Affinity Konar - Mischling

We arrived in Krakow and wandered through the city; we went from house to house. Here and there you’d see a sudden flutter of curtains — you could see fingers appear at the edge of the lace, and it was as if every adult had turned into a child in a game of hide-and-seek. Many did not want to look at us at all. Like the girl I saw — she was sitting before a wall papered with flowers and she was reading a book. I wanted to read a book someday. I wanted to read one that would tell me who I had been before my cage.

And on that someday, I wanted Miri beside me as I read. But since she’d spent the ride to Krakow begging for forgiveness beneath her breath, I began to wonder if her sadness might thwart the future I’d envisioned for us.

“It is not as bad as it could be” was Twins’ Father’s assessment of Krakow. He looked to Miri as if expecting agreement. None came. Her lips remained set with a silent dismay as we walked along the strings of houses and experienced a series of closed doors. Through the streets, we saw women chased by Russian soldiers, saw them taken into alleys, pressed into walls. We did not see them emerge. We saw beggars approach us for food and curse us when we said we had none. Most notably, we saw a man watching us from a bench outside a clock shop. He sat with a little book to write in and the day’s newspaper, drinking coffee and listening to a woman whose distraught gestures made her appear as if she was petitioning for help. She was not the only one. There was a line of widows and refugees and townspeople, six or so, all waiting to speak to this figure. But when he saw the tattered assembly of us, he leaped up from his chair and dashed to Twins’ Father’s side to ask after our origins.

He was young, this man, but his face was old, windburned, and battered, as if he’d lived his whole life outdoors, hunting and hiding. In him, there was the presence of a soldier, but a soldier far different than Twins’ Father. In his gaze, there was protective instinct — it was as if we had become his family simply by entering his city. Later, we would learn that he was deeply involved with the Bricha, the underground movement that helped Jews flee to other, safer lands. But at that moment, we knew only that this man named Jakub was determined for us to take shelter in the abandoned house adjacent to his own, a structure with boarded windows whose gray dreariness reminded one of a rotten tooth.

“I know its owners will not return,” he insisted. Twins’ Father hesitated at the door, noting the blank space where the mezuzah should have been, the paint there so bright and unfaded, but Jakub said, Don’t be foolish, and he flung the door wide so that we had no choice but to enter.

So we had an abandoned house to sleep in and it had all four walls and a roof that leaked. Everywhere we looked, we saw the flight of the former inhabitants. The bookshelves were upended, and a woman’s nightgown sat in a pale blue puddle in the sink. A trio of bricks had been pulled from the wall, revealing a secret compartment. A sheet of paper sat at the kitchen table alongside a pen, but only a salutation adorned it.

After we had gratefully surveyed the interior, dinner was announced, and Twins’ Father doled out beets from a lone, mammoth jar in the pantry. We passed the beets around, each taking a bite, our hands pinked, our mouths encircled by their pickled blush. Miri alone refused. Outside, snowfall resumed, but for once, this seemed a celebratory frost. As we ate and passed around a single cup of water, the children made note of more absences.

“No Ox,” they toasted. “No rats, no blocks, no gates, no needles!”

It was my turn. After the silence of my cage, I would never truly be comfortable with speech, but in that moment, the words found me. I don’t know how they found me, but they were my zayde ’s, and when they occurred to me, they fell as bright and easy as snowfall.

To the return of Someone! I toasted.

Miri raised her glass to me, but the smile that accompanied this gesture was wan and unconvincing. I wondered if she feared abandonment. Was she worried that when I found Someone, I would have no need of her?

I slept in fits and starts, always waking to the question of Miri’s sadness. And whenever I woke, I saw that she hadn’t retired at all; she sat in her chair, hands folded, utterly still. Seeing this, I realized that it was not Miri who had to fear abandonment, but myself.

Morning altered our borrowed house and drew my attention to a cage in the corner of the room. Its little wire door was open, hanging listlessly from a single hinge. The emptiness of that cage, the thought of the bird’s flight, even if it escaped only to founder — it put a dream of motion in me. I wanted a pair of crutches. To move on my own, uncarried, toward the future I believed possible.

I told Miri about this fantasy as she thrust on her coat and readied to step out into the city. She warned me of the scarcity of crutches but said that she would inquire at the hospital. Already, she was embedded in new duties in Krakow, as was Twins’ Father. He held a hushed meeting with Jakub at the kitchen table, one I strained to overhear while the other children ran up and down the stairs and romped in the rooms above.

Sometimes, it is fortunate to be a cripple. By not playing with the others, I learned our fate. Feigning interest in the birdcage, I spied as Twins’ Father explained his sorrows.

Twins’ Father was concerned about a woman. He said that she had witnessed the unimaginable, she had saved all she could, and now — she could not emerge from this unaltered, fully alive. He knew this because it was true for himself too.

Jakub paused before answering, thoughtful, as if he knew this matter too well. The burden saved you, he finally said, until you had a moment to examine it, to feel, for once, its full weight.

I think Twins’ Father agreed. But his voice was too small for me to hear.

Jakub assured Twins’ Father that the only thing greater than his devotion was the needs of the children. And then he gave a recommendation, one that put the identities of all in this conversation into sudden relief: The twins, he said hesitantly, should be put into the custody of the Red Cross. Only then could they flourish and the adults recover.

She will never leave them, Twins’ Father replied, his voice hollowed by dread. I knew he spoke for himself too. Jakub urged him to reconsider. Thirty-four children, he said, all of them on the edge of one suffering or another. Jakub vowed to look in on us in Krakow and to send word to our guardians. They won’t be forgotten, he swore.

But Miri, I thought. She is the forgotten one. Without us, she would not continue. Had no one seen the change in her since we’d lessened from thirty-five to thirty-four?

If this separation were to come to pass, I thought, I would remember Miri. First, I would save myself with a pair of crutches. Then I would save her from her sadness.

I did not tell the others what I’d heard. The children had enough concerns. Already, they had an obligation to experience freedom. This was not as simple as one might think. Fresh from our journey, we still had leagues of hesitations, stores of panic. Even a pleasant laugh floating down from a window was enough to make us startle. But we were determined to make something of our first days in Krakow, so we spent the afternoon riding the trolley, flashing our numbers at the conductor for free rides. The townspeople were charmed by us — never before had they seen so many children who matched. Peter and Sophia and me, we were the lone strays.

Peter carted my wheelbarrow on and off the trolley, onto street corners and into shops, so we could inquire after crutches together. He swore he’d find a pair, and as we searched, I tried to tell him that it was Miri who truly needed help, because we would soon be leaving her. But I could not find the words to say this. Soon enough, I realized I didn’t need to.