The Girl from Krakow (16 page)

Approaching their ramshackle house, Erich and Rita both saw the body on the pavement near their door. Nothing unusual in that. They did not even quicken their pace until both realized the body had tracked blood down the pavement and that it was still writhing. But nothing really reached their emotions until they saw it was Kaltenbrunner.

They carried him inside and moved him up the stairs. Laid him down carefully on his pallet. Rita bent over his face as Erich began to examine him.

Kaltenbrunner was whispering. “They raided the orphanage today
 
.
 
.
 . 
We had five minutes’ notice, and I was trying to hide a few of the youngest. But they had dogs
 
.
 
.
 . 
It was no use
 
.
 
.
 . T
hey took them all. Then they started in on the teachers.”

Erich finished his examination. “He managed to crawl back here with a compound fracture of his femur
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
Don’t look.” He stopped her as she began to move a hand down to his leg. “He’s lost a lot of blood, and I think he has internal injuries, maybe a ruptured spleen, from where the bruises are. He certainly has a concussion.” Erich looked down at Rita’s left hand. It had been cradling Freddy’s head and was dripping red. Without thinking she wiped it on her skirt.

Erich said, “I doubt he’ll last the night. Let’s try to make him comfortable.”

“Shouldn’t we send for the medical emergency team?”

“There are hardly any of them left. Besides, the only thing that Freddy needs they don’t have—morphine.”

Rita rose, walked over to her mattress, and pulled Stefan’s stuffed dog from beneath the bedclothes. She pulled at a seam. Out tumbled two small sacks. She picked up one and brought it over. “Morphine.”

Erich emptied the sack, looked the contents over, and took one vial of morphine and the syringe, putting the rest back in the sack. Then he pulled his belt off and handed it to Rita. “Pull up his sleeve and tighten the belt around his arm above the elbow.” She followed orders as he drew 50 ccs into the syringe. She watched a vein rise in Kaltenbrunner’s arm. Erich inserted the needle and pulled enough blood into the syringe to begin to redden the liquid. Then Rita fainted. A moment later she had come to, ashamed of her weakness.

“It’s very common to faint at the sight of the injection and the blood. Happens to most people. Happened to me the first time I had a Wassermann test.” Her look showed she knew nothing about venereal diseases, and Erich was not going to enlighten her. “Usually the doc or the nurse tells you to look away.” Erich looked down at Kaltenbrunner. “He’ll be comfortable now for a while. If he’s still alive in a few hours, we’ll give him some more.”

Erich now looked at the two sacks. “Where did you get this stuff?” He hefted the sack of morphine vials and then the coins.

“My husband left them for me when he joined the Red Army.”

“But this is your lifeline out of here, Rita.” Erich was almost ebullient.

“The money?”

“No. A bag of gold coins like that—just a magnet for bloodsuckers. But with morphine
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
you can get people to do things without ever coming back at you.”

“Spell it out, please.”

“With a few vials of this stuff, Lydia can probably get every stamp on a Polish
Ausweis
you’ll ever need. And anyone who takes morphine in exchange is not going to sell you to the Gestapo. They would go down with you.” He stopped for a moment, then he became peremptory. “Tomorrow morning, don’t go to work. Take a decent dress to the ghetto photographer and get some pictures made. Don’t bother telling him you need passport pictures. That’s the only kind they can make anymore. You don’t wear the dress; you put it on when you get there. And you don’t tell him what the pictures are for.”

“Are there any other mistakes I might make?” She smiled but without energy.

“Sorry.” Erich began again. “We’ve got to do this in the next three days.”

Rita looked at him. “Why?”

“That’s why they want the worker lists. That’s why they closed down the orphanage and took the kids. The
Aktionen
are starting again.” Erich pocketed three of the vials, thought for a moment and added a fourth. He handed her back the remaining half dozen, unscrewed the needle, and separated the plunger from the syringe.

“What about you?” she asked. It had struck her that Erich was talking only about her. “If it’s just a couple of vials we need, there’s enough for you.”

“I have other plans. Besides, for a man, even real papers wouldn’t be enough to hide behind.”

It did not take much more to keep Freddy comfortable before he died. By the time Erich had finished off the second vial of morphine, Rita was no longer fainting at the sight of an injection.

Still, she found herself unable to sleep. It wasn’t the dead body lying between them. She’d been close to enough of them. It was the third little sack inside Stefan’s stuffed dog that was keeping her up, the one containing a small blue bottle marked
Cyanure de potassium
. Suddenly it was clear to Rita. This was the best way out. Stefan was gone. One way or another, Erich, Dani, everyone who meant anything to her would soon be dead. Even if she somehow escaped, she didn’t want to survive without them. She could not live in a world created by Nazis with daily reminders. There simply was no reason to continue.

“Erich,” she whispered, “are you awake?”

“Yes,” came the voice from the other side of Kaltenbrunner’s body.

“Don’t put me on your list. Don’t bother getting me the documents. I’m not going to get those pictures. I want out now. I don’t want to wait longer.”

“I told you I’m not going to make a list. But you are going to survive.”

“I’ve got another way out, and I am going to take it.”

“Something else hidden in that stuffed animal, Rita?” She was silent.
How could he know?
“Well, Rita, it would be a mistake.” She made no reply. “The Germans are going to lose the war. And you have a good chance of surviving
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
maybe even of finding Stefan.”

Now she responded in a sarcastic undertone, “Don’t ply me with more of Freddy’s theory. I’m sure he was right, but meanwhile the Reich could still last for a thousand years.” She shook her head once, sharply. “No. Leave me to it, Erich.”

Erich had crept around the body separating them and was now a few inches from Rita’s upturned face.

“No, Rita. The Germans will lose. It’s a matter of a few years—two or three, no more. And you will be alive to see it. I know something. But if I tell you, it could put Germany’s defeat at risk.”

“Well, then, keep it to yourself.” Her reply was indifferent.

“Listen, Rita. And then try to forget
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
End of September ’39, the Polish government came through Karpatyn—the commander in chief in his shiny boots, the prime minister, everyone—on the way to Romania. Well, one of the war ministry staff looked me up. We’d been close in Warsaw at the math faculty. He was carrying a typewriter case handcuffed to his wrist.” He stopped for a moment, and Rita realized what Erich meant when he had said he and his visitor had been close. Then Erich began again. “And he told me why. The general staff had brought the case to the math faculty with a ‘typewriter’ inside it, in 1938. Only it wasn’t a typewriter; it was a German code machine. Some of the research students had been put to the task of figuring out how the machine worked and to crack the code. Well, they did it. They broke the code. We started to read German signals. Too late to help against their blitzkrieg
in Poland, but with the ability to read the most secret German radio messages, the Allies can’t lose. Once they are fully mobilized, they have the key to winning the war. And you’ll be alive when they do.”

Rita was skeptical. “But if they have the code, why has the German army cut through Russia like a scythe? What use has the code been to the Soviets?”

“The Reds don’t have it. The general staff wasn’t going to tell them when the Russians were Hitler’s allies in ’39. The secret is with the Brits, and they don’t trust Stalin any more than the Polish government did.” Rita nodded. “So, Rita, stay alive! Do anything to still be there at the end. Because it’s coming, and coming sooner than anyone realizes .
 
.
 
.
”

“But if what you say is true, it would be crazy for me to know. The first time a policeman starts checking my documents, I could give it all away. It’s a story you’ve invented to save me, maybe to make up for my losing Stefan. You wouldn’t risk the whole outcome of the war—that would be madness
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
even if I believed you for a moment.”

“Believe me, Rita. What I have said is true. As to whether it’s crazy to tell you, well, there’s a line about that in your favorite philosopher, Hume.”

She looked back at him with a wan smile. Reaching up through the darkness for Erich’s face, Rita whispered the words as if they were an endearment. “
 ’
Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A
s eight o’clock approached on the morning of reregistration, about two thousand people were standing before a line of trestle tables set up in front of the
Judenrat
offices. To some it seemed farcical that both the Jews and the Germans were trying to look their best for one another. Germans in full uniform, belted and helmeted, with well-oiled weapons, clicking their heels in the direction of
Untersturmführer
Leideritz. Before the tables were faces washed and even rouged with children’s crayons, lips red with the remains of lipstick, hair bobbed and ribboned, suits, and dresses hanging from skeletal frames among the women, some wearing cloche hats. Among the men, most wore work clothes, stout and clean as could be contrived. There were few aged to be found in the entire crowd, but many of the women were sheltering children under their arms, all admonished to appear well, stand straight, and look old enough at least to fetch and carry.

Untersturmf
ü
hrer
Leideritz cleared his throat and began. “First registration, lumber mill workers.” A large man in a check shirt came forward with a list. But Leideritz dismissed him with a wave of the hand. “Lumber workers forward!” he shouted. Forty men came forward and counted themselves out as Leideritz looked each one up and down. “Good. To the left.” The throng visibly relaxed. “Next, brick factory.” Here several hundred stepped toward the tables as the rest of the crowd fell back. Among them were women and children. Leideritz took a flimsy from the table and waved it at no one in particular. “This list has four hundred names on it. Preposterous!” He stood, riding crop beating at his boots, in an unconscious parody of himself. “Women and all children below fourteen, get back.” Aided by officious
Jupos
, the Ukrainians filtered through the group, pushing men to the front and women to the rear, along with their children, a few of whom were pushed or tried to move right with the men.

“Line up,” a
Feldwebel
shouted at the men. The file was led to Leideritz’s place at the table. As each man gave his name to the clerk, the riding crop would flick out, right or left. When he was finished, seventy-five of the younger men stood at the left, and about the same number of the older, smaller, more emaciated stood at the right. They were moved off, along with the women and children. A new selection began.

The process took most of the day. At lunchtime everyone was ordered to remain in place, guarded by the vigilant
Juden Polizei
while Germans and Ukrainians were sent off to their canteen. Attempts to move across the line of demarcation were dealt with by truncheon blows from the
Jupos
.

Satisfied with their midday meal, the clerks returned to their typewriters. By three thirty Jews had been standing, crouching, or sitting in the open square for seven and a half hours. When it finally came the turn of
Terakowski Ready-to-Wear Fabrik
, Leideritz had grown tired of shouting and had passed the giving of orders on to his adjutant. He had not, however, passed on the task of selection. Once the textile factories’ turns came, it was both men and women to be selected. The clerks’ fingers flew as the riding crop indicated his choices. Leideritz prided himself that it took a practiced eye to sort workers with skills that were not obvious. But it was clear to those lining up before him that one’s chances were just a matter of good looks among women and physical size among the men. Rita passed quickly to the left and watched with morbid interest to see who among her coworkers would also be deemed adequate cutters or seamstresses. She was watching mostly for Dani and found herself relax slightly when Dani was sent to the left, though she watched two people who must have been the girl’s mother and father—a large workingman by his appearance—ordered to the right. She had never even heard of them from Dani.

Now Erich stepped forward. A noncommissioned officer leaned over to the
Untersturmführer
and said something. Meanwhile Erich glared, making eye contact with Leideritz in a way calculated to enrage. The
Untersturmf
ü
hrer
responded to the provocation. He looked back at the sergeant and shook his head. The riding crop pointed right. Erich nodded, and Rita could see him looking satisfied as he moved to the now swollen group composed of women, children, the lame, and the old.

It was well after dark before they finished. A long day’s work for even the most ardent policeman.

All those who had been sent to the left were ordered to move out of the ghetto gates. Sentries lined their route, and short work was made of the few who sought to evade the orders. The line of demarcation was wide and well guarded enough to prevent any final exchange between the elect and the damned. On both sides there were only mute exchanges and lingering stares. It was already too dark to make faces out beyond a meter. The line of march took them through the town square to the railway marshaling yard beyond the station, where cattle cars and grain wagons awaited them.

Rita stood in the gloom. She had kept her eye on Erich’s silhouette for hours. Emotions of loss and fear welled up in her. She had not felt them when Urs left, nor for her in-laws when the news of their fate had come. It was different from what she felt when she sent Stefan away or what she felt when learned of her parents’ fate. Rita was feeling the loss of someone she loved in the romantic way, the carnal way, the way one feels, she knew, when one loses a life partner. Suddenly she recognized that Erich had banished the persistent fear she had lived with before he had moved in. Now it was back, to knot up her stomach, make her perspire that rancid sweat she could smell, in spite of the cold.

Finally she saw him stand up with the others, stretch almost nonchalantly, and move out toward the cattle cars. As he passed her, Rita saw a grin on his face, almost sheepish, conspiratorial.
Somehow
, she thought,
Erich must know what he’s doing
.

The next morning in clean work clothes, Rita presented herself at the ghetto barrier, where she turned in her old work permit, had her name found on a list, and received a new one. Unlike the last, this one had an expiration date three months hence.

Toward the end of the afternoon, Lydia sent an office boy down to the shop floor. As he passed Rita, he nodded toward the office. “She wants you up there.”

Rita finished her buttonhole, rose, and moved along the floor to the foot of the office steps. Lydia came out of the office, down the stairs, and led her into a storage shed. “Listen carefully. I will have a set of identity papers for you tomorrow. If there is anything you want to take with you, pack a case. Take it to the back wall behind your place tonight at ten thirty. Someone will take it from you. You cannot carry a case out of the ghetto. You can’t carry one from here to the train station. You’d be picked up before you got there. But you have to have one when you get there. Someone will get it to the station left-luggage before tomorrow night. I’ll get you the claim check. Any questions?” Rita shook her head. “For God’s sake don’t do anything stupid in the next twenty-four hours.” Lydia walked out of the shed, leaving Rita alone.

What to pack? She had almost nothing. Well, then, some underclothes and something to sleep in, a toothbrush that had not seen paste or powder in six months, a scarf that might once have been brightly colored silk, and the dress in which she’d had her picture taken. There were only a few other things she would not part with: the contents of the stuffed dog and Freddy’s two fat volumes in German. For a second time, she ripped the stitches out of the toy, pulled out its contents, and mindlessly sewed it up again, while she thought about what to do with the two small sacks. She sewed the six morphine bottles, spaced evenly, around the hem of her coat, dropped the syringe’s metal plunger and needle among a nest of sewing needles in her kit, and put the glass tubes in a now-empty jewelry case. Would she ever own any jewelry again? She felt her earlobes. The piercing had healed over. Oh well. Then she sewed the gold coins into the hem of the dress she would wear. Rita harbored no illusions about these hiding places. They wouldn’t survive scrutiny. Then she finished packing, snapped the clasps on the valise, and belted it. Creeping down the stairs in the dark, she went out the back and sat in the outhouse until her watch read ten thirty. How had she managed to keep this watch? Then she remembered: she had been about to trade it for food when she began working and eating at the factory.

The transfer was wordless. All she saw was a man’s hand reach for the bag through a slat in the fence she had shifted. Then she heard a match lighting a cigarette and footfalls moving away. Oh, for a smoke.

Morning came. No Erich; no one in the room at all. The gauntlet at the gate. Far fewer passing through than before. So few that each pass could be checked and each worker eyed by the German sentry. No
Jupo Ordnungsdienst
strutting in their shadows. The slog through the streets, looking up and down at normal people coming and going. Will I ever be a free person, one of them again? No. Then she realized,
I’ll be one of them tomorrow. Keep your head down, no eye contact with anyone.