brain. With great misgivings and second thoughts, he decided to disobey a strict order and approach a Scribe who was forbidden from answering letters written in German: this was Mikhail Solomon.
When he designed the Compound, Hans Ewigkeit had clustered most of the rooms using the mineshaft as a reference point. If one stood with one’s back to the mineshaft, the kitchen was to its left, the guards’ room and officers’ quarters to its right, and the main room directly opposite. But the cobblestone street went on for thirty meters to dead-end in a wall that concealed an underground passage to the nearest town. And a stone’s throw from this wall was a little white house with four pots of artificial roses, an artificial pear tree, and a lead-paned window. The street had no name, but the house had a number—917—engraved in bronze on the door.
Mikhail Solomon lived in this house with his wife, Talia. They had been designated Echte Juden , pure Jews, in charge of answering all correspondence written in the Hebrew alphabet—letters from people the Reich decided were pious. To be sure the letters were in keeping with the motto of Like Answers Like , the Solomons lived in a house like the one the interior designer Thor Ungeheur imagined they’d lived in before they were sent to the Lodz ghetto in Poland. They had two small kitchens, impossible to cook in, and were allowed to observe their customs, which adhered to the Reich’s vague understanding of menorahs and a candle in the shape of a braid. They were forbidden from working on Saturday.
The Solomons were an unlikely pair, snatched from the maws of a cattle car about to leave the Lodz ghetto for Auschwitz. Mikhail was a slight, clean-shaven man who wore a skullcap. Talia was a head taller, had a shadow of a moustache, broad shoulders, and red hair in a long French braid. Before the war Mikhail taught ethics at the University of Berlin, and Talia taught English. The Solomons weren’t Orthodox. They ignored Goebbels’s orders about keeping to themselves and came to the main room every day to play word games and barter cigarettes. They also used the main kitchen.
Besides the privilege of a house, Mikhail was the only person besides Elie Schacten who could leave the Compound after midnight. Long after the lottery had been drawn for Elie’s old room, and the Scribes were making love, eavesdropping, and note passing, Mikhail alone could admit he was awake. Then Lars Eisenscher knocked on his door and led him past the main room with bodies on desks, rustling papers, and glissandos of snoring. They took the mineshaft, walked up the incline, and down a stone path to the left of the Compound where they climbed a watchtower almost twelve meters from its entrance.
The watchtower had a steep ladder that led to a platform with a panoramic view of the night sky. And on this platform Mikhail pretended to read the stars. He had explained to the Reich he was a Kabbalist, and Kabbalists need to meditate on the sky after midnight. Didn’t Hitler realize that the stars were angels and could predict the future?
As soon as the Reich heard this, they sent a memo: Let the Jew read the stars. Mikhail wasn’t surprised. Everyone knew Hitler conferred with an astrologer about the war, and Churchill consulted one to predict Hitler’s strategies. Mikhail himself didn’t believe in angels or astrology. He only craved fresh air and the boundless freedom he felt when he looked at the sky. It was impervious to war, without trenches, countries, or borders.
Sometimes he liked to imagine each star was a word, and the sky was a piece of paper. Then the stars unfurled into a phrase—a proclamation for just one night. Sometimes he announced it to the main room in the morning. The last one had been the persistence of fire .
Dear Mother,
I waited for you at the train and you didn’t come. Lots of children were on the train and some of them had mothers and fathers. My shoes got too
When he designed the Compound, Hans Ewigkeit had clustered most of the rooms using the mineshaft as a reference point. If one stood with one’s back to the mineshaft, the kitchen was to its left, the guards’ room and officers’ quarters to its right, and the main room directly opposite. But the cobblestone street went on for thirty meters to dead-end in a wall that concealed an underground passage to the nearest town. And a stone’s throw from this wall was a little white house with four pots of artificial roses, an artificial pear tree, and a lead-paned window. The street had no name, but the house had a number—917—engraved in bronze on the door.
Mikhail Solomon lived in this house with his wife, Talia. They had been designated Echte Juden , pure Jews, in charge of answering all correspondence written in the Hebrew alphabet—letters from people the Reich decided were pious. To be sure the letters were in keeping with the motto of Like Answers Like , the Solomons lived in a house like the one the interior designer Thor Ungeheur imagined they’d lived in before they were sent to the Lodz ghetto in Poland. They had two small kitchens, impossible to cook in, and were allowed to observe their customs, which adhered to the Reich’s vague understanding of menorahs and a candle in the shape of a braid. They were forbidden from working on Saturday.
The Solomons were an unlikely pair, snatched from the maws of a cattle car about to leave the Lodz ghetto for Auschwitz. Mikhail was a slight, clean-shaven man who wore a skullcap. Talia was a head taller, had a shadow of a moustache, broad shoulders, and red hair in a long French braid. Before the war Mikhail taught ethics at the University of Berlin, and Talia taught English. The Solomons weren’t Orthodox. They ignored Goebbels’s orders about keeping to themselves and came to the main room every day to play word games and barter cigarettes. They also used the main kitchen.
Besides the privilege of a house, Mikhail was the only person besides Elie Schacten who could leave the Compound after midnight. Long after the lottery had been drawn for Elie’s old room, and the Scribes were making love, eavesdropping, and note passing, Mikhail alone could admit he was awake. Then Lars Eisenscher knocked on his door and led him past the main room with bodies on desks, rustling papers, and glissandos of snoring. They took the mineshaft, walked up the incline, and down a stone path to the left of the Compound where they climbed a watchtower almost twelve meters from its entrance.
The watchtower had a steep ladder that led to a platform with a panoramic view of the night sky. And on this platform Mikhail pretended to read the stars. He had explained to the Reich he was a Kabbalist, and Kabbalists need to meditate on the sky after midnight. Didn’t Hitler realize that the stars were angels and could predict the future?
As soon as the Reich heard this, they sent a memo: Let the Jew read the stars. Mikhail wasn’t surprised. Everyone knew Hitler conferred with an astrologer about the war, and Churchill consulted one to predict Hitler’s strategies. Mikhail himself didn’t believe in angels or astrology. He only craved fresh air and the boundless freedom he felt when he looked at the sky. It was impervious to war, without trenches, countries, or borders.
Sometimes he liked to imagine each star was a word, and the sky was a piece of paper. Then the stars unfurled into a phrase—a proclamation for just one night. Sometimes he announced it to the main room in the morning. The last one had been the persistence of fire .
Dear Mother,
I waited for you at the train and you didn’t come. Lots of children were on the train and some of them had mothers and fathers. My shoes got too
Similar Books
