Run, Boy, Run(49)

"Help me over the fence," he said.

Two boys boosted him up and helped him reach the top. He jumped down on the other side, found the ball, kicked it back over the fence, and walked off. In the street he asked an old lady, "Excuse me, where is the train station?"

"It's not far from here," she told him.

She explained how to get there. Her explanation didn't help much because he couldn't read the street signs, but he found it in the end and asked for a train to Wawer. He was told how far to go, boarded the train, hid in the bathroom, counted three stops, and got off. To his surprise, he was in the right neighborhood. Whistling merrily, he walked to the Kowalskis. Pani Kowalski was home.

"Jurek!" She was happy to see him. "How nice you look! What clothes! Tadek and Pan Kowalski are in the smithy."

He raised a foot for her to see.

"And new shoes!"

They went together to the smithy.

"You see, Pan Kowalski," he said. "I told you I'd be back."

Pan Kowalski looked at him. "Those Jews have money. Why did they shave your head like a prisoner's?"

"That's how it is with them."

"You know they'll come to look for you."

"Sure. But you don't have to tell them I'm here."

He had no time to carry out his plan. Two policemen arrived to look for the blond, one-armed Jewish boy.

Jurek was taken back to the children's home.





18. She Said Something That Made Him Laugh


After breakfast in the dining hall, his two roommates went to school. Jurek was told to wait in the room.

"There's a lady who wants to talk to you," he was told.

Jurek was waiting for a chance to get away again. He didn't want any more questions. He had been asked enough of them. They were always the same. What was his name. Where was he from. What happened to his parents. Did he have brothers or sisters. He couldn't answer any of them and he was tired of them all. His name was Jurek Staniak. Yes, he knew he was Jewish. Yes, he had brother and sisters. How many? He didn't know.

There was a knock on the door. He put on his jacket and opened it. A gray-haired woman with a youthful face was standing there. She was not much taller than he was, and her glance met his directly. She had bright eyes and a friendly manner, and she shook his hand as though he were a grownup, letting go of it only when she had led him to a chair. She sat on his bed, facing him, and said something that made him laugh. Afterward, when he tried remembering what was so funny, he couldn't think of it. But she brought a new feeling into the room, warm and bracing.

"My name is Pani Rappaport," she said.

"I'm Jurek Staniak. I guess you know that."

"I do."

She took his hand and stroked it. He didn't pull it away.

"Jurek," she said, "I meet lost children like you all the time. They don't know who their parents are, or where they came from before they wandered in the forests or the villages, or hid with kind people who protected them. We've found children in convents and in orphanages. Mostly girls. I suppose you know why that is."

"Yes."

"I know it's hard for you. I understand."

She kept talking in the same quiet, musical voice. He wasn't listening to the words. Their separate syllables ran together in a single, soft melody. The warmth of her hand spread through him and became a lump in his throat. He didn't know why his eyes filled with tears. She stroked his face. He was making strange, groaning sounds. It was as if something had opened inside of him, leaving him defenseless and exposed. He tried to close himself off again but couldn't. It was no longer in his control. Suddenly all the dams had burst. He was overcome by a feeling of helpless loss that flowed out of him with his tears. Pani Rappaport held his head and cried too. Then his head was in her lap and he was talking. He told her everything he remembered, everything he had forgotten.

"Do you remember your name now?"

"No."

"You had brothers and sisters, didn't you?"

"Yes. But I can't remember their names, either."

"Do you remember where you're from?"

He suddenly recalled the name of the town. He could picture the bakery and his father standing in the glow of the oven. There had been a smithy next to it, and then their home, and Pani Staniak's little grocery across the street. And now he saw his grandfather with a long, white beard, and his mother. He strained to make out her face. He thought he caught sight of his brothers and sisters, too, although they remained hidden in darkness. He remembered his father lying in bed, snoring with a funny sound like a train whistle's. And himself climbing onto the bed and tickling his father's mustache with a plant stem. Then the face was gray and covered by stubble. They were in a potato field. His father's eyes burned into him. He could feel his breath and hear him saying, "You have to stay alive, Jurek." That wasn't the name he had been called. But he had stayed alive. It was in order to stay alive that he had forgotten his name and the names of his brothers and sisters and even the name of his mother. It had all vanished into the great emptiness that opened inside him on the day she disappeared.