The Night of the Burning

by Linda Press Wulf

  In a few minutes the papa had been separated from his new offspring, and the living room floor was covered with fine snippets of newspaper.

  Monica stroked the father mouse crouching at the bottom of the big box. “He looks a bit lonely,” she said doubtfully.

  “Why don’t we draw a few mice on the box walls for him to look at?” I suggested.

  “Good idea,” agreed Monica. “It’s like hanging a mirror in a birdcage to keep the bird company.”

  Mrs. Meisner offered to find paintbrushes and a box of paints for “the young interior decorators.”

  “Daddy, you hold the father mouse while we paint,” Monica demanded. Mr. Meisner took the creature gingerly.

  “Man-to-man,” Max joked.

  “Can I try painting?” I asked. “I’ve never used a paintbrush before.” There was a moment’s silence as the Meisners looked at one another in apparent disbelief and then Monica passed over the brush quickly.

  It wasn’t like drawing with a finely sharpened pencil or even with a crayon; the first stroke didn’t go at all where I expected. The brush was hairy and clumsy and it smeared color against the cardboard. I bit my lip in frustration. Then I dipped just the very tip of the brush in the paint again and tried making finer brushstrokes. That was better. Carefully, I brushed the outline of a round mama mouse standing in front of her babies, her claws raised to protect them from a tall, scary father mouse. I made the father’s teeth disproportionately large and gave the plump mama an apron.

  The Meisners’ exclamations of praise made me blush. I suddenly remembered the man on the ship who’d told me I was talented.

  “You’re a very good artist,” Max said.

  I memorized his words. Later, when I was alone in my bedroom, I’d be able to mouth them, and maybe I’d even make up a scene in which he said what he’d said, and I would answer him very cleverly, but casually, of course, and then he would laugh as he bent over me, in order to look at the painting, of course, and I would smell his clean, boyish smell and admire his warm, lopsided smile from very close.

  “Hey, dreamer,” Mr. Meisner teased me. “Sign your initials in the corner and then go and wash that paint off your hands. It’s nearly dark, so I’ll drive you home.”

  MRS. KAGAN IN CHARGE

  1923

  School was different now. Or maybe I was different. There was one girl I had always been careful to avoid. Her name was Heather Smith, and I was never sure why she made me uneasy; she just seemed surly. Then one day I nearly tripped over her when I was hurrying out to recess. She had bent down to tie her shoelace and I didn’t see her and stumbled right into her back. “Sorry!” I said as I hopped clumsily to the side. She’d been knocked off her precarious balance, pitching forward onto her knees, not hard, but clearly enough to rouse a sudden fury.

  “You’d better be very sorry, you bloody Jew,” she said.

  I took a step back immediately. Here it was, Poland again, pogrom again, fear again. But this wasn’t Poland, it was my new place, and she was just Heather Smith, and suddenly I was angry. “What did you call me?” I asked in a voice that started off strangled and low.

  “Bloody Jew. You’re a bloody Jew,” she repeated. And I understood she had been wanting to say it for a long time.

  “You say that again and I’ll slap your face.” The words just came out, and my fists went up in front of me.

  “What’s going on?” a familiar voice asked behind me.

  “She called me a bloody Jew,” I repeated to Monica as I glared at Heather.

  In an instant Monica was squarely at my side. “Who do you think you are, Heather Smith?” she said. “You think you’re better than we are?”

  Heather seemed to size Monica up, then turned back to me. Her mouth was sneering, but there was a hint of uncertainty in her eyes. Her outburst had been interrupted and she’d lost a little steam, but she wasn’t out of the ring yet.

  “My dad says you’re a bunch of dirty immigrants and our country shouldn’t have to give you free education,” she said.

  I opened my mouth, but someone beat me to a reply. “Dirty immigrants?” a boy named Lenny Friedman shot back at her from just behind me. How had he come up so quickly? And he wasn’t alone—he had three friends with him, Shlayma from the orphanage and two South African Jewish boys. “Take a look at your filthy fingernails, Heather. And how about washing your hair this month?”

  One of the South African boys weighed in. “As for free education, you’re going to be repeating this grade just like you repeated the last one, so don’t talk to us about costing the government money.”

  I was buoyed, surrounded by support. Everyone wanted to say something, to shout after Heather as she slunk away. My strength was no longer needed. But I knew I had it.

  One Saturday I returned home from an afternoon with Monica, feeling energy bubbling in me. I had cut my hair to shoulder length the previous week—just short enough that I didn’t have to tie it back—and I shook it every now and again to feel the swish of freedom. Mr. and Mrs. Kagan listened as I told them about Monica’s new puppy, Goldie.

  “Goldie suddenly saw the neighbor’s cat and he ran toward her. He was so excited to have a friend. And then she hissed, and she arched her back into the air, and all her hair stood on end. She must have almost doubled in size. Well, Goldie skidded to a halt. He fell over his big paws and he yelped. Then he turned around and came charging back to us as fast as he could. He was squealing like a pig! And he wouldn’t climb out of Monica’s arms until we were back inside their house.”

  Mrs. Kagan had been smiling at me while she knitted. “Our Devorah seems like a new child,” she said to Mr. Kagan proudly.

  The approval in her voice helped me muster the courage to make a request. “Would it be—May I—Monica says I can have one of her mice to take home if it’s all right with you.”

  “Mice?” Mrs. Kagan repeated. Mr. Kagan blinked nervously. It was not a good sign when Mrs. Kagan repeated something.

  “It’s just a little mouse. And very white and clean,” I offered.

  “Clean?” Mrs. Kagan did it again. I sent an imploring glance to Mr. Kagan, but he just looked at me sadly.

  “I could keep it in a big box in my bedroom and I promise I’d take care of it myself,” I tried desperately.

  “Not in this flat, you won’t. Mice belong in the fields. Can’t think why you’d want one of those things,” Mrs. Kagan said, and obviously that was that.

  There was a quiet movement at the door and Elizabeth came in to take away the tea tray. Quickly I jumped up to help her so that Mrs. Kagan wouldn’t see the tears welling in my eyes. Elizabeth clicked her tongue sympathetically, but after a quick glance at Mrs. Kagan, she said nothing.

  Mrs. Kagan kept knitting, acting as if the mouse incident had never happened, so rather sulkily I said good night and walked out of the living room. But I purposely didn’t close the door tightly and hovered in the hallway to hear if they would reopen the subject. Mrs. Kagan’s needles clicked rapidly as she worked on a sweater for me.

  “A new child, did I say?” Mrs. Kagan said. “Transformed, that’s how our Devorah looks now. Thin little scrap she was when we brought her home. Less than two years ago. Her face so strained. And now? Filled out beautifully. Nothing like food and love to make a child fill out. And clever, too, how she studies. Never need to nag her to do her homework.”

  I heard a grunt of agreement from Mr. Kagan and that was all. He was probably drifting into a doze, head propped against the back of the hard sofa.

  At least there was an unexpected little comfort in my room: a light, crumbly scone in a brown paper bag on my pillow. As soon as I smelled it, I knew who it was from. Once I had been sent with a message up to Elizabeth in the servants’ quarters on the top floor of the building, and the aroma of sweet, dusty scones had filled the tiny room where Elizabeth was sitting with a friend.

  As I nibbled at Elizabeth’s gift, I remembered that that same day in her room, I had
seen in a cheap frame a photograph of a solemn girl a few years older than I, with Elizabeth’s high cheekbones. “How old were you when that photograph in your room was taken, Elizabeth?” I had asked the following day.

  She looked confused for a moment, then said with a little laugh, “Aai, Miss Devorah, that is not me, that is my daughter. You think she looks so much like me? She’s a good girl, that one.”

  Why hadn’t I ever considered that Elizabeth might have her own family? I opened my mouth to ask her where her daughter lived and how she ever managed to see her, given that Elizabeth worked five or six long days a week in the flat and usually slept upstairs. I opened my mouth; I closed it again. The question was too personal. But I thought sometimes about that girl, who saw her mother much less than I did.

  The scone was nearly all gone and I wondered, as I often did, why Mrs. Kagan had ever adopted me. I had never dared to ask why she didn’t have her own child. Perhaps Mr. Kagan’s illness had something to do with it. Whatever the physical reason, I could picture Mrs. Kagan saying firmly to her husband, “Well, if we can’t make a child, we’ll just get one somewhere else, that’s all,” and marching him up the driveway to the Cape Jewish Orphanage.

  I had to smile at the image. But then I remembered how cross I felt. How a little mouse, with its companionable squeaks and rustlings, would have kept me company in my room. And how unreasonable Mrs. Kagan was.

  About two weeks later, after school, Mrs. Kagan interrupted my homework and insisted I join her for a drive. Within minutes I was clinging to the armrest on the car door as if it could save me when the crash came. I was quite sure that a crash was coming. Mrs. Kagan had a driver’s license, but that didn’t mean she could drive. She’d never had much practice because she and Mr. Kagan didn’t own a car; they borrowed this old one from a friendly neighbor for special occasions.

  What is the occasion today? I wondered for the tenth time. It was no use asking Mrs. Kagan again. She would just smile, place her forefinger hard against her own lips and then against my lips, and say, “Wait and see the surprise, dearie!”

  It was best to concentrate on trying to stay in the slippery seat as the car hurtled around cliffs and bends, the ocean a sheer drop very close to our right side. White sand beaches gave way to ragged steps of massive boulders along the coast. Mrs. Kagan drove the way she lived: full speed ahead, obstacles notwithstanding. Leaning forward over the steering wheel, she powered the car with her own energy. The car roared and swung from side to side, but Mrs. Kagan held it together, and in the right direction, with her two strong hands.

  We turned inland, leaving the ocean churning behind us. Quite soon we were making our way through the most beautiful farmland I had ever seen: white-plastered farmhouses with the lower lines of their roofs curved like a treble clef; soft green hills you could roll down and never bump yourself; sheep and plump cows and horses. Suddenly I remembered the horse Papa had had to sell and the way he had gone on pulling the heavy cart himself. Papa. Papa.

  “We’re here!” Mrs. Kagan declared gaily as she swung off the paved road and onto a gravel driveway, barely slowing down and narrowly missing a sign that said GROOTBOOM PLAAS. Freshly painted letters on a piece of cardboard hanging below spelled out: KATJIES TE KOOP.

  Grootboom Plaas means “big tree farm” in Afrikaans. I worked it out as we bounced to a halt in front of a barn. Te koop is “to sell,” and kat is “cat.” The jies at the end means “little,” so katjies must mean “little …” I turned abruptly to stare at Mrs. Kagan. Could it be?

  But my adoptive mother was already out of the car and bustling off to meet the farm woman who had emerged from the barn. “Ek is Mevrou Kagan,” she introduced herself in Afrikaans, shaking the woman’s hand vigorously. “Called you last week. Glad we made it here. Good directions, you gave me. Let’s see the kittens, then. Little girl’s been longing for a pet.”

  Longing? I was lightheaded with joy.

  “Come on, Devorah!” Mrs. Kagan shouted from inside the barn. I tumbled out of the car, sniffing at the scents of horses and hay and droppings I remembered from Domachevo. “Here’s your surprise. Just take your pick.”

  The choosing was delicious. Under the suspicious gaze of the mother cat, I leaned into a straw-lined bin to count seven perfect kittens mewing and burrowing. I lifted the first soft body, slipping my fingers along the tiny bones and caressing the deep hollows between them. Would this be my own kitten, running to meet me when I returned from school? Would Mrs. Kagan let the kitten sleep on my bed, maybe?

  “Ja, nee, yes, no. Take your time.” The farm woman smiled. “I’ll be in the house.”

  I picked up another kitten, nuzzled it, put it down gently next to its mother, changed my mind again and again.

  Mrs. Kagan waited with surprising patience. Finally she set a limit. “Five more minutes, now. Have to get back in time for supper and Mr. Kagan waiting to see your happy face.”

  Five minutes! I moved back and forth between a tiny white kitten, as creamy as milk, and a playful ginger morsel with stripes like a miniature tiger. I lifted the white one again.

  “This one,” I said when Mrs. Kagan consulted her watch.

  “That one?” Mrs. Kagan asked, eyeing the kitten doubtfully. “It’s the smallest of the litter, Devorah.”

  “Yes,” I said simply and tucked her under my chin.

  A few moments later, the kitten had been paid for and we were back in the car and bumping down the driveway. I held the kitten on my lap, trying to keep her as calm as possible. But the kitten was uneasy. She clawed at my hands and even succeeded in scrambling up to my shoulder before I managed to grab her and pull her into my lap again. Big, frightened eyes darted from side to side.

  I held her close with one hand and stroked gently with the other, but the cat mewed piteously, like a newborn baby. The cries went on and on, long minute after minute. “Why is she crying so much?” I asked.

  “Misses the smell of her mother and sisters and brothers,” Mrs. Kagan said matter-of-factly. “She’ll get used to you.”

  With a frantic lunge, the kitten tried to escape from my grasp. I held on and must have squeezed too hard. The animal gave a yelp and then returned to her loud mewing.

  “Please shh,” I begged her.

  “Just frightened,” Mrs. Kagan observed.

  Just frightened? I thought. Being frightened was such a terrible feeling that one couldn’t place the word “just” in front of it.

  “Stop the car,” I said, my voice choking.

  “What?” Mrs. Kagan asked, glancing at me in surprise.

  “We have to get her back to her family,” I started to say, and then, to my shame, I was crying. “I want to put her back with the others.”

  “You don’t want her! After begging for a dirty mouse, and Mr. Kagan persuading me you really wanted a cat. And now this long drive. And the way you touched all those kittens. I could see you wanted one.”

  I was silent. The kitten kept mewing, butting and struggling against me with her head.

  Mrs. Kagan tried a different tack. “If you give her back, she won’t be able to stay with her mother, you know. Someone else will come and choose her.”

  I thought about that for a moment. I knew I couldn’t help the kitten in the future, but I could give her a little more time with her family right now. “I want to take her back to the farm,” I whispered, and Mrs. Kagan gave up. Swinging the car around, she drove back to Grootboom Plaas in uncharacteristic silence.

  While the puzzled farm woman repaid the money to a grim Mrs. Kagan, I went into the barn alone. I replaced the kitten and stroked her for a few minutes. She stopped mewing immediately and pressed very close into her mother’s flank. I could barely see through my tears. But I made sure I wiped my face and blew my nose before I walked back to the car. I didn’t want to break down again in front of Mrs. Kagan.

  It was going to be a long drive. My hands and lap felt empty. There were a few white hairs on my skirt. How much had happe
ned in such a short time, I thought, remembering my excitement when I first read the farm sign. Clearing my throat, I turned to Mrs. Kagan. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry I caused you trouble. Thank you for getting me a kit—” I swallowed hard. “Thank you for offering me a kitten, anyway.”

  Mrs. Kagan’s plump face softened immediately. “That’s all right, dearie. Can’t say I understand, but that’s all right.”

  We drove through the dusk together.

  “IT’S MY HOME”

  1924

  Returning home from school one day, I was surprised to have the door opened rapidly not by Elizabeth but by Mr. Kagan. He was usually resting at this time, but today he was up and dressed and obviously excited.

  “Devorah, my girl, at last. I have something to tell you. I had an interesting visit from Mr. Ochberg this morning.”

  Fear skipped in my stomach. Why would Daddy Ochberg visit in the morning? He knows I’m in school. Did the visit mean that Daddy Ochberg had arranged to move me away from the Kagans? Did I want that?

  Mr. Kagan barely waited to close the door behind me. “He wants me to take a photograph of you. It has to be a very special photograph, because it’s going to be …” He stopped for emphasis. “It’s going to be in a book.”

  “Of me. A photograph. A book,” I said, as though I didn’t have a brain in my head.

  “Someone is writing a book about the Jews of Poland. Before the Great War and after, the good times and the bad, the pogroms, everything. They want a picture of a young girl who survived. That’s you.”

  I stared at Mr. Kagan. I had never heard him so talkative.

  “There is someone writing down the stories?” I asked carefully.

  “Yes, yes.” He positively beamed. “Someone is going to write it all down so that people will remember. And you are going to be in it as a new start, a new life. And I am to be the photographer.”