Two Rings (9 page)

Out of the fifteen hundred pieces I was required to drill each shift, I was allowed maybe two or three that weren't right. The rest had to be precise, perfect.

“What happened?” he asked. “You know what's going to be done. You know what this means.”

What could I say? I didn't know what happened. I was tired, maybe; I fell asleep at the machine; I was sick. Who knows? I worked vacantly—maybe my hands drilled holes without my head knowing what I was doing.

I said, “I cannot give you an answer; I don't know what happened. I can't even make up an excuse.”

It was a death sentence. I had seen Weinberg shot for committing sabotage. Zwirek had said to me, “You know what this means,” and I knew precisely what it meant: It meant my execution. Zwirek said these words to me, and I saw in my mind young Weinberg falling to the ground with bullets in his back.

I don't think I was afraid. I was numb.

Zwirek was shaking a little, I remember, staring down at me. I remember wondering for a moment if he was trembling from anger or something else. And then suddenly I could see in his
eyes that he actually pitied me, that he hated this situation that we were in, that he wanted to figure out something to do.

He said quietly, “I cannot let you die. I cannot let you die. But I don't know what there is to do.” And then he left. He simply turned away from me and went back to his office, and I turned back to the machine and to my work, trying to drill each hole precisely right.

Later that night, Zwirek came back and took me aside. I remember I had to bend my neck all the way back to look up at him standing over me.

“I will take these boxes,” he said, softly, almost tenderly, “and I will bring them back to my office. And for every box that you finish, I will take out some good ones and put back in some of these bad ones. And I will substitute these for those until all the mistakes are gone. But you mustn't make any more mistakes. The rest have to be perfect.”

Then, without waiting for a reply, he left, and he never spoke to me again.

For nothing, a man was killed; for nothing, my life was saved.

Zwirek was a Pole; I was a Jew. That is important.

How is it possible to discover love in a place like this? I am speaking here not of sex, though surely there was that, too, in the barracks—people fumbling under clothes, softly moaning on the bunks, intertwining, needing not to care that others were around. No, not this, though I think perhaps I understood even then how strong sexual desire can be. But this is
not the love I mean. Or, to be true, not only this. It is more mysterious to me, my love for Heniek. It felt older than anything, an ancient connection awakened in a terrible time, maybe because of the terror of the time.

Let me think, let me think: Can I pinpoint the beginning of my love? It wasn't when I first saw him, that I know. Heniek was a ladies' man, as I have said, dashing and confident when he swept into the barracks to check in on the women. We were called the armaments workers, but really, we were slaves, half starving, beyond exhausted; no one had more than a single change of clothes. When had anyone last brushed her teeth? Set her hair? And yet when Heniek came in, smartly put together with his policeman's cap and his polished boots, he spoke to us as if we were women—real, true women and not the bedraggled creatures we surely were. His gentle flatteries—they were innocuous, offhand, but for that, all the more charming—they endeared him to us. Over time, I started to realize why the women might have wanted to do him small favors, to be noticed by a man like this, to be desired even by a good man—no one ever spoke ill of Heniek, not during the war and not after—and to be noticed in a place like this.

But not for me. Heniek's attentions were not for me; I was the smarkata. A kid, a fifteen-year-old brat. I wasn't worth his notice.

But later . . . when? Some months, maybe; surely after Zwirek had saved my life. I find my mind is filled with him. Heniek comes into the barracks to escort a group to the factory compound a couple of kilometers away, and the air about me feels charged, electric. A young girl's infatuation with an
older and striking man—I suppose I have to admit that. I suppose that must be some part of it. But that is not all of it; it isn't only that.

I am lying in my bunk; it's Sunday, maybe, a day without work at the factory. There is nothing to do, nothing to expect. The women in the barracks are shuffling about; some go to the latrine to rinse out their clothes, some are softly chatting. Everyone is hungry; everyone is withered from exhaustion. It is a day of emptiness like every other. Then, in my bunk, thinking of nothing, staring at nothing, I feel something inside me stir. Deep beyond anything I can touch, deep down in the pit of my stomach, something comes alive. I am up, out of my bunk, and at the window. I look past the grime on the glass and out into the desolate yard. There's no one there, just the dust of the ground, and the other barracks beyond. Then suddenly Heniek comes into view. My heart races at the sight of him.

But how did I know? How did I know that Heniek was near?

I keep my heart in hiding. Heniek must not know this young girl is drawn to him. I don't understand this feeling that has overtaken me, consumed me. That I want him near. That I can feel it when he's near. I don't know where it came from.

When I was younger, twelve, maybe, or thirteen, I sometimes would sneak into the corner of the courtyard outside our apartment building on Wolnosc Street and sit with my friends, girls and boys both, and we would exchange playing cards on which were printed little love notes. “I like the way you look.” “I would like to walk with you to school.” “I think your dress is pretty.” We passed them around amid giggles and bashful eyes. It was innocent, daringly risqué, and hugely fun. This is what I
knew of boys and girls—playing cards in a courtyard. It was exciting enough.

Now, in the factory, it's different. I'm just fifteen—barely out of pigtails and entirely innocent of the ways of men and women. Yet I dream of Heniek kissing me, holding me, running his fingers through my baby-fine hair.

One day, Heniek catches my eye as we stand outside the barracks. I look away, unsure of what I'm supposed to do. But I see him smile.

One day, when Heniek comes to escort the women to the factory, he positions himself near me so that we walk side by side down the road. My skin tingles; something dances deep inside.

One day, Heniek finds me alone outside the barracks, and he takes my hand.

In such a place, Heniek takes my hand. I have never before been touched by a man; I had thought that if I touched a boy, I would get pregnant. But standing outside the rough-hewn barracks of a slave-labor factory, with no one around, so no one can see, Heniek takes my hand, softly, firmly, and it feels as though I have been shot through by lightning. I feel Heniek's touch along every inch of me. I feel luminous, alive, radiant with desire.

Our courtship lasted several months. Heniek would wait for me to finish my shift at the factory, and I would catch sight of him standing there at the bottom of the factory stairwell looking up for me, searching me out among all the women finally
released from their labor. After twelve numbing hours drilling metal, I'd see Heniek's face, at once eager and assured, and suddenly there would be this little throbbing inside me, a delicate, pulsing warmth running in my veins. That feeling! The thrill of it! Twelve hours at the machine, and then Heniek as my reward.

He would tell me how beautiful I was, how sweet my eyes, my skin, he said, like the petals of a rose—and I would run back to the barracks at night to find my reflection in the dirty glass of the window, hoping to see what he saw, hoping to discover that beauty, that sweetness for myself. I thought if I could glimpse the beauty he so admired, I might be assured of his love; I might know that there was something lasting there, something that couldn't be taken away.

 

 

 

Heniek told me one day he intended to take me dancing. I shouldn't worry, he said; he would see to everything.

A refined and elegant gentleman asks his young girlfriend on a date—a rendezvous in town at a small local restaurant, where there is polished cutlery on the table and perhaps a candle to set the mood. Waiters in suits come by to set down plates with thick hunks of meat robed in a glistening sauce; the potatoes taste of butter. At the far end of the room, a man in a bow tie plays at an old upright piano, and the couple pauses from their meal and walks hand in hand to the center of the floor. The man places his hand on the small of his lady's back—she is such a delicate thing, he can feel each of her ribs under her loose-fitting dress—and he presses her gently toward him as the pianist plays his tune. And the young lady
rests her head on his broad shoulder and feels his strength under the softness of her cheek.

Heniek took me dancing. It feels like a dream. My head forgets—how did we manage to leave the compound without being noticed? How did we manage to walk through the streets of Radom and eat at a Polish restaurant and not look like the Jews we were? I don't know these things. But the body remembers when the mind forgets. I remember in my body, in my bones, the feeling of my night out with Heniek, dancing with Heniek—his hand on my back, my cheek pressed against his chest, the quiver in my legs.

I had removed my armband. Heniek had taken off his policeman's cap. He told me not to be frightened. We danced as if getting caught wouldn't mean our death.

I was petrified.

I was in love.

 

 

 

Everything Heniek and I shared was secret, all our time together stolen. Yet nothing could have felt more sanctioned or ordained.

I was in love with Heniek Greenspan, and for a short time, I was not alone.

HENIEK ASKED ME TO GO WITH HIM TO ARGENTINA.

By this time, I had been working in the kitchen for six months or more. It was one of Heniek's many gifts to me to get me added to the kitchen staff; I don't know how he managed it. But Heniek had some prestige, and not only among the women. He was liked; he had friends. Maybe he called in a favor; maybe he paid someone off; maybe—maybe—someone thought to do him a good turn.

The kitchen was heaven compared with the factory floor. It is important here to get the emphasis right: heaven not in itself, no, not in the least. I sat on a stool between two beer barrels, and it was my job to peel potatoes—two hundred kilos of them—every day. How many potatoes is that? I wonder. A thousand, maybe? One thousand potatoes a day. Not counting the rotten ones, that's maybe a potato to peel every minute, twelve hours every day, six days a week, for over a year. My fingers grew cramped gripping the gnarled and
knotty shapes in one hand and the slim handle of a small paring knife in the other. The cramps would come after maybe a half hour of work in the morning. Between every few potatoes, I'd take a moment, a second merely, to stretch my fingers to try to relieve the pain jabbing in my joints, but it never went away, not really. The knife I used was more precious to me than anything; I guarded it more keenly than I guarded myself. If I lost that knife, if someone stole it, I would have had to peel those potatoes with my nails. I wore the blade down almost to a sliver. I slept with it every night, tucked under Mama's feather blanket.

So not a heaven in itself, but heaven in comparison to the factory floor. In the kitchen, I worked only during the days. I got to work beside four other women filling their own quota of peeled potatoes, and I got to sit with them around a potbellied stove that staved off the worst of the winter cold. When we were alone in the kitchen, we could chat quietly among ourselves, though about what I do not know. One of the girls—it pains me that I do not remember her name—had a lovely, delicate voice, and sometimes she would sweetly sing, Jewish songs mostly, and we would sing along in a hush, as best we could. Every now and then, if we were certain no one was near, we might even shave off a thin slice of potato and slap it against the outside of the stove so it would stick. We'd let it cook for a moment or two, then carefully peel it off and eat it, an illicit indulgence, a secret treat. A chip.