In the Balance

Russie wondered if the anonymous men who kept his family in food and candles even knew whom they were helping. He could easily imagine Mordechai Anielewicz ordering them to take their-boxes down and leave them in the basement without telling them whom the things were for. Why not? What the men didn’t know, they couldn’t tell the Lizards.

He made a sour face: he was learning to think like a soldier. All he’d wanted to do was heal people and then, after the Lizards came like a sign from heaven, set people free. And the result? Here he was in hiding and thinking like a killer, not a healer.

Not too long after supper, Reuven yawned and went to bed without his usual fuss. In the dark, closed bunker, night and day no longer had much meaning for the little boy. Had the fighters not furnished the place with a clock, Moishe would have had no idea of the hour, either. One day he’d forget to wind it and slip into timelessness himself.

The shabbas candles were still burning. By their light, Moishe helped Rivka wash the supper dishes (though without electricity, the bunker had running water). She. smiled at him. “The time you lived by yourself taught you some things. You’re much better at that than you used to be.”

“What you have to do, you learn to do,” he answered philosophically. “Hand me that towel, would you?”

He’d just slid the last dish into its stack when he heard noise in the cellar next to the hidden bunker: men moving about in heavy shoes. He and Rivka froze. Her face was frightened; he was sure his was, too. Had their secret been betrayed? The Lizards wouldn’t shout “Juden heraus!” but he didn’t want to be caught by them any more than by the Nazis.

He wished he had a weapon. He wasn’t altogether a soldier yet, or he’d have had the sense to ask for one before he sealed himself away here. Too late to worry about it now.

The footsteps came closer. Russie strained his ears, trying to pick out the skitters and clicks that would have meant Lizards were walking with the humans. He thought he did. Fear rose up in him like a smothering cloud.

The people-and aliens? — stopped just on the other side of the plasterboard barrier. Moishe’s eyes flicked to the candlesticks that held the Sabbath lights. These were of pottery, not silver like the one he’d given up for food. But they were heavy, and of a length to serve as bludgeons. I won’t go down without a fight, he promised himself.

Someone rapped on the barrier. Russie grabbed for a candlestick, then caught himself: two knocks a pause, then another knock was the signal Anielewicz’s men used when they brought him supplies. But they’d just done that a couple of days before, and the bunker still held plenty. They seemed to have a schedule of sorts, and even though the signal was right, the timing wasn’t.

Rivka knew that, too. “What do we do?” she mouthed silently.

“I don’t know,” Moishe mouthed back. What he did know, though he didn’t want to dishearten his wife by saying so, was that if the Lizards were out there, they were going to take him. But the footsteps receded. Had he really heard skitterings after all?

Rivka raised her voice to a whisper. “Are they gone?”

“I don’t know,” Russie said again. After a moment, he added, “Let’s find out.” If the Lizards knew he was here, they didn’t need to wait for him to come out.

He picked up a candlestick, lit candle still inside (the cellar was as dark as the bunker would have been without light), unbarred the door, took half a step forward so he could slide aside the plasterboard panel. No box of food sat in front of it… but an envelope lay on the cement floor. He scooped it up, replaced the concealing panel, and went back into his hidey-hole.

“What is it?” Rivka asked when he was back inside.

“A note or letter of some sort,” he answered, holding up the envelope. He tore it open, pulled out the folded sheet of paper inside, and held it close to the candlestick so he could see what it said. The one great curse of this underground life was never having either sunlight or electric light by which to read.

The candle sufficed for something short, though. He unfolded the paper. On it was a neatly typed paragraph in Polish. He read the words aloud for Rivka’s benefit: “Just so you know, your latest message has been received elsewhere and widely circulated. Reaction is very much as we had hoped. Sympathy for us outside the area has increased, and certain parties would have red faces under other circumstances. They still would like to congratulate you for your wit. Suggest you let them continue to lavish their praises from a distance.”

“That’s all?” Rivka asked when he was through. “No signature or anything?”

“No,” he answered. “I can make a pretty good guess about who sent it, though, and I expect you can, too.”

“Anielewicz,” she said.