“Wolf!”
Andrei was answered by a feeble groan. Andrei kicked against Wolf’s shoulder. “Wolf!”
The return was an incoherent babbling.
“Must be night. They’re using searchlights.”
“That’s the way I figured it,” Simon said.
Andrei looked through the boards again, squinting to see through the glare. There was still a concentration of SS at Mila 19. He groped around for his weapon and toyed with the idea of breaking out of the entombment and firing at the searchlights. No, he’d be shot off the roof in seconds.
“I guess we’re no worse off than those poor bastards in the bunker,” Andrei said. “At least they’re not looking for us.”
“Nothing to do but wait,” Simon said.
“Yeah ...”
And then quiet once more as they heard the steps of men patrolling the roof over them, complaining about their bad fortune of nighttime duty.
Nothing to do but wait. Andrei slumped back, hoping for a misty dream to take him where there were plates piled with food.
“I didn’t catch your name.”
“I know your name, Miss Rak. Like so many, I am an admirer of the work of your late father, so my name is unimportant. You can just snap your fingers and say, ‘Hey you,’ and I’ll know you are addressing me.”
“You do dance, Lieutenant?”
“As a matter of fact, I am an excellent dancer, but frankly, I do it only as an accommodation.”
Gaby! Gaby! I am afraid! Gaby! I am so afraid!
Whistles!
Andrei forced his eyelids apart. I must be dead, he told himself. I am nowhere. In the sky. In hell. I am dead. There was no movement in his body. No feeling. No pain.
But then the cold sent a chill through him and his stomach knotted with hunger.
Like hell I’m dead! He tried to move his arms. Numb. Neck and shoulders without feeling from the pressure of the beams. First my fingers ... just my fingers first. He drew them up like claws, back, forth, back, forth; then he shook his wrists. His fingers scratched against his leg and sides, over and over to make some feeling return. His body tingled as he tore at it harder and harder. He pinched himself again and again and slapped his face. Inch by inch circulation flowed.
“Simon!” he croaked.
“Andrei!”
“The others?”
“Out cold. Neither of them has spoken for two hours. I've been counting seconds. It must be day again.”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you see down on the street?”
His head felt like a lead ball. He pushed it to the crack. The searchlights were gone. It was misty out. Germans were still all over the street.
“They’re still down there.”
“I think they’ve left the roof. I heard them ordered down. No sounds for over fifteen minutes.”
“Think it may be a trick?”
“We’ve got to take a chance,” Simon said. “We can’t hold out here another day.”
Andrei rolled over on his back. Sharp needles of pain greeted his effort to raise his arms over his head. He fished around for the key tile and wiggled it. He tugged desperately. It slid away, letting in a show of light, nearly blinding him. Andrei pulled the other five tiles loose. He drew himself up on all fours, his knees resting on a pair of beams, and shoved the upper part of his body through the hole.
“Clear! Simon, it’s clear!”
He pulled himself outside to the roof and crouched against the chimney, reaching in until he found Wolf’s head. Straining with every sinew, he slid Wolf over the rafters until his body appeared beneath the opening. Next Chris was pushed by Simon until Andrei could hook onto him.
Simon jammed past the two unconscious, prostrate bodies. Simon and Andrei looked at each other. Their faces were swollen and misshapen by bug bites, their clothing ripped to shreds. Blood and bruises were everywhere, and layers of filth hid their features. They stared like strangers.
“Do you look like hell,” Andrei said.
“You’re no lily of the valley, Androfski.” Simon looked at his watch and held it against his ear. “Thirty hours we’ve been in there.”
Andrei looked at Simon again and began laughing. And Simon laughed too. They burst into a hysterical, uncontrolled laughter in each other’s arms until they ached and tears fell down their cheeks. And it ebbed slowly, each shaking his head alternately. Andrei wiped his Schmeisser clean and counted the clips of ammunition, then got to his knees and reached down and slapped Wolf’s face.
“Is he alive?”
Andrei slapped him again and again.
Wolf groaned convulsively and sucked at the air. He blinked his eyes, shrank away from the light.
At the same time Simon worked on Chris.
Wolf came to enough to look up at his comrades and smile at the sight of them.
“Listen, Wolf. Stay here with Chris. Massage yourself and keep massaging him. There are holes all over the roof, so this one won’t draw further attention.”
“Where are you going?”
“Up to take a look. They’ve stopped patrolling the roof, but they’re still in the streets. Stay here until we come back for you with ropes.”
Andrei crawled up, with Simon close behind him. When the roof flattened, they inched to the edge to get the best possible look down on Mila Street.
Andrei’s fists tightened around the Schmeisser, enraged at what met his eyes. A double cordon of bayonet-wielding SS Reinhard Corps men formed a corridor and circle around people straggling out of the building, flushed from the bunker. He saw Rabbi Solomon thrown to the ground. Alex knelt over to help him up. Sylvia Brandel held the child, and Tolek and Ana and Ervin stood by Deborah, keeping the children calm.
Kutler barked orders, clapping his hands in delight that the search was over.
“Schnell!”
“Move quickly, Jews!”
Andrei backed away slowly. “Come on, Simon,” he said.
“Where are you going?”
“Where do you think?”
“You’ll destroy us all,” Simon snapped. He stood up quickly and blocked Andrei’s path.
“Let me pass,” Andrei hissed.
“You’re a damned fool,” Simon said, grabbing his shirt.
Andrei’s fist smashed into Simon Eden’s mouth. The big man went flat on his back. Before Andrei could make a step, he found himself looking into the muzzle of Simon’s Luger leveled at his heart.
They glared, neither daring to move.
“Jews ... move out!”
Simon’s face went slack. His pistol hand dropped. “I’m coming with you,” he said.
The two men moved swiftly over the rooftops to Mila 5. The stairs were clear. They ran down, jumping half a flight at a time, and stopped in the courtyard.
“It’s clear.”
They sprinted through the courtyard, down into the basement of Mila 1, and into a tunnel that came up on the edge of Muranowski Place. A fast straight run down Niska Street brought them to the intersection ahead of the slower-moving cordon.
Andrei flattened his back against the corner house, gasping for air, his legs wobbly. He looked around the corner. Kutler strutted, laughing and jovial, with a dozen SS men in the lead of the quarry, SS men on either sidewalk, and Nightingales in the rear.
Andrei beckoned Simon to get close to him. “Kutler and some SS men are in front of our people—about ten yards. Let them get past us. We’ll hit them from behind.”
“How many guards?”
“Hundred.”
He shoved a clip of ammunition into the Schmeisser and threw the bolt. Simon unclicked the safety lock on his pistol.
Step by step, as in a funeral procession, the bagged game of Mila 19 walked for the Stawki Gate to the Umschlagplatz. Alexander Brandel stood tall and brave despite the ordeal in the bunker. He walked like a patriarch toward Calvary, and those behind him found courage in his presence.