206 jodi picoult - cloud object storage | store & …€œyou’re something else, minka...

206 J o d i P i c o u l T

“But ania needs you to go out with him,” Darija said.

ania, my character, who was too boring. Too safe.

“You can thank me later,” she said, patting my hand.

astoria Café was a well-known hangout on Piotrkowska Street. at any

given moment, you might find Jewish intellectuals, playwrights, compos-

ers arguing the finer points of artistic merit over smoky tables and bitter

coffee; or opera divas sipping tea with lemon. Even though i was dressed

in the same borrowed outfit i’d worn the day before, being in close

quarters with these people made my head swim, as if i might become

enlightened simply by breathing the same air.

We were sitting near the swinging doors of the kitchen, and every

time they opened, a delicious smell would waft over us. Josek and i were

sharing a platter of pierogi, and drinking coffee, which was—as he had

promised—heavenly. “Upiory,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s not what

i expected.”

i had been telling him—shyly—of the plot for my story: of ania, and

her father the baker; of the monster who invades their town by mas-

querading as a common man. “My grandmother used to talk about them

when she was still alive,” i explained. “at night, she would leave grain on

the wooden table at the bakery, so that if an upiór came, he would be

forced to count it until the sunrise. if i didn’t go to bed when i was sup-

posed to, my grandmother said the upiór would come for me and drink

my blood.”

“Pretty grisly,” Josek said.

“The thing is, it didn’t scare me. i used to feel bad for the upiór. i mean,

it wasn’t his fault he was undead. But good luck getting someone to be-

lieve that, when there were people like my grandmother running around

saying otherwise.” i looked up at Josek. “So i started to daydream a story

about an upiór, who may not be as evil as everyone thinks. at least not

compared to the human who’s trying to destroy him. and certainly not

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T h e S T o r y T e l l e r 207

in the eyes of the girl who’s starting to fall for him . . . until she realizes he

may have killed her own father.”

“Wow,” Josek said, impressed.

i laughed. “You were expecting a romance, maybe?”

“More than i was expecting a horror story,” he admitted.

“Darija says that i have to tone it down, or no one will ever want to

read it.”

“But you don’t believe that . . . ?”

“no,” i said. “People have to experience things that terrify them. if they

don’t, how will they ever come to appreciate safety?”

a slow smile spread across Josek’s face. in that moment, he looked

handsome. at least as handsome as Herr Bauer, if not more. “i didn’t real-

ize Łódź had the next Janusz korczak in its midst.”

i fidgeted with my teaspoon. “So you don’t think it’s crazy? For a girl

to write something like this?”

Josek leaned closer. “i think it’s brilliant. i see what you’re doing. it’s

not just a fairy tale, it’s an allegory, right? The upiory, they are like Jews.

To the general population, they are bloodsuckers, a dark and frighten-

ing tribe. They are to be feared and battled with weapons and crosses

and Holy Water. and the Reich, which puts itself on the side of God, has

commissioned itself to rid the world of monsters. But the upiory, they are

timeless. no matter what they try to do to us, we Jews have been around

too long to be forgotten, or to be vanquished.”

Once, in Herr Bauer’s class, i had made an error during an essay and

substituted one German word for another. i was writing about the mer-

its of a parochial education, and meant to say Achtung, which meant

“attention, respect.” instead, i used Ächtung, which meant “ostracism.”

as you can imagine, it completely changed the point of my essay.

Herr Bauer asked me to stay after class to have a discussion about the

separation of church and state, and what it was like to be a Jew in a

Catholic high school. i wasn’t embarrassed at the time, because mostly

i didn’t even pay attention to what made me different from the other

students—and because i got to spend a half hour alone with Herr Bauer,



talking as if we were equals. and of course it was a mistake, not a stroke

of brilliance, that had led me to make the observation in my paper that

Herr Bauer thought was so insightful . . . but i wasn’t about to admit to

that.

Just like i’m not going to admit to Josek, now, that when i was writing

my story i never in a million years was thinking of it as a political state-

ment. in fact, when i imagined ania and her father, they were Jewish,

like me.

“Well,” i said, trying to make light of Josek’s explanation. “Guess i can’t

put anything past you.”

“You’re something else, Minka Lewin,” he said. “i’ve never met another

girl like you.” He threaded his fingers through mine. Then he lifted my

hand and pressed his lips to it, suddenly a courtier.

it was old-world and chivalrous and made me shiver. i tried to re-

member every sensation, from the way all the colors in the café suddenly

seemed brighter to the electric current that danced over my palm like

lightning in a summertime field. i wanted to be able to tell Darija every

last detail. i wanted to write them into my story.

Before i could finish my mental catalog, though, Josek wrapped his

hand around the back of my head, drew me closer, and kissed me.

it was my first kiss. i could feel the pressure of Josek’s fingers on my

scalp, and the scratchy wool of his sweater under my palm. My heart felt

like fireworks must, when after finally being lit, all that gunpowder has

somewhere to go.

“So,” Josek said after a moment.

i cleared my throat and looked around at the other patrons. i expected

them all to be staring at us, but no, they were tangled in their own con-

versations, punctuating the air with gestures that cut through the haze

of the cigarette smoke.

i had a brief flashing image of myself and Josek, living abroad, and

working together at our kitchen table. There he was, his white shirt-

sleeves rolled up to the elbows as he furiously typed a story on deadline.

There i was, chewing the top end of a pencil as i added the final touches

to my first novel.



“Josek Szapiro,” i said, drawing back. “What’s gotten into you?”

He laughed. “Must be all this talk of monsters and the ladies who love

them.”

Darija would tell me to play hard to get. To walk out and make Josek

come after me. To Darija, every relationship was a game. Me, i got tired

of figuring out all the rules.

Before i could answer, though, the doors of the café burst open and

a swarm of SS soldiers exploded into the room. They began to smack

the patrons with their truncheons, to overturn chairs with people still

in them. Old men who fell to the floor were trampled or kicked; women

were thrown against the walls.

i was frozen in place. i had been near SS soldiers when they passed,

but never in the middle of an action like this one. The men all seemed to

be over six feet tall, hulking brutes in heavy green wool uniforms. They

had clenched fists and pale silver eyes that glittered the way mica did.

They smelled like hatred.

Josek grabbed me and shoved me behind him through the swinging

kitchen doors. “Run, Minka,” he whispered. “Run!”

i did not want to leave Josek behind. i grabbed on to his sleeve, try-

ing to pull him with me, but as i did a soldier yanked on his other arm.

The last thing i saw, before i turned and sprinted, was the blow that spun

Josek in a slow pirouette, the blood running from his temple and broken

nose.

The soldiers were dragging out the café patrons and loading them

into trucks when i climbed through the window of the kitchen and

walked as normally as i could in the opposite direction. When i felt i was a

safe distance away, i started to run. i twisted my ankle in the kitten heels,

so i kicked them off and kept going barefoot, even though it was October

and the soles of my feet were freezing.

i did not stop running, not when i got a stitch in my side or when i had

to scatter a group of little beggar children like pigeons; especially not

when a woman pushing a cart of vegetables grabbed my arm to ask if i

was all right. i ran for a half hour, until i was at my father’s bakery. Basia

was not at the cash register—shopping with Mama, i assumed—but the



bell that hung over the door rang, so that my father would know some-

one had entered.

He came out from the kitchen, his broad face glistening with sweat

from the heat of the brick ovens, his beard dusted with flour. His de-

light at seeing me faded as he noticed my face—makeup streaked with

tears—my bare feet, my hair tumbling out of its pins.

“Minusia,” he cried out. “What happened?”

Yet i, who fancied myself a writer, couldn’t find a single word to de-

scribe not only what i had seen but how everything had changed, as if

the earth had tilted slightly on its axis, ashamed of the sun, so that now

we would have to learn to live in the dark.

With a sob, i threw myself into his arms. i had tried so hard to be a

cosmopolitan woman; as it turned out, all i wanted was to stay a little girl.

But i had grown up in an instant.

if the world hadn’t been turned inside out that afternoon, i would have

been punished. i would have been sent to my room without dinner and

barred from seeing Darija or doing anything but my schoolwork for at

least a week. instead, when my mother heard what had happened, she

held me tightly and would not let me out of her sight.

Before we walked home, my father’s arm tightly anchored around me

and his eyes darting around the street as if he expected a threat to leap

out of an alley at any minute (and why should he think any differently,

after what i had relayed to him?), we went to the office where Josek’s

father worked as an accountant. My father knew his father from shul.

“Chaim,” he said gravely. “We have news.”

He asked me to tell Josek’s father everything—from the time we ar-

rived at the café to the moment i saw a soldier hitting Josek with an iron

rod. i watched the blood drain from his father’s face, saw his eyes fill with

tears. “They took people away in trucks,” i said. “i don’t know where.”

an internal battle played over the older man’s face, as hope struggled

with reason. “You’ll see,” my father said gently. “He’ll come back.”



“Yes.” Chaim nodded as if he needed to convince himself. He looked

up then, as if he was surprised to see us still standing there. “i have to go.

i must tell my wife.”

When Darija came after dinnertime to find out about my date with

Josek, i told my mother to make an excuse and say i wasn’t feeling well.

it was the truth, after all. That date seemed unrecognizable now, so badly

tarnished by the firestorm of events that i couldn’t remember what it

used to look like.

My father, who picked at the food on his plate that night, went out

after the dishes were cleared. i was sitting on my bed, my eyes squeezed

shut, conjugating German verbs. Ich habe Angst. Du hast Angst. Er hat

Angst. Wir haben Angst.

We are afraid. Wir haben Angst.

My mother came into my bedroom and sat down beside me. “Do you

think he’s alive?” i asked, the one question that no one had spoken out

loud.

“ach, Minusia,” my mother said. “That imagination of yours.” But her

hands were shaking, and she hid this by reaching for the brush on my

nightstand. She turned me, gently, so that i was sitting with my back to

her, and she began to brush out my hair in long, sweeping strokes, the

way she used to when i was little.

What we learned, from information that leaked through the community

in tiny staccato bursts, like rapid gunfire, was that the SS had rounded

up 150 people from the astoria that afternoon. They had taken them to

headquarters and had interrogated the men and women individually,

beating them with iron bars, with rubber clubs. They broke arms and

fingers and demanded ransom payments of several hundred marks.

Those who didn’t have the money with them had to give the names of

family members who might. Forty-six people were shot to death by the

SS, fifty were freed after payment, and the rest were taken off to a prison

in Radogoszcz.



Josek had been one of the lucky ones. although i hadn’t seen him

since that afternoon, my father told me he was back home with his fam-

ily. Chaim, who like my father had Christian clients as well as Jews, had

somehow made the arrangements for money to be brought to SS head-

quarters in exchange for his son’s freedom. He told everyone who would

listen that if not for the bravery of Minka Lewin, they might not have had

such a happy ending.

i had been thinking a lot about happy endings. i had been thinking

about what Josek and i were speaking of, moments before Everything

Happened. Of villains, and of heroes. The upiór in my story, was he the

one who terrorized others? Or was he the one being persecuted?

i was sitting on the steps that led to the second floor of the school

building one afternoon while the rest of the students had Religious

Studies. although i was supposed to be crafting an essay, i was writing

my story instead. i had just started a scene where an angry mob beats

at ania’s door. My pencil could not keep up with my thoughts. i could

feel my heart start to pound as i imagined the knock, the splinter of the

wood against the weapons the townspeople had brought for the lynch-

ing. i could feel sweat breaking out along ania’s spine. i could hear their

German accents through the thick cottage door—

But the German accent i heard was actually Herr Bauer’s. He sank

down beside me on the step, our shoulders nearly bumping. My tongue

swelled to four times its normal size; i could not have spoken aloud if my

life depended on it. “Fräulein Lewin,” he said. “i wanted you to hear the

news from me.”

The news? What news?

“Today is my last day here,” he confessed, in German. “i will be going

back to Stuttgart.”

“But . . . why?” i stammered. “We need you here.”

He smiled, that beautiful smile. “My country apparently needs

me, too.”

“Who will teach us?”

He shrugged. “Father Czerniski will take over.”

Father Czerniski was a drunk, and i had no doubt the only German



he knew was the word Lager. But i didn’t need to say this out loud, Herr

Bauer was thinking the same thing. “You will continue to study on your

own,” he insisted fiercely. “You will continue to excel.” Then Herr Bauer

met my gaze, and for the first time in our acquaintance, he spoke Polish

to me. “it has been an honor and a privilege to teach you,” he said.

after he walked downstairs, i ran to the girls’ bathroom and burst into

tears. i cried for Herr Bauer, and for Josek, and for me. i cried because i

would not be able to lose myself daydreaming about Herr Bauer any-

more, which meant more time would be spent in reality. i cried because

when i remembered my first kiss, i felt sick to my stomach. i cried because

my world had become a raging ocean and i was drowning. Even after i

splashed my face with cold water, my eyes were still red and puffy. When

Father Jarmyk asked if i was all right during math, i told him that we had

received sad news the previous night about a cousin in kraków.

These days, no one would question that kind of response.

When i left school that afternoon, headed directly to the bakery as

usual, i thought i was seeing an apparition. Leaning on a lamppost across

the street was Josek Szapiro. i gasped, and ran to him. When i got closer,

i could see the skin around his eyes was yellow and purple, all the jewel

tones of a fading bruise; that he had a healing cut through the middle of

his left eyebrow. i reached up to touch his face, but he caught my hand.

One of his fingers was splinted. “Careful,” he said. “it’s still tender.”

“What did they do to you?”

He pulled my hand down. “not here,” he warned, looking around at

the busy pedestrians.

Still holding my hand, he tugged me away from the school. To anyone

passing by, we might have looked like an ordinary couple. But i knew

from the way Josek was holding on to me—tightly, as if he were drown-

ing in quicksand and needed to be rescued—that this wasn’t the case.

i followed him blindly through a street market, past the fishmonger

and the vegetable cart, into a narrow alley that ran between two build-

ings. When i slipped on cabbage rinds, he anchored me to his side. i could

feel the heat of his arm around me. it felt like hope.

He didn’t stop until we had navigated a rabbit warren of cobbled



pathways, until we were behind the service entrance of a building i did

not even recognize. Whatever Josek wanted to say to me, i hoped that it

didn’t involve leaving me here alone to find my way back.

“i was so worried about you,” he said finally. “i didn’t know if you’d

gotten away.”

“i’m much tougher than i look,” i replied, raising my chin.

“and as it turns out,” Josek said quietly, “i’m not. They beat me, Minka.

They broke my finger to get me to tell them who my father was. i didn’t

want them to know. i thought they would go after him, and hurt him, too.

But instead they took his money.”

“Why?” i asked. “What did you ever do to them?”

Josek looked down at me. “i exist,” he said softly.

i bit my lip. i felt like crying again, but i didn’t want to do it in front of

Josek. “i’m so sorry this happened to you.”

“i came to give you something,” Josek said. “My family leaves for

St. Petersburg next week. My mother has an aunt who lives there.”

“But . . .” i said stupidly, wanting only to unhear the words he had just

spoken. “What about your job?”

“There are newspapers in Russia.” He smiled, just a little bit. “Maybe

one day i will even be reading your upiór story in one.” He reached into

his pocket. “Things are going to get worse here before they get better.

My father, he has business acquaintances. Friends who are willing to do

favors for him. We are traveling to St. Petersburg with Christian papers.”

My eyes flew to his face. if you had Christian papers, you could go

anywhere. You had the so-called proper documents to prove that you

were aryan. This meant a free pass from all restrictions, roundups,

deportations.

if Josek had had those papers a week ago, he would never have been

beaten by the SS. Then again, he would never have been at astoria Café,

either.

“My father wanted to make sure that what happened to me never will

happen again.” Solemnly, Josek unfolded the documents. They were, i

realized, not for a boy his age. They were instead for a teenage girl. “You

saved my life. now it’s my turn to save yours.”



i backed away from the papers, as if they might burst into flame.

“He couldn’t get enough for your whole family,” Josek explained. “But,

Minka . . . you could come with us. We would say you’re my cousin. My

parents will take care of you.”

i shook my head. “How could i become part of your family, knowing i

had left mine behind?”

Josek nodded. “i thought you would say that. But take them. One day,

you may change your mind.”

He pressed the papers into my hand, and closed my fingers around

them. Then he pulled me into his arms. The papers were caught between

our bodies, a wedge to drive us apart, like any other lie. “Be well, Minka,”

Josek said, and he kissed me again. This time, his mouth was angry

against mine, as if he were communicating in a language i hadn’t learned.

an hour later, i was in the steamy belly of my father’s bakery, eating the

roll he made for me every day, with the special twisted crown on the top

and a center of chocolate and cinnamon. at this time of day, we were

alone; his employees came in before dawn to bake and left at midday.

My legs were hooked around the stool where i sat, watching my father

shape loaves. He set them to proof inside the floured folds of a baker’s

couche, patting the round, dimpled rise of each one, supple as a baby’s

bottom. inside my brassiere, the edges of my Christian papers seared my

skin. i imagined getting undressed that night, finding the name of some

goyishe girl tattooed over my breast.

“Josek’s family is leaving,” i announced.

My father’s hands, which were always moving, stilled over the dough.

“When did you see him?”

“Today. after school. He wanted to say good-bye.”

My father nodded and pulled another clot of dough into a small

rectangle.

“are we going to leave town?” i asked.

“if we did, Minusia,” my father said, “who would feed everyone else?”



“it’s more important that we’re safe. Especially with Basia having a

baby.”

My father slammed his hand down on the butcher block, creating a

small storm of flour. “Do you think i cannot keep my own family safe?” he

bellowed. “Do you think that’s not important to me?”

“no, Papa,” i whispered.

He walked around the counter and gripped my shoulders. “Listen

to me,” he said. “Family is everything to me. You are everything to me. i

would tear this bakery down brick by brick with my own hands if it meant

you wouldn’t be harmed.”

i had never seen him like this. My father, who was always so sure of

himself, always ready with a joke to diffuse the most difficult situation,

was barely holding himself together. “Your name, Minka. Short for Wil-

helmina. You know what it means? Chosen protection. i will always choose

to protect you.” He looked at me for a long moment, and then sighed. “i

was going to save these for a Chanukah gift, but i’m thinking maybe now

is the time for a present.”

i sat while he disappeared into the back room where he kept the

records of shipments of grain and salt and butter. He returned with a

burlap sack, its drawstring pulled tight as a spinster’s mouth. “A Freilichen

Chanukah,” he said. “a couple of months early, anyway.”

With impatient hands i yanked at the knots to untie the package. The

burlap pooled around a shiny pair of black boots.

They were new, which was a big deal. But they were nothing fancy,

nothing that would make a girl rhapsodize over their fashionable stitch-

ing or style. “Thank you,” i said, forcing a smile and hugging my father

around the neck.

“These are one of a kind. no one else has a pair like them. You must

promise me to wear these boots at all times. Even when you are sleep-

ing. You understand, Minka?” He took one from my lap and reached for

the knife he used to hack off bits of dough from the massive amoeba

on the counter. inserting the tip into a groove at the heel, he twisted,

and the bottom of the sole snapped off. at first, i could not understand



why he was ruining my new present; then i realized that inside this hid-

den compartment were several gold coins. a fortune.

“no one knows they are in there,” my father said, “except you and me.”

i thought of Josek’s broken hand, of the SS soldiers demanding

money from him. This was my father’s insurance policy.

He showed me how both heels opened, then fitted each back to the

boot and whacked them a few times on the counter. “Good as new,” he

said, and he handed the boots to me again. “and i mean it—i want you

to wear them everywhere. Every day. When it’s cold, when it’s hot. When

you’re going to the market or when you’re going dancing.” He grinned at

me. “Minka, make a note: i want to see you wearing them at my funeral.”

i smiled back, relieved to be settled on familiar ground. “That may be

a little tricky for you, don’t you think?”

He laughed, then, the big belly laugh that i always thought of when i

thought of my father. With my new boots cradled in my lap, i considered

the secret we now shared, and the one we didn’t. i never told my father

about my Christian papers; not then, not ever. Mostly because i knew he

would force me to use them.

as i finished the roll my father had baked just for me, i looked down

at my blue sweater. On my shoulders, there was a dusting of flour that

he had left behind when he grabbed me. i tried to brush it off, but it was

no use. no matter what, i could see the faint handprints, as if i had been

warned by a ghost.

in november, there were changes. My father came home one day with

yellow stars, which we were to wear on our clothing at all times. Łódź, our

town, was being called Litzmannstadt by the German soldiers who over-

ran it. More and more Jewish families were moving into the Old Town, or

Bałuty, some by choice, and some because the authorities had decided

that the apartments and houses they had owned or rented for years

should now be reserved for ethnic Germans. There were streets in town


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206 jodi picoult - cloud object storage | store & …€œyou’re something else, minka...

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