A Sparrow in Terezin

by Kristy Cambron

  “Work?” She shook her head. “What do they want me to do?”

  “I have met with Jacob Edelstein. He is the head of the Jewish Council, and because of my standing as a decorated soldier in the Great War, he has made arrangements for all of us. I will work as a doctor at the hospital. And they will allow you and your mother to work as well.”

  “Doing what?” she whispered.

  “Your mother was a seamstress before we married. She can work in the factory sewing repairs for uniforms and wares for the SS.”

  “Matka was a dressmaker for hobby, and even then it was decades ago. She sewed fashionable things, not clothes for soldiers. She’s never sewn a uniform in her life!”

  “Then she must learn quickly.” He shook his head. “It is either work or go to the trains. Transports come in and transports go out. If one does not appear useful, the next day they are gone. This way she can sit. Her eyes are good, her fingers strong. She can sew.”

  Kája looked around at the movement of emaciated prisoners walking past the alley and shuddered. Were they workers too? They were obviously starving by the looks of them. What was the distinction between the privileged, the worker, and the dying in this place?

  “And what work do they want me to do?”

  “There are hundreds of children and more coming on the trains each day. The Jewish Council wants them to attend school.”

  “School?” She looked at the inhumane conditions around them and shook her head in disbelief. “What kind of school could be here when there aren’t even enough beds for people to sleep in? What does school matter in this place when the ration lines are ten thick and extending all the way out the courtyard?”

  “The SS will not allow school at all, not in the way we think of it. The older children must work with the men laying pipe for the new water lines or weeding the vegetable gardens on the outskirts of the city walls. The older ones we cannot help. They will be at the mercy of the guards. But the young ones—the Jewish Council wants the young ones to be taught—secretly—and you can be a part of this. We even have a room set aside for the school. You can work with the young ones, Kája.”

  “Young ones. Work? What could they possibly do?”

  “Some are just a few years old. They will stay with the elderly. But the children of five, six, and older—any child can come to you who is under fourteen years of age, or if they’re small, fifteen. We can’t fit them all, but you’ll do your best. Assign them whatever you can. Cleaning. Painting for the theater. They can work as stage hands. You will be teaching them. And protecting them.”

  “Stage hands? They have a stage—a theater—here.”

  He nodded. “There is an arts community here. They have music, lectures, productions. The arts are important to the SS. I don’t know why exactly, but the hope that the educated may be kept from the transports longer is more than enough explanation for me.”

  Dumbfounded, she surveyed the scene around her. It was maniacal. To have a culture of the arts in such a hellish place . . . and a school for children . . . what sense could it make?

  Kája immediately shook her head. “I’m not a teacher.”

  “You must be now.”

  “But, Father, these children will be wounded. They’re suffering starvation and disease—any fool can look around us here and see that. How could I possibly help them? How could I teach them one day, only to know that they’ll be sent out on a transport the next? I know what happens in the east! I know what the Nazis will do to them, and I cannot bear to think of it.”

  “No.” The one-word rebuke was fierce. “You’ll not speak of what happens when the transports leave—not to anyone. Do you understand me?”

  “But I know!” she cried, unable to keep the horrors from spilling from her heart and out her mouth. “The Daily Telegraph printed stories about it weeks ago. The camps in the east are killing centers! Don’t you see? They murder them with bullets, and with gas—women, children—just because they’re Jews.”

  Her father’s hands—the ones that had so gently lifted her up to see the clock as a girl, the ones that healed the sick with careful, knotted fingers and a sincere touch—they blistered her arms now. He grabbed her, digging his nails into her skin, and barked in a rough whisper, “You will not speak of it! Do you hear me? It will cause a panic among the people. What is best for them now—to know nothing of what will happen, or to incite panic before their death? At least this way they shall have some measure of peace.”

  “That is false peace.”

  “And it is the way the Council must have it. The SS have gallows here, in the courtyard by the prison. They will hang prisoners just for thinking such thoughts. You, daughter, will forget who you were before this camp. Do you understand me? You will forget everything and everyone who came before this very moment in time. Your job now is to teach. And when you teach, you survive. I will not lose you. I will not watch my own flesh and blood die by their hands!”

  Kája bit her bottom lip to keep from sobbing over his words.

  Never had he spoken with such conviction. Never before had he raised his voice to her. But now, with death floating about on air, choosing victims indiscriminately, he’d succumbed to the same fear that gripped them all.

  “What . . . ,” she mumbled, trying to form words on her quivering lips. “What do I teach them?”

  His fingers eased their hold one by one until they were once again hands that merely rested on her shoulders.

  “Teach them to hope.”

  She shook her head.

  “No. Surely, after what you’ve just said, I can only teach them fear. I’m not strong. I can’t forget everything and—” Her voice hitched on a sob, thinking of Liam and the last moments they’d shared on the train platform in Amsterdam. She shook her head. “I know I can’t forget everyone who came before this moment. I can’t.”

  Kája’s hand grazed for the necklace she’d worn, the ghost of it still there under her collar. She clamped her eyes shut, willing her mind to stop picturing Liam, her love, standing at a train depot in Switzerland. Waiting for her. Watching for a dream that would never come.

  “I won’t. Those memories are the only thing that can keep me alive. I know it.”

  “You must live here now.” He patted her shoulder, urging her on. “You will use whatever is at your disposal to tell them stories. Give them hope, even if you know in your heart that there is none to be had.”

  “But how?” she cried, finally collapsing in his arms. “What do I say?”

  “You tell them about our clock. Hmm?” he whispered. “Help them weave tales about the sparrows, the ones who fly free and strong and soar far away from here. The ones God watches over. Yes? Tell them stories and have them paint their own. Give them a pen, a brush, a task—any task. Use your gifts. And whatever that heart of yours is holding on to right now: keep it hidden. Keep your own hope hidden while you work, and you will survive.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Sera’s mind was playing tricks on her.

  She was pacing back and forth in her London bedroom, marching through the early-morning light that just peeked in to greet her through the white gauze curtains. She was waiting for William’s call and had practically worn a hole through the dark espresso wood flooring.

  She’d been awake for hours, searching through the files again and again, finding nothing else but that one mention of K. E. Hanover. And now that her heart knew something was hidden there, she’d been considering every possible scenario that tracked through her mind.

  Who is Katie?

  Was she a relative of Thomas’s? A cousin, perhaps? Or was she someone else completely?

  The phone vibrated in Sera’s hand and she nearly dropped it for how it startled her. She saw William’s number and answered with a hushed, “Hello?”

  “You’re awake. I thought it might be too early.”

  Sera glanced at the alarm clock by the bed. “It’s almost six. The sun’s barely up.”

&nbs
p; “How was your flight?”

  “It was fine. Long.” Sera drifted down to the side of her bed, the inconsequential talk making her head ache. She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes, hating the fact that because of what she now knew, or suspected rather, the sound of his voice was hurting her. “Your father sent us a car. He, umm . . . he welcomed us here. I hadn’t expected that.”

  “That’s good. I’m glad he’s treating you well.”

  “We had a conversation last night, Will. In the garden, he and I. And after it I walked away more confused than ever. You see, the man I expected to meet isn’t here. Your father is not who I thought he’d be. Actually, he’s not all that different from you. At least not in the way I’ve seen. The way he talked about his family . . . it wasn’t with indifference. There was regret there—so doesn’t that mean there’s feeling there too?”

  “Sera, please.”

  “No—I showed him something yesterday. A photograph Penny and I found. It wasn’t with the rest of the artwork so it must have been overlooked. It was a cross necklace.”

  “A necklace?”

  “Yes. It looked old and wasn’t valuable. Not like everything else. But when he held it in his hands and looked at it, I almost thought I was seeing you. It’s the way you’ve looked at me before. With such love. You have his eyes, Will. And whatever I saw in him, I couldn’t ignore it.”

  “Then he’s trying to fool you, Sera.”

  “Why would he? He told me you knew about the necklace and that you knew who received it. So, Will . . .” She breathed out his name, fighting so that he’d not hear the tears in her voice. “Who is Katie? And why did you let me come here? You knew I’d dig for answers. And that I’d eventually find them.”

  He paused and the line was loud with silence.

  “I knew if I didn’t let you go, you’d never forgive me.”

  “And do I need to forgive you for something? Because for the life of me, I’m feeling more than a few thousand miles away from you right now.”

  He sighed. It was heavy. Long. Tormented, even. He cleared his throat before asking, “Do you have a pen?”

  Sera shook her head on instinct, forgetting for a moment that he’d not see it.

  “What do I need a pen for?”

  “So you can write down an address.”

  Sera walked over to the nightstand and grabbed a pen, then tore a piece of paper from the files she’d kept by the bed.

  “All right. I’m ready.”

  “Katie Hanover lives in Primrose Hill. Number 7 Wadham Gardens.”

  She scrawled the address and stared back at it, the ink fairly burning a hole through the paper. “Why are you telling me this now?”

  William paused and as if sitting right there in the room next her, whispered very softly, “Because I love you, Sera. And you’ll never be able to love me back unless you know who I am.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  September 4, 1942

  Terezin

  Men stood up to their knees in earth.

  The digging of trenches and the laying of pipe for the new water system looked to be grueling work. Kája walked by the faction of men lining the street, swinging their picks and shovels while SS officers shouted, looking on with guns all too easy to see shining in the holsters at their waist. She kept her head down, hoping to continue unnoticed as she made her way to the school building.

  Kája wore a dress of gray blue that shone pale in the morning sun. It might have been lovely once, with its dainty flower pattern. But wear had faded the fabric so that each defined bud looked like nothing more than a hazy dot of white. It hung on her thinning frame generously, as clothes would on a line, lilting in the breeze for the lack of form beneath. A yellow star was sewn over her left collarbone. Save for her crown that shone glints of red in the sunlight, it was the only color about her. She kept her hair tucked back under a drab kerchief as she moved about the streets, hoping to be inconspicuous.

  She darted past wooden carts of wares—old suitcases and such—probably from a transport coming or going. There were the Jewish guards on street corners, barking orders for women and wide-eyed children to form lines away from men. SS guards looked on, managing the scene from afar.

  Kája turned her eyes from it and kept walking.

  She noticed people going into the Magdeburg barracks, which held the Council of Elders and the Jewish administration for the camp. Her father went there often, as he’d been appointed a member of the council. He never took her of course, but she knew where the building was.

  “Keep nothing about you that shall be remembered,” her father had cautioned.

  And so she walked along, basket clutched in hand each day, weaving her way from their block to the building that housed the tiny school. She never drew attention. Never spoke to anyone in Terezin unless she had to.

  It was so otherworldly of a place in comparison to the life she’d lived in London mere weeks before.

  Her thoughts drifted to Liam, to the life she’d had and the new one she’d so wanted to live with him. Would he have recognized her now, with her pale skin and woeful spirit? She’d been there mere weeks and already she feared she’d become irrevocably changed. If the war ever ended, and she could see him again . . . would he still want her, knowing the things she’d seen couldn’t be sponged from her heart?

  “You there!”

  Kája’s heart flip-flopped, but still she hurried along.

  Lord, don’t let them stop me!

  “Passage paper!”

  A commotion started, the clamoring of shouts and stomping boots growing somewhere off behind her. Kája quickened her pace, feigning innocence in the event they were trying to stop her. It was probably someone else, an unfortunate behind her.

  Keep walking, she told herself, and quickened her pace along the line of workers laying pipe. She thought to cross to the other side, but there were too many carts, too many people lined up.

  Speed up, Kája. Go by them.

  Without notice, her path was cut short. An old man fell down to the ground, his aged hands barely able to catch his weight, and crumbled on all fours upon the cobblestones at her feet.

  Kája gasped and stepped back, dropping her basket. It spilled the contents of paper and pencils on the ground around them.

  The man rolled over and collapsed on his back, coughing and sputtering in the bright sun.

  Her first instinct was to attempt to pick him up, and so she stooped without thinking. She knelt and with shaking hands, labored under his dead weight. She slipped an arm under his shoulders and attempted to tug him up with her free hand. If she could summon more strength, perhaps she could lift him enough to set him upright?

  Kája turned to look over her shoulder and shuddered when she saw a line of Jews still wielding their picks and shovels, swinging away at the dirt as if nothing at all had happened. They turned away, fearful to engage, when SS officers started marching in her direction. They were far off, but they’d caught the activity in their sights and wouldn’t take long to be at her side.

  “Sir?” She patted the man’s cheek frantically, pleading with him to wake. He was alive—mumbling and asking for water—but she couldn’t stir him enough to respond. “Please! You must wake up. The guards will hasten our way.”

  “Water,” he breathed out.

  “I haven’t any,” she said, and tugged at him again, trying to will him into cooperation. He couldn’t or wouldn’t be budged. “Please get up.”

  Mere seconds passed, though it felt like agonizing minutes. Too many of them. Enough that the guards would surely punish them both for the infraction. A loss of food ration, perhaps. Or—God help them—worse.

  In her restless efforts to force him awake, the kerchief gave way from the back of Kája’s neck and she felt her hair fall loose about her shoulders. A wavy tendril swung down over her face, obstructing her view. She turned back, enough to notice the glint of the sun shining off an SS officer’s unholstered gun as he
walked in their direction.

  The sight took her breath away.

  There was no time; she had to wake him or leave. That was it. The man was part of the work detail, and if he couldn’t perform the duties at hand, there would surely be the harshest of reprisals—and she, for interfering, could be just as culpable.

  “We’re going to sit up now, all right?” She tugged until the man was in a sitting position. Still he mumbled, saying words she couldn’t understand, and exhausted, he fell back against her.

  “Here. Give him to me.” A man appeared at her side, kneeling, and lifted the old man from her arms. She noticed the stitching on the forearms of his jacket and drew in a shuddered breath.

  He was clad in a Nazi uniform.

  Kája released her hands and eased back, fingers trembling. She kept her head down, staring at the lines of dirt between the ancient stones of the street.

  What should she do? Pretend she hadn’t heard the SS officer? Stand up and run?

  “Pardon, sir. He—” Kája could barely speak from fear. She swallowed hard and willed her voice to work, for however weak and trembling it might be. “He fell and . . . asked for water . . .”

  “It is all right.” Though German in accent, the man’s voice was surprisingly human, not cold or laced with malice. “I’ll take him,” he whispered.

  Take him where? she wanted to ask.

  There were no secrets in this place. If one couldn’t work, they were sent to the death camps. If one faltered in their labor, there was a bullet to the head or a tightly knotted noose that would be waiting. And if they were sick, or exhausted, or even just a little old, as this man clearly was, there wasn’t the tiniest shred of hope. Transport trains would seal their fate.

  “I’ll help him,” he clarified, seemingly reading her thoughts.

  Kája kept her head down but was so struck that she glanced up, eyes only, responding to the unbelievable blink of compassion she’d just witnessed. The officer wasn’t wielding a gun. He was strong and intentional, taking the old Jewish man in his arms to raise him up to a sitting position. He knelt on one knee and stabilized the man’s back.