In the nine months since they settled in Lvov, Genek and Herta have heard stories of these raids in the middle of the night—of men, women, and children snatched from their homes for money falsely owed, for being perceived resisters, for simply being Polish. Neighbors of the accused said they heard the knocks, the footsteps, a dog barking, and then in the morning, nothing; the homes were empty. The people, whole families, vanished. Where they were taken, no one knew.
“We’d better answer it,” Genek says, convincing himself that he has nothing to fear. What could the secret police have on him? He’s done no wrong. He clears his throat. “Coming,” he calls, reaching for a robe and, at the last minute, his wallet from the dresser. He slips it into his robe pocket. Herta wraps her own robe around her nightgown and follows him down the hallway.
The moment Genek unlocks the door, a gang of rifle-wielding soldiers explodes into the apartment, forming a semicircle around them. Genek feels Herta’s elbow loop around his as he counts the hammer-and-sickle patches, the blue and maroon peaked caps—there are eight men in total. Why so many? He stares hard at the intruders, his fingers curled into fists, the hair on the back of his neck electric. The soldiers eye him with locked jaws until one finally steps forward. Genek sizes him up. He’s short, with a squat wrestler’s build and an obvious swagger—the one in charge. A small red star over his visor bobs up and down as he nods to his men, who turn obediently on their heels and file past them, down the hallway.
“Wait!” Genek protests, scowling at the backs of their tunics. “What right do you—” he nearly says cockroaches but catches himself—“What right do you have to search my home?” He can feel blood begin to throb in his temples.
The officer in charge extracts a sheet of paper from a breast pocket. He unfolds it carefully and reads.
“Gerszon Kurc?” It sounds like Gairzon Koork.
“I am Gerszon.”
“We have warrant to search flat.” The officer’s Polish is broken, his accent as thick as his midline. He waves the paper in Genek’s face for an instant as if to prove its credibility, then refolds it, returning it to his pocket. Genek can hear the havoc being wreaked in the adjacent rooms—drawers pulled from a dresser, furniture slid across the hardwood floor, papers scattered.
“A warrant?” Genek narrows his eyes. “On what grounds?” He glances at the officer’s rifle, hanging by his side. He had been shown photos of Soviet carbines in the army, but Genek has yet to see one up close. This one looks like an M38. Or perhaps an M91/30. He knows where to look for the safety. It’s off. “What the hell is going on?”
The officer ignores the question. “Wait here,” he says, tucking his fingers into his Sam Browne belt as he strides down the hall, casually, as if the place were his own.
Left alone in the foyer, Herta frees her elbow from Genek’s and wraps her arms around her chest, flinching at the sound of something heavy colliding with the floor.
“Bastards,” Genek whispers under his breath. “Who do they think—”
Herta meets his eye. “Don’t let them hear you,” she whispers.
Genek bites his tongue, breathing heavily through flared nostrils. It’s nearly impossible for him to keep quiet. He paces with his hands on his hips. The lawyer in him screams to demand to see the warrant—it can’t be real—but something tells him it will do no good.
After a few minutes, the flock of uniformed men assembles again at the door. They stand with their feet planted at shoulder width, their chests puffed up like roosters, still gripping their weapons. The one in charge points to Genek. “We take you for interrogation, Koork,” he says.
“Why?” Genek asks through his teeth. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Just some questions.”
Genek glowers down at the Russian, relishing the fact that he is a full head taller, that the officer must look up to make eye contact.
“And then I’ll be free to come home?”
“Yes.”
Herta steps forward. “I’m coming with you,” she says. It is a statement, her tone definitive. Genek looks at her, contemplates an argument, but she’s right—it’s better if she comes. What if the NKVD return?
“She comes with me,” Genek says.
“Fine.”
“We need to dress,” Herta says.
The officer looks at his watch and then prongs his middle fingers. “You have three minutes.”
In the bedroom, Genek steps into trousers and a button-down shirt. Herta zips herself into a skirt and then reaches under the bed for her suitcase. “Just in case,” she says. “Who knows when we’ll be back.” Genek nods and retrieves his own suitcase. As much as he is reluctant to admit it, Herta may be right to assume the worst. He packs some undergarments, his good-as-new army-issued boots, a photograph of his parents, a pocketknife, his tortoiseshell comb, a deck of cards, his address book. He reaches for his robe, tucks his wallet into his trouser pocket. Herta packs a small pile of hosiery, undergarments, a hairbrush, two pairs of slacks, a wool tunic. At the last minute they decide to bring their winter coats, then hurry down the hallway to the kitchen to collect what’s left of a loaf of bread, an apple, and some salted fish from the pantry.
“My pocketbook,” Herta whispers. “I nearly forgot.” She ducks back into the bedroom. Genek follows, frowning as he remembers that his own wallet is nearly empty.
“Let’s go!” the officer barks from the foyer.
“Find it?” Genek asks. But Herta doesn’t answer. She stands at the closet door, hands at her head, auburn hair spilling through her fingers. “It’s gone,” she whispers.
Genek brings a fist to his mouth to keep from cursing. “What was in it?”
“My ID, some money . . . a lot of money.” Herta touches her left wrist. “My watch is gone, too. It was—on my bedside table, I think.”
“Maggots,” Genek whispers.
The officer yells again, and Genek and Herta make their way silently back to the foyer.
Twenty minutes later, they sit at a small desk across from an officer clad in the same royal blue and maroon peaked cap worn by the men who had brought them in. The room is bare, save for a portrait of Joseph Stalin suspended on the wall behind the desk; Genek can feel the general secretary’s thick-browed eyes bearing down on him like a vulture’s and fights the urge to rip the photo from the wall and shred it.
“You say you are Polish.” The officer opposite them makes no attempt to mask the disgust in his voice. He squints at a piece of paper in his hands. Genek wonders whether it’s the so-called warrant.
“Yes. I’m Polish.”
“Where were you born?”
“I was born in Radom, 350 kilometers from here.”
The officer sets the paper on the table and Genek immediately recognizes the handwriting as his own. The paper, he realizes, is a form—a questionnaire he was made to complete upon signing a lease with the manager of his apartment on Zielona Street, shortly after the Soviets took control of Lvov in September. The agreement was written on Soviet letterhead; Genek had thought little of it at the time.
“Your family is still in Radom?”
“Yes.”
“Poland surrendered nine months ago. Why haven’t you returned?”
“I found a job here,” Genek says, although it’s only half true. In all honesty, he is reluctant to return home. His mother’s letters painted an awful picture of Radom—of the armbands the Jews were forced to wear at all times, of the citywide curfew, the twelve-hour workdays, the laws banning her from using the sidewalks, from going to the cinema, from walking to the post office without special permission. Nechuma wrote about how they, like thousands of others living in the city center, had been evicted from their home and made to pay rent for a space a fraction of the size in the Old Quarter. How are we to afford rent when they’ve taken away our business, confiscated our savings, and put us to work like slaves for next to nothing? she fumed. She had urged him to stay. You’re better off in Lvov, she wrote.
“What kind of job?”
“I work for a law firm.”
The officer eyes him suspiciously. “You’re a Jew. Jews aren’t fit to be lawyers.”
The words sizzle like drops of water on a hot pan. “I’m an assistant at the firm,” Genek says.