Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 38 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.
Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications.
SECTION 2: MORNING
Chapter Thirty Eight
A note slid under the door of Shelter B:
Is Hauptmann Josef Wangel inside now?
The note was sent back:
No, only one of the young ones.
Binyamin crumpled the note in his tightly closed fist, and without waiting, he cautiously turned the handle of the heavy door and entered. His eyes fell on the person sitting closest to it. “Thanks.” He smiled wanly to Elkovitz and slowly closed the door behind him.
“So you also came late,” the man whispered.
“As you can see.” Binyamin took a deep breath and opened the velvet satchel. “I didn’t know they were so pressured. Now, if you don’t mind…”
“Yes, of course,” Elkovitz replied. “Daven. I won’t bother you.”
Binyamin davened. Were the other man’s eyes following his every move? He wasn’t sure, but he felt a strange prickling at his back. Naomi had told him that Elkovitz’s son knew what tefillin were, and he’d remarked at the time that his thirteen-year-old brother also put them on. The boy hadn’t said a word about his father, but it was fair to assume that if the thirteen-year-old son donned tefillin, someone had taken care to teach him how to do it.
He suddenly heard the high-pitched voice of the Nazi woman with them. “I’m not supposed to be trapped in here, missing out on everything!”
She passed by the wall with the phone in her hand, and opened the door of the shelter. A moment later she slammed it closed, and her keys clanged together as she locked it from the outside. Most of the people fixed their eyes on the high window near the ceiling of the shelter. The slice of sky that was visible from there was already blue, appearing almost normal for this hour.
“Does that mean we’re getting out of here soon?” Rechel asked her mother, who was seated beside her.
“I guess we’ll see,” Sarah Liba said as she peeled apples for the preschool children.
Naomi went over to them, glancing curiously at her brother, who was davening in the opposite corner of the shelter. “How did Binyamin get to the shelter?” she asked in a whisper.
“We cleared out the infirmary,” her grandmother answered quietly. “At least, of whoever was able to leave.”
“So why did he get here at the last second?” she blurted out. “Or rather, a minute after the last second?”
“You can put people behind walls, Naomi dear,” her grandmother replied, “but not their spirit. And Binyamin’s spirit is very high, higher than any wall…”
Rechel murmured something, and her mother turned to her with a questioning look.
“I just said that his father, zichrono l’vrachah, also had a very lofty spirit.” Rechel swallowed. “And I don’t want Binyamin to go to that same high place that his father is in. Not yet, at least. He’s so young, Mamme!”
Naomi took the peeled and sliced applies from her grandmother’s hand, but remained standing there, her gaze alternating between the two women she loved most, and regretting that she’d even brought up the subject.
“It will be good, b’ezras Hashem,” Sarah Liba said quietly. “You’ll see, it will yet be good, Rechele. Binyamin hasn’t done anything bad or rebellious. He just wanted to put on tefillin, and I gave him permission. I didn’t realize how quickly they wanted us to move.”
***
“They wanted us to hurry, and they threw us in here very quickly. But for how long are we going to be stuck here?” Elkovitz murmured in Binyamin’s direction, after the latter had finished davening and had taken off his tefillin.
Binyamin kissed the batim. “Good question.”
“They are very tense. It’s a natural phenomenon that draws lots of onlookers to the mountain areas.”
“And then? They’re afraid that these people will discover us?”
“Yes.” His finger stroked his daughter’s small, red forehead. Her eyes opened, and her gaze fixed on the person sitting beside her father. She studied Binyamin solemnly, as if trying to convey something with her gaze.
“It’s amazing…” Binyamin murmured. “I haven’t seen a baby up close in a long time. And I haven’t held one either.”
“So perhaps you’d like to remember what it feels like? I wouldn’t mind,” the father admitted. “As tiny as she looks, she’s baruch Hashem growing very nicely. And she’s starting to get heavy, especially after hours of holding her.”
“Sure, no problem,” Binyamin said, reaching out his arms.
“Support her head from over here, because she can’t hold it up yet, and that’s it.” He observed from the side, smiling.
Binyamin didn’t dare move. His eyes held the baby’s gaze, and she stared back at him with her deep gray orbs. “She really does have a nice name,” he said, after a moment.
“But this is not the infirmary, you know, and it’s not a quiet night hour,” Elkovitz said in a cautioning tone.
“True,” Binyamin whispered and looked around. There was no one close by. “Although then it wasn’t a quiet time, either. Did you know that my grandmother patrols the whole infirmary area at night? And that she’s not the only one?”
“I figured that they don’t leave us totally unattended. Which tefillin are these?”
“Belsky’s. I can’t always get them, but today it was easy…”
“And dangerous.” David smiled at him.
“I didn’t know,” Binyamin defended himself. “Even my grandmother didn’t know. She let me run to the shul.”
“Would you mind if I put them on while you are holding her?” Elkovitz asked. “I’m afraid there’s a problem with one of my retzuos.”
“So you have your own set of tefillin! Where is it from?”
“My father also put on tefillin, and they were his.” Elkovitz shrugged. “It was the last thing my father asked of me, before he got onto that train… Actually he asked me for two things, but the other one isn’t relevant today.”
“What was it?” Binyamin was curious.
“That I should marry a Jewish woman. But as I said, that’s not a problematic issue here.”
“Baruch Hashem.”
“Yes.” Elkovitz took the tefillin case that was resting behind them. “So can I use these?”
“Sure,” Binyamin said. “They’re not mine—they are meant for any Yid here who wants to put on tefillin. And after we get out of here, I’ll be happy to check your retzuos. I have black paint in the factory, if that’s the problem.”
“That, too. But besides for that issue, they are also very worn.”
“You can speak to my brother-in-law Aryeh. When they begin the processing of the leather, there are lots of pieces that are not usable because of their shape. Those pieces are good for retzuos. It would be a good idea to give him advance notice, if you want that it should be processed l’shmah.”
“I don’t really know the concepts so well.” Elkovitz carefully took the batim out and stood up. “Can you speak to him for me, please?”
“Sure,” Binyamin said.
Babbe headed over to him. “I see that you’re an excellent babysitter,” she said with a smile. Her eyes, though, emitted rebuke when she bent over to him. “Why were you so late? I reassured your mother, but I know very well what time you left the infirmary. It took you much too long to get here!”
“I didn’t do anything, Babbe,” the boy whispered in response, as he lowered his gaze to the tiny eyes that were staring at him. “I went straight to the shul, but there, I suddenly saw Wangel, and he was furious at him.” He pointed with his chin toward Elkovitz, standing a few feet away with his eyes closed. “Wangel didn’t expect to see a single Jew still outside. I was afraid he’d see me also, so I decided to hide. Only afterward did I realize that it’s better for me to get here a bit late than for them to find that I wasn’t in any of the shelters throughout the time we were required to be there. Who knows what they’d accuse me of, if that were to happen…”
She nodded understandingly, but before she could say anything, they heard the sound of the key turning. The door opened, and Hauptmann Josef Wangel stood there, looking much calmer.
“Finally, we’ve finished sending all those onlookers away,” he said, without a smile. “And you should know that I have no idea, Jews, why we continue to put ourselves in danger like this for you.”
***
“Suddenly, in the morning, it looked like night!” Duvi was standing in front of the big tape recorder, pontificating animatedly. “And Rebbi told us…he told us to sit on the window ledge to watch. So we made a nice row, and we held onto the bars, and we sang, ‘V’hayu l’me’oros b’rakia hashamayim.’”
Dena smiled at him and nodded, motioning for him to continue. She preferred to speak as little as possible; she couldn’t stand the way she sounded in recordings. Her voice always sounded so nasal and strange.
“Then Aharon told everyone that if the moon goes over the sun during the day, it’s a bad sign for the goyim! And some other boys told him to be quiet because maybe Olaf, the janitor, was passing by in the hallway near our classroom. Ha ha, but Olaf doesn’t even understand Yiddish!” He smiled, paused for a moment, and glanced at his mother.
“Ask them questions,” she whispered.
He continued. “Did you also have an eclipse in Eretz Yisrael, Saba and Savta? What time? Or maybe you don’t need it in Eretz Yisrael, because there are no goyim there? Oh, I forgot, there are Arabs… Did it get dark for them also, all of a sudden? Yossi asked Rebbi how come the goyim are not afraid of the eclipse and they go to look at it and take pictures, and Shaya said if he would chas v’shalom be a goy, he would run home to hide.” He laughed again.
“But Rebbi told us that the goyim don’t know how to read the seforim, so they don’t know that it’s a bad sign for them.”
Dena smiled encouragingly.
“Right you’re very happy to get this tape? Ima will record Shloimy tomorrow afternoon, because he’s sleeping now. I know you’ll be happy to hear his voice also. Oh, wait, she won’t record him in the afternoon, because she’s going to work then…you know, in Abba and Zeidy Hanter’s factory. I think she’s very happy to go there.”
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