Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 3 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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The Biggest Funeral in the World – By Carlos Satherhausen, reporting from the British Isles
In mournful silence, the Cosmos-Fuhrer was buried in Adolf Park in central Berlin. As will be recalled, the death of the Cosmos-Fuhrer was determined ten days prior, on Sunday, the 27th of April, 1993, by his personal doctor, Professor Mark Wachte. The Cosmos-Fuhrer, aged 104 upon his death, was convalescing in Wales in the British Isles, as per the recommendations of his physicians, but after he felt unwell, he was transferred to London. There he soon fell unconscious, and after two days, he went into cardiac arrest. Despite the efforts of many top doctors, he was declared dead within the hour.
Ten days of mourning were declared worldwide, during which time tens of thousands of people filed by his coffin in the royal palace in Britain. Only two people were allowed to say words of parting and appreciation. The first was Mark Von Warner, the General Field Marshal, who said that it will take mankind hundreds, if not thousands, of years to recover from the loss of the venerated leader. The second was Elizabeth, Queen of the British Isles, who noted that decades had passed since the denizens of the world were privileged to unite under the rule of the Reich, and that she hoped the current crisis would keep everyone united and stable.
Two days ago, at eight in the evening, the coffin departed from London, accompanied by the ninety-three units of the Global Wehrmacht, as the Cosmos-Fuhrer had demanded before his passing. They set sail from the Isles on the Bismarck, the unforgettable battleship from the days of the last World War. The coffin was then transported to the Cosmos-Fuhrer’s beloved Elysees Palace in Paris. There, the ceremonies continued for another day before the coffin set out on its final journey to Germany, the center of the kingdom, and the Cosmos-Fuhrer’s beloved land.
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“This Hitler, yemach shemo…” Sara Liba murmured as she folded the newspaper, looking around her at the walls of their shared kitchen. “Oy, oy, is there a word that can define what he deserves to get for all he has done…”
“In his final years he didn’t do harm anymore,” Tziporah whispered.
“But what about the millions of Yidden who perished because of him, Hashem yinkom damam?”
The two women fell silent. Sara Liba stared for a long while at the doorway, through which she could hear singing from the kindergarten next door. Then she bent over her bowl of potatoes that needed to be cooked for the children. “We need to daven that the one who comes after him will be okay for us,” she murmured.
“What does the paper say about the successor?” Tziporah asked, picking up a peeler. “Is it really going to be Myor Olendorf of the Wehrmacht, that man who once visited here?”
“Maybe, maybe not. It probably is not going to be a simple election.”
“Life is never simple, and my grandmother, alehah hashalom, would say that when it has to do with inheritances, it becomes even more complicated… Do you think there will be a war because of it?”
“I don’t know about physical war. My Rechel understood from Hauptmann Katarina that the heads of the Wehrmacht want Olendorf, of course, but they don’t have the last word.”
The pile of peels was growing, and Tzipora picked up a piece that had fallen to the floor. “If he is the successor, it will make our lives here easier,” she said. “We won’t have to be hidden away so much.”
“You mean because Hitler never knew about our existence—how our rulers broke the law by keeping us alive—but Olendorf does?”
“They weren’t exactly ‘breaking the law.’ There are very high-ranking officials who know about our existence and are fine with it, you know. Like Olendorf himself.”
“Yes, but all we need is for one small group of radical Nazi resha’im to hear about this place, and the fact that we are here, and decide to take matters into their own hands… For our own good, it’s better that we should stay hidden away; that the outside world shouldn’t know about our existence.”
They were both quiet for a long time, deep in thought.
Suddenly, a small figure slipped in from the kindergarten room and came to them. “Babbe Tziporah and Babbe Sara Liba! When are we eating already? I’m so hungry!”
Sara Liba studied the boy. Thin legs stuck out from pants that were far too small for him. It was the Laufer boy. Did they not have enough food at home?
“What did you eat this morning?” she asked him quietly. “Before you came to kindergarten?”
“Two oatmeal cookies,” he said. “Mama made them yesterday.”
“And in class?”
“The bread.” He looked at a potato she was holding. “But I didn’t finish it all, because I didn’t like the cheese that was on it.”
“Did they cut up some apples for you?”
“Yes, and I got only a quarter of one.”
“Why?”
“Because it was a green apple, so I only wanted a small piece.”
The two women exchanged glances.
“Go back to your classroom, sweetie,” Tziporah said to the boy. “There’s lunch at two o’clock.”
But Sara Liba had already stood up walked out of the kitchen, into her and Nachum’s room. She also had some cookies in her cabinet, and she pulled out two of them.
“You should never know what hunger is,” she blessed the child who was waiting for her in the hallway, and stuck the cookies into his outstretched hand. “And I want to answer amen to your nice brachah!” Within a minute, he retreated to his classroom, and she turned on her heel to go back to the kitchen.
“We all take our history to such different places,” Tziporah said as Sara Liba walked back in, as if the sentence had been percolating in her mind since Sara Liba had walked out with the child, and the minute she’d come back in, it had emerged from the pot with a hiss. “I can’t listen to children complain when they don’t really lack anything. You know that it’s not real hunger.”
“I don’t know anything.” Sara Liba pulled up her chair and sat down near the potatoes again. “I’ll tell Naomi to check what’s going on with him during her hours in the kindergarten. Children must not be hungry. I can’t handle the thought of it.”
“Did you work in one of the central kitchens in Lodz as well?” Tziporah filled a huge pot with water. “I thought you were a nurse at the clinic there.”
“Let’s not talk about the past.” Sara Liba shook her head decisively. “Certainly not now, when the future is so murky.”
Tziporah wouldn’t let up. “Even if it’s murky—and sometimes, it might be much worse than ‘murky’—look where we’ve gotten, b’chasdei Shamayim. Look at your beautiful family, Sara Liba! Look at the good life you were zocheh to! And I can’t believe that I’m the one who has to tell this to you. Is it a sign that we’re aging, if we’ve switched roles?”
“I’m certainly looking at everything,” Sara Liba replied. “I see everything, and because by nature—.” She stopped and smiled as a familiar face peeked through the door of the kitchen.
“Naomi’le!” she called to her granddaughter. “How are you? Are you also hungry and coming to find out when the food will be ready?”
“You spoke really nicely at the memorial ceremony yesterday, Naomi.” Tziporah wagged her finger. “We were so busy arguing that I forgot to tell you, Sara Liba, how great her speech was. You should have lots of nachas from her and from all the others. Katarina was pleased, huh? They sat there beaming.”
Naomi tried to smile in response, but the result looked more like the type of smile they usually directed at their rulers’ cameras. Gefreiter Theresa and Gefreiter Helena enjoyed documenting all kinds of moments in the camp, like the gathering yesterday. The camp residents, though, were far less fond of the camera.
“Who gave you the idea to speak about ‘az kanamer‘?” Tziporah queried. “They thought you were speaking about him, yes. And only we knew that you were referring to the mishnah in Pirkei Avos… And the parable about the king! You probably got the idea from your brother Binyamin, didn’t you? Am I right?” At Naomi’s nod, Tziporah smiled. “I knew it!” She glanced at Sara Liba. “Your Rechel has it good with her children, baruch Hashem. At least she has nachas!”
“Right,” Sara Liba said. She closely studied her granddaughter’s pained smile. “What’s going on, Naomi? Are you feeling alright?”
“Yes,” Naomi murmured.
“She’s pale, Sara Liba,” Tziporah declared. “Don’t you have a cookie for her, or something?”
“Of course I do.” The solicitous grandmother left the kitchen and walked aback to her room. But when she reached it, she didn’t walk in. Instead she turned to Naomi, who had followed her. “What’s going on?” she asked quietly. “What’s wrong?”
“They placed me permanently in the kindergarten.” Naomi suppressed a sob. “Katarina came this morning and told Mama that if I’m so good with stories and parables, she has no doubt that my contribution to the Reich will be through children’s stories… I knew that too good is no good, like you always say!”
“You like children,” her grandmother whispered.
“But look at Bilhah, the teacher!” Now Naomi was really crying. “I don’t want to talk about what she can and can’t do, but it’s clear that if she was working at any other job, even just cleaning, her family’s life would be much better.”
“We can’t know what would be ‘if,’” Sara Liba said calmly. She opened the door to the room she shared with Nachum, musing about Bilhah Shmilevsky. It was true. Short and rail-thin Bilhah could hardly sustain her family from the few marks she earned as a preschool teacher. If not for Yaakov, her husband, who was in charge of the wood stockpiles, the community in Samson Lager would have to take care of them.
“I really do like children, for sure a lot more than I like cleaning the manor house or dealing with smelly animal hides and furs; there’s no comparison.” Naomi sniffed and followed her grandmother into the room. “And I can’t stand the sour smell at the dairy either. And it’s true that I always enjoyed my hours at the kindergarten more than at the sewing workshop, but still…”
Sara Liba opened the box of cookies. She wanted to take one out for Naomi, but Schubert’s ninth symphony spilling through the loudspeakers made them both freeze in place. “I have to get back to the kindergarten!” Naomi gasped, and she turned and dashed out of the room.
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