The Light at Midnight: A Historical Thriller Set During the Holocaust Read online

  As it dashed off into the brush, my rage disappeared, and I looked at Stannis with dread. When he saw this, he chased me, and I scrambled up a tree. He was too heavy to climb, but still I had to wait till dark before he left. Later, I snuck back in the house and cleaned up just before supper. I should have told Papa about the bite, but I was too afraid of his and Mama’s punishment, so I hid it and feared for the next two months I was getting rabies. Ashamed of being such a mad girl, I never told anyone about it.

  Now, the rage had come back.

  In those days in March of 1941, many people came over to our house in the evening to visit Mama and Papa, the main topic of conversation always the communist, and I listened, pretending to be reading. It seemed throughout Malka’s rule, the Revolutionary Council had many things to do to bring about their communist paradise. Fiercely anti-Zionist, they banned all Zionist organizations including the Young Guardians and Betar Trumpeldors calling them reactionary. I knew the word but didn’t know how it fit me. I belonged only with my friends and Peretz. Besides, how reactionary can planting a few potatoes be?

  Malka wasn’t finished. She closed down the Hebrew school I attended and prohibited speaking Hebrew anywhere in the shtetl since it was the language of Zionism. The school became Yiddish only. Next day, Malka’s own son, Liebke, and four of his mates began attending.

  Mr. Kopelman, our grade teacher, ignored the decree and continued teaching in Hebrew. Someone reported him. The following day, Russians came to school and arrested him. By the afternoon, he and his family were on a train to Siberia. I wouldn’t miss Mr. Kopelman. He had been brusque with the girls in class, thinking them unequal to grasping the full lessons of history, but even so, it was a hard thing to do to him and his family.

  We all know Liebke Henske did it. Now, all day long in class, he spouted his mother’s communist propaganda in Yiddish, and no one dared stop him.

  I adjusted to the town’s overlords, as did my family and friends. As Mama said, we lived our lives. We spoke Hebrew whenever we could; the Young Guardians and Trumpeldors held meetings in secret, always speaking Hebrew. Hanna, a Trumpeldor, and I attended our different youth groups, even though we knew we also could be shipped off to Siberia. This made me feel really brave.

  One afternoon, she and I argued about my belonging to the Young Guardians. She had recently celebrated her seventeenth birthday, and that made her think she now possessed all the wisdom in the known universe and could lord it over me. She wanted me to quit the Young Guardians and join her Betar Trumpeldors.

  “Sisters should stick together, Rivka,” she said. “Especially now that the Bolsheviks have made us outlaws.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t like your uniforms. They’re like military uniforms.”

  Waving her hand dismissively, she gave a scoffing snort.

  It was a lame answer, but I didn’t like how the Trumpeldors marched around in their uniforms like toy soldiers, singing boisterously as if they were the best at everything. They did this in the woods, of course, far from town since both youth clubs had been outlawed.

  Hanna already bossed me around at home enough. I didn’t want her to boss me around at my youth club as well. What did it matter? Both were Zionist groups and did the same things, farm, farm, farm, hike, hike, hike, ski the forest in winters, study berries and edible roots in summer, and spoke only Hebrew, all in preparation to make Aliyah to Eretz Israel. Which we would never do. Not now anyway. So why change clubs?

  When Hanna and I argued today, she needled me about going only because Peretz Frischer was one of the leaders. “You have no chance with him, Rivka. He’s sixteen; you’re fourteen. He doesn’t even notice you.”

  I thought of a thousand brilliant things to say but not till later. Instead, I ran outside and fed the chickens by throwing the corn and wheat seed at them. Oh, how I hated my sister.

  She was right, of course. I was in love with Peretz and had been all my life. Tall and handsome like an American movie star, he was closer to being an adult than a child, at least he thought he was.

  Last week, I told him how I felt, and he patted my cheek. “That’s nice.” Like I was six. A sewing needle in my eye would not have hurt worse. For that moment, I wanted to kick him.

  Yet, walking to school this morning, he told me to make sure I came to the Young Guardians tonight. He had something important to tell me, but I would need to keep it secret.

  With a coquettish smile I’d been practicing in front of the mirror, I teased, “Important, is it? How important?”

  He didn’t notice my smile at all. “The most vital of all things.”

  “And you can’t tell me now?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Well, if it’s that important, I’ll be there, just like I always am.”

  When we arrived at school, he went off to his upper grade class, and I to my own, dreaming about what it could be. Was it possible he felt he same about me? Could that be it? I was dying to find out.

  Chapter Two

  Later that evening, the Young Guardians met at the Schanzer home. I sat squeezed into the big, cushiony chair with Shoshana Erlich, listening to the evening’s debate about what grain to plant in the spring, oats, wheat, or potatoes, though I didn’t think potatoes were actually a grain. It couldn’t possibly matter. We were not farmers. We just played at it.

  All the Young Guardians wore a white bow pinned to their shirts to signify that they spoke outlawed Hebrew. A fire crackled in the fireplace. Nearby on the dining room table was a birthday cake with candles, though it was no one’s birthday. This in case the police raided the house to break up this desperate band of subversives.

  “Are you going to try out for the new play?” Shoshana asked me. “Please do.”

  “Sure. Maybe, I’ll get the lead this time.”

  “Maybe you will.”

  I knew I wouldn’t. Shoshana had real talent. She was always chosen for the lead in the plays put on at the Firehouse, at least when it called for a teenager, and this new one did. Though I liked to be part of it all, I was never chosen for the lead, maybe because I was not a particularly good actress. Shoshana was a prodigy, people said. Some day she will go to Vilna to be in the Yiddish theater or even to Warsaw if the Germans ever allowed it.

  In the center of the living room, the eight boys and three of the seven girls of YG vociferously defended their positions on which grain to plant in the spring, especially Yankl Glazman, who demanded it be wheat as if the future of the Jews depended upon it. I glanced at Peretz, watched how his unruly hair refused to stay in place no matter how many times he ran his hand through it, watched how his beautiful grin would quell any argument instantly. A couple times, he glanced my way, showered me with that grin, and I’d perk up. He then gave a slight nod as if to say, soon, soon, he will tell me the great secret.

  Shoshana sighed, exasperated. “This is the same old argument every meeting.”

  “Leah will settle it tonight,” I said. “It will be potatoes.”

  Leah Adler was the leader of the Seven, our social club. We girls who belonged to the Young Guardians had grown up together, attended the same classes at school, and did so much together that people sometimes called us the Seven. So that’s what we called ourselves.

  Tonight, Leah had jumped right in among the boys to argue her position for planting potatoes. She always knew what to do. By the strength of her personality and her decisiveness, everyone followed her, even the boys. I knew tonight they would choose to plant potatoes, much to Yankl Glazman’s chagrin. Me, I was no leader. I seldom put myself forward, not making suggestions. I knew no one would follow me.

  Looking at my other girlfriends, I realized something shocking. Among the seven of us, I was not the best at anything. And that made me the least of them. A pretender, the one that didn’t belong.

  Mila was the most likeable, Leah the leader, Sh
oshana the most talented actress. Then there was Esther Gershowitz, the prettiest. Nordic blonde hair and blue eyes. Why Nordic was always the standard for beauty I didn’t know, but Esther had it. She would turn heads with any color hair, but that blonde look killed the men. She had been the first one of us Seven to get breasts as big as cabbage heads. Mine came in the size of grapes. When I confided in Mila about my concerns, she told me not to worry, they’d grow, and I would fill out.

  Maybe, but now no boys turned their heads when I walked by unless it was to call me the Stork. I hated the nickname.

  In cross-country skiing, Genesha Blum always won, by far the best athlete among us. I was a good skier but had no chance of winning any of the races. My only goal was to beat my sister Hanna whenever we skied against the Trumpeldors, which I never could.

  I realized I was not even the smartest of the group. My languages were good, but Sarah Shlanski was a wizard at math and achieved top scores in everything. She did most math problems in her head and finished before the rest of us had slogged halfway through. She was another prodigy.

  Together we were the Seven, and desperately I hoped they would never find me out, find out how poorly I measured up to them.

  Finally, the Young Guardians’ meeting ended with potatoes being agreed upon as I knew it would. I hurried to the closet to put on my coat and wool cap, then tapped my foot impatiently for Peretz to walk me home. As we left the Schanzer’s house, his warm eyes told me he actually did love me. That we would someday be married. That had to be it.

  Outside, a gray sky lay suspended above by a thread as twilight hung on as it always did in Nashok. Our boots crunching on the packed snow, I walked close to Peretz, bumping into him occasionally. He was silent, so I began counting his steps aloud.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Counting how many steps you take before you speak.”

  “But you’re not speaking.”

  “I am. I’m counting.”

  He chuckled and shook his head.

  To stay off the streets, we took a path behind the neighborhood houses and in among the shadows of trees. I didn’t fear the Russian soldiers, but it was good to be prudent. The Russians didn’t patrol much, remaining in their warm quarters most of the time. A battalion or regiment of them, I didn’t know which, lived in an encampment fifteen kilometers from Nashok. Generally, when they did wander out into the streets, they were friendly enough. I’d even spoken to a few, though my Russian was only rudimentary, not nearly as good as my German and English.

  The main rule Papa had was to stay away from the Russian soldier who was well into his bottle of Vodka. Those could be dangerous to females of all ages. He didn’t detail what the danger was, but we all knew. Mila and I even talked about it when we were alone.

  Peretz’s expression deepened like the world’s troubles fell on his shoulders. “Have you heard from your brother?”

  I beamed. Though it had only been a couple months, I missed Ben Zion. “He’s coming home for the Shabbat.”

  “How long will he be staying?”

  “Just the weekend. He has to return to Vilna Monday. He has classes he can’t miss.”

  In his first year at the University of Vilna, Ben Zion studied medicine in preparation for the day he joined Papa in his practice.

  “I will come see him Saturday then,” Peretz said.

  “He’ll like that.”

  He took my arm to guide me over an icy patch as if I couldn’t manage it myself, but his touch on my arm felt good, even through the thick, winter coat.

  “What did you think of the meeting?” Peretz asked.

  Moving my head side to side and thrusting my fists in the air, I mimicked Yankl Glazman in a fierce voice, “It must be wheat. We must plant wheat this spring. Wheat, I tell you. What is more important than bread?”

  He laughed. “He’s probably right though. We probably should plant wheat in the spring.”

  “What does it matter? Oats, wheat, potatoes? We’re not feeding the masses. We’re only practicing to be farmers when we all go to Palestine, which we will never do.”

  He grinned as if I’d just stumbled onto the answer to a great puzzle. Understanding hit me instantly. I grabbed his arm. “My God, you’re going to Palestine. That’s your secret.”

  He shook his head. “No, not Palestine. To America.”

  Of course. His father and uncle had been in America for years, sending money back regularly. I tried to be excited for him, proud of myself for that. “When? When are you going?”

  He held up his hands. “Wait. It’s not official yet, so you can’t say anything. Papa and Uncle Moishe—he’s Morris now—have just become American citizens and put in the paperwork for us to join them. Aunt Miriam and all my cousins too. The American embassy will notify us for our interviews. Till then you can tell no one, not even Hanna.”

  “Why would I tell Hanna?” I said too petulantly.

  He shrugged. “Just don’t tell anyone. Not even Ben Zion.”

  “I won’t.” I hesitated a moment then asked, “Why did you tell me?”

  Clutching my elbow, he stopped me. “Because you’re my closest friend, Rivka. We’ve been friends forever. Who else would I tell?”

  That felt good. Me, his closest friend. If not romantic love, at least he saw me as someone special in his life. Maybe, it could grow into something more. Then, it hit me like the Vilna bus. He would be leaving forever. I would never see him again. And Mila, too, my best friend. She was his cousin. Their leaving stabbed two big holes in my heart, but I could see how excited he was, and Mila talked about nothing but America and Hollywood stars, dragging me to the firehouse to watch the latest movies from America when the town got them.

  As we walked on, his face became serious again. “You should talk to your father about leaving Nashok too,” he said. “Go anywhere. Far away.”

  “Why? The Russians aren’t too bad, but Mama says we will survive them. Where would we go anyway?”

  “Don’t be silly, Rivka. They’re not good,” he said, sharply.

  That hurt, and I looked away into the nearby forest, which had grown dark.

  “But I wasn’t thinking about the Russians. I was thinking about the Germans,” he said.

  “The Germans?”

  “Yes. They’re only a hundred kilometers away in Poland.” Worry creased his face. “We had a man from Warsaw staying with us named Jacob Spielman. I’ve never heard of him, but he’s a famous writer. He’s trying to reach Palestine.

  “He’ll never make it.”

  “He will,” Peretz insisted. “While he was with us, he told us terrible things about what the Germans are doing to Jews.”

  I felt a chill race up my spine. “What things?”

  Peretz hesitated for several seconds, glancing at me twice before deciding to go on. “He was hiding with gentiles in Warsaw, but it became too dangerous. He says the Nazis are killing all the Polish leaders, the writers and university professors. And Jews. One Jewish family was betrayed and taken by the Gestapo along with their Polish hosts. All were executed, Rivka. Most of his former colleagues, Jew and gentile, at the university are in labor camps or dead. Near the apartment he was hiding, there was a mass killing at a small clinic like your father’s. Spielman left Warsaw that day.”

  He waited for my response. I had none. Shocked, I just looked at him dumbly. I never knew what to believe. With Nashok on the direct train route between Warsaw and Vilna, thousands of refugees from the German occupied territories had come through town since 1939. They told horrifying stories of Jews transported to the Warsaw ghetto or to labor camps, and worse, mass killings by the Germans. Most people dismissed these tales as wild exaggerations.

  “I don’t want to scare you, Rivka,” he said, “but you should know. It won’t be safe for you if they come.”

  “I’m not
scared,” I said with fear boiling in me. “Baba says those are all false rumors. She says the Germans are much better than the Russians. They were in Nashok during the first German War. All of them sweet boys, she says. She has stories about them she tells us all the time.”

  His face crumpled into a closed-eyed grimace. He balled his fist and thrust them behind his head in frustration. “Such nonsense. Your grandmother is wrong. Just tell your father what I said. Please, Rivka. When we go, I will worry about you.”

  I didn’t know what to think. Believe Peretz and a man I’ve never even met or believe my grandmother and parents. My parents were worried but not overly so. They went about their day to day lives as always, and so should I. I thought of the hideous face of rage I’d seen on Radek Karnowski, but then he had not killed anybody, even though he’d probably like to.

  I was dealing with too many terrible emotions far from what I expected ten minutes ago. The horror of a killing horde just over the horizon, and the very real prospect of losing the two people outside of my family I love best in the world.

  As we approached the back door of my house, I felt his last words were as good as I would ever get from him. Then someday soon, I would never see him again.

  Chapter Three

  In the Department of Human Heredity and Eugenics, twenty-four-year-old Max Bauer stood in a conference room at the Kaiser Wilhelm University, defending his PHD dissertation on the superiority of the Aryan race. Down a long, polished table, he faced three professors in black robes who sat like medieval prelates judging his worthiness for holy orders. He barely hid his contempt for them, certain his worthiness to discuss this topic far exceeded theirs to judge him.