The Puppet Boy of Warsaw (6 page)

We closed the curtain, then stepped forward and bowed, Ellie’s hand held tightly in mine, warm and sweaty. I’m pretty sure I saw a tear roll down Mother’s cheek but the twins ran up to us, grabbing the pigeon feather, the flower – a gift from my mother’s window box – and the handkerchief icicle.

We held on to the magic of that afternoon like a precious jewel, but it wouldn’t be long before our small joy was shattered.

A few days later Paul’s coughing got worse; it was now a continuous hacking that cut day and night into fearful ribbons for us all. I felt my own chest hurting as I listened to Paul’s struggle day in and out. Aunt Cara tried everything to get nourishing food and medicine on the black market, but she could find hardly anything. She even sold her wedding dress for a tiny bottle of some dubious syrup, but Paul still grew thinner and paler every day, fading away in front of our eyes. In despair Aunt Cara took him to the hospital, but the nurses sent them away. Children more poorly than Paul had already taken all the beds, they said.

The only medicine left was our puppets, and Paul asked us again and again to bring out the villain and the fool. And so we did, playing for Paul and the twins, and sometimes Cara and Mother joined us for a while.

One morning I woke early. I turned and saw Mother sitting upright on the edge of the bed. I could see the tension in her back – tight as a bow ready to fire off an arrow. As if she sensed my waking, she turned to face me. Her eyes were bloodshot.

‘It’s Paul, Mika . . . He’s gone. He died in the night. I didn’t want to wake you.’ She turned away and put her head in her hands.

It would have been his birthday next week. There were no sounds from the kitchen.

‘What is happening, Mika? What are they doing to us?’ I stayed silent – there was nothing I could possibly say. I wanted to see Ellie, comfort her, hold her hand, and yet I dreaded it too. She must have been with Paul, right beside him, all through his last night. They slept on field beds next to each other. Her dear little brother. I did not want to think of him in the same way as the many corpses I had seen in the streets of the ghetto. This was Paul, our Paul.

I think he knew he was dying. About a week before, after yet another puppet show, Ellie had gone to put back the puppets and for a brief moment we were alone.

‘You have a gift, Mika. You must play for all the children in the ghetto. When I’m gone I hope I can join you – in spirit, I mean. Maybe I can become a puppet, one of your troupe, the fool perhaps or the knight.’

‘Don’t be silly, Paul. You’re getting better. And when you’re stronger you can help me, be a second puppeteer if you like. Now you should rest, I think we’ve exhausted you.’ That was the last conversation we had alone.

For the next days life in our household was suspended. We huddled together in the kitchen like cattle in thick fog, frightened to take another step. Everyone caught in their own world. In the end I didn’t find words to say to Ellie but simply hugged her, and she let me. I also hugged Aunt Cara, so stiff she didn’t move an inch – embracing a tree would have felt softer. When we returned from the funeral with the rabbi, everyone gathered around the kitchen table. Ellie pulled at my sleeve and whispered, ‘Let’s get the puppets. Paul wouldn’t want us to sit and cry into our tea. Let’s put on his favourite show.’

And so, there and then in our kitchen, we put on a silly show for Paul. I did not tell Ellie what Paul had said, but I could barely handle the fool. He wanted to be at the forefront of every scene from beginning to end, to rescue and kiss the princess, fight the dangerous magician, and at the end he bowed five times in front of our little audience.

Ellie changed after Paul’s death. The confident and chatty girl vanished and instead she spent all day sitting in our only armchair, which she claimed as her new home, poring over her books, particularly
The Arabian Nights
, reading all thousand and one tales. She hardly spoke. Only when I could persuade her to join me and the puppets, tucked behind the small stage, did Ellie come alive again.

And so we continued: the puppets were our companions, and although our hands animated them, they also had their own lives – and we were amazed at some of the wisdom that tumbled from their mouths.

Word spread quickly about us and soon our neighbours approached us with requests for birthdays, bar mitzvahs, and any other special occasion they could think of. I think Ellie continued for the sake of her brother, because the moment she heard we had another request, she would put her book down and lift herself out of the chair.

‘OK, let’s go and rehearse, we should think about a new play. What’s the occasion this time?’

We usually returned with small gifts: pencils, handkerchiefs or even some bread. But once we were home, Ellie would slump back into her armchair, open her book and, like a diver jumping into deep water, disappear somewhere I could not reach her.

Then, all of a sudden, people from other parts of the ghetto began to drop by our apartment. They knocked at the large front door, and when one of us stuck our head out of the window, they shouted, ‘We want to speak to the puppeteer, we’ve an engagement for you.’

I would put on my most professional voice, deep and a bit hoarse, then rush down and lead them into our flat for further negotiations. My adolescent voice tumbled like a roller coaster, high and crystal clear one day, dropping to a husky, rough sound another. It was a most unreliable instrument, but I had great fun lending the villains my deepest, meanest tones, and the fool my highest pitch.

We sat at the kitchen table and bartered: a puppet show with at least five characters for half a loaf of rye bread. For a second show we would request something special: some butter, an egg or fresh vegetables. Very few could offer those things but we always managed to bring home at least some bread and sometimes, just sometimes, a little more.

One morning, exactly four weeks after Paul’s death, I found a note that had been slipped through the front door.

‘
Dear Puppeteer. We have heard of your wonders and would like to invite you to put on a puppet show for our dear son’s birthday. We can provide jam and some sugar as payment.

Yours truly, Marek Wonderblum

I rushed upstairs, assembled everyone in the kitchen and passed the slightly crumpled note around. When it reached Mother she didn’t smile.

‘Look at the address; it’s in the small ghetto. I’ve heard it’s even more squalid and overcrowded there.’

The Germans had divided the ghetto into two parts: the biggest in the north-west of the city, and the ‘small ghetto’ to the south. They didn’t want to lose Chlodna Street to us and so they built a small wooden bridge between the two parts.

‘I’m not sure, Mika, what if it’s a trap? Why did the person who delivered this not knock? What if they are an informer?’

We heard many stories about informers these days, traitors selling their soul for a bit of bread, some extra privileges. Yes, we needed to be careful, but this invitation did not smell of such things to me.

‘Mother, they are promising us sugar and jam. When was the last time you tasted something sweet?’

She looked away.

‘I have to go, Mama.’

‘I’m coming too,’ Ellie said, rising from her chair.

‘That’s absolutely out of the question. Ellie is staying here,’ Aunt Cara intervened. Something had hardened in her since Paul’s death. I don’t think she had even cried over him; instead she shuffled around the rooms as if she were wearing an old, heavy suit of armour. Also we still had no news about my uncle. Cara often made it all the way to the Pawiak, only to be turned away.

Ellie said nothing. She knew she couldn’t argue with her mother. She slumped back into her chair, picked up her heavy book and disappeared into her world of stories, as if nothing else mattered.

I
left our apartment early the next day. Wrapped in Grandfather’s coat, I reached deep into its pockets for the comforting presence of the puppets. I had decided not to bring the stage or many props – this time the coat itself would be the stage.

On the surface I looked like any other boy, but emboldened by the coat, I strode along at a good pace, ready for my hero’s journey through the ghetto. What evil could possibly penetrate my magical coat?

I stepped out into the road and moved swiftly along Gęsia Street. With my mind occupied by thoughts about Ellie and the puppets, I had not noticed how much worse the ghetto had become in the past months. Like our flat, the ghetto was bursting at the seams. There had never been enough space, but now I passed whole families sitting on the pavement, a piece of rug with suitcases on either side marking their small territory like islands. Many, wrapped in rags, begged with thin voices, stretching out their bony hands. Even our puppets were better dressed. And the closer I got to the ‘small ghetto’, the worse it got: not only were there hundreds of beggars lining the roads, but emaciated corpses lay on pavements or in gutters, flimsily covered with newspaper, or half naked and exposed, many barefoot. Shoes, like bread and warm clothes, were among the most precious items in the ghetto. The dead did not need shoes any more, but no one should have to enter the otherworld barefoot. I counted five corpses on my way, two of them children, maybe not older than six years old.

I reached the wooden bridge connecting the large and small ghettos. When I got to the middle, I stopped. It was forbidden, but I couldn’t prevent myself from letting my eyes drift over our lost city – this was the only place where we could see beyond the ghetto, down into Chlodna Street, where trams filled with Christian Poles went right through our ghetto. Chlodna Street was so close and yet unreachable. I rushed on.

When I turned into Krochmalna Street, I saw a thin arm sticking out from under some newspaper like a dry branch. My stomach heaved and I began to run as fast as I could. What would happen to all these people? Would anyone throw a hand full of earth on their graves, speak some kind words? Or would they end up in a hole, thrown in with other bodies, covered with chalk, no one even remembering their names?

Every evening we saw the sad wooden carts trundling through the ghetto, pulled by a few thin men, who picked up the corpses and tossed them into the carts like empty sacks. During the daytime, the bodies lay where they had died, passers-by stepping around and over them. Just another obstacle, one more annoying feature of ghetto life. What had we become?

Chilled to the bone, I pulled my coat closer. Crowds gathered around small fires, others stood in long queues, waiting for a ladle of soup from the soup kitchens that had sprung up everywhere. The soups were thin and no one was fed properly, but for a moment, an hour maybe, it soothed the nagging hunger, kept the wild, raging animal at bay.

And so many children! Dressed in filthy rags, barefoot with matted hair, a crust of dirt covering their small faces, they sat listlessly next to their parents, or worse still, huddled together: clusters of lost souls with round, glassy eyes. Such large eyes in such small faces. I didn’t want to look any more. My hand reached for the prince, who lay safely buried inside the coat’s pockets.

The stench of misery and despair was everywhere: a mixture of cabbage, dirt, sewage and death; the smell of imprisoned crowds, thrown together with no escape.

I pulled up the collar of my coat and covered my nose. What could I do anyway with my silly puppet shows? Shouldn’t I be helping in one of the soup kitchens instead, doing something useful? I tried to pass by like a blinkered horse, but even blindfold it would have been impossible to blank out the stench and the sounds: the beggar’s pleading cries, the soft moaning of those too weak to stand, people dying right in front of me, a pedlar’s desperate voice trying to sell his last treasures; a lifetime’s belongings for the price of a loaf of bread.

I was nearing the end of Sliska Street, just around the corner from the address scribbled on my invitation, when a small bundle caught my eye: wrapped in dirty rags, it was moving from doorway to doorway like a nervous dog, rummaging for food. I approached the figure, but before I could say anything, it flew at me, hissing and growling, followed by a shriek and a flapping of small arms.

‘Go away, leave me alone!’ A tiny girl stared at me with big, glassy eyes and a wolf’s determination. She must have been about five.

‘OK, OK, don’t be frightened,’ I tried to reassure her. I stood still for a moment, and then reached into my left pocket. Very slowly, so as not to startle her, bring on another scream or, worse still, a bite, I pulled out the princess.

‘Oh!’ She stood stock still, her tiny hands covering her mouth.

‘Hello, little girl, what is your name?’ Princess Sahara spoke softly.

‘Hannah.’

‘And what are you doing here all on your own, Hannah?’

‘Oh, just looking.’

‘But what are you looking for, my dear?’

She hesitated for a moment, suspicious. ‘Nothing.’

‘Do you want me to help you look? I have very sharp eyes. I can see into houses and inside people’s hearts.’

‘Oh, I don’t know . . . maybe.’

‘Maybe I can find someone else who can help us look.’ With my right hand I pulled out the monkey. For a moment she stared, and then something changed in the girl’s face: the subtle beginnings of a smile.

The monkey jumped on to her arm, ‘I want to help too! Where shall we look? What are we looking for?’

‘My brother, I lost him.’ Now words tumbled out of her mouth like marbles.

‘What does he look like?’

‘Like me, but bigger.’

‘How much bigger?’

She put her hand above her head as far as she could reach.

‘And what’s his name?’

‘Janusz, like the man I live with now.’

‘And when did you last see your brother?’ I asked, bending down to match her size.

‘I don’t know, a while ago.’

‘And your mother and father?’ Silence. The girl’s face clouded over and she retreated back inside herself. I let the princess take her hand.

‘Hannah, do you want to come with me and see a puppet show? Afterwards we can look for your brother.’ The girl didn’t answer but started to walk alongside me. It was a start, and I had a plan.