The Devil's Arithmetic (10 page)

“Hah!” said Gitl. “And how does he—a good Jew—know what pigs smell like cooking?”

“So—so he was not kosher. Or the
Shabbos goy
told him.”

“So!”

“How can you joke about such things?” Hannah said in a very small voice.

Gitl made a
tching
sound with her tongue. “If we do not laugh, we will cry. Crying will only make us hotter and sweatier. We Jews like to joke about death because what you laugh at and make familiar can no longer frighten you. Besides, Chayaleh, what else is there to do?”

“Hush,” the woman near Hannah remarked again, “the children.”

“We could break down the doors and run away,” Hannah said.

“Run away? Where, little Chaya? To Lublin?” Gitl asked.

“To America,” Hannah said.

“To be with Avrom Morowitz?
This
is my home.”

“This boxcar?” Hannah whispered.

“Do not be impudent.”

“To Israel then.”

Gitl laughed, a strange, hollow sound. “And where is Israel,” she asked, “except in our prayers?”

“Hush,” the woman begged.

The stories continued.

“Did you hear about Mostochowa?” a man asked.

“You mean the place where they were all forced out of their houses to stand naked in the snow?” Yitzchak said.

“Rumors,” the rabbi cautioned.

“They were beaten,” a woman said.

“Yes, Masha is right, beaten unmercifully. And the blood on the snow, my Uncle Moishe who was there said, was like rose petals falling. Rose petals, he said,” the man concluded.

“No more stories!” Fayge shouted. “Nothing more will happen to us. Nothing. We are uncomfortable and crowded. We are hungry. But it will pass. We are going to be resettled. That is all. And then I will be married.
With
a canopy.”

“I heard . . .”

“Hush! Hush!” The woman near Hannah spoke in tired spurts of sound. “The children can stand no more. My child is senseless with all this talk.”

A voice close to her said quietly, “Let me take the child, mother. I will hold her for a while.” There was a small movement as everyone tried to adjust. “Oh, my God, the child is not senseless. The child is dead.
Boruch dayan emes
. Blessed be the righteous judge . . .”

Hannah wept.

THE BOXCARS TRAVELED FOR FOUR DAYS AND NIGHTS
; the only difference that Hannah could tell was in the heat. Under the midday sun, it was like standing in an oven, an oven that smelled of human sweat and urine and feces. But at night, when it was cold, they were all grateful for the close quarters.

The train made only two stops the entire time. At Troniat, a small station that one of the men recognized, the doors were suddenly thrown open and they tumbled out into the darkness onto a gravel path.

That was when they discovered that three old women had died and a fourth was near death and could not climb out of the car. All four of the bodies were slung out by the soldiers onto a siding. The dead baby was torn from its mother's arms and cast behind a horse's watering trough. The child's mother began to wail, but her husband slapped his hand across her mouth, whispering, “Hush, hush, hush.”

A bucket of filthy trough water was passed around, and everyone grabbed for it eagerly. Hannah managed a mouthful before it was taken from her. There was hay in that mouthful, but she didn't care. She'd never tasted anything so sweet.

A feeble pounding came from the other boxcar.

“For God's sake,” Shmuel cried out, “open the doors for them.” But the soldiers ignored him, hurrying the bucket along.

At the second stop, they heard the grateful cries of their neighbors as they were led from the other boxcar. But pound as they might on the slats, their own door remained shut.

“Monsters!” Gitl said, her voice a croak. “Monsters!”

It was the last thing any of them said on the moving train.

On the fourth day, the train slowed, the noise of its wheels a terrifying shriek. Hannah felt hope, like a small bubble, rise from her empty stomach. Her mouth was so dry, she could feel her tongue as big as a sausage between her teeth. Letting out a deep, sighing breath, she heard echoes of that sigh all around her.

The train jerked to a stop and the silence was like a prayer. Into that silence, the raw scraping of the doors being pulled open was as loud as thunder. Air, fresh air, rushed in. Hannah tried to suck in as much as she could.

“ 'Raus, 'raus, schneller!”
came the harsh command. “Out, out, faster!”

They scrambled out of the boxcar to stand, blinking in the early morning light. Hannah's knees trembled from the effort of moving, and her head felt light from all the fresh air. When she looked around, she could see how weakened everyone was. Only Gitl, her dark green dress crumpled, the white collar torn, held her head high. She had an arm under Fayge's, steadying her. Fayge's white wedding dress was badly stained, front and back, and she was as pale as paper. Yitzchak, carrying both his daughter and his son in his arms, was still gulping at the air. The children did not move. And Shmuel—Hannah could not find him. Then she saw he was still standing in the door of the boxcar.

“There are more dead here,” he called.

“Leave them!” a soldier said, slamming his rifle butt into Shmuel's shins. “Get down.”

Shmuel got down painfully, and hobbled over to Gitl's side. He put his hand on Hannah's hair tenderly, but it felt as heavy as a weight.

“There are five old women from Viosk, and old Shimshon the tailor in there,” he whispered. Then under his breath he muttered, “And a child.”

“
Boruch dayan emes . . . ,”
Gitl said.

“Down there!” a soldier shouted, gesturing with his rifle. Part of the moon still hung in the sky, a pale halo over his blond head.

Hannah followed the line of his pointing gun. Below them, down a gravel embankment, was a stark line of low barracks. She tried to count them; they seemed to go on and on. A barbed wire fence surrounded them. To the side of the barracks was a small, pretty house
where early spring flowers were opening. A wrought-iron gate stood in front of the buildings, and over the gate was a sign proclaiming in large black letters:
ARBEIT MACHT FREI
.

Several of the villagers whispered the words, but the rabbi, his hand up to his eyes, strained to read them.

“What does it say, Faygeleh?” he asked, clinging to his daughter's hand, suddenly an old man. “My eyes . . .”

But Fayge was beyond answering. It was Hannah who told him, her voice bitter. “Work makes you free,” she said.

The rabbi nodded. “See, my children,” he said hoarsely, “we are in God's hands. We are not afraid of work.”

Behind him, the
badchan
whispered, “This is the Devil's work, not God's.”

“Down there,” the blond soldier called out again.
“Schnell!”

They were forced by the soldiers to scramble down the high gravel embankment, and the slippery stones slid away underfoot. Hannah went down on her bad knee and cried out once. Behind her, Fayge tried to sidestep so as not to bump into her, stumbled, fell, and began to roll faster and faster downhill until she hit the bottom with a horrible thudding sound. Her white skirts were rucked up over her thighs. Shmuel ran after her, knelt by her side, and cradled her in his arms. Smoothing her skirts down, he whispered, “My bride, my bride.” Fayge didn't move.

“Get up! Get up! Men to the left, women to the right!” All the soldiers were shouting now. One pushed
Shmuel to his feet. The children were torn from Yitzchak's arms and shoved toward the women's group. Little Reuven began to whimper, but the girl, Tzipporah, was silent.

It was Gitl who pulled Fayge up. Fayge looked dazed. Tears ran down her dirty cheeks, leaving gray runnels. Hurrying over, Hannah offered to help.

“What can I do?” she asked.

“What can any of us do?” Fayge murmured.

“See, I was right,” Hannah whispered to Gitl. “Why didn't you believe me? I was right all along. We should have run.”

“Run,” Fayge said, catching the last word, and repeated it in a soft, uninflected voice. “Run.”

Gitl shook her head. “There is nowhere to run, Fayge. We are where we are. Hush.” Then she turned her head and stared at the soldiers. “Monsters,” she said, loud enough for them to hear.

“You are
zugangi
, newcomers, the lowest of the low,” the tall, dark-haired woman said to them as they huddled in the stark barracks room. She was in a blue dress with green piping and the short sleeves displayed a long number tattooed on her arm.

“But, that number . . . then you are a prisoner, too,” Hannah blurted out. She'd been thinking that they would have to wear striped pajamas like the prisoners in the old photographs, yet she'd seen no one dressed like that in the camp yet. Maybe that meant her memories were false ones. Maybe things wouldn't be as bad as she feared.

“I am a prisoner—yes,” the woman said. “But I am not a Jew. See . . .” She held up her arm so that the blue number was plain.

Whatever it was they were supposed to read there baffled the women and they murmured together.

“Quiet. You do not speak unless spoken to. I am a prisoner, but you are
zugangi
, newcomers. And one of the first lessons you have to learn is not to call attention to yourselves. You, girl, who spoke out, you will give me those blue ribbons in your hair.”

“No!” said Hannah, surprised at the vehemence in her response. “They aren't mine to give. You can't have them.”

The woman came over to her and slapped her hard on both cheeks. “You never say no here. Not if you want to live. I will have those ribbons. They go with my dress.”

Hand on her burning right cheek, Hannah drew in a deep breath, willing herself not to cry.

Gitl poked Hannah in the side and whispered, “Give them to her. What do two little ribbons matter?” Swiftly she began to unbraid Hannah's left braid. Reluctantly, Hannah undid the right.

“Good,” the woman said, stuffing the ribbons into a pocket in her dress. “And now you will all go in there.” She pointed down a narrow hall.
“Schnell.
It is a most important word that you should learn. Whether I say it or the Germans say it, it is to be obeyed.
Schnell!
”

They hurried through the hall and found themselves in a kind of amphitheater. Hannah noticed Shifre and Yente standing together, holding hands. Esther was
next to a tall, scowling woman, probably her mother.

The woman in the blue dress was speaking again. “Quiet! Quiet!” she shouted, putting up her hands. “Now, since you are all filthy from your trip, you must take a shower. You will undress here. Help the children. It must be done quickly. Quickly.”

“What, here?” Gitl asked. “In front of each other?”

The woman looked disgusted. “You have not learned the first lesson yet. You will not last here.”

Gitl stared at her. “I will last,” she said, her voice low.

“Now, all of you, undress.
Schnell!
Pretend you are in one of your ritual baths. Oh yes, I am not a Jew, but even I have heard of it. What do you call it?”

“
Mikvah,
” murmured Esther's mother.

“Yes,
mikvah
,” the woman said. “Then this is your
mikvah
in preparation for your new life in the camp.” She smiled and left.

Some of the women sat on the wooden benches and began slowly to take off their shoes and stockings. But Hannah stood in the center of the room, staring around.

“Don't you understand?” she cried. “There are no showers. There are only the gas ovens. They will burn us all up.”

Two benches away, Esther was crying softly as she took off her right shoe. “There are no ovens, Chaya. Do not try to frighten us. We are frightened enough.”