For Such a Time (32 page)

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Then the king extended the gold scepter to Esther and she arose and stood before him.

Esther 8:4

D
im lamplight cast her shadow against the wall inside the Judenrat’s compact office. Hadassah slid into the chair she’d placed beside the cot, which her uncle had brought for the boy. The room, previously crowded with Jews, now sat empty except for her and the sleeping child.

Hadassah paid the price for giving false hope; she’d spent hours enduring the despair in each voice, witnessing the quiet misery etched into each hollowed face as one by one they came forward to surrender their lives to a single line on a sheet of paper.

After much agonizing, she’d managed to recall only about half the remaining names on the cards she’d destroyed, forcing her uncle to draw from Captain Hermann’s stack.

Morty had departed with the revised manifest nearly two hours ago. She remembered his moment of recognition, when he’d seen her name at the top of the first page. Despite his pinched mouth and narrowed gaze, he’d said nothing. Yet when he tried to offer his own name, she objected. Hermann
wouldn’t allow him to go on the train, not until after the Red Cross visit. No, the monster would much prefer the children to go.

She was still haunted by the image of the fretful little girl inside the ghetto. In a few hours, innocent children—perhaps her as well?—would be wakened from their beds and bound for a place where real nightmares awaited them.

She clutched the Bible to her chest. Would God save them from her arrogance, the ridiculous notion that she alone could make a difference?

In a burst of raw nerves, Hadassah rose from her chair to pace the length of the room. Waiting stretched her sanity to the breaking point, sowing seeds of panic that grew with each passing hour as the Consequence of her rash act crystallized into hard reality.

She was going to Auschwitz.

Pausing in mid-stride, Hadassah opened the Bible to a random page—the book of Hebrews, chapter ten, verse thirty-nine. She read:

“But we do not belong to those
who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who
have faith and are saved.”

Gooseflesh rose along her arms. She had taken a leap of faith. Would it save her?

A murmur of voices outside the door brought her up short. Hadassah’s pulse raced as the guard outside her door, Corporal Sonntag, opened it wide. Aric . . . ?

Yaakov. Her last breath of hope died. “I’ve brought blankets,” the stocky man said, moving into the room. “And dinner.” He held up a liter-sized pail. “It’s cabbage soup. Not the kind of food you’re used to, but it will have to do—”

“Where’s Morty?” Hadassah asked anxiously.

Yaakov shrugged. “He stopped by our Block about an hour
ago.” He looked down at the book in her hand. “Is that a Christian Bible you’re reading?”

Hadassah flushed.

“Where did you get it?”

“I . . .” She had no logical explanation for why the book continually sought her out, only that it had become her lifeline. “I can’t tell you. It just . . . calls to me.” Seeing his scowl, she raised her chin, adding, “It contains many of the books from our own Tanakh.”

“It’s not suitable—”

“Does it matter now?” She clutched the book tighter to her chest. “It gives me strength.”

Yaakov seemed unmoved by her defense. He kept his frown while he eyed her steadily. Finally he said, “They are angry, you know. You gave them hope, then took it away.” He paused, let out a sigh. “But they do admire your courage. Though they may choose to forget that you once tried to save them, they cannot ignore the fact that you now join them willingly.”

“That doesn’t mean I am not afraid.”

He surprised her by placing a hand on her shoulder. “That’s because you haven’t been in the ghetto very long. After a while, here in this place, everything becomes lost to you: privacy, hopes and dreams. Your dignity.” His dark eyes flashed pain. “And when you think there is nothing left, even the fear goes away.”

She hadn’t forgotten her months at Dachau. “I know, Yaakov.”

“Besides, I suspect we will all be shipped to the east before long.” He glanced again at the Bible, and his scowl eased. “Glean what strength you can.”

With that, the stocky Czech swung around and walked toward the door. Hadassah called to him, “Thank you . . . for taking care of Joseph. And for being Morty’s friend.”

He turned, and his ruddy features softened as he doffed his felt cap. “God go with you, Morty Benjamin’s maideleh.”

As soon as he’d left, Hadassah retrieved her bounty and
returned to Joseph’s side. Setting the pail of soup on the floor, she covered the child with an extra blanket and laid the other across her lap. She took up the Bible again and smoothed trembling fingers over the cover.

She’d told Yaakov it gave her strength, and it was true. Hadassah opened the book and for the first time began carefully navigating through each section of the Old Testament: the five books of Moses; the book of Prophets—or the Nevi’im, as she knew them in Hebrew; the Ketuvim writings—Wisdom books, including Psalms and Proverbs; and the Qohelet, the book of Ecclesiastes.
Shabbat Chol Hamoed Sukkot . . .

Seized by an unexpected wave of longing, Hadassah pressed her hand against the cool pages of the first chapter. Each year on the Sabbath during Sukkot, the Feast of Booths, Morty, his head adorned in a
yarmulke
and wearing his
tallit
shawl, would read to her from Ecclesiastes, hoping to glean from King Solomon’s words the truest meaning of human existence.

Sukkot had been her favorite celebration as a child. Each year she was allowed to help her uncle and a few other men construct a
sukkah
in the courtyard behind their apartments. The open-sided tent made of limbed branches would be covered with willow sprigs, myrtle leaves, hanging citron, and real palm fronds that Herr Mahler across the street had shipped directly from Palestine for the occasion.

Fat orange pumpkins, dried cornstalks, summer fruit, and gourd squash added decoration to their booth. It was there the small Jewish community gathered during the prescribed eight days to celebrate their meals together. At night, she and the other children slept in the garland-rimmed booth, decidedly just as their ancestors who fled Egypt had done. Long after her friends fell asleep, Hadassah would lie awake listening to the soft rustle of palm fronds, the early autumn breeze lifting their edges. She remembered inhaling the tang of ripened apples piled in a bushel basket outside the tent opening. She had felt such peace . . .

Scanning down the page, she paused to read the first verses of chapter three.

There is a
time for everything,

and a season for every activity under
heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to
die . . .

She gazed at Joseph. He looked so frail, his eyes terribly swollen, his baby-soft skin marred with cruel bruises. The gentle rise and fall of his chest assured her that he was only sleeping.

a time to weep
 . . .

She blinked hard to keep the words from blurring on the page,

a time to be silent and a time
to speak . . .

A sense of calm unfurled inside her, penetrating the fear. It dawned on her then that she no longer had to cower behind secrets; the truth had found her out, exposed her, and oddly gave her back a measure of control. She had made the decision to go on the train, and it would be her choice, not the Nazis’, on how she would meet the future . . . even if there was none.

Morty’s vision of salvation had been no more than a dream, but Hadassah knew she could make one difference: Anna had died alone. Her kaddishel would not suffer the same fate.

“Mama?”

A head of mussed brown hair emerged from the blankets as Joseph tried to sit up.

“I’m here, little man.” She slid from the chair onto the edge of his bed and gathered him close. Already she’d taken a thorough inventory of his cuts and bruises, carefully inspecting his arms, chest, and legs for damage. What she’d found made her want to scream. The monsters had all but beaten him to death. “You must be thirsty, sweetheart. How about some soup?”

He ran his tongue across swollen, cracked lips, and nodded. Hadassah reached for the metal pail Yaakov had brought. “It might be a little cold,” she cautioned.

She held the vessel to his bruised mouth, felt her heart constrict when his little Adam’s apple bobbed up and down with each huge swallow. “I think most of the cabbage must have sunk to the bottom,” she said when he stopped drinking.

“Where is . . . Morty?” His voice sounded wraith-like.

“He’s gone to notify those who will take tonight’s train.” Guilt battled her despair as she set the pail on the floor. “He hasn’t returned.”

“Yaakov told me what you did. You took all those names off the train list. Even mine,” he whispered.

She couldn’t look at him. “I was a fool, Joseph, to think it would work.”

“What you did was good.”

She looked at him. “Yaakov didn’t tell you, but I failed. I made things worse.”

“Papa told me a boy only fails when he does not try.” Joseph eyed her through puffy lids. “I think it must be the same for a girl.”

Hadassah couldn’t help smiling even as she said, “Sometimes the risks are too high, and then it’s too late to make things right again.”

“You can’t give up. You have to save us.”

Bitter laughter nearly choked her. “You sound like Morty.”

“There must be lots of people in the ghetto who still believe in you.” His bruised face showed his earnestness. “I do.”

The evident hostility in those who had passed through the room earlier seemed a far cry from this boy’s unswerving belief. Hadassah breathed deep to try and ease the ache in her heart. “I want to believe, too,” she whispered. Then she lifted him onto her lap and rocked him until his head finally dropped against her shoulder in sleep.

Easing him back onto the bed, she tucked him in. Words couldn’t express how much he’d come to mean to her; Hadassah wished they might live long enough for her to show him. “You would have loved the golden lions, kaddishel,” she whispered, knowing the promises she’d made must now be broken. “You could have chosen any castle—”

“An enchanted castle, Hadassah?”

Her head swung around as Aric entered through the open doorway. His presence filled the room. In his greatcoat and peaked cap, he cast an indomitable shadow against the backdrop of light from the desktop lamp. Slung over one arm was the new coat he’d given her.

Rising from the edge of the cot, Hadassah backed away until her knees touched the edge of the chair. This couldn’t be real; it had to be a dream.

Unable to look him in the face, she focused instead on the brass-topped cane clutched in the palm of his hand, then at his polished Hessians.

The boots halted beside Joseph’s bed. Aric passed her the houndstooth coat and then removed his hat and gloves before lowering himself to kneel beside the boy. “How is he?”

He still hadn’t looked at her. His white-knuckled grip on the cane told her his legs pained him more than usual. Caution overruled any compassionate urge, however. He had yet to state the purpose for his visit.

“Joseph is as well as can be expected, Herr Kommandant.” Her voice held surprising steadiness. “As you can see, your captain used him for boxing practice.”

His hand faltered as he reached to touch the boy’s crown. Joseph’s dark lashes drifted open. “Herr Kommandant.” The swollen lips grimaced in a smile. “I knew you’d come.”

Aric smiled back. The hand on his cane wavered slightly. “You must hurry and get strong, Joseph. There is much to do and I need your help.”

His gentle voice tore at Hadassah’s heart.

The boy nodded. “Gut,” Aric said as he settled his tall frame on the edge of the bed. “I overheard Fräulein mention castles. Would you like to hear a story . . . about a magic castle?”

“Ja,” Joseph said through a yawn, his puffy lids already blinking against sleep.

“Once upon a time there was a king’s son who lived in an enchanted castle,” Aric began. “By day, he went out in search of love—the only magic that would protect him from the demons that stalked the castle’s dark halls at night. They waited to torture his dreams.”