Milkweed

  Then Doctor Korczak left me waiting for a few minutes. When he returned, he led me to the great front room. I was amazed. There they were, the orphans, orphan boys and orphan girls, all of them standing at attention in rows from wall to wall.

  Doctor Korczak snapped his fingers and everyone said at once: “Thank you, Misha Pilsudski!”

  I was uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to say. Doctor Korczak shook my hand and opened the front door for me. “Come see us again,” he said. I walked away in my new clothes.

  12

  I continued to bring black pearls to Doctor Korczak and the orphans. To Janina’s back step I brought black pearls and bread when I could. I began to notice that there was no longer a gift waiting for me. One day I knocked on the back door. A man answered. I knew he was a Jackboot even in his socks. His gray-and-silver jacket was unbuttoned, showing a stained T-shirt and suspenders. In one hand was a stein of beer.

  “Where is Janina and her family?” I said.

  He growled something at me in Jackboot language. His breath was oniony.

  I repeated forcefully: “Janina!”

  He took a swig of beer. He pointed at the bag of coal in my hand. I held it out. “Black pearls,” I said. “For Janina.” He snatched them from me.

  He pointed at me. “Jude?”

  That word I knew. “No,” I said. “I’m a Gypsy.”

  He cocked his head, as if to hear better.

  I stood at attention. “Gypsy!”

  He raised his hand. I thought: He’s going to salute me. But he didn’t. He slapped me. And overturned the stein of beer onto my head.

  I snatched the bag of coal back from him. I swung the bag and brought it down with all my might onto his stockinged foot. He yowled. I ran.

  One morning after awakening in our stable, as I was walking to the stall where we peed, I saw a man in another stall.

  He was curled up like a bean. He wore a long black coat. He lay in the straw. I squatted down beside him. Suddenly one eye opened and stared at me. He sat up.

  “Do you live here?” I said.

  Straw poked from his head like extra hair. “I live nowhere,” he said.

  “I live here with my friend Uri,” I told him. “Do you want to live with us?”

  He looked around as if there was something he could not find. He shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Did you once live in a big house?” I said. I was thinking of Janina.

  “The house was big,” he said, “but I only lived in two rooms.”

  “With your children?”

  He looked at me. “With my books.”

  I studied his face. “You’re not a Jew, are you?” I said.

  His eyes shifted. He sat up straighter. “Why do you ask?”

  “You don’t have a beard.”

  He stood. He peered into the next stable. “That’s because I’m not Jewish. Did someone tell you to ask?”

  “No.”

  He repeated, “I am not a Jew. Do you believe me?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m not a Jew either. I’m a Gypsy. I’m glad I’m not a Jew.”

  He walked to the nearest window and looked out. “Glad, are you?”

  “I think so,” I said. “But sometimes I’m not sure. Jews get shot at and they have to ride horses backward and scrub the sidewalk with their beards. But I don’t have a beard. And I think I might like to get painted.”

  He was looking at me, but he didn’t seem to see me.

  “Would you like some bratwurst?” I said. “We have bratwurst.”

  I waited. At last he nodded.

  I went for the bratwurst. When I returned, the man was gone.

  When Uri and I walked the streets, I had strict instructions. I was to walk as if I knew where I was going. I was to look straight ahead. I was not to laugh or scream or dance or do anything to call attention to myself.

  “Be invisible,” he said.

  “Like an angel?” I said.

  He ignored me. He said I was to look as if I had nothing to hide, as if I belonged there. “Most of all,” Uri said, poking me in the chest, “don’t look guilty.”

  “What’s guilty?” I said.

  “It’s doing something you’re not supposed to do.”

  “That’s easy,” I said. “I’m not guilty.” I had forgotten about snatching Janina’s birthday cake.

  “Fine,” he said. “Just don’t look it.”

  I found a scrap of mirror. I looked into it. I practiced looking not guilty. I walked back and forth in the stable, looking straight ahead, looking as if I had nothing to hide. When we went outside, in the center of the city among the crowds of people, I said to Uri, “Look!” and crossed the street by myself. I held my head high. I looked straight ahead. I looked as not guilty as anyone ever looked and as if I knew exactly where I was going. I got hit by an automobile.

  It was only a bump. The car screeched and stopped and hit me just hard enough to knock me off my feet. The driver was screaming, people were staring, and next thing I knew Uri was dragging me by the collar of my coat and at the same time kicking me in the rear and the people were laughing.

  Uri wasn’t laughing. He dragged me out of sight into an alley and dropped me like a sack of coal. He hissed in my face: “Did I tell you not to call attention to yourself, you stupid little turd?”

  I looked up at him. I nodded. Back to stupid.

  I had never seen him so mad. His hair looked redder than ever, only this time it was not because he was laughing. He punched me in the forehead. The back of my head banged against the wall. “Someday I’m going to have to kill you to keep you alive.” He flapped his arm. “You want to do it your way? You want to go off by yourself? Not listen to me? Go ahead!” He kicked me. “Go ahead!” He stomped off. By the time he reached the street, I was at his side.

  I was sure then that I would never again disobey Uri. But I did not know about the beautiful horses.

  13

  The first time I saw it was the time Uri first took me to the orphans’ home. It was in a park within sight of the home. I couldn’t believe my eyes: horses going in a circle. I thought they were real. Then I saw they were not. They were made of wood, painted, going round and round to tootling music. I ran to them. I just stood there, overwhelmed. They were the most magnificent animals I had ever seen—red horses, blue horses, horses of all colors—draped in gold and flowers, heads high, hooves raised as if prancing to the music. I barely noticed the children sitting on their backs.

  “What is it?” I said to Uri.

  “Merry-go-round,” he said.

  The horses went round and round. As each wonderful horse went by, its large black eye seemed to look straight at me. So proud and high were their heads, I saw for the first time how miserable were the real horses plodding the streets. Some of the children bounced and yelled, pretending to gallop. Others looked thoughtful. One was crying. Grown-ups stood watching.

  Someone pulled the crying child from her horse. I headed for it. Uri grabbed me. “No.”

  “Why?” I said. I tried to pull away.

  “It’s not for you.”

  I thought he was joking. “Everything is for me!” I said, laughing. I believed it.

  He grabbed my neck in one hand. He squeezed until I couldn’t breathe. He brought his face close to mine, his pickle breath. “No.”

  We turned our backs on the merry-go-round and went to the orphans’ home.

  From then on I went to sleep with the tootling music in my head. Gold-spangled horses circled my dreams. By morning there was only straw in my ears.

  Whenever we went out together, I tried to steer Uri toward the merry-go-round. As we came near, I could always feel his hand slipping over my collar.

  I’m sure he knew I disobeyed him when I went out by myself. Many days I headed straight for the beautiful horses. But they were not always moving. “Electricity,” Uri had once said, explaining why our lightbulb used to work only sometimes when we lived like kings in the cellar of the
barbershop. “It comes and goes.”

  So it was an even grander treat to see the horses moving. I couldn’t resist. The first day I went back alone I was determined to ride a horse. There was a foot of snow on the ground, but I never felt the cold. Every gilded saddle was occupied. I stood watching them go round and round. I think my eyes must have been as big as the horses’, my smile as wide as those of all the laughing children put together.

  And then the horses slowed down and came to a stop, and the music stopped, and the waiting people rushed forward and pulled the children from the saddles. I didn’t wait. I leaped onto the platform and onto a horse. It was the most beautiful of all the beautiful horses, and I had had my eye on it from the start. It was as black as the coal dust under my fingernails. It had gold tassels behind its ears and a flying tail and three golden hooves on the ground and one in the air. Its head was flung high and its mouth was open as if shouting to the horses of the world: Look at me! For those few moments I was higher, I was grander, than anyone.

  Then a child was screeching, “He doesn’t have a ticket!” and a man came along and held out his hand and said, “Give me your ticket,” and I said, “What’s a ticket?” and the man yanked me from the horse and threw me facedown into the snow.

  Within moments a little girl with hair as gold as the horse’s tassels stood above me pointing and screaming, “He’s a dirty Jew!”

  I got to my feet. Everyone was staring at me, even the foxes on the shoulders of the ladies. I screamed back at her. “I am not!” I screamed at them all. “I’m a Gypsy!”

  “Eewwww!” The golden-haired girl held her nose and kicked me and ran off shrieking. Other children tugged on the hands of the ladies, like dogs on leashes. They flung their faces at me. “Dirty Gypsy! Dirty Gypsy!” One by one the little girls were let go. They dashed forward, kicked me, and dashed back to the laughing ladies. Meanwhile, the boys bombarded me with snowballs.

  I ran.

  But I returned the next day, and the next. When the horses were moving, I stayed at a distance, watching, wishing.

  One time when I brought coal to the nearby orphanage, I said to Doctor Korczak, “Do the orphans ride the merry-go-round?” Sometimes I saw the orphans play outside, but never near the merry-go-round.

  Something sad came over Doctor Korczak’s face. “No,” he said. “Maybe someday.”

  I looked up at his round face, at the fabulous white goatee. “Why not?” I said. “Because they’re Jews?”

  He looked at the merry-go-round tootling behind me. He looked at the orphans playing nearby. Girls were jumping rope. He smiled at them, such a smile as I imagined must come from fathers. “They’re children,” he said. He sounded surprised. He looked down at me. “Children.” There was a question on his face, but I could not answer it.

  This thing electricity, I did not understand it. It came and went without warning. I marveled that without it, lights were dark, the merry-go-round was still. For two or three days the painted horses had not moved. I imagined I heard them screaming, Let us run!

  Then in the dark of the stable one night, I awoke to the sound of the music. Often in the night I heard the music. Uri explained that the music was only in my head, for the merry-go-round was two kilometers away. And besides, the merry-go-round did not turn at night.

  But this time it was different. The music was not in my head, I was sure of it. I went to the window. A full moon falling on the snow lit up the world—who needed electricity? And somewhere out there music was playing. Uri slept. I sneaked out of the stable—Uri no longer tied me to himself—and into the curfew.

  The music got louder and louder as I came near the merry-go-round. I was right! I started to run. The snow slowed me down. And there it was! Lit up by lights that I had barely noticed in the daytime. The music was tootling, the horses were going round and round, the lights were blazing—and no one was there! The mysterious electricity must have come on in the night and awakened the merry-go-round.

  I climbed onto the beautiful black horse with the golden tassels and round and round we went. I went from horse to horse until I think I must have ridden them all. I rode them forward and backward. I rode them sitting down and standing up. I don’t think I ever stopped laughing, and in the mix of my laughter and the music I was sure I heard the whinnies of the horses, joyful to be moving again.

  And then a thought came to me. I stopped laughing. I looked at the dark hulk of the orphans’ home. I jumped down from the merry-go-round. I wobbled and fell into the snow, dizzy from hours of riding in circles. I ran to the orphanage. I banged on the door. I called out, “Doctor Korczak! Doctor Korczak!” A light went on inside. Locks clacked. He opened the door. Fear was in his eyes.

  “Doctor Korczak!” I blurted. “The merry-go-round is going! Look! There’s no one there! Bring the children!” I took a step back. I waved. “Come on!”

  The doctor reached into the moonlight and hauled me roughly into the house. He slammed the door shut and bolted it. He shook me by the shoulders. He snapped, “Foolish, good-hearted boy.” He hauled me upstairs to a bed.

  As I went to sleep in the orphans’ home, the moon was going, morning was coming, and day was darker than night. When I awoke, Uri was downstairs whispering with the doctor. Their cloud-breaths mingled.

  As we left the orphans’ home, I waited for Uri to smack me, to knock my head into a wall, to call me stupid. He did nothing. He said nothing. As we walked through the snow, I looked up at him. If only he would squeeze my neck, make me cry. He did not even look at me. Then and there I lost my desire to ride the beautiful horses.

  But not to look.

  14

  As the winter went on, the trees around the merry-go-round disappeared one by one, until soon there was nothing but stumps. And then the unthinkable happened.

  I was approaching the merry-go-round one day when I noticed that things were different. A great crowd was gathered around the platform, but there was no music, no movement. As I wormed my way through the crowd, I heard someone cry out, “A Jew did it!” I wondered what it could be that a Jew did. Then I saw. I couldn’t believe my eyes: one of the horses was gone!

  Only three hooves remained. I had come to think of the horses as so real that for a moment I was surprised to see blond, splintered wood instead of blood and bone where the legs had been chopped off. A scrap of surviving color told me the horse had been black. It was mine. My beautiful black-and-golden horse.

  “Find the Jew!” people were calling. As I stared at the three horseless hooves, I felt my own anger rising. “Find the dirty Jew!” the voices called over and over, and I think one of the voices I heard was mine.

  At the edge of the park two Jackboots stood talking and smoking cigarettes.

  They found the Jew. Or should I say, they found a Jew. Jews were interchangeable. One was as good as another. I was to learn this many times. So, before the morning was over a Jew came stumbling through the snow with a rope around his neck. He was led out to a clearing among the tree stumps. Someone noosed another rope around his neck. Someone else ripped off all his clothes. Until that moment I had not noticed how cold it was.

  The man seemed to shrink, seemed to pucker into himself until all there was was bulging eyes. The snow covered his ankles.

  “Make way! Make way!” someone growled. Two Jackboots hauled a fat black hose through the crowd. They stopped ten meters from the shrinking man of eyes and pointed the hose at him. Water leaped out. The hose flew out of the Jackboots’ hands and whipped wildly about like a sliced worm. People screamed and ran. The Jackboots jumped onto the hose head and wrangled it down. They hugged it to themselves and again pointed it at the man. When the water struck him, he flew backward. The two ropes around his neck jerked him to a halt. The hose men backed off some more.

  Things settled down then, and the people gathered again. Some cheered and laughed and clapped. Some merely watched. I didn’t think it was possible, but the man’s eyes got even bigger. I could tell he wa
s trying to shrink even more, to vanish completely. He never made a sound. When I walked away, he was turning blue.

  I did not return to the merry-go-round until the snow was gone and the grass was greening among the stumps. I wondered if the man had melted away like the snow. The three hooves were gone from the platform. The only reminder of what had happened was the empty space where the beautiful black horse had been. Otherwise all was as always: the music was tootling, the ladies were laughing, the children were going round and round. . . .

  15

  AUTUMN

  The people were going. I had never seen so many people walking. We were standing on a street corner, watching.

  They were Jews. I knew by the armbands they wore. Every Jew had to wear a white armband with a blue star. This was a big help in telling who was a Jew, as they no longer wore beards. Until that moment, I had seen only a few Jews here, a few Jews there. I had not known there were so many.

  They came from many places, many streets, but they were all going in the same direction. Little children pulled wagons heaped high with toys and pots and books. Grown-ups pulled wobbling carts of furniture and clothes and pictures and rugs. It seemed they had emptied their entire houses into wagons and carts and the bulging sacks over their shoulders. Larger wagons were pulled by horses, smaller carts by people. The horses and the people looked alike, plodding, eyes to the ground, leaning forward against the weight of their loads. The horses did not wear armbands, yet they too were clearly Jewish.

  It was a blue-and-white parade—and how different from the grand parade of the Jackboots! So slow, so quiet, hardly a baby cried. The thump of a thousand Jackboots was now the shuffle of ragged shoes; instead of the roar of tanks, the crickety click of cart wheels.

  I shaded my eyes. “Where are they going?” I said to Uri.

  “The ghetto,” he said.