Page 13 of The Nanny Outside the Gates

TEN

GAVRIEL

The deep metallic boom of the gong vibrates through the walls of the barrack, startling me awake as it does every morning.

The lights crack on and every man in every tier of bunks around me strains to peek out of their tired eyes.

Whoever is still alive, still breathing, pulls themself to the edge of the mattress then slithers and clambers out of their sleeping hole.

When the shock of the gong’s reverberation simmers, the flesh of my cheekbone burns with a sting from yesterday’s slap.

There’s no mirror anywhere, but the ache of a bruise has spread across most of my cheek overnight.

Oskar hit me hard, but it’s not the pain that’s afflicting me, it’s the reason it happened.

I was defending someone. I knew better, but the action—the words—came instinctively to protect her.

Then the look on Halina’s face, a mix of disbelief and shock, telling me I shouldn’t have done what I did…

I couldn’t understand how she thought I could watch that happen to her instead. I’m still baffled.

Our paths crossed once more yesterday after the altercation, but she only gave me a brief glance. Not an unkind look, but one with caution. Or maybe, she doesn’t know what to say. I don’t either, but I do want to ask her if she’s all right.

What I want doesn’t matter though.

Ache, grief, and hunger are all just feelings I’ve learned to bury so I can keep moving. Keep working.

I haven’t had bread in two days due to missing prisoners at evening roll call, a punishment we all pay.

My stomach gnaws at itself from starvation.

But hunger, like everything else here, can only be ignored.

Time, too. It loops and stutters like a broken clock.

The same day on repeat, leaving me to wonder how long I’ve been surviving like this.

All I know is, it’s been long enough to question whether I’ll make it through another twelve-hour shift. A weakness is taking over, and it’s one I can’t fight against. I think that may be the point though. If we drop dead of natural causes, it saves the guards from having to gas us to death.

As most mornings while trudging toward the main gates for labor escort, the flies swarm, treating us like walking rubbish.

The bugs are the worst as we pass the rectangle shaped man-made ditch.

It’s become a swampy terrain covered with a film of sludge with pieces of blue and white striped fabric floating along the top.

No one says it out loud, but I’m sure there are piles of bodies decomposing in there. I hate wondering if I’ll land in a muddy hole, or be turned to ash. Which I’d prefer.

Oskar stops short before exiting the wooded path onto the officers’ residential road. “Wait here,” he demands, holding his hands up. He turns around and takes another look out at the street.

We’re quiet, allowing the commotion of hushed shouts to filter through the trees.

A striking slap of skin to skin reaching us tells me why we’re standing here.

Another morning altercation between Officer Sch?fer and his wife.

Then a car door slams, the engine roars, and gravel catches beneath the tires.

All rumblings fade into the distance, and we’re released from our hold between the trees and sent to our assigned houses.

From the time Hitler’s army invaded Poland, I wondered what type of life the members of the Nazi regime were living.

My mind has painted pictures of them laughing over torturing innocent people.

They must sit at their dinner table with their families, calling the Jews a threat.

I’ve seen how quickly belief becomes a weapon, and how easy it is to teach cruelty as a duty to their kind.

People aren’t born monsters, but they can be weak enough to become them, I suppose.

The back door of the Sch?fer house is unlocked for us, the arriving prisoners. I walk in to a faint aroma of cooked sausage and spices filling the air. The mouth-watering scent stabs at my barren stomach. No one is even eating at the moment.

Neither Frau Sch?fer nor her daughters are anywhere in sight as I make my way up the first flight of stairs, then the narrow set to the attic where piles of lumber never seem to dwindle.

Halina’s door is closed too. She’s usually knee deep in the children’s breakfast routine by now. I stare the door for a long moment, wondering if it will tell me if everything is all right.

It does as a quiet whimper escapes from the cracks of the closed door.

Then another whimper…

And a shuddered breath.

“It’s all right, there, there,” Halina whispers.

“Papa doesn’t love us…And when the baby comes, we’ll be more invisible.”

My thoughts trickle back to yesterday morning.

Maybe she didn’t want me to defend her. She might have thought I’d made things worse.

But I can’t stop thinking about that look in her eyes, the unresolved silence.

All I can do is wonder who she is beneath the shield she holds on to.

She’s nothing like the last nannies. That much I know.

I hesitate before pressing open Halina’s door to poke my head inside.

Isla and Marlene are sitting on Halina’s bed, their legs crisscrossed like pretzels.

Tears streaming down their rosy cheeks as they stare at Halina with desperate hope.

It’s as if they’re silently pleading that she has the means to mend their broken hearts.

I think I know why they look at her that way…

I’ve had to stop myself from doing the same.

They’ve come to trust her quickly. It’s because of the way she looks at them.

Something in her eyes says she still believes in their innocence, and that they’re worthy of her time.

That they’re worth saving. Her kindness—it’s as if she sees the world like everyone is equal and everyone deserves a chance, even a second or a third one.

Maybe that means I have a chance too.

Halina has pushed the terror she felt at being forced here to the side, and stepped over it to tend to her work.

I haven’t seen that type of bravery in anyone since…

before my family and I were pushed out of our home and sent to the ghetto.

That day, we all put on a brave face, but I had never felt so scared.

“It will be all right. Mamas and Papas argue over what they love the most,” Halina says, her words encouraging, but also a bit hollow.

No child should have to witness what these children have been.

Flora is in her arms, staring up at the ceiling in silence.

Frau Sch?fer must have gotten to her early morning bottle before Halina.

Isla and Marlene gasp when they spot me, and I hold my finger up to my lips like I’ve done the few times I’ve shared quiet little stories with them. I’m not allowed to speak to them, under any circumstances, but they don’t understand why, and I don’t want them to be afraid of me.

To pass the time while my brothers and I were younger and helping Pa at a job, he would tell us Polish folktales. Being the oldest of the three, I must have heard each story at least three times. I seem to remember them all.

“I’m not supposed to talk,” I whisper, “but—do you know the old Polish folktale about why dogs chase cats and cats chase mice?”

They shake their heads and stare at me curiously.

Halina twists around in her seat, surprise softening her expression. Her striking gaze meets mine, and light flickers through the moss green and gold threaded in her hazel eyes. Something sparks within my chest. I tell myself it means nothing, but I feel it all the same.

“You’re a Jew,” Stacia said, her words spewing with hate.

She had once laughed at my jokes, held my hand, and kissed me under the stars.

But now that I’m being forced to wear an armband marked with the Star of David, she recoils.

“You’re a traitor to Poland, Gavriel.” We’ve been dating for months and known each other for years, but something must have just snapped inside of her.

It’s clear she sees me as something less than human now.

I reach my arm around her like I’ve done a hundred times before, wanting to talk through her sudden anger and ask what happened. But she pushes me as if I’m vermin. Even her friends are watching and giggling, some silently, others out loud.

She’s always been so kind. Until today. The girl I knew is gone and in her place is…hatred.

No one had ever made me want to scream or want to shed my skin like Stacia did. Not after learning how quickly love can decay into rot and hate—how a girl who once held my hand could suddenly see me as if I were a part of the festering mold that was said to take over the world.

I had been sure since I’d never want to give my heart or trust to another woman again.

I’ll always be a Jew—revolting as so many seem to see.

“What’s the story about?” Marlene nudges me out of my lost thought.

“Ah, right,” I say recentering my focus on the folktale.

“Well, you see, the dogs were always being bothered by people so they went to the king and asked him to sign a paper declaring that no person or animal shall ever bother another dog. The king signed the paper and gave it to the dogs to hold. Needing to keep the paper safe, the dogs asked the cats if they could hide it in one of their special small hiding places, the cats helped them and hid the paper. When the dog asked the cat for the paper back, the cat went to find the paper and realized the mice had eaten it. When the dogs found out, they were very angry with the cats, and the cats were furious with the mice, and so began the never-ending chase.”

The little girls giggle into their little hands, and Halina grins. “What a storyteller you are,” she says, her voice teasing, cheeks blushing…just enough to make my pulse race.

“It’s not mine, but it matters.”

There is a deeper meaning—one I didn’t understand until everything in my life began to fall apart.