Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 4 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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Lamb Shoulder Roast in Blueberry Sauce
One cut of lamb’s shoulder weighing 2.5 kilograms
1 large onion
1.5 cups water
1 cup blueberries
2 tablespoons sugar
4 cloves minced garlic
Spices, to taste
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“Did you hear that they were able to get a glatt lamb at the shechitah yesterday?” Rechel, Naomi’s mother, asked. She was happy for the unexpected time she got to spend with her daughter while they hunkered down in Bomb Shelter A, under the apartments for the older people and the kindergarten. Once the children were settled on the floor with papers and crayons that were kept in the closet, and the older girls were busy with the printed stories that Bilhah had prepared years ago, Naomi and her mother could allow themselves to whisper to each other. Hauptmann Katerina was pacing back and forth, checking that the steel door was locked, and gripping a cordless phone in her hand. She was apparently waiting for information about the uninvited guests.
In the past fifty years, no one from the outside world had discovered them, yet the siren that blared without warning in the middle of a regular day always made their hearts clench in fear. It usually only lasted a few minutes, and afterward they’d find that sitting in the big shelter was something they could actually even enjoy a bit, despite the necessary silence. When did they ever get an unexpected break in the middle of a regular workday?
Only the children hated this place, where they were only allowed to speak in whispers.
“And it was our turn to get a piece, this time from the shoulder. I met Chani on the way to work, and she gave me this recipe. We’ll have meat for Shabbos this week!”
“So we need to tell Binyamin that it’s not urgent for him to catch doves this week,” Naomi said as she glanced at the paper. “We don’t have blueberries at home. Do you want me to go to the forest this evening and try to collect some?”
“Let’s first see how much time we’re going to have to spend here today.”
“Last time it was three hours. Not terrible.”
One of the children ran over to Naomi with his paper. It was five-year-old Dror Elkowitz. Naomi glanced to the side and saw fourteen-year-old Mila standing and talking to someone next to a group of seamstresses. Well, no one had explicitly stated that during Naomi’s volunteer hour she wasn’t allowed to pay attention to children from Leo Sherer’s non-frum group. True, the division of work in the kindergarten between her and Mila was very clear, and when Bilhah divided the children into work groups, the children from the Orthodox families naturally gravitated to her, and the others to Mila.
But what if the child, who happened to be Leo Sherer’s grandson, came to her of his own accord and didn’t go to Mila?
He waved his paper in front of Naomi and her mother. “Look!” he whispered proudly. “You know what this is? My brother has things like these at home, and he’s learning to put them on his hand and his head. He’s almost thirteen!”
What other explanation could there be for a drawing of two black cubes, with black lines hanging down from them, that needed to be put on because soon a boy was turning thirteen? On the other hand, the story was puzzling. If Rabbi Schwartzbrod’s whole group had only eight pairs of tefillin, which they took turns putting on, then where did the Elkowitz family have their own pair from? She had to ask Binyamin. She was pretty sure that David Elkowitz, Dror’s father, was part of their neitz minyan, although as Leo Sherer’s son-in-law, it was hard to believe that he was part of any minyan, and certainly that he’d ever held tefillin in his life.
“Your brother? Janku?” Naomi asked, trying to remember who he could be talking about. If she wasn’t mistaken, nearly thirteen-year-old Janku Elkowitz was in charge of the fox kennel and the group of children who cared for them. Protektzia or not, he was Sherer’s oldest grandson, so when the previous child in charge had turned sixteen and went to work in the factory, it was clear that Janku would get the job.
Rechel smiled at little Dror. “These are called tefillin,” she said to him. “And you color very nicely.”
“Right, tefillin!” He beamed. “My mother told me. But she also said I shouldn’t tell my grandfather about it, or anyone else. So don’t tell anyone!” And with that, he dashed back to his place next to Bilhah. But he didn’t show her—or Mila—his drawing.
Naomi could see Mila throwing her dark looks from across the room. Noticing Dror talking to her, the girl was no doubt nervous that Naomi was interfering in the education of “her” children.
“She’s so afraid that I might tell the kids something too ‘religious,’” Naomi whispered bitterly to her mother. “I wonder what she will do when she realizes that I’m going to be taking over for Bilhah. Is she going to be on top of me like this then, too?”
“How does Bilhah manage with her?”
“Bilhah? No one dares tell her a thing. She’s been here already for forty years, and she does what she wants. So she talks about Yom Kippur, Sukkos, Pesach, and Shavuos, but…” Naomi paused for a moment. “She does it very, very carefully. She doesn’t want to irritate the parents in the Sherer group.”
“In short, no one will blame her for teaching Elkowitz’s son about tefillin.”
“No, for sure not,” Naomi murmured. She scanned the room. At the entrance to a little room at the edge of the shelter, she saw the profile of her grandfather sitting next to someone, probably Rabbi Schwartzbrod, among the other elderly people. And there were Babbe’s neighbors from the older people’s house, sitting and knitting. Babbe herself was sitting next to Dr. Annie Katzburg and talking to her. And there were all the workers from the sewing workshop. Where was her friend Elky? She must be in Bomb Shelter B, under the factory.
Naomi wondered where Dror’s mother was. No one was sure what exactly she worked at. Maybe she was also in Shelter B.
The kindergarten children were losing their patience, and some of them began frolicking around. Even the older girls had gotten tired of reading the story pages that they were given every time they had to come down here, and they began to play “Rock, Paper, Scissors.” Hauptmann Katarina scowled, but she didn’t say a word.
“Naomi!” Bilhah, the preschool teacher, called to her, yawning tiredly. “Naomi, do you want to tell them a story? Or maybe play a game with them?”
“Sure.” Naomi said goodbye to her mother and walked over to the children. She sat across from them on the floor, and pondered how awful it was for the Hauptmann see her now in action. Even if Naomi would consider trying to ask for a job transfer, the chances of it being accepted would certainly shrink drastically after the German woman saw the children riveted.
So because of that, she should tell the kids a boring story or organize a dumb game to make them get up, run around, and irritate Katarina? No, that’s not how a mentch acts.
“Once upon a time, in a faraway land…” Naomi began in a deep, enchanting voice. In a flash, all the children came running back to their places. “There lived a king who had three sons. The king loved his three sons very much, but he loved the youngest one the most…” She smiled into little Fanny’s black eyes, as the little girl sat in the corner and stared at her dreamily. She continued the story in a secretive tone, her voice rising and dropping dramatically. Let the Hauptmann see whatever she saw. She, Naomi, loved telling children stories. And if they had to maintain silence now, and this was what helped, then this was what she’d do.
***
Chani, Rechel’s sister, was sitting with her two sons in the small storage room adjacent to the manor house’s kitchen, staring with frustration at the small bulb that hung from the ceiling. Baruch Hashem for small problems; she wasn’t complaining. This had been her work for years, since Ludwig Heidrich and Klaus Wangel were both alive. Shaina Katz, alehah hashalom, had gotten her the job, and when Shaina had aged and retired, Chani remained in charge of the kitchen, along with her children. She and them only. The Nazis didn’t like Jews walking around their homes, aside for the weekly cleaning hours.
The advantages of her being the Wangel family’s in-house cook far exceeded the drawbacks. The most obvious advantage was that her sons did not have to work in the animal pens—of both pure and impure animals—like the other boys their age. They were her regular assistants, according to the law, and until the age of sixteen, they could stay with her.
But she hated the sirens that sent them scrambling for cover, and that they were alone in this small space, and very close to the center of the danger.
“If we would have brought the cabbage with us,” twelve-year-old Meir complained, “we could have cut it up in the meantime. Ugh, then we’re going to have to stay tons of hours till the night to finish the work, and I hate cutting cabbage.”
Ten-year-old Eli looked at him with wide eyes. “That’s what you’re thinking about now?” he chided his brother. “We’re sitting here so close to evil people who came here. If one of them opens the door to this room by mistake…” He shuddered. “Aren’t you scared?”
“How do you know who these people are, the ones who came?” Meir refused to accept the rebuke. “Every time someone comes we need to hide, just to be safe. That doesn’t mean they’re bad Nazis or anything. It’s just because no one in the world is allowed to know that we’re here.”
“It’s scary,” Eli whispered.
“No, actually it’s nice!” Meir tried to enlighten him. “It’s like playing hide-and-seek with the whole world, but knowing that we always win.”
“Always? Who said that we’re going to win each time?”
“Because Hashem promised that Am Yisrael would always survive!” Meir declared triumphantly. “It’s not possible that we will all die, and then that’s the end, and there won’t be a single Jew left in the world.” He leaned on his chair importantly. “Didn’t you hear what Tatte said on Shabbos? Am Yisrael will survive forever!”
“And who told you that you’ll survive?” Eli grilled him. “Maybe only one person in this camp will survive, and then Am Yisrael will have to be reborn again, only from him, like Hashem wanted to do with Moshe Rabbeinu!”
“Can’t be,” Meir said, after mulling this over.
“Why? It can be.”
“It can’t!”
“It can too!”
“Shhh…” Chani said anxiously, when the children raised their voices without realizing it. She was used to this routine from the day she was born; it was part and parcel of her life. The fear of being discovered was immense—but there were moments, like now, when she forgot to be afraid of the world outside, because of how stressed she was about Gefreiter Theresa, who was patrolling the kitchen and making sure no one got near their hiding place. She’d get angry if she heard the children arguing, and there was no doubt that their voices now were loud enough to be heard from behind the wooden door.
“Chani?” The German girl opened the door to the storage room. Behind her, the door to the kitchen was locked, which was a sign that the uninvited guests were still in the house. “We’re serving your coffee cake now. Where is the recipe, in case the lady asks for it?”
Chani got up, relieved that Theresa hadn’t mentioned anything about her kids arguing. “It’s in the regular recipe notebook, translated into German.” Then she dared to ask, “Who are the guests?”
“Some annoying journalist,” the young Wehrmacht member blurted. Then she closed the door to the storage room again.
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