24

“Find the cow,” Doctor Korczak had said.

It was the only time Doctor Korczak was ever stern with me. Whenever I brought him food for the orphans from the other side of the wall, he received it happily and patted me on the head and said, “My little smuggler.” And as I turned to go, he never failed to say, “Be careful.” Then one day he added, “Find the cow.” From then on, every time I saw him: “Find the cow.”

The cow had become something to believe in or not to believe in. Like angels. Mothers. Oranges. How could something as large as a cow live in the ghetto and not be seen? How could it survive? What would it eat? Rubble dust?

And yet so great was the cry for milk for children that the cow seemed to materialize from the very hunger of the people, until one could almost see the animal loping down the street. Of course, no one really did see it, and the more we did not see it, the more we believed in it. Almost every day someone claimed to have heard a mysterious moo.

Of course, the day soon came when Janina said she heard it.

“No, you didn’t,” I said, just to be contrary. Janina was always making things up.

“I did!” she said. We were playing pick-up-sticks. She swept the sticks away.

“You’re being a baby,” I said.

“You’re being a poop,” she said.

Uncle Shepsel looked up from the book he was reading and growled at Janina. “There’s no cow.”

Reading the new book he had found was all Uncle Shepsel did these days. When he reached the end of the book, he went back to the first page and started again. He muttered under his breath as he read. It was a book about the Lutherans. He was teaching himself to be one. Then he would no longer be a Jew, and they would let him out of the ghetto.

Mr. Milgrom told him, “You cannot stop being a Jew.”

Uncle Shepsel said, “I’ve already stopped. I’m a Lutheran.”

When Uncle Shepsel growled at Janina that there was no cow, I switched to her side. “Yes, there is,” I said. “I heard it too.” Until then, I had been uncertain. From that moment on, I believed in the cow. (I had done this before: it seemed I believed whatever I heard myself say.) A few days later, when Doctor Korczak first said, “Find the cow,” my belief was confirmed.

I could not find the cow. I looked all over. Courtyards, backyards, cellars, rubble. No cow. No moo.

“I can’t find the cow,” I complained to the boys one day.

“That’s because there is no cow, stupid,” said Enos.

Big Henryk bellowed, “No cow!”

Kuba climbed up Big Henryk and sat on one of his shoulders. “I’ll bet Big Henryk is lying,” he said. Kuba leaned down so that his face was upside down in front of Big Henryk’s. “Big Henryk, do you believe there’s a cow?”

Big Henryk swayed under the weight of Kuba. “Yes!” he said.

We all laughed because we knew his answer proved nothing. Big Henryk was not only the biggest boy but also the most agreeable. He said yes to everything.

This was our signal to play the Big Henryk game.

“Big Henryk, do you believe you’re the biggest, dumbest person in the whole wide world?”

“Yes!”

“Big Henryk, do you believe you’re a little itty-bitty baby?”

“Yes!”

“Big Henryk, are we going to sleep in a castle tonight in big soft beds and eat all the chocolates we want and the Jackboots will be our servants?”

“Yes!”

“Ask him if he believes in Buffo,” said Enos. “Or Himmler.”

“Big Henryk, do you believe in Himmler?”

I butted in. “I don’t,” I said. “There is no Himmler.” And I told them at last about the parade of magnificent cars and how I called and called Himmler’s name and the only one who turned was the chicken-looking man in the front seat, turning one eye to stare at me behind the eyeglass.

“That was Himmler,” said Uri.

“He can’t be,” I said. “He looks like my uncle Shepsel.”

“It’s him,” said Uri.

So Himmler—Number Two Boss Jackboot, Master of All Jews Not to Mention Gypsies—was a one-eyed chicken. At that moment, I began losing respect for Jackboots. I no longer wanted to be one.