by Moya Simons
And shot the bird down.
Every bird in the world
Stopped flying
That day
And the world became smaller.
‘I don’t understand that poem at all. Why would all the birds stop flying just because one bird had died, and why would the world become smaller?’
Miri ran her hand through my hair. ‘It’s good that you don’t understand.’
Chapter Nine
IN FEBRUARY 1943 our worst nightmare began.
‘You are hereby instructed to leave this place and make your way downstairs to the truck below. Gather your belongings. Come. Now,’ the loudspeaker echoed throughout the building.
It was a clear, cold morning and we’d just finished our small breakfast. Erich was polishing his violin case with a rag. Miri was sitting at the table as usual, sucking on the end of a pencil. Mama was knitting, Aunty Gitta was sewing, Agnes was complaining about ‘beetles’ gnawing her stomach. Papa was checking his medical instruments as he had a patient to see. I was measuring the world’s longest scarf.
We dropped everything in our hands and stood up, frozen by fear. I wondered about Annie. I had to get her. I broke away from Mama and ran to the bedroom.
Papa, my aunt and my cousins, Miri and I took our suitcases from under the beds and began to hurl clothing into them. What should we take? Where were we going? Mama was in a daze. Papa packed for them both. Mama’s scarf was left on a chair as she ran from room to room, confused about what was happening.
Within a very few minutes I could hear German soldiers everywhere throughout the building. One stood in our doorway in his smart uniform, his belt tight around a well-fed stomach. He repeated the Führer’s orders in his expressionless voice.
We were being taken away, and in the usual way of the Nazi regime, it was being formally announced.
Mama held her hand out helplessly as Aunty Gitta, Erich and Agnes were herded, bewildered, out of the apartment, with suitcases not fully packed. Suddenly, in the rush of pushing, shoving, overturned furniture and everyone being swept away, Papa knelt beside me and whispered, ‘Rachel, you must make yourself very small. You must hide in the cupboard under the sink. You will hear noise, lots of noise, but you must not speak. That’s very important. You must be quiet to save your life.’
‘But, Papa, what do I do when you are gone?’
‘You take off the yellow star. Go to the shops where you have been with me, where they have been kind to us because I have treated their family. Beg them to take you in. Now I have to go. Remember, ignore any noises you hear. You must be absolutely silent.’
Those words, whispered fearfully to me by my papa, would be remembered forever with the clearness of sprinkled dew upon a leaf. That moment would be fixed in my mind’s eye, Papa’s face, his eyes dark and wide, the last glance of Mama’s face with her hand resting for a moment on my cheek. Her hand was to become a pendulum, stroking me gently through time.
Trembling, while the soldiers were preoccupied with shuffling people down the staircase outside our apartment, I raced to the kitchen. I knelt and climbed inside the kitchen cupboard and pulled the latch of the door closed behind me. I curled up, used to being cramped from so much time spent in wardrobes.
I must be quiet.
I could hear the thud of boots, Nazi boots, and voices, laughing. Why did they laugh?
I heard a soldier say, ‘There’s one person missing from this list, a child called Rachel Schwarz. She wasn’t with her parents. Her father said she’d gone to visit a friend down the road. Not likely. Search under the beds.’
Then I heard things being thrown around the apartment, and a high-pitched squeal. Was that my voice, I wondered. Surely not? Papa had said, ‘You must not speak.’ Had anyone heard me? Was the squeal lost in the overturning of tables, the upending of chairs, the thumping of boots?
Someone came into the kitchen. The cupboard door opened with a creak.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t feel anything. I crouched behind Mama’s soup pot, behind her saucepans and frying pan, all stacked neatly, like a reminder of an ordered life.
I saw a clear forehead and two blue eyes, a slice of frying pan then a mouth, thin lips. An ear, pink and shell-like, separated from a face by my mother’s saucepan lid. The soldier, looking sideways at me, stared. His lips parted and I saw very white even teeth and a strange look of surprise.
Suddenly the young man with the blue eyes and a seashell ear closed the cupboard door and walked away. He had left me there.
‘Check in the other Judenhaus,’ he called out to the other soldiers. ‘There’s no-one here. I’ll look upstairs again. We’ll board up the place later.’
Why did he choose to become blind? Later, did he see again, and pluck other children from hiding places?
Chapter Ten
SILENCE. COMPLETE SILENCE. There was not a squeak in the whole building. I was alone. Would my family return? A dull ache began to throb in my stomach. Miri? Where are you, Miri? Mama? Papa? Aunty Gitta? My cousins? Where has everyone gone? Are they going to be all right?
‘Where’s Rachel? She should be with us. We are going to be relocated. How will she find us?’ That’s what they would say when they realised I wasn’t with them. But if they were going somewhere safe, why had Papa told me to hide in the kitchen cupboard? Why had he told me to beg any of his former patients who sold us food to take me in? He didn’t like me leaving the house for any reason, so why would he tell me this?
Papa had told me I must be silent. I kept repeating this in my mind, over and over. It was the last thing he’d said to me. To be absolutely silent. So I crouched and waited.
While I sat there, numb with fear, I felt a lump in my throat. It seemed to grow, sprouting up like a mushroom. I was sure it would choke me if it became any bigger.
I wondered when it would be safe for me to climb out of the cupboard. I felt so alone. There’d always been someone around to make decisions for me.
THERE WAS NOISE: footsteps and voices. The cupboard door was flung open and Mama’s frying pan was taken. Then I was seen.
I didn’t see a face, just the hands that grabbed me. They were large and hairy with bulging veins forked beneath the skin.
Like a dead weight, for I felt paralysed with fear, these hands pulled me out of the cupboard as though I was just another saucepan. I curled up on the floor and looked past a man and a woman to the empty space where my family had stood not so long ago.
‘Oh my God. She must be the child of the family who lived here. What do we do?’
I stared at a woman with grey hair. It was twisted into a bun at the back of her head. She wore a floral dress and had an old lady’s body, thin and shapeless, and wore old lady’s laced shoes and thick stockings. Her face was deeply lined.
I couldn’t cry. I was beyond tears. I was alone, with Mama, Papa, Miri gone.
‘There is a reward for handing over Jews,’ muttered the rough man.
‘No, we can’t do that. I know this family. I saw the family name on this journal, see here, on the table. Miri Schwarz. Her father is Dr Schwarz, a very good man. He used to treat my sister. I once went to their house to get him to come urgently in the middle of the night.’
‘So what?’ the rough man said. Grey bristles stuck out from his chin. He straightened the cap on his head and looked at me as if my life had the value of an annoying insect. I turned my face away.
‘I met Dr Schwarz before the laws were passed to forbid Jewish doctors from treating Germans and they were moved here. I’ve met Miri—a beautiful girl. Rachel is the youngest child in the family. We can’t hand her over.’
‘You’re mad. We risk our lives for what? The life of one Jewish child?’
He scratched his chin, studying me. If I had been a snail I would have retreated into my shell. If I had been an octopus I’d have covered my inky eyes with my tentacles. But I was just Rachel, who had nowhere to hide, no wardrobe to curl up in. I wanted Mama and Papa and Miri
. I wanted them so badly. I felt so alone. Papa. Why did you leave me here?
‘I won’t turn her in. Oh, God help us, and we are stealing from her poor parents.’
‘This is madness, Gertrude. We’ve done nothing wrong. Everyone tries to loot Jewish homes after the Nazis have taken people away. That’s if they are lucky enough to find a place the Nazis haven’t boarded up immediately like this apartment block. That’s probably because she was on their list and they will come back and search for her. She is not our responsibility.’
‘Heinrich, I tell you I’ll not leave her here.’
He grunted at her and said something I could not understand. His eyes narrowed, but this lady called Gertrude met his gaze directly.
‘I won’t leave without her.’
Oh, it was so awful. Mama’s saucepans were scattered on the floor. The rough man, Heinrich, searched the other rooms. Miri’s journal lay like a tiny coffin on the table, and the world’s longest scarf was on the armchair, with its knitting needles poised.
I’m alone. I should have gone with them. Why did Papa make me stay? I’m frightened.
Gertrude ran quickly to the other rooms. She came back with armfuls of clothing, my clothing.
I slowly stood up, my body still cramped. I twisted away from Gertrude’s strong hand as she grabbed me, ran to the armchair and took the scarf.
‘What is that? All right, bring it.’
The pages of Miri’s journal turned over in the draft coming from downstairs, then settled on a blank page. A page yet to be written. I had to take my sister’s journal. It was all I had of her. I saw my doll Annie lying on the floor, and bent for her, but before I knew it, I was being pushed out of the front door, Miri’s journal in one hand, the scarf trailing behind me.
I turned to take one last look. This place, this scene of dancing and arguments, music and love, was empty now. I was empty also.
My shoulder was gripped tightly by the woman. The man held Mama and Papa’s clothing and some blankets. Gertrude held my mama’s frying pan, Mama’s best coat with the fur-trimmed collar and my clothing.
There were strange people all through the building rushing from one apartment to another. I didn’t see one person I knew. A man dashed past me holding a blanket. He paused to look down at me. Gertrude quickly took off my jacket with the yellow star sewn on it. ‘It isn’t hers,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s a good quality jacket. It belonged to a child who lived here.’
The man nodded and ran on.
I looked up at the man called Heinrich. He was much older than Papa, and had an angry face. The woman’s face was not angry, but her eyes darted around as if she was expecting trouble at any moment.
There were people everywhere, all ignoring each other, rushing into the empty apartments, searching for anything that might be of use.
Papa would say that this is what war did to you. He’d say it wasn’t really stealing when you were trying to stay alive, but it was my family. It was terrible to see what little possessions we and the other families had being robbed.
Feeling great despair and loneliness, I stumbled along with the grumbling man and his wife to an apartment block just streets away. The woman, Gertrude, told me, ‘We have a grandchild. He is much taller than you. Nearly twelve. You will get used to each other. This war will end sooner or later.’
We arrived at the building where they lived, a plain four-storey building stuck to other buildings along a street like any other in Leipzig. A few trees stood outside. They were sickly, their branches thin and the leaves diseased. They looked just how I felt.
We entered a small, dark hallway and then walked upstairs to Gertrude and Heinrich’s apartment. I held onto the wooden bannister nervously.
A boy opened the door. His hair was white-blond, his skin pale as milk and his eyes bright blue. When he saw me, his eyes widened.
‘Who is she? Where has she come from?’
‘Friedrich, her parents have been taken. We shall hide her. You must not talk of it. Ever.’
Having been confined in an apartment filled with people for so long, the first thing I noticed when I looked around was the abundant space. I realised later that it was quite a small apartment but because only one family lived there, it appeared larger. An old floral carpet covered the floor. There was a brown sofa and two large armchairs, a curved glass cabinet containing small ornaments, glasses and photographs. A beige wireless sat on top of the cabinet. Gertrude put my jacket on a simple wooden chair.
Friedrich looked at the yellow star sewn on it and scowled. In a crisp voice he said, ‘This is against the Führer. I must report you. My own grandparents! What would my father say?’
‘Friedrich, we are saving her life. She is a child, like you.’
‘She’s not even human.’
Gertrude walked up to her grandson and slapped his cheek. The sound was like the crack of a whip. There were red marks left on his pale face. Friedrich lost his balance and fell sideways into an armchair. I jumped. His grandfather stared. Gertrude put her hand to her mouth, shocked at her action, but still angry.
She leaned over Friedrich and touched the mark on his face gently. ‘Friedrich, these ideas don’t come from us. It’s that Hitler Youth movement you’re obliged to go to. It’s your school, and the newspapers and the wireless. Try to understand. Your father is Hitler’s donkey in this war. Your mother, my daughter, is dead. You will not report us. They will take us all away. Don’t you understand? They will lock us up and throw away the key. The people they take away never come back. Never.’
Friedrich’s eyes welled with tears. With his hand on his face, he blurted, ‘Turn her in. You can lie, Oma. You can say you found her hiding in the stairwell. The people, our neighbours, living below us, the old man above us, they will find out. We shall all die. Please, Opa, don’t do this.’
Heinrich looked at Gertrude and he looked at me. I had withdrawn to a corner on the floor near Gertrude and sat, shivering. Heinrich shook his head. He did not want me there.
Well, that made two of us. I didn’t want to be there either. I should have gone with my parents and Miri. At least we would have been together. Now I was stuck, fear knotting my insides, and alone. All alone.
‘Opa, please. At Hitler Youth they will call me a traitor. One boy turned in his own aunt and uncle for talking badly about Hitler. You cannot have her here.’
‘We’re going to keep her,’ said Gertrude firmly. ‘We still have enough food. She will eat better with us than she did with her family. We will manage.’
Heinrich argued, ‘You know we’re taking a big risk, Gertrude.’
I trembled. They were talking about me as if I was vermin. My throat hurt. It felt tight and sore, the lump was so big.
Friedrich’s hostile eyes bore like knives right through me. I thought he might burst with hate.
Gertrude’s husband watched me. I watched him back as he sat in the living room, on the hard chair near the window studying me. There was nothing he could do to me that was worse than being away from my family. He stared at his wife. His gaze flickered to Friedrich. He scratched his thin grey hair, then studied the faded carpet. Finally, he nodded.
Friedrich stood near the window. He was trying hard not to cry. He fumbled with his fingers and chewed his nails. Strands of hair fell over his forehead like loose threads. What would Hitler say? he must have been thinking.
His grandmother came over to him and patted his shoulder. ‘There, there, Friedrich, don’t cry. Deep down I know you are like my daughter. You don’t have a bad heart. It’s just the times and the way propaganda gets fed to you children. You will get used to Rachel. She will be like your sister.’
Friedrich stiffened his shoulders and began to wail loudly.
Chapter Eleven
I COULDN’T SPEAK anymore. The lump in my throat must have covered up my voice-box because not a sound would come out of me. It didn’t bother me much. It was the aloneness that frightened me. I began to dream that my voice, di
sembodied, had accompanied my family, and left me behind. My voice talked to them, but they only caught the ghost of sounds. ‘Where is Rachel?’ they were saying. ‘I can hear her speak, but I cannot make out the words.’
Gertrude put her weathered palm across my forehead. ‘Not hot. You are not ill. Little bird, speak to me.’
I can’t speak. Not until Papa says it’s all right. I once danced between the furniture. My mama once held me. My papa’s eyebrows once almost shook hands with each other. Miri once wrote poetry. My cousins once danced down the hall when the bombs hit outside Leipzig. Erich once played the violin.
I shared Friedrich’s small room, which gave him something else to hate me for. His bedroom was plain. In a metal frame on a small sideboard was a picture of a man in uniform and a woman with long blonde hair. His parents, I supposed. He had a dark wooden wardrobe, thick curtains covering the window, a bed with a curved wooden frame and a small bookcase where books were neatly stacked.
I looked at the wardrobe. A sudden warmth filled me. I once had a wardrobe.
‘This side of the wardrobe is yours. This side is mine. You own your sleeping space on those cushions Oma has put down for you, the bedding and that chair which I am giving to you, so you will not be untidy, because I like neatness. Each morning you will fold your bedding and put it on the chair and put the cushions back in the lounge room.’ His clipped voice reminded me of Nazi soldiers. I hated him.
His eyes never left my face. ‘I can’t believe I am sharing my bedroom with a Jew. If my grandparents hadn’t cared for me for so many years, I would turn them in, and you with them. It is my sin that I love them. I am a disgrace to Germany. Meantime, you had better behave.’ He said this softly. I was sure this was so his grandmother would not hear him.
Later that night, by a small light, Gertrude finished off the world’s longest scarf. ‘It just needed another row,’ she said, then handed it to me and put away the knitting needles. I held it against my cheek. I smelled it. If I sniffed it long enough wouldn’t Mama’s body smell reach me? Was Mama thinking of me right now?
