The first stretch of this narrow street, badly damaged during the war, was separated from the ghetto walls by apartment house blocks standing between Bonifraterska and Nowiniarska streets, which ran parallel to each other. A short distance away, beyond the first cross street—Świętojerska—the buildings came to an end, and the street opened onto a vast, empty, and potholed square that had come into being after the razing of buildings bombed out and burned during the siege of Warsaw.
At the point where Nowiniarska opened upon this square, the crowd thickened, and the sidewalks and roadway became packed with people. Only a few strayed beyond the square. Shots could still be heard from the direction of the Jewish houses. In the intervals when the shooting died down, people broke away from the crowd a few at a time and vanished in haste beneath the walls of the apartment buildings.
Just as Malecki reached a place exposed to fire from the insurgents, the shooting came to a halt, and people, some hurrying home or on errands and others driven by curiosity, pushed forward in a thick wave. The deserted square now seemed even wider. In its center stood two carousels not yet completely assembled, evidently being readied for the upcoming holiday. Under the cover of their wildly colored decorations stood helmeted German soldiers. A number of them were kneeling on the platform with rifles pointed toward the ghetto. The area beneath the ghetto walls was empty. Above them, heavy and silent, rose the high walls of the apartment buildings. With their narrow windows and broken rooflines set against the cloudy sky, they recalled the image of a huge fortress.
Emboldened by the calm, people began to stop and to survey the solitary walls. Suddenly, shots rang out from that direction. Farther along Bonifraterska Street, probably near St. John the Divine Hospital, a deafening explosion could be heard, and many more followed, one after another. The Jews must have been throwing grenades.
People quickly began to take cover in the nearby entryways as shots whistled through the air. One of the running men, a stocky little fellow in a straw hat, gave a shout and fell onto the sidewalk. In the square a machine gun was stuttering. The soldiers at the carousel also were firing. Simultaneously, a series of sharp and very powerful shots rocked the square, and a streak of silvery shells struck one of the highest windows of the defended houses. It was an antitank gun firing in response.
In the ensuing havoc, Malecki found himself far from the closest gate, and he instinctively retreated into the doorway of the first store at hand. The storefront was boarded over, but the recess was deep enough to afford a measure of protection.
The street had nearly emptied. Two broad-shouldered workers were lifting the man lying on the sidewalk. One of them, a younger man, also picked up the straw hat. A soldier standing by the wall urged them to hurry. Then, gesticulating violently, he shouted loudly in the direction of a woman who, alone among the passersby, remained on the street. She stood motionless on the edge of the sidewalk and, as if unaware of the danger to which she was exposing herself, stared straight ahead at the dark walls.
“Don’t stand there, miss!” cried Malecki.
She did not even turn around. It was not until the soldier leaped up, screaming and shoving her away, that she stepped back and cradled her head in her arms in an uncertain gesture of surprise and fear. The soldier, exasperated and angry, pushed her with the butt of his rifle toward the gate. At the same time, he saw Malecki hidden in the recess of the store.
“Weg! Weg!” he screamed at him.
Malecki jumped out and quickly ran after the fleeing woman. Shots now came from all sides. A volley of shells rang out from a small antitank gun in the square. Glass flew tinkling onto the sidewalk. Again the dull explosion of grenades was heard.
The woman and Malecki reached the gate almost simultaneously. It was closed, and before it opened, Malecki finally was able to get a look at his companion, still hunched over and frightened, but whose profile was now turned toward him. The moment he saw her, he gasped in amazement.
“Irena!”
She looked at him with dark, uncomprehending eyes.
“Irena!” he repeated.
At the same moment, the frightened young doorkeeper opened the gate.
“Faster! Faster!” she urged.
Malecki grabbed Irena by the hand and yanked her inside. The entryway was filled with people, so he pushed his way through the crowd toward the courtyard. Irena allowed herself to be led, obediently and without resistance. He pulled her deeper into the courtyard, where it was empty.
The courtyard was old, dirty, and very run down. In place of what had once been an annex rose an empty plaster-specked wall, a remnant of wartime devastation. In the middle was a tall stack of bricks, alongside which lay a gray patch of poor barren earth, evidently prepared for planting vegetables.
As they came to a stop next to a steep set of stairs leading to the basement, Malecki let go of Irena’s hand and took a closer look at her.
She was still beautiful, but very changed. She had grown thin, and her features had become sharper and more subtle. Her oval eyes had become somehow even larger, but their expression had lost the warm color that had been so characteristic of her. They were now foreign, almost raw. Irena was very well dressed.
She wore a light-blue wool suit brought over from England before the war and a becoming hat, which Malecki did not recognize. Whether because he had not seen her for a long time or whether the changes were real, at first glance she now seemed to Malecki even more Semitic than before.
“It’s you?” she said quickly and without surprise.
Her eyes gave him a careless once-over. She seemed still to be listening to the sounds of gunfire from the street.
Malecki pulled himself together.
“Where did you come from? What are you doing here? You’re in Warsaw?”
“Yes,” she answered matter-of-factly, as if they had parted just a short time ago.
Her voice was the same as before, low and resonant, but perhaps somewhat less vibrant, a bit flat.
“How long have you been here?”
Irena shrugged.
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t even remember exactly. It seems like a very long time.”
“And you didn’t let me know?”
She looked at him more closely and a trifle mockingly.
“What for?”
Malecki lost his composure. This simple question was completely unexpected, so unlike the Irena he had known before. Not knowing what to say, he fell silent. Irena was listening again to the din from the street, and in her strained, somewhat distraught and frightened focus, she seemed to have forgotten about her companion. The silence became prolonged and increasingly uncomfortable and burdensome for Malecki. He felt a clear sense of estrangement from Irena, and in view of the situation in which she now found herself, he very much wanted to erase the distance between them but did not know how.
In the meantime, voices could suddenly be heard in the entryway. Part of the crowd hurriedly began to withdraw into the courtyard. A little boy in torn pants and a ragged shirt flew through the entrance and, knocking against Malecki in his haste, shouted excitedly down into the basement:
“Mama! They’ve
