Within months her hopes were dashed. Because so many people had been taken away on trains to that “heaven,” the authorities reduced the walled area of Warsaw further. They were back where they started, shrinking bodies in a shrinking prison. And whereas until then it had felt like being imprisoned in a walled city, now it really did start to feel like a prison.
The only work seemed to be running errands for the soldiers that patrolled the area, or carting dead bodies around. Those duties provided some food to supplement the most basic of rations, but the cords holding up their pants and skirts were tightened some more. Strangely, Sala looked slightly fuller in the belly, even though her face looked leaner. Asher’s mama and papa had long since lost the appetite for polite conversation, but now their faces seemed expressionless and their talk often descended quickly into petty squabbles.
The only spark of hope for Asher was how well Rina was coping. One way or another, she was bringing in as much food as the rest of the family combined. Whenever she did this she said nothing, just hurriedly put it away in the cupboard. But Asher noticed.
And so did Papa.
One dark evening late in the year, they all sat down to a meal of potato soup and dumplings. A lot of dumplings.
“Why are there so many dumplings?” Papa said to Mama.
“Are you complaining?” she replied.
“No, but . . .”
Asher noticed that Rina was staring straight ahead, and Keren was giving her a suspicious look.
“I just wondered why,” Papa continued.
“Because I had lots of flour,” Mama said.
Papa thought for a moment, then nodded to himself. He lifted his spoon and held it above the nebulous steaming liquid, lowering it slowly. As soon as it touched the soup he dropped it and let out a frustrated grunt. He stared at Rina, then at Oskar and Sala, as though daring each one of them to speak.
“I can’t take this anymore,” he said to nobody in particular. “It’s Rina, isn’t it?”
There was silence.
“She got the flour, didn’t she?” he added when it became clear his question was not going to be answered. He turned to his wife. “Golda, where did you get the extra flour?”
“I found it.”
“Found it?”
“In the cupboard.”
“But . . .” He turned to Rina. “Look at me, Rina.”
But she could do no more than glance at him.
“Rina?” Papa said again.
Now her look was direct. “You prefer to starve, is that it?”
“No, but . . .”
The two were like a pair of stags locking horns.
“Papa, don’t ask, because I won’t tell you.”
His voice softened, almost cracking. “But I worry for you. Is that so wrong?” He turned to Mama. “Do you know what she’s doing to get this food?”
“Nobody knows,” Rina said. “And it has to stay that way. But please just believe me, Papa, it’s not what you think.”
“I’m not sure what I think,” he mumbled. He shrugged and turned to Oskar. “Oskar, if it was your daughter, what would you think?”
Oskar blinked a few times and looked toward Sala for encouragement. She nodded at him. “We’re just grateful for any extra food we can get,” he said. “We need it . . . I mean, Sala needs it more than ever.”
Papa glanced at Sala. “Really? Why?”
Oskar put an arm around his wife. “She’s . . . expecting a baby.”
Everyone stopped eating and stared at Sala.
“Oh,” Papa said. His jaw lowered as if to say more, but he froze for a couple of seconds as his stare met with that of Oskar, and he lifted his spoon to his mouth.
A long silence followed, nobody else even daring to eat for fear of making a sound.
Then Papa sighed. “And, uh . . .” He glanced at Sala, then Oskar. “. . . have you considered where the extra food is going to come from?”
“Hirsch!” his wife said. “Don’t be so rude.”
“But it’s true. I just wondered whether they thought about—”
“Mr. Kogan,” Oskar interrupted, “I appreciate your concern, but what else can we do?”
His wife leaned forward. “And the war might be over by the time my child is born.”
Papa gave a harrumph. “You really think so? I think you’re deluded.”
“Stop this,” Rina said, slamming her hand on the table, which made her papa visibly back away. “Stop it now. Don’t you all see you’re letting them win if you argue? Let’s try our best to live normal lives. All of you, think what you would really want to do in an ideal world. If you can do it, do it. Don’t give in.”
“That’s all well and good,” Papa replied. “They’re worthy words, but we’re only just getting enough food as it is.”
“It will be okay,” Rina replied.
“But how?”
“We’ll manage. Don’t worry, and don’t ask. Just eat.”
“What’s this? My own daughter ordering me about?”
“Telling you not to worry isn’t an order, Papa.”
Papa shook his head, bemused, but started eating, and they all followed. There was no more conversation until well after the spoons and empty bowls had been taken away, but Asher thought about Rina that night. Like everyone else, he didn’t know exactly what she was doing to get the extra food, but he knew she was brave.
That they survived the year was mainly due to her efforts, whatever they were.
Chapter 15
Parking lot, Allegheny County Jail, Pittsburgh, August 2001
Diane pretty much threw herself into the passenger seat and slammed the car door shut. “Let’s go.”
Brad had driven them three blocks before she said another word. “Damn bureaucrats,” she muttered.
He waited for an explanation that didn’t come before taking a guess with, “So, it’s a no-go, then?”
Another two blocks went by, including a thirty-second wait at the lights.
“Now he’s saying he’ll talk, but only to me.”
“Is that a problem?”
“He means alone, with no legal guys or even guards listening in.”
“Oh.”
Another two blocks went by.
“So, did you ask the manager or whoever?”
“Deputy and a couple other guys. They said it was out of the question for us to meet with no guard present.”
“They figured you’d . . . what . . . take revenge on the old guy?”
“Clearly I’m untrustworthy. I even told the sons of bitches they could search me for weapons, cuff my hands to the table legs, whatever the hell they wanted except cover my ears.”
“So that’s the end of it?”
Brad glanced to the side to see Diane shaking her head.
“That’s the end of it for today. I argued, like, forever, and said it was my father who’d been killed and I had to have some closure here.”
“I don’t get it. So what’s happening?”
“They’re going to consider setting up some video surveillance system to keep lookout, to make sure I don’t do anything dumb. If that meets their regulations, they’ll do it tomorrow.”
“Sounds positive.”
“Except for one more sleepless night wondering what the hell happened between him and my father. And even then, that’s only if I’m lucky. It’s so goddamn annoying.”
They pulled up into Brad’s drive.
“Relax a little,” he said. “We’ll cook, watch TV, I could call Emma and David, see if they want to go for a drink—anything to take your mind off things.”
But Diane was already shaking her head. “I want to be alone,” she said.
They got out of the car.
“Alone?” Brad asked.
She rolled her eyes just a touch. “Alone with you.”
Brad put an arm around her shoulders and kissed her. “Listen. After what you’ve been through, you get to have what you want.”
�
��Ah, yeah, talking of which . . . ah . . . could you drive me back there tomorrow?”
“Hey, you don’t need to ask.”
The next morning, Diane and Brad lay in bed together listening to the morning news on the radio alarm clock. She lay on her side, curled up into a ball as if she were cold, and he lay behind her, his face nuzzling her hair, his hand caressing her arm, his naked chest pressing against her naked back.
“Have you thought about what you’ll be doing?” he said, kissing the crown of her head.
“About what?”
“I mean, like, you’re not going back to your father’s place, are you?”
Diane felt herself shudder at the thought. “I can’t even visit there, let alone live there.”
“So where are you going to live?”
“As soon as I’m done with finding out why that son of a bitch killed my father, I’m going to visit Mother in Baltimore.”
“To stay permanently?”
“I have nowhere else to go.”
An ad jingle so grating that Diane cursed it came on the radio. Brad reached across her, turned it off, then lay on his back.
“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” Diane said.
“Sorry.”
Diane felt his chest warming her back again. “No, I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
“Saying I have nowhere else to go.”
“That’s okay.”
She thought she could detect an edge of sourness in his words. She turned her head to look at his face, to see if he had that half-smile of acceptance he always had when he couldn’t be bothered to argue. And yes, it was there.
“Is it really okay?” she said.
He kissed her and they settled back into position. She closed her eyes as he spoke again.
“I’m guessing staying with your mother is only going to be a temporary thing.”
“I’m a mess after what’s happened. I’m not so sure what is and isn’t temporary.”
“I’ve told you, you’re welcome to move in.”
“You have.”
“So . . . in time you might be able to tell me where I stand?”
“At the moment, you stand between me keeping sane and me with my brain turned to jello.”
He let out a half-stifled laugh. “I should get one of those ‘Here to Help’ badges.”
“Don’t ever think I don’t appreciate what you’re doing, Brad.”
“I know. But I’m just thinking that if you feel like that . . .”
“What?”
“Well, you always told me you never got on so well with your mother, so I can’t see that staying with her for any length of time is going to help you.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“How so?”
Diane was silent.
“Come on. You can tell me. Really.”
“No, no. I wasn’t not answering, I was just trying to work it out myself. You see, when we first met, I told you I never really got on with my mother. It’s closer to the truth to say I was never really allowed to get on with her. After the split, I tried to keep the peace between Mother and Father like any good kid would, but that was a lost cause. They asked me what I wanted to do, and I said I wanted to live with Mother, so I did, and Father called me regularly and occasionally visited. Then I went to live with him, and he always told people that I changed my mind and decided I wanted to live with him.”
“I remember him saying that. You didn’t disagree, as I recall.”
“It was the official line, I guess. And I liked to fool myself. It made me feel better that way.”
“And the truth?”
“When he called me at Mother’s place he would ask how I was and how school was. Later on, there was stuff that made me feel terrible. He’d say how he hadn’t seen anyone outside work for two weeks, that he was fine with his own company. He’d really lay it on thick—just for my benefit. Sometimes, when he visited and had to leave, he got upset and was almost in tears. I don’t know whether they were tears of sadness, anger, or deceit. All I know is that it worked.”
“That’s when you went back?”
“Yes. And after that I guess I found it hard to escape.”
“What did your mother have to say about that?”
“I think she was still just a little in love with him, or at least didn’t want him to be lonely and unhappy. You’ve met her. She’s the gregarious type, always was. But he was the opposite; he didn’t much care for other people.”
“That’s a harsh thing to say about your father.”
Diane shrugged. “It’s the truth—or my version of it. You weren’t there when I brought boyfriends home and he would almost interrogate them and then tell me what was wrong with them. I challenged him about it when I turned twenty. He would tell me he was only being a proud father and trying to protect me. I would say I didn’t believe him, and then he’d get all tearful, telling me his only sin was he could never accept that any man was good enough for me. I swallowed that, and I was almost thirty when I realized it was kind of an act of his. He just found it hard to contemplate me moving out.”
“I don’t get it, Diane. I know you’re not quite as confident as you come across. But if that dawned on you when you were thirty, why didn’t you make the break then, get your own place not too far away, ease yourself away from him?”
“I guess after all that time together I got as weak as him. And he was my father. I know he was possessive of me, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t love me.”
“Doesn’t it?”
They both relaxed in silence. Diane sensed Brad’s head lift up. She knew what he was doing: checking the time on the alarm clock.
“No, it doesn’t,” Diane said. “For instance, there was the time I mentioned to him that I wanted to socialize more—to meet more people. He said it was a coincidence, because he was thinking exactly the same thing. So we held a few house parties, invited a few people from his workplace, a few from mine, some neighbors. Somehow I knew his heart wasn’t in it, but he persevered. After they’d gone he would bitch about them, and during the third one he started being rude to people. Not aggressive or anything, just bad-tempered. I asked him what the big deal was, especially when he’d said he wanted the parties just as much as I did. He had a face like thunder, and I knew then that he’d never really wanted the parties. It had all been a way to please me, to make me happy living there. So even though his motives were selfish, he tried to make me happy.”
“You don’t think he was holding you back for his own purposes?”
“Mmm . . . I guess we all act in our own interests more than we care to admit. We all have a weaker self.”
“You don’t think he had some sort of hold on you?”
“Of course not. Well, look, I just didn’t want him to be lonely. Is that so wrong?”
Brad opened his mouth to reply but seemed to downgrade it to a nod.
“We had our ups and downs but we got on fine together. I miss him. I really miss him. We had the same tastes in food and TV—at least, so he led me to believe. And that made it even harder for me to move out.”
“Is that it? Was that the reason for all those years? You just didn’t want him to be lonely?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Not now.”
“Okay, but talking of moving out, have you seen the time? We need breakfast, then we have to call in to find out if your video shoot is on.”
Diane turned to him. They embraced. She thanked him.
Chapter 16
Kiev, Ukraine, 1942
Mykhail knew from the passing of the seasons that he’d now been in the POW camp for about a year. A sea of men stretched over the horizon. Starvation and disease were everywhere, beatings and shootings commonplace. Just as food, shelter, and clothing were rare.
For Mykhail, eating was only out of animalistic habit. When the food arrived at the gates he would fight his way to the front, knocking over people who he k
new he should have thought of as comrades or compatriots—or fellow human beings, at the very least. But he fought them for what little food was provided.
There was plenty of time to think, and so many of his papa’s words kept spinning in his head—talk of being a proud Ukrainian, talk of self-preservation, doing what was necessary to survive. After all, those ideals had gotten him so far while Borys and Taras and millions of others had perished.
But even with those memories of his papa’s words rattling around in his head, Mykhail’s spirit, if not his conscious self, was starting to give up. How much longer could he survive? Another year? Another five years? And what after that—a country controlled by Nazis rather than Soviets? He’d seen many prisoners attack guards for the finality of being shot, choosing to be put down like sick and useless farmyard animals.
Then there was the goading by the guards. They’d obviously learned a few Ukrainian and Russian words: useless, filthy, disgusting, subhuman, unworthy, ungodly—the list went on and on. The only merciful thing was that most of what they said was in German.
Today was different. This one happened to speak good Russian. “Time for your supper, Russian peasants,” he said as he cast scraps of food onto the ground.
It took a while to register with Mykhail’s stunted mind. But he listened more intently.
“Looks like we’ve discovered a new variety of pig. The Russian Weakling Pig.”
Mykhail grabbed a piece of moldy bread from the ground and started gnawing on it. But he kept his eye on the guard.
“Why are you Russians so filthy?” the guard shouted out, flashing a smile. “Is it in your blood or do you have to learn it from your Russian pig fathers?”
Mykhail couldn’t help but answer back. “I’m not Russian,” he said as he grabbed another chunk of bread from the dirt.
The guard laughed. “What did you say, Mister filthy Russian vermin?”
“I’m not Russian,” Mykhail said more firmly. “And my name is Mykhail Petrenko.”
The guard’s smile dropped. He reached out and grabbed Mykhail’s jacket, pulling him forward. Mykhail was so weak that the action made him dizzy for a second. He fell to his knees.
The guard twisted the lapels of his jacket up in his fist. “You speak to me like that again, Mr. Petrenko, and I’ll kill you, you dirty piece of Russian shit!”
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