Page 165 - LEIBY

Chapter 21 165

“Maria Karshiya… Maria Karshiya.” He looked for a three-
year-old girl who was together with her brother, and after a
few minutes of wandering around and scrutinizing anyone
he thought may be the child he was looking for, he found
them. The brother was fast asleep, his head on a large, shabby
knapsack. His thin face and the peaked cap he wore gave him a
somewhat pitiable appearance. Close beside him dozed a red-
cheeked toddler with closely cropped blond hair. Even in her
sleep she looked unhappy.

“Maria Karshiya,” Yozek raised his voice.

The girl opened wide, shining eyes. “Mama, Mama, have you
come to fetch me?” She called excitedly. “Mama, I’m here!”

Yozek approached her with catlike steps. “I’ve come to take you
to Mama,” he whispered.

Maria stood up cautiously and inspected her sleeping brother.
When she was sure that he really was sound asleep, she gave the
stranger her hand and together they went to the door.

“Where to?” A sharp call stopped them.

“We… we just want to stroll around a little.”

Hershel, the night watchman, looked at them skeptically.“Now?
In the middle of the night? Where precisely do you think you
are?”

Yozek pulled out the crumpled piece of paper with the passwords
that the priest had given him and began to read them out loud.
“Jews get out – Jew-free Europe – Heil Hitler.”

Hershel’s eyes almost fell out of their sockets. In a fit of
hysterical rage, he attacked the man standing before him, ripped
the Chassidic coat that he wore and cut open his shirt sleeve
with his pocketknife. He lifted the bewildered Yozek’s arm and
discovered his eagle tattoo, and above it, a swastika.

Hershel lost any vestige of self-control. In his mind’s eye, his
massacred family all came and pointed accusingly at Yozek. He