Here's a preview of the book
Torn Thread
by Anne Isaacs
Night was coming. Wild geese called as they flew toward the mountains. Eva sat cross-legged by the attic window, playing chess with herself. The last daylight touched her face and left a faded patch on the sloping wall beside her. Her sister Rachel paced restlessly across the tiny room, tugging at her hair with a brush.
'You shouldn't exert yourself,' Eva said, looking anxiously at Rachel's pale face. 'This is your first day out of bed in a week.'
'I'm well enough to go outside,' Rachel said, but it was more like a question. The room was so small that it took only three steps to cross it, two more to step around the wooden crate which they used as a table.
'Papa said your lungs are still weak,' Eva reminded her, as if that settled the matter. Eva turned back to the chessboard, which she had scratched into the wooden floor one month earlier, when the Nazis had forced them to move into the Jewish ghetto. For playing pieces she used bits of wood which she picked up from the street, then shaped into castles, knights, and pawns with Papa's pocket-knife.
'It's less than four blocks to Auntie's room,' Rachel persisted. 'You always say that fresh air is good for my lungs.'
'Fresh air would be good,' Eva answered thoughtfully. She looked out the window as if to reassure herself. The glass was stained and cracked, but through it she could see nearly three blocks of Promyka Street, which ran at an angle through the middle of the ghetto. It was a warm evening, and the street and sidewalks were filled with people. The crowd was thickest outside the bakery, where women waited in line for their daily bread rations. At the end of the street a German soldier patrolled the fence which marked the boundary of the ghetto. No Jews were allowed beyond it without a special pass.
A group of young boys ran through the crowd, shouting and tossing a hat back and forth. For a moment Eva envied them, envied their ability to lose themselves in their game. The little boys probably thought it was an adventure to live in the ghetto, where the entire Jewish population of two cities had been forced into a few square blocks.
(Copyright by Anne Isaacs)
Return to the page of book previews.