That night, as soon as Azriel came home from work, he asked to speak with me. We walked outside, away from the rest of the group so we could speak privately.
‘Mordechi told me about the rings,’ he said. ‘Are you sure that this is what you want to do?’
‘I’m sure.’
Without warning, he put his arms around me and hugged me close to him. I trembled. Old voices in my head said This is so forbidden. But so was everything else I had done lately. I had changed. In fact, I had changed so much that I embraced him back.
‘Ruchel, I know that you grew up in a world where love and marriage were not related and where fathers and matchmakers decided who could and would be wed. But I am going to tell you something and I don’t know how it will make you feel.’ Azriel seemed timid, so unlike him and yet . . .
‘Go on,’ I said, boldly letting go of him and straightening my blouse. I know it was only a hug, but no man had ever touched me before. My heart was beating wildly. I felt tingling sensations rush through my body. This was all happening so fast.
‘I care for you,’ he said. ‘I think . . . I think, maybe, I love you.’
‘Love?’ Like Goyim? I giggled inside. If this wonderful feeling of flickering lights dancing in my stomach and my head and heart feeling light as a feather was the love that Goyim talked about, well . . . all I can say is, it was wonderful.
‘Yes, love,’ he said, his voice cracking while he was wringing his hands.
‘I think, maybe, I love you too. And . . . ’ I took a deep breath. ‘I like the way it makes me feel.’
He laughed. Then I laughed too. Then we embraced again. My whole body was alive with joy.
‘Marry me?’ he asked.
There was no Papa to ask for permission. Only him, only me, only this moment. As we stood there, looking into each other’s eyes, we were both sure that we had very little time left on this earth.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I will marry you.’
‘I don’t know if a Hassidic rabbi will marry us. But will you accept Rabbi David? He is reformed and a Zionist but he is a good person and I know he will perform the ceremony.’
‘Yes, I will accept him. Will you ask him if he will marry us? I know Rabbi David. I’ve seen him at the meetings.’
‘I’ll ask him tonight.’
It was the end of February. The date for the uprising seemed to be coming upon us very quickly. We couldn’t help but notice that the transports to the dreaded Treblinka were growing even larger and more frequent. It was a manic time for Azriel and me. We were happy beyond words and yet, we felt death and destruction looming as close to us as our own breath.
The following day, Azriel asked Rabbi David to marry us. He was not a Hassidic rabbi and I knew my parents would never approve. But, then again, I knew that I was a far cry from the religious girl I had been when we lived in our little village. And I was also certain that I would never be a part of that world again. Too much had happened to change me. Azriel and I both wanted to be married as quickly as possible because we knew that time was precious. Any hour, any minute, in fact, could be our last. I did my best to release all of the fears I had that what I was doing was wrong. I was also terrified of the wedding night. After all, I had been a very sheltered girl. I was never engaged so no one told me what to expect. I didn’t even know what went where. That was how it was for religious girls. Unless a girl was engaged, she had no use for sexual knowledge. All I knew was that sharing this night with my husband was something very special in the eyes of God. In fact, I had heard that to reproduce was man’s holiest way of honoring God. We were married quietly. We didn’t have a chupa as I had always dreamed I would but it was wonderful to know that Azriel was my husband. He kissed me on the lips and I felt breathless with happiness. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do when Azriel came to me that night. He entered the little area where I slept. I was trembling. He held me in his arms until I was calm. Then he kissed me and told me he loved me. Azriel was patient, kind, gentle, and understanding. I felt the power of his love and his gratitude to God for me, his wife, as we joined together in the holiest of moments. I too was very grateful to God for my chazen, my wonderful husband, and I was swept away by the power of love as Azriel and I knew each other intimately for the first time as husband and wife. An ancient voice within me sang as our love culminated in jubilant bliss. Then Azriel and I lay together. I was weeping for joy and weeping with sorrow in my beloved’s arms. When I thought of the beauty of our union, I was afraid I might become pregnant. In any other circumstances, this would be the most precious gift Hashem could bestow upon a young couple. But sadly, it would be a curse to Azriel and me right now. Our wedding night was the most tender and earthshattering night of my life. I suppose the contrast of sweet love and of the beauty of life against the finality and uncertainty of death made every second precious, beautiful, sad, and valuable. Neither of us held back a single kind word or gesture. We said, ‘I love you,’ a thousand times. We held each other’s naked bodies close, not merely for sexual satisfaction. It wasn’t as basic as that, it was more for the warmth and closeness that being in each other’s arms brought to us. To feel the heartbeat of my very own husband against my own desperate heart was enough to bring tears to my eyes. Azriel didn’t ask why I was crying; he just kissed each tear away and whispered my name.
Before Azriel and I married, the uprising was a part of our every thought. We were resistance fighters. But now, Azriel and I were more than just a young couple. We were immersed in our love for each other. He was worried about me being killed. In fact, he was overwhelmed with his fear of it. I knew he was unafraid to face his own death but he couldn’t bear to think of mine and he told me this several times. I would feel his body tremble as he wept during the night. I couldn’t comfort him in any way, as I was quite sure that death was inevitable. But as the days raced by, he grew more and more anxious.
At the next meeting we attended, the entire plan was explained to us in full.
‘We still don’t have a great deal of weapons. So we will set up shooters in windows scattered around the ghetto. Our informants have told us that the Nazis are scheduled to walk in on the morning of April 19th. They plan to completely liquidate the ghetto. Once they are all inside our walls, we will begin shooting from all different directions. They won’t be expecting resistance from us and surprise is our greatest ally here. Because the shots are coming from all over the place, they will not know where to attack. If you are set up to shoot from a location, fire off several shots and make sure you hit your target. Then run like hell and get out of that apartment so that when the Nazis come running in they will find no one there. Be sure to take your gun with you; we cannot afford to lose a single weapon. Each weapon has cost us dearly. Is this all understood?’
Everyone around the room nodded. There was a buzz of whispers then Mordechi raised his hands and the room was silent again. His voice was choked with emotion as he looked into each of our faces and began to speak again. ‘Well, here we go.’ He smiled and nodded in that special way that Jewish men have of making you feel like you’re an important part of their lives. Then he continued. ‘We have known that our uprising was coming for a long time. And, now that the time is here, I believe that I can safely speak for all of us when I say that none of us wanted this war. But if the Nazis think they are going to kill off the Jewish people without any resistance, we are about to show them how wrong they are. Tonight is very special, because not only is it Passover, but it could very well be our last. I don’t know if I will ever have the opportunity to see all of your beautiful faces together again, like this. But I want to say that if I am to die, I accept my death as a warrior rather than a sheep. I know each of you feels the same. So, with that, I want to say that it has been my greatest honor to know each and every one of you. After my family was killed, it is all of you, my friends, who have taken their place in my soul and in my life and become my family. My love, my admiration, and my deepest friendship are with each of you as we begin our fight tomorrow. May God be with us, my friends.’
Mordechi left the stage and walked into the arms of the woman I knew he loved. Tears fell freely down my cheeks. He was right; this could be our last meeting. We were all so young and so full of life. It was hard to believe that we were about to walk into the jaws of death. Azriel embraced me. I had long since given up on the idea that it was wrong to show affection in public. I wanted to show my husband how much I loved him in every single second that we had left on earth together.
‘I love you,’ I said as I looked into his eyes.
‘I love you too, Ruchel. Did you know that your eyes are luminous when you cry? I don’t know how it’s possible, but it makes you even more beautiful than you normally are.’
I touched his face. I had no words to say. My heart was breaking. I could feel it cracking like an eggshell. The pain of love and possible loss was almost unbearable.
That night, we made love and then lay in each other’s arms. We never talked about the coming day. But the very idea of it lay between us like a black cloud.
I knew that this would be our last night in our familiar apartment. The ZOB had informants who told them for certain that on April 19th the Nazis planned to liquidate the entire ghetto. And so everyone who was involved went into hiding including Seff, Azriel, and me. We had already staked out an underground tunnel where we would go if the fighting ceased for a time. It was the first night of Passover and I trembled as I thought of the angel of death. Would he pass over our door this time? I asked myself. But I said nothing.
At four in the morning we walked carefully, silent as mice, through the dark streets to take our place at our assigned post. Mordechi had arranged for Azriel, Seff, and me to work as a team. We were to be together at the same post when the attack began. The three of us all had our schedule memorized. It was best if we all knew exactly what we were to do next rather than just relying on one of us to remember. Mordechi told us to wait until the group of Germans was right in front of the building where we were stationed before we started shooting. Once we were fairly sure we could get a good shot, we were to shoot several times. As soon as the Nazis started running in the direction of the shots, we were to escape through the back door and walk two blocks to the next apartment where we would wait until the Nazis came down the street. Then we were to shoot again and escape again. There were many groups of partisans throughout the ghetto who would all be doing the same thing to confuse our enemy. We wanted them to think we had more people, weapons, and ammunition than we actually had.
The voice of a single nightingale broke the silence of the night. It reminded me of the way that the sound of the shofar breaks through the silence during the prayers on Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. His sad, solitary voice haunted me in its raw beauty.
‘Listen, Azriel. It’s a nightingale.’
‘I hear it.’
He touched my cheek.
‘The poor little bird sounds so alone. Maybe it’s lost and it’s singing so its mate can find it.’
‘Ruchel?’
‘Yes.’
‘If something should happen to me and you survive, God willing, I want you to think of me whenever you hear a nightingale and know that my spirit is with you and I am nearby.’
‘Azriel, stop, please.’
‘Will you just promise that you will do that for me?’
‘Yes, a nightingale. Yes, of course,’ I said.
Azriel and I didn’t speak. Instead, we sat by the window holding hands and watching the stars and the moon. I leaned my head on his shoulder. Hours passed. Then bits of light began to flicker over the horizon. Azriel spoke in a whisper, ‘It’s almost time.’ He said to both Seff and me, ‘No regrets?’ His voice was hoarse and filled with emotion.
‘None,’ I said.
‘None,’ Seff repeated.
‘I have none either. And even though we have lived through the worst hell imaginable, because of you Ruchel, these last few months have been the happiest days of my life.’
I was so choked up with uncried tears that I couldn’t speak. I just squeezed his hand. He knew I was crying inside, but I refused to let the tears flow, so he raised my chin to look into my eyes.
‘I love you,’ he said.
I hugged him hard, with all my strength.