The Train to Warsaw (14 page)

Back at the hotel, Jascha poured out vodka. Drink darling, he said to her. Lilka sat in the armchair by the window in her coat and hat. She held out her hand mechanically for the glass. I have no feelings left, she said dully. Jascha closed the curtains. Haven't we seen enough snow? he asked her. He poured himself out another glass and drank it down. Let's go to bed, he said. I've had enough of Warsaw to last me another three lifetimes.

That night in the darkness he took her in his arms. Come to me, my darling, he said. He kissed the flesh of her throat, her mouth. How I waited for you after the war. Here is the one, said Adam to Eve, whose impending arrival rang through me like a bell all night. That was me, my sweetheart. Night after night as I waited for you. He kissed the soft skin between her legs and then knelt between them. Her thighs opened, her mouth softened and she half rose to meet him. My beloved, she murmured. He entered her with the passion of a young man. Let me come home, he cried out.

That night they were as though young again. She lay on the sheets soft and open as a young girl. Again and again he rose up and entered her. And when at last they lay breathless, their legs entwined, their skin slick with moisture, Jascha turned to her and took her in his arms. The Promised Land, he said. In the moist twisted bedclothes, they closed their eyes and slept.

It was still dark when she began shaking his shoulder. Get up, she cried, tugging at him. He awoke in terror. What is it? What is it? What's going on? he asked, his eyes wide with panic. Jascha, we have to get out! What's the matter with you? he asked, his face creased with sleep. She struggled out of bed, throwing aside the tangled sheets, and reached in the near darkness for their battered leather suitcase. I have to get out, she repeated. Otherwise it will be too late. He turned to look at her. For God's sake, Lilka, what's come over you? My heart is beating, she said. I can't catch my breath. Calm down, he said, and come back to bed.

She began pulling their clothes off the hangers and throwing them into the suitcase. Will I need this? she asked, holding up a woolen jacket. How many kilos are we allowed to take with us? Lilka, stop all this, he protested sleepily, there's plenty of time. It's still night. It's not, she said, it's six in the morning. He reached out to pull the quilt over himself. Our train is at five this afternoon, he said. We can wait till then. Calm down. And let me go back to sleep. He turned over.

I dreamed I was on the
Umschlagplatz,
she said, caught up in the crowd pressing toward the train. It was a terrible mistake. I didn't belong there. Behind me hundreds of people shoving and screaming. What a terrible din. They were pushing me forward toward the open car. I turned around to run and the crowd parted to let me through. But I was paralyzed and couldn't move. I no longer remembered how to run. The crowd looked at me pityingly, they shook their heads. And then as though regretfully, the crowd closed around me and pushed me up into the train.

Not me, I cried, I'm not going. I'm still young. There was an old man in a black coat. Grandfather, I pleaded, I'm still young. But it was not my grandfather. He had been shot on his way to the bookseller of Nalewki Street. The old Jew looked at me with hooded eyes and he shrugged.
Alles rein,
he said. Everything inside. I was already inside. I was suffocating. And then they slid closed the heavy wooden door and shut out the sky. And there was darkness. Grandfather, I cried.

Jascha sighed. It was a dream, he said. That's all. Now calm down. It was long ago and it's over now. He watched her throwing their clothes into the suitcase, crumpled and unfolded. He reached out a hand. Come and sit down, he said softly. She shook her head. I can't. Lilka, be reasonable. Jascha, please, she implored him. He watched her face. All right, he said at last. But we can at least have breakfast. Hurriedly she began to put on her clothes. No. We can't. There's no time. You have to get dressed. And go down and check out. We've got to be on the first train out of here. She put on her boots. There'll be a terrible crowd at the station. We want to be sure to get on.
Bo
z
˙
e Mój,
he murmured. My God. He struggled to the bathroom, turned on the tap in the sink and washed his face with cold water.

They set off in the freezing half darkness. Warsaw lay quiet in the early morning frost. She sat stiffly against the frayed fabric of the taxi seat. Jascha sat beside her smoking, his eyes red rimmed, his chin rough with stubble. There had been no time to shave. They sat silently, watching the city roll past.

The taxi pulled up in front of the station. The driver got out and pulled their bag from the trunk. He took the money and wished them a good journey. Well well, said Lilka. At least he didn't ask us where we were from. He didn't have to ask, said Jascha. He knew.

Dawn was coming up over Warsaw. The city lay soft and silent beneath the snow. The gilded baroque domes of the churches began to glow beneath the lightening sky. What a beautiful city it was, said Lilka as they stood on the pavement. Before the war. Say goodbye to Warsaw, she said. We won't be back. I said goodbye to Warsaw forty years ago, he replied. I thought . . . she began. I know what you thought, he replied. The strangest thing, she told him, is that I have forgotten London. Forgotten our life there. Forgotten all those years. As if they never happened. It will come back to you, he told her. She bound up her hair in a knot and pulled on her fur hat. It's as though I never left Warsaw. Why, she asked him, did we have to?

They stood together on the platform. In the early light of dawn, a group of three workmen stood at the end of the platform, their toolboxes beside them. They wore rough padded jackets and pants and mangy
chapkas
on their heads; their cigarettes hung from their cold lips so they could keep their hands in their pockets.

Lilka pulled back her sleeve and looked at her watch. How brave they were, she said softly, those Jews who fought against all odds in April 1943. The women too. Even They were surprised at the courage of the Jewish women. During the eight weeks of the Ghetto Uprising, I had an irresistible longing to go back to the ghetto. I wanted to be with the Jews who were fighting Them with antiquated guns and homemade Molotov cocktails as the ghetto burned and the buildings collapsed.

The Jews had built a whole system of underground bunkers. As the ghetto burned it was nearly impossible to breathe in the underground bunkers, and those who could came out into the light of day. They fought in the sewers, in the basements, in the attics. But They were armed with incendiary bombs and tanks and flamethrowers and all manner of sophisticated weapons. And we had nothing. The Jews wanted to die fighting. How did we know They would set the whole ghetto on fire?

She tugged her scarf up around her mouth and chin. Just before Easter, I walked to the ghetto Wall. What a beautiful spring day. The sun shone, it was warm, and everywhere the trees had pressed out pale young leaves. As I came closer, I saw that beside the ghetto Wall, a funfair was in progress. There were rides, a carousel; women in thin dresses were eating doughnuts; children dressed in their Sunday best lined up for the merry-go-round. There was even a sky ride where you stepped into little cars which swung around high above the ground.

Behind the Wall, the flames leapt up into the sky. Black ash rose in the air and floated over to Our Side. As the ghetto burned, the flames rising high into the air, you could hear the screams and cries coming from the other side of the Wall. That Sunday, as the Jewish fighters burned to death in their bunkers, couples were riding high in those little cars, shrieking with laughter, riding high above the walls where they could look down and see the spectacle of the Jews dying out. I stood watching the small cars turning faster and faster. They burned the ghetto to the ground. And everyone in it. There was nothing left. Finished. Kaput. The ghetto burned for days. Even weeks later it was still smoking . . .

Ach Lilka, said Jascha. Enough.

They heard the whistle and the train, its metal sides thick with snow, came into view. He picked up their suitcase and pushed her ahead of him into the train. Go, he said to her. We don't want to be left behind.

They sat side by side in the compartment. The train lurched and began to move. When they had left the city behind, Jascha pressed back the pleated curtain and stared out the window at the endless white fields. Look, he said, a hare. He thinks he's hidden, invisible. He doesn't know I see him despite his pale camouflaged coat, despite his best efforts. And that I can flush him out at any moment. He turned to her. Have you any more of those chocolates? he asked.

We came up with all kinds of schemes to distract the German guards at the gates. Once, he said, we sent two people who could pass for workmen. They had come, we informed the Germans, to repair the policeman's booth. The door needed work. There stood our people with their wooden toolbox. They couldn't have repaired a door if their lives depended on it. We convinced the two guards that they had to go into the booth and close the door so the workmen could see how to fix it. And then, said Jascha, his cheeks shiny, while They were otherwise engaged, the driver gave the password and the wagon rolled through the gate into the ghetto. Beneath the cover lay bulging sacks of butter, oil, sugar.

He tore off the silver wrapper and pressed the chocolate into his mouth. When the #10 streetcar from The Other Side came down Zamenhofa Street, we were waiting. The driver and the conductor had been paid off. When it slowed at the turn we ran out. And pulled down linen sacks of kasha, wheat, flour, and rye that had been loaded on The Other Side. Right away we threw on sacks of bread, of knitted goods, of hand-stitched leather goods. Do you know how quick we had to be? It was a matter of seconds before the streetcar sped up again. That was in the early days, when the streetcar from The Other Side still went through the ghetto.

I was the quickest of them all, he said. And when the work was over we went to see the girls who were waiting for us. Before I met you, darling, he added. I was strong in those days. And quick. And every moment we were in danger. Women were mad for me. Were they? she asked. Sometimes I brought them something we had smuggled in. A pot of jam, a hair ribbon, a few cigarettes. What a hero I was. I still had dark curls. And I could run like the wind. He smiled. What adventures we had. He smoked and flicked the ashes onto the floor. In those days, in the ghetto, long long ago, he said, I was young.

The endless fields lay white and otherworldly in the pale winter light. Lilka took off her fur hat and laid it beside her. Before the war, she said, we had a bird. A blue and yellow parakeet in a cage. This bird was constantly cleaning itself. I used to open the door and let it out when my parents weren't home. It would fly around the room aimlessly chattering and cheeping in a high-pitched tone. Marysia would come running in and try to catch it in her dish towel. I would laugh and clap my hands as she ran in circles with the cloth and the parakeet flapped its little feathers.

She looked at him. I'll never come back, she said. No, darling, he replied, aren't you glad? It's over, she said. Yes, my sweetheart, he said, it is. I want to go home, she said. I thought Warsaw was your home, he replied. Isn't that what you kept telling me? I have no home, she said. She stared out the window at the dark pines sagging beneath the snow. I did once but that's long ago.

I'm homeless, she said. You and all the other Polish Jews, he replied. Well never mind, he said. We'll have to do without. How can you be like that? she said. How? he asked. I've learned. London is not my home, she said. It means nothing to me. And Warsaw? he asked.

He took out a small bottle of vodka. Well well, she said in surprise, where did you get that? Drink, my angel, he said. Forget about all this. Do you remember all the tricks we used during the war to make ourselves forget? Even for a moment? He opened the bottle and handed it to her. Don't be sad, darling. All good things come to an end. She took a drink and handed the bottle back to him. He put back his head and drank. Come and sit on my lap, my sweetheart, he said, wiping his mouth. Shall I try to comfort you?

There were SS everywhere checking papers, she said. And taking away anyone who looked Jewish. They weren't very good at knowing who was a Jew and who wasn't—if they didn't have sad dark eyes and dark curls, They couldn't spot them. But the Poles knew better and could always be counted on to help. They could identify the slightest gesture, expression, way of pronouncing a word. And again and again they pointed us out, informed on us, and collected their cash.

Do you remember, she said, how our fellow Poles waited right outside the Walls, the
szmalcownicy,
ready to blackmail anyone escaping from the ghetto? How they dug up paving stones from the street beside the Wall and hurled them over to Our Side, hoping to strike a Jew? How they robbed us blind? Stripped us naked? Betrayed us to the Germans? Our own Poles. Lilka, he said, stop it. Not everyone.