She stepped toward him. “Adam. You don’t have a choice. They’ll kill you. You must go. You have more than just these things,” she whispered, her hand extended in a sweep around the room. “You have your family. You have me.”
“I don’t know,” he whispered, refusing to meet her glance. “I don’t know what to do.” He sat down on the sofa.
She took a risk, knowing he might reject her. She sat down next to him and pulled his head into her lap. At first he resisted, but then he put his arms around her waist and his head against her stomach. She felt his shoulders convulse and he sobbed quietly. She stroked his hair, his neck, letting him release the emotion.
After a time, he calmed down. He stayed in that position, head resting against her abdomen, eyes facing out in the room. She enjoyed the sensation of his closeness. She felt the electricity coursing through her. But she forced down her excitement, focusing on him.
Eventually he started to talk, sharing stories of his combat experience. He’d railed against his officers, against the incompetence of the government. In secret, he’d held communist meetings with the men. He’d talked about a future where neither Germans nor the right-wing Polish government would dominate them. Where the poor, the Jews, the workers and farmers would own everything, and share alike according to the needs of the people.
The other officers had got wind of what he was doing. They’d threatened to arrest him, but there was no time. They were already fighting, already losing. The officers died too fast to prosecute him. Adam had hoped this might be the start of a revolution, the old world falling away to give birth to the new. But that dream would have to wait. They’d replaced one set of right-wing masters for another. If they wanted the Poland of his dreams, of Irena’s, they must take their nation back from the Germans.
“I don’t care about communism, or fascism, or any ‘isms’ right now,” Irena whispered. “The only thing I want in this world is to be here, now.”
He laughed. “Yes, Irena. And I too. But we can’t stay here forever. Outside those walls the world still waits. And we can’t ignore it.”
“Then you will move?”
“I have to. I know that. I just haven’t been able to accept it.” He looked up at her. “Thank you for coming. For talking to me. You help me to see things clearly. I’ll move. In all the misery before us, at least I’ll live in a space that you picked out for me.”
Irena wanted to stay like this. She felt warm and safe. She’d never touched Adam like this. She didn’t want to move, but she knew she had to. She had pressing matters at work. She reluctantly left him and returned to her office on Złota Street. She was fortunate, her workplace was near the new ghetto. She’d be able to see Adam whenever she wanted, although she wasn’t sure what that would be like. He would have his whole family there. She would be there. Irena shook her head. She wouldn’t think about that right now. Nothing was going to ruin her day today.
She walked along the streets, her coat pressed up against the cold. She could hardly feel the biting cold. She thought of his head in her lap, his warmth and his smell.
She didn’t see them coming. The two well-dressed men approached her rapidly from either side. They seized her arms and dragged her toward a nearby car. She screamed for help. There were others on the street, but they only watched, terror on their faces. Irena was shoved into the back of the car and the men jumped in on either side of her. She felt a hard object shoved into her ribs. The vehicle tore off violently and ripped through the streets of Warsaw. She tried to hold on to her emotions, but she gasped, and tears tumbled down her face. She thought of Adam, of her mother, her friends. Nobody would ever know what happened to her.
She tried to speak, but the object was pressed hard into her stomach. A pistol barrel, she realized. She closed her eyes, trying to stifle her tears. She steeled herself for what she knew was coming. She was so afraid of torture. How would she be able to endure it for long? She didn’t want to betray the Jewish families or those social workers who turned a blind eye to what she was doing. A part of her hoped they would shoot her in the back of the head when she arrived wherever they were going. She’d never know what had happened and her secrets would be safe. But the Germans didn’t operate that way. They took what they needed first, and death was only granted as a mercy at the end.
The car slowed down, and she opened her eyes. She didn’t recognize the part of the city they were in. They’d pulled up in front of a nondescript building. A solitary man stood out front, also wearing an overcoat. He motioned at the car and the men inside threw open the doors, dragging her out and marching her swiftly to the entrance. She was rushed down a corridor and into a room with a chair and a table. She was shoved down into the chair. A bright light shone down from above, directly into her eyes. The other side of the room was lost in shadow. The men turned and stormed out of the space, leaving Irena as quickly as they’d confronted her. She was alone, or so she thought.
“Why are you helping the Jews?” The voice came out of the darkness, soft and metallic, a man’s voice. She strained her eyes to see who was there, but the shadows defeated her. She leaned forward.
“Stay where you are,” said a raspy whisper.
She leaned back, not moving, not knowing what to do.
“I asked you why you’re helping the Jews?”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“Don’t lie to me, Irena. I know everything about you. I’ve been watching you for a very long time. We can play games if you wish, but I don’t think you’d enjoy them very much. Tell me why you’re helping them.”
The man spoke Polish. In her terror, she hadn’t realized that at first. Who was this? Some German who’d learned the language with a perfect accent, or was this a Pole who’d sold out to the Nazis? How should she respond? She decided to ask a question in return. “And how am I helping them?”
“You feed them. False papers. Thousands. Now I’ve indulged you, Irena, you must indulge me. Why do you feed the Jews? Is it that fool of a boy you’re fawning over? Or is it something else?”
She felt an icy hand on her heart. They knew about Adam. There was no hope. They’d kill her and he’d be next. She decided there was no point in lying. “I grew up with them. They are people, just like the Poles and the Germans.”
“People just like us,” the voice repeated. “Interesting answer. You haven’t been listening to the Nazi propaganda, I take it. And who am I?”
“You’re a German or a collaborator. You’re an enemy of Poland!” Her anger spilled over. She knew she was moments from torture. She was exhausted and afraid. This game was almost worse than being beaten. Let them get started on her . . .
The voice chuckled. Long moments passed. “Oh, Irena. You amuse me. Today is your lucky day. I’m not a German, and I’m certainly no collaborator. No, my dear, you’ve come afoul of the resistance.”
The resistance! Her hope surged. Unless this was some right-wing group. There were many fighting for Polish freedom; some of them were socialists like she was, but others wanted a return to nationalist Poland.
“Don’t worry,” said the voice as if it could read her mind. “I’m not talking about our fascist countrymen. No, Irena, we’re just like your father, just like you. Like I said, we’ve been watching you for a long time.”
She felt relief, but with it, a rising anger. “Then why did you abduct me?”
“We can’t be too careful. Our members and our safe houses are secret. Even after all this time of investigating you, I can’t say we trust you completely. But we’ve decided to help you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have a big problem. The problem that made you leave your boyfriend’s apartment today to head back to work.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said.
“That issue is immaterial to us. What we care about is your problem. You do have one. Don’t you?”
How could they know that? How closely had she been watched? The reality was, she did ha
ve an issue at work.
“All the Jews are being forced into the ghetto,” he stated, showing how much they understood about what she’d been doing. “Your paperwork won’t work for them anymore. Their movements will be restricted, if not outright prohibited. They can’t travel to your food distribution centers anymore, and you can’t bring food into the ghetto for them, because there won’t be any Aryans living there, and the Jews are not allowed welfare distributions. Have I hit the problem on the head?”
She nodded, amazed by his knowledge of what she was doing. “Yes, but how do you—”
“We can help you. We are setting up networks even now. If you can keep the food coming to the current centers, we will have alternative families who will pick up the food at those locations. We’ll take the food from there and smuggle it into the ghetto.”
“How will you do that?” she asked. “Who will be involved?”
“I’m sorry, Irena, but you’ll have to leave that to us. We’re still not entirely sure about you. There may come a time when we’ll give you more information, but for now, I need to know if you will help us. Will you keep your food distributions coming to the same locations for the Jewish families?”
What should she do? What if he was lying, if he was a German or a spy after all? What difference did it make? she realized. If he was working for the Germans then she was already compromised, and her life was over. She had to trust him. “Yes,” she said finally. “I will do as you’ve asked.”
“Excellent,” said the voice.
“And who are you?” she asked.
The voice laughed again. “Like I told you. We don’t trust you. Perhaps some other time.”
“How will I get ahold of you?” she asked.
“You won’t. You do what we’ve asked for now, and we’ll see how things develop. If we need you, we know where to find you. At your boyfriend’s if nowhere else . . . For now, I will bid you farewell.”
She heard the door opening behind her and she looked over her shoulder to see the same men entering the room. “Wait!” she said.
“What is it?”
“I have one request of you.”
* * *
A few days later, Irena walked through the streets of the new Jewish ghetto. The sidewalks were crammed full of people, many with arms loaded down with baggage. There was hardly room to move. She’d never seen more humans together in one place in all her life. She walked along Sienna Street and turned on Marianska. She thought about Ewa, who lived nearby. She hadn’t seen her in several weeks and she really should stop by to visit, but she didn’t have time today. She made a mental note to come back tomorrow and check in on her friend.
She moved on through the south part of the ghetto until she reached Chłodna Street. She waited at a gate for long minutes as Aryan Polish traffic passed back and forth. Finally, the Germans lifted the gate and allowed the Jewish pedestrians to cross from the little ghetto to the big ghetto. She reached Leszno a few blocks later and then moved north past Nowolipki, Dzielna, and Pawia until she reached Gsia Street. She kept moving north on Smocza until she arrived at the northern border of the Jewish Quarter. She had traveled the length of the ghetto because she wanted to get a feel for what the Jewish population was going to experience here. The conditions were bad, but not terrible. Certainly, they were overcrowded by every definition of the word. But with enough food and proper sanitation, they should be able to get by.
Having walked the ghetto, she headed toward Adam’s apartment. As she grew closer, she could feel her excitement rise until she could barely contain it. He’d invited her to help him organize things before his family arrived tomorrow. They’d be alone together all day. A day of talking, working together. She thought of the last time they’d been together, his head in her lap. She couldn’t help but smile. He was brilliant, radical, fiery—all the missing parts she’d never had with Mietek. She knew she fulfilled the same for him. He’d told her all about faithful, simple, dull Regina. She sounded like a mirror image of her own Mietek. Stable, hardworking, but hardly alive with the passion that burned in Adam and her.
Irena reached his apartment building and climbed the three floors as quickly as she could. He opened the door. She saw his face light up when he saw her and she blushed, pleased with his reaction. He invited her in, and they enjoyed some tea, talking about little things. She watched his face, basking in his presence.
After a little while they went to work. He’d only brought a few belongings, what he’d been able to cart over in a wheelbarrow he’d borrowed from a neighbor. He had his clothes and a handful of books he’d not been able to part with. All of them had socialist, even communist themes. She flipped through one of them. He’d made notes in the margins and she was fascinated by his thoughts, what was important to him. He wanted everything she desired. A free, equal Poland, where everyone had enough to eat, justice before the law, and an opportunity to serve the greater good. There would be no rich, no powerful. Everyone would have an equal share of what was produced. Surely this was what God had intended when he’d made the world—if there was a God. She may have lost her religious beliefs long ago, but she’d never let go of her father’s dream for a socialist Poland. She’d embraced it with every fiber of her being. Mietek had never understood that. Never understood her. But now she was spending time with someone who shared her passions, her hopes for the world.
She dreamed of that future. Somehow, they would drive the Germans from their land. Adam would serve in the government as an attorney, perhaps even more—a leader. She would go back to her social work, but now everyone would receive food, medical care, education. They would be heroes for their work during the war. Irena had run the food distribution for Warsaw; why not for all of Poland in the new system? They would labor together, have children, raise them in the new paradise. Everything was possible now, if they could only endure to the end. What about Mietek and Regina? she wondered to herself. She shrugged. There was no need to worry about that right now.
He looked up from a bag he was sorting through. She must have had a strange look on her face because he laughed. “What are you thinking about?”
“The future.”
“And what does the future look like?”
“Perfection.”
He smiled. “Perfection sounds delightful. But how do we rid ourselves of these pesky Germans?”
She laughed. “I haven’t figured that part out yet.”
“Let me know when you do.”
She turned serious. She realized she had an opening. She wanted to broach her plan. “If there is going to be a future, we have to survive.”
“I know that,” he said.
“I’m worried about you. I’m worried about this place they’ve sent you to.”
He looked around. “It’s no paradise, but we should get by.”
“It’s not the now I’m concerned with. What if this is just the first part of the plan? What if once they get you here, they decide to take other actions? You said yourself this was the first step to the slaughterhouse.”
“That might happen,” he conceded. “But not for a little while at least. There will be time for us to consider things.”
“I don’t know if there will be. I have something I want to ask you to do.”
He lifted his head, his eyes thoughtful. “What is it?”
She hesitated. She knew she was taking a risk here. “I have papers for you. False papers. They name you as an Aryan. I want you to get your family settled here and then I want you to leave.”
He pulled himself to his feet. She could see the discoloration in his cheeks. “What do you mean? Are you saying I should abandon my family? How can I do that? And you want me to hide as an Aryan?” He scoffed. “Have you looked at me? I wouldn’t last a day. One can’t look more Jewish than me.”
“You don’t have to be out there in the open for the world to see,” she said, taking a step toward him with hands out, attempting to calm him. “There are places to hide. I have
connections.”
He stepped back, turned away, and paced the room. “You want me to spend the rest of this war, no matter how long it lasts, in hiding? It’s been bad enough when I couldn’t work. Now you want me to stay inside, crammed into a cupboard, dependent on others? Waiting for the day the Nazis come for me? I can do much better here, no matter what happens. Besides, I’m not going to abandon my family.”
“It’s not your family you’re worried about,” retorted Irena accusingly. “You don’t want to leave her.” She knew she wasn’t playing fairly but she didn’t care.
Adam sputtered and threw his arms in the air. “That’s right, Irena. You’ve figured it all out. I’m sacrificing everything to be close to Regina.” His voice dripped with sarcasm.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
He stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders. She was facing away from him. She felt a flash of fire and her ears buzzed. He rubbed her shoulders gently. She closed her eyes, basking in his touch.
“I’m not mad,” he said. “We both have our own problems with our spouses. That’s one of the things I appreciate about you. You understand.”
She turned around and faced him, taking a step forward. “I do understand,” she said.
He pulled her to him and held her. She buried her face in his chest. “I know you do,” he whispered. “I’m so grateful for you.”
An hour before dark she left him, promising to come back in the morning and help his family move in. She’d dreaded meeting his wife again, but now she didn’t care. As she walked home, she had another idea: She would talk to him again about the false papers, in front of his family. Perhaps they would be willing to convince him it was the best course of action.
The next morning, she rose early, made breakfast for her mother, and headed out with a basket of food toward the ghetto. She was a few blocks away when she realized something was different. There was a crowd standing out in front. She hurried along, panic rising. Then she realized what it was. The road was blocked by a wall that had apparently sprang up from the very ground in the middle of the night. Even as she watched, workers scurried over every inch of the structure, laying additional bricks over layers of grout. The barrier was already five feet tall. They were sealing off the ghetto!
Irena's War Page 10
