Andrei stopped before her flat on Shucha Street Across the street stood Gestapo House. It was ironic, but he thought Gaby’s flat was probably in the safest place in Warsaw. It was early. She would not be home yet. He dashed off a note and put it in her mailbox so she would not be startled.
Andrei threw off his cap and flopped into a big armchair and fought with himself to relax the burning pains of tension in his chest. It had been a terrible trip. He did not realize until this moment that he had not slept more than a few hours in three days. His eyes closed and he rolled his face into the sun’s rays to catch its warmth, and he dozed quickly.
... The sound of footsteps brought him sharply awake. Gaby had read his note. She was running up the steps. The door to the flat flung open and closed quickly, and she set down her parcels of food and looked for him in the evening shadows. She curled up on his lap and lay her head on his chest, and they clung to each other with no sound except for her deep sighs of relief and no movement except for her trembling.
She looked at him. His face was so drawn and tired. Day by day she watched the energy being sapped from him. After each trip he was drained. He was eating himself away inside.
Now, at this moment, she could transfuse life back into him. Andrei smiled with pleasure at the feel of her fingertips tracing the lines of his face and her lips brushing his eyes and ears and neck.
“It was very bad this time,” he said. “I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”
“I’ll take care of you, dear. ...”
She unbuttoned his shirt and felt his chest and shoulders, and the knots of tension slowly melted away.
“I’ll take care of you,” she whispered.
“Gaby ...”
“Yes, darling ...”
“When you touch me like this it all seems to go far away. Why are you so good to me?”
“Shhh ... shhh ... rest, darling ...”
“Gaby, when will they stop? What do they want from us?”
“Shhh ... shhh ... shhh.”
Chapter Eighteen
Journal Entry
DON’T HIDE YOUR GOLD ring, Mother,
Your chances are quite nil,
That if the Germans do not find it,
Kleperman, the
goniff,
will.
That verse is attributed to Crazy Nathan, a half-wit who roams the ghetto making rhymes and some rather clairvoyant observations. No one knows where Crazy Nathan comes from, who his parents are, or even what his last name is. He wears filthy rags and sleeps in alleyways and cellars. Everyone looks upon him as a harmless goof and treats him with benevolent tolerance. Crazy Nathan shows up at the best cafés in the Jewish districts and, after a few new verses, earns his meal. He prefers fish so he can share it with the dozen or more alley cats who follow him. He has named his cats after the board members of the Jewish Civil Authority.
A.B.
Max Kleperman was a product of the slums. He learned at a tender age that it was easier to live off his fellow man than, God forbid, bend his back in honest labor.
By the age of five Max was a fast-hand artist. He could wander through the smelly, noisy trade in Parysowski Place and rifle wares off the pushcarts of the old bearded Jews with dazzling deftness. By the time he reached seven he was an expert in fencing his stolen goods.
While good Jewish sons like Andrei delivered chickens for their fathers and were robbed and beaten by hoodlums, naughty Jewish sons like Max Kleperman showed a natural aptitude as middlemen. He would purchase all stolen chickens and other goods from the hoodlums and resell them on the Parysowski open market at stunning markups.
By the age of fourteen he had been a guest of the Pawiak Prison three times. Once for theft. Once for extortion. Once for swindling.
By the age of sixteen he went to his natural habitat, to live in the Smocza area populated by the Jewish underworld of Warsaw.
At seventeen he was accepted as a full-fledged member of the Granada Night Club, the most notorious hangout for thugs and gangsters in Poland.
As Max grew older his varied talents expanded. He became the head of a gang of strong-arm men who muscled in on the building-trade area on Grzybowski Square. The square was lined with building-material shops, craftsmen, contractors, teamsters, ironworks, and brick shops. Plying his talent as a middleman with the help of husky friends, Max elbowed his way into the square until his “clearance” became standard for most normal operations. Only the opposition of the labor unions kept him from absolute czardom.
His hand was in every pie from blueprint to finished product. His little finger bore an eight-carat diamond and his cigar ashes dripped on half the building deals made in Warsaw.
Max was at home at the Granada Night Club or even with the goyim underworld in Solec, where he was respected; but strangely, he reached a point in life where he began to wonder what all his hard labor was for. He was, in fact, nothing but a bum.
Max Kleperman did not want to be a bum. He wanted to be as respectable as the “new rich” who promenaded on the Avenue of the Marshals on the Sabbath. He could not muscle himself into their affection, and this annoyed him. So he set about to purchase respectability. First the beautiful old mansion of a nobleman living in France. It did not help. His neighbors looked upon him as a social leper.
Max was determined. He hired an expensive lawyer with a three-word dictum, “Make me respectable.”
The lawyer’s first move was to buy a pair of seats in the Great Tlomatskie Synagogue. Max could parade in during the High Holy Days when the synagogue was filled to capacity and uniformed police held back the mobs of onlookers who “ohed” and “ahed” at the elite.
Max was put on a program of philanthropy. He donated to the poor and he patted orphans on the head and sponsored scholarships for students who never did amount to much.
His work was so good that he was accepted into membership by a half dozen professional societies. Then followed a series of lavish parties.
Soon Max Kleperman was so respectable he fired his lawyer.
To consolidate his hard-won position, Max had to get rid of his ignorant wife, who was constantly a source of embarrassment. She was delighted with the settlement. Max then shopped around through the professional match-makers for a nice homey girl from a good religious family.
One was found for him. Sonia Fischstein filled the bill. Her family was Orthodox, respectable, traditional, and acceptable to a settlement on their daughter. Rabbi Solomon was called in to negotiate the terms.
Rabbi Solomon saw right through Kleperman’s fraud. Max was enraged at the rabbi’s attitude. He even invited the notion of having him rubbed out. Then he learned that Rabbi Solomon was really respectable—in fact, the most respectable man in Jewish Warsaw. He set out to cultivate the great man.
Rabbi Solomon was not fooled. He considered everything. Max would never change, but his quest for respectability would keep him in check and there was some hope that a little of the decency he was exposing himself to would rub off on him. Besides, Sonia Fischstein was quickly running out of chances to marry. So he agreed to the match.
Rabbi Solomon became the earthly custodian of Kleperman’s soul. Max realized under his puffy jowls that his one link with the Maker was through the rabbi.
When the Germans invaded Poland, Max was sad because no one liked Germans. However, he was a realistic man. His past made him perfect for the type of business that was flourishing—black market, smuggling, money exchanging. In fact, opportunities were never so great. Moreover, the Germans could be dealt with. Before the smoke of battle had cleared, Max Kleperman got in touch with Dr. Franz Koenig and impressed him that his organization would be indispensable to the Germans.