Tilting the Balance

Noises woke Rivka first, then Moishe. Reuven snored on, even when his parents sat up. Noises in the cellar of the block of flats that concealed the bunker were always frightening. At times, Jewish fighters whom Mordechai Anielewicz led came down with fresh supplies for the Russies, but Moishe always wondered if the next appearance would be the one that brought the knock on the plasterboard panel hiding the doorway.

Rap, rap, rap! The sharp sound echoed through the bunker. Russie started violently. Beside him, Rivka’s lips pulled back from her teeth, her eyes widened, and the skin all over her face tightened down onto the bones in a mask of fear. Rap, rap, rap!

Russie had vowed he wouldn’t go easily. Moving as quiet as he could, he slid out of bed, grabbed a long kitchen knife, and blew out the last lamp, plunging the bunker into darkness blacker than any above-ground midnight.

Rap, rap, rap! Shoving and scraping noises as the plasterboard panel was dislodged and pushed aside. The bunker door itself was barred from the inside. Moishe knew it wouldn’t hold against anyone determined to break it down. He raised the knife high. The first one who came through-Jewish traitor or Lizard-would take as much steel as he could give. That much he promised himself.

But instead of booted feet pounding on the door or a battering ram crashing against it, an urgent Yiddish voice called, “We know you’re in there, Reb Moishe. Open this verkakte door, will you? We have to get you away before the Lizards come.”

A trick? A trap? Automatically, Moishe looked toward Rivka. The darkness he’d made himself stymied him. “What to do?” he called softly.

“Open the door,” she answered.

“But-”

“Open the door,” Rivka repeated. “Nobody in the company of the Lizards would have sworn at it that way.”

It seemed a slim reed to snatch. If it broke, it would pierce more than his hand. But how could he hold the invaders at bay? All at once, he realized they didn’t have to come in after him. Suppose they just stood back and sprayed the bunker with machinegun bullets… or started a fire and let him and his wife and child roast? He let the kitchen knife clatter to the floor, fumbled blindly for the bar, lifted it out of its rest, and pushed the door open.

One of the two Jews in the cellar carried an oil-burning lantern and a pistol. The lantern wasn’t very bright, but dazzled Moishe anyhow. The fighter said, “Took you long enough. Come on. You have to hurry. Some mamzer talked where he shouldn’t, and the Lizards’ll be here soon.”

Belief took root in Russie. “Get Reuven,” he called to his wife.

“I have him,” she answered. “He’s not quite awake, but he’ll come-won’t you, dear?”

“Come where?” Reuven asked blurrily.

“Out of the bunker,” Rivka said, that being all she knew. It was plenty to galvanize the boy. He let out a wild whoop and bounded out of bed. “Wait!” Rivka exclaimed. “You need your shoes. In fact, we all need our shoes. We were asleep.”

“At half past eight in the morning?” the Jew with the lantern said. “I wish I was.” After a moment, though, he added, “Not down here, though, I have to admit.”

Moishe had forgotten he wore only socks. As he pulled on shoes and tied the laces, he asked, “Do we have time to take anything with us?” The books on a high shelf had become more like siblings than friends.

But the other Jew impatiently waiting outside, the one with a German Mauser slung on his back, shook his head and answered, “Reb Moishe, if you don’t get moving, you won’t have time to take yourself.”

Even the low-ceilinged cellar seemed spacious to Moishe. He started to pant on his way up the stairs; he’d had no exercise at all in the bunker. The gray, leaden light at the top of the stairwell made him blink and set his eyes to watering. After so long with candles and oil lamps, even a distant hint of daylight was overwhelming.

Then he walked out onto the street. Thick clouds hid the sun. Dirty, slushy snow lay in the gutters. The air was hardly less thick and smoky than it had been in his underground hideaway. All the same, he wanted to throw his arms wide and dance like a Chasid to let loose his delight. Reuven did caper, coltlike; with a child’s compressed grasp of time, he must have felt he’d been entombed forever. Rivka walked steadily beside him, but her pale face was alight with joy and wonder, too.

Pale-Moishe looked down at his own hands. Beneath dirt, they were white and transparent as skimmed milk. His wife and son were just as pale. Everyone grew pallid through a Polish winter; but if he and his family lost any more color, they’d disappear.

“What’s the date?” he asked, wondering how long he’d been cooped up in the bunker.

“Twenty-second of February,” the Jew with the lantern answered. “A month till spring.” He snorted. Spring seemed more likely a year away than mere weeks.