Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 23 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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Dear Naomi,
Please warm up for Zeide the steamed squash that is in the pot in the cooler cabinet. Both of you should eat; don’t leave anything for me, because I’ll only be back tomorrow, and it will be spoiled by then. Prepare something hot to drink and air out the room very well.
You take care of mine, I’m taking care of yours—and Hashem will take care of all of us…
With love, Babbe
Naomi set the table in her grandparents’ one-room apartment. “I think it’s been years since we’ve eaten supper together,” she said to her grandfather, taking out the small aluminum forks from the cutlery box.
He mustered up a small smile. “So now there’s an opportunity.”
“I guess so,” she replied as she sat down, playing with the strap of Babbe’s apron that was hanging on the hook behind her, swaying in the strong evening wind. “Babbe asked me to air out the room. But when it gets too cold for you, Zeide, tell me and I’ll close the window.”
“Alright.”
Naomi let go of the apron strap. “Tell me, Zeide, has it ever happened before that Babbe worked in the infirmary through the night? Because I don’t remember such a thing. Is this the first time?”
“It’s true, it’s hardly ever happened. When we were younger, there was no infirmary. People who needed a doctor called Dr. Baruch Grodotzky, zichrono l’vrachah, and he came to their houses or they came to his house. He only opened the infirmary after about ten years. His wife was the nurse there. For years, Wangel brought him all kinds of medical books, and that’s how he learned. He also taught the medical knowledge to his daughter, Katzburg.”
“And in recent years?”
“If there is no one seriously ill or something urgent, the infirmary is closed at night. And when it is open, they manage with the two young nurses; they don’t specifically need Babbe to be there.”
Naomi stood up and opened the cooler cabinet, taking out the pot of squash. “How many people are hospitalized there now, Zeide?”
“This afternoon there were seven with pneumonia and two more with severe flu.”
“And the other flu patients?”
“They’re at home.”
“You…” Naomi took a deep breath and put the portion of squash on her grandfather’s plate. “Did Babbe tell you what’s really going on with Aryeh, Zeide?”
“Yes. He’s not getting antibiotics for now, but they did give him an intravenous for fluids and other things that can help, and he is getting a bit better.”
“Babbe refused to tell me how much fever he has.”
“So then I also refuse. But Naomi’le, baruch Hashem the infirmary is able to give an IV, for example. That’s thanks to Dr. Grodotzky. He fought a lot to get minimal equipment and supplies, and they gave it to him.”
“Were there other times when infectious diseases spread like this?”
“Yes, but baruch Hashem it was always with rachamim. I don’t remember ever having an epidemic, like typhus, for example. Back in the camps, that used to spread rapidly…”
“The camps.” Naomi swallowed. “Zeide, would you tell me a little about that time?”
“Before we came here?” His eyes clouded for a moment. “Why?”
“So that I know,” she replied simply. “I…you’ve never told me.”
Zeide Nachum washed his hands silently and sat down near the table. He began to eat his bread, but he was so engrossed in his thoughts, he hardly seemed to notice the dark squash on his plate. He toyed with his cutlery, and only after Naomi washed and sat down as well did he say, with a sigh, “I’ll tell you a bit, from the end.”
He continued eating in silence, his mind clearly miles away; he hardly even noticed that he was putting food in his mouth. Perhaps he was worried about his sick grandson and the other patients; perhaps it was the memories.
“I was at work digging on the Austrian border,” he said suddenly. “The Germans and the Hungarians seemed about to surrender to the Russians and the Americans, the French and the British. The front was very close to us, until one day, they stopped our work and we had to start moving. I won’t tell you what we went through on that horrible trip, part of which took place on Pesach… But at one point they took us to a place called Matthausen. We were Jews from a few different places: Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia…” He paused.
Naomi ate silently. The food tasted bland, not only because her grandmother hardly used any salt when she cooked.
“There, they threw us into tents and didn’t look at us anymore; they gave us soup once a day, not even bread, and waited for us to die. And it almost happened… But after two days, three Wehrmacht officers suddenly showed up. They were Majors. One of them was Samson, I don’t remember his last name, and the other two were Klaus Wangel and Ludwig Heidrich. They said that they were looking for Jews who were still ready to work in exchange for food.
“From our group, they chose a few engineers, a doctor, carpenters, tailors, builders, and Max and Leo Sherer, sons of a well-known family that worked in the fur industry in Hungary. The Hauptmanns said that they had received an order to build a small military base in the Austrian Alps. Many of us volunteered, because they were the Wehrmacht and we were less afraid of them than of the SS.” He put his fork down and looked at the glass cup that Naomi was filling with tea.
He put his hand out almost blindly and gripped the handle of the glass. “We knew that the chances of getting out alive from the place we were in were very slim, if at all… They put us all onto a train, and from there, we moved to trucks. And from there we walked…until we got here.”
“What did they want you to do here?” Naomi asked.
“It looked like the Nazis were going to lose the war and the Allies would take control over Europe. So they were apparently preparing for the day that they would have to fight back with guerilla warfare. This place was supposed to be a supply base for the future fighters, but in the end, it all turned around. Japan bombed America with two atom bombs, on New York and Washington, and the whole world came down on its knees.”
“But you were already here.”
“Yes. I don’t know how this place was forgotten by the Nazi army. Samson disappeared at one point, and the other two said he’d been killed in one of the last battles of the war, and they decided to name the camp for him. They somehow were able to hide from the Wehrmacht the huge thing that they built here. Josef Wangel, Klaus’s son, married Katarina, Ludwig’s only daughter, and the tradition they had from their parents was to do everything they could to protect the Jews here, because they only benefitted from it.”
There was a knock at the door, and Babbe walked in. Naomi leaped to her feet, pale as a sheet. “Babbe!” she exclaimed, her hands beginning to shake.
But Sara Liba quickly took both of Naomi’s hands in her own.
“I just wanted to tell you that Aryeh is feeling much better, baruch Hashem,” she said, not even taking off her coat. “But I didn’t have anyone that I could send to tell you the good news at this hour.”
“And you, Babbe? How did they let you go out after curfew?”
“Special permission. So you should know, Naomi, that your husband baruch Hashem is sitting up, and that he even ate a whole bowl of soup. Oh, and he asked me to let you know that the smell of the soup isn’t as good as the smell of your soup that he didn’t get to eat back when he first got sick.” She smiled and turned around, heading back outside. “Good night! See you in the morning, b’ezras Hashem!”
***
Bentzy was still finishing melaveh malkah, but Dena already put the kids’ sweaters on. It was Motza’ei Shabbos, and they were all tired and impatient and just wanted to go home.
Home.
Not that she could really call their rented apartment “home,” but after so much time, you get used to anything. Even the long hours that you spend wandering mostly alone through the many large rooms, and not because your husband is doing “mishmar” from sunrise to sunset.
Fine. She knew that a good wife needs to be a good wife, irrespective of how much time her husband dedicates to his learning. A good wife can do what she needs to do in other ways as well. It reminded her of something, and as soon as she finished zipping up Duvi’s coat, she went to the refrigerator in the corner of the kitchen.
Bentzy bentched and stood up, taking the handle of their wheelie case. “Thanks for Shabbos, Mommy. It was beautiful.”
“We’re waiting for you again next week, of course,” his mother said with a smile. Then she turned around, and her eyes grew wide when she saw her daughter-in-law standing near the open fridge. There was hardly anything that screamed lack of manners more than opening the refrigerator in a strange house, even if you were a daughter-in-law. “Are you looking for something, Dena?”
Dena blushed, registering her mother-in-law’s reaction just a bit too late. “I’m sorry…” she said and quickly closed the fridge door. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to…oh, whatever, it doesn’t matter.”
“What did you want? I packed up the patties for you for Sunday.” Her shvigger’s words made the blush on Dena’s checks spread even more. “Was it the cake you wanted?”
“Whatever, no, it doesn’t matter.”
Bentzy hardly noticed what was happening. He took Duvi’s hand and walked with him and the suitcase toward the front door.
Her mother-in-law, with all her manners, knew how to be stubborn. “No, really. What were you looking for?”
“I wanted to see where you store your spices.”
“The spices? On the decorative shelf. You’ve seen it, no?”
“I thought those spices were only decorative, and that the ones you use are in here.”
“In the fridge? Why in the fridge?”
“Well, can’t they get wormy if they’re left out?”
“Spices?” Her mother-in-law chuckled. “This is not Israel, where it’s very warm, Dena. Europe is much colder, and our high-quality spices certainly remain fresh for a long time, even when they’re stored at room temperature.”
“But…” Dena tried to instruct herself to stop, but she just couldn’t. “Now, when it’s cool out, that’s certainly the case. But it’s not very cold here in the summer.”
Near the front door, Bentzy cleared his throat. He did not like the direction this conversation was taking.
Shloimy did the job for him. “Ima, come already!” he began to wail. “I want to go to sleeeeep!”
Red-faced, Dena retreated from the fridge and its lack of spices. She waved to her mother-in-law, and off they went.
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