish. I always cooked it for my brother.’
‘Have you had any news of his release?’
‘Any time now. They have nothing to charge him with,’ she says angrily, her face old and crumpled suddenly.
‘You’ll hear soon,’ Sophia says.
Inside, Sophia leans against the closed door and breathes in the calm. Its pine-clad walls varnished a deep brown, olive-green tiles on the tall chimney stove, the little apartment is gloomy but she’s made it a home, covered the shelf in the corner with a lace cloth, added a pretty oil lamp and two frames for their pictures of family in Pinsk and in Warsaw.
She picks up a photo taken in Warsaw on Sabina’s wedding day. There have been no letters from Warsaw, and little news from Misha’s sisters in Pinsk, although they’ve at least heard that the girls reached there safely.
Misha will be back from the oil refinery soon. He’s wry about how his engineering degree has come in use after all, supervising the laying of new oil pipes for the factory, but at least it’s paid work.
She’s running water in the tin bowl to wash the potatoes when he comes in. Three strides to cross the room. He puts his long arms around her waist, his chin resting on her hair.
‘I have two presents for you. First . . .’ He holds out a letter.
Seeing the ghetto postmark, she snatches it from his hand.
‘I hope the parcel’s arrived safely. Not that I’ll know with so much of the letter inked out by the censor. You’d think it was all state secrets. And it’s taken so long to get here.’ She goes silent, reading and re-reading the letter.
‘What’s the matter? What is it?’
She can’t speak. He takes the letter from her hand and scans it. Sophia has crumpled onto a chair, her face drained.
He reads the letter again. Sabina is dead. Died over a month ago. There’s nothing to say how or why, most of the letter cruelly inked out by the ghetto’s censor.
*
Her eyes heavy from so many tears, Sophia lies curled up on the narrow bed, staring at the panelling in the evening gloom. Misha has lit the lamp, turned the wick down low. He’s getting ready for bed when she suddenly turns, raises herself up on one elbow, her face tense with apprehension.
‘Misha, what was the other thing you had to tell me? Has something else happened? What is it?’
He’s quiet for a moment, then sits down on the bed next to her. He takes a small pouch from his pocket and tips something onto his palm. A narrow circle of pale gold.
‘Oh.’
‘I didn’t want to ask you like this.’
She watches the last of the evening light run around the gold band as he tips his palm. ‘It was what we meant to do once we arrived, but if you’d rather wait . . .’
She moves closer, puts her head on his knee, her hair spilling out like someone pulled from the water. ‘I love you so much. All I’ve wanted since the day we met is to be with you.’ He bends down and they stay wrapped together, silent and still, for a long time.
Sophia wears her good summer dress – dusky pink with puffed sleeves and a row of little pearl buttons. Misha looks handsome in a white shirt and dark jacket, his hair combed back from his brow, his amber and green eyes crinkled with smiles.
It’s May and Lvov’s many trees are in bloom. They walk through the white city with its green domes and red roofs. It could almost be a time before the war when Lvov was a little Vienna, before the red-and-black Soviet flags appeared.
She feels his hand press hers tightly for a moment.
‘I’m sorry, darling. I wanted family to be here for our wedding day. I wanted flowers, dancing.’
She stops in her tracks, faces him. ‘Never, never say sorry when we have each other,’ she says, fierce and sure.
Inside the building they wait in a scuffed green corridor that echoes with Russian voices. The light from a high window casts a rhomboid of butter on the unwaxed linoleum. A woman in a beige skirt and a blouse with epaulettes comes out and calls their names. She has thick features, greying blonde hair pinned back; she is mannish, indifferent as she squeezes her chair up to the desk and shuffles out a form with her nicotine fingers. Next to her, the clerk takes their details, scolding Sophia when she corrects herself over a date.
‘This is an official document,’ the woman tells her crossly. ‘And it will go into police records so don’t make any problems for yourself, that’s my advice.’
The first woman lights up a cigarette, a strong tarry odour of ships and rope. ‘I got a good deal on herrings yesterday.’
‘Haven’t found good herring for a while now. How much?’
‘Expensive, but if you buy it by the barrel, it’s much cheaper. Do you want me to give you his name?’ She flicks ash on the floor and turns her attention back to the marriage certificate. ‘So you’ve filled in all your details?’ She takes the form and asks them some abrupt legal questions. They both answer yes.
‘I’d buy a barrel. Herring keeps and who knows when you’ll get the chance again. Sign here, both of you, Mr and Mrs Wasserman. Here’s your duplicate copy. And you pay the fee at the desk.’
They leave the office, the two women still discussing herrings. Misha wafts the form in front of his chin. ‘Is it my imagination or does this whiff of fish?’ He’s trying to make a joke of it, but her throat hurts and she doesn’t manage to laugh.
Misha takes Sophia’s hand. ‘But you’re so cold.’ He puts it between his palms to warm it.
They walk down to an elegant old Viennese café and order glasses of tea with a plate of cream-and-jam pastries.
Misha places a flat parcel on the table.
‘A wedding present from me.’
‘I didn’t get you a present.’
‘It’s to both of us,’ he said. ‘You’ll see.’
She unwraps the white tissue. Inside there’s a copy of Korczak’s book, How to Love a Child.
‘I know you’ve read it many times, but when this ridiculous war is over, that’s what we’ll do. We’ll make the world a better place, for the children.’
Her hand folds over his, holding on tight. ‘You miss them terribly, don’t you?’
She loves waking next to Misha each morning as his wife, Mrs Wasserman. She feels changed at some molecular level, as if bound together they have become more solid, able to endure anything. The sunlight streams in through the thin net curtains. The bells of St Anna’s mix with the electric crackle of trams and the echo of horses’ hooves.
It’s early but she wants to go out and fetch fresh bread for breakfast. Misha’s still sleeping. His workman’s overalls hang empty on the back of the bedroom door.
Outside, the air has the clarity of a new summer’s day, the white steeple clear against a blue sky. Later, she plans to walk to the market in the Jewish quarter where apples and bread are so much cheaper, where buskers play boisterous Klezmer tunes on clarinets and fiddles and women in white aprons shout out in Yiddish as if she might be back home in Grzybowski Square.