Mila 18 - Leon Uris [127]
“For God’s sake, leave me alone!”
“I want money! I want to buy guns!”
“No—never. Never, Andrei. We keep twenty thousand children alive—not one zloty for guns.”
Alexander Brandel gasped violently for air as the room whirled around him. He had never seen the anger of the big man who glowered over him. Cornered and beaten, his soul cried out instinctively for the lives of the children.
“I’m through,” Andrei hissed.
“Andrei,” Alex cried pathetically.
“Roast in hell!”
“Andrei!”
The door slammed on his plea.
Andrei Androfski wandered in a fog, aimlessly through the ghetto streets. It was done. There was no turning back. He walked and walked and walked in a daze that shut out the sight of corpses and the pitiful moans of the child beggars or the brutal clubs of the Jewish Militia.
And he found himself standing in the lobby of his apartment house before the bank of mailboxes. His hand groped instinctively in slot 18. He pulled out two armbands. Two white armbands with blue stars of shame. The kids were still upstairs. Wolf and Rachael. He shoved the armbands into the slot and dug around in his pocket. Two bills. A hundred zlotys each. Always when he plunged lower and lower one word kept him from reaching the bottom—“Gabriela.” Two hundred zlotys. Enough to get him to the Aryan side. He needed her desperately.
“I have quit,” Andrei said.
“What are you going to do?” Gaby asked.
“Try to contact the Home Army. They’ll give me a command. The Home Army needs men like me. They won’t argue and quibble, they’ll fight—tired of all this damned arguing—all this dealing with Kleperman.”
Gaby watched him mumble aimlessly.
“Roman. That’s the name of the commander of the Home Army in the Warsaw district Roman. I’ll get to him somehow. You’ll stick with me, Gaby?”
“You know I will.”
He put his arms about her waist and buried his head in her belly, and she stroked his hair. “Are you certain?”
“I am certain—absolutely certain.”
Rachael and Wolf lay side by side on the bed, awed by the magnificence of their experience.
Wolf was completely exhausted. Rachael held him and petted him, and her lips sought him again and again.
She felt so elated from the wonderment of fulfillment.
It was not ugly or difficult. She felt no shame when they saw each other for the first time. Wolf had been so gentle and tender. He knew the awkwardness in her.
He was happy. She had made him happy. He was tired, but he wanted her to touch him.
Poor dear Wolf, Rachael thought. He is so shy he cannot say words he wants to, but I feel every word he wants to tell me by the way he touches my breast and kisses me and whispers to me.
It felt good ... so good ... and I am so proud I was able to be a woman for his sake. Now anything can happen and it won’t be quite so bad.
I am so sleepy. ... Uncle Andrei must be furious. I hope he went to see Gabriela, because I’m not going to leave. I’m going to snuggle close and sleep for a little while, then I’ll wake him up and try it again. ...
Chapter Twenty-five
Journal Entry
NO ONE HAS SEEN Andrei for ten days. We assume that he is living on the Aryan side. After so many years of working together, it is difficult to believe he is really gone. None of us knew till now what a symbol of security he was. It has been a terrible blow to the morale here at Mila 19.
We now operate ninety soup kitchens and have some twenty thousand children under the care of Orphans and Self-Help.
Dr. Glazer tells me we have a new trouble, venereal disease. Before the war, prostitution was never a Jewish social problem. Nowadays I hear more and more of wives and daughters, many from fine old Orthodox families, taking to the streets.
For a family to get a daughter married to a Jewish militiaman is an achievement.
Tommy Thompson has been evicted from Poland. We have lost a dear friend. However, we have been expecting it for a long time. Ana Grinspan has already made a new contact to pass in American Aid funds. Believe it or not, a chap named Fordelli, who is the