Authors: Richard Foreman
Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #Holocaust, #Retail, #Suspense, #War
Warsaw
Warsaw
Richard Foreman
© Richard Foreman
2012
Richard Foreman has
asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be
identified as the author of this work.
First published 2012
by Endeavour Press Ltd.
"Like every policeman, he was duty bound to deliver
five people to the Umschlagplatz everyday personally, on pain of being
resettled himself if he did not comply."
Wladyslaw Szpilman. The Pianist.
Warsaw. 1942. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach; the
cramped room was peppered with dust. An acrid smell that Jessica Rubenstein
would have at one time turned her nose up at stained the air. She sat - poised -
upon the uneven chair. Still attractive to the adolescent policeman - still
retaining the debris of a bourgeois bearing - the daughter of a once prominent
Doctor reacted not, either in tenderness or revulsion, as his coarse fingers
tucked back her hair. The hand then ran itself down her chest.
"I will be gentle," a voice, attempting an amorous
whisper, expressed.
Only when his drink-soaked breath warmed her ear did Jessica
shudder. She closed her eyes. The tighter she closed her eyes the darker it
became but still she could not transport herself away from the policeman's den.
He kissed her bare neck. His lips, cracked, were dry but his tongue was wet
like a dog's. The conceit and reward - that she was saving her family by
offering herself to the policeman in order that he would choose another group
for resettlement – which sustained Jessica, thus began to flake like ash.
She tried to regain her self-possession by scanning her
tormentor's habitat. The two windows which Jessica looked out of were filled
with a brown-bricked tenement block which almost touched his building,
separated as they were by a slender alley. A couple of plants graced the
windowsill, strategically placed in order to catch the slither of sunlight
which cut through the room. One of the dunny clay pots contained a small white
flower which Jessica didn't recognise and the other pot contained a stubby,
resilient cactus of all things. A table, whose accompanying chair Jessica sat
on, was placed next to the window where she imagined that the vulture-eyed
policeman sat and viewed a strip of life happening outside. Sitting on a
worm-ridden desk, orderly placed upon it like fine cutlery on a dining table,
there rested a couple of pens (one an expensive fountain pen that the policeman
had no doubt stolen), a cudgel, a bottle of spirits (also confiscated) and
various papers.
Adam Duritz squeezed the girl's breast in order to arouse
her. Duritz was not the only constable to abuse his privileged, despised and
envied rank in the "Jewish Police" (the "Jewish service of
protection and order"); Adam more than most was amused by the inadvertent
sarcasm of the title. With his other hand he slowly, carefully, undid the
buttons on the back of Jessica's once expensive looking but now worn pale blue
(high necked) dress. The colour had faded like the lustre in her expressive
eyes the policeman would later muse to himself. As he began to undress the
unresponsive girl he also started to unconsciously rub his groin upon the back
of the chair in order to arouse himself.
As disturbing as the feeling was - as the vile monster
grinded up and down behind her whilst touching her unblemished body - Jessica
tried to look to the positive and willed herself to become a block of stone.
She thanked something, not God, that she didn't have to look at his lecherous
eyes and feel his molesting breath upon her face. Also, she did not fear that
the policeman would become violent. Again Jessica catalogued his room in an
attempt to turn off her body as if it were a light switch. Upon the floor near
to the door there were piles of various provisions and, Jessica imagined,
valuables which the policeman had extorted out of other families. In the case
of the Rubensteins though the policeman was single-minded in that he would
accept Jessica and nothing, no one, else. She told her parents, who knew
nothing of her being here, that she had given the policeman her silver earrings
as payment. Her father had given them to Jessica for her twenty-first birthday
a couple of years ago.
Still the "Jewish Princess", as Duritz had
sardonically labelled her in the past, would not respond. The policeman craved
interaction - intimacy. This was not how he had imagined their meeting. Even if
she begged him not to go through with it, got on her knees and supplicated him,
that would be something. If it was just about sex then he could've paid or
blackmailed a number of women in his quarter of the ghetto. Didn't she realise
that she was special? He wanted to animate her, seduce her even. Adam had no
desire to make love to a corpse. He would say something to her; he would try to
reveal himself. This afternoon had been his life and twisted purpose since the
conception of his desperate idea a week or so ago. Or maybe the former
philosophy student had desired to be in this position for half a decade.
Although it was tantalisingly in the upper corner of her
vision Jessica strained her eyes and latched onto the most vibrant and
interesting feature in the room, the swelling bookcase upon the wall. Were the
books his? Were the titles, of which she could only work out a few, a window
into the soul of the collaborator? Schopenhauer's "The World As Will And
Idea", a collection of Kafka's short stories - and a biography of
Napoleon. The books may have just been the legacy of the previous proprietor.
Jessica remembered that the building once contained the offices of a Jewish
newspaper. Or were the books spoils of the corrupt policeman's rounds?
Relief suddenly succeeded a sticky apprehension as the hands
removed themselves from her body. His nasal breathing and movements ceased.
Just as Jessica was about to turn around to see what the constable was about to
do he ushered himself into her view, moved his things to one side on the desk,
and sat upon it - staring intently at the comely figure which passively sat
upon his chair, unable to look him in the eye.
"Do you know that we've met before, I mean before the
occupation?"
"Yes," Jessica issued after a moment's pause.
"You do?" the policeman replied, peculiarly and
pleasantly surprised.
"You used to be a tutor to one of my neighbour's
children".
Jessica failed to mention how she had always looked down on
- or scornfully laughed at - the poor student who was painfully shy and blushed
whenever she caught him staring at her outside the house. He was creepy.
Sometimes she had felt disgust imagining the low thoughts that he was having
for her. Once Jessica even toyed with the idea that she would talk to her
neighbours to ask them to amend their tutor's manner and behaviour. He had
ogled her. Sometimes the revulsion she felt was borne from the insult that he
believed himself good enough for her. Yet sometimes, out of spite and to amuse
herself, Jessica would make sure she giggled or whispered something in a
girlfriend's ear as he hurried past her window - usually late from tutoring
another pupil, or from attending lectures, or from working in his father's
bakery. Once she positively had screamed with laughter from the time when the
boy tripped over his satchel as she got a girlfriend to blow a kiss to him. It
was here that Jessica realised that maybe this was all part of a revenge scheme
for the petty, depraved student.
"Yes. We have both come a long way, in the wrong
direction, since then. Yet you're still beautiful. Are you still a snob?"
"Are you still that same kind, intelligent teacher that
my neighbours spoke of so highly? - Who your students were devoted to and
respected?" A haughtiness, or moral superiority, made the girl lift her
head up high as she spoke.
Jessica searched with her feminine aspect, as well as with
her question, for the answer to her mocking remark. A beautiful woman can often
be a bold woman. They held their glance for a moment but then the policeman -
pleased that he had finally animated her, but slightly intimidated under the
gaze of her bewitching features - stared down at his dangling feet. He smiled
wistfully to himself.
"No, I do not believe that I am," the policeman
said softly, sadly.
Emboldened by his increasing humaneness and the sense that
she held some form of power over him - as she had in the past with most men -
Jessica tried to keep him talking; if he was talking he wouldn't be doing
anything else. The policeman she owned no authority over. If she could only
reach the vulnerable student who had once been so sheepish towards her.
"Did you ever complete your studies? I don't believe I
ever saw you without a book in your hand all those years ago. Do all those
books belong to you?"
Adam gazed down at his gently swaying feet, his brow
creased. He momentarily got distracted by proudly eyeing his most treasured
possession, his library. Jessica slowly put her hand behind her back and
re-fastened her buttons.
"Some are mine, most. No, I didn't complete my studies.
When my father died he left the business in debt. And what did I know about
running a bakery? I guess I was, am, a snob like you and I refused to consider
being a baker - as you would never have considered accepting the advances of a
baker's son."
Jessica ignored this last comment and continued to question
the policeman. By now she was beginning to be genuinely interested in the
character and history of this ghostly figure from her past who now held her
fate in his hands. Physically he hadn't changed much, which was a rarity, if
not a minor miracle, in the ghetto. Adam Duritz may have even been regarded as
handsome, although he was not Jessica's type. He had strong dark features; his
eyes were particularly engaging and intelligent and he had maintained his build
- one might have even dared say that the vilified policeman owned a small pot
belly. A fringe of curly black hair covered a small star-shaped scar upon his
forehead. When Jessica later thought about how and why Adam had survived so
well in the ghetto her revulsion for him returned, but here, relatively, was he
not attractive (healthy) compared to most of the waifs and gargoyles that
populated the district?
"Did you not have any family to support you or help you
run the bakery?"
"My brother ran away from home when he was seventeen.
My mother passed away when I was young."
"What did she die of?"
"A burst appendix." Duritz refrained from
mentioning how his father had dismissed his mother's pain as being a mere
stomach ache and only paid for a doctor when it proved too late.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not. I'm glad she didn't have to experience all
this. What do you care anyway? Feigned sympathy was not part of our deal"
the policeman sarcastically issued, this time meeting and besting Jessica's
wounded, womanly expression. She tried to look submissive in order to instil a
portion of guilt into the once sensitive youth. Duritz screwed his face up in
agitation - as though the crime of not sticking to the deal was a more heinous
transgression to that of what he had proposed. Yet had he not dreamed over the
last couple of days, in anticipation of their meeting, that maybe she would
have sympathy or pity for him? That she would want to try and get to know him?
Could that sympathy not turn into love he even fancied as the drink intensified
his episode of romantic yearning? Loneliness had coiled around his heart for so
long, choking reality.
Partly in desperation again - partly to satisfy her
curiosity as to how the student could've developed into such a miscreant,
betraying his own people - Jessica challenged
"Why are you doing this Adam?"
How dare she think she could get around him by calling him
by his name! Drink quickened his pulse and clouded his thoughts. A familiar
hate brewed up in his heart towards Jessica for having ignored him all those
years ago - the waste of all his time and love. If she wasn't being a tease she
was being a whore. For so long she had teased him. Now he would treat her like
her a whore.
"Because I can, because I'm human. Yes, human, and that
means being weak, wicked and bestial. We all do what we've got to do to
survive. I'm just willing to do that bit more. You've lived in your ivory tower
for too long. You should be thankful. There are people who do not even have a
choice - most families are broken up and resettled in the blink of an eye.
Believe it or not but I am saving you. I like you Jessica and, whilst you
laughed at me or callously ignored me, I had time for your family also. Now
that we have this deal other policemen and soldiers will leave you alone. You
should thank me also for the lesson learned. You should get used to suffering
and doing anything it takes to endure. And that involves undoing the buttons
you re-fastened."
Jessica was tempted to dryly reply that he should forgive
her for not being grateful for the lesson learned - and that he himself had
visited their home and it was no ivory tower - but she was too struck and
concerned for the transformation which had come over the seething policeman.
His face had reddened, his forehead becoming plum-coloured. Adam's hands
gripped the edge of the desk like talons. Years of bitterness and hate, of
unrequited love, acted as bellows to the furnace of his heart. Before now
Duritz had always been cold, sarcastic in his tone and dealings, but now power
and passion possessed his will. The veins in his temples were throbbing,
spittle issued from his mouth as he spoke. Duritz had become menacing. Jessica
almost didn't recognise the youth and couldn't believe her ears as he repeated
that she should undo her dress, swearing as he did so.
The policeman kicked off his black boots and removed his
heavy cotton trousers. Petrified, Jessica noticed a blotchy rash - or was it a
birthmark? - on Adam's inner thigh. But for her trembling lips and a lone tear
winding its way down her fair cheek the sacrifice was motionless. With lust
bulging from his eyes, his mouth twisted in an ugly sneer, the policeman walked
over to his victim. With one hand holding the back of her head and the other
firmly clasped to her buttocks the policeman pressed the girl's slender body
against his and tried to thrust his hungry tongue into her mouth. Jessica
vainly attempted to wriggle free from his muscular clutches and clamped her
teeth shut.