She brightens slightly and nods.
Mama looks at me, frowning.
“She can’t go,” Mama says. “You know that. Only when necessary. Nothing that draws attention.”
Leah has come with us in recent days to line up for soup and to go to the washrooms, though she can only go outside for these reasons, and she must link arms with one of us to better disguise her impairment. With so many more arriving in the ghetto each day, she is one of many young children now. Mama keeps her hair very short, paranoid that others, whose children were deported, will recognize her and try and hurt her for being allowed to stay. For me, it is a relief that Mama and I no longer have to share our soup with Leah, and we no longer have to dispose of her waste. Rada has not coped well with that situation either.
“Then I will get some water and we will do it here,” I say, and Mama looks between us both, helplessly, as if there is so little she can offer either of us.
I wish I didn’t cause Mama more worry and pain. She has been through so much. I will talk to Simon. I will tell him that my family needs me and that, after tonight, I must spend more time at home. He will understand.
We meet at Andre’s and wait in the dark till midnight. It is drizzling with rain, and my legs are covered by stockings that do not keep out the cold. I pull my scarf tightly around my neck.
Simon touches my gloved hand. He has seen my worry. “Don’t be scared,” he says, steam gushing from his mouth. “All you have to do is keep watch for any guards while the others cut the fence and then repair it again once we have successfully smuggled them from the ghetto. Have you brought the medicine?”
I pull out the bottle from my pocket.
“Good!” he says.
“Just a spoonful . . . my sister needs it, also.”
“Yes, of course. But it would be good if you could bring some more next time.”
Simon says that the medicine will help save the life of one of the orphans. Lilli has been supplying medicine for Leah, who is prone to catching a chill. I feel certain that Lilli can get more.
We are planning to smuggle the people out of the ghetto through a fence behind the uniform factory where I work. I have seen the access to the world outside that can be reached from the loading dock at the back of the building. Simon had asked me to describe the rear of the property near the fence and describe any lighting. During a toilet break, I had managed to exit the rear door to view the area to study. I drew him a map, and he has been examining it for days. The loading dock is in a private courtyard. He has told his contacts on the outside to meet us at this point, where we will cut the wire fence behind an outhouse and pass the people through.
We walk along the street, blending into the dark. There is no moon, which is why Simon has chosen tonight for this mission. In the street across from the factory, we watch and wait until the guards have walked past the area; then we cross and reach up to the factory window, the one I unlatched before I left work earlier in the day. We climb through, passing the children in one by one, including the baby. Once we are all inside, we scurry toward the back of the room, which is filled with sewing machines.
Paulus opens the rear door, and we step out into a small enclosure that leads to the perimeter of the ghetto. We cannot be seen. We are totally hidden from the eyes of the guards. I show Simon the area of fence that is never seen, behind the outhouse.
We sit and wait in silence for many minutes for our cohorts on the outside to arrive.
“Where are they?” asks Simon. “They said twelve thirty.”
Andre checks his pocket watch. “It is just after,” he says. “They can’t be far now.”
“Maybe they have been and gone,” says Paulus.
“No. They would wait in the shadows. I know them,” says Andre.
“Are you sure they got the message?” says Simon to Andre.
“I gave it to Suri to give to them. She has never let me down. Elsi, go through the building. See if it is still safe—that we haven’t been followed.”
I enter the building and head toward the front of the building. There is some lamplight filtering through the front windows of the building, but I know this place well. I can find my way in the dark. As I reach the large sewing room, a flashlight is shone in my face.
“Stop! What are you doing there?”
I turn, squinting and blinded, to face the light. I resist looking behind me to check that the others are out of sight, which could give them away and destroy the operation.
“It is you!”
I put my hand up to block out some of the light. I cannot see the speaker’s face, but it is someone who has recognized me. When he is closer, I realize that he is the soldier with the scar along his jawline, the same one who said I resembled his sister. The guards must have keys to the buildings.
“What are you doing here?”
He checks behind me to see if there are others, then points the flashlight upward; the light bounces off the ceiling, making it easier for us to see each other. My hands are in my pockets. I can feel the medicine bottle.
“I work here.”
“It is an offense to be out at night.”
He looks very young in this light, and his voice is a lot softer now that he does not have other soldiers around.
“Why are you here after curfew?”
I pull the medicine from my pocket. He shines the flashlight on it, then points it back at my face.
“Earlier today I collected my sister’s medicine from the medical center, but it wasn’t until I was at home this evening that I remembered I had left it here beside my sewing machine. I couldn’t wait till morning. My sister needs it tonight.”
“How did you get in?”
“Through a window with a broken latch.”
My legs are shaking again, but I maintain control. I know that Simon and the others will hear us talking.
“Where is your card?”
I pull out my identity card from my other pocket.
“Elsi,” he reads, then studies my picture on the card.
“All right then,” he says, inspecting me in person now. “Your hair has grown a little but not much. It still looks odd.”
“Yes,” I say. “It’s terrible.”
He laughs softly. “It’s not so bad. I will escort you back to your apartment. Other soldiers may not be so tolerant. You are lucky it was me who came. Come, Elsi! I will take you home before your sister starts to worry.”
He points the light toward the front of the building, and I breathe a sigh of relief. At least the others are safe now. Even safer than before, now that one of the guards will be distracted.
There is a thud beside me, a groan and gush of air, and the soldier falls on the ground, his flashlight rolling across the floor. Then there is another thud, and another. I rush forward to pick up the flashlight to see what is happening. Simon and Andre each have pieces of steel, and they are beating the soldier with them. His helmet has rolled off, and his head has become a pulped and bloody mess.
“Stop!” I yell.
“Shut up!” says Simon. “You will alert more guards.”
I back away slightly. I turn the flashlight away until Paulus grabs it from me. I cannot look.
“I could have taken him away,” I say. “You would have been safe.”
“He may have checked the window and seen that the latch isn’t broken, that you lied,” says Andre. “He may have seen that it was deliberately unlocked.”
Or else that is just an excuse to kill him.
Simon tears the watch from the dead man’s wrist. The fugitives are still waiting outside. They have not had to see this.
“We can bargain with this on the black market,” says Simon. “Look and see if he has money.”
The others scrounge through the soldier’s coat, and I feel suddenly sick. Simon shines a flashlight on my face.
“What is wrong, Elsi? You look like you have seen a ghost. This is what happens in war. It is either them or us! Do you not want to save your own?”
“I have never murdered anyone.”
“Your conscience is clear. This is survival, not murder. Here there are no rules of crime. Your German soldier would know all about that.”
The men wrap his body in his coat and use his trousers to mop up the blood on the floor. They carry his body outside and bury him in the earth. Simon puts the watch on his own wrist. It is nearly one o’clock. His contact didn’t come.
“We must go,” says Simon, and we all climb back out the window. The family and children will be taken back to the hole in the side of the building.
“Be careful,” says Paulus to me. Simon is out of sight. “Stay close against the wall.”
I let myself into the apartment and ease myself quietly into bed. Mama doesn’t move to question me, so I believe she is asleep with Leah beside her. From her loud snores, Rada is also asleep, but Yuri is awake.
He lights a small oil lamp that he bought at the market with one of his gold cuff links.
“Are you all right, Elsi?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t look well.”
He gets up and passes me a bowl. “We saved it for you.”
I take a sip of the broth, but I can’t swallow. I am thinking of the soldier.
“Get some sleep,” he says. “It looks like you need it.”
He has kind eyes, and his gentle concern makes me start to cry. He sits on the bed and holds me, rocking me slightly. I have wanted Mama to do that for so long, but she has been too tense, too distracted.
“Yuri,” I whisper tearfully, “I do not believe that anything I try to do amounts to any good.”
“Elsi, everything I have seen you do is done with good intentions. But in these hard times, good intentions can only go so far and are rarely carried forward by the next person. Whatever it is that has caused you to doubt yourself tonight will be judged by God only. Remember that always. These are impossible circumstances we live in.”
That is what I am worried about. That God might see this differently.
It is morning, and Mama comes to my bed. I am shivering, and my head aches. One blanket is not enough, and Mama says she will find some more wood to burn, that I must not go to work today.
“Oh, my poor darling.” She wraps me in blankets and tries to feed me the rest of the cold broth. I push her hand away, and she kisses my forehead. Her lips feel cold against my skin.
“I will see if I can get something for your fever.”
Simon comes to our apartment the next day. Yuri is pretending not to watch us, while Rada watches us closely.
“I’m sorry that you’re not feeling well,” says Simon, and then he leans his head in to whisper. It seems that Suri, another group member, did pass on the message, but they have since learned that one of their contacts on the other side of the wire had to leave the city suddenly. Suri thinks they may have to delay the operation for a while, that perhaps their contacts on the outside are now being watched. They don’t know for certain.
“We will get another message to our friends outside, and try again in a few days.”
He says that the family will hide in someone else’s apartment for now. The orphans must go back to the streets and fend for themselves because Simon doesn’t think he has enough food for all the fugitives.
“What will happen to them?”
“They must go back to begging and risk being caught and placed in the new children’s prison, where they will eventually die of hard work or disease. Or they will be scooped up by the Gestapo and taken out of the ghetto to the camps. That is why we must continue with this cause. That is why we cannot stop the fight against this cruelty.”
He whispers that he is sorry for what happened and tells me that I am very pale. I smile weakly. It is good to see him, even though he is a reminder that we have done something wrong: we have committed a murder.
“I know that you feel bad about the soldier. But remember what they have done to so many of us.”
“I know,” I say. “But it is a life we have stolen from someone else’s family. I do not think the soldier was as bad as some . . .”
Simon sits up suddenly and releases my hand. His expression suggests that he is offended by this comment. “You will change. I am surprised you haven’t already. You have been here even longer than me.”
Mama is home before Simon leaves. He is suddenly in a rush to go.
“He is afraid to look me in the eyes,” says Mama after he leaves. “What is he hiding?” She has had a good day at work and has brought home more food coupons and wood and an aspirin for my head that her supervisor has given her.
Mama reports that she has heard of a break-in at the factory where I work. She said blood was found on the floor, and the owner’s dog has found a body of a soldier that went missing on guard duty the night before.
“He was beaten viciously to death, his money stolen. It looks like someone broke in to try and rob the place and was caught in the act. Guards are knocking on everyone’s doors.”
I feel a stabbing in my chest, and my temples throb.
“Are you all right, Elsi?” asks Mama. “You look very ill.”
She gets me some water, and I swallow the aspirin.
“We might have to take you to the hospital.”
“No,” I say. “I will be fine.” I force a smile so she will move away, so she will stop examining me, in case she can see my guilt. She returns to the kitchen.
“What has happened to the medicine I had in the cupboard? It is gone.”
I remember that it is still in my coat.
“You mean this?” says Leah, holding the bottle.
“Where was it?”
“On the floor under Elsi’s bed.”
Mama looks at Rada, who has not been feeling well lately. Suspicion always falls on Rada whenever something goes missing.
The knock at the door comes after curfew. It is a member of the Judenrat, asking if anyone left the apartment the night before and if we have any information on what took place at the uniform factory. They are questioning everyone in the ghetto. Before Mama can lie for me, Yuri says that we were all there together. He sits on my bed, protectively. Perhaps he has sensed that I am shaking.
The official is a boy I used to know before the war. He was a few grades ahead of me at school. He asks about Papa and says that he is sorry my father isn’t here.
“Did you know that Germany has nearly taken Stalingrad, and Russia will be wiped off the map in a matter of months? Russians are lining up now to join the German Army.”
I cannot tell him that I have heard otherwise. Simon has heard that the war is not going well for Germany. The Germans had expected to have taken Russia by now, but the word is that Stalingrad refuses to fall, and its people will fight to the end, taking all the Germans they can with them. Russians are streaming through any cracks in battle, and they come back in greater numbers after each one. The British are steadfast. The Americans have an endless supply of weapons.
Simon also told me, “Though Mussolini is a sycophant, and has sworn allegiance to Hitler, he is not as keen as some on the idea of giving up his Jews as quickly as Hitler wants. Mussolini has also taken a beating from the Allies.”
The boy from the Judenrat says that more deportations are imminent because too many people are coming to the ghetto.
“They have heard how good it is,” says Yuri under his breath so only I can hear. I sneak a look at the old man, whose gaze does not waver against the official’s. Yuri breathes fresh air into our suffocating apartment. Rada is watching me suspiciously as always, with those black eyes that are recessed deeply into her forehead.
When they are gone, Mama comes to my side.
“Elsi, do you know anything about the break-in? Did you see anything last night?”
I look at her while I think of how to answer, pausing perhaps a little too long.
She looks away, nodding her head. It is not a time for us to talk, though I long to tell her everything. To release
the crime from inside my head. To say how sorry I am that this has happened. But I cannot burden her.
The next day Rada is out, and Mama is not scheduled for work.
“Do you remember your grandmother’s house by the river?” says Mama. “I dream of that place. I dream that we are sipping coffee on the grass near the river reeds. I dream of the simple things, like helping my mama bake bread, feeding the horses and the hens, mending socks in the sunlight, and smelling the fresh scent of spruce from the hills. Sometimes I close my eyes and picture my mama’s smile and the knowing look in her eyes as I tell her something, as if she already knows what I am about to say.”
Mama turns to me, and her expression is more serene than I have seen in weeks. Memories are the places many seek to live. It is where people, like Mama, are happiest.
“You are so like your grandmother, Elsi,” Mama continues. “You have her spirit. I remember when you were small, you swam out across the river, and when you got to the middle, you ran out of strokes and your father had to come and rescue you. You cried and stamped your feet once you were dragged from the water and said that Papa should have left you alone—that you would have made it all the way across. The next day you swam out again, and you made it all the way across, just as you said you would. Don’t lose your ability to fight, Elsi. Even if it is for just one more day, it is worth it. I wish I had the fire that you have within you. But I can see it dimming. Don’t ever let the fire go out, my darling.”
She looks at me, her narrow face thinner than ever. I cannot let her down. I have to be strong.
“Mama, I will be fine. We will be fine. Don’t worry so much.”
She squeezes my hand, and I lean forward to hug her tightly.
Later that day I am feeling better, and by nightfall, I have made a decision to keep helping Simon.
CHAPTER TWENTY
MATILDA
My buttocks and the backs of my legs are still sore, and it is difficult to sit down. I lie on my stomach for most of the day. My underwear sticks to my skin. Sometimes when I twist, I can feel the scabs tear from the wounds. All I want to do is sleep, where I do not feel. Sometimes when the older girls walk past my window, they look in through the flap, and I expect them to say something mean. I imagine they will say things like “Grimy little Gypsy” or “How is your kennel today?” but they don’t. They don’t say anything. All is quiet most days, except for the sleet that patters on the roof.
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