Clara's War

by Clara Kramer

  Mr Patrontasch couldn’t risk going upstairs to empty the pails when the trainmen were at home. But if we didn’t get rid of them regularly, the stench would give us away. On several occasions, Beck had to send Ala in to entertain the trainmen in their room and keep them occupied. After Ala turned up the music, Beck would knock on the trapdoor and keep guard while, Patrontasch, barefoot, sneaked up the corridor to the bathroom to empty the pails. Nobody would breathe during those moments. It only took a few minutes, but it felt endless.

  I had nothing to do except to sit and stare in a state of constant expectation and dread at everyone all day long. There was nothing worse than sitting and sitting, hour after hour, day after day, only interrupted by sleep. We had become animals. Our skin was beyond pale. It was grey, the colour of dirty sheets, and our hollowed-out eyes, even the children’s, were ringed with the darkest of circles. We were dybbuks, spirits of the dead, while the trainmen lazed about with their newspapers. I knew they were ignorant of their effect on us, and on the Becks, but I hated them for it. The only silver lining to their presence was that the Becks were compelled to act as if everything was wonderful in their marriage. At least that brought some peace into the house.

  When the weather warmed up a little, the trainmen were finally assigned a job and left for a couple of days. After they had gone, I felt as if I had exhaled for the first time in weeks. Beck came home from work at six in the morning and knocked on the trapdoor. I was desperate for any task that would take me upstairs. He told Papa and Artek to go to the cellar to cut wood for the oven and asked Lola and me to clean his room. We followed the men upstairs and started cleaning. After weeks and weeks downstairs, the sight of sunlight coming through the curtains, a clean polished floor and the smell of fresh air were enough to make me drunk. Beck too seemed to be affected. He ordered us to load the stove with wood. Wood was so scarce that the house was always cold, but now he wanted heat! Beck brought some plants the sister-in-law had given him back into his room. Julia had moved them from their room to the pantry in the hope the cold air would kill them.

  While the men were in the cellar cutting the wood, Klara went to the trapdoor and asked Beck for a pot of water. Water was as precious as food or money. Water was our lifeline. We used it to cook the potatoes into a soup and the water we washed our hair in was reused to soak our clothes. Not a drop was wasted. Ever. Klara was our biggest user of water and was always borrowing from us or the Melmans. Her asking Mr Beck for an entire bucket of water was like asking for a million dollars. What got into Klara, to ask for water with Julia in the house, had to be a symptom of our collective insanity that day. Had I even heard her correctly? What could she have been thinking? This was surely going to produce a big fight, just now when things were somewhat peaceful between the Becks. I didn’t want to look away from my loading of the stove, but I couldn’t help myself. I saw Beck fetch the pail of water.

  As if on cue, Julia walked in and saw the bucket of water pass between their hands. She must have also seen that Beck had moved the plants back to the room because she started to scream: ‘Don’t put that wood in the stove! Stop it! You think I’ll waste wood on that whore’s flowers! Not one log in that oven!’

  Beck yelled at us to ignore her.

  Julia repeated: ‘Not one log! You hear!’

  Lola and I looked at each other, not knowing what to do or whom to listen to. Then Julia picked up some dishes and started throwing them against the walls and floors. ‘Not one log! Not one log!’ Over and over again. The pain in her voice seemed to come right from her heart. She was helpless to change him. It seemed like this was to be their end. As frightened as we were, my heart was breaking for this poor woman’s pain. Beck didn’t say a word in his own defence. Julia picked up the flowerpots and threw them to the floor.

  ‘MY FLOWERS!’ Beck yelled, as his open hand smashed Julia in the face.

  Blood was streaming from her lips. ‘I’ll never go near that trapdoor again! She can starve for all I care. They can all starve!’

  We had all become the other woman in Julia’s eyes. She ran into Ala’s room and slammed the door shut behind her. We heard sobbing from within. Then the fall of the door knocker on wood. The trainmen had returned. Beck quickly gave us some potatoes, told us to get downstairs and closed the trapdoor. He left a few minutes after the trainmen settled in. He didn’t come back at all that day or that night. We knew, as Julia must have known too, he would be at the sister-in-law’s house.

  Julia had been pushed and pushed like no other woman I’d ever met. Her strength of character and her generosity were boundless. I knew Mr Beck loved these qualities in her. He had told us so, many times. Whether he ever told Julia or not, I didn’t know. But, of course, in the face of his love affairs such words would be more slaps in her face. But the truth is, he did love her. And she loved him.

  The next morning, Julia knocked on the trapdoor to give us some water with which to cook the potatoes. She took our orders for food. She wouldn’t look at Klara. I didn’t know what we had done to be worthy of her generosity. I prayed to God to somehow reward this woman who suffered so much for us. We didn’t know what had brought on this change of heart. Had she made up with Beck, or he with her? I did know for certain that if we weren’t here, she would leave him. But as long as we were here, she was trapped.

  Something must have happened between them, because not long thereafter Julia decided to throw her husband a large Valentine’s party in honour of his name day. The night of the party, I heard the trainmen, Dr Lucynski, Lang, Schmidt, Krueger, Hans the policeman (who harboured affection for Ala) and a few voices I didn’t recognize, all congratulating Beck as they walked in. The vodka was being passed around and the music was playing. There was nothing for us to do but sit in silence and listen. Usually during these parties the children sat close to me. But this time they had been playing with Klarunia when the first guests arrived and so they were on the other side of the bunker near the Patrontasches. As long as there were strangers upstairs, none of us moved. We became frozen. Little underground statues.

  The dancing had slowed down and I could hear the conversation in every detail. Lang was talking. ‘God help us when the war is over and the Jews take their revenge.’ I couldn’t believe that he was even worried about such a thing. At least he had a conscience.

  One of the trainmen laughed. ‘Not if we get them first.’

  Something in this man’s laughter frightened Zosia. She started to weep and then to cry. And then to actually wail. For all these months she had been trained to speak only when absolutely necessary. She had learned to be the most silent of all of us. For days on end, we would never hear her say a word. Not to ask for food or water or to go to the bathroom. Nothing. But now she was screaming the way only a terrified four-year-old could scream. I tried to shush her by putting a finger to my lips. All of us were doing the same thing. I was too afraid to go over to her to hold her. I was too frightened even to whisper something reassuring. It was too dangerous to add another sound to hers. I watched, paralyzed and scared stiff. Julia’s footsteps rushed to the trapdoor and she knocked softly above us. Her voice was a whisper: ‘I can hear her.’ Something had to be done or the guests would surely discover us. Mr Patrontasch grabbed a pillow and put it over her face. Zosia struggled, scratching and clawing at Patrontasch’s hands, but at least the sound was muffled.

  Upstairs, there was casual talk about the war. The conversation varied from the weather conditions–Was the slight thaw good or bad? Would it help the Russians? Or the Germans?–to the trainload of German refugees who had come from the east and been stalled at the station. Beck was saying that the people had been starving, but that the SS hadn’t let them off the train. All the while Zosia was still crying underneath the pillow. The conversation had moved on to the governor of Lvov who had been assassinated. Beck was saying that it had been the handiwork of Jewish partisans. Hans joked: ‘It had to be the Yids. There are no Polish or Volksdeutsche partisans, hey,
Beck?’ A roar of laughter erupted.

  Then Dr Lucynski added, ‘Maybe the Jews Valentin is hiding are partisans!’ A long silence followed. I was waiting for Dr Lucynski to tell everyone it was a joke. But he didn’t. I imagined how Beck must have looked as he tried to gauge the trainmen’s reaction without being obvious. The trainmen didn’t laugh or acknowledge that the remark had to be a joke. Not a laugh. Not a chuckle. Just silence. I couldn’t believe that Dr Lucynski, Beck’s supposed friend, would make such an incriminating joke. I didn’t know if Dr Lucynski actually knew about us. I couldn’t imagine Beck would tell him, or anyone.

  Suddenly, as if the wind shifted, they started to debate whether to believe the Russian or German propaganda. Did the Russians take back Leningrad? What about Churchill’s speech in which he said the bombing of Germany would intensify for the possible invasion of Europe’s Atlantic coast? The only thing the men agreed on was that all the politicians and generals were liars. Another good laugh ensued. Thank God. Lucysnki’s remark had no traction. I prayed the trainmen just thought it a bad joke that had deserved only polite silence.

  Mr Melman grabbed a piece of hard candy and stuck it under the pillow. Zosia’s legs and arms were now still. I breathed easier. She had stopped struggling and just lay on Patrontasch’s lap as still as if she were in a deep and peaceful sleep. The candy had worked. Patrontasch took the pillow away from her face. Even in the dim light I could see her face was blue. Her eyes were closed and her chest wasn’t moving up and down with each breath.

  Mama crawled across to Zosia and started rubbing her chest. She rubbed it hard. It seemed like Mama was rubbing her chest for ever. She put her fingers to Zosia’s lips and pulled them apart. ‘Zosia, Zosia, open your eyes.’ Zosia obeyed Mama. She looked up at Mama and whispered, ‘Can I eat the candy?’ The hard candy was in her palm. Mama gathered her in her arms and helped her open the candy wrapper. Patrontasch had almost killed Zosia, but who could blame him? I was just so thankful that Zosia had pulled through. I had been petrified; I couldn’t move a muscle. I would never leave them alone again.

  It was a freezing night, and even down here, I could hear the wind whipping against the windows upstairs. There was no reason for the guests to brave the elements when there was still vodka. Around dawn the house became silent. I was exhausted. I was hoping I would sleep well past noon, as we had all been trying to do since the trainmen were living above us. Then there was an unexpected knock on the trapdoor. Mr Patrontasch turned on the light. It was Beck. He climbed down into the bunker. Beck said he needed to talk. He had brought a bottle of vodka with him. He seemed troubled. He had woken us up before, but usually it was good news on the radio. This time it seemed he had something weighing on his mind.

  He poured vodka for the men. It was such a ritual. He told us that Dr Lucynski had taken him aside during the party and told him that he had spoken with some of the refugees on the trains. The reason they hadn’t been let off the trains was that the Nazis didn’t want the refugees to tell anyone what they had seen. The advancing Russians were murdering any Volksdeutsche and Poles who had collaborated with the Nazis. Dr Lucynski had been convinced that once the war was over, the Jews would murder as many Poles as they could in revenge for the mothers, fathers and children who had been slaughtered. Beck was frightened. Papa and the other men tried to reassure him that they would make sure he wasn’t harmed. In turn, Beck wanted us to know that he would never abandon us. We shouldn’t worry. He would stay with us until the end. I understood that he had never thought about the consequences our survival might have for him. Nobody had. We had only thought of ourselves. Of course the Russians would slaughter the Volksdeutsche and any collaborators. We had already seen what they had done to my family. He left the bottle for the men and crawled back to the trapdoor. Before he went upstairs, he said, ‘I don’t want to trouble you, but I was hoping you might do something for me.’ I knew we would do anything he asked. But the way he asked was so courtly. His voice sounded gentle. Papa said, ‘Anything.’

  ‘There are bands of partisans, deserting SS, marauders, breaking into houses…I worry what could happen to Julia and Ala. When the trainmen aren’t here, would you be kind enough to leave the trapdoor open at night when I’m at work?’ They say there are no angels here on earth. But they didn’t know Beck. As much as his face could be ravaged by drink and exhaustion, there was a purity and goodness in his eyes. He said, ‘I just can’t be part of people dying.’

  It was a simple declaration. Those words kept us alive. They kept him going when his courage failed and his faith was tested. With the war raging outside and millions compromising everything they believed to stay alive, how many were like Beck? He held our lives in his hands and there was now no one on this earth I would have trusted with them more. It was in moments like these that I felt most strongly that we would survive. I had never met anyone like Beck before. My father was a good man. So were all the men in the bunker. But I didn’t know if they had what Beck had. I didn’t know if Papa would risk my life to save a stranger. We had been strangers to Beck and now it felt like we were his family. I had gone through four notebooks and the blue pencil that Beck had given me was down to a nub. Every time he gave me a new notebook, he said the same thing, ‘Clarutchka, I hope you say nice things about me.’ I prayed that I would live so the world would know his courage and his great love.

  As soon as the trainmen went out for lunch the next day, the men started talking. We were all out of money and food. All the families were, except the Steckels. I couldn’t keep it in any longer. I asked Papa again, ‘Why don’t we ask them?’

  ‘We can’t. It’s not our way.’

  They decided they would ask Beck to help them, and they would make him a 25 per cent partner in their business. Mr Patrontasch drew up the contract in his beautiful handwriting.

  When Beck came home later and opened the trapdoor to have me come up and weigh the potatoes, the men asked to have a word. Mr Patrontasch explained that they were out of money and couldn’t pay him for their food any longer. They wanted to make him their partner. Of all the meshuggenah conversations I had heard in the bunker, this was perhaps the craziest. Who knew if we would survive? Who knew if there would be a business left after the war? Who knew if the factory wouldn’t be bombed or every piece of machinery packed on a train and sent west or east depending who won the war? There was every possibility that the contract wasn’t worth the ink it was written with. I knew that Beck was as aware as I was of the improbability of it all. But the offer pleased him immensely as he shook each of the three men’s hands with vigour and strength. He went upstairs to get a bottle of vodka to toast the arrangement. We had heard the toasting going on during the party. All the traditional, ribald Polish toasts that the Poles were so fond of and that no festive occasion was complete without: ‘I drink till I fall, fall till I rise, I rise to drink, I drink to be wise.’ ‘Every shot is a nail in my coffin–this will be a helluva coffin.’ ‘To the drunkard who lives half as long but sees everything twice.’ ‘To the health of our wives and lovers and may they never meet’…and so many more.

  As he raised his glass, he gestured to us. Sto lat. ‘A hundred years.’ It was the toast traditionally made on a man’s naming day. And then na zdrowie. ‘To your health.’ I had heard these toasts dozens of times. So often said sentimentally, said casually, said without thought. But Beck was wishing each of us health and a long life. I toasted him as well in the silence of my heart. Long life. A hundred years.

  Chapter 13

  THE SS MOVE IN

  March to April 1944

  Wednesday, 1 March. It’s already March, the winter is over, but the winter didn’t help us much. It’s raining, it’s thawing, it’s impossible for the military to move. Nothing is happening at the front. Our situation is terrible. Our nerves are frazzled from these constant alarms. Any little sound made by somebody in the bunker sounds like thunder. One gets heart palpitations when one has to dish out the food on the table
and to top it all is the fear of hunger. Almost nobody had any money for March. If we had more money, we wouldn’t have to cook potatoes, we could eat bread.

  As in everything else, Beck was true to his word. We had run out of money and he was providing our food now. He didn’t tell us where or how he was getting the money. Or what kinds of risk he and Julia were taking. There was not a trace of pity in his voice, ever. When he came down to tell us that Finland had declared a ceasefire with Russia, he might as well have been in a tavern discussing the news of the day with his friends over schnapps. Or when he banged on the door a few hours later and told us about a misunderstanding between England and Turkey over something no one could quite figure out, he might have been giving us the update on the 1936 Olympics. He had not only taken on our physical survival but also, with his jokes, news, drinks and gossip, our moral and emotional survival as well. What was remarkable to me was that his effort was without effort. This avowed anti-Semite, misanthrope and despiser of all authority was the most naturally generous human being I had yet come to meet. And it came as naturally to him as pouring his next drink or sleeping with Klara or his brother’s widow.

  Papa, Mr Melman and Mr Patrontasch, all their lives, were givers. Charity had been a way of life for them. Nobody mentioned how much they had given to support the schools, the orphanages and the hungry in Zolkiew. Or how much money they had sent to Palestine. I knew that giving was as natural to them as breathing and that they felt, down to their very bones, that a man should take care of his family. Yet here we were. In this bunker, dependent for everything on the Becks. I was still a child, but every one of us, most especially the grown-ups, had become as children. Like all of us, Papa was a portion, a tithe, of the man he once was. His clothes hung off him like they once belonged to a robust businessman and he had found them, four sizes too big, in the trash and decided to wear them anyway. We struggled to keep as clean as we could, but now with the trainmen living like kings just above us, we couldn’t even wash our clothes as often as we once used to. They were grey anyway from so many washings and now they were always soiled as well. And as much as Papa used to protest to Mama about how he didn’t care about his clothes, I knew, even though he didn’t have a vain bone in his body, that he loved the feel of a well-tailored suit jacket on his shoulders and a shirt that was starched just so. He and all the other men had made extra holes in their belts as regularly as they marked the days on Mr Patrontasch’s calendar and their clothes were cinched and bunched around their waists. Where there were once answers in my father’s eyes, now there were only questions. And Papa suffered more from the loss of dignity than he suffered from the lack of food. So much had been taken from us that there was very little of our past that was in our present.