The Devil's Arithmetic (16 page)

“With all his money he could not buy his way out?” asked Esther's mother.

“In this place he is just a Jew, like the rest of us,” said Gitl. “Like the least of us.”

“He's a
shmatte
now,” said Hannah, remembering Rivka's word.

Gitl opened her eyes and slapped Hannah's face without warning. “That may be camp talk out there, but in here, we say the prayer for the dead properly, like good Jews.”

“Gitl the Bear,” someone murmured.

Hannah looked up, hand on her smarting cheek. She could not find the speaker, so spoke to them all. “Gitl is right,” she said, her cheek burning. “Gitl is right.”

Gitl began reciting the
Kaddish,
rocking back and forth on the sleeping shelf with the sonorous words, and the prayer was like the tolling of a death bell. The rest joined her at once. Hannah found she was saying the words along with them, even though her mind didn't seem to have any memory of the prayer:
Yis-ga-dal v'yis-ka-dash sh'may ra-bo
 . . .

THE FIRST CHOOSING HAD BEEN THE HARDEST, HANNAH
thought later. After that, it merely became part of the routine. And if you didn't stand too near the Greeks or work too slowly or say the wrong word or speak too loudly or annoy a guard or threaten the
blokova
or stumble badly or fall ill, the chances were that this time you wouldn't be Chosen. This time.

Part of her revolted against the insanity of the rules. Part of her was grateful. In a world of chaos, any guidelines helped. And she knew that each day she remained alive,
she remained alive.
One plus one plus one. The Devil's arithmetic, Gitl called it.

And so one day eroded into the next. Her memories became camp memories only: the day a guard gave her a piece of sausage and asked for nothing in return. The morning a new shipment of
zugangi
arrived. The morning a new shipment
didn't
arrive. The afternoon Gitl
organized
a rope and the children all played jumping
games after dinner. And that same night when red-headed Masha from Krakow hanged herself with the jump rope, having learned that her husband and seventeen-year-old son had gone up the smokestack.

It was on a sunny afternoon, as Hannah cleaned out cauldrons with Shifre, that Hannah asked dreamily, “What is your favorite food? If you could have anything in the world.”

They were in the tipped-over pots on their hands and knees, scraping off bits of burned potato that still clung stubbornly to the vast pot bottom.

Shifre backed out of the cauldron, wiping one dirty hand across her cheek. She thought a moment before answering. It was not a new question. They had been asking each other variations of the same thing for weeks.

“An orange, I think,” she said slowly. That was a change. Usually she said an egg.

“An orange,” Hannah echoed, pleased with the novelty. “I'd forgotten oranges.”

“Or an egg.”

“Boiled?”

“Or fried.” They were back to their regular conversation.

“Or scrambled?”

“Or an omelet.”

“How about . . . pizza!” Hannah said suddenly.

“What is
pizza?
” Shifre asked.

“It's . . . it's . . . I don't know,” Hannah said miserably, fingers in her mouth, blurring the words. “I can't remember. I can only remember potato soup.”

“You can remember eggs,” Shifre said.

“No, I can't. Not pizza, not eggs either. Only potato soup and hard brown bread. That's all I can remember.” She popped a piece of the burned potato scraping into her mouth.

“Well, do not cry over this
pizza.
Tell me about it.”

“I can't,” Hannah said. “And I'm not crying over the thing, whatever it is. I'm crying because I can't remember
what
it is. I can't remember anything.”

“You can remember the shtetl,” Shifre said. “And Lublin.”

“That's the trouble,” said Hannah. “I can't.”

Just then Rivka came out of the kitchen and shook her finger at Hannah. “No tears,” she said. “If the
blokova
sees you crying . . .”

“That three-fingered bi . . .” Hannah stopped herself in time. It was a dangerous habit to fall into, calling the
blokova
names. One might be Chosen for doing such a thing.

“If she loses control of her
zugangi,
she will be a two-fingered whatever-you-call-her,” said Rivka, smiling.

“What do you mean?” Hannah and Shifre asked together.

“How do you think she lost those other fingers?”

Hannah mused. “I thought maybe she'd been born that way.”

Holding up her own hand and wriggling the fingers, Rivka pointed to one. “She lost control and a whole group of
zugangi
rioted. That was right before I got here. They were sent through Lilith's Cave and she lost
one finger. Then she lost control and six
zugangi
hanged themselves one night, my aunt Sarah among them. Aunt Sarah had been sick for a long time and could no longer disguise it. She knew she was to be sent to the hospital. Everyone really sick in the hospital goes up the stack. So she said to my mother, ‘
I
will do the choosing, not them. God will understand.'” Rivka smiled. “A second finger. I wish Aunt Sarah could have seen the
blokova
's face in the morning. When they took the finger.”

“Maybe
we
could do something to help the
blokova
balance her hand. Three is such an unlucky number,” Shifre said.

Rivka shook her head. “Too dangerous,” she said. “Let the grown-ups make their plans.”

“What plans?” asked Hannah.

“Oh,” Rivka said mysteriously, “there are always grown-up plans.”

“What plans?” Hannah and Shifre asked together. But before Rivka could answer, a shout from the gate end of the compound riveted them.

“Commandant!”

“But he was just through yesterday,” Hannah said in a nervous whisper. “He's not due for at least another few days.”

Ignoring her, Rivka already had her hands to her mouth, making the clucking sound to warn the children. Shifre, too, was signaling.

“It's not
fair!
” Hannah complained, her voice rising into a whine.

Shifre nudged her angrily, and Hannah began to cluck as the little ones scrambled for the midden pile.

The first two in were a brother and a sister, seven and eight years old. They left green and blue shorts and shirts at the edge of the dump. Next came a nine-year-old girl carrying a baby. She shucked off her shoes as she ran and, holding the baby under one arm, tore off its shirt. When she set the naked baby down by the side of the pile in order to get out of her own dress, the child immediately began crawling toward the midden on its own.

Like spawning fish, the children came from everywhere to dive into the pile. They waded or crept in one after another while the horrible clucking continued and overhead the swallows, alerted to a feast of insects, dipped and soared.

Hannah finally heard the commandant's car, then saw it as it barreled toward them, down the long bare avenue between the barracks. It moved relentlessly toward the hospital, which squatted at the compound's end.

The car had just passed the
zugangi
barracks when the hospital door opened and a small thin boy limped down the steps, his right knee bloody and his blue eyes ringed with dirt. He was wiping his hands on his shirt. When he looked up and saw the car bearing down on him, despite the desperate clucking from all around, he froze, staring.

“Reuven!” Hannah cried out. “Run! Run to the midden!” But the boy didn't move and she felt a sudden coldness strike through her as if an ice dagger had been plunged into her belly.

“Gottenyu!”
Rivka whispered.

Shifre, who had been looking at the midden with its
bright flags of clothing, heard Hannah's shout and turned. She grabbed Hannah's hand, squeezing it until there was no feeling left.

The car slowed, then stopped. Commandant Breuer himself got out of the car. He walked toward Reuven and the child could not look at him, staring instead at Hannah, his hand outstretched toward her. Big tears ran down his cheeks, but he cried without a sound.

“He knows,” Hannah whispered.

“Hush!” Rivka said.

The commandant looked down at the boy. “Have you hurt yourself, my child?” he asked, his voice deadly soft.

Hannah moved forward a half-step and Rivka jerked her back.

“Let me see,” Breuer said. He took a white handkerchief out of his pocket and touched it to Reuven's bloody knee thoughtfully. “And where is your mother?”

When Reuven didn't answer, Hannah stepped forward. “Please, sir, his mother is dead.”

Rivka gasped. Hannah heard her and added hastily, “She died years ago, when he was born.”

The commandant stood up and stared at her, his eyes gray and unreadable. “Are you his sister?”

She shook her head dumbly, afraid to say more.

“That is good. For you.” Breuer bent down and wrapped the handkerchief around the boy's knee, knotting it gently with firm, practiced hands. Then he picked Reuven up. “A boy your age should be with his mother,” he said, smiling. “So I shall be sure you go to her.” He handed Reuven to his driver, who was waiting by the
car door. Then, without another word, Breuer went up the stairs to the hospital and closed the door so quietly they could not tell when it was finally shut.

That evening, the sky was red and black with the fire and smoke. The latest arrivals in the cattle cars had not been placed in barracks. The camp was full. The newcomers had been shipped directly to processing, a change in routine that frightened even the long-termers.

Rumors swept the camp. “A shipment from Holland,” some said. “A shipment from Silesia.” No one knew for sure.

But Reuven did not come back. Not that evening. Not that night.

“Not ever,” Hannah muttered to herself as she watched the smoke curling up, writing its long numbers against the stone-colored sky. “And it's my fault.”

“Why is it your fault?” Rivka asked.

“I should have said he was my brother.”

“Then you would not be here either. It would not have helped Reuven.”

“He is dead.” Hannah said the word aloud curiously, as if understanding it for the first time. “Dead.”

“Do not say that word.”

“Monsters!” Hannah said suddenly. “Gitl is right. We are all monsters.”

“
We
are the victims,” Rivka said. “
They
are the monsters.”

“We are all monsters,” Hannah said, “because we are letting it happen.” She said it not as if she believed it but as if she were repeating something she had heard.

“God is letting it happen,” Rivka said. “But there is a reason. We cannot see it yet. Like the binding of Isaac. My father always said that the universe is a great circle and we—we only see a small piece of the arc. God is no monster, whatever you think now. There is a reason.”

Hannah scuffed the ground with her foot. “We should fight,” she said. “We should go down fighting.”

Rivka smiled sadly. “What would we fight with?”

“With guns.”

“We have no guns.”

“With knives.”

“Where are our knives?”

“With—with something.”

Rivka put her arm around Hannah's shoulder. “Come. There is more work to be done.”

“Work is not fighting.”

“You want to be a hero, like Joshua at Jericho, like Samson against the Philistines.” She smiled again.

“I want to be a hero like . . .” Hannah thought a minute but she could think of no one.

“Who?”

“I don't know.”

“My mother said, before she . . . died . . . that it is much harder to live this way and to die this way than to go out shooting. Much harder. Chaya, you are a hero. I am a hero.” Rivka stared for a moment at the sky and the curling smoke. “We are all heroes here.”