“Take them over the roof to Mila 19. Tell Alexander Brandel to get to the Umschlagplatz quickly.”
Rachael frowned as she saw Stephan slip out of the hall.
“We love you, our Galilee,
Your land makes our hearts sing ...”
Susan sat on the bench beside Rachael. “At the end of this song I will make an announcement. You keep playing. We want no panic. Do you understand?”
“Oh God ...”
“Keep playing, Rachael, keep playing.”
“I ... understand ...”
Susan stepped before the piano and held up her hands. “Children!” she said. “Aunt Susan has a most wonderful surprise! Today we are going to the country on a picnic!”
The announcement was greeted with “ohs” and “ahs” of disbelief.
“We are all going on a train ride out of the ghetto and we will see all of those things we have talked about—trees and flowers and farms. All those wonderful things which you have never seen before. This is going to be the greatest experience of your life. Now we will all file out of the hall and to the street. Don’t be frightened of the soldiers, because today they are there to help us. Now, Rachael, would you play something while we march out?”
Susan stepped into the corridor just as Piotr Warsinski entered the building. She blocked the door to the assembly hall.
“We are quite ready,” Susan said. “If you will kindly tell your men not to alarm the children we will keep them calm.”
“We just want the children, not you.”
“We choose to go too.”
Warsinski shrugged. “Have it your way. Get them out into the streets.”
“Quickly,” Stephan Bronski ordered two dozen six-year-olds in the attic classroom. Ghetto life had conditioned them to respond to his order with unqualified discipline. Stephan was first up the escape ladder to the roof. He nudged the trap door open an inch and peered around.
A Ukrainian on the roof!
Stephan signaled for the line behind him to be still. The guard paced back and forth, sweating in the heat through his dirty brown, black-sleeved shirt. He turned. Stephan could see his face and the epaulets with the skull and cross-bones and the big knobby hands gripped around a rifle.
The guard stopped near the corner of the roof. The ridge was built up fifteen inches over the roof level. The guard knelt on it, peering past a steep tile roof which partly blocked the view to the street five stories down.
Clump ... clump ... clump ...
The man looked around at the thing flying over the roof at him. Before he could gather his wits or straighten up it was on him at a dead run. Stephan slammed his body at the Ukrainian at the same instant the man tried to stand up. It threw him off balance. His legs buckled and he fell onto the overhang, dropping his rifle on the roof.
In a frantic grab he snatched the top of the ridge. Stephan lifted the guard’s fallen rifle and with its butt smashed the clinging man’s hands.
A shriek!
The guard slid down the tiles, flailing in panic for something to grab. His body swooped over the edge and became smaller, smaller, smaller, until it stopped suddenly on the pavement.
“Quick!” Stephan cried, ruling out fear or revulsion at his deed. One by one the children climbed onto the roof.
Rifle fire cracked from the street. Shouts below! “Juden Kinder! Jew children!”
The ghetto rat knew his way well. He fled over the ceiling of the city with the knowledge of a craftsman. Then a dead end.
The line of buildings dropped from five stories to four. A chasm four feet wide separated the buildings. Stephan looked for the mattress which had been laid on the lower roof to break the falls. It had been removed! The decision was already made for him. He could neither stay nor turn back.
“Now we are going to have to jump over to that roof. We will have to stand on the very edge so we can reach the roof. When you land, land on your feet and use your legs as though they were big giant springs. Bend and then throw yourselves on your tummies.”
A little girl wept in fear.
“You,” he said to the largest youngster, “you be my assistant commander. You stay till last. Everyone choose a partner.” He quickly took the crying girl by the hand. “You will be mine.” Before she could register a protest they leaped over the drop onto the next roof.
Piotr Warsinski reported to Haupsturmführer Kutler.
“How is it?” Kutler asked.
“The most successful ‘kettle’ we have ever made. Every orphanage is cleaned.”
“How many?”
“Maybe ten, twelve thousand heads.”
That’s a lot of Jew babies. Well—they’ve got no valuables. Start loading them up. Send the leftover bastards to the top floors for storage till tomorrow and the day after. I want all your people around the Umschlagplatz on guard tonight. Bastards in the ghetto liable to try something.”
Warsinski turned to leave. “Good job, Chief,” laughed Kutler.
Kutler walked out to the selection desks and frowned at the sight of the nurses mingling with the children. “Warsinski!”
“Yes, sir.”
“What are all those people doing here?”
“They wanted to come with the children.”
Susan Geller came up to them. “Surely you cannot object to having us resettled with our wards,” she said.
Kutler sneered. He did not like her homely face. He glanced around at the other nurses, teachers, doctors, and workers holding their tiny flocks together. Goddamned Jews, Kutler thought. They got some kind of strange love for dying like martyrs. He remembered the fathers holding their hands over their sons’ eyes on the edge of the pits at Babi-Yar at Kiev.
“You people aren’t wanted in this transfer,” Kutler said.
“The children will enjoy their picnic in the country so much more if they have us with them to explain everything. You see, many of them do not remember being out of the ghetto.”
Kutler turned his eyes way from Susan Geller’s insistent stare. “What have you got in that bag?” he asked.
“Chocolates. I’ve been saving them for a wonderful occasion like this.”
Kutler cracked. “Be heroes,” he muttered, and dashed back to his office and closed and bolted the door. He yanked viciously at a desk drawer, unable to open it quickly enough, and smashed the top of the schnapps bottle, guzzling until a hot wave of alcohol flooded his blood and crashed into his brain, dulling his thoughts. “Heroes ... martyrs ...”
The courtyard bulged with ten thousand ragged, emaciated children with a sprinkling of nurses who kept up a play of gaiety. Some of the older children who knew where they were going kept it to themselves.
“Jew babies, start moving up the ramps!”
“Well, children, now begins our wonderful picnic in the country.”
“Aunt Susan, when will we come back?”
“Oh, probably later tonight.”
“Keep moving down to the end of the platform to the first car!”
The engine warmed up with a few puffs of steam.
The line of tykes straggled up the ramps. Curses and kicks moved them quicker.
Kutler, in a thick drunk, staggered out to the courtyard and watched the march. He snarled semi-intelligible sounds, screaming to hurry it up. He sighted a dozen small children leaning against a far wall, doubled up from exhaustion and hunger, too weak to drag themselves to their feet. Kutler wove toward them. “Up, you Jew babies!” he shrieked.
Two of the three nurses converged on them, helping them to their feet.
A rachitic girl of three clad in filthy rags toppled to the cobblestones, dropping a torn baby doll which had neither arms nor legs. Her little hand reached for it.
Kutler’s shiny black boot stomped on the doll.
The ragamuffin stared curiously at the tall black-uniformed man hovering over her. “My baby,” she whined weakly, “I want my baby.” Her hand tugged, trying to pry it from under the Nazi’s boot. His Mauser pistol came out of the holster. A pistol shot echoed.