Striking the Balance

“How are you fixed for ammunition?” he asked Jager.

“Full magazine in the weapon, one more full one here.” The German pointed to his belt. “Sixty rounds altogether.”

That was better, but it wasn’t as good as Mordechai had hoped.

You could go through the magazine of a submachine gun in a matter of seconds. He reminded himself Jager was a panzer colonel. If a German soldier-a German officer, no less-didn’t maintain fire discipline, who would?

Maybe nobody. When bullets started cracking past your head, maintaining discipline of any sort came hard.

“And I, I have only the rounds in my pistol,” Ludmila said. Anielewicz nodded. She was coming along. Jager seemed to think she had every right to come along, but Jager was sleeping with her, too, so how much was his opinion worth? Enough that Anielewicz didn’t feel like bucking it, not when anybody who wouldn’t run away at the sound of a gunshot was an asset. She’d been in the Red Air Force and she’d been a partisan here in Poland, so maybe she’d be useful after all. His own fighters had shown him some women could do the job-and some men couldn’t.

He passed a good many of his own fighters as he hurried with Jager and Ludmila toward the ruined factory. Several shouted questions at him. He gave only vague answers, and did not ask any of the men or women to join. None of them was privy to the secret of the explosive-metal bomb, and he wanted to keep the circle of those who were as small as possible. If he stopped Skorzeny, he didn’t want to have to risk playing a game of Samson in the temple with the Lizards afterwards. Besides, troops who didn’t know what they were getting into were liable to cause more problems than they solved.

A couple of Order Service policemen also recognized him and asked him where he was going. Them he ignored. He was used to ignoring the Order Service. They were used to being ignored, too. Men who carried truncheons were polite to men with rifles and submachine guns: either they were polite, or their loved ones (assuming Order Service police had any loved ones, a dubious proposition) saidKaddish over new graves in the cemetery.

Jager was starting to pant “How far is it?” he asked on the exhale. Sweat streamed down his face and darkened his shirt at the back and under the arms.

Anielewicz wasshvitzing, too. The day was hot and bright and clear, pleasant if you were just lounging around but not for running through the streets of Lodz.This couldn’t have happened, say, in fall? he thought. Aloud, though, he answered, “Not much farther. Nothing in the ghetto is very far from anything else. You Nazis didn’t leave us much room here, you know.”

Jager’s mouth tightened. “Can’t you leave that alone when you talk to me? If I hadn’t got through to you, you’d have been dead twice by now.”

“That’s true,” Mordechai admitted. “But it only goes so far. How many thousands of Jews died here before anyone said anything?” He gave Jager credit. The German visibly chewed on that for a few strides before nodding.

A cloud of smoke was rising. As Mordechai had thought from the sound, it was close to the place where the bomb lay concealed. Somebody shouted to him, “Where’s the fire engine?”

“It’s on fire itself by now,” he answered. “The other explosion you heard was the fire station.” His questioner stared at him in horror. When he had time, he figured he would be horrified, too. What would the ghetto do for a fire engine from now on? He grunted. If they didn’t stop Skorzeny,from now on would be a phrase without meaning.

He rounded another corner, Jager and Ludmila beside him. Almost, then, he stopped dead in his tracks. The burning building housed the stable that held the heavy draft horses he’d gathered to move the bomb in case of need. Fire trapped the horses in their stalls. Their terrified screams, more dreadful than those of wounded women, dinned in his ears.

He wanted to go help the animals, and had to make himself trot past them. People who didn’t know what he did were trying to get the horses out of the stable. He looked to make sure none of the bomb guards were there. To his relief, he didn’t see any, but he knew he might well have. When that thought crossed his mind, he was suddenly certain Skorzeny hadn’t bombed the building at random. He’d tried to create a distraction, to lure the guards away from their proper posts.

“That SS pal of yours, he’s a realmamzer, isn’t he?” he said to Jager.

“A what?” the panzer man asked.

“A bastard,” Anielewicz said, substituting a German word for a Yiddish one.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Jager said. “Christ, Anielewicz, you don’t know a tenth part of it.”