Mapping the Bones

“We’re not splitting up again.” Mama’s voice was determined. And, in the end, she prevailed.

  * * *

  • • •

  That night the moon could not manage to get from behind the clouds at all. It gave out a tiny bit of ambient light around the edges of the gray, but not enough to travel by.

  Bad news and good, Chaim thought. Bad that we won’t be able to read the compass every few stops. But good that it will be harder to see us. If they stuck close together, they’d still be able to make out one another’s rough shapes.

  They waited until true dark before moving out of the trees. Papa had shared the majority of his sucking candies with them. “So your bellies won’t grumble and give us away.”

  “Your cough might, Papa,” Gittel said.

  “I’m barely coughing now,” he replied.

  It was true, Chaim thought. Papa was hardly coughing at all now. Perhaps being in the fresh air instead of cooped up in the apartment had cured him.

  But then, as if to put a lie to what he’d just said, Papa burst into a spasm of rough coughs.

  “How many candies left?” Mama asked.

  “Enough,” he growled when he could speak again.

  Chaim noticed that Papa hadn’t given any actual number.

  The wind had picked up, which—Papa said—was in their favor: “It will disguise sounds.”

  * * *

  • • •

  They set out single file, keeping as much as possible to the trees.

  Chaim had gotten the pebble out of his boot when they were first in the cellar, but now it was the heavy knapsack that was bothering him. At one resting place, deep in another copse of birch, he dug into his knapsack and took out the little biplane. It always seemed to be wedging itself against his backbone. And while he and that plane had come a long way together, it had to go. Whispering a good-bye, he promised to try and find it again someday, and buried it quickly under a pile of leaves. Then he moved to the other side of the copse so he wouldn’t be tempted to pick it up again.

  He saw Bruno doing the same with three of his comic books. Going over to him, Chaim whispered, “I’m leaving my plane here.”

  They nodded at each other, almost like brothers.

  It’s good, Chaim told himself, to set down that burden. We have enough enemies out there. Real ones. With guns.

  * * *

  • • •

  Sometime in the middle of the night, they came upon a road. Papa made them retreat back to a stand of conifers.

  “Good to sleep on a soft bed again,” he said.

  “Bed?” Bruno looked around. It was dark, too dark to see much of anything.

  “Pine needles are soft,” Gittel told him.

  Sophie had already flopped down on the ground. “They are,” she said. “And smell good, too.” She curled into a ball, her head on the pillow of her knapsack.

  As they were settling down, making only a small bit of noise, Papa slipped away into the darkness, leaving them in the trees.

  “I will kill that man myself,” Mama said when she discovered it, “if the Nazis don’t do it first.”

  Chaim had never heard her that angry. Fear seems to bring out new emotions.

  * * *

  • • •

  Anger was not the only electricity that kept them all awake. Worry did the rest. They huddled together, wondering what to do next, wondering if there was going to be a next.

  Chaim had no idea how long they lay on the ground unable to sleep, changing positions. Making small audible sounds that couldn’t be mistaken for animals. Mama gave out a little moan every once in a while. Sophie snuffled. Bruno ground his teeth. And Gittel reached over to touch Chaim’s shoulder, whispering, “It’s all right.”

  And then he heard a sound. Was it thunder? “Not rain,” Chaim whispered, meaning that they needed rain like, as Mrs. Horovitz liked to say, a loch in kop—a hole in the head!

  “Not thunder,” Gittel agreed.

  “No,” Mama told them, her voice soft again, “something better.”

  And then Chaim understood.

  Cart wheels!

  He almost crowed his delight, though he remained quiet in case it was something else—truck, jeep, motorcycle, supply vehicle.

  They lay silently under the trees as the sound came nearer.

  And nearer.

  * * *

  • • •

  But it was a cart. Driven by a woman. With Papa lying down in the back between a dozen or so barrels.

  When the cart got right by the trees, Papa climbed swiftly over the side and ran into the woods.

  They were already standing up, their knapsacks on their backs, waiting. Just in case.

  Without consulting each other, Chaim and Gittel had both drawn their knives and were standing back-to-back like warriors out of the old stories.

  Papa said in a hushed voice, “Her name is Irena. She’s Polish, works with the partisans. Her great-grandfather was one of the insurgents, killed here in the woods.”

  “How does she—” Chaim began.

  But Papa already knew what questions they’d ask. He’d asked the same questions himself. “She delivers food to the monastery for German parties the high command throws there, leaves with barrels of leftovers the next day—today—to bring back for the soldiers. But several of the barrels are empty. Four of them in fact. And you, my children, shall be in them.”

  “But Papa . . .” Gittel said.

  “Hush, my darling. Mama and I will wait for the next party. We’ll have a barrel of food, and we’ll hide in Łagiewniki till then. Irena says they have such parties most Friday nights till Sunday morning. It amuses them to employ Jews on the Sabbath. Especially when they have to handle pork.”

  “We can’t let the children go off on their own,” Mama said.

  “They’ll be safe with the partisans. Taken to safety by a man called Karl the Wanderer. Fajner mentioned him. But quickly, no more talking. We have to get them settled in the barrels. I promise you no harm will come to them. And we’ll see them in a week at most. I have given Irena half what she was promised; she’ll get the rest when we see her again.”

  Irena was just a shadow in the dark night, but her voice, though purely businesslike, seemed kind. She gave each of them a handful of nuts and a carrot to eat, plus a small amount of water in four baby bottles.

  “Baby bottles?” Bruno grumbled under his breath, though he took an enormous swallow right away.

  “More when we get to our destination,” Irena told him, before turning to Papa and Mama. “Help them in quickly and then take your small barrel of food and find a hiding place. Not too near the water. And not in the pine forest. The Germans like to bring their women there.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The four of them stood by the barrels, each of which had a false bottom and a false top covered in rejected herrings from the party. They would be allowed—while the cart was in motion—to push open the side bung to keep from getting sick.

  “But,” Irena said to them, her voice not moderated, as if she knew for the moment the forest was safe from Nazis, “any other time it must be closed tight. If we’re stopped and the soldiers open up various barrels, yours must be the same as the others. The bungs are on a cord, which you can haul back in.”

  They practiced opening and closing the bung from the outside for just a minute, then were helped into the barrels, where they sat on top of their knapsacks, knees almost to their noses.

  Irena told each of them the same thing, in her same kind, businesslike manner: “If you make a mistake, you endanger us all. And if I think any of you are taking enormous chances, I will haul you out myself and shoot you on the road.

  “Now go, go,” Irena said to Mama and Papa. “I have to get moving, and you two must not be seen or captured.
All of our lives—mine as well as the children’s—are in your hands.”

  * * *

  • • •

  It was dark and at first very strange in the barrel. The entire cart—which meant the barrels as well—shook from side to side. Occasionally Chaim had to put his elbows out to brace himself. He worried that the barrel would topple, and then as it wobbled, he worried more that it would fall out of the cart entirely. Yet it never tipped over.

  The barrel was not so tight that it was airless. But with the smell of the fish fouling what air there was, Chaim was constantly afraid he was going to be sick.

  Still, he waited until the cart was moving steadily along before he dared open the bung, pushing it out with his fist. He stuck his hand out and felt around till he found the cord that held it in place, pulled it up, and practiced closing it again.

  The overwhelming fish smell was worse now that he’d had a bit of air, and he opened the bung again, this time shifting around carefully till he managed to get his face right up to the open hole. First he breathed in and out a dozen times, filling his lungs with the good air. Next he tried peering out of the hole. To his disappointment, he was only facing other barrels, so what he could see was severely limited.

  But at least, he thought, I have air.

  The rocking of the cart began to put him to sleep, and he figured he’d better pull the bung back into its hole. He didn’t want to get caught because he’d left it open.

  Soon enough, despite the oppressive smell of herring leaking down from above—or perhaps because of it—and the rocking of the cart, he fell into a light sleep. At first he tried to fight it. Tried to stay alert. But in the end exhaustion overcame fear.

  Suddenly the cart stopped with a shudder, and Chaim woke, almost sure he’d made no noise, but not entirely. He was worried about the others, especially Bruno. But there was nothing he could do about the situation except—as Mama had put it—wait and see.

  As he’d slipped to one side of the barrel in his sleep, he carefully righted himself on his knapsack, wondering if the top of his barrel would keep its secret.

  He heard voices through the bunghole, as if the bung hadn’t been pulled tight enough. Laughter, he thought. A woman . . . a man.

  What if Irena gives us away? What if she takes bribes? What if . . .

  More than anything, he wanted to talk to Gittel. See her. Send her signs with his hands. He felt totally cut off. And maybe that was what this Irena wanted. Hadn’t his parents taken an incredible gamble putting them in her hands? They knew nothing about her. What if she was a collaborator? A spy? A Nazi. A woman in a cart? There could be dozens of them in the forest. How did they know this was the right one?

  And then another miracle. The cart started up again, shakily, then gathered speed.

  Safe, then.

  For the moment.

  Wait. And. See.

  But then he had another thought. What if it’s a soldier who now sits on the cart next to Irena?

  And another. A boyfriend, a scout, a general, a Jew hater?

  The possibilities for disaster were suddenly endless, the chances for success close to zero. Just in case, he kept the bunghole closed tight and drew out his knife, an operation that took quite a bit of doing.

  He wondered why no mention had been made of a meeting place with Mama and Papa later. Why there had been no mention of where he and the others were being taken. No mention of a time frame. No mention . . .

  His eyes closed again, and this time he fell into a long, dreamless, much-needed sleep.

  * * *

  • • •

  Time had no meaning in the barrel. Chaim thought he might have slept for a moment, an hour, or all the way into the next day. His mouth was parched, his back hurt from sitting up, his bottom had no feeling in it, his knees hurt. And his stomach was grumbling unbearably.

  Have I died and this is the afterlife? he wondered. Certainly not heaven.

  Maybe this was hell. Perhaps they were heading for somewhere full of imps with pitchforks, brimstone, fire. He’d read about that. Or maybe hell was a place where you remained casked up in herring barrels for an eternity.

  He tried to stretch, but there wasn’t enough room. Then he realized uncomfortably that he and everything else in the barrel must be heavy with herring stink.

  I’ll never eat fish again, he thought. Followed quickly by, Perhaps I’ll never eat anything again.

  Just then the cart stopped.

  He heard someone muttering near the barrel but couldn’t quite make it out.

  Then suddenly the top of his barrel lifted up. It was daylight, and a man with a huge beard and an even huger hand was reaching down to pluck him out.

  God, Chaim thought. Satan?

  Chaim felt for his knife, but he must have dropped it when he fell asleep. Before he could search around for it, the hand had him by the back of his shirt.

  Chaim fought against the hand, the man, the light, but he had no strength after the bruising journey, not even the strength to cry.

  Part II

  Into Białowieża Forest

  Acorns

  First birch like marble statues

  guard the small sleepers.

  Then oak bends down to take them,

  swollen with night, into her arms.

  Hide me, they cry before the guns.

  Hide me, they cry before the bullets.

  Hide me, they cry before the hate

  turns them to timber, to bone, to ash.

  There are not enough trees left

  in all the forest to save them,

  these babes in the woods,

  these tiny nestlings, these little acorns.

  —Chaim Abromowitz

  Gittel Remembers

  Chaim was never good at meeting new people. He had to take time to assess, revise, add what he’d decided, calculate it like a math problem. But in the end, he almost always got things right.

  On the other hand, I accept people at once for who they say they are. Give me a smile, a kind word, a piece of chocolate, and I will believe a bald-faced lie. It’s probably not a good policy, in politics or in life. But it has served me well enough for a lot of my life, though not for all of it.

  How can twins be so different? We have the same basic genes, the same parents, lived through the same happy early years.

  And then during the Nazi era, when brothers and sisters might quarrel seriously over methods, means—we never did. Where some families fell apart over politics, over starvation portions, over maps—we always found common ground.

  Mama once told us that we completed each other.

  Sometimes we disagreed, but never with rancor. There was never a day I had anything to complain about with Chaim.

  Only, sometimes, deep regrets.

  16

  The bearded man’s voice boomed out above him, “Mighty big herring!”

  Trembling in the man’s grasp, Chaim finally managed to make enough saliva to spit, though it was a feeble effort and splattered his own face more than the giant’s.

  “And still a bit of life in him, too,” the giant said.

  “Put him down carefully, Karl,” Irena said, her voice quiet but stern, like a mother with a naughty child. “And stop scaring him.”

  Slowly Chaim was lowered and made to stand by the wagon’s side.

  He’d no idea what was happening. The large man was wearing a coat that looked as if it was at least one size too small for him, and on the sleeve there was a shadow of a six-pointed star, as if the coat had been worn by a Jew before this Karl had torn the star off.

  Suddenly it was as if Chaim’s brain had clicked on, like their old radio, once it got warmed up. Karl? Could this be Karl the Wanderer that Papa mentioned? The one Fajner said would be their guide?

  Big K
arl grinned at Chaim. He was missing several teeth on the left side of his face as if he’d been in a terrible fight, and Chaim wondered how the man managed to eat anything tougher than gruel.

  “See anything interesting, young man?” Karl asked.

  “Chaim Abromowitz.” He wouldn’t rise to the giant’s bait, though if he could have gotten out the words, he would have said something sarcastic about the man’s big eagle beak of a nose, the eyebrows that met in the middle like a bridge across two mucky brown ponds. Besides, if this is Karl the Wanderer, why doesn’t he introduce himself? An imposter? A spy?

  “Name, rank, serial number,” Karl remarked, “just like a good soldier.”

  Chaim had no idea what he meant but wasn’t about to ask.

  “Get the others out, Karl. They’ll be perishing in there, and we still have miles to go,” Irena said.

  “I do my job, woman—you do yours.”

  What kind of jobs? Chaim wondered as Karl reached underneath the seat she was sitting on and brought out a basket of food.

  Now Chaim could feel saliva pooling in his mouth without conscious effort. He didn’t dare let it show. This could be a trick. The food could be poisoned, or maybe it was just a way of softening them up.

  Then he laughed to himself. They hardly needed softening after a ride like that. His legs were as wobbly as Mama’s jellies, the ones she used to make in their old house.

  At the thought of Mama, his eyes got a little wobbly, too. Started to leak. He wiped his coat sleeve across his face. It smelled awful. Herring!

  Irena handed him a wine bottle and an egg. “Hard-boiled egg,” she said. “So, kosher.”

  Of course hard-boiled eggs were kosher. Everyone knew that. The old Jewish peddlers on the road carried hard-boiled eggs in their packs because they never knew what kind of meal might be offered to them. Pork or bacon or sausage or . . .

  Not that he particularly cared. Their family had never kept kosher.