Warsaw (3 page)

She tried to reason it out again. Hadn't she temporarily
saved the family? No one knew of her sacrifice and no one would know, except
her - but that was enough. It could've been worse. And it was over. She had
heard stories of how other policemen had raped and stolen from families and
still murdered or selected them for resettlement. Jessica Rubenstein yearned to
make herself feel better with such logical arguments, but in vain. Hate, shame,
revenge, powerlessness, emptiness consumes. She could smell the room and the
policeman's own vinegary odour. She wished him dead and would later picture him
being shot or hung, or arrested and paraded through the streets along with the
rest of the collaborators. He was revengeful and conceited. He coldly treated
it as but a trade or barter when he had first proposed the "deal" on
the stairs of her building, when she had run after him and pleaded for mercy.
And now he had further tried to buy her off with bread, rancid butter and some
rotten vegetables. And he had tried to justify his crime by insidiously arguing
that he was giving her a lesson in morality and survival. At no point in her
thoughts did Jessica use the word "assault", she had to use
"blackmailed". That he ultimately did not carry out the full extent
of his crime exonerated him not.

Not having kept track of time and fearing that it might be
getting late, Jessica bested the paralysis in her legs and got up.
Unfortunately Jessica picked her bag up too hastily and the potatoes ripped out
of the bottom and shot off in different directions in the street. The stricken
girl's nerves at that point shattered like glass and the rest of the contents
of her bounty fell into the squalid street. The sound and sight of the drama
attracted the attention of a few passers by and Jessica knew from experience
that soon the beggars and thieves would be swarming around her. But amazingly
they did not appear.

"Would you like some help?" offered a friendly
voice.

Jessica looked up to find a tall soldier standing before
her. Her eyes initially darted to the left and right of him to see if the kind
voice could've emanated from anyone else but it was the soldier who had approached
her. He had a sweet smile the girl would later muse that evening in bed as she
tried to beat back the tide of her other thoughts by dwelling upon the
Corporal, Thomas.

Understandably however, as well as being unsettled by his
manner and his fluent Polish, Jessica remained fearful from being addressed by
the uniform and all it represented - and manifested. She looked at him, half
perplexed and half petrified. Wishing to prove his intentions and to put the
traumatised girl at ease, Thomas began to pick the vegetables up from the
street. He flattened out what was left of the paper bag and placed it on the
pavement with all the provisions carefully piled upon it. Thomas held the thick
book in his hand and tried in vain to recall why it appeared so familiar.

"You speak Polish?" Jessica said nervously,
quizzically.

"Not as so to read Dickens but yes," the soldier
replied. He later day-dreamed of the times when he had taught "The Tale of
Two Cities" in his village outside Bonn. It was one of Thomas' favourite
novels when he was a student and he conceitedly fancied himself as something of
a Sydney Carton during his youth when he had first read the text. Even now he
could still quote his favourite extract from the book, albeit he would smile at
his former self and romantic ego,

"Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose up upon no sadder
sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of his own
help and own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to
let it eat him away." Duritz too could quote the passage, but smiled not
when he did so.

"Do you live far from here? Would you like me to help
you home with all this?"

Jessica, who could not take her eyes off the enigmatic
soldier, now sensed that she was attracting attention. She felt she had no
choice but to accept his assistance if she wanted to make sure she carried all
the food and candles home, despite her ingrained reservations. But so too there
was an intuition in her heart which persuaded Jessica that she could trust this
good soldier.

"I live a few blocks from here."

"My name is Thomas. Here, stack as much as you can in
my helmet and arms."

"My, my name is Jessica," she replied whilst
tentatively placing some bread into his cradling arms, glancing up at him with
trepidation and wonder.

She was pretty Thomas thought to himself. Jessica is also a
pretty name, though he refrained of course from telling the girl this. Her eyes
were a little red and her cheeks puffy - he guessed that the poor girl had been
crying - but still she was strikingly attractive. Her face was a little drawn
and skin pale but yet there was still an intelligence and comeliness in her
features. Despite her unflattering garb and malnutrition Thomas could easily
imagine what her figure must've looked like a few years ago. Yes, she was
beautiful and her long fair hair reminded the Corporal of how Maria's used to
look - but he hoped and believed that that was not the reason why he was
helping her. Later that night Thomas even feared for Jessica because of her
beauty and uncomfortably wondered if she had suffered for it - or would suffer
for it - at the hands of some of his more barbarous SS and Eastern European
comrades?

3.

Halina Rubenstein scrunched her face up in discomfort. Her
feet, sweaty and swollen, pinched inside of her stiff shoes. Yet still she
refused to take her husband's advice to just wear the woollen socks he had
bartered for her six months ago. They were ugly and it was common to wear just
socks in the home she had argued. Halina had been on her feet all day, washing,
sewing, haggling, cleaning and delousing. Finally she was cooking and about to
set the table, the task which signalled the end to her day nearly. All she had
to do was mash the potatoes - which had been cooked in one of the tenement's
three communal kitchens - and slice and ration the bread.

The last three years had aged the Jewish matriarch more than
the last fifteen. Her auburn hair had turned grey and brittle. Crows’ feet
perched upon her eyes and, where most of the old women in the ghetto looked
glum with sunken cheeks, Halina strangely looked glum through having developed
jowls. Her calloused hands had suddenly become liver-spotted over the course of
the summer although at first she fancied that they were just freckles. The heat
from the kitchens exhausted the once supercilious socialite but still she
refused to take the weight off her feet whilst waiting to serve dinner. They
were a family and they would eat as a family. Halina nervously looked at her
watch again and flared her nostrils in frustration at her daughter's tardiness.

"Where is she?"

Halina Rubenstein had repeated this question again in hope
of getting an answer or at least a comment, from her husband sitting at the
table - but he either deliberately ignored his wife or was just "away with
the fairies again". Nowadays she couldn't tell.

"Can't we eat now?" Kolya pleaded once more, his
fork upright in his tiny hand.

"No!" his mother snapped back, "Be patient!
We always eat as a family. Don't be so selfish. You're not the only one who's
hungry."

Witnessing the chastised expression on his face and
understanding how hungry her child must have been the mother cut off a piece of
bread for him, said sorry and stroked him on the cheek. As famished as Kolya was
he savoured the ration by slowly chewing each bite-sized piece of the stale
bread which he broke off from the thin slice.

Solomon Rubenstein broke into what was for him a smile upon
witnessing the lively enthusiasm and satisfaction on his son's face as he
enjoyed his bread. Father and son had all but swapped roles over the last two
years. Kolya now took care of his "Papa"
 
- often washing, dressing and feeding him when his mother
couldn't manage or was busy. The boy had replaced Solomon as, quite literally,
the principle bread winner in the house, running dangerous errands (which he
insisted were quite safe) for the Jewish Council and black market smugglers
alike. The teenager had shown a keen nerve and acumen for business over the
past year as he took it upon himself to get the best deal for what little
valuables the family had left to sell. Where Solomon had once tucked his baby
boy in and read to him, it was now one of the father and son's small pleasures
when Kolya read to his weak-sighted father in the evening. More than his wife
and daughter it was Kolya who an ailing Solomon derived the most pride and
happiness from. Unlike him his son's mettle had hardened at misfortune. Kolya,
seeing the faint expression of satisfaction in his father's eyes, grinned back.

There was no one incident or reason that could explain away
Solomon Rubenstein's atrophy. Partly it was all the false hopes that had toyed
with and then lacerated his heart - that the Poles or French would resist, that
Britain would come to their aid, that things couldn't get any worse. So too the
once respected patriarch had tormented himself with guilt. Wasn't he
responsible for not having got his family out of Warsaw? Halina had tried to
comfort him and argue, "Where would we have gone? Sooner or later we would
have ended up here, or Lodz," but her words proved little or no
consolation for the doctor. There was even a period when Solomon knew himself
to be suffering from a number of symptoms of depression, but still the
stultifying blackness spread, like a virus, throughout the capillaries of his
soul. His sleep patterns swung between insomnia and then, for the next month or
two, he would spend all day sleeping. At first Halina tried to eliminate her
husband's detachment by encouraging him to practise medicine again. She spread
the word and offered her husband's services for free (while hoping that she
would be able to make the neighbours pay eventually). He duly received a number
of patients. But what could he do for all the malnourished and terminally ill
children? Where was his pharmacy? Did they think he was a miracle worker? More
and more he couldn't concentrate or remember things that were standard to the
profession. He soon felt even more useless and was vexed that his wife had
forced him into doing it. They needed to look after themselves now. It was
selfish, but true.

 
Halina Rubenstein
had all but given up on her husband of late in terms of him returning to the
proud man he used to be. She would still nag and sometimes even hit him in
order to provoke a reaction, or she would sometimes break down and cry upon him
hoping that if he too broke down then he might be able to have a break-through
and come to his senses - but her husband was all but dead to the world most of
the time. They had murdered him. She felt guilty about it but she hoped that
someone, something (God?), would murder them all or imprison them in the
ghetto. They would all get their comeuppance. They must.

One can only imagine her terror and hate then when one of
"them" stood before Halina, smiling, in her own home. Why was he
here? Was he on his own? Was he with Jessica? If so, why? - she questioned to
the stamp of her galloping heart.

"The soldier helped me home with this food Mama. It's
okay."

"It's okay!" Halina half says to herself, half
ignoring the fact as to why her daughter has such a large amount of food. Shock
was now thankfully displacing terror. But the hysterics would come later that
evening, complaining in bed to her dormant husband.

Thomas, embarrassed, remained standing in the doorway.
During the awkward silence which ensued he surveyed the room. The Rubenstein’s
were somewhat privileged in the ghetto, if one may be permitted to use such a
term. The average room in the Warsaw ghetto housed six people; the Rubenstein's
were a family of four and possessed a sizeable living room/kitchen as well as
another room which served as the parent's bedroom, a storage space and a
cupboard for a toilet (that was where the bucket could be found). A dining
table, covered with a yellowing bed sheet, rested on worm-ridden floorboards in
the middle of the room. Underneath the two grimy windows were two beds, or
rather two woollen blankets (during the winter however the two blankets would
become one as the two children, hugging each other for warmth and comfort,
slept together). A medium-sized trunk with a heavy padlock - which was also
chained to a water pipe - sat upon the floor in the corner. Thankfully, what
with one of the windows being able to be opened and closed, the room was ventilated
and free from the putrid air of the rest of the tenement. So too the room
seemed cleaner, tidier than the other cells that the Corporal had witnessed as
he had ascended the numerous flights of stairs (with doors closing and fearful
silences erupting as he did so). He looked down and noticed a basin of spirits,
which Thomas suspected was used to delouse the family.

Halina Rubenstein remained transfixed at the imposing
soldier, her hands clutching her apron. Kolya too stopped eating and glared up
at the German and large rifle which was slung over his shoulder. Even Solomon
seemed to carefully and intently assess their unexpected visitor. Nothing good
could come of this. It was the stuff of nightmares.

Jessica looked up at Thomas and then turned her head towards
her family again. She broke the silence and inaction by unloading the food from
her arms and his and placing her bounty on the table.

"I saw Andrzej today and he gave me all this food (a
white lie that Jessica had prepared, which she would square with the would-be
suitor and son of a Jewish Council member when she next saw him). Unfortunately
the bag split. The Corporal kindly helped me carry it all home. He speaks
Polish."

Realising the confusion and anxiety he was creating in the
household Thomas decided to take his leave. He fully understood their wariness.
But how did Jessica expect the family to react? He also thought to himself as
he descended the stairs how he even might've caused unwanted trouble and
attention for the family in terms of the other Jews living in the building.

"Sorry, I do not wish to intrude or cause any
inconvenience," Thomas politely issued and smiled nervously whilst running
his fingers and thumbs around the rim of his steel helmet. The Corporal bowed
to the mother and Jessica and then left.

"Thank you again Thomas," Jessica exclaimed in his
wake. Halina Rubenstein neither approved of her familiarity with the soldier or
the telling expression upon her face. The mother eyed her daughter
suspiciously, accusingly, but Jessica refused to bow her head before her. She
was embarrassed for herself and the Corporal - and angry at her overbearing
mother. She knew that it had been a mistake, a silly and dangerous one, to have
invited the German up but equally the daughter was in no mood to suffer one of
her mother’s moods and lectures.

"Smiles at him she does and calls him by his
name," Halina remarked with disdain, waving her hands in the air. One
couldn't be sure if she said this to herself, her husband or her idiotic
daughter. Maybe all three.

"What was I supposed to do? Leave the food in the
street? The rats already eat better than us!" Jessica replied.

"You weren't supposed to bring one of them back
here!" Halina spat back, "What are the neighbours going to think?
What did he do to you? What did he say?" Halina shrewishly gunned out,
raising her voice even louder than her daughter's as if volume alone would
decide who was in the right. Soon she would strike the girl if she continued to
talk back, or did not answer her questions satisfactorily.

"Nothing. Nothing," Jessica remonstrated, stamping
her foot. Her eyes filled with tears as she remembered what he did and the
exhausted girl found just enough energy to convulse and sob. She felt isolated.
Violated.

"You can't worm your way out of this by crying. You
stupid, stupid girl!"

Kolya climbed back down from the window - from where he had
watched the soldier leave their building - and sat at the table again. Only
upon hearing his sister call him "Thomas" did he begin to suspect who
the stranger had been. Was he the Corporal who he had overheard a couple of
people call the "good German"? Others deemed it as an impossibility,
or even blasphemous, to use such a term. Was he the same German who had carved
out of wood a toy truck for Maxim, a friend of his, all those months ago? Maxim
had said he could speak a little Polish. Still, he didn't, couldn't, dare trust
the German.

"Please Mama, can we now eat?" Kolya asked, not
only hoping to eat but also wishing to end yet another argument between the two
women of the house.

"Halina, please. Let's eat. Don't be too hard on the
girl .What's done is done," Solomon remarked in an act of rare assertion.
He knew that his daughter could be as stubborn and proud as her mother (it was
one of the reasons why they clashed so much). But Solomon Rubenstein also
somehow sensed that there was something wrong with his daughter that was not
just borne from encountering the soldier. Usually she wasn't this emotional, or
suppressed.

"Oh, it speaks. Take her side always. Don't be too hard
on the girl?! You're not hard enough. It's because I care that I must shout at
her. She must learn. Don't you even talk to one of them again - or let one of
them look you in the eye. Do you hear me you sinful child?"

Jessica half snivelled and half nodded but she wasn't
altogether listening. She shuddered as she felt his sweaty, hairy body on top
of her again. She could never turn the clock back and Jessica felt as if she
would be haunted by the episode for the rest of her life. She yearned for a
shower with every besmirched fibre in her young body, but knew that she had to
observe the block's rota. How the girl had hoped that she would bring her
parcel home and put it on the table and her parents would have been grateful
and happy - like they were when Kolya had a surprise score. They would have had
a feast and they could have all have sat around together and Kolya could've
read to Papa. But she couldn't do anything right. She wanted to scream back -
but wouldn't and couldn't - how she had saved the whole family this afternoon
through her selflessness but Jessica pretended to take her medicine.

Kolya, half taking his mother and sister's argument in,
scanned the table and catalogued what his sister had brought home. He seriously
doubted whether Andrzej would've been so generous. Never before had his sister
extracted such a score from one of her suitors, although he didn't
underestimate the value of their gifts to the family's income. As the boy
cocked his head and noted the gold leaf writing upon the large book's spine he
suspected too that it wasn't from Andrzej. When he questioned his sister later
on as to who had given the goods to her she impatiently just replied,
"Keep your nose out, go to sleep". Yet Kolya did not dwell too much
on his sister's mysterious benefactor, whether it be the soldier or not; he had
enough to worry about and a long day ahead come the morning. Although summer,
he would be up before the dawn.

"Halina, please, let's just eat."

"Look Papa, a book," Kolya enthusiastically
announced, unofficially in cahoots with his father to change the topic and tone
of the conversation.