Free The Train to Warsaw by Gwen Edelman

girl.
    She reached over and touched his chest. What’s all this? he asked. I was afraid, she said softly. We were all afraid, he replied. I mean of you. With your strong arms and fierce dark eyes. I was only sixteen. You were twenty-three. I had kissed a few boys, nothing more. You were a man of the world. Of a small enclosed world, he replied, where everyone was about to die.
    They needed the Poles to point out the Jews to Them, said Lilka. If they didn’t have hair and eyes as black as night, They couldn’t pick them out. She smiled. Except for you, my angel. With those dark curls and dark eyes. The water splashed as he sat up in the tub. I don’t look Jewish, he protested. No? she asked. Not at all, he said hotly.
    She ground out her cigarette and stood up. She unfurled the white towel and held it up for him. He stood up and cockily pressed out his chest. She looked at his strong arms and chest, his muscular legs. You’re still handsome, she told him. I always was, he replied. And conceited, she added. You were always that, too. Not at all, darling, he said. I only pretended. And only with my own. How conceited, he asked, could a Jew in the ghetto be? The life of the handsomest, smartest Jew hung by a thread. She wrapped him in the towel. He pulled her against him. Come to bed. We’ll go back to the beginning.
    He went into the room and lay down on the bed and pulled the eiderdown over him. Come darling, he said, lie down beside me. Don’t leave me alone in the city of Warsaw that is no more. She lay down beside him beneath the eiderdown. Like a law abiding Jewish couple, he said, and took her hand.
    Late one night in the ghetto, she said, when we had already gone to bed, the doorbell rang. My mother crept to the door in the darkness. Through the door we heard someone whisper in Yiddish: It is I. My mother opened the door a crack. I stood behind her. My mother gave a small cry. There stood a ghost. His gray hair and sidelocks hung in wisps, his black caftan fell in tattered folds from his bony shoulders. His skin had a bluish tinge, his eyes were rimmed in red. One side of his forehead was discolored by a large purplish bruise. Dear God in Heaven, said my mother. It only needed this.
    Grandfather, I cried out. It was my father’s father. How thin he was, his bones like a bird’s. He collapsed into a chair. I went to the kitchen and brought him water and bread and some marmalade. My mother watched him with a frown. Father, she said, how in the world did you get here? All the way from Lodz?
    What bearded Jew in a long gabardine could survive? The black gabardines, the beards, the sidelocks of pious Jews drove Them into a frenzy. God looks after us, said my grandfather. My mother laughed mirthlessly. Here? In the ghetto? Now Grandfather reached underneath his caftan and drew out a small prayer book. I must recite the prayer for a safe arrival after a long journey. My mother groaned. Father, she pleaded. This is not a House of Prayer.
    When he had eaten, my mother turned to me. Tell him, Lilka, she whispered. My grandfather placed his finger on the page of his prayer book. No need, he said. Three months ago my son appeared to me in a dream, wrapped in a shroud. That is when he disappeared, said my mother in surprise. Yes, replied Grandfather, in August. The month he was born. He bent his head and began to pray. My mother shook her head. When she had left the room, my grandfather put his hand on my arm. Everyone is trying to survive, he said to me. She too.
    One day, said Lilka, I had to go to Nalewki on an errand for Grandfather. Nalewki was one of the worst. They were all the worst, said Jascha. We wouldn’t let him leave the house. Not with his beard, his black hat, his gabardine. I offered to buy him Polish clothes at the market.
    Grandfather, I pleaded with him, shave off your beard. You know what happens to Them when they see a Jewish beard. They go even crazier. He pinched