Page 10

NINE

LUKA

September 1940

Warsaw, Poland

My hand trembles as I pull the curtain back from the window, peeking outside as I do each morning when I wake up.

A flicker of dread stirs inside of me, fearing I might find myself in the world alone without another person in sight.

That’s what the German soldiers want us to feel.

Today could be the day they come for me and send me to wherever they sent Father four months ago.

We haven’t heard a word from him or Grandfather since then, leaving my mind to conjure the worst possible thoughts when I’m alone or trying to fall asleep.

I miss them terribly and would do anything to find out that they’re all right, wherever they are.

The sight of people wandering aimlessly reassures me I’m not the only one left here, but their heads are bowed, hands clasped behind their backs, stares clinging to the pavement beneath their feet.

The act of waiting for them to pull the trigger takes every bit of control out of my life, but I must put on a brave face for Mother and Grandmother.

Mama, especially. Her mental state has been out of sorts, almost as if she’s living in a child’s state of mind sometimes.

My body tenses as I peer around outside.

I search in every direction, but thankfully find others walking around as usual, conducting their daily business.

All is fine for the moment, I suppose.

“Luka, someone is knocking on the door,” Grandmother shouts.

I grab my table-side clock, curious who would be at the door before seven in the morning.

Pulling on a pair of trousers and grabbing a shirt from my closet, I button it on the way to the door.

“Who is it?” I ask, unlocking the door and opening it enough to see out into the dimly lit corridor.

Those sparkling blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and long dark lashes are peering up at me again and my shoulders fall with relief to see her in one piece after the state of mind she left in last night.

I open the door wider and usher her inside.

“I’m sorry for showing up unannounced,” she says.

“Don’t be. Never. Is everything all right?” She doesn’t look worse for wear.

In fact, her eyes are smiling.

She hands me her satchel.

“Go on, look inside,” she says, biting on her lip in mischief.

“Ella,” I say, before opening the bag.

“What have you done?” I separate the two canvas flaps, finding multiple paper-wrapped goods nearly piled up to the rim of the bag.

I turn toward the kitchen without taking my eyes off the wrapped goods, wondering what might be inside, while trying to avoid thinking about what she did to acquire everything within.

I stop in front of the countertop and gently slide everything out of the bag.

I smell baked bread.

There’s a round bundle I rest my hand on first, a warmth seeping through the paper.

“Why are you breathing so hard?” Ella asks.

“I’m not,” I lie, swallowing back a breath.

“Ella, it’s so nice to see you back,” Mama says, pulling her robe taut.

“What is it that I’m smelling? I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

“Good morning, Madame Dulski. I hope I’m not disturbing you,” I greet Luka’s mother.

I unwrap the bundle I believe to be bread, finding the most perfect loaf, lightly covered in flour.

“Is that fresh bread?” Mama utters in disbelief.

“I made it for you. Sawdust free. All natural.”

Mama’s chin quivers as I unwrap the next item, finding a slim block of cheese.

Ella reaches out for a square shaped bundle.

“This one should be kept cold.” I unwrap it—a stack of six hamburger patties.

We haven’t had meat in over a year.

“And this one, too.” She lifts another square shaped package.

“It’s margarine.”

I open the last of the packages, finding a cloth bundle of legumes.

My face fills with heat and my nose burns.

Tears fill my eyes, and I tilt my head up toward the ceiling, embarrassed, grateful, joyful, and worried.

I sniffle and take in a full breath then tighten my arms around Ella, pulling her in tightly.

“How did you manage this, sweetheart?” Madame Dulski asks.

“After I told my father about what was happening in your district, he broke into today’s inventory before the Germans showed up at the front door this morning. He’s going to do what he can to help here. We all are.”

“Ella,” I say through an exhale.

“You’ve done more than enough.”

“Well, I’ll let you enjoy your breakfast. I should return to the store,” she says.

I walk her to the door and step out of the apartment with her.

“The words, thank you, aren’t sufficient,” I tell her.

“It’s not necessary. I’d do anything for you.”

I kiss her forehead then her button nose.

“Someday, I’ll be able to do something for you, I’ll be able to give you the world. Someday, you’ll see.”

She reaches up to kiss me then takes my hand and presses it to her heart.

“As long as I have you.”

A feast of sliced warm bread with margarine on the side makes my mouth water before I’ve even taken a bite.

Grandmother is reciting a brachot over the meal, thanking God for the nutrients.

I’m thanking God for Ella.

Before Grandmother says her Amen , a scream pierces through the windows, followed by several others.

Shots are fired from weapons, and fists pound against doors, more screams commencing.

Mama, Grandmother and I study each other in silent shock, wondering what’s happening outside.

None of us move to the covered window or from our seat.

Papa would. He would want to know what’s happening before it happens to protect us.

That’s my job now. I push my chair away from the table, away from the warm bread my stomach is clawing for, and step in toward the window to peek outside.

“More people are leaving with suitcases in hand. They’re in lines, being shoved,” I say.

“Grab your belongings. I’ll retrieve the money and papers. They’re already in the building. They’re coming for us.”

I look at the bread, passing by the table to get to the loose floorboard where we keep our valuables.

I have a suitcase prepared.

We all do, just in case.

With my belongings in hand and on my back, I wrap all the food back up and shove it into my knapsack, carefully placing the bread on top.

Mama rushes into the kitchen, stares at her plants for a long second then moves to the stove where she chooses a few tins to drop into her purse.

Please spare us. Just a little longer.

God, please.

The pounding on doors is relentless, two or three at a time and we’re holding our breath, staring at our door, the door that welcomed so much happiness just minutes ago.

My throat tightens, constricting my breath.

Grandmother has a scowl drawn across her lips and Mama’s eyes are filled with tears.

She’s shaking her head, silently praying they leave us be.

It doesn’t sound as if they’re skipping any doors beneath us.

Despite expecting the clobbering against our door, I choke on a breath when it happens.

“Aufgehen!”

I swallow hard and walk to the door, my last steps before I come to face to face with the German soldier who will tell us to join the others.

I peer back at Mama and Grandmother, both squeezing their eyes shut.

It all happens in slow motion: the spit flying from the soldier’s mouth as he shouts at us to take our belongings, in no more than one suitcase, and leave.

“This is the Aryan side of Warsaw. No Jews!”

The wall.

The one we’ve all been watching rise higher and higher in the center of Warsaw without knowing its purpose.

I walk first, hoping it’s the right thing to do to protect Mother and Grandmother.

Behind me, I hear Mother’s sob catch in her throat as the soldier orders us to leave our home—the last place where Father and Grandfather were with us.

This is the moment we lose more of our identity regardless of where we go.

Ella won’t find me.

We follow others down the stairs of our building and out into a bright sunny day, a cruel mirage above us when we’re walking eastward toward the wall.

The streets I’ve known my entire life are nearly unrecognizable, filled with lines of disheveled fellow Jews shuffling forward with emptiness in their eyes as they leave their lives behind.

Our line merges with others, forming a stream of despair winding around the streets as we head east. I turn back to look over my shoulder at our apartment, needing one last glance.

I find the front stoop where I kissed Ella just yesterday—in a different lifetime.

I can almost still see her standing in the same place.

Wait, no.

She is there.

Watching.

Holding her hand over her mouth, shaking her head.

She darts to the next building corner, toward me, and I cast a doubtful glance, knowing we can’t control what’s happening.

She can’t follow me where I’m going.

She’s crying, reaching her hand out to me.

Her cheeks are so red, the color is sharp and clear from too many footsteps away.

“I’m sorry,” I mouth to her.

“I love you.”

My throat burns as I fight to take in air.

Everything hurts.

Mothers are holding their children tightly, handkerchiefs balled up in their hands.

Children are whimpering, squeezing a toy, just a single toy.

Little Jak, who thinks he’s too big for a stuffed bear, clings to his mother’s arm, squeezing the bear in the other.

He peers over his shoulder, looking behind him, catching me in his view.

I force a small smile, showing him I’m here, too.

He looks down at the stuffed bear then back up at me and smiles faintly before turning to face forward.

There aren’t many men, and I still don’t have answers as to why I’m here and others aren’t.

There’s never a clear reason for anything that happens to us anymore.

With the one final corner behind us just minutes from our home, the sight of the brick wall looms ahead.

The height of the incumbent wall casts shadows for as far as I can see, and the closer we come, a change of smell—of sweat and dust—fills the air.

“It was right in front of us all this time,” Grandmother says.

“What was?” I ask.

“The wall.” Grandmother shakes her head and wraps her hand around her throat.

“This is why no one knew what purpose the wall was to serve. This must be how the soldiers will close us out of the city—confining us to live within the bordering wall like caged animals.”

The circulating questions about why the wall was being built in the middle of Warsaw had never been answered, but it’s been hard to avoid the idea that it’s always had something to do with the Jewish population.

As the lines slow, it takes some time before we’re forced to march up the wooden bridge, leading over the train tracks.

The bridge complains beneath our weight, the boards groaning with every step.

As we descend the ramp that leads beyond the wall, it becomes clear that we’ve walked into our own trap.

It was so easy to capture us.

It’s as if none of us have any fight left within us, but that isn’t the case.

We just have nothing to fight with.

We’re led straight into a building, a sign on the door stating:

Administration of the Jewish District of Warsaw

Reception Center

Everyone pauses for a split second to read the sign—it says so little, but it means too much.

Each person is carrying their life within their hands or on their backs, and yet no one is prepared for what will happen next.

The line leads to a table where a fellow Jewish man cranes his neck over a logbook, a pen in hand, jotting down our names.

Then we’re sent to an overcrowded room where we’re supposed to wait for further instructions.

The people around me are quiet aside from a few exchanging words of gossip or guesses as to what’s next for us.

The rest sit in silence, staring into a void.

That’s all I can do.

Stare at the blur of people holding themselves up with a relentless sense of doubt and fear we can’t escape.

Eventually, we hear that Pawia, building eleven in the Muranów neighborhood, is where the Judenrat committee has assigned us to live.

We’re herded through the streets once again, except this time, the streets within the foreboding wall are all dark, covered in soot and construction debris, with people lining the roads with no sense of direction.

Deeper into the enclosure, the surroundings swallow us up as we reach a tenement overfilled with residents who lived here prior to the merge, and people who have been forced in since.

Ten other people live in our unit, a space large enough for only two or three to live comfortably.

The windows are to be kept open for airflow, the toilets are across the hall, outside the unit, and there’s no running water.

The building reeks of sewage.

A baby is crying, his mother desperately trying to soothe him with a quiet hum as she curls him up in her arms in the corner of the room.

I’m not sure who might have lived here first, or sure if it’s appropriate to ask.

Mother, Grandmother, and I find a space amid the room and place our bags down.

“They expect us all to live here?” Mama whispers in my ear.

“I suppose we’re all family now,” I speak out.

“My sincerest apologies to whoever lived here first. I can’t imagine having your home infiltrated like this. And to the rest, we stand beside you. I’m Luka, and this is my mother, Chana, and my grandmother, Golda.”

A few speak up with their names, but most don’t lift their heads from staring at the ground beneath us.

“It’s nice to meet you,” a man says, walking up to me with his hand outstretched.

He might be around my age.

“Apollo. I’m here with my mother and little sisters—the three over near the window.”

“I might just call you my one and only friend now. Hope that’s all right,” I say, trying a dose of humor, something that should seem foreign now.

“Same, brother,” he says.

“These folks aren’t doing well from what I can see, but as the only two younger men in the room, I suspect we’ll be assigned to work soon enough. Hopefully, we can still help the others out.”

“Did you just arrive, too?”

“Yesterday,” he says.

“I wandered around a bit but it’s a grim scene.”

“Is there any way out? Can we come and go from this entrapment—the ghetto?” I ask, praying he says this is only where we live now.

I doubt he knows too much more than I do as nothing has been made public knowledge.

“It doesn’t look like we can leave, but non-Jewish Poles seem to come and go…at least from what I saw yesterday.”

My thoughts cycle around Ella.

If she finds a way to enter, nothing will stop her—not even warnings of danger.

Despite the effort, it would be a waste as it will be impossible to find me among the dense population.