Books : Escaping into the Night : Excerpts

Chapter Two

For a long time I just lay on the floor, unable to move or speak.

How could she really be gone?

The rats scratched inside the walls, but I didn't care. I just lay there hugging my knees, murmuring the song the Rojaks sang when they heard about Yosl. I didn't know the words, but I remembered the tune because they sang that song every night for over a month, rocking and swaying and trying to comfort themselves. Now I sang the song over and over again, not caring if people heard me or not. If Mama was dead, there wasn't much point in being alive anyway.

Somehow I must have fallen asleep, because suddenly the sun was streaming in the window. I got up, brushed the dust from the maid's uniform that I had never taken off the previous night, and walked to the gate with my papers as if nothing had happened. Beyond the gate I looked out at the long marsh grasses and the row of scraggly trees that marked the beginning of the forest. Everything was newly green. It should have given me hope, but it didn't. Tonight I would escape, or be shot trying. Either way, it didn't seem to matter.

If the commander's wife knew or suspected anything, she didn't show it. I wished I could have asked her. Maybe she knew what had happened to Mama. Georg said not everyone was killed. Some people were sent away. They still needed people to work and Mama was strong. Mama is not dead! I thought the words over and over again as I rubbed at a berry stain that straddled both sides of a crack in the sink. Mama was a survivor. I had to remember that. I had to remember the way she always stood -- straight and tall, fearless. I imagined Mama getting into a train, twisting her dark, curly hair into a bun to keep it out of her face, adjusting her skirts, patting an area clean, sitting down as if she were a queen on a throne. When we were first forced to move into the ghetto, Mama had opened the door to our room and immediately planned where to put our things, as if we were moving into the Versailles Palace. When the Rojaks arrived later that afternoon, Mama welcomed them with tea served on the china she'd saved several weeks' wages to buy in Berlin. It was always important for Mama to have nice things. Better to have a few nice things than a lot of drek, she always said.

I rubbed the stain so hard that bits of polish came off with the juice, leaving a dirty patch of rust. The patch kept getting bigger, but I kept rubbing, my arms shaking. How would I escape? The guards were everywhere. I'd probably be shot. I scrubbed harder, trying to stop worrying so much, but I couldn't help it. Even if I made it to the forest, what would I do when I got there? Where would I sleep? I didn't have a tent or any warm clothes, just a plain cloth coat that was too small and worn with holes. I should bring the long underwear that Mama sewed for me last year. What else? I couldn't take Mama's china. I should take her cameo pin and pearl necklace -- and the picture of my father, Grisha.

Why had the Nazis closed the factory? Why had they taken the people who were healthy, who were supporting the war? They'd already had a selection just last month. Everyone in the ghetto, even the members of the Jewish Police, had been ordered to line up in the main square. We stood out in the cold for hours until a Nazi commander asked us some questions and they sent us to another line. We kept standing there until everyone had been divided up into two lines. Then we watched as the soldiers marched the people on the other line out of the ghetto, and we never saw them again. I knew better than to ask Mama what happened to them. She would have just called me a worrier.

At dusk I walked home slowly. Fritz was at the gate and he smiled and touched my hand as I showed him my papers, but I didn't say anything. I walked as quickly as I could to our building and climbed the stairs to our room.

Just as I was about to put my key in the door, I heard a noise -- footsteps. Someone was in the apartment. The soldiers! They were taking Mama's things! They'd find the pearls and the cameo, all Mama's treasures.

They'd find me!

I bent down and tried to look through the keyhole. The footsteps stopped. The apartment was quiet again. Were they waiting for me? Where could I hide? Should I go back to the streets? It was almost curfew. When Georg came, how would he find me?

I leaned against the wall behind the door, hoping the soldiers wouldn't see me when they left. Then I waited.

No one came out. They must be waiting for me. Or waiting for Georg. That was it. They knew about the plan and they were waiting here to arrest Georg! I needed to leave so I wouldn't put him in danger! No, that would put him in more danger. He'd enter the apartment looking for me and find the soldiers. The best thing to do would be to tiptoe down to the landing and warn him when he set foot in the building. I started quietly down the stairs.

"Halina!"

The door opened, and a familiar face appeared in the crack of dim light.

"Batya?"

"Shh." She grabbed my arm and led me inside, then closed the door.

"Wasn't everyone at the factory taken? I thought you were the soldiers."

"I heard you humming and waited for you to come in. When you didn't, I got worried."

"I was humming! I'm so stupid. What if you were..."

"It doesn't matter," Batya said. "You must gather your things. Georg came a little while ago. He is coming back soon."

"What happened? Did Mama escape, too?"

"I don't think so. I hid when they were taking everyone to the fort and -- " Batya covered her face with her hands. Her long black braid curved over her shoulders.

"Did you see?"

"They took my father and brothers; they took all the men away and put them on a train. There was a deep pit. They told the women -- "

"No!"

"Shh!" I felt Batya's arms around me as she reached up and pressed her hand over my mouth. "You can't let anyone hear us. It will endanger the whole -- "

"Did you see Mama?"

"I ran when I heard the gunshots. A messenger found me. He said it would be safer to return to the ghetto and escape with the others tonight, so he put me in a sack of potatoes and brought me back through the gate. Go and get ready. Wear as much as you can."

"But did you see Mama?"

"She was in the line with the other women." Batya spoke softly, squeezing me tighter. "But you can't think about that now. She'd want you to save yourself."

Batya unwrapped her arms and tried to break away from me, but I held on to her, burying my face in her thick braid, which smelled like potatoes. It was just yesterday that I'd held on to Mama like that, before I'd left for the commander's house and she'd left for the factory. If only we had known what would happen. I would have just held on and on. I would have tried to remember everything she said to me. I would have insisted that we hold hands before we got to the ghetto gate, the way we used to when we walked together in Berlin. I would have sung one last song for her.

"We must get ready," Batya said again, breaking away more firmly. "Take some of your mother's things so you can remember her."

I opened the wardrobe. There wasn't much left. The Nazis had taken most of our possessions. On the top shelf were three tubes of red lipstick worn down to the bottom and a compact. Hanging below was a heavy black coat, a red umbrella, and two dresses -- one pine green and one navy blue. In the pocket of the green dress were Mama's pearls and cameo pin, along with an embroidered linen handkerchief. I put these in Mama's coat pocket and put on the coat, feeling the weight of Mama's body and that perfumy, smoky smell.

The coat felt heavy, so heavy, I suddenly couldn't move. I sank to the floor and let the tears roll down my face, biting my lip to keep myself from making noise.

"Halina, get up right now! We don't have much time!" Batya scurried around gathering long underwear, wool stockings, and sweaters. "Put these on."

I let Batya slide my legs into the underwear and stockings, and put the picture of my father into Mama's coat pocket. Batya gave me two potatoes. She rolled up Mama's two dresses and stuffed them into the sleeve of the coat; she put an extra pair of stockings in a sweater pocket, and grabbed Mama's fur hat, which had been stuffed into a crack in the floorboard. Mama had hidden the hat when the Nazis ordered us to give up our furs.

"Hide this hat somewhere," Batya said as she put her father's tallis and tefillin into the pocket of her older brother's large coat. "We should daven Ma'ariv. My father would want us to, even if we're girls."

What good would that do? I wanted to say, but I merely

nodded and listened politely as Batya murmured the Rojak family's familiar evening chants under her breath.

"Now Kaddish...," Batya said. "For your mother."

We stood together as Batya murmured the prayer for the dead. Only then did her voice break. "I'm doing it all wrong! When my mother died, we lit Yahrzeit candles. We didn't leave the house for seven days."

"That was before the war. You didn't do that when Yosl disappeared."

"We didn't know that he was truly dead."

"But maybe..."

"I saw her at the edge of the pit. I heard..."

I covered my ears. "I have a candle."

"We can't light it. Someone might see!"

"We'll just light it for a minute -- away from the window. Then we'll blow it out."

As Batya lit the candle, I imagined that Mama's spirit was in the flame, which rose high in the darkness, a large orange triangle whose tip pointed to the sky. We sat holding hands in the dark, watching the flame shift its shape with the passing currents. That was how I'd have to be now, I thought. Ready to move wherever I had to. Mama wouldn't want me to sink uselessly on the floor and be caught by the Nazis. Mama would want me to be brave and strong. Mama would want me to do whatever I could to survive.

There was a knock on the door. "We're ready," Georg whispered softly. "Come."