The Girl in the Green Sweater (19 page)

Socha and Wroblewski were extremely careful about their daily trips to our hideaway. They came to us each time from a different street entrance, and we could hear them sloshing through the mud and water for a full half hour before they actually arrived. Such a
noise they made, clambering through that pipe! Always, their colleague Kowalow was stationed as a lookout on the streets above. The sewer workers had a ready alibi in case they were discovered. They were always dressed in waterproof overalls and rubber hip boots, carrying appropriate tools and lanterns, so if they were ever questioned, they could convincingly maintain that they were on legitimate sewer business. And, indeed, they often were, because there was usually some proper assignment for them to carry out as well. It was the contents of their satchels that worried them—how to explain the food and other supplies—so they determined that if they were ever confronted, they would throw the satchels into the river and let the current carry them away.

Early on, the sewer workers had an opportunity to use this alibi during a dangerous encounter with a Gestapo officer as they attempted to descend into the tunnel from the street. The man approached them in a questioning manner, and Socha and Wroblewski quickly tossed their satchels into the water as planned, after which they argued with the man for distracting them and causing them to lose their supply of cement in the river. Their confrontational approach was effective, because the Gestapo officer soon waved them along. Of course, we went without food that day because our daily ration of bread and other supplies was floating down the Peltew.

On most days, Socha and Wroblewski would bring something else to go along with the food, whatever they could comfortably carry in the satchels they wore slung over their shoulders so that their hands might be free for crawling. When we were sick with dysentery, for example, and the cold water from the fountain seemed to aggravate our stomachs, my father requested some rubbing alcohol and a tin can of sardines; he improvised a Sterno
stove by lighting the alcohol and warming the water in the tin can. In this way, my father was able to soothe our stomachs and still make sure we received the water we needed to survive. The sewer workers brought these things and anything else they could obtain and carry. They would also deliver news from the Ju-Lag, which my father and the others would discuss in whispers throughout the day. Socha and Wroblewski would not stay long, only long enough to assess our situation and to rest for a few moments before making the return crawl through the narrow pipe. They would also collect their payment, which my father handed to them daily. Socha himself suggested this arrangement. He did not want my father to give him a large sum all at once, because no one knew how long we would have to hide and because Socha did not want to put my father in the position of wondering whether or not the sewer workers would return to complete the job. What if something happened to Socha on his way to or from this hiding place? What if our sewer workers were discovered? It was better, Socha said, for my father to pay them each day and in this way to keep their association on a very professional level, with mutual trust.

Very quickly, the man who had orchestrated much of our escape and who attempted to coordinate much of our confinement revealed himself to be a man of dishonor. This did not surprise my father, he later said. And it did not surprise me. I was an observant child, and I could tell from the beginning that this Weiss was not a good person. He was mean-spirited and deceitful. He had left his wife and daughter in our basement barracks when they had been too scared to descend into the sewer. And now it turned out that he would not pay his full share of the money to Socha after all. Neither would his friends. There were other men who were meant to pay as well—strangers to us, but not necessarily to Weiss—and
they would also neglect their debt. They simply did not have it to give. What little they had was gone in the first few days, and after that the burden fell almost entirely on my father. This placed my father in a dilemma. He was worried that if he told Socha about the default of the other men, it might upset our situation in any number of ways. He thought it would be better if he continued paying Socha the full amount and making up the difference from his own pocket. In this way, Socha would not have cause to think that the group he had chosen was in any way duplicitous. Certainly, my father resented the way this obligation had shifted to him, but he did not think it was in our interest to challenge the others or to call their delinquency to Socha’s attention. And so he paid.

One by one, I began to take notice of many of our new associates. We tended to sit in two groups, on either side of the small chamber. In our group there was usually myself, my brother, my father, my mother, and my uncle. Also, Jacob Berestycki, a tailor who was perhaps the most observant Jew among our group; Mundek Margulies (Korsarz the Pirate), a barber, who was a practical joker and a determined worker; and a young woman named Klara Keler, who had attached herself to my mother on our first night in the sewer and said, “You will be my mother.”
Pani bedzie moja mama
. My mother did not argue. Klara had come to our expedition through Korsarz, and we liked them both. Already, we could see they were of good, strong character. If Klara wanted to cling to my mother for security, my mother did not mind. Her arms were full with me and Pawel, but there was room in her heart for another.

In the other group there was Weiss, who continued to see himself as the leader of our underground society. With him was his mother, old Mrs. Weiss, whom we all called “Babcia,” and a young woman named Halina Wind.
Babcia
was a good woman with an
awful son. At the time, we all thought of her as elderly, but it was our situation that made her seem so aged, so frail.

Halina Wind was another story. She was a difficult character in those first weeks, when she was aligned with Weiss. She came into the sewer with him when his own wife would not, and she moved about in our small hiding place as if she were married to the man in charge. There was
something
between them—what, I could not be sure. When Socha and Wroblewski arrived with our daily bread, it was Halina who collected the rations and handed them out to the rest of us. She did this at Weiss’s pleasure, of course. She carried herself like a queen feeding her royal subjects, my father always said, and invariably she gave the biggest portions to Weiss and his mother and his cronies.

Also in Weiss’s group were Shmiel Weinberg and his wife, Genia, and the brothers Chaskiel and Itzek Orenbach. This was the disagreeable faction of our group. These were the men who were always criticizing Socha’s ability to make good on his promise to look after us. They did not like the food he was bringing for us. The bread was stale, they said. The portions were meager. They did not like the living conditions, as if Socha himself were responsible for the filth of the sewer. They did not like my father, or Kuba, or Berestycki, or Korsarz, and they argued against any decisions or opinions they offered. Always, this disagreeable group huddled in the far corner of our small chamber, whispering some new strategy or other. Weinberg was probably the most vocal of this group, after Weiss. He was the loudest complainer. And he liked to criticize! So did the Orenbachs, only not so loudly. Together, the four of them were such a negative, disruptive influence on our lives that it was no wonder we could not get along.

In time we learned that during the German occupation, Shmiel and Genia Weinberg had placed their young daughter with an Aryan woman, in much the same way my parents had sought to make arrangements for me to be taken in by that nice teacher. This was a heartbreaking thing to discover about someone you had already decided you did not like; it put them in a different light. At least, it put Genia Weinberg in a different, more compassionate light. Shmiel Weinberg was too difficult and unpleasant to consider with any compassion. And here was another reason for compassion: Weinbergova was already a few months pregnant with another child when we descended into the sewer on the night of the final liquidation. She had not told anyone. I do not know if she even told her husband. Absolutely, Weiss and the other men would have discouraged her from seeking sanctuary in the sewer if they had known her condition. And Socha would never have allowed it. Of course, no one had any way of knowing how long we would be forced to hide underground, but everyone had to know such conditions would be unhealthy for a pregnant woman and her unborn child.

It took a long time for anyone in our group to notice Weinbergova’s condition. She always wore a big black coat, and when she was sitting she covered herself with this coat, like a blanket. Also, it was very dark in this second chamber beneath the Mari Sniezna church, so it was difficult to make a close inspection of anyone. This was a good and welcome thing when it came to protecting one another’s privacy—when we had to step into the shadows in the corner of the room to relieve ourselves, for example—but it also made it possible for Weinbergova to conceal her condition from the rest of the group for a while longer.

There was also a man named Dr. Weiss in our party. He was no
relation to the bullying Weiss. In fact, I do not know that he was connected in any way to anyone else in our group. He was a lone character. He may have made an appeal to Socha when our group was being winnowed to its present number, after which Socha determined he would be included among us. We all liked Dr. Weiss well enough. He was helpful. He took his turn to fetch the water without protest. He accepted his daily ration of bread and water with gratitude. He gave what money he had as his share of payment, for as long as he had it to give. I do not think I exchanged two words with this man during the entire time we shared our underground place, but I never heard a word against him.

Finally, there were two other groups—three young men, who may or may not have had some prior connection to Weiss, and two young women, who like Dr. Weiss had probably made their separate appeal to Socha when we were a group of seventy and they were desperate to be included among our smaller party. I never learned the names of these young men and women, nor did I ever attach their faces to the hushed voices in our dark chamber. They did not stay in our company long enough for me and my family to get to know them. They were in the background, just.

Clearly, we were a disparate group. Some of us were connected to one another, and some of us were not. Some of these connections ran deep, as they did among my family and my uncle Kuba, and some were newly formed and on the surface. Weiss and his fellows, I do not think they cared so much for one another. They were out for themselves. And certainly they did not care for us. Weiss himself would not even remain with his own wife and daughter, so how could we expect him to place anyone else’s interests alongside his own?

My father did not like that Weiss had put himself in charge of
accepting the food delivery from Socha and Wroblewski, and he especially did not like the uneven distribution of the food at the hands of Halina Wind, but here again he did not say anything. Despite the trust and true friendship he seemed to be developing with Socha, at this early stage my father was careful to keep the dissension among our group away from our protectors. He did not want to trouble Socha with our own petty distractions, when there was so much already to occupy Socha’s full attention. He did not even share with Socha my mother’s concerns that Weiss was rifling through our few things whenever my father took his turn retrieving the water. I realize now that probably my mother’s suspicions were born more of reason than of evidence. She had the feeling that Weiss was always wondering where my father kept his money. Instead of being grateful to my father for contributing most of our daily payment to Socha and the others, Weiss appeared to resent my father’s resources. He thought it placed our family in Socha’s favor.

My mother said she could hear Weiss collaborating with his buddies, trying to imagine where Ignacy Chiger kept his money and his jewelry. I do not think she ever discovered him looking through my father’s pockets in search of valuables, but she heard him scheming. She could see the way the power of our group seemed to tilt between Weiss and my father. As it had been aboveground, whenever my father was absent from our group, Weiss claimed even more control. Whenever my father was present, there was a kind of stalemate between them. And when Socha was among us, Weiss was as quiet as a mouse.

And so our two groups stayed on either side of our small, dark chamber, without much interaction. In his journal, my father wrote diplomatically that some of our underground comrades
were rebelliously inclined and not fit for coexistence, even as we managed to fitfully coexist. This tension troubled my father, as it must have troubled some of the others, like Berestycki and Korsarz and my uncle Kuba. Probably it troubled Socha as well, as he was made aware of it.

All these troubles were to change one afternoon, about two or three weeks into our confinement. My brother was still suffering with dysentery. He was very ill, very uncomfortable, very unhappy. He was not yet four years old, so it was only natural that a child of this age would sometimes cry beneath such a sickness. At other times, Pawel knew to cry silent tears, but here he could not help himself. He was not so terribly loud, and he was not so terribly persistent, but nevertheless he was crying, crying, crying. As it continued, Pawel’s crying made Weiss and the others very agitated, very angry. Weiss especially. He worried we would be discovered by the sounds of Pawel’s crying. His buddies encouraged Weiss in this agitation. Even Genia Weinberg, who was normally quiet and reserved, took the opportunity to criticize my mother for taking two small children into such a desperate, hopeless place.

On this day, it happened to be my father’s turn to retrieve the water. I do not recall who went with him on this trip, but I do not think it was one of Weiss’s buddies. Probably it was Berestycki or Korsarz, or maybe Dr. Weiss, the stand-alone member of our group. Weiss was receiving too much support from his side of our small chamber for me to believe his ranks had been thinned by the water run, and with my father gone he seemed emboldened. Every few minutes, he would tell my mother to keep Pawel quiet. “Shut up, already!” he would say. “Enough!”