Run, Boy, Run(4)

It was quiet in the loft once the candle was snuffed out. They could hear the tenants of the building talking in muffled voices, the sounds of pots and dishes being washed, the creaking and banging of doors, and steps from the courtyard below. Srulik took out his shiny butterfly to push back the darkness, as he always did before falling asleep. Even after he shut his eyes, the world was less black then. There was enough light to remember and dream of all the things he had seen during the day.

"What do you have there?" Yankel asked.

"A glow pin," Srulik said.

"Let me see it."

Srulik groped for Yankel's hand and gave it to him.

"I found it in some garbage."

"You did a good day's work, Srulik," Yankel said, handing it back to him.

"What will you do with the vodka?"

"Sell it." There was a moment's silence. Then Yankel asked, "How come you joined us?"

"I was looking for food in the garbage with my mother. She disappeared."

Yankel sat up. "You have a mother?" he asked wonderingly.

"Yes," Srulik said. He didn't see anything so special about it.

Word spread through the loft that the redheaded boy had a mother. All the boys gathered around him. They wanted to hear about her. "What did she look like? What did she give him to eat?

"Is she pretty?"

Srulik couldn't say what his mother looked like. He had never thought if she was pretty or not.

"Yes," he said.

"She's not dead?"

"No." He felt sure of that.

"Then where is she?"

"I guess at home."

"Then why aren't you with her?"

"I don't know how to get there."

"You don't know the name of the street?"

"No," he said sadly.

"You're not from Warsaw?"

"No. We're from Blonie."

The Warsaw Ghetto was large, not like the little ghetto in Blonie. It had tall buildings and lots of streets. His new friends, he was told, came from the countryside too. Some had been separated from their parents during their deportation to Warsaw.

"Try to think," Yankel said. "If you can remember where your house is, we'll find your mother for you."

"Where is your mother?" Srulik asked.

"She's dead. My father died too, in Warsaw."

Srulik stretched out on his mattress. He wasn't used to sleeping by himself. He would have given anything to be in one bed again with his brother Duvid, who always kicked him and pulled the blanket. He could picture their building clearly: the entrance, the rickety wooden stairs, the door of their apartment, which was never shut during the day because of all the people coming in and out. He just couldn't remember how to get there, even though he could see his mother as though she were in front of his eyes. It was weird how someone could be so close and yet so out of reach.

Before he knew it, it was morning.

***

The biggest boys went out to sell the vodka and cigarettes and bought bread and sugar with the money. Srulik took a piece of bread, wet it, and dipped it in the sugar. The bread wasn't sliced as neatly as his mother's, but it tasted the same.

The boys brought him to their friend, Yoyneh the shoemaker, who sometimes made them tea in exchange for sugar. He was working in the doorway of the little cubbyhole that was his shoe shop.

"We have a new gang member," Yankel said, introducing Srulik.

Yoyneh glanced up at him. Srulik smiled. The shoemaker reached out a callused hand and gently took Srulik's chin.

"God has given you what not many people have, son," he said, looking first at Srulik's face and then at his shoes. "I'm too busy today, but come another time and I'll mend your shoes for you."

"He has a mother," Yankel said. "He just doesn't know where she lives."

Yoyneh frowned. Telling Srulik to sit, he asked him what his street looked like.

"Like a street," Srulik said.

"Do you remember the number of the house?"

"Yes. Ten."

"And the name of the street?"

"No."

"Look at that." Yoyneh pointed at a street sign. "Did you have one on your street?"

Srulik looked at the sign and shook his head in sorrow. He couldn't remember.

"I'll go to the police," Yoyneh said. "Maybe someone reported you missing. And you," he told Yankel, "should take him around the ghetto. Maybe you'll hit the right street by chance."

They finished their tea. Yankel took Srulik and they crisscrossed back and forth through the crowded streets of the ghetto. "Maybe it's this street?" Yankel asked at each corner.

"No," Srulik answered each time.

In the end they gave up and rejoined the gang.

***

Srulik was getting used to the new way of life—sleeping in lofts, roaming the streets, shoplifting by day, and breaking into stores before the curfew. The boys kept up their soccer games near the garbage bins where Srulik lost his mother. Each time they returned there, Srulik looked to see whether his mother was waiting for him.