In the Sewers of Lvov by Marshall Robert

Author:Marshall, Robert [Marshall, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2015-10-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter IX

‘I have one more request, Mr Socha.’ said Paulina.

‘What is it?’ replied Socha.

‘Like you, I believe in God.’

‘Yes?’

‘I have always lit candles, even in the ghetto, even in the camp.’

‘Candles?’

‘On Friday I light candles, on Friday evening. Could you bring me candles so that I can light them at the beginning of the Sabbath?’

According to Paulina, ‘Socha embraced me. He was very devout. He said, “I love believers. I’ll bring you candles every week.”’

At sunset on Fridays, or whenever she could judge it to be sunset, Paulina lit her candles, covered her eyes and whispered to herself, ‘Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us by thy commandments and commanded us to kindle the Sabbath light.’ Every week, throughout the rest of their ordeal, Socha brought Paulina candles for Friday night.

The men returned to the room beneath the Church of Our Lady of the Snows and retrieved everything that had been left there. Stoves, jars of pickled cucumbers, barley, coffee, blankets, saucepans, buckets, cups and plates. With their shovels they scraped the walls and floor of their new sanctuary and did what they could to keep the place tidy.

A bucket was allocated for human waste, which someone dragged down the Seventy and emptied into the Peltwa each morning. Then they set off with a separate bucket to collect fresh water. They produced a basin for washing and each morning everyone washed their hands and faces and, once a week, stripped down and bathed completely. Socha brought them another lamp and with it a regular supply of carbide to fuel it. The lamp was suspended from the ceiling and blazed away, day or night. The old carbide lamp had been the standard form of illumination on most carriages and motor vehicles before the war. Carbide, a compound of carbon, when placed in a vessel with a little water, undergoes a chemical reaction which produces the gas acetylene. This is collected at the top of the vessel and fed to a small flame. The light produced from this flame, a soft yellow flare, was enough to see by and was relatively safe. Each morning the base of the tank was unscrewed and the used residue at the bottom dumped in the corner with all the rubble. Fresh carbide had been stockpiled in various locations throughout the sewers before the liquidation. When that ran out, Socha brought fresh supplies along with some kerosine for the stoves, and left it at some predetermined spot in the tunnels, where one of the men would go and collect it.

The business of collecting water also changed. Socha found another location that was closer, though far more difficult to get to. Despite the difficulty, the water supply was good and constant. They had to crawl down the Seventy and then into a Forty that travelled under the length of Serbska Street up to Rynek, the main square where the town hall stood. They then turned left down another Forty, which ran directly under the fountain of Neptune.

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