Читать книгу Chasing the King of Hearts - Ханна Кралль - Страница 10

The Padlock

She needs to borrow a little money. She goes to Hala Borensztajn (the one she sat next to all through high school). Fifty? What do you need fifty zlotys for? Hala’s father is surprised. Izolda explains that it’s for the German guard: he looks the other way and I walk out of the ghetto. That costs fifty whole zlotys. You want to leave? Hala is astounded. With your hair? Hala herself is blond and has a snub nose, but she has no intention of leaving their shelter before the war is over. She shows off the tap with water, the bags of grain, and the stock of medicine. Izolda agrees, the shelter is fantastic, so, now will you lend me the money? Mr. Borensztajn hands her ten zlotys and she promises to return them when the war is over. She borrows forty from Halinka Rygier’s father (Halinka sat right behind Hala in school) and then hurries to her husband.

Her husband works in a factory set up in the attic of a multistory apartment building. She hears the rumble of trucks as she climbs the stairs. At the top of the stairs a man is putting a padlock on the door to the workshop. His hand is shaking and he has trouble fitting the key into the lock. Where’s Shayek? she asks the man. In there—he points at the door (the hand he uses to point is also shaking) and then runs downstairs. Shayek, she whispers to the lock, I can’t get in. The motors get louder and louder. Shayek! She tries to break the padlock, punches it with all her strength. Shayek, I can’t just stand here! In the courtyard someone shouts, “Jews come out!” and she hears the stamping of feet. She knows what’s coming next: they’ll search the apartments, floor by floor. They’re going to find me, she explains to the lock. They’re going to find me and take me to Umschlagplatz. She hears a child crying, then several shots and a quavering voice she doesn’t recognize: Save me! Shayek, save me! When she hears “Shayek” she realizes that the voice is her own. That’s me crying out, I just got a little scared, but now I’m calm, I can’t stay here because they’ll shoot me, I can’t stay here, they’ll shoot me on the spot, he’ll open the door and then what, he’ll see me shot dead, I can’t . . . She says all that out loud as she runs down the stairs. In front of the building Jewish policemen and SS men are lining everyone up in a column. One of the policemen is Jurek Gajer, who recently married Basia Maliniak. He notices Izolda and lifts his hands to say: I can’t do anything to help you, you see for yourself, and places her in the column. They march off down the empty streets and through a wideopen wooden gate. They pass the hospital and stop at the collection point. She thinks: This is Umschlagplatz and this is where I am. The cattle wagons will come for us . . . My God, they’ll come to take us away—and how will he manage without me?