On the pavements of Marszalkowska Street, peasant women wrapped in dark shawls and headscarves held out bunches of lilac and lily-of-the-valley to passersby, a reminder that May had come. This year, however, the sun shone with a pallid light and the sky was watery. The German occupation had already lasted for seven months and the heroic promises and defiant pronouncements the Allies had made to protect Poland at the beginning of the war had evaporated into the heavy air, leaving a trail of dejected footprints that led to food queues and funeral corteges.
Now that their maid Tereska had returned to her village, Elzunia joined the silent queue that stretched for several blocks each morning to buy bread. Behind her, two women were whispering in distressed voices and she caught the word ‘Holland’. So her father had been right. The Nazis had marched into Holland. Elzunia shivered. Who would stop them?
A car door slammed and everyone fell silent as two SS men jumped out of the black Opel, the wheels of which reflected off their shiny boots. They strolled along the queue, examining faces and documents. ‘Schnell! Schnell!’ they screamed in voices that made her stomach churn.
Pedestrians scattered and melted into side streets while the measured tread of the SS men’s boots resounded beside the queue. Their hands, encased in fine leather gloves, held riding crops, and their eyes, harder than the paving stones, scanned identity papers for any irregularity that could put those whips to use. Elzunia tried to shrink inside her coat to make herself invisible. She started counting. It was a game she had played ever since she was a child, a bargain with God or a challenge to fate. If she got to ten, it meant they’d walk past her. Their steps were louder now; they were coming closer. Eight, nine, ten. She held her breath, letting it out only when she saw the back of the black uniforms. A moment later the footsteps stopped beside a boy in front of her. They pointed to his trousers. ‘Drop them! Now we’ll see if you’re a Jew or not!’ He shook his head too vehemently and the look in his eyes gave him away. They pointed to his trousers. Silence fell over the crowd as his fingers fumbled with the buttons.
Elzunia had read the notices stuck on walls and lamp-posts all over town that ordered Jews to move into an area that had been labelled Seuchensperrgebiet and cordoned off from the rest of the city. That didn’t make any sense because why would they force anyone to live in an area that they said was contaminated with typhus, when they were so terrified of disease? But so many things didn’t make sense these days that she didn’t bother questioning it.
‘Verfluchte Jude!’ the younger SS officer swore at the boy. ‘I’ll teach you what happens when you don’t wear your armband!’ He raised his whip, the boy ducked and, holding the waistband of his unbuttoned trousers in both hands, made a run for it. A shot ripped through the air. He stood quite still, as though frozen mid-flight. Elzunia’s heart bounced against her throat as he tottered and fell, his eyes wide open.
Elzunia screamed, a long, piercing scream. The older SS officer swivelled around, hands on his solid hips, his face so close to hers that she could smell the eau de cologne he’d dabbed on his smooth cheeks.
‘You should be grateful that we are ridding you of these subhuman Untermenschen.’
She glanced at the small body sprawled on the road and felt too sad to cry. Only a minute earlier he had felt the sun on his face, but now he felt nothing and never would again. Because of an accident of birth, he had been cheated of the rest of his life. She had always thought of her life as stretching ahead like an endless golden thread rolling towards infinity, and perhaps he’d thought the same. The dead boy would never see his parents again. Thank God she had hers. Mingled with pity, she felt a shameful sense of relief. It was terrible to be a Pole in Warsaw these days but it was even worse to be a Jew.
She struggled with herself to stay in the queue instead of running home to her father to be folded in his arms and comforted. She couldn’t go home empty-handed.
She was still trembling when she reached the head of the queue and her teeth were chattering so much that she could hardly speak.
‘Hurry up! People are waiting!’ the baker snapped, wiping his big hands on his floury apron.
In her haste, she dropped the ration card and groped for it under the counter, red-faced. The baker’s gruff manner softened and, putting a warning forefinger over his lips, he placed an extra loaf in her basket.
As she hurried home, the thrill of surprising her parents with the miracle of the two loaves pushed thoughts of the dead boy from her mind. She burst into the lounge room, holding up the bread, and then sensed the heavy stillness in the room. Her mother’s face was white and strained and her father didn’t jump up to hug her. They were both staring at two men in grey coats, whose dark fedoras tilted over their hard faces.
One of the men pointed to Elzunia. Addressing Lusia in a disrespectfully familiar way, as if she were a child, he said, ‘Das ist deine Tochter, nicht wahr?’
Elzunia glanced at her father, who looked as though someone had tied all the muscles of his face together and yanked the rope tight.
The Gestapo agent turned to him. ‘You, come with us.’
‘But what is this about?’ Her mother’s face had a yellowish hue. ‘There must be some mistake.’
‘No mistake,’ the Gestapo agent snapped. ‘You will come by yourself or we will take you.’ He put his hand into his pocket and Elzunia froze as he pulled out a pistol.
Edward turned to his agitated wife. ‘Don’t worry, Lusia. It’s just routine. I’ll be home soon.’
But his expression didn’t match his words. Even Elzunia knew that there was no such thing as routine questioning at Szuch Avenue.
As Elzunia moved towards her father, the Gestapo agent shouted, ‘Komm mit! Los!’
She clung to her father but he pushed her away gently. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he looked into her eyes and said, ‘Never forget who you are. Smile at adversity, laugh at death and always keep a straight back.’
Without saying another word, he embraced his wife, placed his hat firmly on his head and walked out of the apartment.
Elzunia ran to the window and looked down at his retreating figure. Instead of her powerful father, she saw an ordinary, middle-aged man. That frightened her more than anything that Hitler had done. She watched as the Gestapo pushed him into the back seat of the waiting car. A moment later they sped away.
Elzunia turned away from the window. Her mother was sitting at the table, her head in her hands. She spoke in a low, hoarse voice. ‘What are they going to do with him?’ She looked wildly around the room. ‘Where is Stefan when we need him? He should be here with us. I only hope he’s safe. What in heaven’s name are we going to do?’
Elzunia was shaken. Her mother was supposed to know the answers. The light faded and darkness filled the room but Lusia continued to sit without moving or drawing the curtains. Finally, with a deep sigh, she rose and walked slowly to the telephone. ‘We know a lot of people. Surely someone can help.’
Elzunia could see her mother’s fingers were shaking so much she could hardly dial the numbers. She tried one friend after another but although they spoke consoling words, their tone belied their optimistic phrases. In some cases she detected a hesitation that shocked her and she realised they were unwilling to make inquiries on behalf of anyone arrested by the Gestapo. Lusia slumped in the chair while Elzunia chewed her nails. Surely someone would help. But what if they didn’t and her father never came home again?
As she turned towards the window, her eyes fell on a small flat object lying on the table beside her father’s armchair and caught her breath. Father’s silver cigarette case. Knowing that he had left it behind made her aware of the gravity of the situation and she felt she had fallen into a deep, dark well. As a child she had always loved tracing the acanthus leaves around the initials embossed on the case with her fingertips, proud that the initials, EO, were the same as hers. Comforted by the smooth patina of the cigarette case, she turned it over and over in her hands, then put it in her pocket.
‘Why did they take him away?’ Elzunia asked. ‘He hasn’t done anything.’
Lusia shrugged. ‘Maybe because he was an officer in the Polish army.’
‘But that was over twenty years ago!’
Lusia looked thoughtful. ‘He’s been going out a lot lately and he’s been very secretive about it. Maybe it’s to do with that.’ She didn’t tell Elzunia that it had crossed her mind that he might be seeing another woman. She had often noticed women giving him coquettish glances, and he seemed to enjoy their attention. But when she accused him of encouraging them, he denied it, insisting that she was the only one for him.
They sat in silence for a while and to Elzunia it seemed that the room was closing in on them. She looked at the piano. Music always soothed her mother’s nerves. ‘Play something, Mama.’
Lusia shook her head but a few minutes later she placed a sheet of music on the carved stand between the candlesticks.
As the haunting notes of a Chopin nocturne rippled from her long slim fingers, they filled the room with all the sadness, suffering and beauty in the world, and tears sprang to Elzunia’s eyes. Lusia closed the lid but continued to sit at the piano, her head bent over the keys.
It was past midnight and they were in bed when they heard footsteps thumping up the stairs. Lusia and Elzunia both sat up with a start. Someone was banging on their door, shouting ‘Open up!’ Lusia pulled on her silk dressing-gown and tried to fasten it with shaking fingers.
‘Who is it?’ she asked in a tremulous voice.
‘Open up or we’ll break the door down!’
Standing behind her mother in her flannelette pyjamas, Elzunia clutched Lusia’s arm as she slid back the bolt. Two SS men, pistols in hand, pushed them out of the way and barged inside.
‘You’re too late; they’ve already taken him away,’ Lusia said angrily.
The younger man had a long face and a sour expression. Scanning the sheet of paper in his hand, he barked, ‘Lusia Orlowska? And is this your daughter?’
Lusia nodded.
‘And your son? Where is he?’
She shrugged. Stefan often stayed out all hours with his friends, despite the curfew. She had often argued with him about his reckless behaviour, but now, although she longed to have him with her at home, she was relieved he’d stayed out.
The men strode around the apartment, knocking over chairs, pulling out drawers and throwing things out of cupboards and wardrobes as they searched every room. Elzunia and Lusia looked at each other white-faced. The men were obviously not searching for valuables. What could they possibly be looking for?
Search over, the officers returned to the lounge room. ‘Come with us. Now!’ the sour one said.
‘But why? What have we done?’ Lusia asked.
‘You’re Jews pretending to be Aryans.’
Elzunia couldn’t contain herself. ‘That’s a rotten lie. We’re Catholic. Ask Father Skowronski; he’ll tell you.’
She ran into her room and came back with a photograph of herself in a white dress with frills and flounces and a veil attached to the garland of flowers on her head. ‘That was my first communion, see?’ She thrust the picture into the face of the younger man. ‘We go to Mass every Sunday. You’ve mixed us up with someone else.’
The other officer was expressionless as he removed a letter from the inside pocket of his long coat and jabbed his finger at it.
‘It says here you were born a Jew, Leah Bronsztajn, and in 1921 you converted to Catholicism at St Aleksander’s Church in the Square of the Three Crosses,’ he told Lusia.
Elzunia stared at her mother whose face was ghostly white.
‘Quick, tell them it’s a pack of lies,’ she shouted, but her mother’s legs had buckled under her and she had sunk into a chair, unable to speak. She watched while the younger officer tamped his cigarette on a gilt-edged Dresden plate.
‘Enough talking!’ he shouted. ‘You have thirty minutes to pack.’
‘But where are you taking us?’ Elzunia cried out.
‘All Jews must live in the Seuchensperrgebiet, the special area we’ve set aside for them so they don’t spread typhus.’
Elzunia clamped her hands over her ears. ‘Stop!’ she shouted. ‘This has nothing to do with me. I’m Catholic. You can’t make me go and live in an area meant for Jews.’
He gave a cruel laugh. ‘The children of Jews are Jews, Fraülein.’
She coughed as he blew cigarette smoke into her face.
‘And I warn you to be polite.’ He blew another ring of smoke in her direction and, with a pointed glance at his watch, flopped into her father’s armchair.
Elzunia’s mind lurched from one crazy thought to another. None of this made any sense. Her mother a Jew? It was an outrageous idea, concocted by a sick mind. Jews didn’t even believe in Christ or the Blessed Virgin. If only her father was here, he’d explain that they’d made a terrible mistake. Then she realised the futility of that idea: her father had been unable to prevent his own arrest. Her scalp prickled. No one could help them. They would have to struggle alone.
‘Please listen to us!’ she burst out. ‘You’re making a big mistake, and when your superior finds out that you’ve taken away innocent people, you’ll be in big trouble.’
‘Ach so?’ The sour one stepped closer and struck her face with the flat of his powerful hand. Her hand sprang to her stinging cheek and suddenly the room was swaying, the Dresden ballerinas were spinning on their pedestals and the walls were closing in.
Lusia hissed, ‘Don’t ever argue with them!’ and the other Gestapo agent bellowed ‘Schnell!’
A key turned in the lock and four pairs of eyes swivelled towards the door. Stefan’s hair was dishevelled, his collar was loose and his tie was twisted but the sight of the peaked caps with the death’s-head insignia sobered him up immediately.
With a cry, Lusia rushed over to embrace her son but one of the SS men pushed her away.
‘Stefan Orlowski? Hands up! Now!’
He raised his arms and looked at his mother questioningly. The SS officer pulled a blunt-nosed pistol from his coat and waved it at him.
‘You. Get ready. Now! You have twenty minutes.’
Stefan was staring at his mother. ‘What’s going on?’
Lusia looked at him with such love and sorrow in her face that Elzunia felt a stab of resentment. Her mother was distraught that her beloved Stefan would have to share their fate. She doubted whether her mother was equally distressed on her account.
‘I’ll tell you later,’ Lusia whispered.
Elzunia saw her mother’s eyes sweep helplessly around the room. Paralysed with anxiety for her children and herself, Lusia was stuck between panic and indecision as she tried to decide what to take and, even harder, what to leave behind from a household filled with objects acquired over an indulgent lifetime.
‘Elzunia, quick, get your things together and come and help me,’ she said, still not moving. What would they need and what could they carry? With a huge effort, she began making an inventory in her head. Valuables that could be offered as bribes or sold for cash. Clothes, but which ones? Something warm.
What if she failed to pack something essential? Bedding was essential but it was bulky and they could only take what they could carry.
She ran from room to room, pulling clothes from their hangers, then discarding them in favour of others. She grabbed silver candlesticks and ornaments from the sideboard and threw them on her eiderdown, ready to roll up, then changed her mind and replaced them with other ornaments. When she was ready to bundle it all up, the ends of the eiderdown didn’t meet, so she had to tip everything out onto a sheet. For the hundredth time, she checked her watch. Not much time left and there was still so much to sort through. Photographs. How could she leave without photographs of her wedding, of the children, and of their holidays in the country?
Panic-stricken, she wanted to sink into the centre of the eiderdown and surrender to despair. Throughout her life, the need for security and comfort had guided all the decisions she had made, and now she felt like the French aristocrats who invoked God and government to come to their aid as they mounted the guillotine. She was being flung from her safe, cocooned existence into a frightening world of persecuted outcasts. If only she had gone to their country house and stayed there.
Through Stefan’s open door, she could see her son emptying drawers, and throwing shirts, trousers, shoes and books on the floor, swearing loudly as he did so.
Heart pounding, she glanced at her Tissot wristwatch again and her legs seemed to dissolve, unable to hold her up. Only ten minutes left. The piles of belongings had grown, but how was she to sort them and how could they carry it all? Her mind raced in all directions. She tried not to contemplate what awaited her and her children.
In her room, Elzunia rubbed her aching jaw as she looked at the floral curtains and the white dressing table with the heart-shaped mirror and the row of dolls on the top shelf as if seeing them for the first time. Her room had never looked so cosy, and her bed had never felt so soft. As she stuffed clothes, the Red Cross box and her favourite books into her rucksack, her mind was roiling. Why had someone written such vicious lies about her mother? How long would it take to prove it was false? What if no one believed them? And what if Gosia and Lydia heard that she was in the Ghetto with all the Jews? She could see their disgusted expressions and hoped they’d never find out. None of this could be real; surely it was a nightmare from which she would soon wake. But the two Germans pacing impatiently in the lounge room and littering her mother’s precious ornaments with their cigarette butts were all too real. When her rucksack was bulging so much that she could hardly fasten the buckles, she ran back to the bookshelf and squeezed Gone With the Wind into the side pocket beside a pair of her father’s trousers that she had grabbed on impulse from her parents’ room. She closed her hand over her father’s cigarette case in her pocket and, taking one last look at her room, walked back into the lounge room.
In her parents’ bedroom, she found her mother sitting on the floor, staring into space. Her fragility made the ground tremble beneath Elzunia’s feet. She helped her mother up and they tied the ends of the sheet together. As they fastened the unwieldy bundle, Elzunia looked closely at her mother.
‘What’s this rubbish about you being Jewish?’
Without looking up, Lusia gave the ends one more tug and started throwing suede pouches into her leather handbag. ‘We have to hurry,’ she said dully. ‘This isn’t the time to discuss it.’
‘Mama, I have to know,’ Elzunia insisted.
Lusia swung the hold-all over her shoulder and dragged the bundle along the floor. ‘Just get your coat,’ she said.
As the three of them walked out of the apartment prodded by the SS men, Stefan supported his mother while Elzunia followed. She felt alone. Suddenly an image of the dead boy leapt into her mind. His open eyes were fixed on her and his reproachful look seemed to be saying, You were glad it was me and not you. It was true. She had been relieved that she wasn’t a Jew. God has punished me, she thought.