Rena's Promise (39 page)

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Authors: Rena Kornreich Gelissen,Heather Dune Macadam

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Historical, #test

BOOK: Rena's Promise
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There's a men's kommando working in a field close to the macaroni factory and I notice that one of them seems very interested in me. He's quite handsome. We steal glances. Danka and Dina have gone back to the laundry to take back some clothes that are already dry and fetch another basket while I guard the SS underwear.
"Where're you from?" the man asks when his kapo is out of sight.
"Tylicz." I hang up a pair of SS long johns.
"Warsaw." He works. I work. "How old?"
I have to think for a moment. Have I really had two birthdays in camp? They have passed unnoticed. "Twenty-three," I answer. We do not dare to exchange more words.
The next day I nod to Danka and Dina so they can see him. Danka stares at him, smiling faintly. We hang the clothes, trying not to look too anxious for him to start the conversationif you can call snippets of words passed across a field a conversation.
"My name is Marek." I hear his voice from between the legs of long underwear.
"Rena," I answer, busily smoothing the wrinkles from the undershirts already hanging.
Danka steps to one side of the clothesline. "Danka. Rena's sister."
"Dina." Dina and Danka hang something up together. There is a slight breeze catching the clothes and teasing them about in the air. Contact has been made, names have been shared. It is moments like these that help us feel alive. There is another living being who knows we are here; it is a relief to speak to anyone outside our own narrow prison. I am slapped gently by the flapping clothes.
We're hanging the clothes up to dry when I notice a window at the top of the macaroni factory open for the first time ever and out

 

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comes a bag of macaroni. There is no one to see, no one to thank; it is a silent gesture. Quickly we cover it with the clothes already in the basket and smuggle it back into our quarters. Our hearts are pounding as we enter the block.
"Janka," I whisper to our young friend, "we have some extra food. Can you organize a potful of water and slip it into the coals after roll call?"
Janka's eyes narrow craftily. She nods. There are coals left each night in the stove in the laundry room on which we can cook, if we can find anything to cook and if we are careful not to get caught. We stand at attention for roll call patiently, trying not to fidget, trying to stop our watering mouths and the rumbling in our stomachs. We march into our sleeping area, taking our portion of bread and breaking it in half. We lie down after our meal, feigning sleep. The sounds of deepening breaths and snoring filter through the dark.
I tap Danka. We roll quietly off our bunk and tiptoe to the door. We are the first to arrive at the stove in the laundry room. I empty the contents of the bag into the simmering water. We sit and wait. The door to the laundry room opens slightly. Silently, Dina enters. Janka slips through the portal as stealthily as a cat, then Deborah, Mania and Lentzi, Aranka and a few others. Our excitement is impenetrable. "I got a bit of salt," one girl offers, pouring it into the steaming pot. We are smiling despite the danger we're in. We sit around the potbellied stove watching the kettle boil. It takes forever. The floor is cold beneath our buttocks, but we sit anyway, waiting.
I use my spoon to taste one of the noodles. "Done," I whisper to my coconspirators in the dark. Dividing the noodles evenly into their waiting bowls, I figure, accurately, that there are five tablespoons for each girl, then pour the hot water on top, making sure everyone gets some. Danka and I are served last. The rest wait until we are all served; then in silent unison we begin to eat the warm, nourishing macaroni. We take our time. No one is urging

 

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us to hurry, so we linger over each spoonful slowly, as if we were at a dinner party in some wealthy family's house. The water the noodles were cooked in is delicious. It tastes like home.
Aranka nods to Danka and me before slipping back across the hall to her bed. Slowly, soundlessly, the laundry room is emptied of its secret habitants. Janka stows the kettle so no one will find it in the morning, and together we tiptoe back to our beds, our bellies no longer rumbling but still hungry.
Dina and Danka have returned to the laundry to get more clothes. I stand watch, eyeing the garments and Marek's work team with the same glance. He tosses a rock with a note wrapped around it in my direction. The note is full of niceties:
You're a pretty girl. Too bad we're not in the free world, but maybe someday we're going to be free
. . .
"How many boyfriends did you have?" His voice slips across the field.
"Many," I tell him, trying to remember how to flirt, and then feel bad that I have lied to him. It is not a bad lie. I had three boyfriends; that is almost many. "I was supposed to get married two weeks before I came here." I clip up two pairs of underwear and a pair of socks. When I glance back towards Marek, his back is to me; his kapo is nearby.
Marek is not in the field every day, and I miss him when he isn't sneaking words with me or risking his life to send me a note.
It is starting to get bitterly cold outside as winter arrives. "Do you think I should go ask Wardress Bruno for better clothes to work in?" I ask Dina and Danka as we hang the clothes up in a snow flurry.
"I'm afraid of her," Danka answers. She stomps her feet for warmth.
"I'm afraid of her, too, but we've been here for a while and it's starting to snow. We have to take a chance. It's too cold for us to

 

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work without gloves and jackets." I rub my hands together to get them supple again so I can open the clothespins.
"You'll have to go on your own, she makes my knees turn to pudding." So it is decided. I am going to approach the wardress with our request as soon as I get up the nerve. It takes a few days.
"Wardress Bruno?" My words chatter with nervousness. Her black hair and chiseled features frighten me, her blue eyes are serious and look as if they could be mean, but I have to go on. "I would like to report that it is getting quite cold on the trockenplatz. And could I request warm clothes for me and the two girls helping me?"
"Yes, I'll arrange that," she answers. "I'll take you after roll call." She dismisses me. My jaw gapes open like a monkey's. I cannot believe our good fortune. She is not mean at all.
The next morning after roll call, true to her word, Wardress Bruno takes us to another building. She leads us upstairs to an attic, where we pick out skirts, thick stockings with elastic on the top to hold them up, jackets, boots, and gloves. I pick a black-and-white checked jacket, a man's shirt, and a woolen skirt, trying very hard not to think about where these clothes have come from. I try to remind myself that it is better for us to have them than for them to be sent to warm German bodies. In this way we are set to go outside, looking very much like human beings except for the white crosses painted across the backs of our coats and our numbers sewn on the left sleeves.
Marek's detail works diligently all day long. We haven't had a chance to speak, but finally he edges his way towards me, tossing a stone. We are stealing words between us, looking as if we're working in case the SS are watching from the macaroni factory window or come riding their bicycles along the road.
Do you have any boyfriends now?
the note says. I shake my head to answer no.

 

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The next morning our conversation continues. ''Have you had any intimate relationships with your boyfriends?''
"No." He is going to embarrass me for sure if he keeps asking these questions.
"You're a virgin?" He almost stops working. He is looking at me as if I'm not real.
"Yes!" I whisper proudly. He chokes on his laughter; he tries hard to keep working but is in a fit of chuckles.
"I come from Warsaw, where I've never met a virgin yet." He has to walk away to cover himself.
"I think you're exaggerating!" I hide in the laundry, my face hot as an iron. Men! I decide to ignore him the rest of the afternoon.
I avoid his eyes by hanging the clothes quickly so I am blocked from his view and ducking behind the hoards of long johns bleaching in the winter sun.
He moves closer, digging busily. "You're blushing!" I hear his voice peek-a-booing over the clotheslines. Shaking my head and moving farther away, I hang an undershirt between his face and mine.
"We're in Auschwitz and you are embarrassed?" There is laughter in his voice.
I smile to myself, not allowing him to see that I'm also amused by this thought. With everything we have been through, with everything we have seen, I am still self-conscious.
"I'm glad I've given you something to laugh about."
"No one will believe it," he says. "Wait until I get back to the blocka virgin at twenty-three!"
The next afternoon he throws a third note. I stick it in the hem of my skirt and wait anxiously to read it until after roll call. Sitting on our bunk, I read,
When I was fifteen I lost my virginity. There was a married woman at a public swimming pool who asked me up to her apartment and she introduced me to it
.
"He's making it up!" Danka giggles.

 

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"What am I going to do tomorrow if he's there?" We smother our chuckles under the blankets, trying to fall asleep. I cannot wait to see him again but I'm too shy to face him.
It is easier to bear the weather with our new clothes. The gloves make a huge difference in our ability to hang the clothes up, but sometimes the rain still soaks us through to the skin. It seems so ridiculous to do nothing but stand in a downpour and guard clothes, but there is nothing else we can do. I eye the awning on the back porch off the SS kitchen with envy; if we could just stand there we would be a little dryer after a day of rain or snow.
"Should I ask Wardress Bruno if we can stand there when the weather is bad?" I ask.
"Wait a week, Rena," Dina suggests.
"That's a good idea. We just got the clothes, we don't want her to think we're taking advantage." The decision is made, but I am terrified to ask for anything else.
"Wardress Bruno? I would like to make a report." I stand before the SS woman whose looks are so harsh.
"Yah?" She looks at me with semi-interest, as if I were more than just a number. After being a number for so long it is unnerving, and I must remind myself that one cannot trust the SS. She could change her mind about me in an instant. She has the power of life or death.
I begin my report. "We hang the clothes out for fresh air everyday rain or shine or snow."
"Yah?"
"There is an awning behind the SS kitchen. I can see the whole trockenplatz from there. If it would be acceptable to you, could we please have permission to stand on the porch when the weather is bad?"
"Yah, you can do that." She dismisses me. I breathe a sigh of re-

 

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