Chapter Five

THE APARTMENT ON Dzielna Street appears empty, deserted like so many buildings in the ghetto, but I know otherwise. All the action is happening down below, in the basement. As I approach, I see three teen boys loitering in the courtyard, and I’m not surprised. Everything in the ghetto moves in threes—especially the young smugglers. It takes three to get out: one to hold the top of the barbed wire, one to pull down the bottom, and one to slip through. But this trio is not the usual variety. They are clearly assigned guards trying not to look conspicuous. They have a ball between them, and when they see me, they start kicking it around. Their acting is terrible, and besides, I recognize one of them as I get closer—the tall, gangly one. Eryk Behrman. He drops off his younger sister, Dina, at my drama class in the afternoons on his way to wherever he goes. The kids lost both of their parents in the last roundup. A seventeen-year-old taking care of a ten-year-old. Ghetto life.

“Eryk.” I acknowledge him. So, this is where you go.

His eyes widen when he sees me. “Mrs. Blonski, what are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” I counter. The two other boys are elbowing him. Eryk begins to blush, just as he does whenever he brings Dina to class and steals side glances at me. Dina is so painfully shy that she clings to her brother’s arm until the last possible second. I watch Eryk peel her fingers off his skin, one by one, lovingly, protectively, and it breaks my heart.

Their parents were once famous violinists in the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra and would lead weekly Friday afternoon concerts with other prominent musicians in the ghetto, playing in the center of Muranowski Square among the beggars—the children selling trinkets for food; the vegetable vendor who hocks only two items: cabbage and beetroot; the makeshift newsstand guy selling Gazeta ?ydowska, the Jewish Gazette, the ghetto bulletin; the factory slaves selling bedsheets; and the dead and almost dead lying face down along the pavement, whom I would purposely squint tightly to unsee as I walked by. But there, in the heart of hell, was the ghetto orchestra, led by the breathtakingly talented Behrman duo. And for just a moment or two, I would stop and drink in Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, allowing the symphonic notes to flow through me, ignoring the panorama of harrowing images, and think to myself: Yet somehow the music survived. Then, two months ago, the Behrmans and all members of their orchestra were seized from the square while playing. And now the music is dead too.

“I want to speak to Zelda.” I stare down all three boys, my gaze moving deliberately slowly, resting briefly on each face with a look that says I’m not leaving until I do.

Zelda. I gambled with the name. Aleksander had told me that afternoon in his towel that Zelda would never agree to my presence. When I asked him who Zelda was, he stopped talking.

“Does she kn-kn-know you?” asks the youngest guard, a boy who barely has any facial hair. I half want to tell him to join my acting class, that I have helped several students who developed stutters and nervous tics in the ghetto. But right now, I just want to get inside the building.

“Zelda does not know me, but she will,” I say. “The message is important. Let her know that Bina Blonski is here to see her.” I pause, then, having a change of heart, I tell him, “And come to my class. It’s at the convent on Nowolipki Street. I will help you get rid of that stutter.”

The boy’s gaze turns hard, older than his years, and I see the words form before he can push them out: “At this p-p-point, does it really matter?”

ERYK LEAVES THEother boys at the entrance and brings me down to the basement bunker, pausing at the base of the rickety stairs, and tells me to wait here in this empty room, that someone will come for me. He then steals a quick last look at me before returning to his guard post. I glance around the large, vacant cellar with its sweaty, porous concrete walls, a long, scratched-up wooden table at its center holding a few half-filled scattered glasses of water and a dozen mismatched chairs along its perimeter. There are muffled voices coming from the adjoining room, so I wait. I don’t sit or make myself comfortable. I stand in place, arms folded, just in case they are watching me, assessing me, which I’m sure they are. I spotted the small bullet-size holes in the walls as soon as I walked in. I’m not to be trusted. So, I remain still, play their game.

A woman finally emerges from the other room. She’s around my age, early twenties, small in stature with a smooshed pugilistic face. Her nose looks like it has been recently broken; it is swollen and bluish on one side. Her short, dark, unruly hair is pinned back carelessly, and she wears a man’s button-down shirt partially tucked into a pleated gray wool skirt with a belt that has roughly made notches. She is unattractive but carries herself powerfully, like a sheriff or a school principal. Her presence dominates the room. I straighten my shoulders to my full height and puff out my chest, determined to show that I am not intimidated or easily threatened.

This tiny woman is visibly unimpressed. Ferret-eyed and tight-faced, she circles me, eyeing me up and down rudely, then calls out loudly in Yiddish, “Why is the beauty queen here? I don’t have time for this shit.” No hello. No introduction. No why are you here? Not a care that I’ve been insulted. Just that. And that’s the other thing about ghetto life. Manners no longer exist. People steal, lie, spit, walk over bodies strewn in the street as far as the eye can see—as though circumventing roadkill—but not before stripping the dead’s shoes and snatching the contents out of their pockets, taking whatever is takable, seizing whatever is edible—doing whatever it takes to survive. Clearly, this woman is testing me, and I intend to pass.

“I came to fight,” I announce, cutting to the chase. She strikes me as someone with little patience for small talk.

“You.” She laughs haughtily, and the mocking sound echoes off the barren walls. I know that cruel laugh, that sound. I have used it myself when I portrayed the evil stepmother in Snow White in primary school. I step forward, recognizing that I have only one chance to sway this woman before I’m dismissed.

“Just to be clear, Zelda—I assume that’s your name—Aleksander Blonski did not invite me here. He told me to stay away. I invited myself because I want to help. If I’m going to die, it sure as hell is not going to be in a concentration camp in a poof of oven smoke. Like you... it’s going to be on my own terms.” I cock my head. Do not show fear. “And what is your problem with my face anyway?” I challenge, imagining my theater audience applauding my audacity.

Her eyes smile, but not her mouth. It tightens into a thin line like a worm doing a morning stretch. “Your face is too memorable, prettier than it has a right to be, that’s my problem. But I’m listening.” Her arms cross over her boyish chest like armor. Unlike most women, she is not unsettled by me, does not feel inferior. She is a huntress—not the prey, not minimizable. I’m starting to like her.

I lean forward, point my index finger between her dark, unforgiving eyes. “I’m not afraid to do what needs to be done. My plan is to use my skills as an actress to get you what you want, what you need.”

“You have been here thirty seconds. How the hell do you know what we want or need?” she snaps.

“A fighter needs two things: guns and ammo,” I say, not letting her rattle me. “You can’t fight back unless you can get to the Aryan side without getting caught. Lots of checkpoints. And I have done it numerous times.” I touch my face, leave my finger on my cheek for emphasis. “It’s because of this face.” I pause, move in closer to her. “Because I look like them, I knew I could do it. I could have easily joined the cabaret with other actors and entertainers here. Café Sztuka begged me to join their entertainment troupe countless times, but I chose to keep a low profile, teach classes to the kids during the day, so that I could put my skills to better use and do what I need to do at night.”

“Don’t fool yourself,” Zelda scoffs, dismissing me with a sharp wrist flick. “Low profile? Everyone knows who you are—Sabina Blonski, Maksymilian Landau’s daughter. You can’t hide that face, that pedigree, even in this shithole—even at night.”

Our bodies are inches apart. Her breath smells of cheap cigarettes. She is baiting me, wants to see what I can handle. Am I tough or all show? I get it. “We can work together, Zelda. I can be useful,” I insist. I know my worth and I’m not finished presenting my case. “Don’t judge me before you know me. Don’t criticize me before I’ve earned my stay here.”

“Earned your stay,” she repeats. Without taking her eyes off me, she snaps her fingers. Who does she think she is? Over Zelda’s shoulder, Aleksander enters the room on command like an Egyptian eunuch. My heart races when he brushes past me, his shirt grazing mine. Our eyes meet briefly. Lips curled at the corners. Is he amused, impressed, or still angry? He was one of the voices I heard coming from the other room. He could have jumped in at any time to attest to my abilities, but he let me defend myself. Better this way. I will show him too.

I turn to Zelda. “I’m betting you have only a handful of guns here.”

“Two,” she admits. “Two goddamn pistols. That’s our arsenal. It’s a beginning. Do you know how much everything costs? Money that we don’t have.” She nods at Aleksander and then turns back to me. “So tell me, Sabina Blonski, how do you intend to earn your keep? Are you going to sell a family heirloom and buy us what we need? Have you even shot before?”

“Have you?” I counter. Two pistols against Nazi tanks? That’s their resistance?

“You answer to me.”

“I answer to myself. And I go by Bina, by the way,” I retort. She may be the playground bully, but I am a worthy adversary. “And yes, I have shot. Plenty. I hunted with my father when I was a young girl. I am also pretty good at archery. Summers at the youth group.” I stop as Zelda’s face hardens. Entitlement and privilege have no place in this bunker. “I know guns.”

She eyes Aleksander briefly. “What about that husband of yours? Does he plan to write about this in his silly archives? Does he even know you are here?”

“No,” I say truthfully, feeling a lump form in my throat. Leave Jakub out of this.

But she has no intention of backing down. I can see it in her persistent glare. “Let me get this straight. Jakub Blonski, keeper of the truth, has no idea that his brother and his wife are joining the resistance movement that he and his smart friends oppose? Oh, this is too good.” She moves in closer. “You know exactly what your husband thinks of us. Just like those traitorous fools in the Judenrat who believe that any form of resistance will provoke our sacred Nazi overlords.” Her voice rises. “You know, Bina”—she spits out my name—“your husband and his posse are our real enemies—intellectuals with their faces so deep inside their books that they can’t read the goddamn writing on the wall!”

She is not wrong.

“Zelda, that’s enough!” Aleksander shouts.

But she ignores him and searches my strained face. “What will your husband think when he finds out that you are here breaking bread with us?” She points an accusatory finger this time. I see nails that are bitten down to the quick. “Your presence here puts us at a grave risk. Did you think about that before pushing your way inside?”

I say nothing.

“Tell me, how is this going to work, Bina?” she presses on. I want to reply that it works for Aleksander, but I hold back.

I clear my throat, attempting to buy myself a moment to think. “You’re right. It’s not going to work if my husband knows what I do for you. It will only work if he doesn’t,” I say honestly. “I choose to live. I choose to fight back. My husband chooses to write about it. And he will continue doing his work, his way.” I meet her beady gaze squarely. “I’m not leaving.”

Zelda picks up a used glass from the table and raises it high. “To marriage. L’chaim.” She laughs mockingly, takes a swig, then slams it down.

Immediately, three young men from the other room surround her like she’s Cleopatra. Then they all walk out together into the next room, leaving me alone with Aleksander. I’m not sure what just happened, but Aleksander’s expression is icy. Once Jakub and his precious archives were mentioned with such ridicule, his face changed. The lights went out. He is clearly struggling with my presence here, fuming that I invaded this part of his life, or what’s left of it.

“You’re playing a dangerous game here.” His voice is muted, incensed.

“This isn’t a game,” I reply. “Not for me and not for you. It’s survival. Need I remind you that you’re playing too. You know exactly how Jakub feels. You heard what she said. How am I any different from you?”

He shakes his head. “We are not the same.”

Zelda reappears, her boots announcing her entrance. She stops in front of me. “What can you bring to the table right now?”

“Right now?” I glance at Aleksander. “Did he tell you about the latest edict from Jürgen Stroop?”

Zelda gives me a look, like there’s nothing she doesn’t know. “I heard all about it. They want our girls to serve as their sex slaves.” She begins to pace. “Bad news travels faster here than anywhere else in the ghetto. And you volunteered to be Queen of the Whores.” She rolls her eyes. “And your husband? He approves?”

Jakub again. Can’t she just leave him alone?

My hands move firmly to my hips. I’m done with the taunting. “Despite what you think, Jakub is a good man, much better than I am. He still believes in history, preserving it, and in the future. I believe in nothing, only right now, what’s at stake. His goal is to tell the Jewish side of the story, to report it, so the world knows the truth, even if we all are”—I search for the lone word, the darkest one that looms in my nightmares when I think of rodents and spiders and rats—“exterminated. My husband’s efforts are admirable but won’t save us. I am not admirable, but I have guts.”

Aleksander is not blinking. His face is frozen, mouth dropped open, reminding me of one of his paintings from a series that he’d painted in our other life. “There are two choices as I see it—fight or flight,” I continue. “Jakub has chosen flight—running away from the reality. It gives him purpose. I, on the other hand, plan to fight back and perhaps help save some of us in the process and, at the very least, take some of those monsters down with me. And I have a plan for our girls.”

Zelda holds up her hand to stop me from speaking. “Keep your plan to yourself for the moment. You really want to help? I have a job for you. Something much more pressing.” She glances at the door leading to the other room. More members of the resistance file in, at least twelve, an even mix of women and men. All young—most under twenty-five. I recognize several of them, but I say nothing, show no sign of recognition, as they take their seats around the long table or stand back against the wall.

“Before the guns, before the ammo, the smuggling, and now the whores, we must first clean up our own streets if we stand any chance of surviving. We need our people with us. Without that, we have nothing.” Zelda closes in on me. “It’s time to show Jews here and everywhere in Poland that resistance—not compliance or collaboration—is the only option left. We must get rid of the traitors within and send a powerful message immediately.” Zelda’s hot breath warms my skin. Her hands are balled into tiny, tight fists at her sides. I don’t move a muscle. Woman to woman. Soldier to almost-soldier. I want to be part of this so badly I can taste it.

“I learned long ago that no one is to be fully trusted, Bina. No one, no matter what. So, I am only going to ask you this once.” Her fierce deep-set eyes become murky twin puddles. “Your face... how far will you go to use it?”