The Woman with the Blue Star, Pam Jenoff [highly recommended books txt] 📗

His voice was gentle, but firm. The old woman muttered something and started back.

“I’m sorry about that,” Saul said in a low voice as we followed his grandmother toward the chamber. “She doesn’t mean any harm, but she’s almost ninety and getting a bit confused. It’s hard to watch people you love grow old.”

“And hard not to,” I replied, thinking of my father and wondering what he might be like as an old man if he had been given the time. I would never really know.

I started to follow Saul into the chamber, but my mother, who had been walking behind us, stopped me outside the entrance. “Promise me,” Mama said. There was strength in her voice that I had never heard. “That you will never go again.” I turned to her, surprised. She had not seemed angry when she found me at the sewer grate. But now she had drawn up her tiny frame to its full height. She loomed over me so close that the roundness of her belly pressed against mine. “Promise me you won’t go to see her again, that you won’t let yourself be seen or talk to her.” Her words were an echo of Saul’s. “I know that you are lonely here. But it’s too dangerous.”

I thought of Ella and the hopeful feeling she gave me. But Mama was right; it was irresponsible of me to compromise our safety. “Okay,” I said at last, chastised. Breaking my promise to Saul was one thing, my mother quite another. I saw the image of my new friend fade and disappear.

Pawel appeared in the tunnel then. “Hello,” I said, surprised to see him. It was Sunday, not one of his usual visiting days, and he had just been here the day before. But he had not brought much food yesterday, and seeing his satchel now, I was hopeful that he had found more.

He nodded, not answering my greeting. His usually cheerful face was drawn tight and somber, the warmth missing from his eyes. I wondered if he had heard our quarrel and was angry. He followed us silently into the chamber and handed us the satchel of food.

“What is it?” Mama asked, instinctively knowing it was bad news.

Pawel turned away from us and toward Pan Rosenberg. “I’m afraid I have word from Będzin and it isn’t good,” he said. At the mention of his village, Pan Rosenberg stiffened. “The small synagogue in the ghetto...the Germans burned it.”

A knot of dread formed in the pit of my stomach. I recalled Saul telling me proudly how his brother, who had stayed behind, had created a makeshift synagogue out of a small shop in the ghetto, so that those who were forced to live there had a place to worship. Going to such lengths just to pray had seemed incredibly foolish to me at the time. Surely God could hear you from anywhere.

I looked at Pan Rosenberg, whose face had turned white as a sheet beneath his shaggy beard. “The Torah,” he said, aghast. An uneasy feeling overcame me. The destruction of a synagogue was, of course, an awful thing. But the darkness in Pawel’s eyes spoke of so much worse than just prayer scrolls. Beside me, I felt Saul tense with understanding. I reached for his hand. For a second, he hesitated and started to pull away, caught between the restrictions of his faith and the need for comfort. His hand went slack and he did not protest when I curled my fingers around his, bracing for what would come next.

Pawel continued, “I’m afraid it’s more than that. You see, there was a young rabbi who tried to stop the Germans and he struck one of them. In reprisal, the Germans came and locked the remaining Jews in the synagogue and set it on fire.”

“Micah,” Pan Rosenberg cried, stumbling. Bubbe let out a sharp wail. Saul broke away from me to catch his grandmother before she fell. Saul led Bubbe to his father, her son, and the three of them huddled, clutched in an embrace. I stood watching their grief, powerless to help.

“My fiancée...” Saul said, looking up. “She was in the ghetto, too, and often at my brother’s shul.”

Pawel bowed his head.

“I’m sorry, but my understanding is that everyone who was at the synagogue at the time was killed.” Saul’s knees buckled and I thought he would fall as his grandmother had, but he willed himself to remain standing.

“Come,” Mama said softly to me and Pawel. “They need time alone with their grief.”

I faltered, wanting to stay and comfort Saul. Then I reluctantly followed Mama into the tunnel. “I didn’t know whether to tell them,” Pawel said sadly.

“You did the right thing,” Mama reassured. I nodded. Even in the sewer, the truth could stay buried for only so long.

“Pawel...” I hesitated. These days it was better not to ask so much. But there was a question that had been nagging at me, so many answers lost now that I did not have my father to ask. I sensed that soon there might not be time. “How did you come to help us? That is, how did my father find you?”

Pawel smiled, the first light I had seen in his eyes in any of his recent visits. “He was such a friendly man. I often passed him on the street and he would always say hello, not like the other gentlemen who ignored a simple pipe fitter.” I smiled, too, knowing what he meant. My father had been kind to everyone, regardless of stature. “We talked occasionally about this and that. Once he told me about a work site that needed laborers and gave me a reference. Another time, he gave me some money to run an errand. He was helping me out, you see, for no other reason than I was a fellow man. But he always did it in a way that made it seem as though I was helping him. He didn’t want to hurt my