‘I’ll catch you up,’ she murmured, needing to be alone.
Ten minutes later, Dorotha walked to the footbridge. She didn’t look into anyone’s eyes on the way. But then no one looked at her either. The soul had been sucked from the ghetto. There was no one left under ten years old or over sixty-five. Apart from the chairman, she thought bitterly. With all thechildren and elderly gone, who was there to care for? What reason did any of them have to live?
It was six a.m., and the loudspeakers were blaring in the squares, directing them to work. The Nazi work machine would surely be ramped up even more with all the ‘useless mouths’ gone.
Pale shadow-people trudged past her. Eyes sunken. Backs hunched. Faces withered. No one was ever really alone in the ghetto. They all walked with ghosts. The souls of the departed were at every turning and window.
At the top of the bridge, Dorotha stopped and scanned the horizon. All the chimneys of Lódz rose up through the early morning mist, pumping plumes of smoke into the ghetto cauldron. The sky was a bilious, greasy grey.
Another day of remorseless Nazi industry. Where was the rest of the world? What had happened to civilisation? Was the free world aware of their suffering?
The ghetto was sealed by barbed wire and guarded by Germans with machine guns, but yet, the Polish population could see in, past the wire and up at the footbridges that crossed their side of the city. They were like animals in a cage, their suffering on show, so where was the resistance? Perhaps the Allies had brokered peace with Hitler? If so, what would happen to the Jews in Britain? Her sister?
Dorotha’s mind took her cruelly to her life before the invasion. She remembered the weekly book club she had hosted at the library with Ruth, not five kilometres from here. The delicious dark chocolate cake her Mama baked so Dorotha could bring it for colleagues’ birthdays. Sharing platters of pierogi and cups of lemon tea in smoky cafés after work with friends, picking mushrooms and berries with Adela in the woods.
Dorotha longed for food, books, newspapers, music, birdsong, hiking in the woods, laughter and the sanctuary of the library,for the chance to say goodbye and thank you to Joyce and the Secret Society of Librarians. But most of all, she wished she could have one last hug from her mother.
Out of a morbid sense of curiosity, Dorotha placed a foot up on the wooden rail of the footbridge and tried to harness what little strength she had left. All she had to do was hoist one leg over. What would it feel like? It was a cleaner, neater ending than going to the wire. She had seen a woman only yesterday touching the forbidden perimeter fence, begging to be shot. The soldier had crossed his arms and laughed.
‘Please don’t...’ The voice was soft but determined. Dorotha knew without turning.
‘I told you to go to work,’ she said. ‘They’ll arrest you if you don’t show up soon.’
‘I don’t care. I’m not leaving this bridge without you.’
‘You’re a stubborn mule, Ruth Mordkowicz,’ she replied angrily.
‘Yes, well, I learnt from the best.’ A strange noise sounded, and to her surprise, Dorotha realised Ruth was laughing.
‘Remember that time old Mr Levine complained that children’s story times were too noisy, so you bought him a pair of earmuffs?’
Dorotha sifted through the rubble of her memories for the glimmer of gold.
‘Or the time you got a petition up to allow Mrs Kotwinski back into the library?’ Ruth added, throwing her another lifeline.
‘I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work. I have nothing to live for now.’
She felt Ruth’s hand on her shoulder, and she flinched.
‘Just try one more day.’
‘What for? I don’t even know who I am any more.’
Ruth said nothing, but Dorotha felt her arm snake around her waist, gently pulling her back from the edge.
Tears finally formed, hot and painful, sliding down her cheeks, choking her throat. ‘I’m no longer a daughter,’ she wept. ‘Or a granddaughter. I’ll probably never be a wife or a mother. I don’t even know if I’m a sister any more. I’m certainly not a librarian any longer. So again, who am I?’
Ruth turned her around, and she didn’t resist. Gently, she cupped her face in her cold hands.
‘My dear friend. You are all of those things now,’ she whispered. ‘Youcarry the memory of your family now. Youare the keeper of their memories.’
She groped into her pocket and pulled out a tattered black rag. ‘This is the bottom of your mother’s dress which she wrapped round my mother’s skirt to prevent it from falling down. It likely saved her life.’ She tucked the rag in Dorotha’s pocket. ‘It is sacred to us. The physical embodiment of her strength. Take it. Draw on your mama’s strength.’
Dorotha shook her head, but Ruth went on, her soft caramel eyes beseeching her.
‘Don’t you see? You have to survive in order to keep the Berkowicz name in existence. It’s what your mother asked of you.’
‘I don’t have the strength.’
