Free Boys of Life by Paul Russell Page A

to German merchants who sold them. And from that day on I knew. I knew what was happening without any doubt, and I said to myself God have mercy on us."
    "I'd have gotten a gun," I told him. "I'd have (ought hack. I'd hide in the woods and eat roots and they wouldn't take me alive. I wouldn't just let something like that happen to me."
    Sammy picked up my tea cup and sniffed at the Canadian Club, and then put it back down on the table.
    "Every day people were jumping out of buildings," he said. "Or they would walk to the barbed wire where the senrnes were, nuht up to the wire without any fear, and the Germans would shoot them. And all this time there were concerts, and even with no food the cafes were open, and people got married and there was crime, like in any city."
    "Sounds like New York," I said. At night I could hear gunshots out in the streets, and sirens, and in the day it wasn't too much better. I wanted to get out and around, but the neighborhood scared me a little. I'd never been anywhere in my life like Avenue C before.
    "There was a bread we used to make," Sammy went on like he hadn't heard me. "From potato peels and brick dust. That was what we ate when we were hungry."
    "Potato peels," I said. "And so you kept yourself alive, and now you're here, now you're making these crazy movies with Carlos. I don't get it."
    Sammy looked at me for a long rime. "I will tell you this," he said. "When you are old, maybe you will remember. 71 this
    one man, a photographer, a young man, very shy. He worked, I think, for the bureau of statistics that gathered information. Hew much the

    □ PAUL RUSSELL
    food ration was today. What was the weather. How many people died or were born, and for what causes. And this photographer, Mendel was his name, before the war he had wanted to be an artist, he had wanted people to admire the beautiful pictures he took of flowers and girls."
    This is hopeless, I thought. But what was I going to do? I was raised to have respect for older people.
    "But now," Sammy went on, "he was not interested in beauty anymore, this Mendel. Now he was taking pictures of everything. Everything that was happening, he took pictures. And it was forbidden in the ghetto to take pictures. He would be shot if they caught him taking those forbidden pictures. But every day he was walking the streets, or climbing on rooftops or hiding behind a window to take pictures."
    "Fine," I said. You can only have so much patience. "What does this have to do with anything?"
    The whole time we were talking, Netta's tape recorder was blaring out opera music in the next room, those big busty voices heaving away at the top of their lungs. As soon as the song was over, she'd rewind and play it through again.
    "He was not in good health," Sammy said. I was thinking maybe he couldn't hear me for the opera music. I was thinking maybe this whole conversation was pretty pointless, and 1 should just leave, only I didn't want to leave. I wanted Sammy to leave. "His heart," Sammy s.j id. "So many times I would go with him, I would carry his satchel tor him. And we would go around. His camera he kept under his coat,
    iuse it was forbidden. And his hands he kept in his pockets. You
    he had cut his pockets open on the inside so he could work the
    camera through his coat. And when he would see something, he would
    turn his body to aim the camera, and he would open his coal |usi a
    little it was very dangerous and ctickt there would he the picture.
    ive would go, and he would take those pictures. And all do you know where the) are no* '" I wanted to take a sip oi i Canadian ( 'lub .1 good swig Is more like n hut tlu- way he was looking at me, I couldn't ^^ it. It was the first turn- m the whole conversation he looked .it me.
    thin aii how rum h to believe. I mean, I knew .1 little from .1 and IV'. but I 1 hi about It
    Ingle photograph/' Sammy said, not looking it me , n I felt squirmy Inside, like I didn't

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    want to hear any