Mila 18 - Leon Uris

A stream of miserable dazed human beings filled the street from the northern terminal for several blocks south. Iron wheels on the cobblestones set up a din. Some of the wealthier of the new arrivals had their belongings on horse-drawn wagons. Others had their goods piled high on bicycle-driven porter carts, still others on hand push-carts. Most carried their possessions wrapped up in a single blanket slung over their backs.

Hawkers tried to sell them armbands, pots, pans, books—anything. Self-Help workers were trying to organize the chaos.

“Where are they from?” Andrei asked another onlooker.

“Belgium.”

No matter how many times Andrei saw it, the sight disgusted him. Anger churned him into a hot flush. He abruptly turned away from the direction of Mila 19 and walked quickly to Leszno 92, the headquarters of Simon Eden.

Leszno 92 had a line of refugees outside it that ran for a block. Volunteers were aiding in registration and working the soup kitchen for the new arrivals. He walked past the line. They became a blur of faces.

He entered the main room and was recognized immediately.

“I want to see Simon,” he whispered to one of the girls behind the counter.

Because Simon Eden was the most powerful Zionist in Warsaw, he lived in semi-seclusion in the attic. Three buzzes would let him know a friend was coming up. A different signal would send him to the safety of the rooftops for hiding.

Andrei climbed the ladder into the attic. Simon pulled him up the last step. They slapped each other on the back and went into his small garret quarters. It was wilting from the midday heat which had come through the roof and settled in the airless room. Andrei opened his shirt and took off his hat. Simon smiled as he saw that Andrei was still wearing his boots in symbolic defiance of the enemy.

Simon opened and closed a half dozen desk drawers until he discovered a half-filled bottle of vodka. He took a swig and passed it to Andrei.

“How was the trip?”

Andrei shrugged. “Good and bad.”

“Did you see any of my people?”

“Krakow. The underground press is getting important. At least it keeps the people aware of German motives.”

“What about the ghetto in Lodz?”

“I don’t know if we can set up Self-Help houses there. This bastard Chaim Rumkowski is acting like a mad emperor. He walks around with a pair of German guards.”

Simon grunted. Andrei relayed the rest of the events, city by city, and a pall of gloom as thick as the heat settled on them. Simon needed no expert to disseminate the news. His dark rugged features strained with the words of a uniformly worsening situation.

“What does Alex have to say about all this?”

“I haven’t seen Alex yet,” Andrei answered. “I came straight here from the terminal.”

Simon looked at him curiously.

“What’s on your mind, Andrei?”

“You were an officer in the army, Simon. We’ve been friends since I can remember. Out of everyone in this whole business, you and I think the most alike. When all this started I wanted to cross the border and get arms. Alex talked me out of it. I’ve gone along with everything, but ... after this last trip ... Simon, we’ve got to start hitting back.”

Simon took another nip of vodka from the bottle and scratched his unshaven jaw. “Not a day passes by that my stomach doesn’t turn over. It is all I can do to keep from exploding.”

“If I go to Alex he’ll talk me out of starting a resistance movement. He can talk a leopard out of his spots. But if you and I went to him—you, speaking for Federated Zionists—and issued him an ultimatum, he’d have to start giving us some of the funds from American Aid to buy arms. We’ve got to do it now. Thompson is afraid the Germans are watching him. If they send him out of Poland, one of our chief sources to get dollars in is gone.”

Simon Eden wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and walked to the tiny window which looked straight down for six stories. Hundreds of impoverished refugees lined up before Leszno 92 for a bowl of soup and a Kennkarte which would give them the “privilege” of joining slave labor.

“What about them down there?” Simon asked. “We are all they have.”

“How long can you get slapped in the face without raising your hand!”

Simon spun around from the window. “What the hell can we do!”

“Kill the bastards! Make life hell for them!”

“Andrei! Denmark, Norway, Poland, France, Belgium, Holland! Will they give in to us? Twenty, thirty, a hundred to one in reprisal for every one we kill, and they’ll murder women and babies and old men. Can you take that responsibility?”

“You’re a damned fool, Simon, and Alex is a damned fool. Do you really think they will stop with ghettos and slave labor? They mean to wipe us off the face of the earth.”

The two giants glared at each other, portraits of anger and frustration. Simon shook his head.

“One of these days we will be at the twelfth hour, and by God you’ll know then there is no way but to fight our way out,” Andrei said.

Andrei left Simon Eden in a huff. He did not go to Mila 19 to see Alexander. There would be hours of reports and bickering. Alterman and Susan and Rosy would listen to his monotonous repetitions of the fear of new ghettos, the continued murder of intellectuals, the slave-labor camps, the unbelievable abuses. And they would try to put up a new Self-Help house in Bialystok or Lemberg. They would try to print a one-page paper. They would put up a few bags of sand to hold back a rising, rampaging river.

Andrei walked fast for Gabriela’s flat, trying to shut out the sight and the sound of the agony around him. Many people were becoming anonymous in Warsaw these days. Gabriela was one of them. It was an unwritten code that if you ignored a friend who recognized you in a public place it was understood.

Gabriela had moved from her flat to a smaller one on Shucha Street. Through Tommy Thompson she sent messages to her mother and sister that it would be dangerous for her if they were to communicate with her. She stopped her allowance from coming into Poland and took an inconspicuous job as a tutor in French and English in the small, exclusive school in the Ursuline Convent.

Andrei stopped before her flat on Shucha Street Across the street stood Gestapo House. It was ironic, but he thought Gaby’s flat was probably in the safest place in Warsaw. It was early. She would not be home yet. He dashed off a note and put it in her mailbox so she would not be startled.

Andrei threw off his cap and flopped into a big armchair and fought with himself to relax the burning pains of tension in his chest. It had been a terrible trip. He did not realize until this moment that he had not slept more than a few hours in three days. His eyes closed and he rolled his face into the sun’s rays to catch its warmth, and he dozed quickly.

... The sound of footsteps brought him sharply awake. Gaby had read his note. She was running up the steps. The door to the flat flung open and closed quickly, and she set down her parcels of food and looked for him in the evening shadows. She curled up on his lap and lay her head on his chest, and they clung to each other with no sound except for her deep sighs of relief and no movement except for her trembling.

She looked at him. His face was so drawn and tired. Day by day she watched the energy being sapped from him. After each trip he was drained. He was eating himself away inside.

Now, at this moment, she could transfuse life back into him. Andrei smiled with pleasure at the feel of her fingertips tracing the lines of his face and her lips brushing his eyes and ears and neck.

“It was very bad this time,” he said. “I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”