Warsaw 1891 

The dead bird lay in the gutter; its head cocked on an impossible angle.  

It was not long dead. Most likely, it had flown into a window, and broken its neck.  

Ezriel Wirth had never seen anything so beautiful.  

It was a hawfinch, common enough - he saw them every day, flitting around the trees of Warsaw, but he'd never seen one so close.  

The feathers on its head and breast glowed a golden amber colour, and the black ones that ran along its tail, ruffled like his mother's best skirt. Its beak looked like the inside of an oyster shell.   

Ezriel bent down, and stroked the dead bird's breast, with the back of his finger. It felt so alive, and yet, was not.  

Until then, Ezriel had always imaged, that the shift between life and death, was monumental. Perhaps, that was because, he'd never seen something dead before. He was only seven. He'd only ever known one person who had died, and that was his father. One day his father was alive, waving as he went out to work, and then, that night, his mother told him, that his father was dead. Ezriel had not seen his father, dead. His father had just, vanished, like a rabbit in a magic trick. So, Ezriel had just assumed that when someone died, they disappeared. Poof and you're gone. 

But the bird, was still there. It had not disappeared. And, perhaps, even stranger, it was still, very much, bird like. Nothing had really changed, except that it wasn't alive. Dying seemed like just a little change, now that he looked at it. 

The bird was still exquisite. It was still golden, and amber, with tail feathers that ruffled like a fine lady's best skirt. The things that made it a bird, were still present, but the thing, that had made it a live bird, was gone. And it seemed, to Ezriel, that to discard all of this beauty, simply because one little invisible element of the bird had changed - the element of its being alive - well, that just seemed wasteful... especially when everything else was so beautiful.  

Ezriel Wirth knew he could not simply leave it there, like a piece of rubbish, in the gutter. He could not walk away, and leave something so beautiful behind. It would be like walking away from pirate treasure... So he knelt down, and opened his lunch pail.  

He hurriedly discarded the apple core, and then tipped any breadcrumbs into the road - perhaps as a meal for the bird's widow, given that the family would now be struggling... Then wiped out the lunch pail with the corner of his shirt, and satisfied that the space was suitably clean, he scooped the precious body, into his palms, and lay the bird inside.  

He secured the lid, tightened the strap, then stood up, and dusted his knees, looking about him.  

The people of Warsaw, who lived in that beautiful city, were just going about their business, as if it were any normal Tuesday afternoon. No one seemed to realise that Ezriel Wirth, aged seven, had just set foot on the path of destiny.  

And now, with his treasure in his lunch pail, he would go to the library, and find the book, that would lead to his future career, "An Introductory Manual to Taxidermy." 

Warsaw 1941 

Ezriel Wirth, lived with his mother, in an apartment, in the area that history would call 'the ghetto', but at that moment, was known as, 'the Jewish quarter'.  

As the Wirth's already lived there, they were better off than most. They had not had to pack up their lives, and relocate, as so many had, but they were not without their share of hardships. There was barely any food, and Ezriel could not get medicine for his mother's cough to save himself.  

Or her...  

His mother, Stein, now in her eighties, was confined to her wheelchair, and ever since the elevator, in their once grand building, had stopped working, she had not been able to leave the flat. She relied on Ezriel to keep her up to date on the world outside the apartment.  

Ezriel did his best not to tell her the truth.  

For a long time, he had parked her wheelchair by the window, so she could overlook the long road, on which their building stood.  

A great sea of human heads milled below her, moving like waves, back and forth, a human tide, that lapped against buildings, and spilled and filled into every nook and cranny of the walled city.  

And then, one morning, while working in his shop, he heard a commotion in the road. There was shouting, and running. Ezriel looked up, just in time, to see a young man, being thrown into the gutter, and shot. One minute he was alive, and then, he was not.  

Just like the bird, from so long ago. 

Ezriel had scrambled from his workshop, running to the back door, that lead to the stairwell, that lead to the apartment, on the fifth floor. He took the stairs two and three at a time, so that by the time he burst into the apartment, he was sweaty and puffing.  

But his mother was asleep in her chair. She had seen nothing. 

After that, he parked her further from the window. Close enough that she could feel the sun on her face, but not so close, that she could see the street.  

Ezriel tried hard to keep things from her.  

"We need new carpets, Ezriel," his mother would say, as he spooned the meagre food he had sourced, into her open mouth. 

"Yes, Mother," he said. "Later..." he said, vaguely, with a sigh. After all, this couldn't go on forever. Things would right themselves, he was sure. They just had to wait it out. Things would get better.  

"Your father would be turning in his grave, if he saw the state of this place!" 

Ezriel wondered if his mother meant the apartment, or Warsaw, or all of Poland. 

"Oi, how I miss him. Oh, my beloved Jacob... Bah, it will not be long 'til we meet again, him and me. You must promise me, Ezriel, that you will bury me beside your father... You don't remember him, but he was a good man." She pushed the bread soup around her gummy mouth, as she glared at her son.  

"He always provided." 

"Yes, mother. But things are..." he frowned, smoothing his comb-over, and avoiding her gaze. "Difficult. We must wait for the war to end, before getting new carpet..."  

Ezriel had spent what money he had saved up, on extra food and medicine, on the black market. It had been incredibly expensive, and had drained him dry. Now they relied on the food coupons, like everyone else, but he could not tell his mother so. 

"I may not live to see the end of the war! But I would like to live long enough, to see new carpet. And you can afford it!" She grunted, "You are the best taxidermist in the country. Perhaps in all of Europe..." 

His mother spoke the truth. Not about being able to afford new carpet, but that Ezriel was a taxidermist, and for a long time, he had had a reputation, as the best. He had a little workshop on the bottom floor of the apartment building, and over the years, he had stuffed all manner of animals. Very rich men, from all over Europe, who liked to hunt, only ever used Ezriel to stuff their kills, because, Ezriel was the best.  

He had stuffed magnificent red stags, and wild boars, Kamchatka brown bears, bison, elks and wolves, beautiful foxes and even hedgehogs. Once he had stuffed an eagle, it's huge wings spread wide... Ezriel would collect any dead animal he should find on his daily walks, but birds were his favorite. He had stuffed so many birds through the years. Snipes. Warblers. Woodpeckers. Grouse. Even, a goose.  

But times had changed... Now all he found on his walks, were rats.  

Rats, and humans.  

Big fat rats.  

Very skinny humans. 

All those bodies of people who had died, of hunger, or disease, or gunshot wounds... so many bodies, were just left in the road, to await the cart, that would come and collect them, and take them away...   

And the people of Warsaw, the people who lived, trapped, in that once beautiful city, averted their eyes, and tried to go about their business, as if it were any normal Tuesday afternoon. 

It was just the same, as when Ezriel had found the bird, oh so long ago. It was the waste, that upset him. And it seemed to Ezriel, that each day, the cart was piled higher and higher. Where they went, Ezriel did not know. But wherever they were going, Ezriel knew, they were not going to be buried in any family plot. They would not be washed and purified, they would not have a Shomer watch over them, and he wondered if their loved ones had performed the Kirah - the ripping of their clothes, in grief... People had so little now, Ezriel thought, watching the watery soup spill from the spoon. Surely God would forgive them, for not ripping what little they still had? 

Stein Wirth coughed, waking her son from his daydream. It was a desperate, wheezing, eye-watering cough. Ezriel tried to ignore it, as he chased the last few drops of watery soup, around the bowl, with the spoon.  

He waited for her to recover, before giving her an overly bright smile.  

"Open wide, Mother. Here comes the choo-choo train..." 

Ezriel Wirth would not consult the Rabbi. He already knew what he would be told. That according to Jewish law, a Jew must be buried as he is born - with limbs, and organs. Complete. Embalming was strictly forbidden. Even in times like this. Now was not the time to start flouting God's law. No. The opposite was true. They must cling to their ways, more than ever... That is what the Rabbi would say. 

And human taxidermy, was, unheard of. Not just under Jewish law, but... everywhere... The human skin is so stretchy, and there is no fur to hide the stitches... It just didn't work. Ezriel had done the research.  

But still...  

As if, on cue, the body cart rattled past the window of his shop. The wheels clattered over the cobblestones - the only sound in the otherwise silent night. Those who slept in the street watched it's passing, with haunted eyes.  

Ezriel shivered. His own eyes followed the passing cart too.  

He had heard a rumour that the bodies were being used as animal feed. 

"Where was God now?" Ezriel would ask the Rabbi, if he saw him. What did He think of this ghetto? What did He think of Jews being loaded onto carts, and fed to pigs, and dogs? Perhaps God was so overwhelmed with the number of souls returning to him, that he simply could not attend to those still suffering on earth?  

Ezriel remembered the time that the basement had flooded. Their landlord had been so busy dealing with the rising flood, he simply didn't have time to turn off the broken pipe... Perhaps God was like an overwrought landlord, drowning in souls? 

No, Ezriel would not go to the Rabbi. He would not ask his questions, because he knew the answers would not help him, now. 

The soul was a portion of God. Bodies were made of earth. As it said in Ecclesiastes (12:7) "And the dust returns to earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." Jews must be buried, as soon as possible, and as naturally as possible, so that they might return to the dust, as soon as possible... That is what the Rabbi would say. 

But, God's laws aside, Ezriel's mother wanted to be buried beside his father. That was all that mattered to her. And he wanted to honour his mother's wishes. Jewish wives were buried beside their husbands. That was how things were done. That was proper. And if a Jewish person did not have a proper funeral, their soul would be stuck in a state of turmoil, forever.  

Or, at least, until they had a proper burial.  

He did not wish for his mother's soul to be in turmoil. But what choice did he have? At least this way, it was a little turmoil, over an eternity of turmoil... 

He would place his mother in the earth, beside his father, as she wanted. He was sure, given time, he could do that... Just not right now.  

The war would not last forever. This situation, would not last forever. Eventually things would get better. And, then, then he could bury her, where she wanted to be... Perhaps, not as she was born, not complete - but, still, beside his father, with a proper funeral.  

He just needed to buy some time. 

But buying time meant, breaking God's law. 

But it was his only choice... Because the alternative... The very thought of it... Ezriel felt bile rise in his throat, and gulped it back down. He rubbed savagely at his tired eyes, and then ran his fingers down his face, feeling his skin pull and stretch.  

No. There was no alternative. He would not put his dead mother out for the cart. He could not leave a dead bird to rot in the gutter; he certainly could not do it to his own mother. 

God would forgive him, he was sure. If God knew what he suffered; if God knew what they all suffered, God would forgive. God would forgive any indiscretion, given the circumstances, he was sure. And perhaps God was busy right now, with the flood, but one day, God would forgive him.  

Because Ezriel Wirth knew, that if he didn't do, what had to be done, he would never forgive himself. 

Ezriel took his mother's suitcase down, and set it on the bed. He used mother’s own suitcase. It was bigger.  

'Mother's suitcase', he thought, dusting his hands on his pants, 'was the suitcase for mother'. And he set a blanket inside the case, for added comfort. 

He adjusted the brooch at his mother's throat, and satisfied that she was dressed in her best, he scooped her body into his arms, and lay her inside the case.  

He was pleased that he had thought to leave some movement in her limbs. He would not normally do this for an animal, but he knew he would have to move her, goodness knew how many times before they reached his father's grave, and while the suitcase was not the most dignified, given the circumstances, it was the most convenient, and the least likely to attract attention.   

He folded her knees up to her chest, and adjusted the ruffles of her best black skirt, tucking the folds around her ankles, careful to avoid the case hinges.  

He bent her arms, so thin and fragile, like bird wings, and cupped her hands over her chest.  

He sighed, looking down at his work. She was curled in around on herself, like a baby in a womb, or an oyster in a shell. He tucked the flaps of blanket about her tightly, wrapping her, cocooning her.  

"I'm sorry Mother." He said, "If you only knew... It will not for long." He lowered his lips to her cheek, "I swear on my life, on all that I am, that I will get you to father. I will bury you properly. I swear it." 

Then he closed the lid, and snapped the locks shut.  

August 6th Warsaw 1942 

Mother's suitcase was heavy, when Ezriel Wirth dragged it towards the Umschlagpltaz, one fine summer day, several months later.  

Posters had been plastered all over the city, announcing that they must gather at the Umschlagpltaz, this very morning. Those that went willingly to the labour camps, would be resettled in the east. The posters also promised those that went would be rewarded with bread, and margarine, and sugar.  

"Bring only the essentials," the posters read. "One suitcase per person." 

People had easily run past Ezriel, clutching bags, and suitcases, containing their own essential items - treasures from their past, or practicalities for their future. Other people had dragged small children by the hand, who in turn, clutched beloved teddy bears. Everyone had their own version of essential.  

Ezriel, too, was bringing, one suitcase. 

There was already a crowd gathered at the Umschlagpltaz. Thousands of people had been at the station for days, desperate for the promised bread and sugar, terrified they'd miss out. There were rumours there would not be enough for everyone, and it would be a case of "first in, best dressed." Or rather, fed. 

"Where are we going?" someone next to him asked. 

"Where is the sugar?" another demanded. 

“Everything will be settled once you get to the camps,” the soldier declared, as he slid the freight cart door closed.