Dr. Glazer, chief of medical staff of Orphans and Self-Help.
Rabbi Solomon, of course.
Father Jakub, priest of the Converts Church. I have known him since 1930. He is one of the few who has had a long record of sympathetic understanding toward us. (Incidentally, Orphans and Self-Help does not have much to do with converts. The converts and half Jews fare much better than most in the ghetto. It seems as though the Catholic Church is determined to take care of “their” Jews.)
From time to time we will vote in new members to the Good Fellowship Club.
Ervin Rosenblum, who still works on the Aryan side and has less demands on his time than we do, has agreed to spend his spare time classifying and cataloguing the information now pouring in.
Rabbi Solomon is making duplicate copies of the first three volumes (in Yiddish and Hebrew only). In the Jewish tradition, special scribes write all our Torah scrolls by hand. That is why they have been so accurate for millennia. Seeing Rabbi Solomon copying the journal reminds me of that.
It is thrilling to see this come alive and the belief that the work is important.
I must admonish everyone to write more neatly, especially Father Jakub.
ALEXANDER BRANDEL
Chapter Twenty-one
“RACHAEL.”
“Wolf!”
They stood facing each other in the hallway outside the main recreation room of the new Max and Soma Kleperman Orphanage on Nowolipki Street. Children swirled around them before herding nurses who clapped their hands sternly.
“Wolf, this is such a surprise, seeing you.”
“I didn’t know I was going to be able to come in. I didn’t have any time to write.”
“How did you find out where I was?”
“Stephan told me. I was with him all morning. I’ve been here for an hour. I was watching you give the recital from out here. You were very good.”
“Why didn’t you come in?”
“I don’t know. I got to watching you singing and playing and watching the kids all laughing ...”
The hallway suddenly became empty. It was shadowy and hard for them to see each other, and they were wordless as the impact of the sudden meeting lessened.
“It’s nice to see you again,” Wolf said.
“Will you be here long?”
“That depends. I don’t know.”
Wolf looked about and grunted. “Could we take a walk or something? Here, let me hold your music.”
“All right.”
Wolf tried to think. There was no place to walk in the ghetto, nor bench to sit upon, nor nightingale to hear. There was only misery and beggars and stone and brick without a leaf of grass or the green of a tree.
“I’d like to sit and talk someplace,” Wolf said.
“So would I. We have so much to talk about.”
“Where can we go?”
“If we go to my place Stephan won’t leave you alone. Then Momma and Daddy will come home and Daddy would make you play chess.”
“Sure can’t go to Mila 19. The minute we walked in the door there’d be all kinds of gossip. Besides, there’s no place there to be alone.”
“We can’t stand here.”
“I’d sure like to talk to you.”
“We could try Uncle Andrei’s place. I stop there often to talk to him. Most of the time he isn’t there and his door is never locked.”
“Boy! If he caught me there with you he’d break my neck.”
“Oh no. Uncle Andrei’s bark is much worse than his bite.”
“Well ... all right.”
They did not see each other on the entire walk to Andrei’s. Wolf’s eyes were cast down, looking at the pavement, and Rachael had learned to walk through the streets looking dead ahead to shut out the terrible things happening on all sides. The beggar children were more pathetic every day, and in the last week corpses of starved persons were beginning to appear in the gutters.
Suddenly they found themselves all alone in Andrei’s flat. Wolf turned on the light over the table in the center of the room while Rachael caught her breath from the climb up the stairs.
Now they could see each other. Wolf had changed. His elongated, gangly body had filled out and his white, blemished skin was unblemished and deepened to a tan from working in the wind and the sun, and the scraggly hair on his chin had turned to a hard beard which could legitimately be shaved every other day and the shaky voice was now a steady baritone.
Rachael had changed too. She had been more like a girl before. Now she was much different. Round and soft, like her mother. Her eyes were filled with sadness and weariness.
Wolf suddenly turned his back and scratched his head.
“Heck! This isn’t the way I figured it would be,” he blurted.
“It’s very strange, isn’t it? Almost as if we were just meeting each other for the first time.”
Wolf sagged into a chair, disappointed at his own weak performance. How many nights he lay awake at the farm thinking about this very moment when he would see Rachael again and simply sweep her off her feet. Now both of them seemed like strangers to each other and both wondered about all the passion and promises they had written.
“Wolf, you’re disappointed.”
“Just at myself. Candidly speaking, I’m not one for fancy talking.” He stood up slowly, towering over her. “I have missed you,” he managed to say. Rachael leaned against him slightly and he put his arm around her shoulders. Her arms found their way about him and she began to tremble, and as they held each other close the terrible uneasiness inside them ebbed. Wolf audibly gulped and sighed with relief. They searched each other out and kissed and then they were both calm.
Rachael and Wolf stood before the window, watching darkness come. They looked down on the street, and from this height they could see beyond the wall into the “Polish corridor” which separated the big and little ghetto and they could see the dome of the forbidden Tlomatskie Synagogue. His arm was about her waist and her head was on his shoulder.
“This is wonderful,” Rachael said.
“It sure is.”
“You have become terribly handsome and mannish.”
Wolf shrugged. “Rachael, I meant all the things I wrote to you.”
“So did I. I know that now.” She pulled away from him. “Wolf ...”
“What?”
“Would you answer one thing, honestly?”
“Sure.”
“Did you have any girls on the farm?”
“Heck! What kind of a stupid question is that?”
“I think I’m a terribly jealous kind,” Rachael answered.
“I’m sure not much to be jealous about.”
“You didn’t answer me.”
“I messed around a little.” Then he added quickly, “But that was before we made promises.”
“Messed around?”
“You know, messed around.”
“More than ... kissing?”
Wolf patted his flat chest to demonstrate. “Messed around.”
“Oh.”
“Before we made promises.”
“Did you do any other things?”
“Rachael ...”
“I think I should know everything before we can be certain of our relationship. What else have you done?”
“Rachael, I’m a boy and boys are different, and if I tell you you’re liable to get very mad.”
“I’m sixteen, almost seventeen. I’ve been a woman for several years. I know about these things—I mean, Momma and I have had long talks about growing up.”
Wolf was flustered. Rachael was adamant.
“Wolf ...”
“What?”
“Have you ever ... done it?”
“You sure ask a lot of questions. This isn’t something a man wants to discuss with his girl.”