Mila 18 - Leon Uris [101]
Andrei threw off his cap and flopped into a big armchair and fought with himself to relax the burning pains of tension in his chest. It had been a terrible trip. He did not realize until this moment that he had not slept more than a few hours in three days. His eyes closed and he rolled his face into the sun’s rays to catch its warmth, and he dozed quickly.
... The sound of footsteps brought him sharply awake. Gaby had read his note. She was running up the steps. The door to the flat flung open and closed quickly, and she set down her parcels of food and looked for him in the evening shadows. She curled up on his lap and lay her head on his chest, and they clung to each other with no sound except for her deep sighs of relief and no movement except for her trembling.
She looked at him. His face was so drawn and tired. Day by day she watched the energy being sapped from him. After each trip he was drained. He was eating himself away inside.
Now, at this moment, she could transfuse life back into him. Andrei smiled with pleasure at the feel of her fingertips tracing the lines of his face and her lips brushing his eyes and ears and neck.
“It was very bad this time,” he said. “I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”
“I’ll take care of you, dear. ...”
She unbuttoned his shirt and felt his chest and shoulders, and the knots of tension slowly melted away.
“I’ll take care of you,” she whispered.
“Gaby ...”
“Yes, darling ...”
“When you touch me like this it all seems to go far away. Why are you so good to me?”
“Shhh ... shhh ... rest, darling ...”
“Gaby, when will they stop? What do they want from us?”
“Shhh ... shhh ... shhh.”
Chapter Eighteen
Journal Entry
DON’T HIDE YOUR GOLD ring, Mother,
Your chances are quite nil,
That if the Germans do not find it,
Kleperman, the goniff, will.
That verse is attributed to Crazy Nathan, a half-wit who roams the ghetto making rhymes and some rather clairvoyant observations. No one knows where Crazy Nathan comes from, who his parents are, or even what his last name is. He wears filthy rags and sleeps in alleyways and cellars. Everyone looks upon him as a harmless goof and treats him with benevolent tolerance. Crazy Nathan shows up at the best cafés in the Jewish districts and, after a few new verses, earns his meal. He prefers fish so he can share it with the dozen or more alley cats who follow him. He has named his cats after the board members of the Jewish Civil Authority.
A.B.
Max Kleperman was a product of the slums. He learned at a tender age that it was easier to live off his fellow man than, God forbid, bend his back in honest labor.
By the age of five Max was a fast-hand artist. He could wander through the smelly, noisy trade in Parysowski Place and rifle wares off the pushcarts of the old bearded Jews with dazzling deftness. By the time he reached seven he was an expert in fencing his stolen goods.
While good Jewish sons like Andrei delivered chickens for their fathers and were robbed and beaten by hoodlums, naughty Jewish sons like Max Kleperman showed a natural aptitude as middlemen. He would purchase all stolen chickens and other goods from the hoodlums and resell them on the Parysowski open market at stunning markups.
By the age of fourteen he had been a guest of the Pawiak Prison three times. Once for theft. Once for extortion. Once for swindling.
By the age of sixteen he went to his natural habitat, to live in the Smocza area populated by the Jewish underworld of Warsaw.
At seventeen he was accepted as a full-fledged member of the Granada Night Club, the most notorious hangout for thugs and gangsters in Poland.
As Max grew older his varied talents expanded. He became the head of a gang of strong-arm men who muscled in on the building-trade area on Grzybowski Square. The square was lined with building-material shops, craftsmen, contractors,