Let Me Tell You a Story Read online

  During the day Babcia was exhausted, having worked all night in the factory. She would often doze in the afternoon and when she fell asleep, facing me, I would study the strong features on her handsome face and let the feeling of utter love wash over me. Her grey-white hair was always drawn tightly back into a bun and she still looked kind, especially when she slept. Yet the furrows on her face were deeper now and from time to time she would frown in her sleep.

  The best times were when Babcia was in a more contented mood and she would tell me fairy tales about magic lands which made us forget the horrible room we were in. At other times she recounted stories of my parents, and of Aunt Zuzia or Aunt Adela, while sitting on the end of her bed rocking me in her arms.

  The other people in the room were strange and bad-tempered. I tried to stay out of their way as much as possible. To amuse myself, I pulled at the loose strips of wallpaper. Underneath were patches of pinkish-coloured wall, which were so much prettier than the patchy brown covering it, even though they felt wet to the touch. One evening Sophie’s mother, an old woman in a headscarf, looked up from her bed and saw me pulling off a long ribbon.

  ‘You wicked child!’ she screamed at me, then turned to Mamusia. ‘Just look at what your wicked child is doing.’

  ‘Be quiet, you’ll frighten her. She wasn’t doing anything wrong,’ Mamusia replied, trying to calm her down.

  ‘Nothing wrong? Nothing wrong?’ the woman spat, her eyes like slits and her dark, stained teeth showing through her parted lips.

  ‘The wallpaper was coming off anyway,’ my mother replied, doing her best to stick up for me. ‘And look, the colour underneath is so much prettier. It’s not her fault we are here. She’s just a child who should be outside playing in the sunshine, not cooped up in this filthy pigsty. Just leave her alone.’

  Mamusia’s voice got louder and louder until the woman didn’t say another word. She gave us a nasty look and turned her back. From then on Mamusia and the woman didn’t speak to one another even though their beds were close together. Life was so miserable.

  Mamusia was now constantly unhappy. One minute she would seem not to notice me at all and the next she would be smothering me with kisses as if her life depended upon it. She and Babcia looked sad and worried and would talk together in hushed whispers. Then I began to see Babcia cry. This upset and frightened me terribly and I had to turn to my mother for comfort.

  And so I lived in a state of unease – so many puzzling things had happened to change our lives. These new and unpleasant feelings that I didn’t understand and the fear of the unknown made me feel heavy and tired and frightened. Then one night as I lay in bed trying to sleep another thought went flashing through my mind: My father had left us and hadn’t come back; what if the same thing happened to my mother? I would have no parents, no one to look after me except Babcia but she was old. The fear of this made my heart beat fast and left me cold and sweating. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than to lose both my parents. I felt sick and giddy. I was tormented by nightmares that night in which I was lost in a crowd, searching and searching for my parents. By the time I woke up I still hadn’t found them.

  The days turned into weeks and still we couldn’t sleep properly. So many strange noises filled the quietness at night and not just from the other people in the room. Sometimes at night I would hear the rumble of lorries that Sophie’s old mother would call a purge.

  ‘The lorries are back,’ she would call from the dirty window. ‘Soldiers and dogs coming to take the next batch.’

  ‘The next batch of what?’ I asked.

  ‘Batches of women, men, children. Old or young. Doesn’t matter any more,’ she replied before someone told her to be quiet.

  I would hear the sounds of the engines starting up and the rumble of the lorries driving away.

  ‘So this is what it is to be a Jew,’ someone said, ‘to be taken away in the middle of the night without being allowed to say goodbye.’

  ‘But where do they take them?’ another voice asked.

  ‘Relocated to work camps, so they say,’ replied the first. ‘They don’t come back, not now. They just disappear. Tell me what crime I have committed so that I can ask for forgiveness and let God be my judge, not these Nazis. What crime is there in being Jewish?’

  Still I didn’t understand. I understood the ghetto was a place where those who didn’t want to fight were sent to live and work until the war was over, but these new strange words, Nazi, crime, purge, I would repeat over and over again in my head as I lay on my bed trying to find ways to stop being so bored. By listening to the others, I learned quickly. Without knowing, I was learning how to survive.

  ‘Just as if we were playing hide and seek,’ Babcia said.

  ‘German soldiers don’t like small children,’ Mamusia told me. ‘They will take you away if they find you and I might never see you again.’ She said enough to frighten me and it had the desired effect. Every time a soldier came into the room, I leapt out of sight – lay on the floor, like a sleeping lion, and didn’t move a muscle until he left.

  One early afternoon Babcia and I had the room to ourselves. Everyone else was at work. Babcia was busy washing clothes in the chipped sink in the corner and I was sitting on my bed hugging Baby Doll, and watching my yellow canary hopping about in his cage. That day, for once, Tomek was chirping away merrily and dropping crumbs everywhere. I loved that canary and spent hours and hours talking to him. The little bird seemed to listen and watch, turning sideways with one black boot-button eye turned towards me. He was my special pet, a reminder of home and all things normal. But today I was feeling so disappointed that I had brought Baby Doll with me rather than Rabbit. I was remembering back to that awful night, Mamusia telling me what to do, what to take in that voice I hadn’t recognised. I had seen Rabbit lying on the floor under my bed after Mamusia had pushed Baby Doll into my hands. I had urged Mamusia to get him. ‘But there won’t be space,’ Mamusia had explained. ‘We will be sharing a room with a lot of other people and they will have things to bring too. You have to choose.’ But I didn’t choose. Baby Doll had been chosen for me and Rabbit was forgotten. I wondered if I would ever see him again. I missed him so much. I wanted to tell Rabbit everything. He would know what to do.

  Babcia had finished the washing and was draping underwear over the back of a chair and allowing the water to drip onto the bare floorboards.

  ‘Time for your bath, darling,’ she said. ‘The water is still warm, so you will enjoy it.’

  She had carefully saved the water from the washing and poured it into a large enamel basin. I hated baths here. The water was never warm enough and there was no room to splash about and no yellow ducks to float like I used to do. Babcia undressed me quickly and stood me shivering in the basin. She briskly rubbed the lukewarm water over me with a sponge, and then wrapped me in a towel. This was the worst bit. Babcia rubbed and towelled so hard that it hurt and left my skin all tingling and hot. I loved Babcia, but not when she was rubbing me dry with a towel. Next she dressed me in a vest, then pyjamas and finally a sweater over the top to keep me warm. She carried me over to the table and put a bowl of soup and a small piece of bread in front of me. I looked at the soup, angry at being rubbed so hard and frustrated at having to eat that horrible soup, yet again.

  I thought back to happier times when, in the evenings, I would sit on the deep sofa in front of the stove snuggled up to Mamusia and sometimes with Babcia too. Mamusia would tell me stories about the people in the pictures on the stove or read to me from my collection of books. I remembered the long summer afternoons when we would sit side by side, eating bowls of wild strawberries with sour cream and sugar or makowiec, a delicious cake filled with poppy seeds. There were the cold winter afternoons when we warmed ourselves with bowls of hot soup that Babcia had made from the mushrooms we had collected on our walks, followed by warm pastries fresh from the oven or a slice of creamy cheesecake.

  ‘Don’t want soup,’ I said. ‘I want
milk and cake.’

  ‘There isn’t any,’ said Babcia, sounding tired. ‘Eat what you’re given.’

  I looked into those sweet, kind eyes now dulled by fatigue and worry. With frustration growing inside me, I shouted, ‘No,’ and tears welled up in my eyes. Everything became blurry as I began to cry.

  Babcia slapped me hard on the leg.

  No one had ever smacked me before. I screamed. This was followed by another slap. Suddenly realising what she had done, Babcia picked me up and held me close.

  ‘My darling, my precious,’ she murmured in my ear. ‘I am so sorry,’ and she kissed my smarting leg.

  I felt her tears on my cheek and realised she was crying too before she wiped her own eyes and kissed my leg again and again. My weeping continued, but it was no longer for myself but because I had made Babcia so angry and unhappy. Then after a while Babcia put me down, sat beside me and patiently spooned the soup into my mouth. We said nothing as I ate obediently; swallowing every mouthful of that tasteless, grey water.

  By the time I had finished it was almost dark and there were sounds of activity outside on the street. A factory hooter blared in the distance and voices could be heard. I knew Mamusia would be home soon but then it would be Babcia’s turn to put on her coat and scarf, kiss us both and go out. She would be back in the room in the morning when I woke, but then Mamusia would be gone again.

  The door opened and a gust of icy wind swept through the room. Mamusia came in and stood in the doorway pulling off her headscarf. With a cry of delight, I jumped across from bed to bed to reach her. She scooped me up in a huge hug. She then set me down and turned to kiss her own mother who was already in her coat and adjusting the yellow star on her sleeve.

  ‘They’re due again tomorrow,’ I heard Mamusia say.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Babcia asked.

  ‘So they say.’

  ‘You mustn’t go in. I will say you’re sick.’

  ‘Do you think that’ll make the slightest difference? If I don’t turn up I will be severely punished. It’s better to go in and just pray.’

  Babcia laughed. ‘Praying doesn’t make any difference. I stopped praying long ago. How can there be a God who allows this to happen?’

  Although I didn’t understand their words, I felt frightened. Was Mamusia going to leave me like Tatuś? What about Babcia? Who was going to look after me? Would I lose both my parents and Babcia? I stared at them wide-eyed and began shaking like a leaf. Mamusia suddenly looked down at me and, turning away from Babcia, smiled.

  ‘I have a treat for you, my darling,’ she said, ‘but it’s our little secret.’

  ‘What? Are we going home? Are we going to see Tatuś? Marynia?’

  ‘No, not yet,’ she said. ‘But I have something for you. Look.’

  She put her hand into her pocket and pulled out a lump of black bread and a small piece of sausage. I stretched out my hands to take it, but my grandmother pulled me back.

  ‘No, Renata. You’ve had supper. This is for your mother. She’s hungry and she must eat to keep up her strength. Do you understand?’ she added, looking straight at Mamusia as she pulled on her coat.

  ‘Yes, Mother, I understand,’ Mamusia said, kissing Babcia on the cheek as she stepped out into the darkness.

  Mamusia closed the door quickly and turned back to smile at me. ‘Don’t worry, darling, I’ll share it with you,’ she said and sat down on a bed. ‘Let’s eat it before the others get back. Now remember this is our little secret.’

  I looked lovingly at my mother. Sausage. I hadn’t tasted anything like that for ages. My mouth began to water. Yet as I looked into her smiling face I noticed once again that her eyes had stopped shining. They didn’t sparkle any more and she always looked sad, even when she smiled. When I hugged her now I could feel her bones sticking out and her hair that used to be so full and shiny was all flat and always pulled back tightly into a bun.

  We sat close together on the bed and Mamusia took a small bite from the hunk of bread, but instead of tasting the sausage she put it to her nose and smelt it. Then she took another small nibble of the bread and again smelt the sausage, breathing in deeply to savour it fully. She looked down at me and smiled.

  ‘Have you had some bread with your soup?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘but I want some sausage, because I’m still hungry and I hate that bread.’ I stretched out my hand. Mamusia looked at the sausage and inhaled its smell one last time then handed it to me.

  ‘Enjoy it, my darling,’ she said softly.

  I snatched the morsel from her and crammed it into my mouth and gobbled it up greedily.

  ‘That was lovely,’ I said when the last scrap was gone. ‘Can I have some more?’

  ‘There isn’t any more,’ Mamusia said, stroking my hair.

  I pushed her hand away angrily and began to cry. ‘I want to go home. I want my Tatuś,’ I wept.

  The door of the room opened and two women and a man shuffled in. Both of the women were draped in shapeless grey clothes and wore headscarves. The man had a black cap on his head and the tattered remains of a suit. All of them had a yellow star on their sleeve. No one smiled. No one spoke. They just sat down silently on their beds.

  A moment later the door opened again and a few more people came in. In front was the one I was most scared of, Sophie’s mother. She was the one who had shouted at me and called me wicked. Now she collapsed on a bed sobbing loudly.

  ‘She’s gone! She’s gone!’ she wailed, tears running down her wrinkled face.

  Forgetting that they weren’t friends, Mamusia knelt beside her and put her arms around her. She said nothing. No one said anything. They just listened to the tearful wails of the old woman.

  ‘They came to the factory this afternoon. They just arrived. No warning. They just pointed at people and took them. No warning, no explanation, no time to say goodbye. They just shoved them into trucks. They took my Sophie. My only child. I shall never see her again. Why didn’t they take me? I’m old and useless. I’ll never see her again.’ Her sobbing filled the room.

  ‘Where have they taken Sophie?’ I whispered to Mamusia, but Mamusia didn’t reply.

  A man who looked like a skeleton finally broke the silence.

  ‘Those lorries were going to Auschwitz. I heard one of the Nazis say so. It will be all of us sooner or later. We will all die.’

  ‘A typically spineless male remark!’ retorted Janka, a youngish woman with curly black hair and an apron tightly tied round her middle. ‘This is no way to survive. We’ve got to hang on to hope, not just give in. That’s what those animals want. They want to break our spirit. Well, they’re not going to break mine if I can help it.’

  I clung to my mother.

  ‘Remember the child,’ Janka said to the room at large. ‘She’s terrified, poor little mite.’

  They turned their blank eyes to me and no one said a word.

  As I lay in my bed with my mother beside me, hating the prickly blankets, I tried to make sense of the words and conversations I had heard. I listened to the strange noises coming from the grown-ups around me and found it unfair that the adults could lie in bed making all sorts of grunts and groans and whistles when they were supposed to be asleep and sometimes they would even talk or cry out. Their beds would always creak when they turned over or shifted position. But no one would say anything to them. Yet if I awoke from a frightening dream and cried out, everyone woke up and was only too ready to tell me off, calling me ‘bad’ and ‘a nuisance’.

  Every night I would worry about something. That night I was worried by the crying of the old woman and Sophie who had been taken away. I hoped and prayed with all my heart that nobody would separate me from Mamusia and Babcia. What had happened to Sophie? Why was Mamusia so upset that evening? Why were all the grown-ups so quiet and troubled when they were usually so grumpy and full of complaints? I stretched out my hand in the dark and felt the humped shape of my mother in the next bed. I felt safe. Mam
usia was there, right next to me. She rolled over and lay on her side facing me and I could feel her warm breath on my face.

  The next night, I woke from a bad dream. I sat up and crawled to the foot of my bed. By the light of the flickering candle, left burning in case anyone needed to use the bucket at night, I could just make out Mamusia in the bed next to me. Perched on a small wooden table at the foot of the bed was the bird cage covered with a grubby old towel so that little Tomek would sleep too and not disturb anyone. I lifted a corner of the towel and peered at my little yellow bird, sitting on his perch with feathers all fluffed up and his head tucked under one wing. Comforted, I blew him a little kiss, then crawled back under the blanket and was soon fast asleep.

  I dreamt that I was at home, in my parents’ sunlit bedroom with the blue peacock quilt lying across the bed. I dreamt that Sophie was standing there with her flat brown hair, dirty dress and stockings with holes at the knee. She was talking to one of the peacocks who was nodding and pointing the way with his head. Sophie was staring at the peacock, fascinated by the colours and smiling. I hadn’t seen Sophie smile before. Then suddenly, she stepped backwards and disappeared down a big black hole and all I could hear was her screams.

  I woke with a start. There was something heavy on my feet, weighing me down. Terrified, I sat up and saw a still, black shape at the foot of my bed. Suddenly the shape lunged forward and leapt into the air. It leapt at the cage and my small yellow canary. The cage toppled off the table and crashed to the floor. The little door swung open and as quick as a flash the cat’s paw was inside. Tomek stood no chance, although he fluttered around the cage desperately trying to escape the claws. The hysterical flapping sound of his pathetic wings was followed by a heavy silence. And there was the cat, back on my bed, eating Tomek, with his limp little body dangling out of its mouth. Tiny yellow feathers fluttered like confetti onto the grey blanket. Bursting into loud, agonised wails I tried to grab the cat, which dropped the remains of my beloved canary on the bed and returned silently into the shadows. Beds were creaking; figures were heaving themselves out of sleep into sitting positions.