Homeless. Nameless. Who is this boy?

T

here is no time. Alter begins emptying our home into the trunk in the parlor.

My candlesticks. I lift them from the mantel. I focus on their sturdy silver, tarnished and slightly dented, rather than the tension in every breath we take. My mind is a fog, dreamlike.

Alter’s large hands gently take the candlesticks from mine, placing them in the trunk alongside his tefillin and our savings. He does not look up until it’s time to lug the trunks to the street. And even then, I can see his thoughts only in his well-shaped mustache, quivering above his frown. From beneath his stiff collar, I see the sheen of sweat.

He lifts his cap, mops at his forehead with his handkerchief, and gestures toward the door. I steal one last glance at our home of six years, and, grasping my skirts, turn to leave.

We take shallow breaths. The air is grimy, the soot thick and heavy on the buildings, our skin, and the cobblestoned streets. Cinders and ash make my eyes water, and I have to squint to follow Alter’s dark figure. We hurry amid the wind and roar and crackle and screams.

The horses. The wagon. We can’t drag the trunks all the way to safety. But the horses are in a frenzy, and there’s no time.

Alter kicks the stable door open, letting the horses run into the chaos. He turns to me, cheeks red with exertion, cap slightly askew. I stand, frozen and confused. Alter plunges into the stable once more and retrieves our old, dusty wheelbarrow. With a grunt, he lifts the trunks into it.

We almost make it down the street before he falters. My throat closes, breath trapped in the squeezing cavity of my lungs. Our store. His store. Haber’s Dry Goods. I see the moment the hesitation takes him. He drops the wheelbarrow and throws his shoulder against the locked door. It doesn’t budge. He throws himself against it again, his figure wavering in the heat.

I cough. Scream.

A small flame from a smoldering newspaper on the street licks at the hem of my skirts. It catches quickly, jumping and dancing around my ankles. I scramble backward and scream again until Alter’s boot furiously stamps out the flames.

I stumble back, trying to catch my breath, but I only manage a weak whimper. Alter’s eyes blink rapidly as he looks at the store, at the ragged edges of my skirts, at the store once more. Then, a bang of shattered glass raining over the street. The front window. I feel the same splintering within my chest.

“Oh.” It is an exhale more than a word. Alter’s cheeks blaze, but he only lifts the wheelbarrow again.

We push forward alongside everyone else. There are cries and sobs, and a wail sounds from below me.

I stop.

“No, Ita,” I vaguely hear Alter mutter, urging me forward. His eyes are trained ahead. He does not see. But a five-year-old boy looks up at me, cheeks black with soot. Tear tracks clear a path through the grime. He is lost, afraid, and so thin that his suspenders hang loose at his knees. I look wildly around. Where is his mother? His family? He is alone in this furnace, and he will die.

I could scream like hundreds of others, but it will be drowned out in the roar of the flames. If we don’t move, we will be lost. So I lift him in my arms and stumble forward as he wails, coughs, wheezes in my ear. As behind us, Chicago burns.