The Girl in the Green Sweater (27 page)

When Socha and Wroblewski arrived the next day, they could not believe what had happened. They commended us for our heroics and our cleverness in extinguishing the flame, only there had not seemed much of either on display during the ten or fifteen minutes it took for the fire to be stilled. Really, it was more like a series of desperate measures that happened to do the job before we were done in by the flames.

There was the time, almost seven months into our confinement, when we celebrated Christmas with Socha and Wroblewski. Socha had been talking about this for some months. He felt that since he had celebrated our Jewish New Year with us, we should in turn celebrate his holiday with him. I cannot imagine how Socha and Wroblewski managed to separate from their families on
such an important holiday, but they passed most of Christmas morning and much of the afternoon in our company. They brought vodka and sandwiches and a festive mood. My father was worried that Socha and Wroblewski would drink too much and become talkative once they returned to the outside and give away our location. My father did not drink, but on this occasion he pretended to do so. He kept filling his glass and spilling the vodka into the mud, and in this way he hoped there would be less vodka for our sewer workers to consume. We learned later that Socha was also worried about Wroblewski. Always, when the two men retired at the end of each day and Wroblewski suggested they stop for a drink before heading home, Socha worried. He trusted his colleagues implicitly to keep their secret, but he did not trust them under the influence of alcohol. He did not trust himself under the influence of alcohol, either, and so determined not to drink beyond a social glass or two as long as we were in his care.

There were birthday and anniversary celebrations, too, but of course there was no real cause for celebration, merely gratification that we had survived another milestone under the brutal Nazi regime, in such inhospitable conditions. Socha in particular made a grand show for my mother’s birthday. He very much admired my mother, the way she cared for us two chicks, the way she cared for Babcia and the other women in our group, the way she shouldered our hardships with grace and composure. Once again he brought vodka, and once again my father pretended to drink more than his share, to keep as much alcohol from the lips of our visitors as possible.

For these special occasions, my father would prepare a performance of some kind; he wrote plays and satires and new lyrics to popular songs. He was very clever in this way. His satires were
commentaries about the individuals in our group, and we used to laugh so hard at how we appeared in one another’s eyes. His songs were clever pieces of wordplay that often poked fun at our own characters and at our struggles at the hands of the Germans. We were not so desperate, he believed, that we could not laugh at our situation. Halina was also clever with words, and she contributed some poems and satires of her own.

The L of our chamber would be offstage, and this was where we would go to prepare our scenes. There was not a lot for us to be excited about in the monotony of our underground work, so we came to enjoy the preparations as performances. There would be a part for everyone who wanted to participate, only not everyone wanted to participate. Genia Weinberg and Chaskiel Orenbach, as I recall, would not take part. They considered it a waste of time to stage these little plays for Socha and Wroblewski, but doing so was how we reminded ourselves that we were still a civilized group, that we could be creative and productive, that we were human beings after all. We came to look forward to these performances—the sewer workers, too. I would look up from practicing my letters and see my father busy scribbling in the 1938 pocket diary Socha had brought him for just this purpose and know that a new satire was soon coming.

These aberrations from routine were life itself. Indeed, the most dramatic of these came in the form of a birth and two deaths. The birth, of course, was the inevitable result of Weinbergova’s secret pregnancy, which was not such a secret as our time underground continued. Still, Socha did not know of her condition until the very end. We had put off telling him for so long that it was now thought best to wait for the last possible moment. Finally, my mother and father took Socha aside to explain the matter. At first,
my parents reported, Socha was shocked. He thought back to the difficulties of the past months and wondered how a pregnant woman could endure such hardships. Then he wondered how a baby could be safely delivered in such unsanitary conditions, and after that there was the greater worry about how to care for the baby and keep its certain cries from being heard aboveground. Surely the activity of a healthy baby over a prolonged period would lead to our discovery. This was a big dilemma, everyone agreed, but no one could offer a good solution to any of the problems the pregnancy presented. Finally, Socha threw up his hands and said, “We will have to think about what to do.”

But Weinbergova could not wait for Socha to develop a plan. She went into labor shortly after this encounter. Genia was moved into the private corner of our chamber. I remained with Pawel and a few of the others in the main part of the chamber. I did not know exactly what was happening, only that something was happening. I was nearly eight years old, but despite the maturity and wisdom that had been forced upon me by our circumstance, I was still innocent of such things as childbirth. I would piece together the particulars later. My father acted as midwife. My mother and some of the other women frantically boiled water. There was a good deal of rummaging through our few things for a suitable blanket or piece of cloth. This, too, I remember. There was the low moaning of Weinbergova. This I remember most of all, and as I listened to Genia’s moaning, I felt so terribly frightened for her. I did not know what could cause such pain, such anguish. I could not even imagine. She must have been so afraid!

Regarding the details of Genia Weinberg’s delivery, I can only share what my parents shared with me afterward. After the birth, my father cut the umbilical cord with a pair of rusty scissors. The
baby, I learned later, was a boy. Babcia collected the newborn from my father and tended to him while my mother prepared a mixture of warm sugar water to get the child to nurse. After a while, the baby was placed alongside Genia’s oustretched body on one of the planks we used for sleeping. My mother said Genia appeared to agonize over her natural maternal instincts to protect and nurture this child and our unnatural circumstance that cast this infant as a threat to our survival. No one knew whether to welcome this child or to fear his arrival, not even Weinbergova.

It was an anxious time in our part of the chamber. Even Pawel was nervous. He did not understand the commotion all around. He did not understand the sound of the baby crying. “This is a baby, Krysha?” he asked me at one point.

I could not think how to answer.

Meanwhile, outside, Socha was just as anxious. He had spent the time since learning of Weinbergova’s condition trying to find a home for the baby that was about to be born to our underground family. He did not know that Weinbergova was now in labor, and we did not know he was making these inquiries on the child’s behalf. Socha knew only that the baby was coming, probably soon, and he went to church after church, trying to find a group of nuns that would care for a newborn child without asking any questions. Finally he located such a church, such a group of nuns, and he could not wait to return to our chamber the following morning to deliver this welcome news.

Weinbergova passed an uncertain few hours with her newborn baby pressed to her side, not knowing what Socha had arranged. She only knew that with each cry her baby threatened to give us all away and that the baby’s chances of survival in our damp, dark hovel would not be good. My mother sat with them and watched as
Genia moved closer and closer to the child. Genia kept covering the baby’s face with a rag, and at first it seemed this was merely to quiet the sound of his whimpering, but then it became clear that she was attempting to suffocate the baby and put an end to the uncertainty. My mother gently pushed the rag away from the infant’s face, and then a few moments later, at the next sound of whimpering, Genia returned with the rag and my mother gently pushed it aside again. All of this happened without any words passing between the two women. Their eyes did all of the talking. Back and forth they went like this, as everyone else drifted off to sleep. It had been a long, eventful night. My mother stayed up with Genia for as long as she could, stroking her hair, pushing her hands from the baby’s face, but eventually she too drifted off, and it was at this moment Genia determined to smother her newborn baby, to sacrifice the one, whose chances were slim, for the good of the others, whose chances were only a little bit better than slim.

My mother always felt guilty that she had fallen asleep at such a critical time. She was crestfallen when she awoke and realized what Weinbergova had done. We were all upset about this, but my mother most of all. She thought that if she had stayed awake, the baby might have been spared. Perhaps this was so, but my mother was not to blame. No one was to blame. Also, at just that moment, no one in our group could say that Weinbergova’s decision was not for the best. Our underground chamber was no environment for an infant. His constant cries would have placed us in danger. Because of this, it was possible to look on this sad development as an act of great courage on the part of Genia Weinberg, only it did not appear so a little bit later that morning, when Socha arrived in our chamber with what he had thought would be his welcome news.

Such a tragic moment! Such a cruel irony! For Weinbergova to learn that her baby might have been spared after all! That Socha had made arrangements for the baby to be raised by nuns, to have a chance at a full and happy life! It was the situation she had chosen for her young daughter, when Weinbergova had an opportunity to place her with an Aryan family to escape the liquidation, and it was the situation she would have chosen for her infant son, if only she had known that such a situation was possible.

Poor Genia Weinberg was inconsolable, and she would remain so for the next while. For the next few days, she kept to the elbow of the L in relative privacy. She would not speak. She would not eat. She was weakened from the childbirth, so this contributed to her distant mood, but she was also broken by what she now regarded as the unnecessary death of her infant child. Gradually, however, she returned to her routines. She resumed her responsibilities with the cooking. She joined us when we were sitting and talking. She was not the same, of course, but she was back once again to the business of surviving, to making the best of what was left for her.

The second death, sadly, was Babcia’s. In the end, the horrible conditions in the sewer became too much for old Mrs. Weiss, and she died in her sleep one night. She was asthmatic, and the dampness of the underground air was not helping her condition. Her breathing was becoming worse and worse. We could hear her wheezing all night long. Each day, it was a little more difficult for her to move. My mother had to help her when it was her turn for a bath. My mother checked her each day for lice, after she was through checking us children. My mother was at her side at the very end, holding her hand, and in the morning the men wrapped Babcia’s body and waited for Socha and Wroblewski to arrive and determine what they should do next.

Socha was very superstitious. He did not want to be in our small chamber with a dead body. He told us what to do and then he left. Wroblewski, too. He was not so superstitious, but he would not stay without Socha.

Berestycki said the prayers. I can still picture him in his flowing tallith, chanting the mourner’s Kaddish. Some of the other adults said a few words of remembrance. We all shed a few tears. Next, the men pushed Babcia’s body into the narrow pipe opening, and through the pipe to where it opened by the main canal. In this way they carried her to the Peltew. There they said another few prayers and buried her body in the river. Then the men returned to the Palace and to the rest of their lives. There was no traditional period of mourning for old Mrs. Weiss, just as there had been no traditional period of mourning for Weinbergova’s baby or my uncle Kuba or the others of our group who had been shot and killed upon leaving the sewer. We did not sit shiva. Every day for us was shiva, so we said our few prayers and shared our few thoughts and continued on.

For the longest time, we had been a group of eleven. For the briefest time, we were a group of twelve. Now we were ten, and I began to worry that this was the start of some new heartbreaking pattern, that one by one we would take turns leaving, that soon we would be just my immediate family, and that after that we would be no more.

T
hese life and death developments led me to a period of despair unlike any I had known. I did not know to call it a depression, but that is most certainly what it was. My parents, too, did not know to give my new mood a name. All they knew was that I had become silent, sullen, sad. This was in such contrast with my usual cheerful personality that of course they worried. I became a different little girl.