During that same week, while Mama and Papa were out of the house, Rina and Keren cornered Asher and asked him whether Izabella was just a friend. He tried to play his desires down but it was no good. Somehow, they knew; probably because they were women.
“You need to take the initiative,” Keren said. “You like Izabella, so show her that by kissing her.”
“I’m not sure,” he replied.
“What do you mean?” Keren said.
“You don’t know how to do it, do you?” Rina said.
His lack of a reply was all the answer they needed. They laughed. Asher blushed.
“It’s easy,” Keren said. “First of all, hold one hand. Then, if she likes that, hold both hands.”
“And if she likes that,” Rina continued, “pull her toward you—gently, though—so that your face meets hers.”
“Then lean in,” Keren said gleefully, “and touch your lips against hers.”
Asher felt his face reddening. “But . . . how will I know whether she wants me to do that?”
Rina giggled. “You’ll know,” she said. “You’ll know.”
The next meal Izabella shared with the Kogans was a more relaxed occasion, mostly taken up by reminiscing on better times.
Again, Asher accompanied Izabella halfway home. At the corner he held her hand, and she seemed comfortable with that, her hand squeezing his, which he took as a sign of encouragement.
He remembered the coaching Rina and Keren had given him a few days before, repeating their words inside his head. He made Izabella put down her violin case, held both her hands, and now turned to her, that beautiful face filling his view. His eyes roved over the long coal-black hair, her skin—perhaps too dirty to be pure white but still pure to Asher—those eyes, now warmer than ever but just a little sad, and that lovely strawberry pout. He wanted to do exactly as his sisters had suggested, which was to plant a confident but gentle kiss on her lips, but at the final moment his nerve failed him. His kiss was indeed confident and gentle, but landed on her cheek. Still, it was progress. And still, it felt wonderful.
There was a response, but not the one Asher expected. He felt her hands wriggle free from his, then felt one snake under his arm and around his back and the other firmly grasp the back of his head, pulling at his hair just a little.
And then he experienced the most exquisite feeling of his life so far: her warm lips on his, pressing just hard enough that he felt the outline of her teeth, not letting him breathe for some time.
He let out a short gasp as her lips let go, her fingers still tugging at his hair. Then her face—flushed and serious—was once more in front of his. She bit down on her lower lip, her nostrils flaring, then told him he had to go, he just had to leave now. He nodded, taking a few extra moments to move legs which now felt weak and heavy, but he was soon running home, this time with his heart feeling strong and a giant grin on his face. He had to stop before going inside, just to take a few minutes to calm himself down. He didn’t want his sisters to start asking awkward questions.
The meals with Izabella became a regular affair, and Asher would see her most other days, when they would talk of times gone by and increasingly their hopes for the future. It was after the fourth meal, when Asher was walking Izabella home, after she’d kissed him with so much passion that he felt dizzy, that she told him she loved him. He started to reply, but couldn’t get the words out at first, so he gulped, took a long breath to ensure his voice would sound manly, and told her he loved her too, that he always had, ever since he’d seen her at Café Baran.
For Asher, those were weeks of extremes. The horrors, the worries, the arguments—these didn’t go away. But they were also the happiest of his life. He saw Izabella every day. There were days when she would shed tears for her family, tell Asher she was scared, and he would put an arm around her to comfort her and tell her he would take care of her. And they both said they would always love each other. Asher believed that.
For Asher, the second half of 1941 was a carnival hidden within a tempest. Despite the worsening conditions inside the Jewish sector of Warsaw, the joy of time spent with Izabella took him to a better place and made the hardships easier to cope with.
But soon, as the oncoming winter shortened the day, Izabella became less keen on that intimacy, often pulling away when Asher kissed her. Asher accepted this reluctance. Perhaps it was what he’d overheard one of his papa’s friends call “feminine reserve.” So yes, he accepted the reluctance, assuming her reaction to his attentions would improve, given time and patience.
As the end of the year approached, however, Asher was becoming increasingly frustrated. Izabella was indeed his carnival in a wretched world. Starvation and disease permeated his every waking moment—except for the precious time he spent in Izabella’s company, when Izabella smiled, when Izabella talked, when Izabella played the violin. Just to be with her was a relief from the real world around him. So he didn’t ask about her reluctance. But he did tell her he loved her and wanted to be with her as much as possible. Again, her replies echoed his, but, like an echo, they appeared to fade with time.
Eventually the stolen kisses were rejected outright, Izabella pushing him away.
“What is it?” Asher said one chilly day early in 1942. “Don’t you like me?”
A pained expression gave him one answer, but it was an answer at odds with her actions.
“Don’t say that, Asher,” she replied. “Please, it’s . . . it’s not that. You’re a kind, strong man. I enjoy your company. You and your family are fine people. But when we talk about loving one another . . .” A slow shake of her head finished the sentence.
“What?” Asher said, secretly understanding but not wanting to understand.
“I remember what you said when you first spoke to me. You talked of love even way back then. I’ll always remember that.”
“I said it because it was true. And it’s just as true now. I’m in love with you, Izabella. There, I’ve said it again. This time I’m not spouting the words like . . . like some star-crossed fool; I’m telling you that because I know you well and I mean it from my head as well as my heart. I’m in love with you.”
“And what if I say the same, if I tell you I’m in love with you and I promise you my undying love for evermore? What then?”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Oh, Asher. Look around you. People are starving, many even dying. We’re both in a prison with no release date. So we have love. But what do we do with it?”
Asher thought for a few seconds, but was still puzzled. “Do with it?”
“Yes. Do we get married? Do we start a family? Asher, I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your company and friendship, for your family’s hospitality. You’ve brightened up days that would have been my darkest, but this is not a place for love.”
“But . . . but I love you.”
“And in a better place I would love you too. Honestly, I would. And perhaps when all this is over and we have our freedom, I will. But not now, not with so much suffering all around us. I’m so sorry, Asher, but we’d be torturing ourselves if we let our emotions take control.”
Asher stayed quiet for a few moments, his head bowed. Then he looked up and said, “Can I still meet with you?”
She nodded and frowned, looking almost hurt. “I’d like nothing more. You know how I feel about you. That hasn’t changed.”
“And the meals?”
“I’m so grateful to your family. I know how hard it is to share food that’s been hard fought for. But I think it’s better that I don’t come anymore. It feels wrong after I’ve said these things to you.”
“Oh.” Asher smiled glumly.
“Asher, I’m not rejecting you. Please don’t think like that. As I said, perhaps we can become closer in a better time, a better place. You won’t forget me, will you? Please promise me that much.”
The words brightened Asher up and he felt the corners of his mouth twitching upward in
stinctively. “Of course I won’t forget you, Izabella. As you say, another time. I give you my word I won’t forget you, and when that other time comes I’ll tell you I love you again.”
“So you’re not bitter? I’d hate it if you were bitter.”
“No, no.” Now he smiled. It was a smile edged with sadness, but still a full smile. It was also a lie. He was bitter, although not at Izabella. “I’ll be happy just to listen to you playing the violin on the streets. All I want is for these horrible walls to come down and for Warsaw to return to normal.”
“And they will one day, Asher. But for now, just listen whenever you’re near. If you hear the violin, I’ll be here.”
Asher left Izabella, telling her he had to go and meet his papa. When he was out of her sight he stopped to wipe away a few tears. He stood for a few moments listening to the violin. He knew he’d lied to her, although one thing he’d told her had been perfectly true. Watching her play, or watching words tumble from her ripe strawberry lips, or gazing into her warm, brown eyes—any of that would be like torturing himself. No, he couldn’t do that. It would only tempt him to strike up conversation with her, which would only tempt him to hold her and kiss her once more. And any of that—even, perhaps, his presence—would make her feel awkward, and he didn’t want that either.
But he wouldn’t forget her, and one day when this sorry mess had gone away, he would track her down again. Then they would share love.
He pulled himself together and returned home.
There, he found his papa talking to a neighbor. When the neighbor left, Asher explained to his papa what had happened, that Izabella no longer wanted to be an inconvenience to the Kogans. He also said he didn’t want anybody else in the family to ask him about it.
His wishes were respected—although his family couldn’t hold back the pitying looks—and soon life in the Kogan household returned to as normal as it could ever be in an occupied city.
Asher’s self-imposed abstinence lasted less than a week. Despite all the thoughts that seeing Izabella again would only make him suffer, conditions were deteriorating by the month, and just like anybody else with a spark of hope, something told Asher it was a spark to be nurtured, to be coaxed into a glow and then into a warm fire.
One sleepless night, he got up in the early hours, silently drank a cup of milk, and crept out. By the time he reached the other side of the sector, dawn had broken, and on every street corner he stilled himself, tuning his ears to any noise that sounded like music. He searched street after street, and yes, there was music—from a banjo player, from a flutist hardly worthy of the word—but not from any violinist. No Izabella. By noon Asher had walked every street and crossed every crossing in the Jewish sector. He returned home to an unwelcome interrogation.
“Your papa’s been out looking for you all morning,” Mama said. “Where in God’s name have you been?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“And you’ve stayed out of the house for . . . what is it, five hours or more?”
“Please, Mama, I can’t talk now. I need to rest.”
“I should think so.” She stepped over to him, held his head in both hands, and examined his face. “You are tired, aren’t you?”
He wrestled his head away. “I am, and I don’t want to talk. I’m here and I’m safe.”
“And you’re a little bad-tempered too,” she muttered.
“I’m sorry, Mama. I just need to rest.”
She nodded. “Okay. It’s good. I should be grateful you aren’t harmed in any way. I worry when I hear what’s happened to people recently.”
Asher felt a rush of fear. “What do you mean?”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk?”
He grabbed her arm. “Tell me, Mama. Tell me.”
She eyed his hand and he let go.
“I’m sorry,” he said more quietly. “But tell me what you mean. Please. Then I’ll rest.”
“Your papa says there are rumors of people disappearing.”
“Disappearing?”
“Here one day, not here the next. Nobody knows what happens to them. Or if they do know, they’re not telling.”
Asher’s mind spun with the possibilities.
“But anyway. You need rest. I have to go out with the ration card and see what magic I can conjure up with it, so I’ll leave you alone in the house. But please stay and rest, won’t you?”
“Yes, Mama. I’ll be here when you get back, I promise.”
Asher stayed in the house, but didn’t sleep.
When his papa returned an hour or so later, Asher asked him about the rumors.
“What rumors?” he said, hanging up his coat.
“The rumors of the people disappearing.”
Papa shrugged. “That’s it. That’s as much as I know. Did your mama tell you we were worried senseless about you this morning?”
“I’m sorry. I just needed to go somewhere.”
Papa thought for a moment, rasping his fingernails against his stubble. Then he put the coat he’d just taken off back on and grabbed Asher’s. “Let’s go for a walk,” he said, handing Asher his coat. “And talk, man to man.”
“You need to tell me if you go anywhere,” Papa said a few minutes later, as they walked along the street.
“Does it matter where I go?”
Papa held a hand against Asher’s chest, stopping them both still. “This is no time for games, Asher. I need to know where you are if you go out alone, especially so early in the morning like that. I don’t want you to be one of those people who disappear.”
Asher nodded and apologized. They started walking again.
“So where did you go this morning?” Papa said.
“If you must know, I was looking for Izabella, and I couldn’t find her anywhere. I hunted the whole sector.”
“What about where she lives?”
“I don’t know where she lives. She didn’t want me to know.”
“I thought you walked her home?”
“Only halfway. I think she’s embarrassed about where she lives.”
“Oh, I see. Well, she could just be sick.”
“She would still play the violin on the streets even if she was sick. She needs the money for food.”
“Could she have found a job?”
“A job?” Asher squinted at his papa.
“Mmm . . . No. I can see that’s a stupid thing to say. Look, I’ll do you a deal, play along with your game. I’ll help you look for her and I won’t tell your mama or sisters, as long as you promise me not to go out alone without telling anyone where you’re going.”
It was a deal Asher accepted but was to regret.
He and his papa spent hours the next day looking for Izabella. And hours the next day too.
On the walk home that day, Asher couldn’t bring himself to speak to Papa. It was left to Papa to sit him down on a bench near their block and tell him that perhaps they weren’t going to find Izabella.
“No!” Asher shouted. “We’ll find her. She must be somewhere in this sector. She must!”
His papa nodded in support. “The thing is, Asher, I can see this girl still means a lot to you, but there comes a point where—”
“I won’t stop looking for her. I won’t.”
Papa sighed. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”
It was the first time Asher had heard someone else put his feelings into words. He was confused, unable to answer.
“That’s to say,” his papa continued, “do you still think about her every waking minute? Do you get breathless at the sight of her and also breathless at the thought of never seeing her again?”
“I don’t think she wants to see me,” Asher said after a long silence. “But I still don’t think I can live until I know she’s safe. That’s all I want.”
Papa stood. “In that case, we’ll carry on searching tomorrow. Now come, we need to eat.”
So they searched the next day, and the next, Asher’s mind becomi
ng more ragged and desperate with every wasted hour. Then Papa told him that they needed to spend some time begging—that surely Asher could see that. Asher didn’t reply, but the next week they spent four days looking, and the next, only two. At the end of that week, Papa sat Asher down and told him that they simply couldn’t afford to spend any more time looking for Izabella when they could be begging instead.
Reluctantly, Asher was forced to agree. Papa also told him that if God meant for them to be together, they would meet again one day, and in the meantime survival was more important. He said a date with destiny would be useless if Asher wasn’t around to take advantage of it.
So eventually Asher put thoughts of Izabella and her mystical violin music to the back of his mind, and concentrated on the task of survival.
Chapter 14
Warsaw, Poland, 1942
On the streets of the Jewish sector of Warsaw, some people looked fitter and healthier than others, and Asher had worked out that these were the new people.
It was hard to believe, but more people came into the ghetto every day, all crammed into the same square mile of Warsaw. When asked where they’d come from, the answer was always some other Polish town or city. The country was being trawled for Jews, and the catch dumped inside the walls of this city prison.
Early in the year, however, there was a seed of optimism for the Kogans.
They’d all heard the rumors of work—although they dared not even bring the subject up for discussion. But one day, while Asher’s mama was cooking, his papa returned home with the closest thing to a smile Asher had seen for a long time.
“There’s work,” he said, taking his cap off and twirling it on his finger. “Hard work, but any work is good work.”
“Is it dangerous?” Mama said. “I need to know.”
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