Mila 18 - Leon Uris [130]
He stood underneath the bridge. It was covered with barbed wire. He had come there many times during the day and stared at it, watching the Jews cross from one ghetto to the other over the “Polish corridor,” hoping beyond hope he could catch a glimpse of Deborah.
He stood for a half hour.
What the hell, he thought, and walked away quickly.
From the corner of his eye he detected movement in an indentation in the wall ahead of him. Quickly two men stepped out and blocked his path. Chris stopped and looked over his shoulder. Two more men were behind him. He could not distinguish their faces, but the bulky cut of their clothing and leather workers’ caps and their size intimated that they were thugs.
“Waiting for somebody under the bridge, Jew boy?” a voice came from one of the figures.
Hoodlums out Jew hunting. Big sport, these days. Good source of income. What to do? Show his papers and pass through?
“Come on, Jew boy. Two hundred zlotys or you’ll take a walk to Gestapo House.”
Chris’s blood boiled. “Go to hell,” he snapped, and walked straight at the pair ahead of him.
One from behind hooked his arm and turned him around. Chris drove his fist into the figure’s mouth and the man fell backward, hit the curb, and landed on the flat of his back.
Damn! Damn my temper!
Two leaped on him, and while he struggled to free himself the third brought a blackjack to the side of his cheek.
A surge of raw strength threw the men from him. As he shook himself free, the first one got up and caught him in the eye with a hamlike fist, and for an instant Chris was blinded. He reeled, then stopped abruptly as his back hit the ghetto wall.
Chris grunted as the blackjack found its mark again. He sank to his hands and knees and wobbled on all fours and the ground spun around him.
“Get up, Jew boy!”
Chris looked up. They hovered over him. One with the blackjack, another with a jagged broken bottle. Another, bloody-mouthed from his blow. He could not see the fourth man.
His head cleared and the ground steadied. Chris lurched up, ramming his shoulder into the one with the glass bottle to crack out of the ring. With the air suddenly smacked from his lungs, the hoodlum fell and sat on the ground, gasping.
And then Chris sank under a rain of fists and boots. He was jerked to his feet and propped against the wall, his arms spread-eagled as in the position of a crucifixion. The leader could not resist one last smash into the stomach of his helpless victim. A light was held to Chris’s face. His dark Italian features were studied. “He’s a Jew, all right.”
Chris’s head rolled up and his eyes opened and he snarled. The leader pressed the jagged glass close to his eye, so he dared not move.
Chris brought his knee up into the man’s groin and the man shrieked and staggered back, then came forward, enraged and intent on cutting up his face.
“Wait. He fights too good to be a Jew. We had better make sure he is.”
“What’s the difference now? Just take his money.”
“Holy Mother! Look at these papers! He isn’t a Jew.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
Footsteps ... faded ... they’re gone ...
Chris slipped down to the ground, bloody, and pawed around to pull himself up.
Someone stood over him. He managed to hold his head up enough to see the faces of a frightened middle-aged couple.
“Help me ...”
“Don’t touch him, Poppa. Can’t you see he’s a Jew? He jumped over the wall. Leave—leave before the guard comes.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
A WEEK PASSED BEFORE Horst von Epp returned to Warsaw. He entered the Holy Cross Church, spotted Chris kneeling in the first row, and knelt beside him.
“Good Lord,” Horst said, “what happened to you?”
“I was mistaken for a Jew.”
“Bad mistake, these days.”
“You should have seen me a week ago.”
“I thought we’d better meet out of the office,” Horst said, nodding in the direction of the little black box on the altar containing Chopin’s heart. “Let’s take a walk. That box