Beyond the Shadow of Night(27)

They shook hands, and Papa gave him a slap on the shoulder. Mykhail turned and started walking.





Chapter 10

Warsaw, Poland, 1941

Conditions in the Jewish sector of Warsaw had started badly and deteriorated.

Almost a year had passed since the Kogans were forcibly moved there. By now, food was scarce and sanitation poor, allowing disease to rip through the district like an icy gale. Even the strong needed luck; the weak stood no chance.

Since the end of paid employment, Asher and his papa had settled into a routine of sorts. Thoughts of theaters and playing sports were long forgotten; they took any work that paid in food or anything that could be exchanged for food—digging trenches, loading carts and trucks, moving anything to anywhere. Nothing was beneath them—including the job few people were prepared to do: burying the increasing number of dead. But even that work was now petering out, so they begged. Sometimes the whole family begged, but half the time they were doing nothing but begging from people who had nothing to give.

Nevertheless, it was the only way to survive. They would start out by picking an area of the sector and standing on opposite sides of an intersection, where they could watch out for one another, their caps in their hands, asking passers-by for loose change. If the day was going well they would stay there; if not they would separate, each making their own choice of where to go.

On a drizzly day in summer the begging was going very badly; Asher had one coin in his cap, his papa nothing. So they separated, Papa going south, Asher going northeast toward the river, hoping that a little of the breeze brought down the river might enliven him—perhaps, even, that conditions might be better there.

They weren’t.

As he trudged along street after street, the picture was the same. Yes, there were shops, but most had little for sale—a stale loaf here, a handful of sprouting potatoes there, old clothes of dubious history, bottles of milk yellowing with age. There were also just as many beggars in this area of the sector, and although many people rushed back and forth, very few had change to toss into the proffered caps. So Asher was spending more time gazing blankly into rain-streaked shop windows than he was begging; it hardly seemed worth the effort.

He heard it only a few blocks away from the easternmost wall. He walked toward it, hardly believing it, but still hopeful even as the shouts from a beggar on a street corner masked the sound. He continued on, and there it was again. He moved even closer, quickening his pace, and yes, it was definitely a violin, and it didn’t sound like just any violin. This was no sorry, sad tune being played as a lament, but jolly, almost comical music. Comical, at least, in the mind of anyone used to dark Ukrainian humor.

Asher turned corner after corner, once doubling back on himself, unsure exactly where the music was coming from.

And then he found her, standing under a canopy next to the wall. She was even slimmer than she’d been in the Café Baran days. Her hair was matted and grayed by dust and dirt, her dress smudged and smeared with grime. But this was Izabella, her half-smile so incongruous in such filthy surroundings, yet still so strong and resilient in its joyfulness. And this was her music, no less beautiful than it had been before, almost rebellious in its message to the occupying forces. It was as if she were pronouncing to the Germans that she, at least, would not be beaten.

At first Asher could do nothing but stand back and watch, but after a few minutes he approached her. She looked up and her smile blossomed to fullness.

Was she smiling at him? He glanced around furtively, unsure of her and aware his face was reddening. He wanted to run, but also wanted to stay there forever. He froze for a few seconds, then reached into his pocket, plucking out the one coin he’d earned that day. He stepped forward and dropped it onto the small square of cloth at her feet.

“Thank you,” she said.

Asher only nodded, unable to put his thoughts into words.

The music stopped. She removed the violin from under her chin and reached her arms out and back a few times to ease cramps.

“Don’t I know you?” she said.

Asher’s throat dried in an instant, as if a gust of wind had thrown a handful of sand into the workings. He tried to gulp, but his muscles wouldn’t obey.

He turned and fled, only slowing to walking pace when he was a few streets away. By the time he got home he was cursing himself for being so weak. Izabella had talked to him and him alone. The vision of beauty had spoken—not to a group of people, with him somewhere among them, but to him. He’d had the opportunity to talk and had run away.

“Are you all right, Asher?” his papa asked when he sat down at the table.

“Fine. Why?”

“Oh, you seem a little agitated. Nothing happened to you out there today, did it?”

Asher looked downward and shook his head, too embarrassed to tell the truth.

“And do you have the coin?”

“What coin?” was all he could say in reply, his stomach turning with the fear of being found out.

“When we separated, you had a coin. Where is it?”

“I . . . I don’t know what you mean, Papa.”

“But it was there in your cap. I saw it.”

“Well . . . I think I lost it. The rain got heavier and I had to put my cap back on. I must have dropped it or flung it away. I’m sorry, Papa.”

His papa took ten seconds or so to react. Asher expected some serious scolding; instead, his papa looked him in the eye and said, “No matter. Money isn’t much use anyway; there’s nothing to buy.”