Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 82 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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Sign on the central bulletin board in the camp:
Urgent notice!
All residents of the camp, aged thirteen and up, will gather today at the beginning of the lunch break in the factory yard, regarding a vitally important matter!
Leo Sherer
“I’m pleading with you!” Leo paused and coughed, his pallor rather yellowish. “I am pleading with you: No nonsense, please! We are in a very, very tense situation. The Wangel family is very displeased by the recent developments. What I am asking everyone is to continue their daily routine as normal, and to work productively and efficiently.”
A whisper rippled through the crowd.
“Schvirtz tried to craft a communications device,” Sherer continued. “We have no idea what for. To contact the SS in Vienna so that our hiding place should be discovered? It is not clear to anyone; I just know that a member of the Wangel family heard part of the conversation, and they were very angry, and rightfully so. They demanded from me to turn in the one who spoke on the device. At that point, Schvirtz realized that he had been caught, and he went and turned himself in.”
“And what’s happening with him now?” people asked as they looked at one another. “Is he alive?”
“We hope so,” Leo said, as beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. Some people in the crowd exchanged glances.
“It’s easy to hope so!” someone whispered derisively, looking around. “Rumors say that David Elkovitz is the one who spoke to Schvirtz. But Elkovitz, the esteemed son-in-law, doesn’t dream of turning himself in. Schvirtz alone is paying the price!”
“The price of his own foolishness,” someone else murmured back. “What got into him? Instigating the very people to whom we owe our lives?”
Naomi stood at the side, among the crowd of silent women. She felt her heart pounding painfully, beating against her ribs. If only she could run for two minutes to Binyamin’s hideout, to speak with him! The message he had sent in the note to her mother had stunned her, especially after she read about his suspicion that she had gone and tattled to Sherer. If only she could have smoothed down the issues in a clear and open way, and explained to him that she hadn’t done a thing.
And maybe…and maybe she would ask him what he thought she could do at this time, when he himself was so limited.
Her eyes filled, despite her efforts to prevent it, and she carefully turned around. Was anyone looking at her? Would someone want to track where she was going today? She felt like people were eyeing her, but that still didn’t mean a thing. It was safe to assume that she and her mother were drawing looks right now: angry ones, compassionate ones, and everything in between.
She wondered what her mother-in-law was doing now, at the estate. Did she feel threatened, to be in such close proximity to those angry Nazis?
“Where are the preschoolers, Naomi?” someone asked her in an overly friendly tone. Naomi couldn’t even discern who it was.
“They’re with Katy,” she replied, her eyes focused straight ahead on the crowd of men listening with the requisite politeness to what Leo was conveying in Wangel’s name. From the edges of the group, they heard whispers that indicated that not everyone was accepting each word at face value.
“Friends!” In the face of the mounting whispers and the buzz that was spreading through the men, Leo had to raise his voice. “Our lives are all in the balance right now. Don’t play with them! Back to work, right now! Silently!”
“Don’t we first deserve to eat lunch?” someone asked.
A tense laugh was the response, and the crowd turned toward the dining room.
***
“Why are you deceiving them?” David asked. He was the only one who had remained in the empty factory during the short gathering outside, and he greeted his father-in-law who was coming back inside, his steps heavy. “You know the truth, Papa!”
“I don’t know any truth—only what you told me, and I’m not sure I believe even one word.” His drained father-in-law sat down on the chair nearby. “And that’s the thanks I get for protecting you?”
“I really do thank you for that very much. But what could happen already if you tell the people that Binyamin suspects that the Nazi regime collapsed long ago, and he was able to make telephone contact with Jews in Vienna? Jews! Free ones! And it’s been like that for the last fifty years!”
“What could happen? There will be a bloodbath here, that’s what will happen!” Leo hissed furiously. “I’m not going to put anyone here in danger because of some hallucinations.”
“Because of truth that appears to you like hallucinations,” David said grimly. “Do you want to speak to Suzy herself? So she can tell you about what happened in the garden of the manor house a day before Asher Schvirtz was murdered in the clinic? Or about the parts that she heard from the phone call that Schvirtz’s sister had with a Jewish woman from Vienna?”
“I don’t want anything, David.” Leo’s voice was weak. “I just want quiet, life, and tranquility.”
“Is that what you wanted all these years? And you silenced all the suspicions because of that?”
“Which suspicions?” Leo rose angrily. “We had no suspicions!”
David fell silent. “I think I’ll go to the manor house, too,” he said suddenly. “If they are waiting for more confessions, as they told you last night, then it isn’t right for me to stay here.”
“You’re not going!” Leo grabbed his arm. “You will not do it to your family! And besides, it’s best to wait a little longer. I think if we keep things quiet, internally, and maintain the work routine, they won’t do anything, and this crisis will just pass. Now, I suggest that you go home for a bit. I have no idea what kind of mood the people will come back from lunch in, and I prefer that you not be in the area.”
David studied his father-in-law. Then he nodded. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “Even if I differ with you on the way this situation is being handled, I know that you do so much for us.”
“Ah, differ with me. You differ with me! Why, what would you have done to handle this situation?” Leo’s eyes were hard with anger, but David wondered if between his words was also a desire to hear some advice on how to cope with this new state of affairs.
“I would have told everyone about Binyamin’s phone calls. The Wangels are four people, Papa! We are dozens of adults! Don’t you think we could handle them?”
Leo shook his head firmly. “It’s too big of a risk, in the event you are mistaken. One minute of impulsiveness can bring an end to years of tranquility, David. And should I tell you something else? Most of the people won’t believe you.”
***
“Look, Bentzy,” his father said. “I was very careful, and because I was so careful, I hardly managed to find anything out. I know the head clerk in the Austrian labor ministry; they like narrow-mindedness, clean work, and not too many questions.”
Dena served them juice and slices of cake that she had baked. It was undeniable: In the months that had passed, her baking had improved drastically.
“So what were you able to find out?”
“I spoke to the one who does our audits. I asked him about increasing the number of workers, and I asked what I have to do if I want to take employees from an external contractor, and what I do if I want to reduce my employee list and cut back on the numbers. I only hope he doesn’t think we’re in financial trouble… That could harm our good name.”
“Hashem will help,” Dena said automatically.
“Of course,” her father-in-law said as he stared at his plate of cake. “What is clear is that he was not able to understand what exactly I wanted. I sounded a bit confused, but that’s okay. I finally got to the question about the temporary workers, and I gave him a few examples of small, home-based factories, and among them, I stuck in Wangel’s name.”
“Nu?”
“Fortunately, he explained to me in detail the management procedures for each one of the companies I’d mentioned. Regarding Wangel, he said that when orders are heavy, they employ workers who live in the villages near their factory.”
“Aha,” Bentzy said. “Now we have to just make contact with one such villager and interrogate him about what goes on in the factory.”
***
“He ate what you sent him and asked me to tell you thank you and that he’s doing fine.” Elimelech Kush looked at the older man. They were both standing in the shul’s courtyard. “When night falls, he will probably move to a different hiding place.”
“We have no words,” Binyamin’s grandfather said, a tremor in his voice as he shook the other man’s hand. “He knew where to try.”
“He is very tense,” Kush added suddenly. “And he keeps asking me about what’s happening outside, and if anyone is suffering because of him. I reassured him, and I hope we’ll be able to continue keeping him calm.”
“I hope so, too.” Nochum glanced nervously toward the building that towered over the fence. “The quiet is too tense, and I’m afraid it does not bode well. It reminds me of those days…better not to remember. As a Hungarian, I spent most of the time in a military labor camp, so I didn’t experience a lot of this. But the Poles among us, who were under that horrific regime for more than five and a half years, would tell us that often, the Nazis’ retribution came after a while, when things seemed to have calmed down.”
He fell silent. A figure was walking toward them, growing larger as it neared. The young lieutenant was wearing his brown uniform, and his hand was lodged in his pocket, in a clear motion.
“Maybe we should separate,” Kush said hastily. “You have an exemption from work already. I do not.”
“But if you disappear suddenly, it will appear suspicious to him,” the other man said carefully. “It is for exactly this situation that you came here with a hammer to fix Rabbi Schwartzbrod’s shtender. Isn’t it better to use the excuse for this Nazi as well?”
“I wonder how much it will satisfy him,” Kush said. “And in any case, I have no further reason to stand and talk to you. I came, I fixed it, and I’m going back to the carpentry shop.”
“Okay. Good luck,” Binyamin’s grandfather said, and turned back to the shul. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Elimelech Kush heading down the shortcut to the carpentry shop, and he hoped for his sake that Lieutenant Bernard would not call him to come back.
No, Bernard did not call anyone. He was heading right here, to the shul, and his face was redder than usual; it looked suffused with blood. Had he come to get the rav to force Binyamin out of his hiding place? Nochum turned back, watching as the young man strode into the shul courtyard with huge strides.
“Good afternoon to you, Herr Bernard,” he said politely. “And welcome. We haven’t seen you in a very long time.”
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