25

SUMMER

There were no longer bows in Janina’s hair or socks on her feet. The straps on her shoes were broken and flapped when she walked. The shoes had become muddy scraps. For a while I tried to shine them with spit, but the mud was too much. The best reflection I had ever seen of myself disappeared with the shine of her shoes.

Janina cried a lot. And kicked. And screamed. Sometimes she screamed at her mother. “Mama, Mama, make me a pickled egg! . . . Make me! . . . Make me!” She loved pickled eggs more than anything, she said. But her mother only lay with her back to the room on the mattress in the corner.

As much as Janina cried, she laughed too. But she didn’t just laugh—she howled. Especially when I told her that Himmler looked like Uncle Shepsel. We were sitting on the floor picking each other’s lice at the time, and Uncle Shepsel had just said, “You look like monkeys,” and I had whispered to Janina, “Himmler looks like Uncle Shepsel,” and Janina burst out laughing so hard she fell backward and knocked her head on the floor and lice flew from her hair, and the head knock really hurt and Janina didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so she did both.

         

One day Janina ran to me in the courtyard. “I found the cow!” she screamed, and grabbed my hand and we ran. She led me to a bombed-out ice cream shop. Two walls were still standing. On one of them hung a tilting picture—of a cow.

She often played such tricks on me. Once, she tricked me into lending her my yellow stone necklace. She wore it for days. When I asked for it back, she threw it over the wall. I couldn’t believe it.

I was so mad I threw the bag of gifts she had left on the steps for me over the wall.

She threw my cap over the wall.

She had brought one toy animal with her from the other side—a blue-and-gold stuffed pig. She hid it. I found it and threw it over the wall.

She said no more. She said even though I threw away her things, she was going to give me something new. I believed her. I felt bad. She said the new gift was already under my coat-bed. I looked. It was a rat bone.

She liked to goad me into chasing her. Whether I did or not, she always ran. If I didn’t chase her, she would stop and thumb her nose at me and call me “Feeshy Meeshy!” I didn’t have to be goaded the time she leaned out of the window above me and dropped a raw turnip on my head. I picked the turnip out of the dirt, put it in my pocket, and took off after her. When I caught her, I shook her and told her never to treat food that way. All she did was laugh, so I rubbed the dirty turnip in her face and shook her harder, and the harder I shook, the louder she laughed.

I became so used to her noise—chattering, whining, pestering, laughing, crying—that my ear went on hearing it even when it stopped. All during one particular day I sensed that something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. I didn’t know it was the absence of Janina. I barely heard her all day, barely saw her. That night, as usual, most activity came to a stop. The lightbulb was always dark now. The end of the day’s light was the end of ours. No more knocks on the door for Mr. Milgrom’s pills and potions. Uncle Shepsel put away his book on how to become a Lutheran. Mrs. Milgrom did not have to stop whatever she was doing, for she did nothing to begin with. All day, all night, she lay on the mattress with her back to us. She moved only when she coughed.

Usually Janina continued to play pick-up-sticks in the dark—by fingertip feel—until her father said, “Janina,” and she would stop and lie down on the overcoat next to me. But on this night she was already on her coat when I lay down. I slept with my new family almost every night now. Mr. Milgrom always said good-night to us, first to Janina, then to me. I always looked forward to that moment, as no one had ever said good-night to me before. On this night, when he said, “Good night, Janina,” there was no answer.

As usual, I waited until I heard everyone sleeping. It pleased me to do this. I liked to pretend that if anyone heard me go out, I would be forbidden. I got up and crept from the room. I did this nearly every night. I tiptoed down the stairs and into the moonlit courtyard and into the street. My instinct was to be bold and uncatchable, but I enjoyed being sneaky too.

The streets looked deserted, but I knew they were not as deserted as they appeared. I knew that somewhere along the wall Big Henryk stood as tall as he could with Kuba on his shoulders, and Kuba was draping two thick coats across the barbed wire and hauling himself over and down to the other side, then tossing over the wall the rope that Big Henryk would winch him back with.

I knew that beneath my feet, in the sewers where daylight never fell on the rats and the rivers of poop, Enos and Ferdi and one-armed Olek were creeping toward the wall, puffing on Ferdi’s cigars to give themselves points of light and to smoke over the stink.

I knew they all wished they could come with me. They wished they could fit through the two-brick space.

As for Uri, who knew? He was somewhere, doing something.

I darted from shadow to shadow until I was across the street from the wall. I stood in the shadow of a doorway. The night glowed beyond the barbed wire. Sounds floated over: a clink, a tinkle, a voice, a wisp of music. I leaned out to watch for Flops on patrol. Someone was standing in the moonlight an arm’s length away. I couldn’t believe it.

“Janina!”

“I followed you.”

She was grinning. I yanked her into the doorway.

“Go back,” I said.

“No.”

“Go back.”

“I’m going with you.”

Her eyes were two drops of moonlight.

“You’re not little enough,” I said stupidly.

“I’m littler than you.”

“I’m not taking you.”

“You have to. You’re my big brother.”

That stopped me for a moment. And gave me all the more reason not to allow her.

“No!”

“Yes!”

I smacked her in the face. The moon drops wobbled.

She smacked me back.

And that was that.

I dashed across the street to the wall, and in a moment I was through the two-brick space and onto the other side. A moment later she came squirting through the hole.