Beyond the Shadow of Night(44)

“So what do you do for a living?” Keren said after a long pause.

“Oh, yes,” Oskar said, now a little animated. “Sala is a seamstress and I’m a chemical engineer with the local—” He stopped himself and his enthusiasm quickly drained away. “I mean, I was a chemical engineer.”

“That’s all right,” Rina said. “Papa once owned and ran his own farm. Now he’s only a laborer, reduced to breaking his back by loading bricks onto trucks.”

“Rina,” Papa growled. “I can talk for myself, and it’s a good job, an important position at the brick factory, helping . . .” His words trailed off to a guttural grunt. “Oh, she’s right. I don’t like it, but she’s right. I’m a laborer.”

“But the war will end,” Sala said, forcing a smile. “Because all wars end, and when it does, life will return to normal.”

“Of course,” Papa said. He gave an assured nod, and talk turned to the street layout of the Jewish district and the meager food provision, after which they all lay down and slept, the Slominskis using cushions from the two easy chairs.



Living in such close proximity to strangers was always going to be awkward, but after the first few days the worst of that feeling fell away. Mama borrowed a needle and thread from next door, and she and Sala created a makeshift curtain, which they put on a piece of string tied across one corner of the room, where Sala and Oskar slept and kept their personal belongings.

Keren designated that area “Slominski house,” and she also organized a schedule for “family hour,” whereby for one hour every day either the Kogans or the Slominskis would leave the house to give the others some space, and to allow some privacy for washing at the sink.

Over the weeks that followed, the five Kogans and two Slominskis gradually got used to sharing the room without bumping into one another too much as they walked around the table or approached the sink. They also tried their best to restrict complaining to “family hour.” At least, the Kogans did; Asher had no idea what the Slominskis got up to during their family hour—although they always seemed a little flushed and flustered when the Kogans returned home.

One day, while Asher and Papa were at the brick factory, Papa was called over by a guard. Asher carried on working, lifting the bricks onto a truck, but stopped when he saw, out of the corner of his eye, Papa gesticulating wildly. There were angry words. The guard’s rifle barrel was raised for a moment. Papa returned and started loading bricks again, but didn’t speak or look at Asher.

On the way home Papa still didn’t speak—not until they were outside the apartment building, where he stopped and turned to Asher.

“I have some bad news,” he said. “And I feel I should tell you first.”

Asher felt his throat trembling. “Is it about Izabella?”

A deep frown appeared on Papa’s forehead. “No. No news of her, I’m afraid. The news is that there’s no more work at the brick factory.”

A hundred words of fear and apprehension played on Asher’s tongue, but he could say nothing, could do nothing except follow his papa inside.

Papa gathered the family around and told them that work at the brick factory was to cease. The one big order for bricks had been completed, so there was no more work for him and Asher.

There were arguments about what they would do, but all questions went unanswered.

“What do you want me to do?” Papa said to them all. “I don’t have solutions.”

After that, Asher and Papa stayed together during the long, miserable days, trudging through the walled area of the city, searching for food or work of any sort. “Let me do the talking,” Asher’s papa would always say to him.

Asher went along with that, but telling everyone they met that they would do absolutely anything in exchange for food for the family didn’t seem such a hard thing to say.

It didn’t take long, however, for Asher to realize that actually it must have been a very hard thing for Papa to say.



Soon after the brick factory closed, in the summer of 1942, there seemed to be a little hope. Many Jews were being taken out of the walled city within a city. The official story was that people were being taken somewhere else in Poland with more space and better housing—a heaven of sorts.

Asher heard the rumors of what was really happening, and assumed the others did, but the family didn’t talk openly of such things. Asher assumed this was out of optimism.

And Mama said it was good news for those who remained in Warsaw, with more space and perhaps more food.

Within months her hopes were dashed. Because so many people had been taken away on trains to that “heaven,” the authorities reduced the walled area of Warsaw further. They were back where they started, shrinking bodies in a shrinking prison. And whereas until then it had felt like being imprisoned in a walled city, now it really did start to feel like a prison.

The only work seemed to be running errands for the soldiers that patrolled the area, or carting dead bodies around. Those duties provided some food to supplement the most basic of rations, but the cords holding up their pants and skirts were tightened some more. Strangely, Sala looked slightly fuller in the belly, even though her face looked leaner. Asher’s mama and papa had long since lost the appetite for polite conversation, but now their faces seemed expressionless and their talk often descended quickly into petty squabbles.