The Storyteller Read online

  Rumkowski spent a lot of time traveling around the ghetto--having schoolchildren paraded around in front of him, giving speeches, officiating at wedding ceremonies, or visiting the Fabriken that he thought would make us indispensable to the Germans. So it was not impossible that he would not be present when Basia and I came to his headquarters. But we had been sitting in the cold for hours, and had seen the chairman enter the building surrounded by an entourage no more than fifteen minutes ago.

  He was easily recognizable, with his shock of white hair and his round black glasses, his heavy wool coat with its yellow star on the sleeve. It was that emblem that had made me grab Basia's hand outside when she shivered as he passed. "You see," I whispered. "In the end he's no different than you or me."

  So I looked the secretary in the eye and said, "You're lying."

  Her eyebrows rose. "The chairman isn't in," she repeated. "And if he were, he would not see you without an appointment. And he does not have any openings for the next month."

  I knew this, too, was a lie, because I had heard her on the telephone arrange a meeting with the head of the Provisioning Department tomorrow morning at nine. I opened my mouth to say so, but Basia elbowed me in the ribs. "I'm sorry," she said, stepping forward and averting her gaze. "I think you may have dropped these?"

  She held out a pair of earrings. I knew that the secretary had not dropped these. They had, in fact, been screwed into my sister's ears when she dressed for our outing. They were a beautiful pair of pearls that had been a wedding gift from Rubin. "Basia!" I gasped. "You can't!"

  She smiled at the secretary and spoke through her teeth to me. "Shut up, Minka."

  The woman pursed her lips, then plucked the earrings out of my sister's hand. "No promises," she said.

  The secretary walked toward the closed office door. She was wearing silk stockings, which amazed me. I couldn't wait to tell Darija that I had seen a Jew looking just as fine as any German lady. She knocked, and a moment later we heard a deep voice rumbling through the door, telling her to enter.

  With a glance back at us, she slipped inside.

  "What are you going to say to him?" Basia whispered.

  We had decided that I would do all the talking. Basia was there as a pretty distraction, as the dutiful wife--but she was afraid that she would grow tongue-tied if she tried to explain why we were there.

  "I don't even know if we'll get in," I replied.

  I had a plan. I was going to ask the chairman to set Rubin free in time for his wedding anniversary, next week, so that he could celebrate with his wife. That way he would be seen as an advocate of true love, and if Chaim Rumkowski loved anything, it was his own image in the eyes of his people.

  The door swung open, and the secretary walked toward us. "You have five minutes," she announced.

  We started forward, holding hands, but the secretary grasped my upper arm. "She can go in," the woman said. "Not you."

  "But--" Basia looked wildly over her shoulder at me.

  "Beg him," I urged. "Get down on your knees."

  Lifting her chin, Basia nodded and walked through the door.

  As the secretary sat down again and began to type, I stood nervously in the center of the anteroom. The policeman caught my eye and immediately looked away.

  Twenty-two minutes after my sister had entered the private office of the Eldest of the Jews, she stepped outside. Her blouse was untucked in the back. Her red lipstick, which I had borrowed from Darija, was gone except for a smear in the left corner.

  "What did he say?" I burst out, but Basia linked her arm through mine and hurriedly dragged me out of Rumkowski's office.

  As soon as we were on the street again, with a bitter wind blowing our hair into a frenzy around our faces, I asked her again. Basia let go of my arm and leaned over in the street, vomiting onto the cobblestones.

  I held her hair back from her face. I assumed this meant that she had failed to rescue Rubin. Which was why I was surprised when she turned to me a moment later, her face still white and pinched, and her eyes blazing. "He won't have to go to Germany," she said. "The chairman is going to send him to a work camp here in Poland instead." Basia grabbed my hand and squeezed. "I saved him, Minka. I saved my husband."

  I hugged her, and she hugged me back, and then she held me at arm's length. "You cannot tell Mama or Papa we came here," Basia said. "Promise me."

  "But they'll want to know how--"

  "They'll assume that Rubin made a deal on his own," she insisted. "They would not want to know that we owe the chairman a debt."

  This was true. I had heard my father grousing about Rumkowski enough to know that he would not want to be beholden to the man.

  Later that night, with Majer asleep between us in the bed, I could hear my sister quietly crying. "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing. I'm fine."

  "You should be happy. Rubin's going to be all right."

  Basia nodded. I could see her profile, silvered by the moon, as if she were a statue. She looked down at Majer then, and touched her finger to his lips, as if she was keeping him quiet, or pressing him a kiss.

  "Basia?" I whispered. "How did you convince the chairman?"

  "Just like you told me." A tear slipped down her cheek to land on the sheets between us. "I got down on my knees."

  *

  When Rubin had been sent off to a work camp, Basia and the baby had moved in with us. It was like old times, my sister sleeping in my bed, but now my nephew was caught between us like a secret. Majer was learning his colors, and the sounds made by farm animals he had only seen in pictures. We all talked about what a prodigy he was, how proud Rubin would be of his son when he came home. We talked as if this moment was coming any day now.

  Rubin didn't write, and we all made excuses for him. He was too tired; he was too busy. He didn't have access to paper and pencil. The postal service was virtually nonexistent. Only Darija was brave enough to say what we were all thinking: that maybe the reason Rubin had not written was that he was already dead.

  In October 1941, Darija and I both got food poisoning. It was not remarkable that this happened, given the quality of the food, only that it had not happened before, and that we were both still strong enough to drag ourselves out of our sickbeds after two days of incessant vomiting. But by then, our delivery jobs had been given away.

  We reported to Lutomierska Street to be assigned new positions. Standing in line with us was a boy who had gone to our school. His name was Aron, and he used to unconsciously whistle in class while doing his exams, which always got him in trouble. He had a gap between his front teeth and was so tall that he stood with his shoulders hunched, a human question mark. "I hope they put me anywhere but a bakery," Aron said.

  I bristled. "What's wrong with a bakery?" I asked, thinking of my father.

  "Nothing, it's just too good to be true. Like purgatory. Too much heat in the winter, and food all around you that you aren't allowed to eat."

  I shook my head, smiling. I liked Aron. He wasn't much to look at, but he made me laugh. Darija, who knew such things, said he fancied me; that's why he'd always happened to be the one holding the door of the school building for me as I was walking out; or accompanied me as far as he could in the ghetto before he had to turn off on the street that led to his own home. Once he had even given me a bit of his bread ration during lunch at school, which Darija said was virtually a proposal of marriage in these times.

  Aron was no Herr Bauer. Or Josek, for that matter. But sometimes when I was lying next to Basia and Majer at night, and they had fallen asleep, I pressed the back of my hand against my lips and wondered what it would be like to kiss him. I was not smitten with him, really, only with the idea that someone might look at a girl with worn clothing and clunky boots and dull ropes of hair and see instead a thing of beauty.

  There were children as young as ten in the square, waiting; and elderly people who could not stand without leaning on the person beside them. My parents had coached me on