Panic etched his usually stolid features. ‘I’m going to lock this door and you must stay silent,’ he said. ‘Biebow is in the building.’
‘But it’s Sunday!’ Dorotha exclaimed. Biebow never normally came near the administration offices on a Sunday.
‘Something’s happening,’ Oscar explained. ‘There’s a dozen top brass visiting from Berlin. Biebow has a face like thunder. Added to which, the Gestapo are trawling all over the ghetto. Some 1,600 workers were ordered to be settled outside the ghetto yesterday, and half have gone into hiding. Biebow’s ordered a manhunt into every nook and cranny.’
Ruth and Dorotha exchanged a horrified glance before their faces were cast into shadow. Oscar backed out of the room quickly, closing the door behind him. The key turned in the lock and the darkness swallowed them. The small sliver of light under the door-frame was cut off by heavy boots.
‘Was ist hier drin?’What’s in here?
Panic snaked down Joyce’s spine and her head was all pins and needles. Ruth’s thumb drew a circular motion on her wrist, round and round, returning her slowly to herself.
‘Nur briefpapier,’ she heard Oscar reply.Just stationery.
The moment drew out, more discussion, and then they moved off. Dorotha slumped back against Ruth and realised in horror that she had wet herself. She covered her face with her hands and began to cry. How much loss and fear could one heart and soul take?
She felt Ruth’s arms circle her.
‘Don’t. I’m so embarrassed.’
‘You think I care about that?’ she scoffed. ‘All I care about is you, my friend. I love you. You and I, we’re getting out of here together. We’re ghetto sisters now.’
Her sweet eyes shone with power and sincerity. Dorotha nodded and, in that moment, knew she would forever love Ruth Mordkowicz and her mother like family. On so many occasions in the two years since her parents had been taken from the ghetto, Dorotha could have let death come for her, happily surrendered to it, in fact, and every time they had thrown her a lifeline. How did one ever repay such kindness?
Twenty minutes later, they heard the key turn in the lock again.
‘Leave quickly, while they’re touring the ghetto,’ Oscar ordered.
On the way out, her fingers brushed Oscar’s and she looked up at him.
‘I’ll be over later,’ he said. ‘Save me a book.’
They went on their way, crossing the footbridge which offered them a view of the so-called normal world from their prison. Trams rattled beneath, transporting Polish and German civilians to whatever it was free people did on a sunny summer morning. Dorotha found herself fantasising. Curl up with a book in the shade of the park? Escape to the beautiful Karolewski Forest with a picnic? Swim in the cool, clean waters of Lagiewniki lake?
At the top of the footbridge, she and Ruth paused to get their breath as the sun beat down.
‘Crossing this damn bridge feels more like Mount Everest every single day,’ Ruth complained, shaking her from her reverie.
Coming the other way was a bookseller Dorotha knew from before the war.
‘Good day to you, Mr Otelsberg.’
He tipped his hat. ‘Miss Berkowicz.’
A long look passed between them as they stared at each other’s identical leather briefcases. She knew he too was loaning books, and it made her wonder: how many people were doing what they were doing in this strange, sprawling ghetto?
‘Be well,’ he said, going on his way. Then, in a whisper, ‘Keep going. We are facilitators of joy.’
Mr Otelsberg was right. They mightn’t have picnics, lakes, or the luxury of choosing how to spend their day, but they did have books and that afforded them some small measure of freedom.
Back in their room, Gabriele flew into her arms.
Dorotha felt the little girl’s ribs through her dress. She held her hand to Gabriele’s forehead. ‘You’re so hot.’
‘Everyone is hot,’ Mrs Cohen, who had been looking after Gabriele for the afternoon, grumbled, fanning her face with her hand. ‘Come!’ She ordered Gabriele to her side. Immediately she set about making the girl look older than her eight or nine years, by tying a headscarf and applying a little rouge to her lips and cheeks. Dorotha didn’t believe for a moment that any of her patrons would ever betray them, but it was better to avoid talk.
While Mrs Cohen saw to Gabriele, Dorotha changed out of her urine-soaked dress, too exhausted any longer to feel shame, and did her best to wash it out.
Soon their room filled up with women in search of books. Dorotha glanced around at the women in their headscarves and tatty dresses, with their scrawny ankles and clumpy wooden shoes. She observed them as an anthropologist might, trying to commit them to memory, at the way their lips moved as they turned the book jacket over and read the description on the back, trying to work out whether this book would be the key to release them from their prison.
