Free The Night of the Burning by Linda Press Wulf Page B

stove.”
    After that, Aunt Friedka and I had no time to talk. Mama wanted to drink water constantly; she needed her swollen dry lips moistened every few minutes and a cool damp cloth placed on the pounding pain in her forehead. Her feet were cold; then she was burning and sweating. Then her feet were cold again. The blankets had to be tucked in, removed, replaced. I thought my heart would snap the first time I saw my mama’s legs. They were so thin, so bony and shrunken.
    “But I can take care of her,” I whispered to myself. “I want to take care of you, Mama.”
    Tears rolled hot and prickly as I ran to and from the well, but I didn’t put down the bucket to wipe them away. I wanted every minute with Mama.
    I had only two days. Some of the time Mama slept, but mostly she tossed and turned and moaned for water. She said lots of things that didn’t make sense, and often she seemed to be speaking to her own mama, my grandmother, who was dead. On the second evening, Mama grew quiet,and when I moistened her lips, she gave a weak smile and whispered something very faintly.
    “What, Mama?” I asked, bending forward to listen.
    The words were soft as a cat’s breath. “You’re a good girl, Devorahleh. Take care of Nechama. Say your prayers every night. Never forget who we are.”
    I clung to her hand. “I’ll never forget, Mama. I promise,” I said, sobbing.
    Then Mama whispered, “I’m going to Papa now. You stay with Nechama.”
    “Don’t go, Mama!” I cried. “Mama! Mama! Don’t leave us.”
    Mama’s eyes closed and her breathing became rough. I felt Aunt Friedka’s arms lifting me away, and I sobbed into her chest. There was a rattling sound from the bed. I turned back quickly, terrified of seeing the Angel of Death himself lifting my mother into the air. There was no angel. But my mama was dead.

LONDON DREAM
    1921
    From Warsaw, the boat traveled down the Vistula River. I sat silently, staring at the riverbank. I glimpsed a tall woman pumping water vigorously at a well, and for a moment the woman was Aunt Friedka. I saw a man in a cart pulled by a horse. Papa? But the boat kept moving onward, and soon we were accosted by the shouts and smells of the huge and busy port of Danzig.
    “Stay close to me,” Daddy Ochberg ordered. “This is no place to get lost. Children, hold hands tightly. Don’t let go!”
    Two men carrying a heavy crate swore violently as an unbroken line of two hundred orphans with linked hands scuttled across their path. Another dockworker bent double to duck under our arms and hurried ahead, trailing an odor of sweat and garlic. The scream of steel grinding against steel hurt my ears.
    “This way, this way.” Even Mr. Bobrow sounded nervous as he called to us. “Our boat is this way. Stay together.”
    My fingers were sore from linking with Nechama’s so tightly. I had to keep looking down to avoid slipping in the garbage strewn on the wet dock. Isaac Ochberg was up ahead, talking to the captain of the small freighter he had chartered.
    “On board!” he called out to us, relief in his voice. “Here’s our boat. Everyone on board.”
    The next part of the journey took longer, but I can’t remember anything about it. There was no place to be but on the flat deck, and we sat or lay under a makeshift canopy of canvas, wrapped in all the clothes we owned. I felt sunk in heavy clay. I dozed and woke up to check that Nechama was nearby, then dozed again.
    When I finally woke, my eyes opened to behold a scene finer than any dream. A gracious and glorious city was spread before our boat: bridges and towers, bells in belfries. There was a beautiful domed building that brought pleasure to my eyes, as Papa used to say, and a tall pillar supporting a statue of someone grand and proud. Blue glints shone like jewels among the feathers of strutting pigeons; the sun turned old blocks of stone to silver. Scrambling to my feet, I ran to the railing around the deck and stared and stared,