Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 77 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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Elky,
I know that you were just released from the clinic, but my father has been summoned urgently to the manor house. Please come right away and check that everything is in order in the accounts and the salaries, because we are afraid they are going to do a thorough inspection.
And destroy this note.
Eva
“Who gave you this note?” Elky asked the boy at the door, suspicion in her voice. It was Herzlich’s son, and everyone knew the open secret that he’d never learned to read in any language. Dr. Annie claimed that the issue was that he was severely cross-eyed, and she didn’t have the resources to help him. The office used him as a courier to send around written messages that they didn’t want anyone except the recipient reading.
“Eva. Eva Sherer,” the boy replied.
Elky picked up the baby from her bed, wrapped him in a thin blanket, and hurried outside. She ran along the path breathlessly and walked into the office a few minutes later. Only Eva was there, and in the inner office there were a few men standing and speaking animatedly.
“Hi,” Elky greeted Eva.
The other girl did not respond, as she was engrossed in her desk drawers—opening and closing them, picking up pads of paper, leafing through them, putting them back.
“What happened?” Elky asked.
“Herr Wangel called my father and told him to come immediately.” Eva did not return her gaze. “More importantly: Where is the copy of the contract between us about the bills you do instead of me? I hope it’s not here.”
“No, it’s at home.” Was there anyone else besides Eva who knew how many nights she’d worked, including in the clinic after the baby’s birth, in order to increase their monthly salary just a tiny bit more? Eva paid her well, because she hated everything relating to accounting, and if not for the fact that she was her father’s daughter, she’d never have dreamed of working in the office.
The main thing was that she’d found a way to earn some more marks each month, and this made her breathe a bit easier. She couldn’t stomach the thought of life in poverty, despite Mottel’s words that, “I didn’t know how paved with poverty the path to wealth is.” True, now they were at a stage where they had to work harder, and to save, but it was just so that later on, they could live a more comfortable life. It was worth it, definitely worth it.
Was it possible that someone had discovered something wrong with the office reports? She hoped Eva was not about to dismantle this agreement that they had!
Elky put the baby down on the folded blanket in the corner of the office, and hurried to the shelf that held the files containing all the office bills from the past year. “I’ll check that everything is in order,” she told Eva soothingly, as she glanced at the inner office. The people there were too busy, and too noisy, to listen to them. “As for our arrangement—you don’t have to worry. People are allowed to let others work instead of them, aren’t they?”
“Not without permission from the real bosses,” Eva whispered back nervously. “But it doesn’t matter right now. For now, check that everything is in order. What I did, what you did, everything.”
Elky grimaced. “I see the pressure here is really serious.”
“I’m the one who answered when Wangel rang,” Eva said. She stopped everything she was doing, stood up, and pointed to the communication radio hanging on the wall. “He sounded terrifying; I’ve never heard him so furious before. When was the last time he demanded that my father come to him at the manor house?”
“Maybe it really has nothing to do with office matters,” Elky said hopefully. “Not the accounts or the private deal between us. If he suspected that something here was being mismanaged, he would have barged into the office without any advance warning.”
“Maybe. In any case, who knows which option is more frightening!”
“What could he want already?” Elky said. “To complain about the cleanliness at the factory, or about some serious problem in the fur production? Problems in the office, relating to our reliability, are much more nerve-wracking.”
“For someone who is only worried that she might have to suffice with a smaller salary from now on, I guess yes, that really is much worse,” Eva said, rolling her eyes. “But someone who has a few more things on his or her mind is also afraid of other possibilities. Stop being so self-absorbed, Elky! And so focused on the money that you just want to earn all day!”
“Okay, fine. I heard you…” Elky muttered.
The baby in the corner burst out crying, his thin arms pumping up and down.
“He doesn’t have a name yet, right?” Eva asked, her every move hasty and a bit jerky. “Speak to your family—maybe they’ll agree that you should call him Mark, and then you’ll have one more mark at home.”
“Ha, ha, very funny.” Elky fixed her with a sharp look and then went back to work. How, how would this all end? She just hoped their routine was not about to change.
***
“Within two hours! Two hours! Those communications devices better be here, together with the people who spoke on them.” Wangel’s eyes were bloodshot.
Leo Sherer nodded at him. “We’ll make every effort, Hauptman.”
“Your effort doesn’t interest me.” Wangel moved toward him with two long strides. Leo didn’t move. “Do whatever you want to do, but within two hours—those devices better be here. They are all that interest me. And I repeat: Including those who put them together and used them.”
“May I ask something, Herr Wangel?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe nobody put together anything, and they were just trying out the device in the office, through which you convey orders to us?”
Josef rubbed his thumb on his high forehead, considering the option.
“But who did the person speak to?” Katarina interjected. “There has to be another device on the other side, right?”
“The Gefreiter heard two people speaking?” Sherer asked.
“Yes.”
“And maybe two people in the office were talking to each other next to the device when it was switched on?”
“It didn’t sound like that, and don’t try to buy time.” Wangel’s face hovered very close to Sherer’s. “Because these minutes are coming off the two hours that I gave you, is that clear?”
“I’m sorry, sir, if there’s an impression that I wanted to buy time. I’m simply trying to understand clearly what happened here.” Leo glanced at the floor tiles and then raised his eyes to the Nazi. “I’m trying to think: Maybe it was a conversation that took place outside the camp, and not among any of my people?”
“The nearest village is too far to pick up conversations by mistake.”
“Can a phone even pick up a conversation from a communications device?” Leo asked.
“Sometimes the frequencies get mixed up, especially on cordless phones.” Josef’s eyes suddenly darkened. “Or maybe it was an actual telephone, and someone used our line to call out? For your benefit, I really hope that is not the case.”
“They didn’t do it, Josef,” Katarina said suddenly. “You think they would actively invite the SS here to slaughter every last one of them?”
“I don’t know.” The man’s eyes glittered with fury. “If I discover that it was real telephone, I swear I will not wait for the SS. I will kill you all myself.”
This time Sherer only nodded.
Wangel stepped back and sat down on his chair, breathing heavily, as if he was making an effort to suppress something that was about to erupt from inside him. “Go,” he said after a moment. “Go, and make sure that I don’t have to wait one minute more than I said.”
Leo Sherer hoped that his gait looked stable as he walked out of the manor house grounds and turned toward the office. He was well aware of the group of people that had formed recently, but if they would have communications devices, they wouldn’t need to meet in the middle of the night, in a way that gave them away to him.
He ignored the people who froze in place the second they saw his figure at the door, including his son-in-law, David Elkovitz. He entered and slumped down into his chair.
Only Eva dared approach. “Papa?” she asked as she sat down in the wooden chair opposite him. “What do they want?”
He waved his hand for a second, as if banishing a small, irritating bird, but then he pulled himself together. “They intercepted on their home phone a short conversation, partially in German and partially in Hebrew. Eva, were you here in the office during the funeral?”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone come in and use the communications radio?”
“No.”
Leo took a deep breath. “Do you know of anyone in the camp who has recently tried to put together a communications device, or—” he stopped for a second, something irritating niggling at his mind—“a real telephone?”
Eva glanced behind her, maybe toward Elkovitz. “I don’t know about it.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “But I know only one person who has the ability and the tools to do so.”
Her father gazed at her for a long moment, and then at once, sparks flashed in his eyes. “Don’t you dare mention Suzy, you hear? She’s not involved in this!” he said very sharply, his jaw set.
Eva was quiet. Leo raised his eyes to one of the office workers who was approaching. “We need to gather everyone urgently,” he said to the man in front of him, who had a mixture of concern and curiosity on his face. “Every resident should come to the factory courtyard in ten minutes, at most. Send the kennel children to summon them, immediately.”
Three workers hurried out, as did David Elkovitz. But as the three ran to the kennels, he hurried in the other direction. Leo Sherer remained sitting on his office chair, leaning back silently, one hand supporting his chin.
Just a few minutes later, Irwin walked in.
His father-in-law shook off his reverie. “Yes?”
“A message came to the clinic in your name that everyone should gather at the factory courtyard right now. Did you mean that seriously? What do we do with the sick patients?” he asked. “The doctor sent me to ask you. Because aside for Schvirtz, there’s someone there with a very contagious virus, and two others who are really weak.”
“Aside for Schvi—?!” Leo stopped, and his eyes grew wide. “His delusions! The telephone!” he said hoarsely. He stood up, then wobbled, missing the look on the face of David Elkovitz, who was standing near the open door. “Anyone who can get up to come should do that. And send Binyamin Schvirtz over here. I want him in this room, this minute.”
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