The Warsaw Anagrams

by Richard Zimler

  The young man hooked his arm in mine as we walked towards a nearby apartment house. I imagined he was close to his father. The psychiatrist in me would have bet he was the youngest child in his family.

  Once we were hidden on the stairwell, I took out Hannah’s ring. ‘Know anything about selling jewellery?’

  ‘Just that you’ll get a better price outside the ghetto.’ He took the ring and studied it, then handed it back. ‘Inside, it’s become a buyer’s market. I sold Papa’s flute the other day and got next to nothing.’

  As I’d guessed, that left me only one choice, but it was too late in the day for an excursion to the Other Side; I’d go in the morning.

  I passed Rackemann’s Tobacconists after Rowy left for home, and the French cigarettes in the window gave me the idea that the owner might be able to help me with an important request – or know someone who could. A woman in her fifties, with short, hennaed hair and too much rouge on her puffy cheeks, sat crocheting behind the counter. ‘Is Mr Rackemann in?’ I asked.

  She laid her crochet work in her lap. ‘My husband passed away in ’37.’

  ‘Then you must have made the Gauloises star in the window.’

  ‘Yes, that was me. How can I help you?’

  ‘Maybe you can put your hands on something unusual for me,’ I told her. ‘Two things, as a matter of fact.’

  I waited an hour for my first request to be fulfilled by Mrs Rackemann. She told me then that my second item would require a great deal more work and would cost me the astronomical sum of 1,300 złoty if I wanted it by the next morning, as I’d indicated. I agreed to that fee, and since I couldn’t pay her the full sum right away, I gave her as a deposit all the cash I had on me – nearly 200 złoty – as well as my gold wedding band.

  It was just after five in the afternoon – morbid darkness in the Polish winter – by the time I made it to Mikael’s flat, which doubled as his medical office. In the waiting room, the tiny, quick-moving nurse whom I’d met briefly when Adam came for his check-up sized me up from her desk in the corner, and her disapproving look told me I’d failed whatever test she’d conceived for me. She told me in a stern voice that Dr Tengmann was with a patient, but she poked her head into his consultation room to let him know I was here. Too jittery to sit, I stood by the window and watched a water-seller accosting passers-by on the street below. A wooden bar was stretched horizontally across his shoulders, with a tin pail hanging from each end. He wore galoshes wrapped in what looked like birch-tree bark.

  We were back in the Middle Ages, and the Nazis had dragged us there – which meant that the question we now needed to ask was: how far back in time would be enough for them?

  A young woman with a plaster cast on her wrist soon came in and whispered to the nurse, who instructed her to sit and wait on the green velveteen couch to the side of the window where I was standing.

  ‘Excuse me, but would you like to sign my cast?’ she asked me after a minute or two, smiling hopefully. She held it up to show me it was covered with signatures.

  She wanted to be nice to an alter kacker with grey stubble on his chin and dead bats for shoes, so I did as she asked, except that I wrote the name Erik Honec in extravagant Gothic lettering – what I imagined a professional writer might do.

  She told me her name was Naomi. ‘Are you Czech?’ she asked me.

  ‘Originally, but I’ve lived in Warsaw for twenty years now.’

  My lie was a key clicking open a lock – the rusted one imprisoning me in myself. I felt as if I’d escaped a trap whose existence I’d failed to notice until now.

  Mikael Tengmann saw Naomi and two more patients before coming out to see me. It was a few minutes before six. By then, the nurse – Anka – had warmed to me and made us a pot of tea. I was on my second cup and was sipping it – as I’d learned from a Russian friend in Vienna – through a sugar crystal I kept between my teeth. The crystal was a gift from Anka.

  ‘Hello, Erik!’ Mikael exclaimed, shaking my hand exuberantly. He wore a white medical coat but kept woollen slippers on his feet. ‘Sorry to have made you wait.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ I replied. I took out what was left of my crystal and sealed it in an old receipt I had in my pocket as though it were a precious gem, which made his eyes radiate sympathetic amusement.

  ‘I expect you want to talk about Stefa,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. I’m very grateful you came to see her. I want to buy serum for her. How long will it take you to get some?’

  ‘A day or two. I know a young smuggler who specializes in medications. I’ll get him right on it. But, Erik…’ Mikael grimaced. ‘It’s expensive – a thousand złoty.’

  ‘I know – Ewa told me. I promise I’ll have the money for you tomorrow – the day after, at the latest.’

  He waved away my concern. ‘I trust you. The important thing is for Stefa to get well.’

  Turning to his nurse, who was writing in the office appointment book, he said, ‘Anka, I’m sorry to have kept you so late today. You can get going whenever you want.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor,’ she replied, smiling warmly. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Listen, Mikael,’ I said, ‘I also need to talk to you about a girl named Anna Levine. Rowy Klaus told me she might have come to see you.’

  ‘Anna Levine? I can’t recall her.’

  I took out my photograph and handed it to him. Mikael put on his tortoiseshell glasses, and I noticed now they were on a chain made of linked paper clips.

  ‘Classy chain,’ I commented.

  He laughed brightly. ‘Helena made it for me.’

  Jealousy surged inside me, but I hid it as best I could. He studied the photograph. ‘I remember this girl,’ he told me, ‘but Anna wasn’t the name she gave me.’ He handed me back the picture. ‘And she never mentioned any chorus.’

  ‘That seems odd.’

  ‘Erik, I think we’ll be far more comfortable in my office,’ he said, gesturing me towards the open door at the back.

  I sensed he didn’t want Anka to hear any more of our conversation.

  Once we were in his office, he offered me the chair in front of his cluttered desk. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’

  Behind Mikael were his sensual photographs of the Alps, and I speculated now that they were to remind himself that a monumental natural world – far beyond the control of the Nazis – still existed. And was waiting for him.

  Sitting down, I asked, ‘So what name did the girl give you?’

  ‘I don’t think she even gave me a name,’ he replied, taking off his medical coat and hanging it on a hook. ‘Whatever the case, I didn’t write it down.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because she asked me not to take any notes about our conversation.’

  He took a cigar from the box on his desk and offered me one, but I was feeling too tired to make the effort. ‘If I remember correctly,’ he continued, ‘she came here without an appointment.’

  ‘So you’d never seen her before?’

  ‘No.’ Kicking off his slippers, he sat down and leaned back with a grateful sigh. ‘How do you know her?’ he asked.

  I told him about my conversation with Dorota, focusing on Anna’s relationship with Paweł Sawicki. Mikael lit his cigar, sucking in so hard that his cheeks hollowed. He looked like the eccentric doctor in a children’s story – off-kilter and endearing. Or was he making a great effort to appear that way and was someone else entirely? I again felt as though I’d wandered on to the stage set of a play, and that everyone had his lines but me.

  When I finished my account, Mikael said in a horrified voice, ‘This place, this time we’re living through, it defies description.’ He stood up, went to the window and opened the pane, taking in a bottle of vodka that had been chilling on the outside ledge.

  ‘May I pour you a drink?’ he asked, carrying the bottle to his desk.

  ‘No, thank you. If I had any vodka, I’d fall right to sleep.’

  He laughed sweetly. ‘Still, you
should have a smidgen.’ He held his thumb and index finger an inch apart to indicate how much – the gesture of a man used to coaxing children to take their medicine. ‘It’ll help you relax,’ he added. ‘And keep you warm.’

  Why are you being so nice to me? I wanted to ask. It should have been obvious to me that everyone sensed that I was barely hanging on, but it wasn’t.

  ‘I’ll have a drink in a little while,’ I told him.

  Sitting down again, he took an amethyst-coloured shot glass from the bottom drawer of his desk and poured himself a drink. After gulping it down, he licked his lips like a cat. Added to his kindness, the intimacy of that gesture – as if we’d been friends for ages – undid me. ‘Please help me, Mikael,’ I pleaded, and hearing my suffocating tone of voice made me want to run.

  ‘Listen, Erik, I’ll help you any way that I can, but I can’t tell you why the girl in your photograph came to me – at least, not precisely. I promised her that what we discussed would be kept secret, which is why I didn’t keep a file on her. All I can really tell you is that she had a problem for which she needed a physician’s help.’

  ‘Did her mother know what was wrong with her?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know.’

  ‘Was she very ill?’

  ‘Erik,’ he said gravely, pressing his palms together in a beseeching manner, ‘don’t make me lie to you.’

  ‘She was very thin – her mother said she’d stopped eating. But maybe she couldn’t eat because of dysentery. Was that it?’

  ‘Erik, please stop!’

  Despite Mikael’s plea, speculations as to the source of Anna’s troubles kept scattering through my head, though nearly all of them seemed ridiculously improbable. I even imagined that she was being slowly poisoned.

  ‘Could she have gotten pregnant?’ I finally asked. ‘Was that why she was so desperate?’

  ‘No,’ he replied sourly.

  He took a long puff on his cigar, then picked a shred of tobacco from his tongue. His gestures were quick and sure – the movements of a confident man who practised a valued profession, and whose grandchild was still alive.

  I slapped his desk. ‘Damn it! Someone must have known what was wrong with her! Please, Mikael, the Nazis cut off her hand!’

  I knew I was making a scene, but I couldn’t help myself. I wished I hadn’t ever given him my real name; having a false identity would have enabled me to plead more desperately – or even threaten him.

  Shaken, the physician put on his spectacles and refilled his glass slowly.

  ‘Just tell me if she said anything about my nephew. I’ve a right to know that.’

  He looked up, astonished. ‘So they knew each other?’ he asked.

  ‘I can’t be sure. Though there’s one link between them – the chorus.’

  ‘I see what you mean. But in that case, Rowy would be the person to talk to.’

  A knock on the door interrupted us. It was Mikael’s nurse. ‘If there’s nothing else, I’ll be going, Dr Tengmann,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you, Anka. Goodnight.’

  ‘Have a good evening, Dr Cohen,’ she added.

  ‘Thank you – and thanks for the tea,’ I told her.

  After the door was closed, I faced Mikael again. ‘Rowy assured me that Anna never spoke of Adam to him. And my nephew never mentioned the girl to me.’

  ‘So it seems we’re at a dead end.’

  He downed his second vodka, then pressed a troubled hand to his brow.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

  ‘Just a momentary… what? I don’t know how to describe it.’ He lowered his hand. ‘Despair comes to me when I least expect it. It’s as if I’m in mourning.’

  ‘For whom, if you don’t mind my asking?’

  ‘That’s just it – I don’t know.’ He showed me a surprised look. ‘It’s like a new form of grief – for nothing and everything at the same time. I don’t know any word for it.’ He shook his head, displeased with himself. ‘Though I have no right to talk of grief in front of you. I’m sorry.’

  I saw I’d misjudged him; Adam was very much on his mind. ‘Don’t be sorry,’ I told him. ‘I’m grateful for your sensitivity to my feelings. And I realize you won’t reveal any more about Anna than you’ve already told me, but do you know of anyone else who might be aware of what was wrong with her?’

  ‘I’m afraid the girl hardly told me anything about her life. And now…’ He took a second amethyst-coloured shot glass from his desk drawer and poured me a drink.

  When I knocked back the vodka in one go, Mikael grinned in admiration.

  ‘Better?’ he asked.

  ‘Few subjects could be less important than how I feel,’ I replied, choosing honesty over politeness. ‘But thank you just the same.’

  Before leaving, Mikael handed me Adam’s file. In his precise handwriting, in German, the physician had written: ‘Excellent reflexes. Alert. No signs of any disease, but needs to put on weight!!!’

  I’ll never forget those three exclamation marks.

  He had also written APPROVED FOR THE CHORUS in big letters.

  I searched the page for a statistic I’d wanted to check and found it scribbled near the bottom. Adam had been four feet one and three-quarters of an inch in height at the end of November 1940, a quarter of an inch shorter than the measurement I’d recorded for him two weeks prior to that date.

  In my mind, I saw myself tilting my pencil in a favourable direction; I hadn’t realized I’d cheated.

  ‘You can keep it if you want,’ Mikael told me, and when I looked up to thank him, I discovered his eyes were moist. ‘Adam was beautiful,’ he told me.

  I was back on the street when I heard my name called. Anka, Dr Tengmann’s nurse, came hurrying towards me, her determined face wrapped tightly in a white headscarf.

  ‘I could lose my job for this,’ she told me in a rushed voice, ‘but that girl, Anna, she never came to the office – at least not while I was here. And we kept no file on her. Ask yourself why!’

  ‘But Mikael said that was because…’

  Before I could say anything more, Anka turned and hurried away. She looked back at me once over her shoulder. I didn’t see fear, as I’d expected. I saw anger.

  CHAPTER 12

  Before going home, I went to speak to Dorota. Clutching a floral shawl tightly over her shoulders, she tiptoed out into the hallway to speak to me. ‘I’m sorry, but my husband won’t let anyone come in,’ she whispered.

  I explained what I’d learned from Mikael.

  Dorota shook her head sceptically. ‘Anna refused to discuss her health with anyone. I can’t believe she would have spoken to him or any other stranger.’

  ‘So why would Mikael make up a visit from her?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  When I asked for a list of Anna’s closest friends, along with their addresses, she slipped back inside to fulfil my request. A minute or so later, she slid an envelope under the door.

  Dorota had written down two names in her precise script. Both lived across town in the Little Ghetto. I looked at my watch – ten minutes to seven. I’d have to return home to make supper. There wouldn’t be enough time before curfew to question Anna’s friends that evening.

  On returning to Stefa’s flat, I discovered that the ghetto health service had sprayed carbolic acid on everything except her bed, since she hadn’t force enough in her coat-hanger arms to get up by herself and had adamantly refused assistance. I found her forehead burning. Her feet, however, were ice. As I covered them with an extra blanket, she said, ‘No, don’t, I have to wash Adam’s white shirt in the tub. Help me stand up.’

  ‘Why would you need to wash his shirt?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s being photographed in the morning.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  From deep inside the delusion that had overwhelmed her, she replied, ‘All the kids are being photographed for the start of school.’

  Offering her the truth at t
hat moment might threaten her fragile stability, so I told her that she was far too ill to do any washing, and that if I got Adam’s white shirt wet now it wouldn’t be dry by morning. ‘But he has other nice shirts he can wear,’ I added, trying to sound cheerful. ‘I’ll iron one after supper.’ I intended to do just that if it would calm her.

  ‘You’re a bastard!’ she snapped.

  ‘Stefa, please don’t say that. I’m doing my best.’

  ‘But you’re always criticizing me!’

  Being thought of as an unfair uncle made me frantic, so I took the shirt she wanted out of the hamper in my room. When I brought it to her, she fought to sit up.

  ‘For the love of God, stay put!’ I ordered. ‘I’ll wash it right after supper.’

  She began to cry in silence. Sitting down beside her, I told her I’d hang the wet shirt next to the heater in my room so it would be dry by morning. ‘Don’t worry – Adam will look like a prince for his photo.’

  She gazed away. Her lips moved, and twice she mouthed her son’s name. I imagined she was doing calculations about her own life and had discovered that nothing she could do in the future would ever even add up to zero.

  ‘Stefa,’ I began, but I couldn’t finish my sentence; I couldn’t think of how to phrase my wishes for us without seeming to betray the depth of our grief.

  I sat alone at the kitchen table, feeling as though the walls of the room might collapse on me – and that it would be a fitting end. Then I practised Erik Honec’s signature until I settled on a highly ornamented script, with aristocratic flourishes on the E and the H.

  The very movement of my hands gave me solace. It meant: I still have options.

  At 7.30, Ewa arrived with Helena in order to check on Stefa before curfew. I had only just started on my cabbage and potato-skin soup, and all the people I needed to interview about Adam’s death crowded in upon me as I stood over the stove. Helena stayed with me while Ewa talked to my niece. At the kitchen table, the little girl drew jagged pictures of needle-nosed aeroplanes flying over Warsaw. She told me they were Russian bombers. The city – a confusion of steeples and towers – was empty of people.