“Hey! Get your hands off me. Put me down. I’m trying to help you.”
Eli held him for a moment in a tense grip, exhaled and let him down. “I want my wife at home. Do you understand?”
Maximilian brushed off his coat as though Eli’s hands had been full of dust. “I don’t appreciate your attitude, Eli. Not one bit. I did a real favor for you today. Esther’s going to come home tonight and every night after her shift. Do you know what that means? She has home privileges. Almost all of the other women are confined to the Lipowa barracks. They have to eat the commissary food there. One meal a day. They don’t get to come home at the end of the day to a fancy house and a big nutritious meal. To their husbands and their sons. They may never come home.”
“I don’t want Esther sewing clothes for Nazis. You have to get her out of that job. She works at the clinic. She’s a nurse.”
Maximilian gave a quick shake of his head. “Well, now she’s a seamstress. The Jewish clinic means nothing to Globočnik. He doesn’t care if it’s open or shut; it caters to Jews. At this time, sewing is the best thing that can happen for Esther. Just yesterday, General Globočnik ordered that ten thousand Jews be immediately deported from Lublin to shops in other towns because he said that too many Jews live too close to his headquarters in his city.”
“His city? Jews in his city? If you’re talking to me, you can stop talking like a Nazi. We’re not some species called ‘Jews’—we’re people, citizens of Lublin, just like you, no better, no worse, mothers and fathers and children. Don’t you dare depersonalize Jewish people in my presence.”
“Well, it’s a descriptive term. Especially in 1940.”
Eli moved forward. His words came through clenched teeth. “Did you hear me?”
Maximilian backed up. “Okay, they’re people, citizens of Lublin, does that make a difference? These citizens are going to be sent to work camps far away. Some of these women are going to be working underground in munitions factories. I’ve managed to keep Esther in Lublin, where she can go home at night. You should be kissing me on the lips for that.”
“Where do I go to pick up Esther and Klara at four o’clock?”
“I’m not positive about Klara yet. I’m having trouble getting her released. I may need to drop another thousand on her supervisor. How important is she to you; after all, she’s just a sister-in-law?”
Eli’s nostrils flared, and before he could respond, Maximilian said, “Okay, okay, I get it. She’s important. Hey, don’t blame me for the question. Sisters-in-law aren’t always so important.” He forced a chuckle. “But I’ll get her home privileges, too. It’ll just take another thousand.”
Eli went into the office, withdrew another thousand zloty from the safe and handed the roll to Maximilian. “Where do I go at four o’clock?”
“Let me bring them to you. You won’t get near Lipowa without getting arrested. I’ll bring them home to you at four o’clock. You can trust me.”
* * *
At four thirty, a small German staff car pulled up in front of Eli’s residence. Maximilian opened the back door to let Esther and Klara out. They were both attired in uniforms—formless gray cotton shifts. Esther ran to Eli, who wrapped her in his arms. He started to ask, “Essie, how…” She put her finger on his lips and tipped her head toward Klara. “We’re all right. Maximilian drove us home. We’ll talk later.” Eli glanced at Klara, visibly distraught, her mouth open, her eyes wide, her hair in tangles; the image of an institutionalized patient in a state of shock. Eli put his arms around both of them, and repeated, “It’s all right. We’re all home now.” Maximilian smiled at Eli, waved, tipped his hat and drove off.
No words were exchanged for the first hour. The women bathed and changed their clothes. Esther busied herself making dinner. Klara sat motionless on the couch. Finally, Esther said, “Where’s Izaak?”
“He’s with my father.”
“We’ll have to make arrangements for his care during the day. Klara and I need to be back at the shop before seven. Our hours are seven to four every day. We were warned not to be late.”
“Maximilian is going to try to get you released from that job.”
“Maximilian? What can he do? He saw us walking home and he drove us the rest of the way.”
“Well, for starters, he managed to get you home privileges. You don’t have to live in the barracks like the other women.”
Esther had a puzzled expression. “Home privileges? Eli, the women who live in Lublin all go home at night. The only ones who are forced to live in the barracks are prisoners and Jewish women who have arrived from other towns.”
“I gave the bastard two thousand zloty…”
Suddenly, Klara moaned, a long mournful tone that came from deep inside, and she stared at the ceiling with vacant eyes. “My arm,” she cried, “you’re twisting my arm. You’re hurting me.”
Esther and Eli rushed over to her. “It’s okay, Klara, I’m here with you now,” Esther said. “No one is hurting your arm.” She turned to Eli. “The ORPO yanked her up into the truck by her arm. They were rough with us.”
“I’m not going back there!” Klara announced. “I’m not working for the Nazis. They killed my Milosz. They abducted my Bonnie. They’re rapists, they’re sadists and murderers!” Then she broke into sobs.
“Klara, it’s just a job,” Esther said gently. “It’s just sewing. A simple job. If that’s all that happens, we can survive it. Sooner or later this war will end. Wars always do. Maybe the British and the French will prevail on the battlefield, or force a truce. We just need to survive until then.”
Klara’s body shook in Esther’s arms. “I can’t do it. I can’t take orders from demons. They are the devil’s envoys. They scream all day. They push us to work harder and faster. They throw garments at us. How do we survive that?”
“Because we have to.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LUBLIN, POLAND
APRIL 1940
“Esther and Klara left for Lipowa again this morning,” Eli said, standing in the brickyard office with his father and Louis. “It’s slave labor—nothing more, nothing less. Their guards could just as well be Egyptian overseers with whips. Esther tells me that the conditions are intolerable. The shop is dirty, the air is full of dust and cloth particles and the guards who supervise them are cruel.”
“Esther is a strong woman.”
“That she is, and she is better able to adjust than Klara, at least in the short term. Klara has exhausted whatever emotional stability she possessed. She cries all the time. Just last night at dinner, she started sobbing and bolted from the table. I don’t know how to explain this all to Izaak.”
“He’s not blind, Eli,” Jakob said. “He sees what’s going on. He tells me about it when you bring him here in the morning. We talk. He’s a smart boy.”
“More people are arriving every day, and many are being sent to Lipowa,” Louis said. “Carpenters, ironworkers, woodworkers. They want men to work in the tannery. The Judenrat is employing every available resource to absorb these new workers into our community. People are rounded up in the outlying villages as though they were wild horses. They arrive here with nothing but the shirts on their backs. Some of them are sent into the Lipowa camp, and they’re not allowed to leave. The rest are left to find housing and provisions in our community. The Judenrat is overwhelmed. Right now, we’re collecting clothing and shoes for them. We’re doing everything we can.”