Then he dared three more words. “So—paper, pencil?”
He didn’t add that Manya had wanted to get that for him and hadn’t had a full measure of time to try. Rather, he mentally scolded himself. That wasn’t much of a monument to such an amazing girl. He was feeling more monstrous by the moment.
Lou took a long look at him in the fading light. Then, very seriously, he said, “Tell me one of your poems.”
Chaim was shocked into a silence as gray as the room. But then he closed his eyes, saw one of the poems printed on the back of his eyes, and began very quietly to say the poem out loud.
Such an ordinary sight, thirteen people walk by,
hardly giving her a glance
as if she were a rabbit dead in a field,
or an old dog who died by the fire . . .
He didn’t hear the shuffle of steps as first the old men and then the children gathered around. He didn’t feel the warmth of their breathing as they matched him breath for breath.
Dance, little Hannahleh, Chaya, Gittel, Rachael.
whatever your name was when you were alive,
dance on the streets of Heaven
for you shall never dance here again.
Lou broke the spell, asking, “You wrote that?”
“Yes,” Chaim said. “I di . . . di . . . did.”
“And others?”
Chaim nodded.
Manny held out the paper. “If we can salvage any of that pencil, you must write it down.”
No one else said a word.
Later, as they all stumbled to their bunks, Bruno whispered in passing, “That paper should be mine. I found it. I could have been beaten for it. Or worse. I—”
Chaim turned sharply and handed the paper to Bruno without a word. The poems didn’t need to be written down. They were a part of him, as much as his eyes, his ears. As long as he stayed alive, the poems would stay alive. Bruno needed that paper far more than he ever did.
He was keeping his promise to Sophie, one small piece of paper at a time.
Gittel Remembers
Writing these small pieces is like making a confession. Oh, not the kind Catholics do, on a weekly or monthly basis, to earn themselves absolution for small sins and large.
And not like confessions beaten out of you by armed guards: Yes, you say, so another blow doesn’t fall on your head, your back, your palm. Yes—I stole an extra piece of bread, passed a note to a trader, ran guns for the Resistance, killed in defense of my life, the lives of others.
Is what I write now a cry of the spirit, reminding me of what I went through, am still going through, if only in memory? Am I a hero? Were any of us?
Perhaps not a hero, but someone who endures.
I think that should go on my gravestone. SHE ENDURED. That and one of Chaim’s poems, maybe the one that ends
Lazarus rose from the deceased.
Death’s not living, but released,
An arrow from the bow.
The scarring of a dying soul,
A diamond made from human coal,
Feel the pain—and let it go.
Not that I am anywhere near dying nor anywhere near the time to be letting go. But I do still feel the pain.
However, confessions aren’t always about reality but about perceived reality.
Yes, in any life there are things to confess. Things I would have confessed had I had someone to confess to. But the ones I might have talked to and expected absolution from—Mama, Papa, Sophie, Karl, Mrs. Norenberg, Rose, Klara, Manya—are long gone.
I am left with myself and the children I don’t want to burden, plus my beloved Sonya, who has been through everything with me the past twenty years.
And of course Chaim, who knew it all first and put it in his poems.
32
Von Schneir returned from Berlin three weeks later, and he didn’t look happy. No one knew for sure, but it seemed certain that the expected commendations and rewards had not been offered.
Rumors were handed around the camp like party favors. Even the guards were heard making bets on what had actually happened in the German capital.
Chaim had his own guesses, which he kept to himself, until the third morning after the doctor had returned. This time von Schneir came into the munitions room and crooked his finger at Chaim.
Madam Szawlowski gabbled at his side like an addled turkey. “You cannot, Doctor . . . the factory, Doctor . . . the munitions, Doctor . . .” She was wringing her hands as she spoke. The riding crop was nowhere in sight.
Von Schneir turned and glared at her. “Orders from Berlin.” And whether or not it was true, he said it with the full authority of that von.
Probably learned it from his father and grandfather and uncles, Chaim thought. Bred in the bone. He went over to the doctor at once. It was not the von that propelled him, but terror.
Madam Szawlowski closed her mouth, but her eyes were furious.
Von Schneir turned his imperious eyes on Chaim. There was a twitch on the right side of his mouth instead of his usual charming smile. “You and your twin sister and that tall boy, Gregor—that half of a twin—will be my closest helpers in my next series of tests. We will all be famous for them.”
The doctor’s mouth seemed strangely distorted. No big smile, more a kind of grimace. “They will not be able to say in Berlin that I broke no new ground this time. I will show them ground! I will go down in the history books.”
Chaim and Madam Szawlowski looked directly at each other, as if they were Olympic runners handing off the baton.
Before either one could speak, von Schneir—as if misunderstanding the silent exchange between boy and woman—nodded and gave them that familiar, seductive smile. “And you and your sister and the other boy will go down in history, too. As well as the good women here at the factory, who will find a way to work without you.”
And then Chaim remembered how Bruno had told the doctor that Gittel and he were twins and that Gregor’s twin brother had died. Remembered how he’d silently cursed Bruno for trading information for sweets.
House of Candy, he thought bitterly. Really should be House of Treachery. For now, on Bruno’s bartered words, he and Gittel and Gregor were to become test subjects for some as yet unnamed experiments. He felt something cold on the back of his neck and realized moments later that it was sweat.
Yes, von Schneir had cured many of the typhoid patients, and Gittel included. But what does one cure twins of? It made no sense.
Then he thought about the doctor’s false smile, his lack of explanation for the tests, the small sample of twins. Chaim knew very little about science experiments, only what they’d studied in school before the family had been moved to the ghetto. But this much he did know—a worthwhile experiment takes many years and many test subjects. He and Gittel and Gregor were the only three. Did that mean that they would be subjected to the tests over and over again for years? Or a series of different tests until the war was over?
Instead, he forced himself to smile at von Schneir, forced himself to show no fear. Thought of asking a question. But any stated objections could earn him a beating at best; at worst he could be shot.
Maybe the ache in his heart, the rumble in his bowels, the feeling in his gut, the sweat on the back of his neck was nothing but indigestion, the result of bad food, worse water. Maybe his worries were silly. But even if they weren’t, he couldn’t say anything.
So he saved the words of distaste, rebellion, and fear, held them close. Glanced over to where Gittel sat at the table with Rachel.
She was looking at him, so he turned his face toward von Schneir but signaled to Gittel with his right hand behind his back. His middle fingers trembled. Afraid. Fear. Now that she was warned, Gittel would be on the alert.
He glanced at Gregor, who was looking down at his shoes.
At the last, he looked up at Madam Szawlowski. She glared in return, before spinning around so quickly to leave the room that her skirts spread out about her like a ballerina’s long tutu. Chaim almost expected her to get up on her toes and dance to the door.
It was such an absurd image that for a moment he forgot his fears.
* * *
• • •
With the help of two guards, the doctor took Chaim, Gittel, and Gregor directly to the Welcome House.
It was the one building in the camp with a cheerful aspect, clean windows, and that welcome sign over the door—Wilkommen in German and Witamy in Polish. There was a garden shack to one side, which was probably—Chaim thought—filled with tools. Scraggly bushes guarded both sides of the stairs. They’d had one of those shacks at the old house in Łódź.
The Welcome House’s windowless back faced the building with the chimney so its guests never had to watch any curls of smoke.
Obviously no one had remembered to water the bushes in weeks. But still they held on, the only semigreen space inside the camp. Scraggly as they were, those bushes had a future. Probably better than ours, Chaim thought.
Like a child’s scribbles, these bushes
hold the promise of art . . .
Gittel’s elbow in his side brought him back to the present. The doctor was ushering the three of them into the house, having told the guards to wait outside.
Gregor shook his head at Chaim, though his meaning was unclear.
Perhaps, Chaim thought, I should teach Gregor some of our hand signs. But that, of course, could only happen if they were left alone.
“These are my children,” von Schneir was telling the guards. “I don’t worry about them. They will do as they are told.”
Chaim had a sudden thought—spider, flies. But unlike the flies, they had no other choice, so they walked in.
* * *
• • •
The main room—probably once a front parlor—was now a laboratory. Shelves and cupboards were pushed against the far wall. They held jars and bottles full of various kinds of solutions, some cloudy and some clear. Four white aprons lay folded on top of the surgical table. Next to them, bandages and cutting tools. Plus three gray pull-tie tops like the ones Chaim had worn when he’d had his tonsils out. Chaim had been worried before, but now he was terrified.
Against the rear wall, three chairs sat stiff and silent as guards. Chaim could see a set of stairs going up to the second floor.
“Now sit,” the doctor said, “until I call you. You will be pleased that first we will all get clean.” He spoke in that jolly way most doctors had, saying we when they really meant you. Chaim wondered if doctors learned that sort of thing in medical school.
They sat, and the chair was as uncomfortable as Chaim had feared.
Von Schneir smiled again. It was as if he couldn’t stop smiling. The more he did it, the less Chaim trusted him. After all, what was amusing about getting clean?
“You will be pleased to know that there is a bath, the water newly heated.”
“A bath!” Gittel’s voice held surprise and delight.
Gregor merely grunted a response.
Chaim worried that there was no hint of caution in Gittel’s response, and Gregor’s was oblique.
We all can be bought, he thought bleakly. The image of Bruno stuffing his mouth with traitor’s candy rose again in his mind. Was a hot bath his sister’s price? Was it Gregor’s?
Mine?
Von Schneir didn’t seem to notice any interruptions or hesitations: “Upstairs, there’s enough hot water for three shallow baths. And three pieces of yellow soap. Do not linger. Just get clean. We have much work to do. In a doctor’s surgery, Alle müssen sauber sein.”
When they looked puzzled, von Schneir smiled again. “Alle müssen sauber sein. All must be clean. And you, my little subjects, are not clean at all.” He handed them each a fresh uniform and underclothes. “Put the dirty things in the basket by the tub.”
It all sounded surprisingly ordinary, except that von Schneir was smiling again. Sharing a private joke with himself.
And that word . . . subject . . . that one was troubling, Chaim thought, though he couldn’t quite say why.
He noticed that the two guards were now standing at attention outside the front door. He could see them through the windows. Was the doctor expecting trouble? And if so, from outside? He’d already assured the guards there’d be no trouble from within.
Of course the men with machine guns in the guard towers were alert as ever. The walls of barbed wire had enough electricity running through them to paralyze a horse, or so it was rumored. So what could those two guards do that the others could not . . . except . . .
Except rush into the house quickly should the children revolt.
He shuddered.
The doctor didn’t notice his shudder, but Gittel did, and she quietly took his hand.
Chaim knew that if they fell for von Schneir’s jolly manner and the promise of safety, they’d be securely caught in the spider’s web. But still he was silent. For after all, anything he could say, he’d already said wordlessly to Gittel. And as usual, she’d understood.
And yet, without a word of regret, when von Schneir called her name, Gittel went upstairs to take the first bath.
As she disappeared up the stairs, Chaim was suddenly afraid he would never see her again. He tried to pray, but few words seemed to materialize—even in his head. Only a single line of poetry:
There is no cleanliness but in the heart . . .
Suddenly, Chaim heard splashing coming from upstairs. It continued for some time. He started to relax. Maybe, he thought, maybe I’m wrong about this. About everything. Maybe it’s just a bath, some blood drawn, a scraping in the mouth—like before.
And then he thought, What about the surgical table, the sharp instruments, the three gray tie-coats?
That was when he knew that he was not wrong to be so afraid.
“Gittel!” he said, trying to stand.
The doctor didn’t look pleased.
But suddenly Gittel was back downstairs, in her new clothes, looking surprisingly refreshed and almost pink, which—somehow—served only to emphasize how thin she was now, even with the several weeks of extra food. How vulnerable.
An old story came into his head, one Mama used to read to them, about a brother and sister alone in the woods who come upon a house made of marzipan frosting. An old woman chants, Nibble, nibble, mousekin, as she stuffs their greedy mouths with pieces of candy broken off from the roof.
There was movement next to Chaim as Gregor turned to the doctor. He was taller than von Schneir, and unlike Gittel’s, his face had filled out in the weeks they’d been eating better meals. No longer were his cheeks sunken, though that only made his nose seem bigger. More Jewish, the guards would have said. He probably looked like his butcher father.
“As the oldest,” Gregor began, “I claim the next bath.” He winked at Chaim as if to say, You’ll have the coldest water—sorry. Though he was probably not sorry in the least.
* * *
• • •
By the time it was Chaim’s turn for a bath, the water was, indeed, only warm. He lowered himself down in the little tub, knees to his chest, and let memories wash over him. Old, good memories. Mama giving him a back scrub in their nice big tub in the old house. Lying in luxurious hot water after a fast game of tag with Gittel and the other children on the block, the water freshly heated by Mama on the stove.
When he got out of the cooling tub, aware that he must not linger, he found himself weeping. Not with joy but with pity for himself and for his sister, for the ones who’d already gone up the chimney and for the ones soon to make that final trip. But he was grateful that whatever he was to face in the near future, at least he would do so clean.
He toweled himself off quickly, got into his new clothes, and went back down to the surgical room.
What he found there was both a horrible surprise and an awful confirmation.
The guards were now inside, assisting with handcuffing Gregor to the surgical table. He’d obviously been fighting them, because both his eyes were red from blows and would probably blacken by morning. There was a cut on his mouth.
Gittel was cuffed to one of the chairs, though with the way her eyes were glaring, she hardly seemed subdued.
Woke the sleeping lioness, Chaim thought, the one who killed at least one German with a rifle alongside the partisans in the forest. Though what Gittel could do against three men with weapons—for the doctor held a scalpel—when her hands were bound in cuffs, Chaim had no idea at all.
He must have made a sound, of surprise or fear, for the doctor turned around.
“Clean at last,” von Schneir said, as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening. And then he gave another big smile.
That was when Chaim understood that the doctor was quite mad. Like something out of Frankenstein, the motion picture he and Papa had seen in Łódź before the Nazis came. Even dubbed in Polish, it had been a big hit with Chaim, though Gittel and Mama refused to go. “Too scary” had been their excuse.
At this moment, too scary was just what von Schneir seemed.
“Him too,” von Schneir ordered, pointing at Chaim, and one of the guards grabbed Chaim—who had nowhere to run.
Even though he didn’t resist, the guard was harder on him than he needed to be. Possibly his blood was up, having had to wrestle with Gregor. So Chaim forced himself to collapse, and the man simply picked him up and roughly sat him down in the chair next to Gittel. There the guard handcuffed him to his chair, arms behind, and moved back to stand with his counterpart on either side of the door, though this time on the inside.
Gittel was breathing hard, and Gregor was barely suppressing moans. Chaim could hear the stutter in his own throat.