Somewhere There Is Still a Sun

by Michael Gruenbaum

  “And why do they keep counting us over and over? If there are a hundred people in each line, how long could it take to just add up the lines? Even if there are a ton of them. Are the Nazis that stupid?”

  And just like that, an SS officer walks past, counting each one of us for the tenth time at least. “Dreiundzwanzig, vierundzwanzig, fünfundzwanzig . . .”

  An old man collapses in the line next to ours. Two other men kneel over him for a while. Then they stand back up, leaving him on the ground. A minute after that a fourth man, tall and bald, kneels down, takes the man’s jacket off and puts it on himself. A bunch of them start arguing and pointing at one another. Eventually they stop. The bald man doesn’t remove the jacket.

  * * *

  Leo is crying. He’s trying to hide it, wiping his face extremely fast every few seconds, but even though there’s barely any light in the sky at this point and we’re all pretty wet anyway, I can tell. And I think Erich is sleeping standing up, his shoulder leaning into mine.

  “Leo, c’mon,” I say, opening up the blanket.

  Erich shivers and stands up straight. “What the . . . ,” he says, maybe still dreaming.

  Leo huddles between me and Erich. Only now we can’t really close the blanket into a circle. The rain falls harder, and it’s definitely getting colder. I try not to think about food. I try counting again, but I keep forgetting what number I’m on. So I let myself think about dumplings, trying to remember exactly what they taste like.

  But I can’t concentrate on that, either, because Leo is still crying. And maybe Erich now too.

  * * *

  Our line starts moving, and even though I can’t feel my feet, soon I’m marching, or at least trudging slowly. Finally we’re heading back. At least I hope we are.

  We reach a small ridge and begin walking up it. As we get to the top, I close my eyes for a couple of seconds, open them, and quickly look around. Before my eyes adjust I’m able to make out huge crowds of people, reaching past where I can see, in every direction.

  * * *

  We must be close to Terezin by now, though it’s hard to tell since it’s nearly pitch-black out. I can’t believe I actually want to get back there, but I definitely do. Especially after I tripped over and fell onto a body at the edge of the meadow. A body that didn’t respond in the slightest to my knee crashing hard right into its back.

  “Hey,” Jiri says, tapping on my shoulder from behind, “Franta says there were three hundred and fifty-eight lines.”

  I don’t answer, just wrap the damp blanket around me a little tighter and keep walking.

  * * *

  As soon as we get back to our room, we peel off our soaking-wet clothes and lay them on the clotheslines running between the beds or just spread them flat on the floor, even though that won’t do a thing. Then we put on whatever dry clothes we didn’t wear today.

  “Into bed,” Franta says, his voice not even sounding like his.

  “I’m starving,” Koko says.

  “We’re all starving,” Franta says sharply, causing Koko’s face to tighten up. “I’m sorry, Koko. Please go to sleep. We’ll all eat in the morning. I promise.”

  No one says another thing. A few minutes later the lights go out. I’m in a weird position in bed, my arm twisted under my body, but I don’t have the strength to move.

  * * *

  “Up! Get up!” Franta is screaming. “Get up!” The light is back on; it’s still night. I shut my eyes and see the meadow again. Part of me starts wondering if all that actually happened, but somehow when Franta says, “There’s a fire in L414! Hurry, we must help bring water!” I know it did.

  I fall out of bed, grab some pants, put on my shoes, walk around the wet clothes lying everywhere, and hurry after Franta, who is running down the hall. My limbs ache, and my throat feels like it couldn’t possibly be mine. Right as we reach the door to our building, Jacob, another madrich, comes inside.

  “It’s out,” he says.

  “You sure?” Franta asks, panting.

  “Yes,” he says, removing his glasses and running his fingers through his thinning hair. “Go back to bed.” Soon he’s gone, as are the other half dozen boys who got down here before Jacob showed up. But for some reason Franta and I just stand there, not moving an inch.

  Franta rubs his hands together, lowers his head, and closes his eyes.

  “Why did they do that to us today?” I ask. Franta opens his eyes and starts walking toward our room. “Why?” I ask again.

  “I don’t know, Misha,” he says. “I simply don’t know.” But then he stops walking, right there in the middle of the hallway.

  I think I hear him take a couple of deep breaths, and then he turns to me, almost smiling, and says, “But you know what, Misha? Tomorrow’s another day. And something tells me it will be a lot better than this one.”

  A minute later I’m back in bed, but unlike before I don’t feel sleep getting any closer. My feet are still cold, the feel of that body under me at the edge of the meadow is still in my hands. I could really use that blanket right now, but I’m sure it’s still sopping wet. So I turn over toward Jiri, who’s already fast asleep.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, I’m still awake. In fact, I might need to pee. So I get out of bed and walk carefully toward the bathroom, trying to avoid the wet clothes everywhere.

  Franta’s bed is empty. Weird.

  And what’s that noise? Sounds like it’s coming from the bathroom. Is it people talking? It’s definitely coming from the bathroom, whatever it is.

  I stop just outside the entrance to the bathroom, which isn’t a door, just an open doorway and a sharp left turn. A bent rectangle of pretty faint light marks the entrance. The noise actually isn’t very loud, but it echoes off the walls. Someone having trouble breathing.

  I take a couple of soft steps and pass the very edge of the doorway. Two quick breaths and a sniffle that turns into a snort. I slowly twist my head to look.

  Franta is sitting on the ground, his back pressed against the wall and his head down. I can make him out pretty well, because some pale yellow light, coming through a window I can’t see, is landing right on him. His broad shoulders shake for a few seconds and then stop. He slowly raises his head and the light reflects off all this wetness on his cheeks.

  “What . . .” I think he says, but he says it so quietly. I lean in just a bit more and hold my breath. “What . . .” He says it again, I’m sure this time, but then he stops, maybe because of his crying and sniffling. I really need to breathe, but something tells me he’s not done talking yet, even though I don’t understand why he’s talking, since he’s all by himself. I grab the doorframe and lean in a bit more. He slowly shakes his head back and forth. “What about tomorrow?” he says. Then he uses the back of his left hand to wipe his face, which only changes the reflection.

  I stand up straight, turn around, take a long, deep breath, and head back to bed.

  On my way there I stop at the tiny furnace by the door. The thing is supposed to heat our room, but it couldn’t heat a space a tenth this size. Still, Franta let me put the blanket on the part of floor closest to it. I lean down and grab the corner by the furnace. The very tip of it is actually dry.

  Without thinking about it, I get all the way down on my hands and my knees and bring my nose to the dry part. I breathe in and out a few times before figuring out what it is I’m smelling. Not Holesovice. Just that meadow, cold and wet.

  December 17, 1943

  “WELL,” DR. LAMM SAYS, “THE RASH is finally gone and you’re still peeling.” He lifts my arm up and rubs the skin near my armpit. A tiny shower of flaky skin falls to the floor. I put my arm down quickly, not wanting any of the other thirty kids here to see, but no one even seems to notice. “That’s a good sign.”

  “Can I go then?” I ask, wishing that they’d at least let me get back into bed. This cement floor feels like rough ice.

  He doesn’t answer, just puts his cold hand
up by my throat and presses, which hurts a little. “Greta,” he says to the short nurse, “feel this.” So she puts her hand, much warmer than his, in the same spot.

  “Still swollen,” she says.

  “So I can’t?” I ask. But he ignores me. For some reason he’s not very friendly today, like it’s my fault I got scarlet fever in the first place.

  “Stick out your tongue, Misha.” I do as he says. “Hmm. What was his temperature this morning?”

  Greta looks at the small pad of paper she carries around everywhere. “Uh . . . one hundred point two. Down from yesterday.” He looks over at the pad and nods his head.

  “Okay,” he says, “back into bed with you.” I cover myself up with the itchy blanket and touch my throat, wondering what they were checking for there. “Once your temperature gets below ninety-nine, you may return to your room. And that might be as soon as Sunday.”

  “Two more days?” I ask, and punch the mushy mattress. “C’mon, I’ve been here eleven days already.”

  But Dr. Lamm is already at the next bed, where some Dutch girl I can’t even talk to has been for the last few days. She’s asleep, so Dr. Lamm and Greta just stand at the foot of her bed, talking quietly. I have a hunch they’re not talking about her, because I keep hearing them mention other people’s names. Greta shakes her head and stares at the floor. There’s something about the expression on her face I really don’t like, so I look out the window on the other side of my bed, even though there’s nothing to see out there, just the gray barracks and the tips of a couple of naked trees.

  I’m so bored I pick up the pad of paper Mother brought me earlier in the week, even though the only thing I’ve done with it is write her one letter. The pen I used barely worked at all, so I had to press extra hard. If I hold the pad up to the light just right, I can still read what I wrote on the page that used to be under the one I actually wrote on:

  Dear Mother:

  There is a doctor here who once sent me to have my appendix taken out (when I was three I think). There is also a nurse here whose name is Schultz and who knows you. I ate up all the bread, but I can’t make toast here. I am very hungry. The doctor says I’m peeling. What did he tell you? Why doesn’t anyone from Room 7 write to me? Leo Lowy says to send regards to Honza Deutsch. What’s new with Jiri, Kikina, and Felix? Maybe they can all come with you and Marietta next time you visit. I can’t wait to see you.

  Misha

  “I’m so bored,” I tell Greta about an hour later with the thermometer in my mouth. “Why can’t I go back to my room?”

  Greta doesn’t say anything. She reaches out and removes the thermometer. “One hundred point one,” she says to herself and jots it down in her pad.

  “I’m serious,” I say.

  She looks at me like she had forgotten I was here. “Why don’t you read your memory book?”

  “Again?”

  “And why not?”

  “Because I’ve only had it for a couple of days, and I’ve already memorized the whole thing.”

  “Well,” she says, sticking her pen behind her ear, “if my friends bothered to make me something like that, something to remember them by . . .” She blinks quickly a few times.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’d cherish it.” She swallows and smiles a weird, fake smile. “I would.” She bends over and picks the notebook up from the floor under my bed. “ ‘Memory Book of Michael Gruenbaum,’ ” she reads aloud, admiring the cover, “ ‘Terezin, December 1943.’ They thought of you while you were gone. That boy, what’s his name?”

  “Jiri,” I say, annoyed, taking the thing from her.

  “He even delivered it himself. Such a sweet boy.”

  After she leaves to talk with some younger boy a few beds from me who keeps moaning, I start leafing through the book again. In small, tight letters:

  When you open this memory book one day and reminisce about the time we spent in Terezin, think of me too. Your friend Robin Herz.

  In tall, slanting letters:

  It is easy to write in a memory book when we live together, but will you still remember me when we’re apart? In memory, your pal, Felix Gotzlinger.

  Near the end, in tiny, block letters:

  You know what this means, nobody else has to know, and you’ll definitely remember, even when you’re sitting in Prague again. To my close friend, in memory, Hanus Pick.

  And a drawing of a soccer ball. I’ll have to ask him what he’s talking about, because I actually have no idea. I close the book and my eyes, then open it to a random page. In thin, curving letters below the drawing of an eagle:

  Someday we’ll be back home in Prague, talking about the Nesharim and all our victories. And we’ll still be best friends then, right? In memory, your pal, Jiri Roth.

  I set the book down on my lap and stare out the window. It was pretty nice for him to deliver it. And the funny thing is they must have started putting it together before I asked Mother why none of the Nesharim were writing to me, because Jiri brought it by only a couple of hours after someone delivered my letter to her.

  I guess I’m not that much better yet, because I slept for half the morning but still feel like I need to rest again.

  * * *

  Some time later—I must have been sleeping—some other woman walks in and hugs Greta. They talk for a while by the door. Then they hug again. Both are crying. The woman leaves and Greta sits down on a chair, wiping her face with the bottom of her palm. When she gets up and walks toward my bed, I pretend I’m asleep.

  * * *

  Tap . . . tap . . . tap.

  Was I asleep again? And where’s that noise coming from?

  Tap . . . tap.

  The window. I let the memory book drop from my chest onto the floor. Then I get up and walk over to the window. Tap, louder this time. A small stone, a pebble probably, knocking against the window.

  I look out. Jiri’s down below. Three stories below. He waves. So I wave back. He says something, or at least I think he does, because I can see his mouth open, and his breath comes out like a little cloud. But I can’t hear what he says. I hold my hands up to my side and shake my head back and forth. He does this thing with his arms, almost like he’s running in place, his fists making circles by his sides. I shrug my shoulders. He points to his right, then at himself, then out to the right again. Then he does that thing with his arms again and smiles, though it doesn’t look like a very happy smile. I wave and rest my hand against the window, which is freezing.

  He stands there for a while, just staring up at me. Then he waves, turns around, and walks away.

  I stay at the window until he disappears around the corner of the building. Still trying to figure out what that was all about, I get back in bed. Suddenly I realize he was wearing a backpack over one of his shoulders. I jump out of bed and run to the door. I’m about halfway there when Greta grabs my arm.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Let me go!” I shout, and try tearing her hand away, which is much stronger than makes any sense.

  “Misha, stop, you can’t—” But I finally rip her hand off and run out the door. But as soon as I turn left toward the stairs, I bump right into Dr. Lamm, who accidentally knocks me to the ground.

  “Misha?” he says as Greta’s footsteps get closer. I hop up and try to keep going, but four hands are too many for me to escape from.

  “Leave me alone!” I scream.

  “Calm down,” Dr. Lamm orders. Only I can’t, because I don’t want to. I feel myself thrashing back and forth, and for a split second notice a half dozen kids staring at me from the doorway. Greta puts her arms around me and hugs me so tight I can’t move at all. I want to break free, but my whole body feels so weak I’m scared it’s going to fall apart.

  “Shh . . . shh,” Greta says, rubbing my back. “It’s okay, Misha, it’s okay.” And even though I want to push her away and go find Jiri, I let her hold me like that for a while, until I can tell that the kids and even Dr. Lamm are
gone. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

  “Is there . . . ,” I start to say a while later, but I still can’t catch my breath.

  “Is there what?” Greta asks.

  “A transport,” I say to her shoulder. “There is, isn’t there?”

  “Yes,” she says into the top of my head after a long pause. “There is.”

  * * *

  It had to be Jiri’s idea to have them make me the book while I was stuck here. But I didn’t get to ask him, because when he delivered it a couple of days ago, they wouldn’t even let him past the doorway. So we just waved to each other back then, too. Still, I’m positive it was his idea.

  Someday we’ll be back home in Prague, talking about the Nesharim and all our victories. And we’ll still be best friends then, right? In memory, your pal, Jiri Roth.

  I turn the book back to the beginning, because suddenly I feel like reading through the whole thing again, from start to finish. And there on the first page, which is Koko’s page:

  As soon as times are better and we’re home, remember your pal Koko Heller.

  Below his drawing of a dog he drew a train, with smoke swirling out of the front. It’s passing a sign that says TEREZIN and is heading straight downhill toward another sign. That one says BIRKENAU, that other name for the East. It better not be so bad there, though right now it’s hard to convince myself it’s anything but.

  I close the book very carefully and stare out the window, trying to remember what those taps sounded like, wishing they’d start up again.

  May 31, 1944

  “C’MON, TOMMY, PUSH!” I SCREAM from my corner of the wagon.

  “I can’t,” he says. “It’s stuck. Look.”

  So I walk over to his end to see. The back wheel has fallen a few inches into a crack in the street.