Beyond the Shadow of Night(17)

One day, late in September, the bombing stopped. The Kogans asked neighbors what was happening. Rumors started, and soon official notes were distributed.

Within days, the Polish soldiers who had been stationed on the street corners disappeared from the city, to be replaced with German ones.

The rumors were correct. Warsaw had fallen.

The bombing raids stopped; the tension remained. There was peace of a sort, but no less fear. People watched every move of the German troops and slept with one eye open. The message from the officials who had taken over the city was one of business as usual, and that the city would now be made to run more efficiently.

It was strange for Asher’s papa and sisters to continue to go to work—for everything to be normal. There was little conversation, although once Asher heard a neighbor talk about waiting for a hammer to fall.

Everybody accepted there was not much else they could do but wait and see.



Asher thought there was one thing that they could do. It was something he’d never quite forgotten since the bombing started, even though Papa hadn’t mentioned it at all since that day they’d visited the mess that used to be Café Baran.

“Perhaps Mr. Baran will want to start rebuilding the café now,” he said casually one morning while the family were eating breakfast.

“Is it worth it?” Mama said, frowning.

“Of course,” Asher replied. “And Papa and I are going to help.”

“You’re . . . what?” Mama’s gaze hopped between Asher and Papa, settling on the latter.

Papa kept his eyes down on his oatmeal, which only signified to everyone around the table that he was aware of his wife’s accusatory stare. He eventually looked over at her and smiled.

She didn’t smile back.

“Didn’t I mention that, Golda? You should have seen the place. The walls are still standing, but everything else is ruined and it’s very dangerous, so we promised to help with the repairs in our spare time.”

“I want to help too,” Rina said.

The others surveyed her slender figure.

“I can do something, I’m sure,” she continued. “I’m stronger than I look, and we have to show the Germans they haven’t completely destroyed us.”

Mama, suddenly and confusingly outnumbered, opened her mouth to speak but said nothing.

“Mr. Baran is going to pay us in cakes,” Papa added.

Mama shrugged her shoulders and mumbled, “As you wish.”

Throughout the winter that followed, Asher, Rina, and their papa worked on the reconstruction and refurbishment of the café two evenings a week and either Saturday or Sunday. There were one or two delays for items to be delivered, which Asher thought his papa welcomed as he looked weary once or twice. For Rina, what she lacked in strength she made up for in determination, always being full of energy and never seeming to tire. And Asher positively enjoyed the work; his papa once commented that his body was at that age when muscles relished hard labor, and as 1939 turned into 1940 his muscles seemed to have swelled due to the work. The only downside was that he never saw Izabella in all that time. Mr. Baran had talked of her, so Asher knew she was in Warsaw, and he was aware of an inner determination to wait for as long as it took to see her.

One dull day in spring, Mr. Baran gathered the handful of workers together and thanked them, declaring that the café was now looking cleaner and more stylish than it had on its opening fifteen years before. He handed out bottles of beer and lemonade, and announced that he had decided on the date of the grand reopening, which would be a dual celebration because it would also be his daughter Izabella’s sixteenth birthday. All workers and their families were invited, and were told not to bring any money.

And so, on the first Saturday in April, the Kogans put on their best clothes and had all the cakes they could eat, washed down with beer for Asher and his papa, and lemonade or coffee for his mama and sisters. Most importantly for Asher, he got to see Izabella once more, and to listen to the music that he’d missed so much, which he felt had a kind of hypnotic hold on him.

Toward the end of the celebrations, Izabella came to each table, personally thanking everyone for their help in rebuilding the café. Seeing her close up for the first time, Asher could do no more than listen to her voice, which was every bit as mesmerizing as her violin playing, and admire . . . well, admire everything else about her. Warm brown eyes sat above a classically strong nose, below which lay petite but full strawberry lips, and coal-black hair draped down either side of the whole ensemble, her pure white skin a canvas to the picture. She was as delicious as any of the cakes the Kogans had just eaten, and everything about her seemed to light up whenever she talked, in turn brightening everything around her as if some magic candlelight were present. Asher could do no more than watch and admire all these things; uttering any words to her was completely out of the question. Not that his shyness bothered him. The important thing was that Café Baran was back in business and Izabella was there.

Finally, Warsaw felt like a proper home to Asher, with people and experiences and opportunities he would miss if the Kogans were ever to return to Dyovsta.



By the summer of 1940, the German authorities had exceeded all expectations where the residents of Warsaw were concerned. Yes, there were restrictions on travel and prayer, and the Kogans had to put on their Star of David armbands whenever they left the house, but the authorities had largely kept to their word when it came to letting “business as usual” prevail, and the hammer that Asher’s neighbor had talked of hadn’t fallen. It seemed too good to be true.