A Thief's Kiss

Bullets and gunshots were the new birds and breeze. Sometimes, hand in hand, little Janek and little Luca would hear the cracking of a gun and the silence of the aftermath. Even at their tender age they knew –they could feel- the absence of another life in the ghetto. Bang bang. It could be your long lost cousin, your former pediatrician, the elderly woman who sold hand-sewn armbands, the coughing man that stood beside you at the bakery. One of them could be lying on the cold concrete, bleeding through the birdsong they sang. It was their national anthem, their twisted language only they could articulate.

Bang, bang.

“Don’t look.”

Luca’s hand was sticky and rough and dry and it smelled like neglect. Janek couldn’t see, but he could still hear and smell everything. He opened and closed his mouth – broken mandible with nothing to say. They were at the opera that day, they were. A real German opera was ricocheting from the walls around them, the constant bangs fissuring their bones, followed by a choir of screams and disaster. “Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.” But Janek didn’t have to look to know what the Germans were performing, as he didn’t need to form words to express his fear. His pants already reeked with the stench of it, running down his legs onto his mangles boots.

“Don’t… don’t…” He couldn’t hear Luca over the screams of a woman. The possible nana, the possible woman with that baby on her hip you saw two days ago. You never saw two people twice in the ghetto. Not until they were part of their last performance in life. The final act. Janek didn’t have to see to hear war and blood, Janek didn’t have to see to hear the shattered window and the helpless wail of a woman that ended with a thump. Thunk. Crack. Death bit her scalp once she hit the pavement. Janek didn’t have to see. He was already part of it.

“We have to… we have to…” Luca was crying and shaking and he was hugging Janek’s face against his chest. But even if it smelled like rotten apples and long forgotten hygiene, Janek held on and inhaled. It smelled better than the rust and the gun powder. It smelled better than their barks and jeers, better than the walking corpses that shrieked and attempted to run. Luca pulled them off the main street, cradling Janek and whispered nothings in his ear. “It’s nothing, nothing. It’s…” he was shaking and crying and something terrible boiled between his two lungs. Luca took in a shaky breath and collapsed inside, every vehement sob muffled with Janek’s lice-infested hair. They shared their filth and sorrow and war. Janek was quiet and pale, all while Luca cried and cried and cried and kept muttering about mama and papa and nana and Felix.

Janek could still hear the laughter and the wailing baby, the click of the guns and the ein, zwei, drei. He was all too familiar with those words; he choked and sputtered and clawed at Luca when the birds sang. He felt the tip of his nose get crushed as Luca hugged him harder, attempting to drown his screams. Please, no, no, no, no please no.

Bang. Click. Feuer.

Janek screamed.

Bang. Click. Feuer.

“Shh, don’t worry. It’s going to be over now. Don’t worry. It’s okay. It’s... it’s...” Luca uncurled his cramped fingers and wiped off Janek’s face with his clumsy fingers. “O… okay…” He felt his heart stutter as he saw a young boy run past their alley, his lung popping like ripe cherries; his last words the sound of his body against the ground. “It’s okay.” Luca didn’t stop the tears and the hiccups. The cracking in the air didn’t stop, didn’t cease. Soon the opera would be over and the anthem would be sung. Luca closed his eyes and looked away. The drunk screams, the beseeching moans.

Luca. “Ye… yes?” Luca I want to go home. “Listen-” he fell breathless and pulled Janek farther into his caravan. No, no, no, don’t look right, don’t look right. Luca crushed Janek’s skull and tried to pocket him and tried to swallow the miserable agony that swelled between his fractured ribs. He could feel the putrid breath of death right besides his ear telling him to go on, go on, but watch out. I bite.

The man looked right. Luca felt a nip on his heart.

The opera had yet to end.

“Run.”