The Storyteller

  Rumkowski spent a lot of time traveling around the ghetto--having schoolchildren paraded around in front of him, giving speeches, officiating at wedding ceremonies, or visiting the Fabriken that he thought would make us indispensable to the Germans. So it was not impossible that he would not be present when Basia and I came to his headquarters. But we had been sitting in the cold for hours, and had seen the chairman enter the building surrounded by an entourage no more than fifteen minutes ago.

  He was easily recognizable, with his shock of white hair and his round black glasses, his heavy wool coat with its yellow star on the sleeve. It was that emblem that had made me grab Basia's hand outside when she shivered as he passed. "You see," I whispered. "In the end he's no different than you or me."

  So I looked the secretary in the eye and said, "You're lying."

  Her eyebrows rose. "The chairman isn't in," she repeated. "And if he were, he would not see you without an appointment. And he does not have any openings for the next month."

  I knew this, too, was a lie, because I had heard her on the telephone arrange a meeting with the head of the Provisioning Department tomorrow morning at nine. I opened my mouth to say so, but Basia elbowed me in the ribs. "I'm sorry," she said, stepping forward and averting her gaze. "I think you may have dropped these?"

  She held out a pair of earrings. I knew that the secretary had not dropped these. They had, in fact, been screwed into my sister's ears when she dressed for our outing. They were a beautiful pair of pearls that had been a wedding gift from Rubin. "Basia!" I gasped. "You can't!"

  She smiled at the secretary and spoke through her teeth to me. "Shut up, Minka."

  The woman pursed her lips, then plucked the earrings out of my sister's hand. "No promises," she said.

  The secretary walked toward the closed office door. She was wearing silk stockings, which amazed me. I couldn't wait to tell Darija that I had seen a Jew looking just as fine as any German lady. She knocked, and a moment later we heard a deep voice rumbling through the door, telling her to enter.

  With a glance back at us, she slipped inside.

  "What are you going to say to him?" Basia whispered.

  We had decided that I would do all the talking. Basia was there as a pretty distraction, as the dutiful wife--but she was afraid that she would grow tongue-tied if she tried to explain why we were there.

  "I don't even know if we'll get in," I replied.

  I had a plan. I was going to ask the chairman to set Rubin free in time for his wedding anniversary, next week, so that he could celebrate with his wife. That way he would be seen as an advocate of true love, and if Chaim Rumkowski loved anything, it was his own image in the eyes of his people.

  The door swung open, and the secretary walked toward us. "You have five minutes," she announced.

  We started forward, holding hands, but the secretary grasped my upper arm. "She can go in," the woman said. "Not you."

  "But--" Basia looked wildly over her shoulder at me.

  "Beg him," I urged. "Get down on your knees."

  Lifting her chin, Basia nodded and walked through the door.

  As the secretary sat down again and began to type, I stood nervously in the center of the anteroom. The policeman caught my eye and immediately looked away.

  Twenty-two minutes after my sister had entered the private office of the Eldest of the Jews, she stepped outside. Her blouse was untucked in the back. Her red lipstick, which I had borrowed from Darija, was gone except for a smear in the left corner.

  "What did he say?" I burst out, but Basia linked her arm through mine and hurriedly dragged me out of Rumkowski's office.

  As soon as we were on the street again, with a bitter wind blowing our hair into a frenzy around our faces, I asked her again. Basia let go of my arm and leaned over in the street, vomiting onto the cobblestones.

  I held her hair back from her face. I assumed this meant that she had failed to rescue Rubin. Which was why I was surprised when she turned to me a moment later, her face still white and pinched, and her eyes blazing. "He won't have to go to Germany," she said. "The chairman is going to send him to a work camp here in Poland instead." Basia grabbed my hand and squeezed. "I saved him, Minka. I saved my husband."

  I hugged her, and she hugged me back, and then she held me at arm's length. "You cannot tell Mama or Papa we came here," Basia said. "Promise me."

  "But they'll want to know how--"

  "They'll assume that Rubin made a deal on his own," she insisted. "They would not want to know that we owe the chairman a debt."

  This was true. I had heard my father grousing about Rumkowski enough to know that he would not want to be beholden to the man.

  Later that night, with Majer asleep between us in the bed, I could hear my sister quietly crying. "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing. I'm fine."

  "You should be happy. Rubin's going to be all right."

  Basia nodded. I could see her profile, silvered by the moon, as if she were a statue. She looked down at Majer then, and touched her finger to his lips, as if she was keeping him quiet, or pressing him a kiss.

  "Basia?" I whispered. "How did you convince the chairman?"

  "Just like you told me." A tear slipped down her cheek to land on the sheets between us. "I got down on my knees."

  *

  When Rubin had been sent off to a work camp, Basia and the baby had moved in with us. It was like old times, my sister sleeping in my bed, but now my nephew was caught between us like a secret. Majer was learning his colors, and the sounds made by farm animals he had only seen in pictures. We all talked about what a prodigy he was, how proud Rubin would be of his son when he came home. We talked as if this moment was coming any day now.

  Rubin didn't write, and we all made excuses for him. He was too tired; he was too busy. He didn't have access to paper and pencil. The postal service was virtually nonexistent. Only Darija was brave enough to say what we were all thinking: that maybe the reason Rubin had not written was that he was already dead.

  In October 1941, Darija and I both got food poisoning. It was not remarkable that this happened, given the quality of the food, only that it had not happened before, and that we were both still strong enough to drag ourselves out of our sickbeds after two days of incessant vomiting. But by then, our delivery jobs had been given away.

  We reported to Lutomierska Street to be assigned new positions. Standing in line with us was a boy who had gone to our school. His name was Aron, and he used to unconsciously whistle in class while doing his exams, which always got him in trouble. He had a gap between his front teeth and was so tall that he stood with his shoulders hunched, a human question mark. "I hope they put me anywhere but a bakery," Aron said.

  I bristled. "What's wrong with a bakery?" I asked, thinking of my father.

  "Nothing, it's just too good to be true. Like purgatory. Too much heat in the winter, and food all around you that you aren't allowed to eat."

  I shook my head, smiling. I liked Aron. He wasn't much to look at, but he made me laugh. Darija, who knew such things, said he fancied me; that's why he'd always happened to be the one holding the door of the school building for me as I was walking out; or accompanied me as far as he could in the ghetto before he had to turn off on the street that led to his own home. Once he had even given me a bit of his bread ration during lunch at school, which Darija said was virtually a proposal of marriage in these times.

  Aron was no Herr Bauer. Or Josek, for that matter. But sometimes when I was lying next to Basia and Majer at night, and they had fallen asleep, I pressed the back of my hand against my lips and wondered what it would be like to kiss him. I was not smitten with him, really, only with the idea that someone might look at a girl with worn clothing and clunky boots and dull ropes of hair and see instead a thing of beauty.

  There were children as young as ten in the square, waiting; and elderly people who could not stand without leaning on the person beside them. My parents had coached me on
what to say, in the hope that I would be routed into my father's bakery or my mother's tailoring Fabrik. Sometimes the officials placing you took into consideration your talents or previous experience. Sometimes they just assigned you at random.

  Darija grabbed my arm. "We could say we're sisters. Then maybe they'll put us together again."

  I didn't think it would make a difference. Besides, it was already Aron's turn. I peered around his skinny frame as the official at the table scrawled something down on a piece of paper and handed it to him. When he turned, he was smiling. "Textiles," he said.

  "You know how to sew?" Darija asked.

  Aron shrugged. "No, but apparently I'm going to learn."

  "Next."

  The voice cut through our conversation. I stepped forward, dragging Darija with me. "One at a time," the man before us said.

  So I stepped in front of Darija. "My sister and I, we both know how to bake. And sew . . ."

  He was staring at Darija. Then again, everyone stared at Darija; she was that pretty. The man pointed to a truck at the corner of the square. "You'll be on that transport."

  I started to panic. The people who left the ghetto, like Rubin, did not come back. "Please," I begged. "A bakery . . . the saddle shop." I thought of the job no one else wanted to do. "I'll dig graves, even. Just please don't send me out of the ghetto."

  The man looked past me. "Next," he called.

  Darija started to cry. "I'm so sorry, Minka," she sobbed. "If we hadn't tried to stay together--"

  Before I could answer, a soldier grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her into the flatbed of the truck. I climbed in after Darija. The other girls were about our age; some I recognized from school. Some seemed panicked, others almost bored. No one spoke; I knew better than to ask where we were headed. Maybe I did not want to hear the answer.

  A moment later we were driving through the gates of the ghetto--a place I had not left in over a year and a half.

  I felt it, viscerally, as the gates were closed behind us again. The air was easier to breathe, out here. The colors were brighter. The temperature a tiny bit warmer. It was an alternate reality, and it stunned all ten of us girls into silence as we bounced and jostled away from our families.

  I wondered who would tell my parents that I was gone. I wondered if Aron would miss me. If Majer would know me, if he ever saw me again. I grabbed Darija's hand and squeezed. "If we have to die," I said, "at least we'll be together."

  At that, the girl sitting next to Darija laughed. "Die? You stupid cow. You're not going to die. I've been on this truck every day for a week. You're just going to the officers' headquarters."

  I thought about how the man had been staring at Darija, and wondered what it was, exactly, we were supposed to do for the officers.

  We drove through the streets of the city where I had grown up, but something was different. The details I remembered from my childhood--the boy selling newspapers, the fishmonger with her oversize hat, the tailor coming outside for a smoke and squinting into the sunlight--all those familiar faces were gone. Even the gallows, which had been built by the German soldiers in the square, had been dismantled. It reminded me of a story I had written once about a girl who woke up and found every trace of herself erased from the world as she knew it: a family that didn't know her; a school that had no record of her; a history that had never happened. It was as if I had only dreamed the life I used to lead.

  Fifteen minutes later, we pulled through another gate that locked behind us. The barracks of the German soldiers were former government buildings in Lod. We were shuttled out of the truck and turned over to a broad-shouldered woman with chapped red hands. She spoke in German, but it was clear that some of the other girls already knew the routine because they had been assigned this work detail before. We were each given a bucket and rags and some ammonia and told to follow her. From time to time she would stop and direct a girl into a building. Darija and the girl who had called me a cow were sent into a big stone hall with a giant Nazi flag draped from its roof.

  I followed the woman through several passageways until we reached a residential area, with small apartments wedged together like clenched teeth. "You," she said in German. "You will do all the windows."

  I nodded and turned the doorknob. This must have been where the German officers lived, because it was not like any other military barracks I had ever seen. There were no bunks or footlockers, but beautifully carved wooden bureaus and a single bed, its covers still messy. Dishes were stacked neatly in a drying rack beside the sink. On the table was a single plate with a bright purple bloom of jam painting its surface.

  I started to salivate. I had not had jam in . . . forever.

  For all I knew, though, someone was watching me through a chink in the wall. Pushing all thoughts of food out of my mind, I picked up the rag in my bucket and the ammonia and walked toward one of the eight windows in the apartment.

  I had never cleaned anything in my life. My mother cooked and cleaned and organized and picked up after me. Even now, Basia was the one who pulled the blanket up on our bed and made tight little corners every morning.

  I looked at the bottle of ammonia and uncorked its cap, gagging at the smell. Immediately, I closed it, my eyes tearing. I sat down at the kitchen table and found myself face-to-face with that breakfast plate.

  Very quickly I touched my forefinger to the spot of jam and stuck it in my mouth.

  Oh, God. My eyes began to tear again, for a very different reason. Every bit of my brain had begun firing in memory. Of eating my father's rolls, slathered with fresh butter and strawberry preserves that my mother had made. Of picking blueberries in the country where Darija's father's factory had been. Of lying on my back and imagining that the clouds in the sky were a scooter, a parrot, a tortoise. Of having nothing to do, because that's the occupation of a child.

  That jam tasted like a lazy summer day. Like freedom.

  I was so lost in my senses that I didn't hear the footsteps heralding the approach of the officer who, a second later, turned the doorknob and entered his residence. I leaped up, grabbing my bucket so fast that the ammonia tumbled out onto the floor. "Oh!" I cried, falling to my knees to mop up the mess with the rag.

  He was about my father's age, with silver hair that matched the buttons of his uniform. When he saw me his eyes flicked over my huddled body. "Finish your work quickly," he said in German, and then, because he didn't expect me to understand, he pointed at the window.

  I nodded and turned away. I could hear the creak of the chair as he sat down at a desk and began to leaf through papers. With a shaking hand, I uncorked the ammonia bottle again, plugged my nose, and tried to twist the rag into its narrow neck so that I could soak up some of the cleaning fluid. I was able to get just the corner wet. Gingerly, I pressed it up against the window at the dirtiest part, as if I were dabbing at a wound.

  The officer looked up after a few moments. " Schneller, " he said tightly. Faster.

  I turned around, my heart pounding. "I'm sorry," I replied, babbling in his own language to keep him from getting even angrier than he already was. "I've never done this before."

  His eyebrows raised. "You speak German."

  I nodded. "It was my best subject."

  The officer got out of his chair and walked toward me. By now I was frantic, trembling so hard my knees were knocking. I lifted my hand over my head to ward off the blow that I knew was coming, but instead, the soldier plucked the rag from my clenched fist. He poured some ammonia into the rag and wiped the window with long, smooth strokes. The rag came away filthy and black, so he folded it over to a fresh white spot and poured more ammonia onto it. He continued to clean his own window, and when he finished he picked up a newspaper and began to rub it over the panes of glass. "This dries it without leaving streaks," he explained.

  "Danke, " I murmured, holding out my hand for the rag and the bottle of ammonia, but he just shook his head. He proceeded to finish the other windows until they were sp
otless; until it seemed as if there was no barrier between the inside of this apartment, where we had entered a strange truce, and the outside world, where I could take nothing for granted.

  Then he looked at me. "Repeat everything you learned."

  I rattled off every step of the window-washing process as if my life depended on it--which, maybe, it did. Flawlessly, in his mother tongue. When I was finished, the officer was staring at me as if I were a museum specimen he'd never encountered before. "If I were not staring right at you," he said, "I wouldn't know you were not volkisch. You speak like a native."

  I thanked him, thinking of all those afternoons I'd spent in conversation with Herr Bauer, and silently winging my gratitude to my former teacher, wherever he was now. I reached for the bucket, intent on finishing the rest of my job in other officers' apartments before the head cleaning woman came back to collect me, but the soldier shook his head and set it on the floor between us. "Tell me," he said. "Can you type?"

  *

  With one note from the officer who had taught me to wash windows, I was reassigned to a workshop run by Herr Fassbinder, an ethnic German man who was just over five feet tall and who employed a great number of young girls, many younger than myself. He called us " meine Kleiner"--my little ones. The children were responsible for stitching the emblems that were sewed onto German uniforms. If, that first day, I shuddered to see ten-year-olds fashioning swastika patches, it became common enough.

  I was not one of the sewers. Instead, I had been sent to work in Herr Fassbinder's office. My job was to process the orders, to answer the telephones, and to give out the candy that he brought in every Friday for the children.

  At first, Herr Fassbinder spoke to me only when he needed information from the files, or when he had to dictate a letter and have it typed. But then one day, Aron showed up with a few other boys, hauling bolts of cloth that would be cut and stitched according to the orders that had been placed. I think Aron was as surprised to see me as I was to see him. "Minka!" he said, as I directed his co-workers to the storage rooms. "You work here?"