Lilac Girls Read online

  Paul bowed a little bow in Mother’s direction, so formal with her. “If you ladies will excuse me, I must be going.” He smiled at me and exited the way he came. So soon?

  “Good job, Mother, alienating our one guest.”

  “The French can be so sensitive.”

  “You can’t expect people to stay here. New Yorkers would rather die than eat tvorog, and it does help to offer alcohol, you know.”

  “Next time we’ll sell weenies and beans. If it were up to you, we’d all be out at a bump supper, a jug of corn whiskey on the table.”

  I turned my attention to hanging Mother’s pine garlands above the doorways, assisted by a sulky Pia. As we worked I mentally addressed the long list of things I was behind on. Reports for Roger. My comfort packages. Why was Mother so stubborn? She had to adapt to the twentieth century. I felt someone’s gaze on me and turned to see one of the more elderly members of the orchestra, balalaika in hand, wink at me.

  An hour later even Mother conceded defeat. Our only potential customers had been Plaza guests, a couple from Chicago who’d wandered in by mistake and left quickly, as if they’d happened upon a nudist colony.

  “Well, this was a bust,” Mother said.

  I pulled a garland down from the wall.

  “I told you—”

  I didn’t finish the sentence, for such a clatter grew in the hallway outside the ballroom we could scarcely hear each other. The doors were flung wide, and a crowd streamed in—every sort of person you can imagine, from up and down the social ladder, all heavily rouged and dressed in 1920s French attire. Women in low-belted sweater sets, their hair finger-waved. Some wore dropped waist dresses and Louise Brooks bobs. Gorgeous creatures in satin tea gowns embroidered with beads and rhinestones, their hair Eton cropped and slick à la Josephine Baker. The men wore vintage suits and bowler hats. A slew of black-tuxedoed musicians brought up the rear, violins and saxophones in hand. Mother looked ready to shoot through the roof with happiness as she waved the musicians over to join the orchestra.

  “We have khachapuri, everyone,” she announced. “Leave your coats with dear Pia.”

  In the wake of it all, Paul strode in.

  “My goodness, what’s all this?” Paul said, squeezing past two women carrying a drum set, cloche hats pulled down over their eyes. I recognized them, of course.

  “I think you know, Paul. How did you get the whole show here?”

  “You know theater people. They were already dressed for a party. Carmen has a migraine, so no matinee today. We’re free until curtain call at six.”

  The Streets of Paris pit band mixed well with Mother’s Russian orchestra friends and found “Love Is Here to Stay” their musical bridge across the nations. Once the dancers recognized the song, they took to the dance floor, women foxtrotting and swing dancing with women, men with men.

  Mother rushed to us, straightening her headdress as she walked.

  “It’s a nice-looking group, isn’t it? I knew we’d eventually draw a crowd.”

  “Mother, Paul did all this. They’re from his show. The whole cast.”

  Mother blinked, momentarily nonplussed, and then turned to Paul. “Well, the American Central Committee for Russian Relief thanks you, Mr. Rodierre.”

  “Is there any way those thanks might include a dance? I’ve never danced to Gershwin played on balalaika.”

  “Well, we mustn’t deprive you of the opportunity,” Mother said.

  Once word leaked that the famous Paul Rodierre was at the thé dansant, the whole hotel came by, and Serge had to replenish the tvorog three times. Soon I managed to lose my headdress, and everyone was having a grand time, including Mother’s orchestra friends, who’d brought some Russian vodka to liven up the iced tea.

  By the time Paul left, his pockets were pregnant with Russian cigarettes pressed upon him by Mother, and the donation bowl for the American Central Committee for Russian Relief was overflowing.

  Mother stopped near me to catch her breath between dances. “Feel free to collect as many French friends as you like, darling. I do miss theater people, don’t you, dear? Such a refreshing change of pace.”

  Paul waved goodbye to me as he left, a job well done, off to deliver the cast back to the theater for curtain call. His kindness could not have found a more grateful object than Mother. She hadn’t danced like that since Father died. How could I not be immensely thankful to him?

  Betty was right. He really was my best friend.

  1939

  Matka screamed as the SS man brought the shovel down on Psina. After one dreadful squawk she lay quiet, the only sound the scratching of her still-running feet against the hard ground. A few butterscotch feathers hammocked in the air.

  “That’s how we did it back home,” said the SS man. He threw down the shovel, picked poor Psina up by her limp neck, and tossed her to the skinny guard. I tried not to look at her legs, still scratching at the air.

  “I’ll let this go,” the SS man said to Matka. He wiped his hands on a handkerchief. “But remember, withholding food from the Reich is a serious offense. You’re lucky to get a warning.”

  “Of course,” Matka said, one hand on her throat.

  “Psina,” I blurted out. Hot tears burned my eyes.

  “Listen,” said the skinny guard, holding Psina upside down, avoiding her talons. “ ‘Psina’ means ‘doggie’ in Polish. They call a chicken a dog. Stupid Poles.”

  The men took Psina and stomped out, tracking soil on our floors.

  My whole body trembled. “You let them kill her, Matka.”

  “Would you rather die for a chicken?” Matka said, but she had tears in her eyes, too.

  We hurried to the kitchen and watched through the front window as the men left in their truck. Thank God my sister had not seen all that.

  Zuzanna returned the next day, having spent the night at the hospital. Her mentor and hospital director Dr. Skala, famous for his cleft palate repair work, had been arrested, and she’d been ordered to leave the ward and told Poles were unfit to hold important positions. I’d never seen her so shaken, wild and angry at having been forced to leave her patients, who were mostly children. Later we learned that as far back as 1936 Nazis had been putting lists together of Poles they suspected of being anti-German and even marking targets like hospitals with giant X’s that their pilots could see from the air. No wonder it was so easy for them to take those they wanted.

  Papa returned as well after three days of interrogation by the Gestapo. He’d not been beaten, but he was ordered to work early each morning and spent long hours at the postal center. We were relieved he was alive, but he told us how hard it was to watch the Nazis open packages and letters from the post boxes of Polish citizens and just take what they wanted. They scattered sawdust on the floor after hours to make sure he and his staff did not visit the postal center at night when it was unattended.

  Soon it seemed every Nazi in Germany rolled in. Our German neighbors went to the streets and hailed the arrivals with salutes and flowers while we stayed inside. Russian troops stayed east of us, advancing only as far as the Bug River.

  After that, we were like flies stuck in honey, alive but not really living. We were lucky the Nazis reassigned Zuzanna to the Lublin Ambulance Corps, since they rounded up all the other doctors at the hospital, male and female, and took them away. They issued her papers complete with her photo and stamped with a dozen black Nazi eagles. These papers allowed her to be out at any time, even after curfew. Every morning that we woke up in our own beds we were grateful. So many of our Polish friends disappeared in the night with no explanation.

  One day to keep warm I sat on my bed wrapped in a quilt and took a quiz in an old Photoplay magazine, my favorite indoor sport. A student in Pietrik’s clandestine economics class had paid him in American magazines and I memorized every word in them. The quiz said you would feel a click like the sound of a compact closing if you were in love, and I felt that click every time I saw Pietrik. Our intere
sts matched perfectly (a rare thing according to the quiz).

  Pietrik stopped by that day. It was good to see him. I didn’t care what we talked about. I just wanted to keep him there any way I could.

  “How long can you stay?”

  I cut a picture of Carole Lombard from the magazine. She was surrounded by white poinsettias, somewhere in Los Angeles. It was hard to remain casual when I could feel the compact going click.

  Pietrik came and sat near me on the bed. The springs sagged under his weight.

  “Not long. I came to ask a favor. It’s about Nadia.” He looked tired and had not shaved in days. “She had to go away for a while.”

  “What happened?” I said, suddenly cold all over.

  “I can’t say.”

  “But—”

  “It’s not safe for you to know. But trust me, people are working to change things.”

  It was obvious to me he was working with the underground. Though he didn’t say as much, he must have been among the first to join after the Nazis invaded. I had noticed mysterious late-night meetings. Day-long absences with no explanation. He didn’t wear the big black boots some boys in the underground did, making them sitting ducks for the Germans, but he was in deep.

  I hoped it was not so obvious to the SS. Most of us boycotted German orders and sabotaged what we could, but the Home Army, the Armia Krajowa or AK, was serious. Though at the beginning it was not yet officially called AK, it represented the Polish government-in-exile in London. Our exiled government broadcast warnings to us through the BBC and the Polish radio station Swit and all of Lublin’s seventeen underground newspapers.

  “If you want to help, you can do me a big favor, Kasia.”

  “Anything.”

  “When Nadia and her mother left, they had to leave Felka behind. The Nazis are doing terrible things to the cats and dogs owned by Jews. Can you go and get her?”

  “Where is Nadia? Can I see her?”

  I didn’t care anymore if she and Pietrik were in love. I just wanted them both to be safe.

  “I can only tell you the Nazis almost arrested them, and they escaped just in time.”

  “For being Jewish? She’s Catholic.”

  “Yes, but her grandfather was Jewish, so that puts her at risk. Nadia has to stay away for a while. She’ll be fine, but right now Felka’s not.” He held my arm. “Will you help? Bring her here?”

  “Of course.”

  “Also, Nadia’s mother left something in her nightstand, and she needs to put it in a safe place. A yellow envelope tucked inside the phone book.”

  “I don’t know, Pietrik. Nadia’s mother always locks up.”

  “The back door is open. You need to take that phone book with the envelope inside it. I hate to involve you because you’re precious to me, but I have no one else.”

  Were those tears in his eyes?

  “Yes, you know I’ll help.”

  I was precious to him? He took my hand, turned it over, and kissed my palm. I thought I might melt right there, through the floorboards and into the basement. For a moment, I forgot all the bad things going on.

  “Bring the phone book with the envelope to 12 Lipowa Street tomorrow morning just after ten. Ring the bell. Someone will ask you who it is. You say, ‘Iwona.’ ”

  “Is that my code name?” Iwona meant yew tree. I wanted a sexier code name like Grazyna, which means beautiful.

  “Yes, that’s your code name. Wiola will buzz you in. Just give her the book, and tell her it’s for Konrad Zegota. Then leave as you came, and cut through Park Ludowy before you head home.”

  Later, when I replayed the scene in my head, I wasn’t sure if he’d really said, “You’re precious to me.” But maybe the Photoplay love quiz was right after all.

  —

  THE NEXT MORNING I departed for Nadia’s house, a fine apartment on the first floor of a two-story building, a five-minute walk from our place. I wanted to do a good job on my first mission for Pietrik.

  On the way I stopped at the stone wall next to her house where we left secret notes and our favorite books for each other. I pulled our special square stone out, smooth, edges rounded from so many years of ins and outs. The last book I’d left was still there, Kornel Makuszynski’s Satan from the Seventh Grade, our favorite book we’d passed back and forth so many times. Would she have a chance to take it? I left it and slid the stone back in place.

  I continued on without the least bit of nerves, until I came to Nadia’s house, that is. Once I saw her orange door, my knees became quaky. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

  I stepped around back to the little fenced-in yard, peeked through the slats, and saw Felka curled up on the back step. I could clearly see her ribs, even through her thick fur. Nadia’s yard was even smaller than ours, a sickly rosebush and a rusted child’s wagon the only ornaments.

  I had a time of it getting over the fence and then walked slowly to Felka. Was she waiting for Nadia? I stroked her chest, and at my touch she tried to wag her tail, though she could barely lift her head. She was warm, but her breath was coming in shallow pants. Poor girl was starving.

  I stepped over Felka, swung the back door open, and crept into the kitchen.

  From the looks of the apple kugel on the table, it had been at least a week since Nadia and her mother left. The milk in their glasses was thick, and the flies had found the plums. I walked through the kitchen to Nadia’s bedroom. Her bed was made, as always.

  I stole through the rest of the house and into Nadia’s mother’s bedroom. In this room there was little sign of departure, hasty or otherwise. A white-painted iron bed, covered in a down duvet, took up most of the room, and a crocheted blanket lay at the foot. There was a depression in the down where a suitcase had been, and a Polish copy of Gone with the Wind waited on the bedside table. Two tapestries showing country scenes, a small crucifix, and a calendar hung on the wall. The calendar showed a smart-looking woman standing in front of a locomotive, a bunch of yellow flowers in her arms, with GERMANY WANTS TO SEE YOU printed across the top. It also featured the name of Mrs. Watroba’s travel agency: WATROBA TRAVEL. LET US TAKE YOU THERE.

  I opened the bedside table drawer, found the phone book, and paged through it to find the fat envelope. It was sealed, with the word Zegota written on the front in a spidery hand, the color of money faintly visible through the paper. I took the book, pulled the blanket from the foot of the bed, and retraced my steps back through the kitchen, where I grabbed a loaf of shiny, braided egg bread from the table. It was rock hard, but any bread was precious.

  I reached the backyard and struggled Felka into the wagon. She barely made a peep, poor girl. I set the phone book next to her, smoothed the blanket over it all, and trundled off toward Lipowa Street, taking side streets to avoid Nazi guards. When we were almost there, we picked up speed, and the wagon bounced over the cobblestones.

  “What have we here?”

  An SS brownshirt stepped out of an alley and startled me no end. I saw a girl from my gimnazjum class standing behind him, but she retreated into the shadows. I almost fell over, my knees jellied so.

  “Just heading home,” I said in German. Thank goodness I knew German, since all conversation in the Polish language had been banned.

  “Ah, German, are we?” He lifted the blanket with his nightstick.

  “No, Polish.”

  The officer ignored me and walked around for a closer look at the wagon.

  “What is this? A dead dog?”

  I could barely hear him. My heart was thumping so loud in my ears. “Just sick. I hope it’s not catching.”

  The guard dropped the blanket. “Move along,” he said. “Get that sick animal home.” He disappeared back into the alley.

  By the time I arrived at the office on Lipowa Street, I was soaked through with sweat. It was a busy road. I left Felka covered in the wagon and walked up the steps, legs shaking like the aspic on Matka’s gaster carp. I was finally, officially a spy. At just sixteen years o
ld, an enemy of the Nazis. There was such power in that! I stood a bit taller and rang the bell. What was the code name of the one who would accept the package?

  Wiola.

  “Who is it?” came a voice from inside.

  “It is Iwona,” I said.

  I looked back at the street, cars and horse-drawn wagons driving on their way, people on the sidewalks. Hurry, Wiola. I could be spotted by the SS there with my telephone book for all the world to see.

  The door buzzed, I entered and closed the door behind me.

  I recognized the girl with the code name Wiola, Janina Grabowski, from my former Girl Guide troop. She held all ten fingers splayed, each tipped with wet ruby lacquer.

  “Sorry I didn’t answer the door straightaway,” she said.

  I held out the telephone book. “Wiola, this is for Konrad Zegota.”

  Janina was a good sort, with hair dyed flame red and a farm-girl build, but not my first choice for a partner when risking my life. She didn’t have one serious Girl Guide proficiency badge in first aid or orienteering, and everyone knew she’d gotten her art badge for doing makeup.

  Janina took the book between her palms.

  “Thank you, Iwona.”

  The office was in a converted apartment building with tall windows that overlooked the street, covered only with transparent white drapes. It was furnished with one metal desk, an old typewriter atop it; two easy chairs; and a dusty table scattered with outdated Polish fashion magazines. Someone had placed a glass bowl on the table, inside it one goldfish. The goldfish, suspended in place with his fins beating, stared at me, mouth agape in a surprised O. Even he could tell this office was a fake.

  Janina flopped the telephone book onto the desk. A smile teased at her face until she burst out with a loud laugh.

  “You can’t expect me to keep a straight face, Kasia. Iwona. This is all so funny.”

  The name Pietrik had given her, Wiola, meant violet flower, not a fitting name for her, since she was a tall girl with wrists thick as table legs.

  “Keep your voice down. Who knows who’s nearby watching?”