who got to hold Matka’s hand that wore that ring. The pretty hand.
“Haven’t we buried enough?” I said. “We’ll be caught out here.”
Standing there arguing in the dark would only attract attention.
“Suit yourself, Halina,” Papa said. He flung shovelfuls of dirt into the hole to cover our treasures. I pushed earth into the hole with my hands to make things go faster, and Papa tamped it down smooth. He then counted his steps back to the building so he’d remember where we buried our treasure.
Twelve steps to the door.
—
ZUZANNA FINALLY CAME HOME with terrible tales of the doctors and nurses working all night to save the wounded. Word was many were still alive trapped under rubble. We lived in fear of hearing the sound of Germans at our front door, our ears to the radio in the kitchen, hoping for the best news but hearing the worst. Poland defended herself, sustaining great losses, but in the end could not match Germany’s modern armored divisions and airpower.
I woke Sunday, September 17, to Matka telling Papa what she’d heard on the radio. The Russians had also attacked Poland, from the east. Was there no end to the countries attacking us?
I found my parents in the kitchen peering out the front window. It was a crisp fall morning, a light breeze blowing in through Matka’s curtains. As I drew closer to the window, I saw Jewish men in black suits clearing the rubble from in front of our house.
Matka wrapped her arms around me, and once the road was cleared, we watched a parade of German soldiers roll in, like new tenants in a boardinghouse with their mountains of luggage. First came trucks, then soldiers on foot, then more soldiers standing tall and haughty in their tanks. At least Zuzanna did not see this sad sight, for she was already at the hospital that morning.
Matka heated water for Papa’s tea as he watched it all. I did my best to keep us all quiet as could be. Maybe if we were silent, they would not bother us? To calm myself I counted the birds crocheted on Matka’s curtains. One lark. Two swallows. One magpie. Wasn’t the magpie a sign of imminent death? The rumble of a truck grew louder.
I breathed deep to quell the panic inside me. What was coming?
“Out, out!” a man shouted. The terrible clatter of hobnail boots on cobblestones. There were lots of them.
“Stay away from the window, Kasia,” Papa said, stepping back himself. He said it in such an offhand way I knew he was scared.
“Should we hide?” Matka whispered. She turned her ring around and closed her hand so the stones hid in her palm.
Papa walked toward the door, and I busied myself with prayer. We heard a good bit of yelling and orders, and soon the truck drove away.
“I think they’re leaving,” I whispered to Matka.
I jumped as a rap came at our door, and then a man’s voice. “Open up!”
Matka froze in place and Papa opened the door.
“Adalbert Kuzmerick?” said an SS man, who strode in all puffed up and pleased with himself.
He was two hands taller than Papa, so tall his hat almost hit the top of the door when he entered. He and his underling were dressed in full Sonderdienst uniform, with the black boots and the hat with the horrible skull emblem with two gaping holes for eyes. As he passed, I smelled clove gum on him. He looked well fed too, his chin held so high I could see the blood through a little piece of white paper stuck on his Adam’s apple where he’d cut himself shaving. They even bled Nazi red.
“Yes,” Papa said, calm as could be.
“Director of the postal center communications?”
Papa nodded.
Two more guards grabbed Papa by the arms and pulled him out without even time for him to look back at us. I tried to follow, but the tall one blocked my way with his nightstick.
Matka ran to the window, eyes wild. “Where are you taking him?”
Suddenly I was cold all over. It was getting harder to breathe.
Another SS man, skinny and shorter than the first, stepped in with a canvas bread bag across his chest.
“Where does your husband keep his work papers?” asked the tall one.
“Not here,” Matka said. “Can’t you tell me where they’re taking him?”
Matka stood, fingers locked at her chest, as the skinny one went about the house opening drawers and stuffing whatever papers we had into his bag.