“Staying alive is no small thing when you consider how many died.”
“You think surviving is a victory?” said Shayndel. “Merely surviving?”
“I don’t know,” Leonie said, her eyes growing large with tears.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, forgive me.” Leonie wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “But maybe it’s better not to think about it too much.”
“Maybe not,” said Shayndel. But just then, Shmuley’s surname floated into her mind, like a kind of peace offering from the past. It was Besser. Shmuley Besser. She would not forget it again.
IV The Breakout
Through the Fence
It was nearly an hour after the end of dinner, but the dining hall was still full. People lingered as if they were sitting at a café, leaning on their elbows, passing cigarettes back and forth. Someone pulled out a deck of cards, adding a quiet shuffle and slap to the steady drone of conversation. Maybe it’s the coffee keeping them here, Shayndel thought. It’s rare that we have coffee in the evening.
In the whole room, only Nathan was on the move, going from table to table, making a big show of turning chairs backward, kicking a leg over them, and sitting like a cowboy in an American western. He made it look casual, but Shayndel knew that he was checking in with the men he’d chosen as leaders, who sat up, stiff and tall, while he leaned in to deliver last-minute instructions. She noticed that the two other female barrack captains were not in the room, and bit her lips to keep from ordering everyone else to clear out and get ready for bed. Her arms and legs felt itchy and tight, as though she were about to burst out of her skin.
Finally, she could not sit for another moment and started gathering the last of the cups. Backing out through the door into the kitchen, she was struck by the faces in the room. From where Shayndel was standing, all of the girls were lovely; Zorah as well as Leonie. Even Francek looked handsome. Her mother used to say that every bride was beautiful, and Shayndel had offered up chinless Luba Finkelstein as proof that she was wrong. But Mama said no, even Luba was a pretty bride. Tonight she understood.
Nathan followed her into the kitchen and got right down to business. “A few minutes after one o’clock, we’ll send someone to your barrack,” he said. “Then it’s up to you. Each of your lieutenants should take charge of five girls: get them up, dressed, and ready to leave as quickly as possible. No one is to carry anything. No baggage, nothing. We have to move fast. Our guys will be in the camp by then and they will guide you out.
“One more thing,” he said, opening a cabinet under the sink. He handed her an old pillowcase, lumpy and bound with a great deal of twine.
“You’ll find a bottle of chloroform and cloth to use as a gag—enough for the two women.”
Shayndel was furious. “You’re just telling me now?” she protested. “My girls are going to be frightened enough without this going on,” she warned him as sternly as she could, to hide her happiness at having Esther’s fate in her hands.
“This is not a discussion,” Nathan snapped. “The action begins in a few hours and you have your orders. There’s a wristwatch in the bundle, too, so you can keep track of the time. Take care of our little problem after midnight. The most important thing is to keep everybody quiet and get them out fast.
“I’ll see you later, Shayndel,” he said, and kissed her hand before she had a chance to stop him. “Be strong.”
As the men lined up for the roll call, Shayndel noticed that there were no jokes or games. Nathan’s captains stepped up smartly and everyone else fell in behind them.
“Finally learning your p’s and q’s, eh?” smirked Wilson. After they were dismissed, however, the men took a very long time getting back to their barracks, stopping to chat or tie their shoes, and pretending not to hear the guards shouting at them to move along. The girls joined in, making a show of their independence, strolling oh-so-slowly on their way to bed.
Shayndel found Leonie and took her arm. “Tonight there is going to be a breakout from the camp,” she said quietly.
“Tonight?” Leonie gasped. “You are leaving?”
Shayndel drew closer. “Everyone is leaving.”
Leonie stopped. “Everyone? Surely not that German?”
“No, not her,” said Shayndel, and explained how they would quiet and bind her.
“And what about me?” Leonie said, thinking about Lotte’s threat to reveal her past.
“Of course you,” said Shayndel. “Don’t be afraid. I’ve taken people over much worse terrain than this, and in the winter. The Palmach knows the countryside.”
Shayndel continued, “Your job is to help me get the other girls in the barrack ready to go. Tedi and Zorah will be helping as well.”
“I will try not to disappoint you.”
“Disappoint? You underestimate yourself, Leonie. You are calm. You have courage. In a country like this, you cannot be so meek. You have to stand up for yourself.” Shayndel stopped herself, but Leonie heard her words for what they were: parting advice.
When they reached the barrack, Shayndel brought Tedi and Zorah to her cot and told them the plan.
“I knew something was up,” Tedi said, her eyes bright. “This is wonderful. Another week in this place and I would have been barking at the moon. What do you want from us? What do we do?”
“There will be a knock just after one o’clock. We must get everyone up, dressed, and ready to go as quickly as possible. They are to carry nothing. Quiet, light, and quick, that’s our job. The Palmach will lead us out. I suppose they’ll cut the fences, and then take us … I don’t know where.”
The door opened and Lotte fell into the barrack, pushed by two of the British guards, their faces flushed and angry. “Next time, we won’t be so gentle,” said one.
Lotte spit at them as they left, screaming, “Ass-lickers, idiots, weaklings.” She wheeled around. “You are ass-lickers, too, all of you,” she yelled.
After she got in her cot and pulled the blanket over her head, Zorah leaned over to Shayndel and asked, “Is everyone going?”
“All but that one,” said Shayndel. “I have rope and chloroform for her.”
“And Esther?”
Shayndel shrugged. “People make too many assumptions about how much Hebrew I really understand. But the truth is, I don’t want you mad at me.”
Zorah smiled. “No, you don’t.”
As the time for lights-out approached, a kind of storm rolled through the barrack, with flashes of temper and tension breaking like thunder. Two girls got into a loud and stupid argument about a piece of fruit. Someone dropped a book and everyone jumped. Jacob started running up and down between the beds, like a wild kitten.
“Can’t you control that little beast?” someone asked.
“Control your mouth or I’ll fix it for you.” Zorah glowered.
A loud knock startled everyone into silence. “Is everyone decent?” A moment later, Goldberg’s head appeared in the door. “Everyone is present and accounted for, yes? Well then, sweet dreams, my little ones.”
The lights went out, and the darkness bristled with a nervous thrum of throat clearing, coughing, nose blowing, pillow thumping, blanket smoothing, and sighing. It was an hour before the restlessness settled into the tidal whisper of steady breathing and light snoring, though not everyone slept.
Tedi lay facedown, her nose buried in the pillow as she tried to block the smell of Lotte beside her. Her arms hung over the sides of her cot, her hands pressed flat against the cool concrete floor. Her head buzzed with questions: Where will we be sleeping tomorrow night? What will happen if we’re caught? She was proud that Shayndel had chosen her, but nervous. Would she have to fight? Was her Hebrew good enough?
This was bound to be very different from her escape from the train: to begin with, it wasn’t freezing outside and she wasn’t starving. She was not afraid, either. She had faith in Shayndel’s good sense, in Goldberg’s kindness, in the passion of the Palmachniks, in th
e land itself.
She turned onto her cheek and as she closed her eyes, Tedi saw a letter sitting in a tray on top of the cluttered desk. The window beside it was open to the sound of lapping from the canal and voices from outside, amplified as they traveled over the water. Mr. Loederman examined the address and smiled to know that she was alive and well.
Tedi woke with a start, confused and angry. Why should her thoughts go to her father’s business partner? Why should such a trivial detail from her past rear up just as the future was about to begin?
She clenched every muscle in her body, straining to erase the image of Loederman’s craggy face, the mahogany sideboard, the brass letter opener, the leather pencil case. But it was all too vivid to wish or will away. Her memory was no more under her control than her sense of smell. She was connected to the past by love and grief, and that’s how it would be until she died. I suppose I will have to learn to live with this, she thought. I wonder how long it will be before it stops hurting.
Zorah was keeping watch. After the lights were out, Esther had gotten down on her knees, her head bent over hands pressed together like a steeple. It was, thought Zorah, the most non-Jewish posture on earth. Esther appeared to be saying a rosary or asking for help from the Virgin Mary. Of course, she could just as well have been praying to Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel or soundlessly reciting part of the Hebrew service, which she had taken to attending with Jacob, morning and evening, every day.
Zorah considered herself an authority on the futility of prayer. In the concentration camp, she had watched people beg for their lives or for an extra ounce of bread, as if God were a wizard or a rich uncle. She had known better from the time she was twelve years old.
As a little girl, she used to show off to the ladies in the synagogue balcony. They smiled and nodded their praise as she demonstrated her mastery of the prayer book, phrase by phrase, gesture by gesture, better than any bar mitzvah boy. That stopped after she had overheard them whispering about her; too bad that she was plain as a carp, with a father who didn’t have two coins to rub together, not to mention the burden of that slow-witted brother. Too bad, they smirked, that piety made such a poor dowry.
After that, her letter-perfect performance of the liturgy was nothing more than a way to prove—to herself, since no one else seemed to care—that she was smarter than the stupid hens who went to shul only to gossip and brag about their sons. Let those who pitied her face and her fortune go to hell; she was determined that her life would never be as small as theirs.
And yet, as Zorah watched Esther pray to some imaginary uncle on high, she silently added an “amen.” She had seen the broken and the doomed find consolation in their devotions, and a kind of peace. She knew that God had nothing to do with it. God was a pretext, or a metaphor, or a strategy. But sometimes that was enough.
Zorah found it easier to forgive Esther her naiveté than her own long habit of arrogance. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, raising a clenched fist over her heart. “For the sins that I have sinned against you,” she repented, once, twice, three times. “For conceit, for pride, for haughty condescension. Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
Leonie stared up at the ceiling and thought about escape, a beautiful word, especially in French, échapper, which seems to whisper, “shhhh.”
Her last escape had not been beautiful. Accidental and unplanned, she had been alone, half-conscious, and impossibly lucky.
After the brutal night with Lucas and his comrades and the early morning hallucination of an angel amid the birds, she had gone back to sleep and woken up on clean sheets. She was sore everywhere, torn and aching, but smelling of soap and antiseptic ointments. There was a soft, clean pad between her legs.
She reached up to the throbbing cut on her lip, but Madame Clos stopped her. “Don’t touch,” she whispered. “It’s not so bad and there won’t be a scar. You’ll be fine in a few days; young flesh heals fast.” She clucked her tongue and shook her head. “We’re lucky this sort of thing hasn’t happened more, given what animals the Germans are.”
Leonie was allowed to sleep for what seemed like a week. The pills erased the hours along with the pain so she had no idea what day it was when she felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking her hard.
“Wake up.” Madame Clos was angry. She was breathing heavily and her kohl was streaked all the way down her cheeks. “Get up. Enough slacking off,” she said and stripped off the blankets. “I want you to go over to Freddy’s bar and get me a bottle.” She pulled Leonie to her feet and shoved her arms into the sleeves of a man’s trench coat. At the front door, she put a gold coin into her hand. “If you aren’t back in fifteen minutes, I’ll get Simone’s captain out of bed and send him after you.”
Leonie clutched at the railing as she crept downstairs on unsteady legs. Out on the street, she was dizzy and lost. It had been months since she’d been outside; after one of the girls ran away, Madame had hidden everyone’s clothes and shoes and done all the marketing herself.
She looked up and down the street and tried to get her bearings. She remembered that the bar was around the block and headed to the left. She was entirely alone. All of the windows were dark, the storefront shutters down and padlocked. Fred-dy’s was locked up tight.
The taste of bile rose from the back of Leonie’s throat into her mouth. The cobblestones were cold and slick under her naked feet and she was fully awake, facing the first real choice she’d had in nearly two years.
She could turn down the alley and go to the back door, where Freddy would certainly sell her the bottle, though she knew he would demand more than Madame’s money. Leonie clenched her fist around the coin in the deep pocket of the coat. The wool reeked of cigar smoke. She turned and crossed the street, deciding that she would never get down on her knees like that again.
Stepping carefully to avoid the broken glass glittering on the pavement, she kept close to the buildings. She could not risk being caught as she was—barefoot, bareheaded, and wearing nothing but a cotton shift under a German officer’s coat.
She moved quickly, without knowing where to go. Leonie had no family. She had not seen any of her friends or acquaintances for so long, she had no idea what they might say or do if she showed up as she was. When she rounded the corner and found herself in front of the bar again, a wave of fear erased the last bit of fog behind Leonie’s eyes.
She started running. Nearly all of the streetlights were out and she had no idea where she was going as she sprinted, block after block, as fast as she could, over a bridge and past a long row of German trucks parked for the night. Leonie did not slow down until she had no choice but to stop and catch her breath. Hiding in the shadows of a deep doorway, she looked out over an unfamiliar little square with wooden benches, some empty flower beds, a dry fountain in the center. On the far side of the plaza stood a tall gray lady with her head tilted to one side, as though she were listening to a distant song from beneath her granite veil.
Leonie stared at the statue for a long time, shivering like a rabbit, until an engine backfired and sent her racing past the fountain and down the alley beside the convent. She tapped on the ancient kitchen door, quietly but steadily, until she heard a bolt click and slide open. A nun in a white habit caught her by the arm as she fell to the floor and begged for her life.
Shayndel’s attention was fixed on the battered watch beside her ear. She held it up to a pale yellow patch of light, astonished that it had been only five minutes since she had last looked.
Leonie stirred on the cot beside her. Shayndel saw that her eyes were open and lifted the blanket, signaling her to come and join her. They held each other close, and the next time Shayndel held the watch to the light it was time.
She slipped her shoes on as she reached under the bed for the bundle Nathan had given her. Leonie helped her untie the twine, unwrap the bottle of chloroform, and fold the cotton batting into a compress. Tedi and Zorah watched from either end of the barrack, waiting for Shayndel to move.
When
she stood, the others rose, and the four of them tiptoed to Lotte’s cot. Leonie poured the clear liquid onto the gag, releasing a cloying, confectionary-sweet aroma. Tedi held her breath and pulled back the blanket.
They found Lotte lying facedown, which complicated things. Shayndel pointed orders for Tedi to grab Lotte’s shoulders and for Zorah to take her by the hip. She held up three fingers and when she dropped the third, they rolled her onto her back in one deft move while Leonie pressed the cloth over her nose and mouth. Lotte flailed for a moment but the chloroform took effect quickly, and Tedi and Leonie set to work lashing her wrists to the metal rail of the cot. Zorah and Shayndel tied her ankles down.
They glanced at each other across the body on the bed, nodding congratulations. But Lotte began to stir and within a few moments was thrashing from side to side so violently, she twisted her left leg free. Zorah and Shayndel struggled to hold her down and retie the knots, but the rope they had been given kept breaking.
Shayndel was furious. Did they really think kitchen twine would be strong enough to restrain anyone?
Leonie retrieved the compress from the floor and held it over Lotte’s face, dousing the cloth until chloroform soaked through and began running down the sides of her neck. Tedi turned away to avoid the dizzying effect of the chemical, amazed that Leonie could be so close to the fumes and remain conscious.
After a few moments, the stuff took effect and Leonie set the bottle down, pushed up Lotte’s sleeve, and twisted her limp arm to show them the double-thunderbolt tattoo of the SS.
Tedi whispered, “Impossible.”
“Tell me, what is impossible anymore?” Zorah muttered as she pulled the pillow out from under Lotte’s head and placed it over the wet compress covering her face. Zorah fixed her eyes on Shayndel, who met her gaze and nodded. Leonie and Tedi stepped closer, tight-lipped, and watched as Zorah pressed the pillow down and held it with all of her strength. Lotte’s body reacted instantly and with astonishing force, rising an inch off the cot. The others added their hands and weight to the job as spasms rattled the bed.
Day After Night Page 20
