Death in Twilight (13 page)

“Good,” Aaron said. “Same time.”

“Same time,” he agreed.

There was nothing else to be said. The Polish men picked up the trunk with the menorah but left the furs and sacred items to be collected the following night. Yelena kept the satchel.

Everyone shook hands all around, and if Yelena’s hand lingered briefly in Aaron’s, no one was willing to acknowledge it.

Chapter 9

A
aron woke with a start at the first pale rays of dawn.

He reached out his left hand and shook Yelena awake.

“What?” shouted the surprised voice of Lech Teitel.

Full consciousness hit Aaron like a derailed boxcar. With it came the knowledge that Yelena was once again on the other side of the city.

“It’s light,” Aaron said gruffly, trying to hide his embarrassment. “We should get moving.”

Teitel turned red-rimmed eyes to Aaron and then to Boris and Dov, asleep in the other cots. His eyes slammed shut again and he rolled over onto his other side. Aaron kicked him and then leaned in the other direction and shook Boris awake.

When the man’s black eyes blinked open, all Aaron said was “Sun’s up.”

Boris kicked Dov in turn.

Cigarettes and a dash of plum brandy usually dispelled the men’s grogginess. But today they were able to add recently fresh bread to their usual “Balkan breakfast.” In fact, to celebrate last night’s success, Teitel suggested opening a few tins of a mystery stew that had been intended as German field rations.

Dov voiced concern when he looked down into the can after its top had been removed.

“Do you think if I say a brucha over it, it’ll become kosher?” he asked.

“Try it and see what happens,” Teitel said. “But if you decide that’s not good enough, I’ll be happy to eat yours.”

Aaron stuck two fingers into the gray glop and scooped something unrecognizable into his mouth. His taste buds were no help in unraveling the ingredients in the enigmatic mush, but the solidity of the food as it hit his stomach was both gratifying and a little nauseating.

Aaron spared a moment for guilt at eating so well while surrounded by so many hungry people — but just a moment. He knew plenty of others who lived better in the ghetto by doing worse — collaborators, extortionists, thieves and murderers.

Some of his best clients were men and women who still enjoyed tattered remnants of their lives of plenty, or had become “rich” through the positions they’d wrangled for themselves at the Judenrat. They took bribes from the poor for everything from ration cards to jobs.

Aaron didn’t love them, but he took their money just like everyone else’s. He used the prices he charged them to help subsidize everyone else, as well as to provide for his own comfort. What he charged a rich man for a bottle of slivovitz was enough to bring in kilo after kilo of bread.

And being rich, or even corrupt, didn’t necessarily make someone stupidly selfish. The Torah raiment that was being exchanged for the guns came from a thief who understood that money wouldn’t be enough to save his family from the Germans.

Aaron knew that the twenty-five rifles he expected tonight wouldn’t make much difference against the Werhmacht, but it was better to have them than to be completely defenseless. What he’d seen the day before at Breslaw Hospital added to a certainty that had been growing for several months. Though the ghetto might seem like Hell, Jews would not be spending all eternity here. The ghetto, with its starvation and terrors, was merely a stopping point on the way to the real thing.

So, the twenty-five rifles Yelena brought would, he hoped, become one hundred in week, two hundred in a month.

In two months?

Aaron had no idea. By then it might be entirely too late. The battle might have been fought and lost. Still, he hoped each rifle would kill a German soldier and send a message to the Reich. Like the Roman emperor Titus at Masada, Hitler would learn that Jews do not go quietly.

Would providing weapons to a doomed resistance save his soul from the sin of eating while children starved? Aaron knew it wouldn’t, but he worked hard to convince himself otherwise.

The curfew had ended at first light. By the time Aaron reached the building’s front door, several hand carts and other conveyances were waiting. It was important to get them loaded and on their way quickly, before the operation was spotted by the authorities.

Aaron looked at his young couriers; grubby boys who sat on bicycle rickshaws, all of which had been built out of spare parts. To earn what amounted to loose change, the boys moved any cargo they could find from one side of town to the other, including passengers.

Aaron was familiar with most of the boys who greeted him, either from working with them before or seeing them around the neighborhood. Some were working as the only support for their families, he knew, and many were simply orphans who had found a way to survive. They were all, without exception, dirty. They wore tweed caps and clothes that were raggedly patched with varying degrees of success. They seemed bright-eyed and eager in the early light, knowing that they would be fed some of what they transported.

“Chaim, you’re first,” Aaron called to the boy nearest. Dov had come up behind Aaron and the two men quickly loaded several sacks aboard the rickshaw. When everything was set, Aaron handed over a thick slice of bread to the driver and asked, “You know where you’re going?”

“Thirty-two fifty-one Lezno Street.”

“Good. Go.”

The next rickshaw pulled up and was piled high. The driver got a different address to go with his slice of bread.

And then the next.

And the next.

“Police!” cried the boy who was the furthest away from the makeshift loading dock. He mounted his bike and, in a panic, began to pedal. Other boys tried to follow suit but got tangled together before they’d made it a hundred feet. Curtains were drawn in a hundred windows, with only a corner left open for spying.

“Germans?” Aaron shouted to a boy who could see around the corner.

“Jewish.”

Aaron could feel himself relax somewhat. He was comfortable that the patrol would be happy to take a bribe. Especially from the man who was supposed to be finding the killer of one of their own.

Aaron was even more confident when he saw that the man leading the patrol was Shemtov, one of the cops who had found Berson’s body. A personal connection would work even better than greed.

Shemtov took his time as he walked up the block with an officer who Aaron didn’t recognize. The big policeman made a show of studying each young face he passed. He nodded slightly and in a way that told each of them that they would be remembered.

Finally done with his hard looks, Shemtov walked straight up to Aaron, who stood on the stoop of the building.

Shemtov showed no sign of having met Aaron before.

“What’s going on here?” Shemtov asked, speaking in the exact same manner as every other cop down through history.

Aaron had used that voice many times himself when he was a gendarme. It was a tone that could make a saint feel sinful and a newborn want back into the womb.

“I’d be happy to explain, officer,” Aaron said.

“Of course you would.”

“Perhaps we could speak privately?” Aaron suggested. There was a form to be observed, after all.

Shemtov nodded.

“Ciarnakow, stay here and make sure everyone behaves.”

“Yes, sir.”

Aaron imagined he could see the second officer licking his lips at the promise of a bribe. What would it be? Cash? Something even better?

Shemtov took Aaron roughly by the shoulder and dragged him halfway down the block. Aaron noticed curtains twitch to get a better view of the action. But if the people behind them were hoping to hear anything, they were disappointed. Both men spoke in near whispers, their heads close together.

“Have you found him?” Shemtov asked.

“The man who killed Berson? No.”

“Well, what have you been doing since yesterday? I figured if you were back to your usual business — yes, I know what you do — you must have found Berson’s killer already.”

Shemtov hadn’t released his grip on Aaron’s shoulder and now tightened it.

If Aaron felt the pinch, he didn’t show it. When he replied, his voice held no strain.

“A prior engagement that had to be kept,” he said evenly. “Nothing I could have done overnight, anyway.”

The grip stayed tight.

“Did you find Gersh?” Shemtov asked.

“I did,” Aaron said. “He said he wasn’t with Berson when it happened, of course. And he said he was injured in another incident entirely, meaning that he left Berson alone for the rest of the shift.”

Aaron saw no reason to reveal Gersh’s alter ego as a Polish national.

“Did he say anything else?” Shemtov asked.

“He didn’t have much of a chance before he was taken outside and shot.”

“He was killed at Breslaw?”

Aaron reached for a cigarette from the inside of his coat. When he opened the top buttons he realized his fingers weren’t frozen and that the air allowed inside the coat felt almost warm. After offering the pack to Shemtov, who took three, Aaron slowly nodded.

“Shit,” Shemtov said quietly.

Aaron agreed and helped light one of Shemtov’s cigarettes. Both men drew deeply.

A minute passed.

“Any progress at all?” Shemtov asked.

“Some. You know anything about Berson’s rabbi? I found one of these flyers in his room.”

Aaron handed it over.

Shemtov looked at it carefully. His lips followed along silently as he read the prayer.

“Amen,” he said, and after a pause, “I’ve seen a few of the flyers around the station. I’m not sure it was Berson who brought them in, though now I guess it must have been. From what I’ve heard, the congregation is run by some kind of holy man from the hinterlands. His people were transported here from the back of the beyond. Very strict sect, a little secretive.”

“And they’re reaching out for new parishioners?”

“I guess so,” Shemtov said with a shrug. “Maybe they don’t have enough for a minyan anymore. They wouldn’t be the only ones.”

“I guess not,” Aaron said. “They’re my next stop. If Berson was so religious, his rabbi might know what he was up to.”

“I guess it’s worth a shot.”

Aaron turned to go.

A rough hand stopped him, grabbing the same shoulder it had so recently released.

“One more thing.”

“What?”

“This,” Shemtov said, pointing to the boys and the pile up of their vehicles. “I can’t just let you go without paying the tax. People would be suspicious.”

“Seriously?”

“Well, I guess I could just let it go, and we can tell everyone here that you’re working with us.”

Shemtov’s smile was ugly.

Aaron sighed.

“Take what you want then.”

The two men walked back to where the second officer was standing.

“We’ve reached an agreement,” Shemtov told the other man.

“Oh?”

“Yes, it turns out all of this is part of Mr. Kaminski’s charity work,” Shemtov said. “He’s known around town as quite a humanitarian. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of him.”

“Very surprising.”

“He’s very, very generous.”

Shemtov slapped Aaron on the back. Aaron gritted his teeth and displayed them in a smile filled with so much acid that it could have burned through the armor of a German tank.

After one more slap, the two officers borrowed a cloth sack and began to go shopping. In a few minutes, the sack was full and some of the most precious commodities, including a dozen eggs and two cartons of cigarettes, were in it.

But still they didn’t leave. Instead, the policemen walked to opposite corners of the block and stood looking out.

“What are you doing?” Aaron asked Shemtov.

“We’re a full-service department,” Shemtov said. “You get value for what you pay for, which in this case is safe passage. So, get this stuff out of here quickly, before I have to be somewhere else.”

The bicycle rickshaws had finally been untangled and, seeing how things were, the boys began to line up again to pick up the supplies.

Dov and Boris did most of the loading now, while Aaron sat on the stoop thinking about his next move.

Sacks and cartons were placed on the rickshaws as quickly as possible. The ritual was repeated until there were no more rickshaws and the supplies were running thin. Only the rusty rifles hadn’t been moved from the building. There were some things even the Jewish Police would have a hard time overlooking.

As both a thank you and a plea for silence, the smugglers left a large pile of supplies, from flour to fuel, in the hall of the building they were using. Aaron trusted the woman who led the building’s house committee with ensuring everything was parceled out fairly.

After the boys were gone, Shemtov offered Aaron a mockery of a salute, grabbed his bulky package and walked off with his partner. Not even 8 a.m. and he’d already done a good day’s work.

Aaron took his leave of Teitel and the others with the promise they would rendezvous back at the building that night. Dov would stay in the basement, guarding the guns they already had, as well as the Torah vestments.