“I’m jealous of you. I miss believing that there is some purpose and some sense to life,” Sara said, sighing. “Maybe, tonight when you pray, you could send up a little prayer for me, too.”
14
Roman
I found myself sitting up with my parents that night, watching as Dawidek fell asleep. I hadn’t spoken a word since the women left. We had gone about our nightly routine, everyone eating in silence, the atmosphere strained and heavy. The sun was setting, so Samuel struck the carbide light. In the dim yellow glow, I watched Dawidek’s eyes flutter closed, and as his eyelashes came to rest upon his cheeks, I felt an affection for him so strong it left me close to tears.
“The women are social workers from the Warsaw Council,” my mother said quietly. “The young one is an apprentice. She was watching the children so Samuel and I could speak to the older nurse... Sara is her name.”
“What can they do to help us?”
“They know one of your friends. Andrzej?”
“That is the manager at the youth center. He is the one who has been giving me the tokens for food.”
“He sent the women, Roman. I believe your friend Chaim asked him to.”
“I asked Chaim to help us find a way out. He said he knew someone that might be able to help, but I didn’t realize... He must have passed on our address.”
“Their visit was a shock, that’s all. I wasn’t prepared, and then you came in shouting and... I just wasn’t expecting any of it.” Mother tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling, and heavy tears trickled down her cheeks.
“I thought the Germans had taken you. I thought the girl on the sofa had found the children in the street by themselves,” I whispered. “So the women wanted to help us?”
“They have been smuggling children from the ghetto and resettling them on the other side. Mostly with Catholic families or orphanages. The nurse said she could try to find a place for Eleonora and Dawidek.” Mother searched my gaze, then her eyes dropped to the floor. “She said that Eleonora is severely malnourished. That’s why she is so quiet.”
I looked at my mother in alarm.
“Then, I will get you more food, Mother. There will be a way. Those women came in here today and asked you to hand over half our family?” I said incredulously. I was going to kill Pigeon the next time I saw him. I would tear him apart with my bare hands. I felt the tension returning to the muscles in my arms and shoulders, my body preparing for the fight.
“We said no,” Samuel said abruptly. “Things will get better soon, at least the overcrowding will ease with the deportations. If there are less people, there will be more food and less disease. And...maybe the war will end. We could be free any day now. We have to stay together.”
There it was: the glimmer of hope I’d been relying on him to find. Samuel’s determination to paint such a positive picture had irritated me in the past, but that night, I needed it. I let the relief wash over me, until I saw my mother. The tears were still rolling down her cheeks, and she was staring at Eleonora with heartbreak written all over her face.
“Mother?” I said slowly, shaking my head. “Tell me you’re not seriously considering this. You would send them away from us?” My voice rose almost hysterically, and my parents stared at me in alarm. I knew I needed to keep my voice down, not only because the house was full of people trying to sleep but also because right in that very tiny room with us my baby brother and sister were resting, and Dawidek would be up hours before the dawn because he still needed to work the corpse crew. But I just couldn’t help myself.
“How can I not consider it?” Mother asked me fiercely. She waved toward the window, motioning toward the street. “What kind of life is this, Roman? What if there is a knock on the door one morning at dawn when the roundup begins, and they force us to leave? They have been doing that in some blocks, you know. They go from door to door, and they force everyone out! I will respect Samuel’s wishes, but I wish I could say yes to those women. I would sleep like a baby at night if I knew my babies were on the other side of that wall. Safe together, with at least enough food in their tummies to keep them alive.”
“We are doing just fine,” I said flatly. My mother failed to stifle a sob.
“Just fine,” she mocked. “Eleonora is half the size she should be. You may not know how a child should grow, but Eleonora is my third baby. Believe me when I tell you she is not just fine.”
“That’s enough,” Samuel said abruptly. “It does us no good to squabble or to dwell on these things. It was kind of your friend to try to help us, but we have told the women we cannot accept their offer, and that is the end of it. It is better for us to stay with the children so that we can be sure they are safe. Please thank Chaim for trying.”
I wasn’t sure how to be grateful to him for trying to set this up. I wasn’t even sure how I’d calm myself down enough not to launch myself at him when I saw him the next day.
“Roman,” my mother said suddenly. “Today...when I came into that room, I thought you were going to hurt that woman. Would you have?”
“Of course not,” I said sharply. “Of course I wouldn’t have hurt her. I just thought...” When I blinked, I was back in the living room, and I was so sure that my parents were gone all over again. I gave a full-body shudder, trying to shake the memory away. “I panicked. I thought she was a threat, I guess. I’m sorry.”
“The girl—the young one,” Samuel said slowly. “Perhaps it is her you owe an apology to.”
* * *
I decided not to confront Chaim about the social worker visit during the workday. Instead, I put my head down, and I ignored his attempts at conversation. By lunchtime, he had given up, and we worked in silence for the rest of the day. But as we left that afternoon, I finally turned to him, and I said, “Two social workers visited my apartment yesterday.”
“They are going to rescue the children?” Chaim looked so hopeful I felt a burst of pure irritation.
“Rescue them? They wanted to take them!” I said. He tilted his head and looked at me blankly.
“What did you think I meant when I told you I might know someone who could help?”
“Not that. I need to keep my family together, not break it apart.”
“Roman, the only hope you have is to send the children away,” he said, then he added gently, “To stay in the ghetto is to accept death.”
“Samuel says things might get better,” I said flatly. “With the deportations, things won’t be so crowded and—”
“You are not foolish enough to believe any of that. If your parents are not willing to send the children out, you should convince them.”