Elzunia counted out the six grinding roars that sounded like the agonised bellowing of a cow in labour, and waited for the explosion to find out whether she was alive or dead. As soon as she heard the deafening booms that followed, she breathed out. Of all the weapons that the Germans had unleashed on them, the mortars they called ‘cows’ terrified her most, with their long flames like the burning tongues of prehistoric monsters.
What with the roar of the ‘cows’ that turned buildings into infernos and people into charred statues, the stuttering of artillery and the hail of machine-gun fire, it seemed to Elzunia that she was living out a nightmare from which there was no awakening.
At the same time, remote-controlled Goliath tanks crashed into houses, armoured trains spewed shells so huge that they sliced through buildings like drills, and Stukas peppered them with bombs. Fires often raged unchecked because of the shortage of water, but over twenty thousand fighters sent to defend the Old Town still hung on. They fought street by street, corner by corner, and building by building, armed with pistols, rifles, hand grenades, insufficient explosives and ammunition, and a grim determination not to surrender the ancient heart of the capital. For the third time since the war began, Warsaw was fighting for its life.
‘I don’t know why we haven’t gone crazy in here,’ Elzunia said, looking helplessly at the endless line of insurgents and civilians who hoped to be admitted to the hospital, even though they knew there was nowhere to put them all and no medicines with which to treat them.
‘Because we’re far stronger than we realise,’ Dr Zawadzki replied. ‘And we’re too busy to think about ourselves.’
He was telling his small patient to keep watching out for the fairy that lived behind the door while he extracted splinters of glass from her face. As Elzunia handed him the tweezers and disinfectant, she listened to his stories about hobgoblins and princesses that distracted his young patient from the pain. His audience included the first-aid workers and other staff who hovered around to hear his tales.
‘Got any of your spitting soup left?’ he asked Elzunia as the orderlies brought in the next patient.
She couldn’t help smiling at his description. Every morning she made a big pot of soup from barley that hadn’t been husked, so that as they ate they had to keep spitting out the chaff. To her dismay, even the barley ration had recently been reduced.
With the ever-increasing number of patients, there wasn’t enough soup to go round, but no one was keen to volunteer to go to the warehouse, which could only be reached by a route above ground that was right in the firing line.
‘I had a funny dream last night,’ she said as she covered a patient with a sheet, exposing only the ripped abdomen through which his slippery intestines were showing. ‘I dreamed that I’d made a big vat of barley soup, and, when I went to ladle it out, it turned into a huge sausage.’
Dr Zawadzki chuckled. ‘It could be a sign of meat deprivation. Of course, Freud would have interpreted it differently.’
She blushed. Next time she’d keep her dreams to herself.
But right now she didn’t have time to think about soup, sausage or dreams because it was time to select the most urgent cases for him to see. This responsibility always weighed her down. What if she made a mistake and someone died while waiting to be seen? As she walked briskly among the stretchers, trying to comfort and reassure the patients without becoming involved in discussions, she noticed a young man whose head was bowed as he pressed one hand against his shoulder. She walked towards him and stopped, hardly able to believe her eyes.
‘Stefan!’ she cried and flung her arms around him. ‘Oh thank God! Thank God you survived.’
He was squeezing her hand as he cleared his throat and tried to speak. ‘Lucky they brought me here,’ he said finally.
The stain under Stefan’s arm was spreading and he bit his lip. ‘It’s my shoulder. I’ve been shot,’ he said.
As she motioned for the first-aid boys to bring him in to see Dr Zawadzki, she noticed that he was thinner and taller than she remembered. More manly. His bored, spoilt expression had been replaced by a steadier, more focused gaze.
He winced as Dr Zawadzki examined his shoulder.
‘I’ll have to remove the bullet,’ the doctor said. ‘Unfortunately we don’t have any anaesthetic. All I can give you is a swig of moonshine.’
‘Make it a big swig,’ Stefan said through white lips.
Elzunia was leaning over her brother when he came to. ‘You fainted while Dr Zawadzki was getting the bullet out,’ she said. ‘Probably just as well.’
His face was contorted with pain. As she handed him a glass of water, he whispered, ‘Mother. Where is she?’
When she told him how she had found their mother in the ruined bunker, a strange, harsh sound, more like a cough than a sob, tore from his throat. They sat in silence for a long time.
‘What about Father? Have you heard anything?’
She pulled a face. ‘He’s all right,’ she said brusquely, ‘but it’s a very long story.’ She sat down beside her brother. ‘First I want to hear all about you. How did you manage to get out of the Ghetto?’
‘After two weeks, I joined a group of fighters. We didn’t have any Molotov cocktails or grenades, so we used to ambush Germans or Ukrainians and take their uniforms and weapons. In the end, our bunker got hit. It was a miracle I got out alive. By then, most of the Ghetto was on fire and there was only one way out.’ Stefan winced as he described his journey through the sewers.
After wandering about town, avoiding the round-ups and hiding from the Germans, he’d found work on an allotment on the outskirts of the city. Determined to fight the Germans, he’d joined the insurgents, and, when the Uprising broke out, his unit was sent to the Old Town. They’d been fighting hand-to-hand battles in the streets when he was shot.
‘Our ammunition’s running so low now that we can’t fire on the Germans until we’re up close so we don’t waste any bullets,’ he told Elzunia. ‘I’ll tell you how bad things are. Our major had a revolver of one calibre but ammunition for another. He had to run around begging for someone to give him the right ammunition. I don’t know what the bloody Russians are up to on the other side of the river, but if they don’t come and help us soon, and if the Allies don’t drop us some more weapons, I don’t know how long we can go on defending the Old Town.’ He gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Talk about history repeating itself!’
His eyes darted around the ward. ‘Gittel. Where’s Gittel?’
‘I can’t find her. I’ve looked, I’ve asked people, but no one knows anything.’ The desperation made Elzunia’s voice rise. ‘I don’t know what’s become of her.’
He shook his head and said, ‘Poor little kid.’
She saw the tears in his eyes and was surprised. He had never shown any interest in Gittel before. They sat for a while without speaking, and from his expression she sensed he wanted to get something off his chest.
‘I wish I’d never joined the Jewish police,’ he said. ‘I got conned by German lies. They said that joining up would protect us and our families, but I didn’t protect you and Mama, and, in the end, the Germans deported most of the Jewish policemen like everyone else.’
He tried to sit up but fell back against the lumpy pillow donated by one of the tenants of the apartment building. ‘I never thought it would turn out like that, or that I’d end up doing what I did. Somehow one thing led to another …’ He trailed off, looking at her as though expecting absolution. ‘I made the wrong choice, that’s all.’ He paused for a moment. ‘And you chose the right side, you brat. You always do.’
There was affection mingled with resentment in his voice. As a child, she had always envied what she saw as his privileged status in the family. He was a boy, and older, so he was treated more indulgently by their mother, whose favourite he was. Now it occurred to her that perhaps he had envied her as well.
She was overjoyed to see him, to know that he was still alive, that she wasn’t alone any more. The resentment and anger she had felt towards him for the past few years evaporated in the thrill of having him with her, and her mind was flooded with nostalgic memories of their childhood, when he was her adored older brother whose approval and affection she had sought but never received.
Promising to come back and see him as soon as she had finished her work, Elzunia returned to the operating theatre with a lighter step but for once Dr Zawadzki didn’t make any quips, and the look he gave her was decidedly cool. While scrubbing up for the next patient, he said, ‘I don’t approve of what you did.’
She stopped pulling on her gloves and looked up at him, startled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Bringing your brother in to see me ahead of people who were more seriously injured was unprofessional.’
‘But he’s my brother, I thought he was dead —’ she stammered, but he cut her short.
‘I understand your reasons but I don’t approve of your action. Did you know that when the Uprising began, the Commander-in-Chief’s wife was seven months’ pregnant? He could have warned her and sent her to their country estate but he didn’t. You know why? Because he felt it wasn’t fair to all the other pregnant women who couldn’t be warned in time.’
Elzunia’s eyes blazed. ‘Well I don’t approve of his action.’ She could feel the blood rushing to her head, and the words burst from her mouth before she could stop them.
‘There’s nothing admirable in putting ideas ahead of people. That’s what fanatics do, the ones who add an “ism” to elevate their ideas and spread their beliefs. And here’s something else for you to disapprove of!’
She peeled off her rubber gloves and flung them to the ground, sobbing. ‘I can’t stand this place. I’m sick of the blood and pain and screams. I’ve had enough of this war. I wish I could get away from here and never come back!’
She expected another rebuke but his voice was full of concern. ‘You’ve been working too hard. I’m sorry. I should have realised. It’s just that you seemed so calm and competent —’
‘Well now you can see I’m not competent. I’m unprofessional, remember?’ She glared at him like a defiant child, pushing the limits of his patience, challenging him to a duel of words. Until that moment, she hadn’t realised how much his opinion mattered, or how stung she was by his criticism.
He folded his long arms around her, held her without speaking, like an understanding uncle, and she felt his warm breath on her head.
Suddenly she was telling him about the Ghetto Uprising and about her mother and Gittel. When she pulled away, the lapels of his white coat were wet with her tears.
That evening, she looked up at the pale moon and thought it looked cold and hostile. She heard footsteps and turned.
‘Lovely maid in the moonlight,’ Dr Zawadzki said and started humming a slow, sweet melody in a deep voice.
‘What’s that?’ she asked.
‘It’s an aria from La Bohème. Rodolfo has just seen Mimi for the first time and he’s smitten.’
‘How does it end?’
‘Tragically. But for a time they find love.’
She stole a glance at him. In the pallid light of the moon, with his face in shadow and his tall, lean body in silhouette, she could imagine Rodolfo serenading his beloved Mimi.
‘It’s my name day tomorrow,’ she said suddenly.
‘That’s a very special day,’ he said. ‘I’m going to prepare a feast for you.’
She chuckled. ‘Spitting soup?’ Then she stopped smiling. Name day or not, tomorrow she would have to go to the warehouse for more barley. When the Uprising had begun, the civilians had carried the sacks but now that the area was under fire, several men had been wounded on the way, and they stopped volunteering. No amount of pleading or cajoling could persuade them to change their minds, so now it was left to the AK nurses and fighters.
There were wisps of lollipop pink in the dawn sky when Elzunia set out for the warehouse with three first-aid workers and an insurgent soldier as their guide. Every few seconds, as artillery fire crackled around them, they crouched down until they were lying still on the broken pavements, and then inched along, praying they wouldn’t be hit.
After several hours, she sniffed the sharp, burnt smell of roasting grain. They were almost there. A row of people sat outside the storehouse, waiting their turn. As the flash of artillery fire lit up their faces, Elzunia froze. They were all dead.
Her heart in her mouth, she clambered up the ladders that rested against the storehouse wall and slid down a ramp into an Aladdin’s cave filled with mountains of golden grain that shimmered in the light slanting through the windows. In a querulous voice, the old storeman told them to hold their sacks wide open as he filled them with a river of barley.
On the way back, the sacks grew heavier with each step. Elzunia felt as if her arms were dropping off, and carrying the sack alternately on her back, by the corners, or against her chest gave only momentary relief. She longed to leave the accursed sack and lie down but forced herself to keep going. So many people were depending on it. That barley was more important than her tiredness, even more important than her life.
Almost numb with exhaustion, she tripped and sprawled on the ground, clutching the sack to make sure the precious barley didn’t spill. As she waited to catch her breath, she noticed a spindly stick poking out of the ground and was astonished to see that it was the offshoot of a lilac bush, most of which had been ripped away. Part of its root still clung to the soil of the devastated street, determined to bloom again.
Dr Zawadzki was standing at the door when she staggered in, his face taut with anxiety.
‘I hope you’re hungry, because I’ve made you a celebration dinner.’
She longed to fall onto her mattress and sleep but she was touched that he’d remembered her name day, and didn’t want to disappoint him. He led her to the table and, with a mysterious smile, placed something in front of her. She breathed in an unfamiliar smell and closed her eyes.
Meat! It was years since she’d tasted meat. She tried to chew slowly to make it last but ended up devouring it, licking every morsel and sucking the marrow from the bones. It didn’t matter that it was tough. It was meat.
He watched like an indulgent parent as she ate. After she had licked her plate clean, with a flourish he produced a pear. She cupped it in both hands and stared at it in wonder. The innocent greenness of the small leaf attached to the short woody stalk brought tears to her eyes.
‘It almost seems sacrilege to eat it,’ she whispered. She turned to him with shining eyes. ‘Where on earth did you get hold of a pear?’
‘A patient from Zoliborz gave it to me.’
It seemed incredible that pear trees still grew in Warsaw. Zoliborz was only a few miles north of the Old Town but it seemed as though it must be in another country.
‘And the rabbit?’ she asked. ‘Did she give you that too?’
He shook his head, relieved that she hadn’t asked what kind of animal they were eating.
‘I never imagined I could have such a wonderful name day in this place,’ she said. Without realising it, she had devoured the whole pear and he had watched her without saying a word. She flushed with shame at her greed.
‘This has been a fantastic evening,’ she said.
He raised her from her chair, put his hands on her waist and looked straight into her eyes. ‘I can think of an even better way to end it.’
Confused by the intensity of his words and the intimacy of his tone, she pulled away and lowered her eyes. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might be interested in her as more than a colleague and she didn’t know what to say.
‘It’s perfect just as it is,’ she said lightly, avoiding the unspoken subject.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked gently. ‘Life is such a brief gift. I believe in seizing happiness with both hands. Especially now.’
Her heart was beating faster as the scene in the deserted building flashed before her eyes. What was it that Pola had said? Why save it when you could be dead tomorrow? She could have been killed that afternoon hauling the sack of barley. Tomorrow she could be dead. This could be her last chance to be initiated into the mystery that she’d thought about for so long.
She stole a glance at Dr Zawadzki. Without his tram-driver’s cap, his thick fair hair fell across his forehead, accentuating the intense gaze of his grey eyes. She had seen the admiring looks some of the nurses and first-aid workers had given him and she’d heard them whispering about him. None of them would hesitate if given the chance. But the gap between her heart and her mind was too great.
‘Quite sure,’ she said trying to steady her voice.
He kissed her cheek lightly and went inside, humming Rodolfo’s aria.
She felt a stab of regret. But it was the airman, not the doctor, she wanted to hear serenading her in the moonlight.