The Locket

by Evans, Mike

  He looked over at me. “Are you sure you want to do this?” “Yes. I must.”

  Then he knelt by the open hole and pointed to small indentations in the concrete walls of the shaft that led down into the darkness below. “These are places for your hands and feet. Grip the edges of the hole, lower yourself down, and put your feet in them. Then work your way to the bottom.”

  “How far is it?” “About six feet.”

  “Does it smell like this all the time?”

  “It’s not so bad once you get inside. Go on,” he urged. “I’ll be right behind you but we must move quickly before the guards see us.”

  “There are guards?”

  “They patrol along the walls with the dogs. Hurry up.”

  I did as he said and worked my way down the access shaft. When I was a few feet below the surface, he started down after me. Before I reached the bottom, he slid the cover over the manhole and plunged us into darkness. “Keep going,” he urged. “There’s light when you get to the bottom.” My arms shook from fatigue as I struggled to keep from falling, but I forced myself to continue, carefully placing my feet in the holes beneath me as I gripped tightly with both hands.

  In a moment I dropped from the access shaft into a pipe about five feet tall. About fifty meters away, the pipe opened into a canal. Light from the opening streamed into the pipe and I could see water draining down the center of it in a continuous stream. Then something touched my foot. “Oh!” I squealed and stumbled backward.

  Tomer dropped from the ladder beside me. “Be quiet! The soldiers can hear you.”

  “I felt something on my ankle.” “Rats,” he said flatly.

  “Rats?”

  He pointed to the opposite side of the pipe. “Look over there.”

  I focused my eyes on the water line against the pipe and in the reflection from the surface I saw them—rats twice as big as my hand— working like a swarm of insects. A shudder ran over my body. “I didn’t know we had rats.”

  “We don’t have rats in the buildings,” he replied. “Just here.”

  “Why aren’t there any in the buildings?” He turned to me and even in the poor light of the sewer pipe I saw the knowing look in his eye. Then the answer came to me. “We eat them?” I asked timidly.

  “As often as we can find them.”

  Thankfully, most of the rats were on the other side and there was room along our side to walk without getting our feet wet. When we emerged at the canal, Tomer lifted me up to dry ground, then led the way as we moved along the bank. We walked quickly, doing our best to hurry without making any noise. The wall along the back of the ghetto had no towers, but guards patrolled it regularly on foot. It seemed odd to be out there in such an open location and I wondered how we would ever get across the canal without being seen.

  A few minutes later I glanced up to see that he was leading me toward a bridge about twenty meters away. We reached it without being discovered and inched around the base of the buttress to a steel ladder that was bolted into place. “What are we doing?” I asked, unable to contain myself any longer.

  “We’re going across,” he insisted. “Across where?”

  “Across the bridge.”

  “We’re walking across the bridge?”

  “Not on top of it.” He pointed over his head. “Beneath it.” “How?”

  “I’ll show you,” Tomer started up the ladder.

  Overhead were steel girders that supported the bridge. Bolted together with cross pieces, they formed an angular structure that stretched across the canal to the opposite side. I didn’t like the idea of crossing that way but I had no choice. We were outside the ghetto and if we were caught, we would be shot.

  When Tomer reached the top of the ladder, he climbed onto the bridge structure and gestured impatiently for me to follow. I took a deep breath and began working my way up, gripping the cold metal rungs tightly and hoping I didn’t fall. At the top, he helped me up from the last rung to the ledge and we stood on one of the beams. Then with careful steps, we made our way over to the opposite side.

  Unlike the section of the city where we were forced to live, this area was clean and neat. People stared at us but I ignored them and pressed on, determined to find Adolf and learn what I could about what happened to Stephan.

  Finally we reached a corner not far from the river. We paused there and Tomer pointed to a building down the street to the left. “That is the German headquarters.”

  “It looks like a hotel.”

  “It was until the German Army arrived.” Three guards stood near the front entrance and I could see soldiers moving in and out of the building. Tomer glanced at me. “Are you sure you want to try this?”

  “Wait here,” I said.

  Tomer grabbed my arm to stop me. “You can’t just walk up to the front door.”

  I pulled my arm free of his grasp. “Well, I’ll just have to figure it out as I go.” Without waiting for a response I walked up the street toward the hotel.

  As I neared the main entrance, all three guards turned in my direction. Two of them took halting steps toward me. I realized Tomer was right. It was highly unlikely I could get past them. But just as the plan seemed to fall apart even before it really began, I caught sight of an alley that led off to the right. I turned into it and soon came around to a service entrance in back of the building. The delivery door was open and I walked inside, doing my best to act as if I belonged there.

  The doorway led to a wide hall, the far end of which opened into an area near the front lobby. As I came from the hallway, a group of soldiers passed by. In the midst of them was Adolf Eichmann. He was talking and laughing until his eyes met mine, then he came to an abrupt halt. My knees shook and my heart raced as the others in his group continued on while he turned aside and came toward me. He had a look of surprise. “Sarah?” He glanced around as if checking to see whether anyone else noticed me. “How did you get in here?”

  I refused to be drawn into his conversation. “Where is Stephan?” I asked flatly.

  “Stephan?” For an instant, something flickered in his eyes—the same look I’d seen before when he saw me with Stephan at the coffee shop and a few nights earlier when he saw us together on the street. I knew he had taken Stephan—my only worry was what he did with him. Adolf quickly pushed aside his initial reaction and appeared puzzled. “I don’t think I know anyone with…” Then his eyes lit up. “Oh. Your friend.” He took me by the arm. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything about him. Why do you ask?”

  “He’s missing.”

  Adolf ushered me toward an elevator. “Let’s go up to my office and see what we can find.” I was fearful of what might happen if I went with him, but I had no choice. We rode to the fifth floor in silence and when the elevator door opened Adolf ushered me down the hall to the left. A few paces from the elevator we came to a door that opened into a hotel suite he had converted into an office. A desk sat opposite the door in front of a window along the far wall. It was cluttered with papers and files. Three men stood nearby, all of them dressed in the gray uniform of German soldiers. They looked startled to see me but said nothing.

  Adolf made his way behind the desk and gestured to a chair that sat to the side of it. “Have a seat.” Then he looked over at one of the men in the room. “Bring us some cheese and cakes with some wine.” The man disappeared while Adolf shuffled through the papers on his desk.

  In a few minutes, the soldier returned carrying a tray of cheese, meats, and small cakes with one hand. With the other he held a bottle of wine and two glasses. He set them on the corner of the desk in front of me and then retreated to the opposite side of the room. The bottle was open already and Adolf poured wine into the glasses. Then he raised a glass and smiled. “Have a drink, Sarah. I’m sure it will do you good.”

  I knew the honorable thing to do. My father would refuse to eat or drink even the slightest amount. Stephan would, too. But my stomach ached from hunger. I resisted the urge to eat, but only
for a moment.

  Reluctantly at first, I picked up a piece of cheese and placed it in my mouth. It tasted sharp against my tongue and I almost choked on the richness of its flavor. Adolf laughed at me and lifted his glass once more. “Have a drink,” he grinned. “You don’t want to die on a piece of cheese.” I took a sip from the glass and had another bite of cheese. A napkin lay on the tray and I placed it on my lap.

  After a while, when the cheese and meat were gone, Adolf took a seat in the chair behind his desk. “I am sorry,” he sighed and gestured with both hands toward the papers on his desk. “But I don’t see anything here about your friend Stephan. Are you certain he is missing?”

  “We have looked everywhere for him.”

  “I am sure he is fine. He will turn up.” He scooted his chair closer to the desk. “And in the meantime, we will continue searching for him. Are there any places you would like for us to look?”

  The question was a trap, a chance to acknowledge the tunnels and all the other hiding places our people used. “None that we haven’t already tried.”

  “You informed your father of your friend’s disappearance?” “I talked to him about it.”

  “And what did he say?” “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “He refused to talk about it.”

  “Interesting,” he mused. He stared at me a moment, then a kind smile spread over his face. “You are a very brave woman, coming here like this. I could have you shot for being here. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I suppose.”

  “I could shoot you now and no one would do anything to stop me. While they hauled your body out, one of my men would pat me on the back and congratulate me for a job well done.”

  “Is that what you plan to do?”

  “No,” he shook his head. He leaned back in his chair. “I would prefer to keep you here with me, or at the least, drive you back to your apartment, but I am afraid neither of those things is possible right now. You will have to get back the same way you came, whatever that is.” He propped his elbows on the armrest of the chair and laced his fingers together. “You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I nodded. “Thank you for seeing me.”

  “It was my pleasure.” He stood and came from behind the desk. I stood as well and he took me by the arm to guide me toward the door. “One of my men will see you out.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” I said, anxious to leave. “I can find my way.”

  One of the soldiers opened the door and I stepped out to the hall. I hurried toward the elevator, then thought better of it and took the stairs. On the first floor I stepped from the stairwell into the hallway that led to the service area in back of the hotel. From there I walked out to the alley and made my way back to the front of the building. As I came past the corner, Tomer joined me.

  “So, what did he say?” “He said he will check.”

  “Yeah,” Tomer commented sarcastically. “Like that’s ever going to happen. We risked our lives for nothing.”

  “Not really.” “Then what?”

  I reached inside the pocket of my dress, took out a small napkin, and handed it to him. Tomer opened it to find six pieces of cheese and three small squares of meat. His eyes were wide. “You stole this?”

  “They gave it to me to eat.” A guilty look made me blush. “I was too hungry to resist.”

  “Forget it.” He stuffed several pieces of cheese into his mouth. “No one could resist such a thing.”

  We walked as Tomer continued to eat the cheese and meat. When he finished, he wiped his hands on the napkin and shoved it into his pocket. “Come on, we’ll have to hurry. The sun will set before long and it will be difficult to see in the pipe.”

  Tomer set a quick pace and I had to work to keep up with him. We crossed the bridge without incident and worked our way up the canal to the pipe. As I turned to enter it he caught my hand and looked at me. “Listen, Sarah,” he began. “I know Stephan had a harsh view of your father and the council. But they are only trying to do what they think is right. I do not agree with them, but I do not think they are bad men. Especially your father and your uncle.”

  “You know my uncle?”

  “Yes,” he nodded. “Alois is my father’s friend. He has helped us many times.”

  His words did little to change my mind. “I used to share your opinion of them. But not anymore. I am almost certain the council betrayed Stephan.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “The way Adolf talked. The things he asked about. The way he looked at me when I mentioned Stephan. I don’t know. I just know.” Sunlight was fading fast and I didn’t want to talk anymore. I turned away and headed into the pipe.

  All that night I thought of Stephan, the things that Yosef and Tomer had said, what I had heard from Adolf, and the conversations I had heard in the apartment. By dawn I was convinced Stephan had been taken by the soldiers and that they did it with the council’s cooperation.

  When sunlight hit the bedroom window, Papa rolled from the mattress, dressed, and left the apartment. Not long after that, Mama and David rose, too. I waited until they were out of the room, then I took my suitcase from the corner of the room and began gathering my things. I placed my clothes and put the leather wallet with my papers on top. Mama came into the room as I closed the latches on the case.

  “What are you doing?”

  “They turned him over to the soldiers, Mama.”

  “Who?” She looked puzzled. “What are you talking about?” “Stephan. The Judenrat gave him up to the Nazis.”

  Papa entered the room. I didn’t know that he had returned to the apartment. “It could not be avoided. The Nazis were threatening to kill everyone until they found him.”

  “Why?”

  “He and his friends were plotting to revolt.”

  “We should revolt.” “We should stay alive.”

  “You call this living? We are merely waiting to die.”

  “A rebellion against the German Army cannot succeed. Any attempt to do so would only result in the death of our people. Perhaps all of our people.”

  “We are dying now already. What could be worse? The rest of the city does not live like this. Stephan is right. We are slaves.” I grabbed my suitcase by the handle and started toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Papa called.

  I turned back to look him in the eye. “Somewhere away from you. I will not live with a man who is a traitor to his own people.” Then I opened the door and stepped into the hall. Sadness swept over me and tears filled my eyes as I hurried down the steps, but I felt I had no choice. Behind me I heard the sound of Mama wailing and shouting.

  On the street, I walked up to the corner and over one block to the building where Stephan lived. I made my way to their apartment and knocked on the door. Yardina, his mother, opened it. I could see from the smears on her cheeks and the dampness of her eyes that she had been crying. She gestured toward the suitcase. “You have left home?”

  I forced a smile. “Can I stay with you?” She nodded her approval and stepped back to let me inside.

  The next day, I was on the street with Tomer and his friends, determined to help them in whatever rebellion they had planned. While we stood there talking, Papa came from his building and started toward us. He was on the opposite side of the street, but still our eyes met. When he looked at me, I turned away, ignoring him.

  Someone nudged me. “There’s your father.” “He’s not my father,” I snarled.

  “Why would you say such a thing? Of course he’s your father.”

  “He is a member of the Judenrat. All he had to do was stand up to the Nazis. They are not so powerful when someone opposes them. If he had done that, Stephan might still be with us.”

  Amos Lurie, an older man who was with us, looked over at me. “You think they are not so tough?”

  “They are humans like the rest of us.”

  “You have no idea who you’r
e dealing with or the awkward position they’ve put your father in.”

  I didn’t want to hear what Amos had to say. To me, Tomer was the leader I looked up to. Amos was irrelevant, but when he seemed to suggest I was wrong about Papa, I became angry. “Look, I asked him to tell me what happened to Stephan. He refused. He knew what happened to him, but he refused to tell me. Why else would he refuse, unless he knew he had betrayed Stephan? It was an act of treason and treachery.”

  Amos seemed unmoved by my tantrum. “Maybe it is for your own good you don’t know the whole story,” he said quietly. “Perhaps it is for everyone’s good.”

  “Why do you say that?” I smirked.

  “What you don’t know, you cannot be forced to tell.”

  “They wouldn’t force me. I am a woman. They might try to make you speak, but not me.”

  “Do you know how naïve you sound?” “Perhaps I am naïve, but I am not a coward.”

  “I am not saying your father and the others did the right thing,” Amos continued. “But it is not so simple an issue as one might suppose.” Amos glanced in Tomer’s direction. “Perhaps you should show her the soldiers we deal with every day, then she will understand why she should respect her father.”

  “Respect him?” I shouted. “You ask me to respect him?” The others backed away, as if I had crossed a line I did not know existed, but I was too angry to heed the warning implicit in their reaction. “I can never respect him again.”

  “We are all on the same side,” Amos continued in that same calm voice, like a teacher instructing a student. And then I remembered— Amos was a rabbi. “They do not agree with our tactics,” he shrugged. “And we do not agree with theirs. But never forget, we are all on the same side.” He glanced once more in Tomer’s direction and said simply, “Show her.”

  With a heavy sigh, Tomer took me by the hand. “Come, you must see for yourself.”

  We walked two blocks farther into the ghetto, then Tomer led me down a narrow alley not far from where we’d entered the sewer the day before. Buildings rose above us on each side, and from the windows above I heard people talking. I wondered where Tomer was taking me and what he wanted me to see, but I kept quiet, hoping no one would notice us.