by Guy Rosmarin
“What about you?” Sarah said. “Are you not celebrating tonight?”
“I had a very nice meal.” Hershel patted his belly. “Here it is,” he turned to one of the buildings. He looked up the number posted on a broken sign at the entrance. “Yes, this is it.”
Sarah grabbed Andy’s hand as they followed Hershel into a dilapidated stairwell. She squeezed so tight, he could feel her heart beating through her fingers. Hershel limped up the stairs one step at a time, leaving Sarah and Andy no choice but to follow patiently. There was no trace of the street stench past the second floor, only the sweet fragrances of a home-cooked meal. Andy allowed himself to take it in with no restraints.
“This should be it.” Hershel stopped in front of one of the doors on the fourth floor. Sarah froze three steps behind him. She tightened her grip on Andy’s hand again. He felt her anxiety. She looked pale as a ghost. Hershel knocked on the door three times. Sarah’s grip tightened.
“Who is it?” A muffled voice was heard from behind the door.
“It’s Hershel. I have visitors with me.”
Silence followed, and then a keyhole insertion, a twist, and a squeak as the door opened to a narrow crack. The warm sweet fragrance poured out into the hallway and flooded Andy’s senses. He closed his eyes as he took it all in and let it out with a smile. Now he knew it, it smelled exactly like Jan’s Grandma’s house on Passover eve.
“Maybe you would like to join us Hershel?” the voice of an old woman trembled through the crack. Andy opened his eyes and saw an instant flush in Sarah’s face. Her jaw dropped. She stood frozen, but only for a moment, before jumping in front of Hershel.
“Mamma!” Sarah let out a choked whisper.
The old woman took a step back. “Surreh?” She nearly stumbled, but Sarah caught her in her arms and pulled her back. “Mine Surreh.”
“Where is the rest of you?” Sarah asked in Yiddish. She tried to smile, but only tears came out.
“Ruben. Gittel. Come, quick!” The old woman cried. “See what Hershel brought us.” She scooped Sarah’s cheeks in her bony palms, staring with disbelief.
A young woman with an apron and a kitchen knife rushed into sight. There were traces of gray and white in her long black hair, and her dark brown eyes glimmered in the light of two candles set on a small dining table. Andy took her for a slightly taller, skinnier version of Sarah as he peeked from behind Hershel’s back. A frail old man followed, limping on a walking stick. His twisted posture conveyed agony with every slow calculated step. Sarah raised her head. The tears continued to choke her and her eyes widened as the man approached.
“Papa?” she said.
“Is that my Surreh?” the old man let out a string of coughs then laid a frail, gaunt hand on his daughter’s shoulder.
“Gittel,” Sarah grabbed her sister’s arm and pulled her into the bundle.
“My family is whole again,” their mother wept as she blanketed her arms over the three.
“Very well.” Hershel smiled and turned to walk away. Andy took a step back.
“Hershel, wait!” The frail old man said. “We were just about to begin the Seder. Join us.”
“You are too kind, Ruben. But my belly is full and I still have work to do.”
“Of course you do,” the older sister gave Hershel a sharp stare.
“Oy, Gittel,” Ruben tried to curb his daughter’s bluntness but another string of coughs came in the way.
“It’s okay,” Hershel backed away. “I better be on my way. Ruben, Perla.” He nodded and limped his way back to the stairs.
“Who is this?” Gittel stared straight at Andy, who was standing by the door. “You know it’s not safe to bring in strangers in these awful times,” she whispered in Sarah’s ear, tightening her grip on the kitchen knife. Andy understood very little Yiddish, but he knew exactly what Gittel said.
Sarah turned around. “That’s no stranger,” she said in English. “This is Andy Spencer.”
“Andy Spencer?” Ruben tried to restrain his coughs.
“He’s an American.”
Gittel grabbed her sister’s arm and whispered a rapid jumble of Polish and Yiddish. Andy could not get a clear translation, but he sensed suspicion in Gittel’s eyes.
“Enough, Gittel!” Sarah pulled away from her sister’s grasp. “Now is not the time. If it wasn’t for Andy, I would not be here. The Gestapo came for us. I hoped this day would never come, but it did.”
“And Misha?” Sarah’s mother asked.
Sarah turned her eyes to the floor in silence. “He wasn’t so lucky,” she whispered after a long pause.
Andy felt pressure from his bladder. He placed the suitcase on the floor and walked back to the door.
“Where did you get that?” Gittel stared at the suitcase. “Were you at the house?”
“Yes. I came home, but it was dark, broken, and empty.” Sarah answered in English to her sister’s Polish.
Their mother tried to lift the suitcase without success. “Why so heavy,” she muttered, and then dragged it to the side and began to untie the strap.
“The entire village was evacuated.”
“Evacuated?” Gittel tittered without a smile. “Who told you that?”
“The soldiers.”
Gittel shook her head. “You are so naïve, little sister,” she switched to English, stabbing Andy with another mistrustful glance. “You should never have come here.”
“What do you mean? You are my family. You’re all I’ve got.”
“Don’t listen to your sister, Surehle.” Ruben cradled his daughter with his scrawny arm. “You’re home now. Just in time for the holiday. We should celebrate this miracle. Your friend is welcome to stay with us.” He smiled at Andy.
“What’s there to celebrate?” Gittel fired back, grinding her teeth. “Certainly not our freedom.”
“Oy, Gittel. You should be thankful your sister is alive and here with us and not out there in some who knows what…”
“At least out there she would have a chance.” Gittle pulled Sarah into her midst. “I’m glad to see that you are well, but there’s no future in this place. The ghetto is worse than prison. It’s so crowded, there’s very little food, and people get sick and die every day. I’m sure your friend is a good man, but now we have another mouth to feed…”
Andy waved his hand in the air, shaking his head.
“Food!” Sarah’s mother cried. The others gathered around the open suitcase as she pulled out cans and jars one by one and placed them on the floor while Andy stayed in the corner and watched. “This should last us for months. How did you manage to carry all of it?”
“With some help from my friend,” Sarah glanced at Andy.
Ruben slowly kneeled down and unwrapped one of the bottles. “You brought my wine?”
“Oh Papa, I hope you’re not angry. I thought you would…”
“Angry?” Ruben let out another string of coughs. “This is the happiest day I can remember. I thought I would never see these again. Now that we have wine, real wine, we can begin our Seder. Everyone to the table! You too, Andy Spencer! You are our Pesach Ushpezin.”
“Ushpezin means a special guest,” Sarah whispered in Andy’s ear as she walked past him on her way to the makeshift kitchen.
In a Sukkah, Andy smiled but kept his distance, leaning against the wall and watching Sarah and her family set the small dining table. The moment froze in his mind, evoking a surge of warmth that spread from his heart to every cell in his body. He could pat himself in the back for a job well done, looking at Sarah grab a small ceramic pot of soup from her sister and set it in the center of the dining table. It smelled exactly like the soup he had a week earlier, but when he took a closer look, he realized what was in the pot was the equivalent of one serving at Jan’s grandma’s Seder. The heartwarming family reunion was jus
t an illusion bobbled at the bottom of the worst hell a Jewish family could be in: The Warsaw ghetto. He felt the pressure in his groin and knew he would soon have to make his exit, but he had to find a way to tell them.
Ruben pulled out the chair at the head of the table. “Join us, Andy Spencer. You are our guest of honor,” he said in clear but heavily accented English.
Andy approached the table and stood by the chair. “It’s an honor to be your guest, but I cannot stay.”
“What do you mean?” Sarah stabbed him with a baffled stare.
“Nonsense,” her father pulled the chair further, encouraging Andy to sit.
“I’m sorry,” Andy forced a smile. “Tonight is a time for you to rejoice, but I can’t burden you with another mouth to feed.” He glanced at Gittel. “You must think about tomorrow, the next day, and every day that follows.”
“You stay. You eat!” Sarah’s mother waved her hand. “You brought our Surreh to us and all this food.”
“Where are you planning to go?” Sarah said.
“To find a way to get you out of the ghetto.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your sister is right. There is no future in this place, and things will only get worse.”
“And where do you suggest we should go?” Gittel interrupted.
“Andy thinks Russia is safe.” Sarah answered for him.
“Russia?”
“Your cousin Leyzer took his family to Kursk just before the Germans came,” Ruben joined the conversation. “Everyone thought him for a fool, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Leyzer was, still is, and always will be a fool, Papa. The Bolsheviks are just as bad as the Nazis. They’re fighting on the same side.”
“Not for long!” Andy pushed back in. “Things will be very different soon, and Russia will be a safer place for you.”
Gittel turned to her sister. “You didn’t tell us your friend is a prophet. It’s a good thing you brought papa’s wine.” She grabbed the small tin cup from the center of the table and slid it to the edge right where Andy stood. “That’s for you, Elijah. Very sorry we no longer have the big shiny silver cup. The Germans took that one.”
Andy half smiled. “I know it sounds absurd, but it’s your best chance.”
Gittel sighed and took her seat by the table. “Let’s get the Seder started. This conversation is pointless.” She shook her head. “Even if we do take your advice, how are we supposed to get to Russia? If you haven’t heard, the ghetto is sealed. We can’t just leave. And if the German catch us trying to escape, they will shoot us. We risk our lives every time we leave this tiny apartment, so going to Russia?”
“There are options. The underground, partisans…
“Oh, please. My father can barely walk. You tell us he should join the partisans.”
“Did you hear that, Perla?” Ruben turned to his wife. “Our little Gittel made a cripple out of me.”
“It was not my intention, papa. I’m just trying to be realistic.”
“I will run if I have to.” Ruben tried to raise his voice, only to unleash more coughs from the depths of his lungs.
Defiance was a common trait they all seemed to share, but Gittel was the feistiest. Andy knew he had cracked harder shells in his classroom, but this wasn’t his classroom, and he couldn’t wait any longer. “I will do my best to help,” he turned to Sarah, his voice solemn, “but if for some reason I don’t come back, you must promise me you’ll do everything you can to get out of here.” Sarah nodded. “Now, I really have to go.” Andy turned to the door, his stance unveiling his discomfort.
“It’s two flights down,” Ruben said.
“What is?”
“The toilet.”
“Oh,” Andy gave a short, half-suppressed laugh and walked out. Sarah followed him.
“Come right back, you two,” Sarah’s mother cried out from behind.
“There’s something you need to know,” Andy said when he reached the stairwell. Sarah looked at him, her jaw dropped and eyes wide-open, as if she was worried he was about to tell her something she did not wish to hear.
“So, you’re not who you claim to be?”
“Oh no,” Andy smiled. “That part is true. It’s just that I have a tendency to…disappear. I haven’t figured out how it works or how to control it.”
“Oh,” there was a trace of relief in Sarah’s voice. “Disappear how? Where?”
“It’s very difficult to explain, but I’ll do my best to make it back…” his sentence was cut short. He thought he heard something. It started quiet and vague but quickly materialized into the mechanical buzzes of his alarm clock, becoming louder and louder with every pulse. “Oh no,” He covered his ears with both hands.
“Are you okay?” Sarah was startled by the odd reaction, but before she could get a response from him, Andy was midway between floors. She followed him with her eyes until he vanished into thin air two flights down, leaving just the blue and white armband to drop to the floor.
Chapter 26
Andy silenced the alarm clock with his fist and slowly rose. He let out a long yawn, put on his glasses, and peeked through the window above his bed. A power utility truck stood exactly where he spotted one the previous morning. He tried tuning his ears to the voices at the scene, but all he could hear was the blur of early-morning traffic. The pressure in his groin diverted his attention and pulled him out of bed.
He watched the steady stream flow for nearly a minute, thinking of nothing at all while clinging to the feeling of relief, but as soon as his bladder drained, his mind turned back to Warsaw. He looked up in the mirror above the basin as he washed his hands. He barely recognized himself in the strange outfit. For a moment, he wasn’t sure what world he belonged to. “Who are you?” he asked. The water continued to run as he stared, until he finally gave in to the burden of his daytime reality. He peeled away the sweat-drenched layers of clothes that connected him to his dream and jumped in the shower.
During a late lunch break, Andy found himself staring at his computer screen. He had a few minutes to kill before the next meeting and the Google header on the screen tempted him to indulge. The words “Jewish Calendars” that he had typed in landed him on a site where he could look up holiday-marked calendars by year. The home page had the present year on display, confirming last Saturday as Passover Eve. He smiled. Let’s see what happens if I do this. He entered 1941 in the year field and waited for his request to process. Staring at the clock at the bottom of the screen, he was not sure he could wait any longer for his slow network to give him an answer. He gave it another minute, and just when he was ready to head out for his meeting, the 1941 Jewish holiday calendar popped on the screen. He snuck a peek at his wristwatch and started scrolling down the months. “January, February, March…April. Here it is, Passover day, April 12th. That’s today!” He wondered whether his finding had any significance, but then a chilling shiver passed through him and he slowly raised his head and looked up in the air. “That means Passover Eve was last night.” He remained frozen in his seat, not sure if he was thrilled by the shocking confirmation or frightened by it. The only reasonable explanation for this mysterious coherence he could think of was Nate’s two cents about the conscious mind providing all the building blocks for dream creation. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not see how this piece of information would ever have entered his head.
When he walked into his apartment late in the evening, he felt like he had not slept for a week. Dinner was a lonely apple he found in the fruit drawer at the bottom of the fridge. He bit into it as he searched his bedroom closet for new attire. He pulled out a plain starched white T-shirt, brown cotton slacks, and a pair of shiny black leather shoes to match the set. He took a minute to inspect his new appearance in the closet mirror, then sat on his bed, slowly raised his feet, and let his body drop back. The second his head
hit the pillow he was gone.
Andy opened his eyes to an array of rasping rings and instinctively reached his arm across the bed to kill the menacing clamor, knocking the clock off the nightstand. He pulled himself out of bed, lifted the rackety antique, and shut it off. He slammed it back on the nightstand, and then sat back on his bed and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, letting out a long yawn.
“What the hell?” he said when he noticed the odd choice of sleepwear he had on, particularly the shoes. He scratched the back of his head and stared at the wall until the fog of heavy sleep dispersed. As soon as he remembered what made him dress that way for bed, he turned back to the clock on the nightstand. It was half past six, even the electric radio clock showed it, and he had not a single recollection from the night that passed. He buried his forehead in the palm of his hands, trying hard to scavenge any trace of memory, but there was nothing. He looked at the soft pillow, tempted to put his head on it and try to find his way back to Warsaw, but the early morning sunlight piercing through the blinds pulled him back to the day that lay ahead. By means of habit, he snuck a quick peek through the blinds as he got up on his feet. There was no utility truck parked by the curb.
