1921
“I’m going with the nice man.”
I stared at Nechama in shock. I had never heard my little sister state anything so strongly, never seen her so independent. We were standing in the hallway of the orphanage in Pinsk, the day after the man from Africa had arrived. In such a short time, she had latched on to his terrifying proposal.
“I’m going to Africa,” Nechama repeated, her small fists clenched.
Then she moved closer and stared at me with her big, appealing eyes. “Please come with me, Devorahleh. I want you to come, too.”
“And if I don’t?” I asked, with real curiosity.
Nechama didn’t hesitate for a moment. “I’m going,” she repeated again, and then once more. “I’m going with that man to that new place.”
My heart lurched. I sat down on a little bench nearby and tried to think. There was a long silence.
It wasn’t as if I myself didn’t feel drawn to Isaac Ochberg. He was warm and strong and gentle. But couldn’t he see that going to Africa meant my old life was over? Once we sailed across the huge seas, we’d never come back, that was certain.
And where were we going? To a place where we knew no one and nothing, not even the language. I thought about the excited, frightened whispers I had heard coming from two older boys the previous night.
“… lions and tigers,” Shlayma said.
“Oh no,” Itzik corrected him proudly. “The man told me there are no tigers in Africa.”
“Well, lions and elephants, then,” Shlayma conceded. “And what about cannibals? We might be eaten by cannibals.”
There was a stunned silence.
“Or sold as slaves,” Itzik offered.
“Or drowned at sea,” Shlayma said, not to be outdone.
“I’m not scared,” said a small boy’s voice, and they turned to stare at little Yankel. “I’m going to drink the milk an’ honey and get strong,” he announced.
They looked at him in puzzlement, until Itzik let out a shriek of laughter. “He heard the man say Africa is a land of milk and honey like Palestine. What are you expecting, Yankel, rivers of warm milk?”
“And honey dripping from the trees?” Shlayma chimed in mockingly.
They laughed wildly, their fears making them hysterical. Then Yankel burst out crying. “I want my milk an’ honey. I want. Don’t laugh. Stop laughing.”
Eventually Mr. Bobrow heard the uproar and swooped in to comfort Yankel and order everyone to sleep.
After the other children had begun to snore, I slipped out of bed to stand alone at the window. I said the Shema, as usual, and my thank you to Aunt Friedka, as usual, and then it was time to talk. “Mama, I’m scared. I’m scared, Papa. I’m scared of—of—lions and cannibals and—Africa. If we go to Africa, how will we ever get home? I want to go home. But Panya Truda told us there was no one left. We can’t live alone at home—among those people who—We have no place left in Poland. What’s going to happen to us now, Papa? Mama?”
Outside, I could see an old man picking his way through the rubble in the street. He was looking for something in the moonlight, perhaps something from the past, from before everything collapsed, but he wasn’t finding it.
Now, sitting on my little bench and facing Nechama’s determination, I was being forced to decide: Europe or Africa? My little sister continued to stand, sturdily, very still, in front of me.
She looks like a stranger, I thought. What has happened to her since we left home?
I had never followed Nechama before; I had always led. But if I wasn’t sure about Africa, I was sure about something else. Mama would have said it, Papa would have said it, and I knew it in my heart: Wherever Nechama went, there went I.
Then came a long journey from Pinsk on a slow, dirty train to Warsaw, the biggest city in Poland. There were twelve orphans in our group: Nechama and I and four others from the orphanage in Pinsk—Itzik, Shlayma, Nechama’s friend Malke, and little Yankel—plus six children, all girls, from an orphanage in Brest. None of us had ever been on a train before. The countryside moved across my eyes and disappeared. When I leaned forward to see where we had come from, I bumped my head on the smeared glass.
The train seats were worn through in places, and I kept trying to push away a metal spring that was poking through the old leather into my leg. Nechama was squashed beside me in the crowded compartment. “Isn’t it wonderful that our own Mr. Bobrow is coming with us to South Africa?” I whispered to her.
“I asked him to,” she murmured sleepily over the clacking of the wheels, her head rocking with the train’s movement.
“Silly,” I retorted. “He’s not coming because you invited him. He wouldn’t leave his work at the orphanage for that. He’s coming because Mr. Ochberg is gathering two hundred children in Warsaw to take to South Africa, and he needs Mr. Bobrow’s help taking care of us all.”
“Two hundred,” Nechama repeated, opening her eyes with interest for a minute. “Do you think there will be girls my age?”
I didn’t bother to answer her question. Why did Nechama need more friends? Wasn’t I enough for her?
But I did feel much better knowing that Mr. Bobrow would be with us all the way from the orphanage in Pinsk to the orphanage in South Africa. He was the person who had lifted us from the wooden cart when we arrived in Pinsk and led us to our iron cots. He was the one who had written down my name and Nechama’s and those of our parents and our old village. He knew that much of my past. I turned to him, but he was talking with Isaac Ochberg.
“Right now it’s Laya and Pesha I’m worrying about,” Mr. Ochberg was saying. “I don’t know how their eyes became so red and swollen so quickly, but it looks very contagious. If a health inspector gets on the train to check for diseases, he’s sure to suspect trachoma. We’ll be thrown off the train at the next station.”
Instantly I was wide awake. Pressing my face against the glass, I began scanning each station platform carefully. And not very long after, I caught sight of a man wearing official-looking epaulets and a cap with a faded gold ribbon. There were many men in uniform in Poland, but this one hailed the train guard with a mixture of familiarity and authority before he swung himself up onto the train.
I turned to Mr. Ochberg, who was reading some papers. “I think there’s an inspector,” I whispered. “He boarded the car behind us.”
Mr. Ochberg and Mr. Bobrow glanced at each other.
“It could be,” said Mr. Bobrow, pushing up his spectacles with an agitated gesture. “I’d better move Pesha and Laya forward. I’ll take a few little ones to make us less conspicuous. Children, some of you must come with me quickly. Laya, carry baby Gittel. You, Pesha, take Yankel. Nechama, Faygele, and Braindel, follow me closely.”
Nechama stood up obediently, and without hesitating I jumped up and stood next to her.
“Not you, Devorah,” Isaac Ochberg began. “You stay here and—”
I turned to him, begging him with my eyes.
“Go ahead,” he said gently. “You may go with your sister. Braindel, you stay here instead.”
Braindel hurried back to her friend Rosha, looking relieved.
“Quickly, into the corridor,” Mr. Bobrow urged.
We stood there swaying uncertainly for a moment, and then we heard a loud voice in the open doorway of the compartment right behind ours.
“… authorized by our glorious new government to check for improper documents, contraband goods, and infectious diseases. I must ask …”
It was an inspector. For just an instant I felt proud that my guess had been right. Then fear snatched my breath and sucked it out of me. There was a determined hand on my back. Mr. Bobrow was moving us all along the corridor. Ten or eleven doors down, we reached the end of the train car and stood there, pretending to look out the windows.
“Stay here,” Mr. Bobrow ordered quietly. “I’ll go back and see how fast he’s going. Talk to one another. Come on, talk happily. Don’t look as if you’re frightened.”
My eyes widened. Was he really going to leave us there alone? Jews weren’t safe on trains. Once I had heard Aunt Friedka tell a neighbor about thugs who boarded trains and threw Jews off the back while the train was still moving.
From behind me came a bright, high voice. Little Faygele was quick to assume her new role as an actress.
“And how are you doing, Miss Lehrman?” she asked cheerfully, turning to Nechama. “Are you enjoying the sunny weather?”
Nechama gaped, and then she responded to a not-so-subtle prod from Faygele. “Yes, thank you,” she managed.
“Well, I’m fine, too,” chimed in Yankel, not to be outdone. “And how is your arthritis?”
Laya and Pesha doubled up with wild, hysterical laughter, and Laya’s baby sister, Gittel, laughed, too, as she watched them.
“Arthritis! Arthritis!” Pesha guffawed.
“That’s what my mama used to say to Panya Netta,” Yankel retorted loudly, his dignity offended.
Just one window away, two women frowned at us disapprovingly.
A moment later, Mr. Bobrow returned. “The inspector is taking a long time in each compartment,” he said softly. “So we have time until he gets close to us. Maybe we’ll reach a station by then. We can get off the train and run back along the platform until we’re near our own compartment and get back on.”
“What happens if we don’t reach a station soon?” someone asked. Everyone looked back down the corridor anxiously.
I thought fast. “If he’s taking so long in each compartment, we could slip past him and get back to Mr. Ochberg,” I suggested.
Pesha’s face turned pale. With her inflamed eyes, she looked like a sad clown wearing red-and-white makeup. “We’ll have to walk so close to him,” she said shakily.
“But he’ll be talking to the people in the compartment, with his back to us,” I pointed out.
“Let’s do it!” Mr. Bobrow decided, pushing his spectacles up firmly. “I’ll go first and warn you when we’re getting close to the inspector. Whatever you do, don’t look into the compartment where he’s standing.”
Fear was a rock in my chest as I followed Mr. Bobrow at a distance. Nechama pressed against my back. The other children fell in behind. Soon Mr. Bobrow gave an urgent wave, without turning around to us. I glanced back as we all quickened our steps. Laya had her head bent over baby Gittel, while Pesha kept her face toward the outer windows.
For a moment we heard the booming voice of the inspector again. He was just beginning his speech in a new compartment.
“Attention, if you please. I am the inspector authorized by our glorious new government to …”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of his broad back. His gray uniform reminded me of the soldiers who had grabbed Uncle Pinchas. Panic forced bile from my stomach to my throat. I just knew that in a second or two the loud voice would be turned in our direction, a heavy hand would grab my shoulder. I heard Nechama whimper very softly, and I reached back to get hold of any part of her. My fingers brushed her sleeve and I held on tightly.
Ahead, Mr. Bobrow shoved a door aside. I felt him push me into a compartment and I stumbled inside with Nechama, the others right behind. Isaac Ochberg’s face stared up at us, gray with worry. We were back in our own compartment, safe from the inspector.
“We were at the end—” Nechama burst out excitedly, but I squeezed her arm to silence her.
Two strangers were sleeping in the seats we had left vacant. Mr. Ochberg was signaling us with a quick pursing of his lips to be quiet.
Nechama subsided immediately. She, too, understands danger, I thought grimly. Mr. Ochberg and Mr. Bobrow told Braindel to give me her seat and squeeze in with Rosha. I took Nechama onto my lap. She was too big to fit comfortably, but we sat very close together, her back pressed against my chest.
Mr. Bobrow leaned over and patted my hand. “That was a good idea of yours, back in the corridor,” he whispered softly. “Now get some sleep if you can.”
I closed my eyes, still feeling Mr. Bobrow’s approving pat. Papa used to pat me that way when he was proud of me. I felt proud of myself, and relieved, and still frightened, all mixed up together. But mainly I felt so, so tired. The train wheels called out a rhythm, “Mama, Pa-pa, Mama, Pa-pa, Mama, Pa-pa …” I let go and sank into the words.