Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 62 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.
A note in the office on Elky’s desk:
Elky, please come over to me as soon as possible. It’s urgent. Eva.
“What’s going on, Eva?” Elky fingered the note in her right hand.
Eva Sherer was to the point, as always. “Did you write something on the back of your hours report? Something about having to earn enough, even if you have no energy, because you can’t imagine being poor?”
Elky looked at her silently, neither confirming nor denying.
“I identified the note based on the huge number of hours in the report, and a bit based on your handwriting. I have no idea who you wrote it to, and what you planned to do with the paper, but it landed up in the Wangels’ garden, or near it, and they are very irritated.”
“About what it says there?” Elky could hardly get the words out.
“No, that there was garbage on the ground like that.”
“Really!” Elky huffed. “You know, it happens that sometimes, pieces of paper fly around the camp!”
“Yes, but I guess you caught the Hauptmann in a very sour mood, and it was a relatively big piece of paper. I didn’t tell them who wrote it, but they are waiting for an answer about it. I would suggest that you approach them, apologize, and promise that it won’t happen again.”
“Who…who knows about this?” Elky’s fingers crushed the small note into a tiny ball.
“The Wangels, as I told you.”
“No. Who in the camp?”
“Just my father, but I didn’t tell him exactly what was written there.”
Elky closed her eyes for a moment. “Fine,” she whispered a few seconds later. “Thanks, Eva.”
“And the note that I wrote to you—please throw it into the trash basket right now.” A small, crooked smile lifted the corners of Eva’s lips. “That way, I won’t be the next in line to have to apologize.”
Leo Sherer hurried into the office, cutting off the conversation that had come to an end in any case. “Another morning down the drain,” he snapped, without looking in Elky’s direction. “But let them figure it out with Wangel; I’m out of the picture. Can you prepare me a cup of tea, Eva?”
“Sure, Papa. What’s going on?”
“It’s about their matzos. They really are baking again this morning.”
Elky retreated to her corner. All she needed was to be blamed that Mottel went out to bake matzos again this morning. Lots of the frum young men had volunteered, so that they could finish the job as quickly as possible.
“Not to mention who is there now.” His face clouded. “David. And I know you’re not supposed to mix into your married kids’ lives, but I’m going to be having a word about this with Suzy.”
“Don’t waste your energy, Papa. What can she do? It’s her husband, and this is his choice.”
“Their choice,” he corrected her. “Thanks for the tea.” He looked at her, as if he wanted to say something more, but that something apparently needed more privacy, and he sat down and began to sip his hot drink without another word.
“I’ll go out now to the sewing room, to speak to some of the workers about filling out their reports,” Elky said, feeling like she had no air in the room. Not because of the conversation between Leo and his daughter, but because of the one that had preceded it. How could she speak to Katarina? Maybe if the Hauptmann would be near the sewing room, and she’d be in a calm enough mood, she’d be able to go over and apologize.
The minute she left the office, Leo raised his eyes. “The one who is the most bothersome right now in the Orthodox group is the Shvirtz boy. But believe me that if he was one of ours, I would take him for you. He’s intense, powerful. But of course, the last thing I need is another Orthodox son-in-law.”
Eva shrugged. “I’m young, Papa, and I’m not really interested in thinking about marriage right now.”
“The prospects right now are not very impressive,” Leo said. “At least not to me. And there isn’t anyone your age either—they are all either too old or too young. But at a certain point, we’ll have to compromise. I can’t think of you staying single for too much longer.”
***
“I came to help you kasher the kitchen!” Binyamin announced when Aryeh opened the door in the evening.
“Welcome. And what’s with Mamme’s kitchen?” Naomi asked as she bent over the last stain on the metal table that was attached to the wall.
“Mamme only wants to deal with her kitchen tomorrow,” he said as he closed the door behind him. “Let’s go. What are we boiling the water in? I have half an hour.”
Aryeh rolled the water kettle over to him, and Binyamin turned to the faucet. “Your water pressure is a bit weak. Do you not have enough water in the barrel on the roof? After this whole winter?” he said after a minute.
“I was also surprised. I thought I’d have to go soon to the water pump to fill it up again, but I think it’s actually a small blockage in the pipe, and it just needs to be changed,” Aryeh said. The water continued flowing from the faucet with a gentle whooshing sound.
Binyamin half smiled and lowered his voice. ““I’m not worried about the speed. Nu, Naomi, start already! We’ll talk quietly, but we have to talk!”
She sat down on the chair and began to talk. She described her two phone conversations with Hanter from the spices factory. The water flowed into the big samovar, and Aryeh and Naomi carried it together to the gas. Aryeh lit the fire, and Binyamin put the cover on. Then he leaned on the wall and listened with an inscrutable expression, not saying or asking anything until Naomi finished speaking.
Even after she finished, he struggled to find the words. “And you think that it’s really…”
“If I heard correctly, it is real,” she whispered.
“If? You think you imagined it?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think so.”
Naomi fixed her brother with a gaze. “Huh? What made you decide that?”
“I think that out of fear, your brain decided to treat this whole concept as something delusional and illogical.”
“Since when did you become a brain doctor?”
“I’m simply trying to think reasonably,” he said.
“But why are you talking about fear? Why should I be afraid? If indeed this is true, and they no longer rule the world, then it’s very good news!” she whispered, though she knew very well how right he was.
“Yes, but it’s also news that creates tension, if it’s true. The thought of what is really happening outside our walls, if until now we have been fed lies…and to think about entire lives that were wasted here, when everyone on the outside already celebrated the fall of the Nazis years ago…” He looked like it was an effort not to grit his teeth.
Naomi was quiet, and the sound of the boiling water bubbling suddenly filled the quiet room.
“I also think Naomi did not imagine what she heard, even if she missed a couple of words they said here and there,” Aryeh whispered. He wrapped his hands in two large towels. “The question is something else. The war was over about fifty years ago. Do you really think there’s a chance that the Nazi regime hasn’t existed since then?”
“That’s not what I was told,” Naomi hurried to clarify. “It’s not clear to me at which point the Nazis stopped being in power. But…” She took a deep breath. “Germany fell then. The Wehrmacht and the SS ceased to exist. Hitler, yemach shemo, also died then, according to that Hanter woman. But—”
“What do you mean that Germany fell and the Nazis did not? How do you explain that?”
“Well, maybe Germany surrendered to other countries.”
“While the Nazi regime continued to exist inside it?” Binyamin asked.
“Yes. And maybe in Austria, too. The Cosmos-Fuhrer was Austrian, you know.”
“You know what I think?” He burst into quiet laughter, even as he hurried to help his brother-in-law, who was about to work with the large, boiling samovar on his own. “Who said that we’re even in Austria? Maybe we’re in America!”
“Zeide and Babbe and all the old people remember very well how they got here,” Naomi declared. “They didn’t cross the ocean—that much is for sure. And they also saw road signs. We’re on the mountainous Austrian border, on one of the endless mountainsides. There’s no doubt about that, at least.”
“I think that there’s no doubt about what you heard either, unless Hanter had some reason to lie to you.”
“And to make up that they are Jews? When it’s the greatest danger for a human being?”
Binyamin didn’t answer. His hands were also wrapped in towels, and together with Aryeh, they lowered the samovar to the ground. “You know what I really think?” he said after a moment, as his eyes suddenly darkened. “I think this is what our father heard. And that’s why they murdered him.”
Aryeh and Naomi were quiet.
“And that means that we have to be very, very careful as we think about what we do going forward.”
Naomi moved a step back from the steaming water. “Forward to where?”
“To the next step in our inquiries.”
“In any case, in two nights is the first Seder,” Aryeh concluded. “The festival of freedom. I think we should take a break from this whole subject, and after Yom Tov we’ll think again about what we should do. Elkovitz hasn’t spoken to you in the meantime?”
“No, he’s being evasive. And believe me, I tried to grill him, when you didn’t want to talk.”
“His wife was standing here next to me and heard a few words of the first conversation. She’s probably hysterical and warned him not to dare get involved in it,” Naomi said. “Maybe she’s also connecting all of this to what happened to Tatte and is trembling with fright. By the way, she didn’t hear the main part of the conversation. But I see that this was enough for her.” She took a deep breath.
“I think you should go out now, when we are busy with this boiling water,” Aryeh said.
“Okay,” Naomi agreed. “I’ll go hang some laundry.” She took the basket outside, somewhat happy to escape the conversation, in addition to the steam and humidity inside.
Although it was getting later, Erev Pesach was clearly felt. People were walking along the paths as if it was the lunch break, and Naomi waved to Chaya Kush who passed near her yard.
“Hello, hello!” Chaya called out. “Nu, where are you up to?”
“Baruch Hashem, baruch Hashem.” Naomi set the basket on the ground near the clothesline.
“It’s too bad they’re not extending the deadline for being outside today, isn’t it?”
“At least on the Sederim nights they do,” Naomi said in response. She smiled. She was looking forward to Pesach. And if she’d just be able to take a real break from all these thoughts, as Aryeh had suggested, it would be wonderful.
But she wasn’t quite sure she’d succeed at that.
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