The Puppet Boy of Warsaw Read Online Free PDF Page B

and strange: hard, light and almost round, it sat nicely in my palm. Carefully I pulled it out and found myself staring into a face. A small head moulded from papier-mâché, boldly painted with huge eyes, red lips and flaxen hair. It looked so alive I wanted to kiss it.
    My heart skipped a beat: of course, the storeroom! The tiny larder Grandfather never allowed me in. Why didn’t I think of it earlier? That same morning I had found a small key in a tiny pocket near the seam of the coat. I grabbed the head, fumbled for the key and ran to the little room. The key fitted perfectly and with barely a sound the door sprung open. When I switched on the light I gasped: an army of little people was staring back at me.
    The tiny room was filled with puppets of all shapes, sizes and stages of completion: there was a king, a girl, a fool and many animals – a crocodile with half-painted teeth, a monkey, and a horse without a tail. Some puppets looked as if they were ready to jump off the shelf; others had limbs missing or no clothes at all. A string spanned the room, pegged with tiny legs and dangling arms, waiting to find the right owner.
    Tiny clothes in the making lay spread on a small table, carefully sewn from scraps of fabric. I recognised my mother’s apron fashioned into a girl’s dress and one of our napkins transformed into a little shirt. The dusty room smelled sharply of varnish. A wooden shelf held small pots of paint and some dried-out brushes in a glass, and right at the back I glimpsed a painted stage, complete with velvet curtains.
    And there, perched on a shelf, sat a prince. Wrapped in a crimson cloak, adorned with a piece of rabbit fur.
    So, this had been Grandfather’s secret. These little people, puppets of his own making, keeping him company. But why had he never shown them to me? Had he been preparing all this time for something special, an elaborate performance? And why had he put just this one unfinished puppet into his pocket?
    The memory of a special afternoon with my grandfather only two months before, in May 1941, flooded back to me – the day of my fifteenth birthday when Grandfather took me out for a birthday treat. It was a warm sunny day, so welcome after a winter that had taken thousands of lives with its fierce cold claws, and we strolled along Leszno Street, called jokingly ‘the Broadway of the ghetto’. It was not a glamorous street, but many places here still offered some entertainment, cafés spilling out piano music, a few small theatres, a cabaret and even a cinema. Posters plastered the walls everywhere, advertising concerts and shows in bold letters. Not only did the adverts paint some colour on the grey walls, but they also promised to take our minds off our terrible situation, if only for one afternoon.
    Leszno Street offered a welcome respite from the overwhelming poverty all around us. You could see smiles on people’s faces and the fast pace of passers-by stemmed for once from the anticipation of getting to a concert rather than from being chased by police or a race to be first in line when there was a delivery of vegetables. Of course, such amusement wasn’t available to everyone, but some people still had money and better clothes; and although the white armband branded us all in the same way, the superior coats, hats and shoes of the rich gave away the distinctions that had always existed among us.
    Mother had stayed at home so that Grandfather could take me on my treat. I soaked up the atmosphere and for a moment I forgot the emaciated bodies we had passed on the way that had become such a familiar sight all over the ghetto.
    ‘I know exactly the thing for you Mika, come.’ With this Grandfather led me into a café. I wanted to protest, had he not promised me a show? Then I saw at the far end of the room a poster announcing ‘The Thief of Baghdad – a puppet play’.
    Grandfather approached the woman behind the counter and to my embarrassment announced, ‘This is my