Clara's War (22 page)

‘MY FLOWERS!' Beck yelled, as his open hand smashed Julia in the face.

Blood was streaming from her lips. ‘I'll never go near that trapdoor again! She can starve for all I care. They can all starve!'

We had all become the other woman in Julia's eyes. She ran into Ala's room and slammed the door shut behind her. We heard sobbing from within. Then the fall of the door knocker on wood. The trainmen had returned. Beck quickly gave us some potatoes, told us to get downstairs and closed the trapdoor. He left a few minutes after the trainmen settled in. He didn't come back at all that day or that night. We knew, as Julia must have known too, he would be at the sister-in-law's house.

Julia had been pushed and pushed like no other woman I'd ever met. Her strength of character and her generosity were boundless. I knew Mr Beck loved these qualities in her. He had told us so, many times. Whether he ever told Julia or not, I
didn't know. But, of course, in the face of his love affairs such words would be more slaps in her face. But the truth is, he did love her. And she loved him.

The next morning, Julia knocked on the trapdoor to give us some water with which to cook the potatoes. She took our orders for food. She wouldn't look at Klara. I didn't know what we had done to be worthy of her generosity. I prayed to God to somehow reward this woman who suffered so much for us. We didn't know what had brought on this change of heart. Had she made up with Beck, or he with her? I did know for certain that if we weren't here, she would leave him. But as long as we were here, she was trapped.

Something must have happened between them, because not long thereafter Julia decided to throw her husband a large Valentine's party in honour of his name day. The night of the party, I heard the trainmen, Dr Lucynski, Lang, Schmidt, Krueger, Hans the policeman (who harboured affection for Ala) and a few voices I didn't recognize, all congratulating Beck as they walked in. The vodka was being passed around and the music was playing. There was nothing for us to do but sit in silence and listen. Usually during these parties the children sat close to me. But this time they had been playing with Klarunia when the first guests arrived and so they were on the other side of the bunker near the Patrontasches. As long as there were strangers upstairs, none of us moved. We became frozen. Little underground statues.

The dancing had slowed down and I could hear the conversation in every detail. Lang was talking. ‘God help us when the war is over and the Jews take their revenge.' I couldn't believe that he was even worried about such a thing. At least he had a conscience.

One of the trainmen laughed. ‘Not if we get them first.'

Something in this man's laughter frightened Zosia. She started to weep and then to cry. And then to actually wail. For all these
months she had been trained to speak only when absolutely necessary. She had learned to be the most silent of all of us. For days on end, we would never hear her say a word. Not to ask for food or water or to go to the bathroom. Nothing. But now she was screaming the way only a terrified four-year-old could scream. I tried to shush her by putting a finger to my lips. All of us were doing the same thing. I was too afraid to go over to her to hold her. I was too frightened even to whisper something reassuring. It was too dangerous to add another sound to hers. I watched, paralyzed and scared stiff. Julia's footsteps rushed to the trapdoor and she knocked softly above us. Her voice was a whisper: ‘I can hear her.' Something had to be done or the guests would surely discover us. Mr Patrontasch grabbed a pillow and put it over her face. Zosia struggled, scratching and clawing at Patrontasch's hands, but at least the sound was muffled.

Upstairs, there was casual talk about the war. The conversation varied from the weather conditions–Was the slight thaw good or bad? Would it help the Russians? Or the Germans?–to the trainload of German refugees who had come from the east and been stalled at the station. Beck was saying that the people had been starving, but that the SS hadn't let them off the train. All the while Zosia was still crying underneath the pillow. The conversation had moved on to the governor of Lvov who had been assassinated. Beck was saying that it had been the handiwork of Jewish partisans. Hans joked: ‘It had to be the Yids. There are no Polish or
Volksdeutsche
partisans, hey, Beck?' A roar of laughter erupted.

Then Dr Lucynski added, ‘Maybe the Jews Valentin is hiding are partisans!' A long silence followed. I was waiting for Dr Lucynski to tell everyone it was a joke. But he didn't. I imagined how Beck must have looked as he tried to gauge the trainmen's reaction without being obvious. The trainmen didn't laugh or
acknowledge that the remark had to be a joke. Not a laugh. Not a chuckle. Just silence. I couldn't believe that Dr Lucynski, Beck's supposed friend, would make such an incriminating joke. I didn't know if Dr Lucynski actually knew about us. I couldn't imagine Beck would tell him, or anyone.

Suddenly, as if the wind shifted, they started to debate whether to believe the Russian or German propaganda. Did the Russians take back Leningrad? What about Churchill's speech in which he said the bombing of Germany would intensify for the possible invasion of Europe's Atlantic coast? The only thing the men agreed on was that all the politicians and generals were liars. Another good laugh ensued. Thank God. Lucysnki's remark had no traction. I prayed the trainmen just thought it a bad joke that had deserved only polite silence.

Mr Melman grabbed a piece of hard candy and stuck it under the pillow. Zosia's legs and arms were now still. I breathed easier. She had stopped struggling and just lay on Patrontasch's lap as still as if she were in a deep and peaceful sleep. The candy had worked. Patrontasch took the pillow away from her face. Even in the dim light I could see her face was blue. Her eyes were closed and her chest wasn't moving up and down with each breath.

Mama crawled across to Zosia and started rubbing her chest. She rubbed it hard. It seemed like Mama was rubbing her chest for ever. She put her fingers to Zosia's lips and pulled them apart. ‘Zosia, Zosia, open your eyes.' Zosia obeyed Mama. She looked up at Mama and whispered, ‘Can I eat the candy?' The hard candy was in her palm. Mama gathered her in her arms and helped her open the candy wrapper. Patrontasch had almost killed Zosia, but who could blame him? I was just so thankful that Zosia had pulled through. I had been petrified; I couldn't move a muscle. I would never leave them alone again.

It was a freezing night, and even down here, I could hear the
wind whipping against the windows upstairs. There was no reason for the guests to brave the elements when there was still vodka. Around dawn the house became silent. I was exhausted. I was hoping I would sleep well past noon, as we had all been trying to do since the trainmen were living above us. Then there was an unexpected knock on the trapdoor. Mr Patrontasch turned on the light. It was Beck. He climbed down into the bunker. Beck said he needed to talk. He had brought a bottle of vodka with him. He seemed troubled. He had woken us up before, but usually it was good news on the radio. This time it seemed he had something weighing on his mind.

He poured vodka for the men. It was such a ritual. He told us that Dr Lucynski had taken him aside during the party and told him that he had spoken with some of the refugees on the trains. The reason they hadn't been let off the trains was that the Nazis didn't want the refugees to tell anyone what they had seen. The advancing Russians were murdering any
Volksdeutsche
and Poles who had collaborated with the Nazis. Dr Lucynski had been convinced that once the war was over, the Jews would murder as many Poles as they could in revenge for the mothers, fathers and children who had been slaughtered. Beck was frightened. Papa and the other men tried to reassure him that they would make sure he wasn't harmed. In turn, Beck wanted us to know that he would never abandon us. We shouldn't worry. He would stay with us until the end. I understood that he had never thought about the consequences our survival might have for him. Nobody had. We had only thought of ourselves. Of course the Russians would slaughter the
Volksdeutsche
and any collaborators. We had already seen what they had done to my family. He left the bottle for the men and crawled back to the trapdoor. Before he went upstairs, he said, ‘I don't want to trouble you, but I was hoping you might do something for me.' I knew we would
do anything he asked. But the way he asked was so courtly. His voice sounded gentle. Papa said, ‘Anything.'

‘There are bands of partisans, deserting SS, marauders, breaking into houses…I worry what could happen to Julia and Ala. When the trainmen aren't here, would you be kind enough to leave the trapdoor open at night when I'm at work?' They say there are no angels here on earth. But they didn't know Beck. As much as his face could be ravaged by drink and exhaustion, there was a purity and goodness in his eyes. He said, ‘I just can't be part of people dying.'

It was a simple declaration. Those words kept us alive. They kept him going when his courage failed and his faith was tested. With the war raging outside and millions compromising everything they believed to stay alive, how many were like Beck? He held our lives in his hands and there was now no one on this earth I would have trusted with them more. It was in moments like these that I felt most strongly that we would survive. I had never met anyone like Beck before. My father was a good man. So were all the men in the bunker. But I didn't know if they had what Beck had. I didn't know if Papa would risk my life to save a stranger. We had been strangers to Beck and now it felt like we were his family. I had gone through four notebooks and the blue pencil that Beck had given me was down to a nub. Every time he gave me a new notebook, he said the same thing, ‘Clarutchka, I hope you say nice things about me.' I prayed that I would live so the world would know his courage and his great love.

As soon as the trainmen went out for lunch the next day, the men started talking. We were all out of money and food. All the families were, except the Steckels. I couldn't keep it in any longer. I asked Papa again, ‘Why don't we ask them?'

‘We can't. It's not our way.'

They decided they would ask Beck to help them, and they
would make him a 25 per cent partner in their business. Mr Patrontasch drew up the contract in his beautiful handwriting.

When Beck came home later and opened the trapdoor to have me come up and weigh the potatoes, the men asked to have a word. Mr Patrontasch explained that they were out of money and couldn't pay him for their food any longer. They wanted to make him their partner. Of all the
meshuggenah
conversations I had heard in the bunker, this was perhaps the craziest. Who knew if we would survive? Who knew if there would be a business left after the war? Who knew if the factory wouldn't be bombed or every piece of machinery packed on a train and sent west or east depending who won the war? There was every possibility that the contract wasn't worth the ink it was written with. I knew that Beck was as aware as I was of the improbability of it all. But the offer pleased him immensely as he shook each of the three men's hands with vigour and strength. He went upstairs to get a bottle of vodka to toast the arrangement. We had heard the toasting going on during the party. All the traditional, ribald Polish toasts that the Poles were so fond of and that no festive occasion was complete without: ‘I drink till I fall, fall till I rise, I rise to drink, I drink to be wise.' ‘Every shot is a nail in my coffin–this will be a helluva coffin.' ‘To the drunkard who lives half as long but sees everything twice.' ‘To the health of our wives and lovers and may they never meet'…and so many more.

As he raised his glass, he gestured to us.
Sto lat.
‘A hundred years.' It was the toast traditionally made on a man's naming day. And then
na zdrowie.
‘To your health.' I had heard these toasts dozens of times. So often said sentimentally, said casually, said without thought. But Beck was wishing each of us health and a long life. I toasted him as well in the silence of my heart. Long life. A hundred years.

March to April 1944

A
s in everything else, Beck was true to his word. We had run out of money and he was providing our food now. He didn't tell us where or how he was getting the money. Or what kinds of risk he and Julia were taking. There was not a trace of pity in his voice, ever. When he came down to tell us that Finland had declared a ceasefire with Russia, he might as well have been in a tavern discussing the news of the day with his friends over schnapps. Or when he banged on the door a few
hours later and told us about a misunderstanding between England and Turkey over something no one could quite figure out, he might have been giving us the update on the 1936 Olympics. He had not only taken on our physical survival but also, with his jokes, news, drinks and gossip, our moral and emotional survival as well. What was remarkable to me was that his effort was without effort. This avowed anti-Semite, misanthrope and despiser of all authority was the most naturally generous human being I had yet come to meet. And it came as naturally to him as pouring his next drink or sleeping with Klara or his brother's widow.

Papa, Mr Melman and Mr Patrontasch, all their lives, were givers. Charity had been a way of life for them. Nobody mentioned how much they had given to support the schools, the orphanages and the hungry in Zolkiew. Or how much money they had sent to Palestine. I knew that giving was as natural to them as breathing and that they felt, down to their very bones, that a man should take care of his family. Yet here we were. In this bunker, dependent for everything on the Becks. I was still a child, but every one of us, most especially the grown-ups, had become as children. Like all of us, Papa was a portion, a tithe, of the man he once was. His clothes hung off him like they once belonged to a robust businessman and he had found them, four sizes too big, in the trash and decided to wear them anyway. We struggled to keep as clean as we could, but now with the trainmen living like kings just above us, we couldn't even wash our clothes as often as we once used to. They were grey anyway from so many washings and now they were always soiled as well. And as much as Papa used to protest to Mama about how he didn't care about his clothes, I knew, even though he didn't have a vain bone in his body, that he loved the feel of a well-tailored suit jacket on his shoulders and a shirt that was starched
just so. He and all the other men had made extra holes in their belts as regularly as they marked the days on Mr Patrontasch's calendar and their clothes were cinched and bunched around their waists. Where there were once answers in my father's eyes, now there were only questions. And Papa suffered more from the loss of dignity than he suffered from the lack of food. So much had been taken from us that there was very little of our past that was in our present.

We were fortunate that one of the reminders of our past was the Melmans' flush toilet. Plenty of envious jokes had made the rounds of the kitchens and back steps that the Melmans had given themselves
Tam Genadyn…
a taste of the Garden of Eden when they had it installed. Over the card games at the social club Mrs Melman was said to be the instigator. But however it had come about, we no longer cared. We were just grateful that Julia wasn't running to an outhouse in the yard with bucket after bucket of refuse, which would certainly have alerted the neighbourhood to our presence. While the Russians fought the Nazis in the mud and snow, inching towards Lvov, and the Allies were working their way up the Italian peninsula, our war became the emptying of our refuse. No spy operations were ever conducted with more military precision. However, when the trainmen didn't move from the house for days, we suffered. It was torture to hold in our bladders and bowels for hours and hours at a time. The children were allowed to go in the dirt and we buried it.

One day the trainmen had gone off to the movies and, as soon as it was safe, Beck knocked on the hatch so Patrontasch could run upstairs and empty the buckets. We were all waiting for Mr Patrontasch to come down with the empty buckets, when there would be a rush to use them again, children first. But something was wrong. Mr Patrontasch wasn't coming back. He'd
been gone for half an hour, not the minutes we always counted until he was back with clean buckets. Then I saw his head in the hatch. ‘There's something in the toilet. The
farshtinkener
thing is stuck. It won't go down. I stuck my hand down up to the elbow and it wouldn't budge!'

It was Mr Melman's toilet and, expert or not, he went up to help Mr Patrontasch. While the two were trying to figure out how to fix the toilet, Julia carried two heavy buckets out to the backyard. I knew she carried out plenty of night buckets in her time and I'm sure she didn't care about having to carry out our refuse as much as I did. It was one more way in which Julia had to take care of us. When she handed the buckets back down to us, her cheeks were flushed and her hands were raw from the cold. She had run out without a coat, but she still had a smile for us.

Mr Patrontasch and Mr Melman came down a few minutes later with unhappy faces. They concluded that the septic tank was full. Twenty-odd people using it over the past year had to be the cause. There would now be no other choice but for the Becks to empty our refuse into the outhouse. Julia told us not to worry. But with the trainmen living upstairs and the constant comings and goings of Beck's friends and Ala's boyfriend Adolph, who had just returned from leave, the buckets might be the death of us. If they weren't emptied, the odour would filter upstairs. Julia could smell when the buckets were full and came to collect them as soon as she could. But if she was seen by the trainmen, by the police or Blue Coats or any of the Poles who were making a living at the cost of Jewish lives, we were dead.

We had just got the buckets emptied and the trapdoor closed when there was a knock on the door. I thought it was the trainmen back from the movies. I knew I would hear them talking about the film with Beck, Julia and Ala and I was
looking forward to the conversation. It was the closest I might ever get to a cinema. But I didn't hear their voices and their familiar heavy footsteps. I heard another voice, speaking a frantic, guttural and forceful German. I couldn't make out the words. I panicked. This was the search we had all been dreading. I started praying to the God who brought us Zygush and Zosia, not to the God who allowed all the Jews in Zolkiew to be murdered. I held the children's hands. I was looking up at the ceiling of the bunker as if it was heaven itself and God was going to tell me if I was going to live or die. No matter how many times I thought I was facing death, the terror never lessened. It only got worse, because I knew our luck couldn't go on day after day after day until the end of the war with so many forces conspiring against it. I counted six sets of boots and heard Beck telling them they would have to sleep with the trainmen. I heard them bring in their things. I knew they were soldiers. They left after a few minutes and Beck knocked on the trapdoor.

This was a face I had never seen on Beck before. These six men weren't soldiers. He told us: ‘They're SS and I don't know how long they'll be here. They told me their car broke down and they have to wait for parts.' As much as I tried to turn my will to steel with which to face each new terror, I knew this was the end. Beck looked like he knew it as well. Not one of us said a word. We would have to accept the arrival of the SS inches above our heads as just one more of life's horrible mortal ironies. There was nothing for us to do. Not one solitary thing to help ourselves survive except carry on as we had been living while we waited to die.

But Beck had more to say. Five peasants had been murdered in the forest where all of Zolkiew's Jews were shot and buried a year ago. One peasant survived, and he said that Jews had been the killers. Misters Hecht, Hochner, Klein and Fern. I knew that
the Fern family had escaped to Russia. As much as I feared the repercussions, I wished this were true. I wished for any Jew to be alive. It didn't matter to me how many collaborators they killed, if it was they who did the killing. The deaths of the men they killed wouldn't avenge what had been done to us, not even in the smallest way.

Beck also told us there was more panic about the Russian advance and that Jewish partisans had been fighting with the Russians when they took Dubno, which was only a few hundred kilometres away near Brody. He said anyone who had given a German a glass of water was terrified of the Russians. Papa again assured Beck that we would never let anything happen to him or his family if and when we were liberated. But Beck knew that Papa's words were only a sentiment, a hope. If the Russians wanted to shoot the Becks, no matter how we begged and pleaded for their lives, they would shoot them, and then move on to the next
Volksdeutsche
and collaborators they could get their hands on.

Papa and the men talked with Beck about the logistics of the new regime upstairs. He gave us a third bucket, which meant that the buckets would only have to be emptied once a day. The problem was how and when to empty the buckets. I knew that if the SS saw Julia emptying a bucket, they would know Jews were hidden in the house. Melman had to try again to fix the toilet upstairs. Beck would keep watch for the trainmen and the SS.

I had prayed for so many things. For our lives. For Uchka. For Mama when she was taking care of Uchka. For Zygush and Zosia. And for my beloved sister. And now I was asking God to fix our toilet. While Melman was upstairs working, Julia came back with 200 grams of lard and bread. Mama had given her some of our bedding to sell since the weather had become
a little warmer. Lard! Fat! I didn't know where she got it, but she had such a smile on her face as she handed it down to us. Even with the SS about to come back over our heads, all I could think of was fat. Mama started cutting up potatoes to boil. We were going to have mashed potatoes! While the potatoes were boiling, Mr Melman came down with good news. He had fixed the toilet! It had been clogged. His wife actually kissed him. It was the first kiss I had seen in months. I then turned my attention to the lard, which I slathered on the bread and mashed potatoes. Zygush and Zosia couldn't get it down fast enough. It was better than any feast for any holiday I had had in my life.

While we ate, the men quickly decided that someone would always be on ‘guard duty' in the part of the bunker that was under the bathroom. If someone upstairs was in there, they could almost hear us exhale below. The guard would alert the rest of us to be quiet. The person standing guard at night over the snorers also had to stand guard under the bathroom. I volunteered. During the evening, as we enjoyed our mashed potatoes, I thought I had lost all reason. I had begun to think having the SS over our heads was turning out to be a good thing. With the three Becks, the two trainmen, the six SS and Ala's boyfriend Adolph, there would be such a commotion that no one could possibly hear us. And while Julia was out buying us lard, Beck had found us a trove of books in the trash somewhere. He was always on the lookout for presents for us. Lola, Artek and I were the big readers. We couldn't finish them fast enough. We gave each other books the way people give each other colds. Maybe God did work in strange ways. I felt like I was more relaxed than I had been in months with my potatoes and my book.

But then I noticed the straw bedding and realized we'd soon
have new guests. Millions of them. Unless we changed the straw before the weather was warmer, all the dormant flea eggs would hatch. On the other hand, I hoped we'd live long enough to be tormented by the fleas, and their comrades, the bed bugs.

It was a strange and lonely feeling to be sitting up in the dark, trying to stay awake. I'd listen to the breathing of everyone in the bunker. Kuba Patrontasch was the worst snorer. Every time I had guard duty, I'd have to wake him up. I didn't know how he got any sleep at all. But of all the sleepers, I liked to listen to Zygush and Zosia the most. In the dark the quiet, small, quick breath of the children was somehow reassuring. With Uchka dead and Mama drifting into God knows where from time to time, I felt like their mother, and it was with a mother's ears that I listened to them sleep. I liked guard duty. I liked watching over the sleeping children. Any small thing that helped us survive made me stronger, no matter how it exhausted me.

Poor Zosia. She made more noise sleeping than she did when she was awake. After the episode with the pillow, she was frightened of saying even one word. Of even whispering. She was most terrified of the noise she made when she went to the bathroom. She would put her tiny hands between her legs and hold herself rather than make that noise into the bucket. I now asked every night before she went to bed, ‘Do you have to go?' She'd move her face next to my ear and whisper, ‘Maybe.' And then I'd say, ‘Why don't you try? Why don't we go together?' Then I'd take her hand and we'd crawl together to the area we jokingly referred to as the ‘park', where we had the pails. I would go first so she would know it was okay.

The entire house was quiet now except for the Becks. I could hear the trainmen and the SS snoring. I could even hear them breathing. It was a miracle that no one had heard us down here in all these months. Beck was whispering to Julia: ‘There are no
more Jews left in Germany. Adolph told me. He said the Nazis are planning to send all the
Volksdeutsche
back to Germany to work…whether we like it or not.' I couldn't hear what Julia said in response. Then there was silence. If the Nazis sent the Becks back, we were dead.

When Mama and Papa got up in the morning, I had to tell them. Mama took a deep breath and fainted. I got a damp cloth to revive her with. When her eyes opened she always looked so startled, as if she were surprised to have come to in this bunker. And then she would look ashamed, as if the woman who fainted was not Mama but an annoying relative who came to stay a night in our house and never left. When the SS and the trainmen went out that day, Beck didn't relate any of his conversation with Julia about the repatriation of the
Volksdeutsche
. But he said he had a disturbing conversation with Adolph, who was now convinced that our SS guests were deserters. The idea that SS marauders and murderers were sleeping in the room next to his wife and child terrified him. I had never seen Beck as frightened as we were. I hated that I was powerless to help him in any of the ways he had helped us. He begged the men to watch out for Ala and Julia if the SS tried anything when he was at work. The men said that they would, of course. They'd already promised to keep an eye on Ala and Julia when Beck and the trainmen were out. But what could they possibly do now that the SS were there, except die with Ala and Julia? Beck somehow seemed reassured and told us he was going to get a rifle from the partisans for us. We knew he had some connections with the partisans. He never told us what they were or what his involvement was. But I had a suspicion they were significant. He had access to so much information that would be useful.