~ The Heartbreak All Over Again ~
“Excuse me, ma’am, but how far is Nuremberg from here?”
The woman gave me a funny look, as though she thought I was daft. “It’s just two miles from here, girl, though I wouldn’t advise you to go any further than right here, where you are right now. Nuremberg is a dangerous place nowadays, though most of it bombed so hard, I’m surprised the Germans bother coming here at all.”
I nodded, hiding my surprised and horrified look behind my hand as I walked on. The woman wasn’t wrong, because as I neared the city, I noticed many of the buildings had been reduced to rubble, and few people walked the streets.
There were few buildings still standing, and those that were carried destroyed corners and broken windows. I noticed a little cart in rather drab colors, that looked as though they had once been dyed in bright, eccentric colors, that stood in a corner, with only one customer lined up in front of the cart.
I hurried over to the cart in the hopes of buying food for my journey, digging in my pocket for my purse. I pulled out a few German marks, as I had a good supply from raiding houses and selling them at the black market. It was horrific, walking around in a dead Jewish house, kosher kitchen still in place, only to steal stuff and sell it for your own advantage.
“Oh!”
The customer in front of me turned around quickly, not seeming to realize I was behind her, though I had made no attempt at silence, and had bumped quite harshly into my shoulder.
“I’m so, so sorry!”
The customer turned out to be a young woman my age, with brown hair and matching eyes, and a figure that suggested that she had once been a heavy woman, though now she looked just like every other starving Jew in Germany.
I rubbed my shoulder as sharp pains shot up and down my arm. “It’s all right, really,” I mumbled, not sure what to say. She tilted her head as she stared at my face. “You’re not from here, are you?” The question sounded more like a statement. As though she was asking it just to be polite, even though she already knew the answer.
I shook my head. “No, just passing through for some food and a bed before I continue on my travels.” Ugh, why did I say that? I didn’t even know this woman! She could be a spy! Not likely, with her Jewish looks, but…
“Oh! Well, you can come stay with me and my family! They wouldn’t mind at all, and we always have a fine supper and–”
“Hold on,” I held out my hand to silence her. “Your whole family lives here? I can’t share your food when you already have to divide it multiple times. I’ll find somewhere else to go. And besides, I have plenty of money to buy food, without taking yours.” My cheeks flushed at the realization that I had basically invited myself over, and then rejected her very generous offer.
“And besides that, I don’t even know your name!”
She clapped her hands. “Well, that’s an easy problem to fix, isn’t it? I’m Monika, and you are?”
I nearly rolled my eyes in annoyance. This girl seemed to always be happy and excited, for Heaven’s sake! I opened my mouth to reply when I stopped myself. Was I seriously going to just tell her my name? Without any consideration that she could turn me in? I crossed my arms and said, “How do I know I can trust you?”
She frowned. “You don’t, obviously. You can’t rely on anyone right now. You’ll just have to trust me, without proof.”
So, this one was smarter than she looked.
“Right, because I really want to do that.”
She grinned. “I just met you, and I’m inviting you over to our house, to share our hard-worked food, to share our only bed, and I just told you my name, even though I’m quite obviously a wanted Jew, as is my family.”
She had me there. Not only was she charming, but she was smart and reliable, too. Boy, was that embarrassing, the fact that a girl younger than me – now that I realized it, her cheeks were more rounded out than mine were, and close up, she was a few inches shorter, too – had convinced me to do something I was very against doing; something you were never supposed to do in war.
“Well, for all it’s worth, thanks for letting me stay at your house,” I said, as Monika led me down the few blocks to her house. I hadn’t given her my name yet, but was hoping for a reason to be able to trust her. After all, it would be nice to have a friend in this awful time.
“Of course. It all gets a bit lonely, with just my family and no one to invite over for dinner. We used to have someone over nearly every night, just for fun, but that was before the war.”
Monika’s face fell, and I saw that behind her friendly character, she hid the scared teenager who had experienced far too much of the horrors of war.
“So, uh, how old are you?” I asked, trying to change the look on her face. She smiled, though it was still tinged with sadness. “I’ll be fourteen in March,” she told me, which confirmed my suspicions about her being younger than myself. She didn’t look fourteen. “How old are you?” she prompted, clearly noticing that I hadn’t responded to my own question. “Um… I’ll be fifteen next week,” I confessed, embarrassed that she was probably the smarter of us.
“Wow, this is your house?” I breathed, looking at my surroundings closer. “Yeah,” Monika mumbled, her face pinked with embarrassment. To be honest, it was more than I would have expected. In a pile of rubble, a little bubble of air and light under a messy pile of rocks was an incredible find.
Ragged blankets neatly folded in a corner – though bubbles didn’t really have corners, so I guess I should say, they were piled up against a wall – and a large slab of flat-ish rock sat in the middle of the little dugout, serving as a table. A weaved basket nestled in a corner, half hidden by rubble, and I assumed it held the family’s clothes and food supply.
There were no pillows to accompany the blankets, no hefty pile of food, and – as I took a closer look – no extra sets of clothing, either. As a bedraggled family emerged from the shadows, I realized that if something suddenly happened, such as a bomb raid, everything they owned was on their backs, or in the basket. They didn’t have to worry about much. Except for themselves. I didn’t think I’d ever seen a larger family. Eight children in total – four boys and four girls – and the adults.
Monika spoke first, addressing the confused and rather frightened looking parents. “Mama, Papa, this is–” she paused, seeming to realize that I hadn’t told her my name yet, though I decided to trust them, as they looked poor and helpless, with so many children. “Emilia,” I replied, and she nodded. “This is Emilia, and she is staying for dinner tonight. Emilia, this is Mama and Papa, and these are my brothers: Yosef, Avraham, David, and Yitzchak. My sisters are Miriam, Shoshana, and Esther. I am the oldest, and David is the youngest.” She pointed to each of her siblings in turn as she spoke.
Monika’s mother’s brow furrowed. “Yes, you may call me Maria and my husband Elijah.” She turned to Monika, and said in a whisper – though I could still make out her words – “Monika, yakar, you know not to invite strangers to our home. What if she is a German spy? Look at those heavy clothes! She could be hiding a gun under them! She could kill us all this instant!”
My cheeks heated as I heard her talk.
“Ima. She doesn’t have a gun under her clothes. Look at her! She is suffering just as much as we are! Look at her face!”
My hands instinctively went up to my face, my cheeks hollowed from lack of food and my eyes watering slightly at the thought that this girl had a mother – an alive one – who took care of her (more or less, as it seemed Monika provided food and shelter for her family).
“Motek, this isn’t safe. Just let her go back to wherever she belongs.”
“Mama! Have some humiliation for her! She is traveling! She doesn’t have anywhere else to go!”
“Monika–”
“Lea, mother, we are not throwing her away like trash! She will stay for dinner, we will provide for her a bed, she will share aruchat boker with us, and then she will go on her way! We are not kicking her out! Not like you did to Adir!”
Maria turned almost purple. I was suddenly aware of the others in the room. Elijah and the boys were silent, while the girls had lost interest and were murmuring things to each other. Elijah suddenly cleared his throat. “Well, boys, we better get a meal started. Yitzchak, set the table. Yosef, get the food. Mari, ahava, help Emilia get settled.”
It seemed as though everyone in Monika’s family spoke Hebrew naturally. They never spoke it fluently, but in little terms. My family used to speak Hebrew all the time. Until the Fuhrer came. Then we just used occasional terms. And then we stopped using those at all. I don’t know why. I never will know why. But it made me feel a bit teary to think that right now, if Ingrid hadn’t turned us in, we – I – could have been just as happy as Monika was. It didn’t matter that we were starving. Or thirsty. Or cold. Because we were together.
After a rather awkward dinner of stale bread and a bite of cheese, we all hurried to bed. Miriam offered me her blanket, and after a little resistance, I gave in and took her bed. Maria gave up her bed for Miriam, and then Elijah scooted over to share his bed with his wife, so we did a big switcheroo before finally settling in.
As soon as I lay down, though, I started to think about Monika’s happy family. How happy my family was before the war. What we used to do when someone got scared at night or had a bad dream. What could I do? I had no family, anywhere.
But I couldn’t let this get me down. I had a mission to accomplish, and I had to finish it. No matter what.
Breakfast was a little less awkward, when Maria asked me where I was going. Out of fear that they were still going to report me, I answered, “Oh, just around. I want to see some sights before I go.”
No one seemed very impressed with my lie, so I added, “And I’m a painter, so I wanted to capture some places that weren’t blown up.”
Monika was the person who saved me, pushing in with a, “Yeah, Mama, remember? I told you that yesterday; she made some of the most beautiful pieces I’ve ever seen. Show her, Emilia,” I fumbled with my fingers, hoping her parents didn’t realize that I had nothing to show them. Suddenly, I remembered my journal. Pulling it out, I said a bit too loudly, “Yeah, see?” I flipped to a dog-eared page in the middle, where I had sketched a bombed city. My original motive was to capture the horror of it, but to Maria I said, “I drew this one a few weeks ago. I tried to capture the idea that even though things look awful, they can be good.”
Elijah frowned, but didn’t say anything. I breathed a sigh of relief.
No one mentioned me leaving until I finally said I had to go. Monika’s face fell, and I wanted to take the words back, but she whisked away with my backpack, returning with it stuffed with food. Not good food, don’t get me wrong, but it was all more filling than what I’d expected. Two cans of pea soup, a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a tiny bag of dry biscuits. “I can’t take this from you!” I exclaimed as soon as I noticed how much food they had given me. This much food was as good as impossible to get unless you bribed someone. Which was just as impossible.
I dug through the pack until my fingers scraped the fabric bottom. Relieved that they hadn’t given me anything else, I pulled my hand back out. Before it reached the top, though, it hit something soft. I grabbed it and pulled up, bringing up a cloth bundle. I unwrapped it, revealing a worn blanket. “Nope!” I pushed the bundle back toward Maria and Elijah, who stood by, watching. “I’m not taking your stuff! You need it too much!” Monika jumped in, pushing the blanket back at me. “We want you to have it,” she said calmly, not even blinking when I pushed the cloth against her chest rather harshly.
“Nope!”
“Ugh, just take it! It’s just me! You have a whole family to provide for! You’re going to need it more than I do!”
“We’re choosing you to have it,” Elijah insisted, which really wasn’t fair, because as soon as he said something in Monika’s favor, I had to relent. “Fine. But I’m going to have to pay you back at some point, because this is a lot of food,” Maria held up her hand. “Emilia, yakar, you don’t have to pay us back with anything, understand? Us Jews, we got to help one another out. It’s our job, with Hitler against us. We ain’t never gonna win if we don’t help one another out.” She waited until I met her eye, before saying softly, “You go deliver that journal, Emilia. Don’t let anyone stop you.”
“How did you–”
“Mothers always do.”
My eyes teared up at her voice, so like my mama’s. “Yes ma’am,” I whispered, and she smiled. “Good girl,” she murmured, handing me my backpack. I hoisted it up on my shoulders, giving quick hugs to all of Monika’s siblings, and shaking hands with Maria and Elijah. Monika hugged me so tight I couldn’t breath, her breath coming in choked sobs. “I’m gonna miss you…” she mumbled into my jacket, smearing snot and tears on my sleeve. I patted her back awkwardly, while Maria smiled in a way that seemed to say, Aren’t they cute?
Monika finally let go, shuffling over to stand next to Elijah. I head toward the door, waving as I go, but I swear, as I walk past Maria, she leans over my ear, muttering, “We’re all rooting for you, Emilia,”.