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206 J o d i P i c o u l T
“But ania needs you to go out with him,” Darija said.
ania, my character, who was too boring. Too safe.
“You can thank me later,” she said, patting my hand.
astoria Café was a well-known hangout on Piotrkowska Street. at
any
given moment, you might find Jewish intellectuals, playwrights,
compos-
ers arguing the finer points of artistic merit over smoky tables
and bitter
coffee; or opera divas sipping tea with lemon. Even though i was
dressed
in the same borrowed outfit i’d worn the day before, being in
close
quarters with these people made my head swim, as if i might
become
enlightened simply by breathing the same air.
We were sitting near the swinging doors of the kitchen, and
every
time they opened, a delicious smell would waft over us. Josek
and i were
sharing a platter of pierogi, and drinking coffee, which was—as
he had
promised—heavenly. “Upiory,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s
not what
i expected.”
i had been telling him—shyly—of the plot for my story: of ania,
and
her father the baker; of the monster who invades their town by
mas-
querading as a common man. “My grandmother used to talk about
them
when she was still alive,” i explained. “at night, she would
leave grain on
the wooden table at the bakery, so that if an upiór came, he
would be
forced to count it until the sunrise. if i didn’t go to bed when
i was sup-
posed to, my grandmother said the upiór would come for me and
drink
my blood.”
“Pretty grisly,” Josek said.
“The thing is, it didn’t scare me. i used to feel bad for the
upiór. i mean,
it wasn’t his fault he was undead. But good luck getting someone
to be-
lieve that, when there were people like my grandmother running
around
saying otherwise.” i looked up at Josek. “So i started to
daydream a story
about an upiór, who may not be as evil as everyone thinks. at
least not
compared to the human who’s trying to destroy him. and certainly
not
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T h e S T o r y T e l l e r 207
in the eyes of the girl who’s starting to fall for him . . .
until she realizes he
may have killed her own father.”
“Wow,” Josek said, impressed.
i laughed. “You were expecting a romance, maybe?”
“More than i was expecting a horror story,” he admitted.
“Darija says that i have to tone it down, or no one will ever
want to
read it.”
“But you don’t believe that . . . ?”
“no,” i said. “People have to experience things that terrify
them. if they
don’t, how will they ever come to appreciate safety?”
a slow smile spread across Josek’s face. in that moment, he
looked
handsome. at least as handsome as Herr Bauer, if not more. “i
didn’t real-
ize Łódź had the next Janusz korczak in its midst.”
i fidgeted with my teaspoon. “So you don’t think it’s crazy? For
a girl
to write something like this?”
Josek leaned closer. “i think it’s brilliant. i see what you’re
doing. it’s
not just a fairy tale, it’s an allegory, right? The upiory, they
are like Jews.
To the general population, they are bloodsuckers, a dark and
frighten-
ing tribe. They are to be feared and battled with weapons and
crosses
and Holy Water. and the Reich, which puts itself on the side of
God, has
commissioned itself to rid the world of monsters. But the
upiory, they are
timeless. no matter what they try to do to us, we Jews have been
around
too long to be forgotten, or to be vanquished.”
Once, in Herr Bauer’s class, i had made an error during an essay
and
substituted one German word for another. i was writing about the
mer-
its of a parochial education, and meant to say Achtung, which
meant
“attention, respect.” instead, i used Ächtung, which meant
“ostracism.”
as you can imagine, it completely changed the point of my
essay.
Herr Bauer asked me to stay after class to have a discussion
about the
separation of church and state, and what it was like to be a Jew
in a
Catholic high school. i wasn’t embarrassed at the time, because
mostly
i didn’t even pay attention to what made me different from the
other
students—and because i got to spend a half hour alone with Herr
Bauer,
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208 J o d i P i c o u l T
talking as if we were equals. and of course it was a mistake,
not a stroke
of brilliance, that had led me to make the observation in my
paper that
Herr Bauer thought was so insightful . . . but i wasn’t about to
admit to
that.
Just like i’m not going to admit to Josek, now, that when i was
writing
my story i never in a million years was thinking of it as a
political state-
ment. in fact, when i imagined ania and her father, they were
Jewish,
like me.
“Well,” i said, trying to make light of Josek’s explanation.
“Guess i can’t
put anything past you.”
“You’re something else, Minka Lewin,” he said. “i’ve never met
another
girl like you.” He threaded his fingers through mine. Then he
lifted my
hand and pressed his lips to it, suddenly a courtier.
it was old-world and chivalrous and made me shiver. i tried to
re-
member every sensation, from the way all the colors in the café
suddenly
seemed brighter to the electric current that danced over my palm
like
lightning in a summertime field. i wanted to be able to tell
Darija every
last detail. i wanted to write them into my story.
Before i could finish my mental catalog, though, Josek wrapped
his
hand around the back of my head, drew me closer, and kissed
me.
it was my first kiss. i could feel the pressure of Josek’s
fingers on my
scalp, and the scratchy wool of his sweater under my palm. My
heart felt
like fireworks must, when after finally being lit, all that
gunpowder has
somewhere to go.
“So,” Josek said after a moment.
i cleared my throat and looked around at the other patrons. i
expected
them all to be staring at us, but no, they were tangled in their
own con-
versations, punctuating the air with gestures that cut through
the haze
of the cigarette smoke.
i had a brief flashing image of myself and Josek, living abroad,
and
working together at our kitchen table. There he was, his white
shirt-
sleeves rolled up to the elbows as he furiously typed a story on
deadline.
There i was, chewing the top end of a pencil as i added the
final touches
to my first novel.
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T h e S T o r y T e l l e r 209
“Josek Szapiro,” i said, drawing back. “What’s gotten into
you?”
He laughed. “Must be all this talk of monsters and the ladies
who love
them.”
Darija would tell me to play hard to get. To walk out and make
Josek
come after me. To Darija, every relationship was a game. Me, i
got tired
of figuring out all the rules.
Before i could answer, though, the doors of the café burst open
and
a swarm of SS soldiers exploded into the room. They began to
smack
the patrons with their truncheons, to overturn chairs with
people still
in them. Old men who fell to the floor were trampled or kicked;
women
were thrown against the walls.
i was frozen in place. i had been near SS soldiers when they
passed,
but never in the middle of an action like this one. The men all
seemed to
be over six feet tall, hulking brutes in heavy green wool
uniforms. They
had clenched fists and pale silver eyes that glittered the way
mica did.
They smelled like hatred.
Josek grabbed me and shoved me behind him through the
swinging
kitchen doors. “Run, Minka,” he whispered. “Run!”
i did not want to leave Josek behind. i grabbed on to his
sleeve, try-
ing to pull him with me, but as i did a soldier yanked on his
other arm.
The last thing i saw, before i turned and sprinted, was the blow
that spun
Josek in a slow pirouette, the blood running from his temple and
broken
nose.
The soldiers were dragging out the café patrons and loading
them
into trucks when i climbed through the window of the kitchen
and
walked as normally as i could in the opposite direction. When i
felt i was a
safe distance away, i started to run. i twisted my ankle in the
kitten heels,
so i kicked them off and kept going barefoot, even though it was
October
and the soles of my feet were freezing.
i did not stop running, not when i got a stitch in my side or
when i had
to scatter a group of little beggar children like pigeons;
especially not
when a woman pushing a cart of vegetables grabbed my arm to ask
if i
was all right. i ran for a half hour, until i was at my father’s
bakery. Basia
was not at the cash register—shopping with Mama, i assumed—but
the
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210 J o d i P i c o u l T
bell that hung over the door rang, so that my father would know
some-
one had entered.
He came out from the kitchen, his broad face glistening with
sweat
from the heat of the brick ovens, his beard dusted with flour.
His de-
light at seeing me faded as he noticed my face—makeup streaked
with
tears—my bare feet, my hair tumbling out of its pins.
“Minusia,” he cried out. “What happened?”
Yet i, who fancied myself a writer, couldn’t find a single word
to de-
scribe not only what i had seen but how everything had changed,
as if
the earth had tilted slightly on its axis, ashamed of the sun,
so that now
we would have to learn to live in the dark.
With a sob, i threw myself into his arms. i had tried so hard to
be a
cosmopolitan woman; as it turned out, all i wanted was to stay a
little girl.
But i had grown up in an instant.
if the world hadn’t been turned inside out that afternoon, i
would have
been punished. i would have been sent to my room without dinner
and
barred from seeing Darija or doing anything but my schoolwork
for at
least a week. instead, when my mother heard what had happened,
she
held me tightly and would not let me out of her sight.
Before we walked home, my father’s arm tightly anchored around
me
and his eyes darting around the street as if he expected a
threat to leap
out of an alley at any minute (and why should he think any
differently,
after what i had relayed to him?), we went to the office where
Josek’s
father worked as an accountant. My father knew his father from
shul.
“Chaim,” he said gravely. “We have news.”
He asked me to tell Josek’s father everything—from the time we
ar-
rived at the café to the moment i saw a soldier hitting Josek
with an iron
rod. i watched the blood drain from his father’s face, saw his
eyes fill with
tears. “They took people away in trucks,” i said. “i don’t know
where.”
an internal battle played over the older man’s face, as hope
struggled
with reason. “You’ll see,” my father said gently. “He’ll come
back.”
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T h e S T o r y T e l l e r 211
“Yes.” Chaim nodded as if he needed to convince himself. He
looked
up then, as if he was surprised to see us still standing there.
“i have to go.
i must tell my wife.”
When Darija came after dinnertime to find out about my date
with
Josek, i told my mother to make an excuse and say i wasn’t
feeling well.
it was the truth, after all. That date seemed unrecognizable
now, so badly
tarnished by the firestorm of events that i couldn’t remember
what it
used to look like.
My father, who picked at the food on his plate that night, went
out
after the dishes were cleared. i was sitting on my bed, my eyes
squeezed
shut, conjugating German verbs. Ich habe Angst. Du hast Angst.
Er hat
Angst. Wir haben Angst.
We are afraid. Wir haben Angst.
My mother came into my bedroom and sat down beside me. “Do
you
think he’s alive?” i asked, the one question that no one had
spoken out
loud.
“ach, Minusia,” my mother said. “That imagination of yours.” But
her
hands were shaking, and she hid this by reaching for the brush
on my
nightstand. She turned me, gently, so that i was sitting with my
back to
her, and she began to brush out my hair in long, sweeping
strokes, the
way she used to when i was little.
What we learned, from information that leaked through the
community
in tiny staccato bursts, like rapid gunfire, was that the SS had
rounded
up 150 people from the astoria that afternoon. They had taken
them to
headquarters and had interrogated the men and women
individually,
beating them with iron bars, with rubber clubs. They broke arms
and
fingers and demanded ransom payments of several hundred
marks.
Those who didn’t have the money with them had to give the names
of
family members who might. Forty-six people were shot to death by
the
SS, fifty were freed after payment, and the rest were taken off
to a prison
in Radogoszcz.
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212 J o d i P i c o u l T
Josek had been one of the lucky ones. although i hadn’t seen
him
since that afternoon, my father told me he was back home with
his fam-
ily. Chaim, who like my father had Christian clients as well as
Jews, had
somehow made the arrangements for money to be brought to SS
head-
quarters in exchange for his son’s freedom. He told everyone who
would
listen that if not for the bravery of Minka Lewin, they might
not have had
such a happy ending.
i had been thinking a lot about happy endings. i had been
thinking
about what Josek and i were speaking of, moments before
Everything
Happened. Of villains, and of heroes. The upiór in my story, was
he the
one who terrorized others? Or was he the one being
persecuted?
i was sitting on the steps that led to the second floor of the
school
building one afternoon while the rest of the students had
Religious
Studies. although i was supposed to be crafting an essay, i was
writing
my story instead. i had just started a scene where an angry mob
beats
at ania’s door. My pencil could not keep up with my thoughts. i
could
feel my heart start to pound as i imagined the knock, the
splinter of the
wood against the weapons the townspeople had brought for the
lynch-
ing. i could feel sweat breaking out along ania’s spine. i could
hear their
German accents through the thick cottage door—
But the German accent i heard was actually Herr Bauer’s. He
sank
down beside me on the step, our shoulders nearly bumping. My
tongue
swelled to four times its normal size; i could not have spoken
aloud if my
life depended on it. “Fräulein Lewin,” he said. “i wanted you to
hear the
news from me.”
The news? What news?
“Today is my last day here,” he confessed, in German. “i will be
going
back to Stuttgart.”
“But . . . why?” i stammered. “We need you here.”
He smiled, that beautiful smile. “My country apparently
needs
me, too.”
“Who will teach us?”
He shrugged. “Father Czerniski will take over.”
Father Czerniski was a drunk, and i had no doubt the only
German
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T h e S T o r y T e l l e r 213
he knew was the word Lager. But i didn’t need to say this out
loud, Herr
Bauer was thinking the same thing. “You will continue to study
on your
own,” he insisted fiercely. “You will continue to excel.” Then
Herr Bauer
met my gaze, and for the first time in our acquaintance, he
spoke Polish
to me. “it has been an honor and a privilege to teach you,” he
said.
after he walked downstairs, i ran to the girls’ bathroom and
burst into
tears. i cried for Herr Bauer, and for Josek, and for me. i
cried because i
would not be able to lose myself daydreaming about Herr Bauer
any-
more, which meant more time would be spent in reality. i cried
because
when i remembered my first kiss, i felt sick to my stomach. i
cried because
my world had become a raging ocean and i was drowning. Even
after i
splashed my face with cold water, my eyes were still red and
puffy. When
Father Jarmyk asked if i was all right during math, i told him
that we had
received sad news the previous night about a cousin in
kraków.
These days, no one would question that kind of response.
When i left school that afternoon, headed directly to the bakery
as
usual, i thought i was seeing an apparition. Leaning on a
lamppost across
the street was Josek Szapiro. i gasped, and ran to him. When i
got closer,
i could see the skin around his eyes was yellow and purple, all
the jewel
tones of a fading bruise; that he had a healing cut through the
middle of
his left eyebrow. i reached up to touch his face, but he caught
my hand.
One of his fingers was splinted. “Careful,” he said. “it’s still
tender.”
“What did they do to you?”
He pulled my hand down. “not here,” he warned, looking around
at
the busy pedestrians.
Still holding my hand, he tugged me away from the school. To
anyone
passing by, we might have looked like an ordinary couple. But i
knew
from the way Josek was holding on to me—tightly, as if he were
drown-
ing in quicksand and needed to be rescued—that this wasn’t the
case.
i followed him blindly through a street market, past the
fishmonger
and the vegetable cart, into a narrow alley that ran between two
build-
ings. When i slipped on cabbage rinds, he anchored me to his
side. i could
feel the heat of his arm around me. it felt like hope.
He didn’t stop until we had navigated a rabbit warren of
cobbled
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214 J o d i P i c o u l T
pathways, until we were behind the service entrance of a
building i did
not even recognize. Whatever Josek wanted to say to me, i hoped
that it
didn’t involve leaving me here alone to find my way back.
“i was so worried about you,” he said finally. “i didn’t know if
you’d
gotten away.”
“i’m much tougher than i look,” i replied, raising my chin.
“and as it turns out,” Josek said quietly, “i’m not. They beat
me, Minka.
They broke my finger to get me to tell them who my father was. i
didn’t
want them to know. i thought they would go after him, and hurt
him, too.
But instead they took his money.”
“Why?” i asked. “What did you ever do to them?”
Josek looked down at me. “i exist,” he said softly.
i bit my lip. i felt like crying again, but i didn’t want to do
it in front of
Josek. “i’m so sorry this happened to you.”
“i came to give you something,” Josek said. “My family leaves
for
St. Petersburg next week. My mother has an aunt who lives
there.”
“But . . .” i said stupidly, wanting only to unhear the words he
had just
spoken. “What about your job?”
“There are newspapers in Russia.” He smiled, just a little bit.
“Maybe
one day i will even be reading your upiór story in one.” He
reached into
his pocket. “Things are going to get worse here before they get
better.
My father, he has business acquaintances. Friends who are
willing to do
favors for him. We are traveling to St. Petersburg with
Christian papers.”
My eyes flew to his face. if you had Christian papers, you could
go
anywhere. You had the so-called proper documents to prove that
you
were aryan. This meant a free pass from all restrictions,
roundups,
deportations.
if Josek had had those papers a week ago, he would never have
been
beaten by the SS. Then again, he would never have been at
astoria Café,
either.
“My father wanted to make sure that what happened to me never
will
happen again.” Solemnly, Josek unfolded the documents. They
were, i
realized, not for a boy his age. They were instead for a teenage
girl. “You
saved my life. now it’s my turn to save yours.”
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T h e S T o r y T e l l e r 215
i backed away from the papers, as if they might burst into
flame.
“He couldn’t get enough for your whole family,” Josek explained.
“But,
Minka . . . you could come with us. We would say you’re my
cousin. My
parents will take care of you.”
i shook my head. “How could i become part of your family,
knowing i
had left mine behind?”
Josek nodded. “i thought you would say that. But take them. One
day,
you may change your mind.”
He pressed the papers into my hand, and closed my fingers
around
them. Then he pulled me into his arms. The papers were caught
between
our bodies, a wedge to drive us apart, like any other lie. “Be
well, Minka,”
Josek said, and he kissed me again. This time, his mouth was
angry
against mine, as if he were communicating in a language i hadn’t
learned.
an hour later, i was in the steamy belly of my father’s bakery,
eating the
roll he made for me every day, with the special twisted crown on
the top
and a center of chocolate and cinnamon. at this time of day, we
were
alone; his employees came in before dawn to bake and left at
midday.
My legs were hooked around the stool where i sat, watching my
father
shape loaves. He set them to proof inside the floured folds of a
baker’s
couche, patting the round, dimpled rise of each one, supple as a
baby’s
bottom. inside my brassiere, the edges of my Christian papers
seared my
skin. i imagined getting undressed that night, finding the name
of some
goyishe girl tattooed over my breast.
“Josek’s family is leaving,” i announced.
My father’s hands, which were always moving, stilled over the
dough.
“When did you see him?”
“Today. after school. He wanted to say good-bye.”
My father nodded and pulled another clot of dough into a
small
rectangle.
“are we going to leave town?” i asked.
“if we did, Minusia,” my father said, “who would feed everyone
else?”
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216 J o d i P i c o u l T
“it’s more important that we’re safe. Especially with Basia
having a
baby.”
My father slammed his hand down on the butcher block, creating
a
small storm of flour. “Do you think i cannot keep my own family
safe?” he
bellowed. “Do you think that’s not important to me?”
“no, Papa,” i whispered.
He walked around the counter and gripped my shoulders.
“Listen
to me,” he said. “Family is everything to me. You are everything
to me. i
would tear this bakery down brick by brick with my own hands if
it meant
you wouldn’t be harmed.”
i had never seen him like this. My father, who was always so
sure of
himself, always ready with a joke to diffuse the most difficult
situation,
was barely holding himself together. “Your name, Minka. Short
for Wil-
helmina. You know what it means? Chosen protection. i will
always choose
to protect you.” He looked at me for a long moment, and then
sighed. “i
was going to save these for a Chanukah gift, but i’m thinking
maybe now
is the time for a present.”
i sat while he disappeared into the back room where he kept
the
records of shipments of grain and salt and butter. He returned
with a
burlap sack, its drawstring pulled tight as a spinster’s mouth.
“A Freilichen
Chanukah,” he said. “a couple of months early, anyway.”
With impatient hands i yanked at the knots to untie the package.
The
burlap pooled around a shiny pair of black boots.
They were new, which was a big deal. But they were nothing
fancy,
nothing that would make a girl rhapsodize over their fashionable
stitch-
ing or style. “Thank you,” i said, forcing a smile and hugging
my father
around the neck.
“These are one of a kind. no one else has a pair like them. You
must
promise me to wear these boots at all times. Even when you are
sleep-
ing. You understand, Minka?” He took one from my lap and reached
for
the knife he used to hack off bits of dough from the massive
amoeba
on the counter. inserting the tip into a groove at the heel, he
twisted,
and the bottom of the sole snapped off. at first, i could not
understand
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T h e S T o r y T e l l e r 217
why he was ruining my new present; then i realized that inside
this hid-
den compartment were several gold coins. a fortune.
“no one knows they are in there,” my father said, “except you
and me.”
i thought of Josek’s broken hand, of the SS soldiers
demanding
money from him. This was my father’s insurance policy.
He showed me how both heels opened, then fitted each back to
the
boot and whacked them a few times on the counter. “Good as new,”
he
said, and he handed the boots to me again. “and i mean it—i want
you
to wear them everywhere. Every day. When it’s cold, when it’s
hot. When
you’re going to the market or when you’re going dancing.” He
grinned at
me. “Minka, make a note: i want to see you wearing them at my
funeral.”
i smiled back, relieved to be settled on familiar ground. “That
may be
a little tricky for you, don’t you think?”
He laughed, then, the big belly laugh that i always thought of
when i
thought of my father. With my new boots cradled in my lap, i
considered
the secret we now shared, and the one we didn’t. i never told my
father
about my Christian papers; not then, not ever. Mostly because i
knew he
would force me to use them.
as i finished the roll my father had baked just for me, i looked
down
at my blue sweater. On my shoulders, there was a dusting of
flour that
he had left behind when he grabbed me. i tried to brush it off,
but it was
no use. no matter what, i could see the faint handprints, as if
i had been
warned by a ghost.
in november, there were changes. My father came home one day
with
yellow stars, which we were to wear on our clothing at all
times. Łódź, our
town, was being called Litzmannstadt by the German soldiers who
over-
ran it. More and more Jewish families were moving into the Old
Town, or
Bałuty, some by choice, and some because the authorities had
decided
that the apartments and houses they had owned or rented for
years
should now be reserved for ethnic Germans. There were streets in
town
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