Death in Twilight (2 page)

It would be best if the Germans didn’t find out that Berson was dead until his murder was solved. But how could he delay the news from getting to the Germans? If people were willing to give each other up for potato peelings, what would stop them from delivering a whole potato’s worth of information?

Even if no one talked, police roll calls were held every day and the attendance report was handed to the Germans. There were only so many times a man could be marked down as sick before the Germans would get curious. If Berson was reported dead — from “natural” causes, of course — the Germans might ask to see the body.

Stare as he might, Shemtov couldn’t think of a way to pull off the necessary miracles. More than that, he had no idea how to handle a murder investigation.

And that was his best quality, according to everyone he’d ever worked for: he knew what he didn’t know.

Shemtov nodded to himself. It was time to gift-wrap the problem for someone higher up.

But first things first. Shemtov called to Finkelstein, who hadn’t gone very far in his timid attempt to find witnesses who would speak to him.

“Put your coat over him,” Shemtov ordered, pointing to Berson’s body.

The air was frigid and Finkelstein looked at Shemtov as if he were the devil before doing what he was told.

“Well, at least the coat gives him a bit of dignity,” a shivering Finkelstein said, though what he really meant was “Fuck him. Give me my coat back.”

“I’m not worried about his dignity,” Shemtov said. “We need to get him out of sight. Now. So, lift!”

Berson was light, but they had little strength to spare. Just picking up the body left them both winded.

“We won’t be able to carry him far,” Shemtov said, looking around.

“There’s a cellar nearby, buried in some rubble,” Finkelstein said. “My cousin used to live in the building above it before it was hit by a bomb.”

Curtains twitched behind windows as the men carried their burden one block, then two. The street they turned down had been shelled during the initial German assault on the city. Several buildings had collapsed. One still had a rough staircase that led down to a basement formed from concrete. Finkelstein nodded toward it and the two men shambled over.

Climbing down into the basement with the body was nearly impossible. Both men were exhausted from the walk. Finkelstein, facing forward and holding Berson’s feet, was the first down the stairs. He tripped twice, but didn’t quite fall into the shallow darkness.

The space below was filled with shattered odds and ends of the former life above. Cracked china crunched underfoot; a child’s jacks threatened to bring them down hard on their knees; everything was coated in coal dust. An unpleasant place to spend eternity, but Shemtov figured Berson was beyond caring. He found a little ledge, mostly by feel, put down his end of the body and ordered Finkelstein to do the same with his.

He then fumbled to remove Berson’s symbols of office in the hope that anyone finding the body wouldn’t think there was anything unique about it. Shemtov hid the uniform cap in his layers of clothing, while he concealed the telltale armband in a pocket.

Finkelstein took his jacket back from Berson and his teeth chattered as he put it back on. Shemtov leaned over and used a palm to shut Berson’s eyes, but they were frozen open.

The men then bowed their heads and spoke the words no one on the street had been willing to, the Kaddish.

Finkelstein’s teeth were still chattering. He’d been without a coat far too long. He looked longingly at the corpse’s clothes. He and Berson were the same size — small to the point of petite. Another layer or two would be a wonderful luxury, possibly even a lifesaver.

“Do you think it would be okay if I took his coat?” Finkelstein asked. “He doesn’t need it now. He can’t get much colder.”

Shemtov’s face filled with disgust. It was bad enough to bury a comrade under a pile of rubble in an open cellar, but to leave him in his underwear? That was obscene.

“How warm are you going to feel, knowing where you got the clothes?” he asked.

“Warmer than I do now,” Finkelstein said, unable to take his eyes off the stretch of wool in front of him.

“You’re disgusting,” Shemtov said, and headed for the staircase.

Tradition, propriety and sneering were no match for grim necessity — at least in Finkelstein’s mind. The living must take precedence over the dead. Even the rabbis agreed on that. Fuck Shemtov and his judgment, his squeamishness. Finkelstein began his grim work.

When he touched Berson’s skin, he shivered more deeply than he had walking around without his coat. But he kept on, awkwardly pulling on sleeves, forcing the body to sit up with its frozen, bloody head lolling to the side. Finkelstein, a lifelong nebbish, had transformed into an eager ghoul.

He came away from the “grave” luxuriating in his new coat. The pants were too pocked by holes and covered in nameless grime for even Finkelstein to swipe, so Berson kept them, along with his underwear and soiled shirt.

Reunited on the street, the little patrol turned toward headquarters, hoping for warm water they could pretend was tea and instructions on how to proceed.

As they walked, Finkelstein burrowed deep into his new clothes with what Shemtov thought was unseemly relish.

It was a slow trudge to the station. The wind lashed and flayed, laughing at Shemtov’s old, worn coat. Finkelstein watched him cower against it and couldn’t help a secret smile.

Icier than the wind were the stares of the people who parted around them. Contempt and fear rippled outward as if the men were stones dropped in a pond. The crowd was made up of people Finkelstein had gone to school with; men that Shemtov had done business with; members of their shuls. Now, a line had been drawn, and Shemtov and Finkelstein were made aware of the side on which they stood.

Shemtov told himself that he was just doing a job, and that there were damned few of those in the Jewish District. He’d seen the alternatives, aside from starvation. A few thousand Jews found work in “shops” — small factories inside the ghetto that made items useful to the Nazi war effort. The conditions were appalling. Between the short rations, grueling pace, long hours and violent beatings, Shemtov was happy to pass.

More worked outside the ghetto, in labor camps. Perhaps two thousand marched out of the Jewish District at dawn every day. At most, nineteen hundred returned after dark.

There were only so many jobs in soup kitchens or in stores with nothing to sell. Neither he nor Finkelstein had enough pull to get a better job in the bureaucracy …

So he endured the hatred. He pretended to return people’s contempt or ignore it. He showed no reaction when fleet-footed teens made catcalls. He walked gray streets lined with ruined buildings and worked hard to see none of it. He refused to acknowledge any role he played in the misery he saw on the ten-block walk to the Judenrat’s headquarters, which now loomed ahead.

The sight depressed Shemtov. It always did.

German bombs had damaged the grand masonry of the former courthouse. Some of the stonework still lay where it had fallen more than a year before. The blocks were either too heavy to move or no one had felt it was worth the effort. But what depressed him most was the crowd gathered at the building’s gates. People stood in a queue that never seemed to get longer or shorter. To Shemtov the line represented a precise balance between great personal need and near-perfect bureaucratic inefficiency.

Those in line were pitiful, even by the standards of the ghetto. Simply believing the Judenrat would be able to help — whatever your problem — made a person pitiful, Shemtov thought. He knew from the inside that the “authorities” had little charity to offer and even less justice to mete out.

He also knew that simply by joining the line, one stood a little taller than the rest of the grass, inviting the reaper’s sickle.

Shemtov and Finkelstein pressed through the throng, elbows and curses flying. Not knowing who was behind them, people fought to keep their place. It looked like things might take a violent turn until the guards at the door recognized the policemen and got violent first, using clubs to clear the way.

Once inside the building, the doors closed behind them, the warmth of the entry hall struck Shemtov and Finkelstein. It was enough to make them gasp in relief.

Two more of their colleagues stood inside, the last line of defense should the petitioners decide to press their cases though means other than unflagging patience.

Beyond a second double door sat a clump of clerks moving paper or listening to people who they were apt to disappoint.

The petitioners stood shoulder-to-shoulder, back to front, front to back, held upright by the weight of their own numbers. The press of bodies brought the temperature in the room to nearly 80 degrees, but the petitioners unanimously refused to remove their coats, instead hoarding the heat for their walk home. Sweat dappled most faces.

The heat and close quarters had another, less pleasant, effect as well. Shemtov recoiled against smells the warmth brought out of hibernation. Soiled, sweat-stained wool, yes, but he bodies themselves were worse. No one wanted to bathe in cold water while surrounded by colder air. It could be dangerous and what was the point? There was no soap, anyway.

As the officers slowly bulled their way across the room to the safety of the Jewish Police offices, Shemtov caught snatches of the sad stories being told at each overwhelmed desk.

“ … But there’s no more milk for the baby,” a woman said, sobbing as she pointed to her own breasts. “There’s not enough food … my body has dried up. There must be some powdered milk somewhere. Please!”

“There’s nothing. I have nothing to give you. I’d give you my rations, but I have to feed my own family. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is,” the famished, bespectacled clerk said.

“Oh please! My baby … ”

Another voice, another desk, another supplicant.

“But they’ve taken up the wires! There’s no electricity! Surely you can send some men around to fix it!”

“What do you think? You’re the only one without power?” a heavily bearded clerk answered, incredulity in his voice. “What’s wrong with you? People have real problems. Find someone else’s time to waste.”

Next into earshot, a small, elderly woman with an oddly jaunty hat clinging to her few remaining gray curls.

“ … a new ration card. My son stole mine! I’ll starve without it.”

The clerk was young, his face was kind, but his answer was something else.

“Do you think I haven’t heard that story before?” the man asked. “Do you think you’re the first person who’s tried to get a second ration card for themselves? Even if you’re telling the truth, it’s up to you to get the card back. You’re his mother! There’s nothing I can do.”

There’s nothing I can do
. It was a phrase repeated a thousand times every day by every man behind a desk, Shemtov knew.

But then, as he continued his shoving, Shemtov heard something else.

“ … I have heard that sometimes — sometimes — something can be done in such a case. Yes, perhaps something.”

It was an older man talking. He was a stouter than the other clerks, though his desk was the same.

“Come back after we’ve closed. We’ll talk then. And make sure to bring it with you,” the clerk said.

It wasn’t necessary for Shemtov to hear the particulars. As always, there were ways to get things done, even here. He’d learned that business, if not hope, survives even the greatest tragedies.

Finally through the crowd, past another guard and another door, the officers reached a short hall where they could breathe.

“Go get yourself something to drink and eat — if there is something. I’ll join you after I speak to Captain Blaustein,” Shemtov said.

Finkelstein looked at him nervously, but then finding a time when the man didn’t look nervous — or at least shifty — wasn’t easy. Finkelstein nodded and headed in the direction of the little room that served as an impromptu lounge for the police.

Shemtov turned to an unmarked door, knocked, and was told to enter by a man who was dressed only in shirtsleeves. In the small but uncluttered office a portable heater radiated warmth and a sense of better times. It was needed because the room’s window was warped, making a proper seal impossible.

Blaustein was a large man. His face displayed shrewdness rather than intelligence. There was a subtle slyness that sat in his eyes and could be seen in the curl of his lip. He motioned for Shemtov to close the door behind him.

“So?” the Jewish Police’s commander asked, meaning something more like,
Why the hell are you in my office?

“We found Lev Berson this morning, on our patrol,” Shemtov said, keeping his eyes down, his posture stooped.

“Found him how? I didn’t know he was missing.”

“I mean we found his body, sir. He was dead, in Leopold Street. His skull was cracked open and his hat was a meter away.”

Shemtov took Berson’s hat and armband from his coat and offered them to his superior by way of proof.

Blaustein made no move to touch them, so Shemtov laid them gently on his desk. For a moment, both men were trapped in an uncomfortable silence.