Karolina's Twins

by Ronald H. Balson

  “‘Thank you for meeting me. Yossi tells me that you were able to learn about my family.’

  “He nodded, but solemnly. ‘I don’t know how much you know about your father. A genuine Polish patriot.’

  “‘Oh, I know. He’s a war hero. He fought very bravely.’

  “Mr. Kapinski shook his head. ‘I’m not talking about the Great War. I’m talking about right now. In the midst of this hellish occupation, there are courageous souls who put their lives on the line every day. They are the Polish resistance. They are the home guard. They are fighters, they are couriers, they are saboteurs and they are leaders. Your father was such a man.’

  “‘Was?’ I swallowed hard.

  “Mr. Kapinski closed his eyes and nodded. ‘Captain Scheinman, of blessed memory, was a leader in the resistance. With his guidance, we have caused substantial disruption to the German war effort.’

  “I swiped at the tears that were dripping like a leaky faucet. I did my best to compose myself. ‘I want to hear the rest.’

  “‘War makes strong men bold, but weak men desperate. Hunger, want, and fear easily combine to compromise a weak person’s sense of honor. Nazis are very good at sniffing out these vulnerable souls and capitalizing on their weaknesses. I’m sorry to say that such a person, a member of our inner group, betrayed your father to the Nazis. That is why they came to your home.’

  “‘And my mother, and Milosz?’

  “Again, he lowered his eyes and slowly shook his head. ‘We have known them to execute entire families for much lesser crimes.’ With that, I broke down. He put his arms around me and held me for quite a while. ‘You may stay here as long as you like. I will stay with you.’

  “‘Who’s the traitor? Who turned him in?’

  “He hesitated, then nodded. ‘You have a right to know. I believe we’ve identified him. I will tell you when I’m certain.’

  “I spent the night curled up on the synagogue pew. My grief was overwhelming. The next morning several worshippers came for minyan. It was already daylight. I rubbed my reddened eyes, looked at the prayer group and shook my head. To whom do you pray? I thought. Other than the members of your group, who the hell do you think is listening? What a waste of time and energy. I slowly left the synagogue and returned to the Shop, arriving long after my shift had started. David met me. He could tell instantly that something was wrong.

  “‘What happened to you? You look terrible.’

  “‘They killed them, David. My entire family. My father, my mother, my baby brother. All of them. The Nazis executed them in cold blood.’

  “‘Come with me.’ He hustled me upstairs to the little room that he used for his office and his bedroom.

  “‘My father was betrayed by a spy for the Nazis,’ I said. ‘The snake! The bastard! I’ll get him, David. I will have my revenge! Fucking Nazis, they will pay.’ And again, I broke down.

  “‘Shh!’ he said, wrapping his arms around me. He smoothed my hair back from my forehead and wiped the tears from my face. ‘Watch your mouth. You don’t want to be saying these things. Do you see what’s walking around downstairs? You be careful who you talk to. What makes you think you can even talk to me?’

  “I looked at him. I looked into his blue eyes. Was it possible he was also a collaborator? After all, he managed the Shop. What did he have to do to get that position? Was he also a weak link? I shook the thought from my head. No. Not David. Not possible.

  “‘I don’t care anymore,’ I said. ‘I don’t care who hears what I say. I’m going to get this traitor. I’m going to avenge my family. I swear it.’

  “He smiled at me. ‘Müller was right, you’ve got spunk. But uncontrolled rage is not your friend. Find your moment. It is not now. Wisdom, planning, plotting, finding your opportunity—those are your friends. You’ll get your chance. Your father was a great man.’

  “‘You knew him? Were you part of…?’ He stopped me with his finger on my lips.

  “‘There are many others like your father. You want to honor his memory? You’ll get your chance.’

  “‘When?’

  “‘Do not be impatient. Wait for your turn. The wind is shifting.’

  “‘How do you know that?’

  “He smiled that warm, beautiful smile of his and winked at me. ‘You can stay up here for a while until you feel better. I will cover for you in the Shop.’ He started to leave and then turned around. ‘What Mr. Kapinski said, what we we’ve talked about, I don’t need to tell you…’

  “‘I’m not stupid, David.’

  “He smiled and walked out the door. I spent the rest of the day in his room, left at dusk and returned to Yossi’s basement apartment. He expected to see a happy face, but when he looked at me, he knew the worst.

  “‘I am so very sorry for you.’ He wrapped his ancient arms around me. ‘They are beasts, they are dragons, they are gargoyles and they will soon be extinct as well. It is hard to fathom such evil.’ With some difficulty, he bent over and retrieved a tallith bag from under his mattress. ‘Come with me.’

  “‘Where are we going?’

  “‘To the synagogue. We’ll say Kaddish for your family.’”

  Lena stopped and asked Catherine, “Do you know what Kaddish is?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “It’s a prayer. It praises God and yearns for the establishment of his kingdom on earth. In the strictest sense, men are obligated to say the mourner’s Kaddish when a family member has died. Although not required of me, because I am a woman, Yossi felt that my parents and Milosz deserved the ritual and that I should join him in prayer. Given the times and our circumstances, prayers for peace and the establishment of God’s kingdom in our world was quite relevant. But I was not receptive to prayer.

  “‘Kaddish?’ I said to Yossi. My tone mocked him. ‘To whom? To the absent God?’ My voice was rising. ‘Do you think someone’s listening when you chant Kaddish? Face it, Yossi, if there’s a God, he’s long ago checked out of this hotel. Where is he when they’re torturing us? Where is God Almighty when pious people are slaughtered? Where is…’

  “‘Stop!’ he commanded. He grabbed my arms. ‘You are a Jew. They cannot take that from you. The Nazis can take away your house, they can take away your bread, they can even take your body, but they cannot take away who you are. The Nazis seek to kill us physically and spiritually. I may not be able to stop them from killing me physically, but I am in control of my spirituality. I, and I alone, will decide when to say Kaddish, when to welcome the Sabbath, when to dance on Simchat Torah. Your father, your mother and your little brother—they were all Jews. Nazi Germany, with all its might, attacked their Jewishness, but it did not win. It did not rob them of their faith. The Nazis cannot win as long as we remain Jews. Do you understand?’

  “‘I admire your strength. I admire your resolve. But I cannot share your reverence. Look what they’ve done to you, Yossi. A learned man living minute to minute on a basement floor. No food, no water. All because you are a Jew.’

  “‘And I am still a Jew. And so are you. If you will not say Kaddish, will you assist me to the synagogue and I will say it for both of us? Walk with me, please. We will sanctify the name of God at a time when such sanctification seems wholly unavailing. And that is precisely why we do it. Walk with me.’

  “I gave in to to him out of respect and helped him to his feet. I held the door and steadied him as we stepped out onto the stone walkways of the ghetto. ‘Thank you,’ I said. I looked at his kind face through watery eyes. ‘How can this be happening? Tell me, Yossi, you’re a man of God. How do we make rational sense out of any of this?’

  “‘I cannot, nor would I try. We cannot dignify such a question by trying to find a rational answer. We cannot allow that there is a sense, a reason, a rational explanation, for this nightmare. To contemplate a reason is to dishonor the victims. They were not killed for a reason, for a rational purpose. Why is there German genocide in our world? It is not a question we should ever attem
pt to answer. We should just defy it. No logic should ever be applied to explain this.’ Hand in hand we walked to synagogue.

  “The next morning I rose early, stood in the butcher’s line with my ration card and walked to work. David nodded at me as I walked in the door. As down as I was, his handsome smiling face gave me a lift.”

  * * *

  AS TIME PASSED, THE daily routines fell into place. Midmorning, we’d get a short break. The bathroom was located on the opposite side of the Shop and I’d have to dash my way quickly around the stations and through the passageways to get there and back on time. Because I was always in such a rush, I never really paid much attention to the other people working on my shift. I’d manage to wash, run some water through my hair and brush my teeth as best I could before returning to work. At lunch, we were given our portions of bread and meat. We had another break in the midafternoon and finished the shift about six P.M., unless we were assigned overtime. At night, I returned to my corner in Yossi’s basement.

  “In late spring, 1941, my world took a turn for the better. I was rushing around the Shop to get to the bathroom, this time taking a different route through the aisles, and I heard a girl whisper, ‘Lena. Lena, is that really you?’

  “I turned my head and stopped cold in my tracks. ‘Karolina!’ I said aloud. She winced. ‘Shh,’ but too late. An overseer heard us and walked over. ‘No talking!’ he snapped. He pushed me forward. ‘Keep walking. We have many coats to sew today.’

  “I couldn’t believe that I had run into Karolina, and on my shift. At the end of the day, I waited for her outside. What a reunion! I wrapped my arms around her and we bawled like babies. I had reacquired a stolen piece of my life.

  “Walking back to the ghetto, we caught up with what had happened. I told her all about the day my family was taken, about my time in the attic and about the Tarnowskis. When I told her about Milosz, her face flushed and she cried.

  “She told me that she and her mother were evicted from their home in mid-March, displaced by a Polish family, obviously the one I’d seen. They found a tiny room in a three-story walk-up toward the back of the ghetto. Both Karolina and her mother found jobs at the Shop. They had no money and pooled their wages to buy food.

  “I asked her how her mother was and she shook her head.

  “‘She faded away, Lena. But not what you think. Not from alcohol. She had stopped drinking, cold turkey. I was so proud of her. We’d walk to work together each day and come home together each night. She made a little apartment for us. When we had to leave our home, Mom and I packed our linens, our clothes, our dishes and even our candlesticks in a pushcart and brought them to the ghetto. Our living space was the size of large closet, but Mom made a nice home.

  “‘When we’d return from work, she’d make us dinner. She always told me she wasn’t hungry. She’d take a few bites and say, “Here, Karolina, you eat the rest.” I know now that she gave me her food so I would survive. She was told that strong, young women would be selected to work because the Nazis needed their labor. The ones who couldn’t work would be discarded. She knew that the elderly were useless to the Germans. “Old people will be slaughtered,” she said. My mother sacrificed herself and starved so I could live.’

  “Karolina stopped walking and looked away. I tried to comfort her while she sobbed. ‘I wish I’d been nicer to her during her life, Lena. Growing up, I was so quick to criticize her. I’d think, “Why can’t you be like Mrs. Scheinman, instead of a frail, weak woman? Lena has these wonderful parents and I have a drunk.” I always thought I was entitled to better parents. But in the end, she showed me that she was the strong one. She was solid for her daughter. And all I could do was watch her shrink and fade away. Now I live by myself in the small, unheated room that she did her best to make livable. If you don’t have a nice place, you could move in with me.’

  “‘I’d love to. I’m sleeping on the floor of a furnace room, but I’m helping this sweet old man, Yossi. I don’t think he weighs a hundred pounds. Just like your mother, he’s shrinking away. He can hardly walk. I bring him food. I bring him drinks. I make sure he’s covered with his blanket at night. If I move out, I’m afraid he’ll die. I’m sorry.’

  “‘I’m sorry too, Lena, for my mother and for your family, which I always thought of as my family. I’m sorry for little Milosz. And I’m sorry for the Polish people, because we’re all disposable. We exist as long as the Germans have a use for us. Use them up and throw them away like an empty jelly jar. You and I, we’re alive because we can sew. Pray that the German army always needs coats. Even so, the Germans are breaking us down, piece by piece, and there’s very little left. We’ll be gone soon as well.’

  “‘Maybe not. I’ve heard that partisan groups are forming and that other countries are fighting the Germans.’

  “She smiled. ‘Lena Scheinman, always the hopeful one. Always full of sunshine. You’re lucky. Your hopes can get you through the night. It’s more than I’ve got.’

  “‘Well, now you have me,’ I said with a hug. ‘And I have you. We’ll live for each other.’”

  Catherine closed her notebook and they called it a day.

  ELEVEN

  “CAT,” GLADYS SAID THROUGH Catherine’s open office door, “there’s a bunch of people here for your meeting this morning. Shall I tell them to have a seat in the reception area or put them in the conference room?”

  Liam, sitting in a chair beside Catherine’s desk, said, “What’s a bunch, Gladys?”

  “Four. There’s a Mr. Shirley, a Miss Cooper, a Mr. Woodward and another mean-looking guy who didn’t give me his name.”

  “All right. Tell them I’ll be right out.” She turned to Liam. “I thought this was just a meeting between us and Mr. Shirley.”

  “So did I. I suppose it’s predictable that he brings an associate from his office, but he didn’t say anything about bringing his client and a mean-looking guy.”

  Catherine stood. “It’s just a power play. Let’s see what they propose.” They walked into the reception area, where the four stood waiting.

  A short, mostly bald man in a dark blue suit, white shirt and red tie, with a black leather attaché in his left hand, stepped forward. “Good morning, Ms. Lockhart. I’m Mike Shirley.” He had a broad smile, spoke with a tinge of a Southern accent and extended his right hand. “Susan Cooper is my associate, and may I introduce Mr. Arthur Woodward.”

  Catherine took his hand. “Good morning, nice to meet you all.” Gesturing to her side, she said, “This is Liam Taggart.” And then, pointing at the large man in the corner, “May I know who the third gentleman is?”

  “Of course. That’s Mr. Scarpini, Mr. Woodward’s personal assistant.”

  “As I remember our phone conversation,” Liam said in an annoyed tone, “you wanted to set a meeting with Catherine and me. You didn’t say anything about clients or personal assistants.”

  Catherine added, “We obviously don’t have Mrs. Woodward here, nor would I think it appropriate to do so before I evaluate the justification for this meeting.”

  “I’ll tell you what the justification is, Miss Smart-mouthed Lawyer,” snapped Arthur. “You’re ripping off a vulnerable, senile old woman. But in this case, you picked the wrong woman, because she happens to be my mother. So you want to know why it’s appropriate? It’s because I say so. And if we don’t have this meeting, and you don’t adhere to my demands, my lawyers will file a lawsuit so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

  Catherine just nodded. “Mr. Shirley, why don’t you just turn around and head out the door. And take the rest of this group with you. Good-bye.”

  Shirley’s smile never left his face. “Let’s all calm down. Arthur, I think you should back off a little bit. You’re coming on a little too strong. Let’s not all quibble before we’ve had a chance to sit down and say our piece.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Arthur said.

  Liam walked to the front of the room and held the front door open. �
�You heard Ms. Lockhart. Good-bye, folks.”

  “Nope,” Arthur said. Scarpini moved in front of Arthur, opening and clenching his fists.

  “One more step and I’ll break you in half,” Liam said. “Now get out of here.”

  Shirley held up his hands. “Now, now, you see, we’ve all gotten off on the wrong foot. Arthur, why don’t you and Rico go wait outside and let me have a few words with Ms. Lockhart—that is, if Ms. Lockhart will permit me.”

  Catherine nodded. Arthur and Rico walked through the open door. As Arthur passed Liam, he said, “Head spin.”

  Liam smiled. “Well, Arthur, I don’t know too much about head-spinning, but I think you’re going to find out that Ms. Lockhart’s really good at ass-kickin’.” He closed the door after they left.

  Liam, Catherine, Shirley and Ms. Cooper gathered in the conference room. “I apologize for Mr. Woodward’s unseemly outburst,” Shirley said. “He’s very protective of his mother. She’s a survivor, you know.”

  “I know.”

  Shirley continued, “May I ask what the nature of your relationship is with Mrs. Woodward?”

  “Attorney-client.” Catherine sat calmly and reticently, with her hands folded on the table in front of her.

  “Has she formally engaged you and paid you a retainer?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Well, it may very well be. You see, I have a general power of attorney in favor of Mr. Arthur Woodward.”

  “May I see it, please?” Catherine said. Ms. Cooper pulled a document out of her briefcase and slid it across the table. Catherine read it and slid it back.

  “It expired two years ago,” Catherine said. “And from its terms, it was prepared in order for Lena to consent to the sale of her husband’s business after he died. It has no application here.”

  “Very astute,” Shirley remarked. “Except my client says he has an updated copy. I just haven’t seen it yet.”

  “Do you have anything else to say today?” Catherine asked. “Otherwise our meeting is over.”