Free The Upright Heart by Julia Ain-Krupa

that there is a way out. And it has nothing to do with the Red Cross or JointDistribution Committee or the church. You can go to Ulica Długa 38 to check the slips of paper, the wall of names, to see if your family has returned, but it won’t help. You won’t find their names anywhere but in the dust. This pill will make you forget your family, and then you will feel no pain.
    I first discovered it when I was transported to a camp near Kraków. I was with my father, but then we were separated, and an old man took me under his wing and told me about the pill that would help me to survive. He was right. I made it here because of this pill I will show you now, the one that will help change your life.
II
    His hand is small and delicate, like that of a young pianist, or of one who has not yet withstood the test of time. The nails on his fingers are jagged and deep grooves of dirt form beneath them. His face is constructed of wide smooth planes, and just like a baby’s, his skin shows no indication of worry, no scars to suggest the things he has seen. His eyes are a glassy blue, long in the way many of his countrymen’s eyes are long. They recall the Mongol. They are a reminder that racial purity does not exist. Not even in Poland.
    The boys emerge from a small cluster of trees that cast shade across an old brick wall stretching from one block to the next. Staggered but together, they make their way back into the street. The older boy, the leader of the two, walks in front of the little one, who is no more than seven years old but who has the look of a wrinkled old man who has seen enough and wants to close his eyes to the world. The leader is adolescent but small, his oversize shirt, stolen off a corpse one year ago, rolled up at the sleeves. Here is Ulica Szewska, one of many passagewaysleading to the market square. Streets stretch out from the center of Kraków like the many arms of Ganesh reaching past the obstacles of the world. If only they could. Leaving the market square they pass the cool shade of Planty, a ring of green surrounding the city center. In winter, Planty is a wonderland in miniature—branches bending down to cover pedestrians from the snow, though the walkway is covered with ice and it is inevitable that someone will fall. Ah, but in summertime the very same place is imbued with the sweet smell of lilac, and people walk slowly. They sit and talk, enjoy an ice cream cone. Grown men in their short-sleeve shirts with starched collars sit and lick to their heart’s content. Suddenly everyone becomes a child. Here the boys make their way slowly, oversize shoes toiling against the uneven cobblestones.
    Anna is heading toward Planty while they are walking in the direction of the market square. Maybe today they can find a little work, or else some food to eat behind one of the few still-operating cafés.
    When you want to walk like a lady you arch your back, extend your buttocks, relax your face. When you do it well, nobody notices the pain with which you step or the black seam drawn up the backside of your leg. She is focused on the pain in her feet, the rumbling in her stomach, but it is the feeling of fear that causes her to lift her gaze and notice the boys, as if fear is a forward-cast shadow preceding the one whom it is devouring, alerting the public to its presence. The first boy is no more than eleven or twelve years old. He passes by, eyes holding her gaze long enough to make her recognize his suffering. She feels his hunger, and it makes her shudder someplace deep within. She looks away quickly. As if he could take something away from her with his despair. It seems as if all human experience has passed through him, and now there is nothing left in this world that could make him cry.
III
    She walks past the shops selling last year’s wares: an old pair of shoes, a sack of sugar, a toy German Shepherd that winds up and barks. It sounds like an electric siren. Everyone is struggling now to make ends meet.