Under a Sunburnt Sky, page 15
“I think we all are. Let’s build a nice fire and eat some leftovers around it.” Mama rubbed her gloved hands together. Her face looked pale beneath her blue scarf, and Jan thought she had aged in recent weeks.
There was a woman standing outside their front door. Jan didn’t recognise her at first. He tensed and held back, but Mama surged forward.
“Magdalena, you are here!” She kissed the woman’s cheeks.
“It’s good to see you, Waltrina. Even in these circumstances. I don’t get out much anymore, at least not around my own people, as you know.”
“Yes, it is dangerous when the enemy decides you are his friend.”
“Dangerous on both sides,” Magdalena agreed. “There are many who don’t understand what I’m doing.”
“I’m grateful for you.” Mama grasped her friend’s hands and squeezed them. “What is your news?”
“Let’s go inside,” the woman replied, glancing around. “The walls have ears.”
“And eyes,” Mama agreed. “Come in, come in. Jan will build us a fire and Danuta will make tea. We can talk together and warm up.”
* * *
After Magdalena left, Jan hurried to his mother’s side and plied her with questions. She laughed and cupped his cheek with one hand, then ruffled Danuta’s hair with the other, since his sister was just as curious as he was about what the woman had said.
“Give me a moment to breathe and I will tell you everything.” Mama leaned back in her chair, her cheeks pink in the glow of the fire from the hearth. “She says her boyfriend, the SS officer, will help us. He wants a diamond ring, a mink coat and two hundred American dollars.”
Jan’s stomach tightened. How would they get so much? “What did you say?”
“I agreed.”
“But?”
“We will do it, Jan, because we have no other choice. Leave it to me, my son. I will go to the market first thing tomorrow and I will get what we need. This is one time where I don’t need your help.” Her eyes glowed with love as she stroked his cheek. “You’re such a good boy. Always doing everything you can to help others. And I will need your help again—there is no doubt of that. But not for this. Do not let your heart be troubled. There is one thing she mentioned, though.”
“What is it?” Jan’s brow furrowed.
“He told her that if Jadzia has already been processed, he can’t help us.”
“How will we know if that’s happened?”
Mama sighed. “He said she will be wearing a striped tunic. If she’s still in her own clothes, he can get her out. If she’s not, it’s too late and there’s nothing he can do.”
22
15th February 1943
It took Mama a week to get the things she’d promised Magdalena’s boyfriend, but she finally managed it. Every single day, Jan helped her at the market, took care of Danuta and went with her to look at apartments. And every day they got further and further away from a reconciliation with Jadzia. She could be processed at any moment and there was nothing they could do about it.
Finally, Mama had every item they needed and had given it all to the SS officer. She stood outside at the curb with him while Jan and Danuta watched through the window of their apartment.
They couldn’t see his face, but his black uniform and cap sent a shiver down Jan’s spine. Having an SS officer so close to their home made him nervous. And putting his sister’s life in that man’s hands was the last thing he wanted to do, but they had no choice.
They had to trust in a Schutzstaffel officer, a member of Hitler’s elite guard. The most cruel and inhuman group of men on the face of the earth. Otherwise, they might not see Jadzia again in this lifetime. He prayed to all the saints he could think of, one by one, and recited the Hail Mary in his head over and over as he watched the officer drive away in a shiny black staff car with a Nazi flag flying from the tip of the bonnet.
Mama came inside and slipped out of her coat, hanging it carefully on the wall. Then she pressed a hand to her chest.
“Oh, my heart is racing.”
Danuta ran to her, throwing her arms around her mother’s waist. “Mama, I was so scared.”
“Me too, my darling. But he’s gone now, and he says he will do what he can. If she hasn’t been processed, he promised to bring her back to us. Now it is in God’s hands.”
“And a Nazi’s hands.”
Mama swallowed hard. “Yes, and that too. Heaven help us.”
Jan stared out the window again, his head light. Nacha was out there, in the Otwock ghetto with her family, abandoned by society and afraid. Now Jadzia was a prisoner in an extermination camp. The world didn’t make sense anymore. And maybe it never had.
“This is no good,” said Mama in a bright voice. “We can’t all stand by the window and wait. Who knows how long it will take? Let’s get some supper together and play a game of cards. I bet I can beat you, Danuta.”
Danuta grinned. “No, you can’t. I win every time.”
“Maybe this time is different.” Mama winked and hurried away to the kitchen with Danuta close behind.
Jan wandered to the cupboard where the pack of cards was kept beside the few books they owned. Mama and Danuta took the cards, while he flicked through the pages of the books. It was time to build up the fire and bring in firewood from outside. But when he got outside, there wasn’t enough cut, so he cut firewood until the stack was high against the side of the apartment. He carried an armful inside and piled it in the hearth, then prodded it with the poker until it burned just right.
By that time, supper was ready, and they all ate at the kitchen table. Mama and Danuta chatted quietly together, but Jan ate in silence. He’d been so hungry lately, it was often difficult to think about anything other than helping his sister, rescuing Nacha’s family, and food. Even now, while he was eating, he wanted more, and his thoughts wandered to visions of pastries covered in whipped cream and custard, or mountains of fresh bread dripping with butter and honey.
After supper, they cleaned up and then played a hand of cards. Followed by another and another. Soon, Danuta was yawning, and the hands on the clock passed her bedtime. But Mama didn’t say a word about sleep. Jan’s eyes blinked shut and he almost drifted off where he sat, but jerked himself awake and slapped his own cheek.
“Getting tired?” Mama asked in a kind voice.
“No, I’m fine.”
“Me too,” replied Danuta, with another gigantic yawn that threatened to split her face in two. Her golden hair fell in two straight plaits on either side of her face and her blue eyes were hooded.
Just then, a car pulled up outside the apartment and a door slammed. There were footsteps on the path, and a loud knock at the door. Jan leapt to his feet and Mama hurried to answer the door.
She flung the door open and there stood Jadzia. She was dirty and dishevelled. Her clothes were torn and stained. She looked thin, with strands of soiled hair hanging down either side of her gaunt, wind-burned face.
Mama thanked the SS officer, who hung back. He murmured a few words then hurried away. Once he was gone, Mama pulled Jadzia into a bear hug. Jan and Danuta rushed to join in. Jan shut the door behind the officer and locked it, then threw his arms around Jadzia and Mama. Danuta did the same.
All three of them stood there, embracing Jadzia and crying together while the fire crackled in the hearth. Jadzia didn’t cry. She stood in silence, her arms by her sides, her eyes vacant. She didn’t look like herself, but she was home. And Jan had never felt so relieved.
23
18th February 1943
The world was a snowy, glistening wonderland. Nacha leaned against the window of their Otwock apartment and studied the landscape below. Snow had fallen all night long and was falling still. It was silent and beautiful, and she couldn’t help feeling hopeful that everything was going to work out somehow.
Danuta had ridden the train to the ghetto and was currently ensconced on a chair beside Nacha, telling her all about what had transpired.
Jadzia was home from the extermination camp, something everyone said wasn’t possible. Jadzia was like a sister to Nacha and she’d been terrified that she would never see her again. She still hadn’t left the apartment since coming home, according to Danuta. She was tired and quiet and had lost a lot of weight. She wouldn’t talk much about what’d happened or what she’d seen, but she was safe and she was with Waltrina, and that was what mattered most.
She’d asked about her friend, Hanna. But Mama didn’t want to tell Jadzia that she hadn’t come home.
“And Jan is working with Mama today at the market. So, I said I would come and tell you all what happened. I caught the train on my own. Mama said I had to come straight here and right back home again without stopping.”
“I hope you were careful,” Nacha replied.
“Of course. I know my way around now. Besides, if it wasn’t for this stupid war, I would’ve been catching trains on my own long ago. I’m ten years old, after all. Jadzia was doing a lot more than me when she was ten. It’s really not fair.”
“The war has changed everything,” Nacha admitted. “I’m fifteen and I can’t catch trains, or go to the movies, or see my friends…”
A stone lodged in Nacha’s throat.
Danut’s face fell. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think.”
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault. The war has affected all of us.”
Screaming erupted outside the apartment building, followed by several loud shots. Nacha leapt up from her seat and scanned the neighbourhood. A man lay on the ground, red seeping from a wound in his head into the white snow. Nearby, a family wailed as a pair of guards ushered them away.
“What’s going on out there?” Tata asked, coming to the window.
“I don’t know.”
Danuta whimpered. “I want to go home.”
“You should go,” Tata said. “I will walk you to the fence.”
“Don’t leave us, Tata,” Nacha begged.
“We’ll all go together.”
Another group of Jews were herded past the window. Then suddenly the snowscape was filled with the trudging dark bodies of Jews bundled up in coats and scarves with booted feet.
Tata frowned. “On second thought, everyone get in your coats and warm things. Get your suitcases. It looks like we’re being deported.”
Nathan got up from where he was reading at the kitchen table and hurried into the bedroom. Nacha stood, frozen in place.
“Nacha, come on,” Tata said gently.
“But where will we go?”
“We will try to get out with Danuta. We have to take her to the fence. Come, be quick about it.”
They got ready quickly. Nacha felt numb. She couldn’t understand why this was happening. It was cold. There was snow on the ground. Winter had always been magical to her, but this wasn’t magic. This was terror, it was evil, it was a frozen tundra ravaged by the boots of thousands of Jews marching to their deaths and stained in the blood of those who’d fallen behind.
Dressed and with their small items of luggage in hand, the family hurried out of the apartment. Everywhere around them, people were peering out of doors or scurrying down staircases. There were shouts in the distance and the occasional firing of a rifle or a machine gun’s rat-a-tat.
They’d come for her family soon. Their only chance was to get ahead of their persecutors and scale the fence with Danuta. But after that, where would they go? They couldn’t put Danuta’s family at risk by attempting to travel all the way back to her place with her. They wouldn’t be allowed on the train without papers. They’d have to walk through the snow for twenty-five kilometres. The realisation made her stomach clench with fear.
“Let’s go,” Tata said.
The four of them hurried down the stairs and out across the snow in the direction of the sanatorium. It soon loomed over them, rows of windows glowering like so many eyes. The fence was close by and they ran the last few metres. Tata helped Danuta over, but just as he was about to boost Nacha over the fence, a guard rushed at them, gun raised.
“Halt, or I’ll shoot!” he cried.
His grey overcoat reached almost to his feet and his grey helmet matched his grey eyes. He sported a small, square black moustache. Nacha’s heart fell. It was over. There was no escaping now.
The dejected group marched along with the others from their neighbourhood in the direction of the train station and out through the ghetto gates. Nacha glanced over her shoulder for one last look at the place where they’d lived for months. She had no affection for it, only a fear of leaving.
They gathered with the growing crowd on the platform. It began to snow again, and flakes accumulated on Nacha’s eyelashes. She didn’t bother to brush them off. What did it matter? She could freeze to death at the station waiting to board the train and it would be a sweet relief compared to what she knew lay ahead for her and her family.
It wasn’t for herself that the tears came, but the idea of being separated from her father and brother, and what would almost certainly become of them. The grief of knowing the loss that was ahead overwhelmed her for a few moments and she wept silently but openly in the falling snow.
When the time came, they were herded together onto an empty carriage with large sliding doors on both sides. The far side was locked, but the near side wide open, and the Jews from the ghetto scrambled up into the cavernous space.
“Quick, stay together and get to a window,” Tata instructed.
So the three of them hustled to the back left side of the carriage and pressed themselves against the wall beneath a small rectangular window crosshatched with barbed wire. It wasn’t long before the carriage was full to overflowing.
The doors slid shut and they found themselves in the dark. The train chugged away from the station and travelled for ten minutes or so. Several children began to cry, their parents doing their best to comfort them in their own fear. Adults cried as well, some shouted for help, and still others banged open palms against the walls.
When the train pulled to a halt, Nacha stood on tiptoe to look out the window.
Behind her, Tata whispered, “Can you see anything?”
“Just another platform. There are more guards, some Gestapo, a small station house.”
The train sat idle for a long time. There were shouts outside, but the doors to their car remained shut.
Tata grunted. “I wish I knew where they were taking us. Most probably it will be Treblinka, but it might be Majdanek, where Jadzia went.”
Nacha shivered at the thought. The few things Danuta had managed to tell them before the roundup began had chilled her to her core. And now they were being driven to the same fate as Jadzia with no chance of the same salvation.
“Waltrina!” she whispered.
She spied her through the crowd on the platform in the distance. Waltrina, Jadzia and Jan. All three of them were there. They were scanning the crowds of Jews—looking at every face. Looking for them.
They were too far away—they wouldn’t hear even if she called to them. They were surrounded by Gestapo. The last thing they needed was for her to give them away by yelling their names across the tracks. Waltrina turned to a guard nearest her and spoke to him. She pointed along the platform, and he nodded.
“Where?” Behind her, Tata leaned forward, desperately looking for them.
“She, Jadzia and Jan are there,” Nacha said, pointing. She reached both hands up through the barbed wire that covered the window to wave, but they weren’t looking in her direction. “They’re here to find us.”
Nathan sighed. “It will do no good. Don’t get your hopes up, Nacha. They can’t save us now. It’s too late.”
Tata rested a hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “He’s right, Nacha. They can do nothing.”
Nacha’s eyes pricked with tears as she watched Jan veer off from his mother and sister and jog away along another platform, searching for them. Searching for her. She knew it deep in her heart. He was looking for her. She wanted to scream, to cry, to call out his name. But it would only mean death for him if he came to her.
On the platform, guards beat a family of Jews. One guard lifted his gun and shot each of them in the back of the head one by one. People screamed and cried. In the carriage, someone fainted, and those around him trampled on his still form as it lay on the floor of the train. Waltrina and Jadzia made their way towards their carriage. Perhaps they would see her if they looked up soon.
“Mother! Mother! Water, please!” Nacha shouted suddenly.
Jadzia jolted at the sound of her voice and spun about until her eyes met Nacha’s through the opening. Nacha’s hands waved through the wire, her fingers reaching for her friend. Jadzia’s hands clenched at her sides, but otherwise she didn’t move, her gaze firmly fixed on Nacha’s. She mouthed something, but Nacha couldn’t understand what it was.
Waltrina came up beside Jadzia and scanned the carriage, searching the window, but the train began to move and Nacha knew she hadn’t seen her. A great sob wracked her body. Tata held on to her as the train jolted, then pulled back, jolted forward again.
“There was nothing they could do for us,” he repeated.
“I know,” she sobbed. “But I wanted so badly for Waltrina to see me, and Jan…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. It hung in the air between them, unspoken.
Nathan looked away, his jaw clenched.
Nacha stood in silence then, her face upturned towards the window, the fresh air from outside drifting in and filling her nostrils with the sweet smell of snow. She tugged off her gloves and shoved them in her pockets.
As the train lurched forward, she reached up a hand and clenched her fingers around the barbed wire. It was cold and hard against her flesh. The fingers of her other hand, she pushed through the opening between strands of wire and felt the air rushing over them as the train gathered speed.
Nathan turned towards her, his eyes full of pain.
“Are you okay?”
She smiled at him through a veil of tears. “I’ll miss you.”
