37

I waited a bit because if I was too fast, the story I’d devised for the Poles wouldn’t work.

After about half an hour, I went back. The lion door knocker was lying broken on the ground, so I banged against the heavy wooden door with my fist. The bearded policeman with the high voice opened the door, and before he could ask for the money, I walked past him into the bank. It was pretty dark inside; the windows were all broken and had been boarded up. That must have happened some time ago, maybe during the Aktion and they’d never been replaced—there was no point in repairing anything in the ghetto.

The cash office was no more than two empty counters. The safes where the Jewish collaborators hoarded their money were obviously kept somewhere else. The bag with the guns was standing on the filthy floor, and there was a pack of cards lying beside it in the dust. The two guards had probably been playing cards—to divide up the money they thought the resistance fighters were going to pay—sitting beside the seized arms.

The carrion eater and the bearded falsetto were both astonished to see me walking through the room as if I owned the place. They were even more astounded when I said calmly, “Give me the bag!”

“Where’s the money?” Carrion eater wanted to know.

“You’re not getting any!”

For a moment they both couldn’t speak. The bearded falsetto found his voice first. “What did you say?”

“We aren’t going to give you any money,” I explained, and smiled as if I were talking to children who were a bit slow on the uptake.

Carrion eater pulled his truncheon out of his belt.

“You give me the guns and we won’t kill you,” I explained, not too quickly, but not too slowly, either, to stop him from hitting me. “The ŻOB have surrounded the bank. If I don’t get back with the bag in the next five minutes, then our people will come in and shoot you.”

They couldn’t tell if I was bluffing or not. But they were bound to have heard that the ŻOB had shot several Jewish collaborators in the past few weeks and would certainly not stop at shooting a couple of Polish policemen.

Before their doubts got out of hand, I said as confidently as I could, “So hand over the bag, then!” sounding as if I really did have power over life and death as far as they were concerned.

Instead the carrion eater ran to one of the windows and tried to look out through the boards to see if he could see anything happening outside. Of course he couldn’t see any resistance fighters. They were about as likely as a bunch of talking rabbits standing in front of the bank. I was telling a story, just like Hannah used to, only this one was going to save my life.

“I can’t see anyone,” carrion eater said to the bearded falsetto. But he didn’t dare go outside to take a look. What if everything I’d said was true and he was shot on the spot?

“Five minutes!” I said, ignoring him. “Then the bag has to be outside the door.”

I went to the door as calmly as I could. I reached for the door handle, but the carrion eater grabbed my shoulder and said, “You are staying here!”

“You’re sure you want me to stay?” I asked, and looked him straight in the eye.

“As a hostage!” he thundered, and his foul breath blew straight into my face.

“And the price for the guns plus you,” the bearded falsetto added, “is four hundred thousand zlotys!”

“Okay,” I said, freed my shoulder out of the carrion eater’s grip, and marched into the middle of the room.

“I’ll be your hostage if you want.”

They didn’t like the way I managed to stay calm.

“And you are our hostages,” I added.

Now both of them tried to look through the boarded windows, but of course they couldn’t see anything. The carrion eater turned back to me again and raised his truncheon. “If they don’t give us the money, I’ll beat your brains to mush!”

“If you kill me, you’ll definitely die,” I said, still bluffing.

The carrion eater beat his truncheon into the palm of his hand. It was supposed to look threatening, but just showed his rising panic. The bearded falsetto had broken into a cold sweat. Although I had no power over the two of them, they were afraid of me. And that meant that I did have power over them. It was the first time that anyone had ever been frightened of me.

It was brilliant.

It was the first time since Hannah’s death that I’d felt alive. In fact, I’d never felt like this before.

“Have you got kids?” I asked

How I hoped those bastards had children because then they would be even more scared of dying.

They didn’t say anything, so that must mean yes.

I put out my hand. “The bag…,” I demanded.

Neither of them showed any sign of giving it to me.

“If you don’t mind,” I said, and smiled.

The carrion eater picked up the bag and handed it to me. I walked out of the bank with the weapons. Without paying a zloty. Without being beaten by a truncheon.

The person with the least fear wins. I could see that now. Which was why the Germans had won against us.

So far.

But we weren’t afraid anymore.

We were already dead.