Clara's War (8 page)

Over several nights, we would wait an hour after every house on the street had gone dark, and would move our belongings to the Melmans' house. Beck was waiting for us at the door, his eye up and down the street. We didn't speak at all as he led us to the bedroom where we slipped down into the bunker and arranged our things. Then, again without a word, we would slip out the door and retrace our way through the quiet and deserted lanes back to Uchka's.

I had hardly seen this Valentin Beck before, and yet we were
trusting our lives to him, and we were grateful to do so. As gaunt as Julia, with light, wolf blue, bloodshot eyes, and cheeks and nose road-mapped with tiny broken purple capillaries, he looked much older than his 40-odd years. He had grey hair and a thin goatee; I thought he looked like the woodcut on my copy of
Don Quixote
.

We had been so busy that the moment we were to leave Uchka and the children came upon me before I realized it. It had been dark for hours, but we wanted to wait until all the lamps had been turned off in every house in the neighbourhood. We sat in silence, weeping. Mania and I had taken care of Zygush and Zosia every day since Uchka had started her business selling clothes. I felt like their mother. Zosia clung to me. I could not look into her eyes without weeping and yet I could not look away. Such was our grief that we were without shame. This was the only life Zosia and Zygush had ever known. I had memories to cling to. But what could Zygush and Zosia cling to? What did they know of this life except hunger and fear?

Nobody said it would take a miracle if we ever saw each other again. As we kissed Uchka and the children, nobody said this might be the last embrace, the last goodbye, the last time I would feel Uchka's soft hands on my cheeks. My father moved the curtain one more time and looked out. All he did was nod and get up. It was time. We disengaged like mourners after a funeral. As we walked out of the door that my father held open, I looked back and there was Uchka. Uchka, who in better times couldn't stop smiling, was smiling once more. From the bottom of her heart it told us she was thanking God that we had this chance.

Papa again led us through the tiny back alleys. The neighbourhood was deeply silent. Not a person spoke or a radio played. I used to love being out at night once the houses had gone dark and the sky swallowed everything up in its vastness.
Starlit nights were magical, with a carpet of lights that staggered the imagination of a young girl. But tonight I didn't look up. I didn't know if the night was dark or moonlit or starry. All I took in was the beat of my own heart and the sound of my shoes on the cold earth. It seemed to take an eternity to reach the Melmans' house. I felt like I had left the better part of my life with Uchka and the children. I could not believe I was walking away from them.

 

Beck was waiting at the back door of the house and had it opened for us as we slipped inside. He smiled and shook my father's hand. His daughter Ala was with him. I had seen her but never met her before. She was 18 and pretty, and if harbouring Jews under the floor was a problem she looked absolutely unconcerned by it. She had brown hair, styled like a city girl, and welcomed us, also with a smile. Julia was behind them as well. This was a house I had been in hundreds of times. It was filled with beautiful dark furniture and Mrs Melman always made sure the parquet floors were polished until they shone like mirrors. Her china, hand painted, was in the breakfront, which also contained the tiny china dolls; ballerinas and Dalmatians, shepherd girls with their sheep; almost an entire world that she had collected over the years. But it wasn't the Melmans' house any more and I felt alien in it. The Becks had been there only a matter of days, but their presence filled it now. Without much conversation, we walked through the kitchen and into the hall. There was one lamp on, otherwise it was dark. In the bedroom the big mahogany bed had been moved back and the trapdoor that Mr Patrontasch had made was open. The others were already there, only Klara was missing. She had gone to the ghetto with her parents to make sure that they were properly settled before joining us.

I had gone down into the bunker many times. I had built it. But going down that night was different. I didn't care about the dirt. I didn't care about how close it would be with the other families. I didn't care about the lack of a proper bathroom. I didn't care that I wouldn't go to school or see the sun or run in the streets. That life was gone. All I wanted was for that trapdoor to be shut, the carpet to be rolled back and that big heavy wooden bed to be put in place. I wanted to be locked in. I wanted to have back the feeling that tomorrow I would wake and not worry that someone was trying to kill me.

As we crawled down into the bunker, the little light was on and the other families were there, sitting on their pallets, not saying a word. They were getting used to the silence, to not speaking unless it was necessary. Besides, what kind of small talk could we have?

Now that we were in the bunker, the three men had to decide whether or not to bring the Torah down with us. As soon as the Russians invaded Zolkiew, my father had hidden the Torah in the attic of Mr Melman's house where there was a reservoir, encased in wood, for the water pumped up from the well in the backyard. The men had wrapped the Torah in a tarpaulin to keep it dry and placed it in the reservoir on a shelf above the water, where it had stayed for the last three years.

We would be underground but we would still pray, and for the men, for all of us, to have the Torah near us would be a balm. The decision was taken to leave the precious book safe in its hiding place, but its close presence would console us. Only someone like my father who was an Orthodox Jew and lived his religion with every breath could understand what having this Torah near us would mean.

Sitting in the dim light of a single bulb in which we were all mere shadows, it was impossible to consider anything other
than a feeling of safety, or the illusion of a feeling of safety. How long would we be here? Would we survive? Would someone find out? Would the Becks be betrayed? Would we be discovered? I tried to put all those thoughts aside and be grateful to this family who were risking their lives to save ours. Did Beck and Julia have a conversation about the danger to Ala? Did they ask her about it?

There was nothing left to say. Mr Patrontasch turned the light out. I was lying next to Mania. We were afraid even to whisper to each other that first night. In the darkness, I could only think of Uchka and the children in the ghetto. I prayed for them, the first of many prayers I would offer up on their behalf. But what good would prayers do when we were here in safety and they were not. I knew all the reasons, the brutal logic why they couldn't be with us. But knowledge is never enough. It didn't cease the ache in a heart or stay the incessant haunting sound of our own voice, ricocheting from one part of the mind to another, asking, demanding: why us and not them?

December 1942

A
fter two days in the bunker the reality of our confinement gripped us. The men's optimism that the war would be over in a matter of weeks was gone. They had thought the German army wouldn't be able to withstand the freezing Russian winter and would retreat. But they had been wrong. The Germans still held Stalingrad and were advancing in the Ukraine and the Crimea.

The men followed the war with the interest and passion of the generals who were actually running it. Beck had an illegal radio in the attic that would result in his execution if found, but he was
determined to know what was really happening in the war. He brought Patrontasch up from time to time to listen with him. Beck also brought the newspapers and the men would sit around them in a haze of cigarette smoke, charting the front lines on a map and circling the cities taken with a pen. But very little was happening to encourage us. They came down to tell us about a conference in Tehran where Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill were meeting to discuss the war. It wasn't clear what they were discussing. Tehran was so far away, it might have been a tale from the Arabian Nights. The only thing close to good news was that the Russians were starting a winter offensive to take back Kiev, 500 kilometres away, and there were reports that the German advance had started to stall. But this was happening so far away. It didn't seem like anything was going to change for us for a long time.

We had prepared to come into the bunker for a few weeks. I hadn't brought more than a few books with me. We hadn't brought enough clothing or food or, most importantly, things for the Becks to sell. Our furs, Mama's jewellery, the Persian carpets, the down comforters and bedding, the family silver and china were all safely hidden behind the false wall in our neighbours' basement. We worried they might be stolen by the Nazis, but who knew if we would ever be able to enjoy them again? We were freezing and not more than 50 metres away was everything we needed to sustain us.

Only Fanka Melman had brought china and silver into the bunker. I understood why she did it. Of course, it was very human for someone to want to have something personal, something of beauty with them. Poor Mrs Melman, driven to living below the floor of her own home. She was a tiny woman and perhaps it was her obsessive affection for her precious water pitcher that made her the object of some derision for us. Mrs Melman's affection for, and devotion to, her pitcher, which would have barely raised an
eyebrow in our former life, was now grating. I wanted to break the pitcher at times, smash it, and I'm sure Mama did as well. She laughed and whispered to Mania and me, ‘The thing should be in a museum the way she takes care of it.'

Mama would now never say such a thing to Mrs Melman's face, but Mrs Melman knew this was what Mama and everyone else thought about her. Before the war, such a remark would have been taken as some good-natured kidding and kibitzing among the women. I don't know how many times I heard them in our kitchen laughing so hard they're kvetching, they're splitting their sides and they've got to loosen their girdles. If I walked in to see what was so funny, they'd laugh even louder because what they had been discussing was not something for my ‘little ears' or ask me when I became such a
koklefl
: a ladle and the slang for busybody.

But more than the lack of comfort or food or even the reality of the war, what gripped my heart and crowded my mind were the blistering recollections of the last ten days, from the
akcja
on 22 November, during which the Nazis murdered three thousand of us, to our frantic search for a protector and our desperate goodbyes to our families. In a town like ours, in the best of times, the death of one of us affected all of us. In our tradition, one death tears the fabric of the world. We were all connected. Through marriage. Through business. Through friendship. Through work. Through the dozens of organizations that sustained our community.

Out of nowhere, Mama looked up at me and said, ‘Clara, you're going to write a diary.' I was stunned.

‘What for? They're going to kill us anyway.'

‘If they kill us, somebody will find the diary and they will know what we went through.'

Mama looked at me. She wanted me to start that moment.
She found one of the pencils Mr Patrontasch used to chart the war and gave it to me. I had nothing to write on, but I didn't even bring that up because I knew it wouldn't make any difference to Mama. This was Salka the Cossack talking. I looked around and picked up one of my books and started writing in the margins. But as soon as I started writing, I embraced the task. It would be a record. It was something for me to do every day, something with purpose. It was a way of fighting back.

While I was quickly filling the margins of my books, in those first weeks, we had to figure out a way for eleven people to live almost on top of each other in a space no larger than a horse stall. A set of rules evolved that had the authority of commandments.

The main living space we had created was immediately under the Becks' bedroom, and was no more than three square metres and a metre and a third high. The planking of the parquet floor above acted as our ceiling. When we had begun work, it was crisscrossed with generations and generations of spider webs. The recesses that edged the floor above us were used to store
our clothes, which we rolled up in bundles and tied with twine. The flagstone foundations, which followed the map of the house room by room, were our walls. Right behind the hatchway to the trapdoor we dug out a space for a wooden plank table, which was used for food preparation and storage. On the wall to the left of the hatchway and along the adjacent wall was our sleeping area. We had made platforms of dirt, which we covered with planks. On top of the planks, we placed our straw mattresses. The Patrontasches were on the wall next to the hatch. The Melmans and our family were on the adjacent wall. During the day, we would roll up the mattresses to give us room to sit and eat with the plates on our laps.

Opposite the hatchway was another flagstone foundation wall, which ran under the centre hallway of the house above. We built another small plank table for a hotplate against the stone wall here. We didn't want the hotplate anywhere near a surface that could catch fire. We had taken out enough of the stones to create a ‘doorway' to the corridor between the two support walls, which formed a tunnel, a metre and a half wide, under the hallway above. To the left of the tunnel, we placed our pails for refuse. Further down the tunnel we had made another ‘doorway' on the right that led to the original bunker with the dirt cover.

 

One morning, shortly after Klara joined us, Mr Patrontasch woke up as if his mind was on fire. Without a word he grabbed the shovel and started digging a small hole in the very centre of the bunker.

Nobody said anything but we all watched with curiosity. Anything to break the routine was appreciated, and short, round Mr Patrontasch digging with the fury of the possessed was very much out of the routine. We had our Talmud of understandings down in the bunker. Since we were three families
living on top of each other, when one of us scratched their head, dandruff from all filled the air. If one of us set our foot on fire, nobody would have blinked an eye. So for a long time we just watched, through a haze of the men's cigarette smoke, Mr Patrontasch digging with the smile of a self-satisfied genius on his face. His wife, Sabina, couldn't take it any longer. ‘I'm not going to even ask what you're doing. Just tell me what you're planning to do with the dirt?' But Mr Patrontasch didn't answer and took out a tape measure, gauging the depth of the hole. He grunted and kept digging.

After a few more shovels, he measured again and, not paying any attention to any of us, he put his feet in the hole and gradually unfolded his squat body until he was standing straight, his head just beneath the roof of the bunker. This could have been a scene from a silent movie. But it wasn't. It was our life. I felt like applauding, and we all had to take our turn standing in the hole. To unfold my body, which had been compressed like a little concertina for days, was a pleasure I was never required to experience before. I wouldn't have got any exercise except for Julia, who thank God brought me and Mania upstairs once a week to help her clean. Scrubbing floors. Cleaning the kitchen. The bathroom. I didn't care. It was all gold to me.

The first time Julia called us upstairs to wax the floors, Mania and I got down on our hands and knees with big sheepskin buffers that went on our hands like mittens. Ala came home from work and saw us on our hands and knees and gave us a smile.

‘That's not how it's done.' I wasn't an expert on polishing floors, but I certainly had an idea how it was done. The first thing Ala did was turn on the radio and find a station with dance music. Then she took off her shoes and put her feet in the buffers and started to dance to the swing music on the radio. Mania and I followed her example and we started dancing, alone, with each other, shyly at
first, faster, slower, comically, showing off, dancing wildly and madly until we were too exhausted to move another step and the parquet floors gleamed. Julia rewarded us with rolls and with fresh cold water from the well outside. The food I would share with the children downstairs, but the water I savoured for myself.

And once in a great while we went upstairs to wash our hair. I cannot tell you how much pleasure that gave us. The smell of soap and the luxury of hot water were almost too delicious to bear. Julia poured hot water over my head and dug her fingers into my scalp. I wished it would never end. Downstairs, water was measured in teaspoons, and usually cold; we often had to make the choice between drinking and washing. But upstairs a white-tiled wood stove threw off warm dry heat and the smell of fresh baked bread, borscht and mushroom and cheese pirogies filled the air. Even if it was only for a few minutes, it was enough for me.

Our family, with the exception of Mama, who had asthma and a thyroid condition, had always enjoyed the best of health. I used to take this for granted. But with an epidemic in the ghetto, and with eleven of us living on top of each other, washing once a week, breathing in dank, mouldy air, I was concerned about Mama. We had been lucky enough to live with a hospital just on the other side of the backyard, as well as plenty of doctors only a short walk away. But now if there was a medical emergency there would be no doctor, no hospital. We hadn't even an elementary first aid kit. But so far, Mama didn't even have a sniffle or a wheeze. She wasn't hot when we were cold or cold when we were hot. Her throat wasn't sore; her poor muscles didn't ache; her hair wasn't dry or falling out; she wasn't even cranky. All of us were the picture of health.

 

We had got into the habit of expecting to see Beck once or twice a day. He, not Julia, who couldn't climb into the bunker, brought
us our food most of the time. I could tell he enjoyed the company of the men and he loved to talk. But he rarely said much to the children. I was intimidated by him and nervous to be around him, no matter how comfortable he seemed. I was afraid of saying something that might upset him or in any way jeopardize our place in the bunker. Of course, I didn't think I had ever said anything in my entire life to upset a grown-up. That was Mania's job. But I could tell he noticed me and made a silly comment or two about me always having my nose in a book. My reaction was embarrassment. I just wasn't used to strange men talking to me. I was starting to realize just how sheltered I was. The adults I had conversations with were my family, my teachers and friends of my parents. Even though Zolkiew was populated with hundreds of Becks, up close he was as exotic as a lion to me.

In the middle of December, Mama started worrying that we didn't have proper presents to give the Becks for Christmas. We went through our things and nothing seemed good enough. They were risking their lives to save us and we didn't have anything decent to give them.