The Puppet Boy of Warsaw (16 page)

I made my way to the
Umschlagplatz
, hiding in the shadows of the walls. I saw traces of the rats’ terrifying passage everywhere: people lay shot or bleeding in gutters, even children. Left as they had fallen. And so many broken things. Why did the rats have to break everything? Wasn’t it enough to drag us from our homes? I had learnt such different things about the Germans, all that time ago, when we were still permitted to go to school. Had admired their music and poetry, learnt about their philosophers and artists. Seeing the littered streets, who could still believe they would resettle us Jews in the East and help us set up new homes?

As I trudged through the devastated streets, my stomach cramped. A bitter taste sat in my mouth. Arriving at the
Umschlag
, I kept my head low until I found a sheltered spot where I could peep through the wooden fence. I tried to find Mama and the others but there was such chaos, I couldn’t see them.

People were running around frantically, searching for their loved ones or sitting alone on their suitcases, mumbling, reading, praying. Others gathered in small groups. I couldn’t see any water or food and they had nothing to sit on apart from their luggage: only this bare, godforsaken square of dirt. A place of limbo. Nothing good could come from such a place.

I shivered. After a while I couldn’t bear it any more. I needed to run. I did not know where my legs were taking me, but soon I recognised the area: of course, the orphanage, the children.

I pounded at the door. Margaret opened it, her eyes wide with alarm.

‘What are you doing here again, Mika?’ She pulled me in and hugged me fiercely. I felt the cleanness of her uniform, the warmth and softness of her breasts, and just for a few seconds I felt safe.

‘Mika, what is it?’ Margaret sounded out of breath.

‘They took my mother, my aunt and the twins and their parents. The baby too. I don’t know what to do!’

Suddenly tears stung my eyes, but I didn’t want to cry. Not here, not ever. If I started I would not be able to stop.

‘Oh God.’ I could see Margaret’s face drain of colour. I took a deep breath.

‘Is Ellie here? I can’t find her.’

‘No, she came earlier, you just missed her. She was looking for you too. She said she would go back to Gęsia Street, to the apartment.’ Margaret’s eyes were kind, and after the first shock she seemed calm again. I could see the children huddled around Janusz in one of the rooms off the main hall. He was telling a story and held their full attention. Among them I spotted Hannah’s curly head. It pained me to remember her innocent marriage proposal to me earlier.

‘Thank you, Margaret, I need to go.’

‘Take care, Mika.’ Before any of the children could see me, I slid out of the door.

I ran all the way back. The stinging pain in my lungs distracted me from the fear and the black hole that was beginning to consume my whole body. Gęsia Street lay deserted and wrapped in an eerie silence. Before I entered the house, I gathered some of mother’s scattered flowers, carefully scooping up roots and bulbs. Her beloved garden had been trampled on and flattened, yet her love still lived on in those flowers, as mine did in the puppets.

The front door stood wide open and I tiptoed up the stairs to our apartment. The door was slightly ajar. I found Ellie in the workshop, bowed over a new puppet, a little girl with hair like Hannah’s and a dress sewn from her mother’s handkerchief. She didn’t look up.

‘Everyone’s gone.’ Her voice was empty of all emotion.

‘Yes, but I saw Max and he might help us find them.’ I tried to sound convincing but my words carried little strength. Her sharp laughter made the hair on my neck prickle. I had never heard her like this.

‘Mika,
wake up
. Do you believe those pigs? You talk as if this damn soldier is different, but they are all the same!’

‘He did give us medicine, remember? And even if he had wanted to help, what could he have done with the other soldiers around?’

Ellie said nothing and my heart sank. I had to cling to this hope as to a rope dangling over a gorge, but the rope felt slippery and frayed.

I left Ellie in the workshop and opened the bedroom door. There, on the bedside table, sat the prince, as if he was waiting for me. That is when I finally cried.

I
was risking my miserable life just by being outside after curfew, not to mention hanging around the
Wache
, but I moved swiftly, avoiding the watchtower’s sweeping searchlights. I forced myself to be still, cowering in the darkness close to the
Wache
, waiting. After a while I couldn’t feel my right foot.

‘Your mother and aunt are at this address, first floor on the right.’ I had not heard Max approach, despite his heavy boots as he slipped next to me into the shadow. He reeked of cigarettes, sweat and beer, and something else I could not distinguish. Was it fear? Grief? Hatred? He pulled out a small slip of paper and placed it firmly in my hand.

‘Don’t ever tell anyone about this.’ His voice sounded strange. Was he scared?

‘What about the others, the twins, the baby?’ I asked.

‘Don’t you ever stop? Forget them.
Verstanden?
The trains have left for today. There is nothing I can do. And you must remain at this address. These streets have already been cleared. You’ll be safe there.’ His familiar impatience returned.

We stood for a moment in awkward silence. All words failed me. I buried my hands in my pockets, touching the prince’s cloak, his fur trim and papier-mâché face with my hot fingers. Slowly I pulled out the puppet Max had asked for on that last evening before the deportations. For his son, he had said. After all this horror, what did it matter? What use were the puppets now? As if to confirm my thoughts, the prince stayed silent and hung limply from my hand. I had lost so much already, if I could at least keep mother and Ellie . . . I held out my most treasured puppet to the soldier. Max looked at me, startled.

‘Here, you can have him,’ I said.

‘Are you sure, boy?’

For a moment his voice softened. I nodded. Slowly he took the prince in both hands then tucked the puppet into the depths of his uniform. A weak smile washed over his face. Suddenly he looked very tired.

‘Thank you, Mika.’ It was the only time he’d ever used my name.

‘I can’t help you.’ He glanced at me with an expression I could not read. Then, for the briefest of seconds, he put his right hand on my shoulder, then withdrew it.

‘Go now. Good luck.’

I turned and left the soldier with my prince. My prince stuffed into the pocket of his German uniform. My lovely, treasured prince, who had comforted my mother, fired me up to resist and fight. What was I thinking? Did I feel I owed this soldier something? The moment I turned to leave, a sense of loss cut through me as if some vital part had been ripped from my chest. For a second I wanted to run after him, but when I looked, Max had already disappeared. The loss of the prince left a hole, as if he had been a real person, like the very first time I handed over the little girl Esther to the stranger in the shadows.

I stopped.

‘Good luck, my prince,’ I whispered into the night air. The sky was clear and the stars were out. ‘Don’t forget me.’ But he was gone. He was only a puppet, after all. I shook myself and rushed back to our apartment.

It was so quiet in our house, all apartments emptied of life. I tried to forget the cattle trucks that were carrying our neighbours to some unknown place. Their last hours at the
Umschlag.
I quietly called for Ellie and found her again in the workshop, bent over in the same position as if she hadn’t moved at all. I did not have the heart to tell her about the prince but simply showed her the piece of paper on which Max had scribbled the address: Orla Street 52.

‘How do you know it’s not a trap?’

‘I don’t know, Ellie, but my gut tells me he’s not playing games. And what choice do we have anyway?’

Ellie didn’t reply but slowly got up and fetched her suitcase from the kitchen. Mine was hidden under the left side of the bed. Seeing the empty space next to my suitcase where my mother’s had been felt like another blow to the stomach. I pulled mine out and chucked in whatever seemed useful or important: the rest of the puppets that didn’t live in the coat, fabric, needles, scissors and glue from the workshop, socks, clothes, knives, an enamel cup and a blanket. The last thing Ellie put into her suitcase was her book of Arabian tales. I couldn’t find the photo album, Mother must have taken it. Finally, rummaging for food, I found a loaf of bread, wrapped in layers of newspapers, at the back of the kitchen cupboard: one of the loaves Max had handed to me the night of my last performance. It was as hard as a brick. We closed the door and made our way to the address. We had no plans to return.

When we reached the quarter, all the houses lay empty like gutted fish. No lights shone anywhere, except for the almost full moon. We glanced over our shoulders, ducking through the shadows, but no one was following us. This was indeed a street the Germans had finished with: everyone here had been deported.

We turned a last corner into Orla Street, but when we found the number, the house showed no signs of being occupied. I squeezed Ellie’s hand.

‘Shall we try ringing the bell?’ I whispered. Ellie shook her head, her lovely ponytail swinging. We looked for small stones.

‘Which flat is it?’ Ellie’s voice startled me, she was so close to my ear. I realised how dear that voice had become to me.

‘He said it’s the first floor on the right.’ I pointed upwards. Not even a sliver of light shone from the pitch-black square of the window. Ellie threw the first stone. She missed. She tried a second time. Its clang against the window echoed in the silence. Nothing. I followed with my smallest stone. Still no reply. We took turns, three, four more stones.

‘Shhh! I think I heard something.’

‘Ouch!’

I must have squeezed Ellie’s hand too hard. There was no light but I could swear the window had opened a crack.

‘Mama, is that you? It’s me and Ellie.’ My whisper sounded too loud but I was so tense. After a pause the window opened farther and I could just make out my mother’s silhouette.

‘Mika, is that really you?’ I could hear the trembling in her voice. This time Ellie spoke.

‘Yes, it’s us, let us in, quick.’ The window closed and we heard light footsteps approaching the front door. It was Mother who opened. She stared at me for a second, as if she had seen a ghost, then threw her arms around me and hugged me tight.

‘Come on up, Cara is here too.’ She grabbed me and Ellie by the hand and pulled us upstairs.

When Mother opened the apartment door I could see Cara sitting at a table at the back of the room, illuminated only by a small candle. She didn’t get up to greet Ellie. Slumped in a chair, she simply stretched out her arms but didn’t utter a word. Ellie hugged her fiercely nevertheless.

Later we sat together at the table, talking quietly. That is Mother, Ellie and me spoke, while Cara remained silent. She seemed to have given up any faith in speaking.

‘They took us to the
Umschlag
– that awful, godforsaken place.’ Mother spoke quietly, looking at me and Ellie while Cara stood with her back to us.

‘No water anywhere, and the sun pounding down on us like a curse. We were crammed in with hundreds of people and after a while everyone panicked. The Germans just left us there and no one told us what was going to happen. We looked for you both when they put us in the truck and later at the
Umschlag
; I was crazy with worry and missed you both so much, and yet, if you weren’t with us, I thought, maybe there was a chance that you were safe?

‘Then suddenly a soldier approached us through the crowd. He was tall and moved quickly. I could tell he was asking for someone. As he came closer I heard him call: “Halina Hernsteyn?” “Yes, over here!” I answered like a reflex. “Come,” he commanded, motioning for me to come with him, but I grabbed hold of Cara. “I’m not going anywhere without my sister. And there are twin girls and their parents. We can all work.” “No, only you and your sister.” There was no negotiating, Mika, it was all so quick. I grabbed Cara’s arm and we made our way through the crowd following the soldier. I can still see the twins’ faces . . . and their parents’. Their mother turned, said, “Just go, we’ll be fine, do as he says,” but God, what will happen to them?’

Mama fell silent for a while.

‘Cara and I clung to each other. People stared at us, some with pity, others with their eyes spewing hatred. One woman hissed, “Traitor.” The soldier led us through a small exit in the wooden fence, then into a nearby house, where he told us to wait in a tiny room until he came back. He locked us in. We were close enough to hear the chaos in the
Umschlag
, people shouting, trying to find each other . . .

‘And then, maybe two hours later, the train arrived. The police and soldiers started shouting, “
Raus, na macht schon
.” People screamed; no one wanted to get into those cattle trucks. We couldn’t see anything from the house and I jammed my fingers in my ears, but I just picture them pushing people into the trucks, locking them in like cattle. We heard a loud whistle, then the creaking of the train’s wheels as it slowly gathered speed. Then everything went quiet, so quiet.

‘When the soldier finally led us out into the evening, we caught a glimpse of the square. So empty it was unnerving, as if the ghosts of the people still roamed there, searching for each other . . . But they were gone, Mika. All gone. The soldier took us to another house until nightfall, then he brought us here. Mika, they took the twins, the baby, everyone . . .’

She put her head in her hands.

I felt as if I was drowning. Max was an ordinary Wehrmacht soldier, not a member of the SS, but he was also part of the deadly squad that delivered us to the
Umschlag
. And yet he had taken a risk and rescued my mother, my aunt, let me go. Why? Did he see something of his own son in me? Was there a spark of human kindness left in him that was aching to show itself in one last gesture?