here—we must do something. We could lose everything: the lovely glass solarium our grandfather designed, the house, the rugs, the furniture, the garden, the library. Everything. Our family has spent generations erecting this house and filling it with beauty.”
Jozef looked back at me and I could see the toll his injuries had taken on his spirit.
“Mia, you know I love you and Mother and Father, but I don’t have any hope. At the university I tried to pretend that I wasn’t Jewish, but the other students wouldn’t let me forget. All the things you mention can be replaced, but we must find a way to survive. Life is more important.”
“But, how could this have happened? Our ancestry is German. Our house has always been staunchly Germanic—more Viennese, actually, than Polish. Our father and his parents waved from the front steps of our house when Emperor Franz Jozef of Austria arrived in Lodz, insisting when he came to our neighborhood, on riding behind the Jewish Elders and their holy scrolls. Papa told us a thousand times how in temple Franz Jozef had kissed the Torah and called it the mother of his own religion.”
“It’s a different world—you can’t look back. We must now look to the future and find a way to survive. We are the hopes of our people.”
Jozef fell asleep. I ran my hand over his brow and kissed his hair. The strains of Beethoven wove in and out of the noises of the emigration outside. I left his room and joined my parents.
“Mia,” my father said, resolution in his bearing, “go out and get a cart and driver. We’ll need provisions, as much as we can get. We must move now, and we must move quickly.”
“But she can’t,” Mama gasped. “Ben, you don’t realize what it’s like out there, how dangerous. It’s bad enough that you send her in the daytime to get bread, but—”
My father glared at her. “A pretty young woman is far more likely to rent a cart and driver than I am. Half the time when I go out for food, I return empty-handed. And this is an emergency. We have to survive. If we’re to get to Warsaw, all of us must be strong. Remember, Warsaw is a big city and we have many non-Jewish friends there who can hide us until this craziness is over.”
Warsaw! I knew he had dreamed of moving there ever since the occupation had become stifling, but it seemed to me only a fantasy, like going to America. The trip would entail constant danger, constant suspense. It was approximately 130 kilometers away, yet because we were Jews there seemed little hope of making such a journey. We were, in effect, jailed. But evidently my parents had talked of it before. His announcement did not seem to shock my mother.
Instead, she was horrified. Papa disregarded the fury in her eyes. Jozef would be well soon, he explained, and then we could travel. Without food and warm clothing we’d freeze to death on the journey. “And meanwhile, we’re going to hold out in Adolf Hitlerstrasse until we can travel.”
“Then don’t send Mia. Go to the black market.”
My father walked past her toward the parlor. Stopping in the doorway, he pressed both hands against the molding with all his diminished might. But he was no Samson. The great house did not fall.
He turned back to my mother. “Don’t you understand?” he said. “They depend on us stalling. Paying for every second of freedom with our savings. Buying on the black market to ward off hunger, to stay warm. You heard that baby-faced rabbi. He recommended bribes for better housing, for security, for preferential treatment.”
“But that’s human nature,” my mother said. “What do you hope to prove by refusing us what everyone else is begging for, particularly since we can afford it?”
“It’s not human nature,” Papa roared. “And I hope not your nature or Mia’s or Jozef’s. We have no right to put ourselves above the others, at least not anymore.”
My mother’s voice was cold. “So you intend for us to starve before we even set out for Warsaw?”
“No. I intend to resist them. Every cent of bribery paid to the Judenrat ends up in the hand of the Nazis. It’s like digging our own graves and waiting politely to be thrown in. What they can’t get by confiscating, we’re delivering to them.”
“Then how long do you intend to hold out? Until Jozef dies? Or me? Or Mia?”
“Until I’m convinced there’s no other way.”
I could not understand him. He was willing to sacrifice us for some ideal! He was willing to let us die. For the first time in my life, I stood against him in league with my mother, and he knew it.
He gripped my arm. “Find a cart, Mia. Fill it with what you can find. Nora, it’s time to pack. I’ll be upstairs straightening out a few things for the new tenants. We wouldn’t want them to think us poor housekeepers, now would we?”
I ran out in a fury, not daring to speak to Papa for fear of what I might say. It was not like me to hold back. I always allowed my anger to explode, but today it seemed dangerous, capable of inflicting mortal wounds.
Trucks, pushcarts, and wagons rolled over the cobblestone streets, a parade of woebegone vehicles, most of them carrying the few possessions families could salvage.
“You see that house?” a Polish man remarked to his companion. “We’re moving in tomorrow night.”
“Very nice,” his friend said, whistling in awe. “How’d you manage to land something so grand?”
“My brother-in-law works for the SS.”
It was our house that he pointed to. An old woman, showing her toothless gums beneath a bleached babushka, passed by me. With all her strength, she pressed against the strap on her forehead, which supported the load of her belongings tied to her back in a cardboard carton.
I recognized her. She was one of the Jewish peasant women who used to paw through the pushcarts for scraps as the merchants shut down for the Sabbath. The ones who haggled with the dry goods merchants over a few groszy. Women like her would now be our neighbors. Papa was right. It would be intolerable.
I looked around at the stupefied expressions of the human packhorses pulling their carts laden with trunks and boxes and felt a wave of nausea. These were supposed to be my brothers and sisters in the land of Abraham. The people that Papa said were our fellow creatures were beasts of burden, hideous to behold, misshapen humanity.
No! I was not one of them. I belonged to Paris, to music, to opera houses and concert halls. To Jean-Phillipe. I leaned against a lamppost, feeling my stomach lurch in an attempt to give up a meal I had stood in line for three hours to get.
Nearby, I knew, was the Café Astoria, where Jozef and I had spent many evenings, sipping port and listening to Viennese waltzes on the Wurlitzer. Perhaps it was still open. I would go there now and order a grenadine and soda to calm my stomach. I could warm myself there against the fender of the coal stove as I used to do with Jozef and his friends.
I started down the street, veering through the oncoming traffic. “What have we got here?” a voice boomed in German. “Walking in the wrong direction. A thief? A gypsy saboteur?”
I spun around. An SS soldier stood at ease in front of me.
“Nein, mein Herr,” I said, my voice quavering. “I was going to the Café Astoria.”
His eyes wandered casually over me. “So you’re Jewish then?”
I struggled for air. “Yes, sir. My father sent me out to find a cart, to help us relocate to the Jewish quarter. But all the carts are already taken. I’m cold, so I thought at the Café—”
“Do you have any identification?”
“Just my school card.” I fumbled in my handbag and produced it. “I attend the lycée in Paris, so it’s in French. But here, you see, it says my age and name, Marisa Levy. I swear to you I was only going to get a cart. Honest. My brother’s home sick, recovering from—”
“Calm down,” he said,