Chasing the King of Hearts (Peirene's Turning Point Series) Read Online Free Page A

people show up. When it gets dark they lift the cover and quickly slip inside. The men have a long rope, which each person wraps around his waist. The run-off comes up to their calves. They stink. They walk doubled over, carrying full sacks. Izolda touches the rope stretching in front of her and peers into the darkness ahead for signs of a lantern. It doesn’t take long. They crawl out on to the street, they’re inside the ghetto. They wait in the ruins, and in the morning the Jews appear – silent, unshaven, dirty. They bring overcoats, sheets, tablecloths, porcelain, silverware. Bolek’s people take onions, garlic, bread and bottles of oil out of their sacks and give them to the Jews. To some they give Polish ID cards. What about a place to stay? asks a man with a beard. Do you have an address for me? At least for a few days… One of Bolek’s workers is surprised: The way you look, are you crazy? – and the Jew nods his head in understanding. When the sacks are empty Bolek’s men refill them with Jewish belongings and hide them in the ruins. Then they start to work tearing down what’s left of the buildings.
    Not far from Izolda’s old apartment is a workshop where tailors are sewing German uniforms. She asks about her husband. The tailors saw him on Miła Street, just a few days ago. She asks about her neighbours. Did anyone see the Rygiers? They’re gone… The tailor who knows about the Rygiers doesn’t look up from his sewing machine. Nobody’s here, they went to the trains. Szwarcwald? Father or son? Father. Not here. His wifetook poison and he went to the trains. He managed to give his keys to some acquaintance. Keys to what? The tailors don’t know, maybe to some hidden shelter? Maybe he locked someone inside? Borensztajn? Did you see the Borensztajns? They had a daughter… They had a shelter… The tailors are calm and matter-of-fact. They’re not here, they say. So what if they had a shelter… A really good one? So what of it? Not here, understand? The tailors stay hunched over their machines. Now she understands. The others aren’t there, but the tailors are. Maybe they will stay. Maybe there won’t be any more trains. Maybe, God willing, they’ll stay for ever?
Father
    She makes her way to Miła Street, her anxiety growing with every step. She walks faster and faster and finally breaks out into a run. The other pedestrians also start running. Not because they want to see her husband, they just think they have to. She dashes into an entrance, the others follow. She stops and they stop. I’m running to my husband, she explains. They look at her, bewildered, and disperse.
    Her husband is so sleepy he’s barely conscious. She strokes his hair, which is no longer golden. Is everybody still here? She wants to make sure. He shakes his head. Your father’s gone. He left… Of his own free will, when they called for specialists.
    She begins to understand: her father left the ghetto voluntarily.
    I tried to stop him, her husband says, but he said that he’d explain it all to them.
    Explain what?
    That as a chemist who knew German and a graduate of Heidelberg…
    But explain what?
    That as a chemist… I begged him, her husband repeats.
    (Her father had pretty, brown, wise eyes.)
    They took them to Umschlagplatz, her husband says. Apparently the specialists who knew German they were the first to board the train…
    (One eye was brown; he had lost the other while searching for a new colour.
    A colour that doesn’t exist in the spectrum, at least not yet, a colour with a new wavelength. He explained that the colours of the spectrum differ from one another by their wavelengths, and that the gamut of wavelengths is matched by the colours given off by all living creatures. Her father loved to explain things, adored explaining things. Colours, smiles, roulette… He was on the verge of making a great discovery but an unfortunate explosion ruined everything. So he gave up working on the spectrum and went