Clara's War Read Free Page A

backs. Our family was reunited. Whatever happened to us, we would stay together as a pack. That was our hope.

Chapter 1
MY GRANDFATHER
    From March 1940 to June 1941
    F or those of us not sent to Siberia, the Russians had brought Siberia to us. Every bit of fuel, everything that could burn, even tiny birds’ nests, was sent to the front. I practically lived in my heavy grey Afghan coat lined with rabbit fur. That coat was my saviour. Thank heavens Aunt Uchka had married a furrier. Hersch Leib had had coats made for everyone in the family. We could have chosen anything, even a famous Zolkiew fur, so popular in Paris. But with the icy winds blowing off the steppes, nothing was warmer than Afghan lamb. So that is what my family wore.
    Six months after the Soviets occupied Zolkiew we were still in the icy grip of our first occupied winter. The news on my grandparents’ radio was just as chilling. We despaired when the United States announced its neutrality. And even though England and France had declared war on Germany, nothing had been done about the occupation of Poland. All France did was invade a lightly defended area of Germany. They made it all of 12 kilometres before turning back. We had been abandoned.
    On most days after school, I would stop off at Uchka’s on the way home. I looked forward to sugar cookies, tea, and playingwith Zygush and Zosia–especially Zosia. I had given up dolls for books when I was six, but I couldn’t get enough of her. Zosia liked to put her cheek next to yours and clutch your face when she was carried. I didn’t want to be any other place on earth when she did this. According to Uchka, I was Zosia’s little mother, her mammeleh .
    One day, when I went to Aunt Uchka’s, her house was empty. Before, I would have thought nothing of their absence, but now I immediately assumed the worst. I ran through the lanes in Uchka’s neighbourhood back to my house, praying to find them there. It was like a snow-covered maze behind my family’s oil-press factory. I cut through the alley behind the pink walls of the convent to my street. I rushed up the steps into the foyer that separated our flat from that of my grandparents’, stamping off as much snow as I could. Even with my fur hat still over my ears, my coat collar up and my scarf wrapped tightly round it, I could already hear the noise coming from the next room. Something had happened. Everybody was speaking all at once. No one noticed I had walked in the room. I was relieved to see Uchka sitting in the corner holding the children in her lap. It took me a while to realize that everyone was beaming.
    Mama finally sighted me. She rushed towards me with her arms out. ‘Who knew? Who knew?’
    I asked, ‘Who knew what?’ I couldn’t imagine what had put such smiles on their faces. But everyone actually looked happy, which surely meant that nobody had died or been deported. It finally hit Mama that I really didn’t know what she was talking about.
    â€˜You mean the entire town hasn’t heard yet? Clarutchka,’ she said, every word ripe with pride, ‘out of all the children in Zolkiew, not only was your little sister chosen to sing the leadaria in the spring concert, but she was the youngest! Can you imagine? Mania! The youngest! And a lead aria! Who knew?’
    Never in a million years would I have thought I would be hearing Mama crow about this. Not now, not ever! Mania was always pulling rabbits out of the hat of her life. We didn’t even know that she had been asked to audition! I was as giddy as the rest of them. Who could have known that my little stick of a sister could really sing? We sang at holidays. We sang our children’s songs at school. But an aria? From a real opera? What a blessing to have such a talent in the family. We even temporarily forgot that the concert was to celebrate the superiority of the Soviet system. Even Dzadzio, Grandfather, who never had a