Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 2 of a new online serial novel, Nine A.M., by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week. Click here for previous chapters.
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In a harsh and bitter world,
In a dreadful world,
I found for myself a citadel;
I found a place.
(Translated from Hungarian)
Everyone was familiar with Leo Sherer’s poignant song, even if it didn’t appear in any one of the monthly journals that he published. It was likely that the Samson Lager directors had also heard about it somehow, and they chose to ignore it. Leo was an asset for them, and while officially they didn’t allow the words “dreadful world” to be used under any circumstances, this song was complimentary for them.
There was good reason to compliment, to be sure. Babbe Sara Liba spoke often about the past, which included dreadful brutality, fear and death, and forced labor for eighteen hours a day. Here, all work ended by eight in the evening, and by nine o’clock, everyone was obligated to be in their homes. Woe to anyone who was found outside.
For years, no one had dared violate this order. Rechel, standing breathless as she glanced around the inside of her dark home, was afraid that her Binyamin was going to be the first one in a very long time to get into trouble for this violation.
Nine chimes from the direction of the large manor house had long been heard, and she assumed that the next set in the series, ten chimes, was imminent. But before the chimes began, the door to the house opened, and Binyamin slipped quietly inside. She knew that it was him, despite the absolute darkness at the entrance.
“He’s here,” she said to Naomi, who was sitting and staring at a small lamp in the inside room.
“Baruch Hashem,” her nearly sixteen-year-old daughter said, not diverting her eyes.
“Binyamin, is everything okay? What happened to you?” Rechel asked as he walked into the small room.
He looked at her, eyes wide, the picture of innocence. “Baruch Hashem, Mama. Everything’s fine, just great!”
“But what about the late hour?”
“I’m sorry, Mama, we didn’t notice it had gotten so late.”
“And this is the second time this week it’s happened! I was so worried, I could hardly breathe!”
“I’m really sorry, Mama, really. Bli neder, it won’t happen again.”
“But what happened?”
“Well, if we’re not allowed to talk during work time, then we had to talk afterward!”
“Who? You and Menachem?”
“Yes.” He shrugged out of his gray sweater and hung it on a chair. Rechel’s eyes followed him. He had grown so much lately that the old sweater she’d taken out of the closet now fit him. All he needed to do was fold over the cuffs a little bit, and it looked as if it had been knitted especially for him.
“You can’t get in trouble, Binyamin,” Rechel said. “And you shouldn’t rely on Josef Wangel’s fondness of you.” She lowered her voice. “You can never trust Nazis, nor rely on their enthusiasm for your talents.”
“Why do you think I’m trusting anyone like that?” Binyamin looked at the table. On it was a plate with some cooked potatoes, sardines, and a hardboiled egg. “Hey, in honor of what is there a cooked supper tonight?”
“Because I heard from Ruchelle Cohen that neither you nor Shmerel came to lunch today. Were you busy talking then, too?”
“Yes.” He smiled at his mother.
“And what does that have to do with your decreased productivity at work?”
His eyes opened even wider, and his sister Naomi made a sudden movement, shaking off the fog of her thoughts. “What?” she said. “Binyamin, this is too much! I can’t stand shvitzers!”
“Shvitzers?” he repeated. “I’d be happy to defend myself, Miss Judgmental, if only I knew what I was being accused of!”
“If you dare to be outside at this hour, and you’ve become a poor worker, too, then that only proves what Mama said: that you’re relying too much on the fact that the Germans admire your talents. I can’t stand arrogance like that!”
“I have flaws,” Binyamin said quietly. “But I don’t think arrogance is one of them. I was late now by mistake. And in the factory, with the furs…it was an error on my part, that’s all.”
“You destroyed raw materials?” Rechel was nearly agog.
“No, no. I just miscalculated how much I needed to get done.”
“What kind of miscalculation could you make?” Naomi stood up. “If you need to finish processing a certain amount of furs in one week, and you don’t manage to do it, what kind of mistake could be involved? Did you forget how to count or what?”
“You’re being so aggressive today, Naomi.” Binyamin eased his feet out of his shoes under the table. “Is everything alright?”
“Not at all,” she said. “And I’m glad you finally noticed!”
***
On Rosh Chodesh Teves of the previous year, Nachum and Sara Liba had packed up their belongings, following orders they’d received that morning. Sara Liba had done it with her trademark cheerful mood, joking about the things she didn’t want to take along with them. Only Nachum, who knew her better than anyone else, could tell what was hiding beneath it all. “You don’t believe that we’re only moving,” he said, after their two married daughters had hurried back to their afternoon shifts.
“Of course not,” she replied. “But it was expected. I mean, what do they have from us? The old, rather useless people were always the first to go.”
“Why useless? They won’t manage without you at the clinic. And we’re not old!”
“For them we certainly are,” she said with a smile. “I just don’t understand why we need to pack our things and take them with us. I would want to leave everything to Rechel, Chani, and the grandchildren.”
“I still believe they just want us to clear out the house. They didn’t make up the housing crisis in Samson Lager, right? There are couples like us who can manage with a little room in the kindergarten building. But there are youngsters living in terribly crowded conditions. So they want to give our house to them—that’s all. Why think the worst? You’re usually optimistic, Sara Liba!”
Sara Liba took a deep breath. “I know that by you, in Hungary, it began a bit differently.” She closed the cardboard box. “But with me…I’m from the Lodz Ghetto, Nachum. I know what it means when they separate the older people from the rest.”
“I don’t want you to think that way,” Nachum insisted. “These are not the sonei Yisrael that we know from the past; these people in charge of us are different. Don’t forget that.”
“I’m not forgetting,” Sara Liba noted. She stood up and looked around. “And when all is said and done, I know how much I have to thank Hashem for bringing us to this place, when so many others did not…merit to make it. And I didn’t say I’m going to say Vidui or anything like that. You don’t need to get so nervous when I talk about parting and farewells.”
They bid their house farewell. The family who received it was the young Cohen-Sziget fellow and his wife and baby son; until then, they’d been living with his parents. Nachum and Sara Liba moved into the concrete structure that also served as the kindergarten building, along with a few other couples who were older than seventy.
The small space between the rooms had no windows, so even during the late evening hours, the four women who now lived there would sometimes allow themselves the luxury of gathering and schmoozing. Tziporah and Sima would string glass beads on thin strings, and Dina would knit scarves; only Sara Liba would sit there idly. Hauptmann Katarina liked the beadwork that Tziporah and Sima produced, and paid them personally for their products with vouchers, while Dina sold her scarves to the lager residents. As for Sara Liba, she always said, “If I was able to survive the most difficult years with two left hands, Hashem won’t abandon me now either.”
“The Hauptmann clearly hasn’t heard about shadchanus gelt,” Tziporah said with a chuckle. “Otherwise, you’d be the richest one of us all. Generations and generations of workers have been born here in your merit… By the way, how old is your granddaughter?”
“Naomi? Almost sixteen.” Sara Liba shook her head and walked into the kindergarten classroom to take a chair for herself. There were children’s drawings on the wall. In the dimness, they were all black, unclear. Her eyes quickly scanned them, automatically looking for the name of one of her grandchildren. Wait a minute—none of them were in kindergarten. Chani’s youngest was ten, and he worked with her in the manor house kitchen.
During those days in Bergen-Belsen, did she ever dream that the day would come when she’d have six grandchildren?
She took the chair and went back to the little hallway.
“Sixteen is a significant age,” Dina remarked. She studied her skein of yarn to find the end of the thread. “Do you know yet what her permanent job is going to be?”
Sara Liba shook her head. “Maybe she knows, but if so, she hasn’t told me yet.”
“She talks about it?” Tzipora inquired, moving the little stool on which her box of beads was resting, to make room for Sara Liba and her chair. “My granddaughter Elky will also be sixteen in a few weeks. Remember how they were born at the same time, Sara Liba? A first granddaughter for us both… Anyway, from what I hear from Elky, it seems she’s a little bit afraid. It’s very significant for them, to go all at once into the adult world, with everything that entails.”
“Hmm. So far I haven’t heard a word about it from Naomi.”
“What’s she doing these days?”
“She works in the store, in the kindergarten, and in the sewing room. She also helps clean the manor, and she helps out a little at the dairy.”
Tzipora nodded. Then she said, “Listen to what Elky told me. She’s great at math, baruch Hashem—I’ve mentioned that before, right? So she tells me that it’s possible they’ll place her to work in the payroll department at Sherer’s office.”
“Nice!” Sara Liba said warmly. “That is so much better than hard physical work, like you had to do. And your granddaughter deserves it, Tzipora. You deserve it.”
Someone was rattling the inner latch of the door to their room, so she got up and parted from her friends, wishing them a good night. Nachum had been more tired than usual lately. She didn’t know if it was his age, or if his spirits were down because of the memories that were aroused by the passing of the Cosmos-Fuhrer, yemach shemo v’zichro.
“Tolltom mogmanok ag nugot heig,” she quoted in Hungarian as she walked into the room, to remind him that Hashem had chosen him from millions. “Tolltom ag heit.”
And as always, he smiled when he heard his Polish wife speaking fluent Hungarian.
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