Probably ten miles in, Chaim thought, considering his aching legs. The dark, dense woods are like a fairy tale forest. And not the good kind.
All Klara said when they reached their first destination was two words: “Sit. Rest.” And even those words she whispered.
* * *
• • •
It had been hard keeping up with the pace the partisans set, but the children managed, though Bruno began to lag behind a half hour into the second part of their journey.
Three times Karl went back to get him, at last simply hoisting Bruno onto his shoulders, then quickly catching up with the others. After that, Karl continued carrying Bruno, never breaking step with the partisans.
Chaim was impressed. Bruno was no lightweight, but a stocky twelve-year-old with a heavy backpack. Karl carried him as if he were a small child. And even more surprisingly, Bruno didn’t protest.
At last they came to a small opening between the trees, though the forest was still dense. Chaim heard a strange noise. He wondered if they’d reached the target Klara had spoken of. Will it be another battalion of Germans? He worried that there were only seven of the partisans, eight if you counted Karl, and only two guns each. Though Karl, he was sure, had only the one. And he was weighted down with Bruno and his pack. How can this crew possibly defeat a battalion?
And then he figured that Klara had meant they were going to blow up rail lines or ammunition dumps. Or maybe just meet up with the larger group of partisans, which would be the smarter thing to do.
But the noise got louder, and they seemed to be heading right toward it.
When they suddenly rounded a small copse of birch trees, he understood what the noise was: a small river leaping joyously across rocks, making whitewater twists that looked like Gittel’s braids when loosed at night from their ribbons. At the sight of that river, he relaxed, all fears gone.
The leader of the partisans, a man who only came up to Karl’s shoulder and seemed to have a permanent scowl on his face, held up a hand. Then he crooked his wrist and pointed a single finger down.
Karl off-loaded Bruno and his pack, giving him a soft clip on the head. Bruno scrambled over to where Chaim and the girls were standing. Or rather where they were bending over, massaging their aching legs. They were breathing hard, though Bruno wasn’t.
In that moment, Chaim’s bitterness toward Bruno increased.
At the leader’s signal, everyone but Karl and Klara flopped onto the rough grass. The two of them took opposite sides of the resting place, standing guard, guns at the ready. Their faces showed nothing but determination.
“What do you think about—” Bruno began.
Chaim and Gittel shushed him together, fingers on their lips, but Sophie smacked him on the back of the head, harder than Karl had done. Not hard enough to make him cry out, but hard enough to let him know he was being stupid again.
For the first time since they’d left Mama and Papa, Chaim let himself smile.
The younger woman came over with a canteen of warm, sweetened tea. She’d taken off her Girl Guide cap, and her blond hair was cropped like Klara’s, short as a man’s. Her eyes were gray and piercing.
She whispered, “My name is Rose. This warm tea is for you all to share. It’s the last you’ll get till we’re at headquarters.” She handed the canteen to Chaim, then turned and disappeared into the darker part of the forest.
Rose, Chaim thought, wondering if she had thorns. From the looks of her, probably.
A line of poetry began to form in his head, something about roses and thorns. But it was borrowed from somewhere else, he was sure. Instead he concentrated on how much he liked the sound of “headquarters.” There might even be a bath there, and a kitchen and—
Gittel elbowed him as she often did when he started daydreaming. He moved out of reach and took several swallows from the canteen before handing it over to her. He’d never thought lukewarm tea could taste so good.
Gittel drank three deep swallows as well, then grinned at Chaim and passed the canteen to Sophie, who took three gulps before handing it over to Bruno, who finished off the last of it.
“Lovely,” Sophie whispered, and Gittel nodded.
Bruno mouthed, Want more.
Well, thought Chaim, don’t we all? But he didn’t waste his few words on the bulldog.
* * *
• • •
They rested at most fifteen minutes before heading even deeper into the woods. It was now hard to distinguish between trees and the moon shadow of trees. Chaim felt the safest way to walk was to simply key in on the person in front of him. If that person stumbled, he’d have plenty of warning.
It’s amazing, he thought, how quiet a dozen people can be in the woods.
After a while he felt he as if he were walking in his sleep. One step after another. Silence enveloped them except for the small shush of their feet in the grass or the occasional sharp snap of leaf or twig. They could have been a herd of deer passing, a bear with cubs, for all the sounds they made.
He thought, We’re forest creatures now, pledged to silence, surrounded by it. And then he mouthed the line soundlessly. He liked its flow.
Suddenly he heard something cry out, not close, but close enough to be startling. His heart seemed to stop, stutter, start again.
Ahead of him, someone muttered, “Owl.”
From behind, Karl added in a grumbling undertone, “Asio otus, long-eared.”
It took a moment for Chaim to realize Karl was saying the names—scientific and popular, for that particular owl. Papa used to do the same thing.
Papa, he thought. And then he sighed out loud. He hadn’t thought of Papa and Mama for some time. Had he disgraced the family by forgetting them? He turned, signed sorry to Gittel, both his wrists bending.
Because he’d turned and was signing, he hadn’t paid attention to the ground, and his right toe caught on a root. He stumbled and started to fall.
Never missing a long stride, Karl picked him up and carried him the rest of the way.
Like a baby, he thought, like Bruno. But he didn’t complain. It was just easier to give in to the rocking motion. He was that tired.
* * *
• • •
Chaim didn’t even get a glimpse of the outside of headquarters, as he slept through their arrival.
When he woke the next morning, the Thorny Rose held out another flask of tea. He touched it, and this time it was hot enough to burn. Then she gave him a hard-boiled egg.
He wondered that the partisans allowed themselves a fire. Surely there was a danger in that.
Then he thought, Headquarters!
He sat up too quickly and bumped his head on something hard. Looked around. Saw it was stone.
Stone?
They weren’t in a building at all, but some kind of smoky cave. The smoke seemed to be from a small fire, which was already cold. But someone had clearly boiled the water for tea and the eggs.
Efficient. Mama would like that. Just thinking her name made tears prickle in his eyes, and he rubbed his sleeve across his face. Maybe, he thought, there’s no destination. Maybe we’ve been recruited for the partisans. If so, there can be no tears. And, he thought—torn by the weight of it—no mamas either.
“Where are . . . ?” he began, speaking into the dark.
Rose was carrying a long gun—a rifle—in her left hand, so she placed two fingers of her right hand on his lips. “Silence.” She whispered so quietly, he had to lean toward her to hear. “It must become a habit. You don it like a monk his robes.” It sounded like something she’d thought quite a bit about, used before.
He nodded, then he stood up slowly, carefully, aware of how close the rock ceiling was. He peered through the smoky gloom for Gittel or Sophie. Even Bruno would do.
As if she could read his mind like a twin, Rose put a hand on the side of her fac
e, a gesture that clearly meant the other children were still sleeping. Then she pointed deeper into the cave.
Of course! He’d gone to sleep first, so waking first made sense. He began to eat the egg, but slowly, savoring every bit of it, wishing there’d been some salt, too.
If you’re going to dream, dream big! It was something Mama often said. Right now the biggest dream he could manage was salt. He smiled to himself, then washed the egg down with the sweet, hot tea, not caring that he could feel the heat searing all the way down to his belly.
He was scarcely finished when Karl came over and said in a whisper loud enough to wake anyone still asleep, “So, Herring Boy, are you ready to move on?”
“This isn’t headquarters?” he whispered back.
Karl chuckled. “Yesterday’s headquarters, not tomorrow’s.”
Chaim thought about this and then nodded. Partisans are a small force, mobile, always ready for a fight, never to be caught in any one place. He nodded again. Just like Robin Hood. With guns instead of bows.
Then he gave a silent sigh. The bath, the bed, the fresh food he’d been looking forward to at headquarters—that was all a dream. Dreaming small was what they had to do now.
We aren’t really safe, Papa. At least not yet. Then he qualified it. But soon . . . soon.
18
They stayed but two days at the cave before getting the signal to move again. This time, they kept on walking without rest stops. Chaim noticed that Gittel’s lower lip was blistered where she’d bitten it. Bruno complained to anyone who would listen, which mostly meant Gittel, though at least he was smart enough to complain in whispers. Sophie just put her head down and walked as if her life depended upon it.
Actually, Chaim thought, all our lives depend upon it.
The partisans seemed to have only one speed—fast. Fast but silent.
How do they keep that up? he wondered.
They took turns going ahead, then signaling the others when it was safe to continue. That signal consisted of a raised fist and then a single pointer finger showing the direction.
Used to silence, Chaim didn’t find it a burden, but for Bruno it was clearly the worst part of the trip. When he wasn’t complaining in whispers, he was making faces and dragging behind so that someone had to go to the back and give him a shove, or pick him up, or simply stand over him, arms akimbo, as if to say, Get on with it!
Bruno is a problem, Chaim thought, but it’s Gittel I’m worried about. She was his lodestar, his compass, and she seemed to be sinking into herself with every step away from Mama and Papa, as if she wanted to disappear. And because of the silence, she didn’t speak of it. Not even in signs. Because of his own silence, he didn’t have the words to ask.
* * *
• • •
The first two days of the forced march were hell for the four children. Chaim could see it in the others’ faces—drawn and pale. In the twists of their bodies as they tried to find ways to relieve pain.
Every part of Chaim’s body ached, especially his calves. He was hungry all the time. And the constant wariness—not fear, exactly, as much as the need to be ever on the alert—took a heavy toll on them all. To Chaim, it was as if something had taken root in his belly, then quickly grown straight up and lodged in his throat. He felt it as a real living thing squatting there, so present, he couldn’t have said a word out loud even had he wanted to.
As for the partisans, they seemed to live on water alone. And no one spoke for hours at a time.
He didn’t complain. He doubted if any of the partisans would listen anyway, for they were not only used to the silence, the hunger—they seemed to long for it, a kind of martyrdom.
By the third day, the walking and the alertness—like the silence—had become the habit Rose had urged.
At least, Chaim thought, we seem to be out of range of the Nazis. Mama and Papa will be pleased with that. If somehow he could tell them. Maybe, when Karl Vanderer goes back to get them, he can let them know. It was the one thing that kept him going. That and protecting Gittel.
But Karl seemed in no hurry to leave the companionship of the partisans or the company of the grumpy Klara or the silent Rose to go back for anyone.
It felt to Chaim as if they’d been going in circles or at least following some kind of maze. Days went by, and they seemed no nearer to safety and in no rush to get there.
* * *
• • •
The second week on near-starvation rations had taken a toll on everyone, except perhaps big Karl, who seemed as spirited as before.
Ths time, they took one of their infrequent rests under the shelter of a stand of birch. It had rained a bit along the way, not a hard rain but one of those misty, soft gray rains that wet Chaim’s hair but not the rest of him.
As he sat under one of the trees, close to Gittel yet somehow farther from her than he’d ever been in his life, he felt completely exhausted. His worries were like cement, heavy and unbreakable. He longed for somewhere they could call home, with Mama and Papa, and not this constant wandering. Three lines stuttered into his head.
First birch like marble statues
Guard the small sleepers
Then . . .
Then . . . there was no more to the poem.
He lay down on the grass, heedless of its wetness, and fell into a dreamless doze, until nudged by Rose’s foot. Swimming back into reality, he wished he could wake up refreshed like the partisans. But each time, Chaim woke even more tired than before.
He turned to say something about this, to sign something to Gittel, but she was already up and trudging away. She didn’t even look back to see if he was coming. And that was the worst thing of all.
* * *
• • •
A few nights later, they had no cave to cover them, no fully leafed trees to keep out the rain.
Unexpectedly, one of the men complained in a whisper of how open, how exposed they were. He was near enough for Chaim to hear every bitter word.
Klara shot back, “The children slow us down. What can you expect? We should have been farther along.”
Farther along? Surely they were close by now. He had no sense of where they were, no knowledge of where they were going. And then another thought worried him. What happens when we become too much of a burden and a danger? Will they leave us one night while we sleep? Will they shoot us where we stand? Slit our throats? Will they bury us under the leaves?
And then he felt shamed by such thoughts. Surely these were good people. Putting their own lives in danger for strangers.
* * *
• • •
They came the next day into a part of the forest where the trees were stunted, the ground broken, uncomfortable. They all slept in a pile like puppies. Chaim was next to a man who snored as loud as a freight train.
Anyone, he thought, could track us by the sound of it. That worried him for nearly an hour, but then he fell asleep between one worry and the next, waking only when his restless legs could just not stop trembling.
He watched as dawn crept up over the horizon.
They were each were given a handful of uncooked oats soaked in water to be washed down with a cup of cold water, though Gittel seemed uninterested in the food. She didn’t eat her share, and Bruno pounced on it.
Even with the extra portion, Bruno complained. Klara cuffed him and whispered, “The heroes of old had no more than this. Be grateful.”
She glared at the rest of them and scolded in a harsh whisper, “We have given up an important munitions raid to get you lot to safety. Be grateful.”
Then she turned and went off to scout ahead with a man called Oskar, who had a squint and a limp.
“Right eye squint, left leg limp,” Bruno said mockingly, and in a much-too-loud voice added, “Be grateful.”
Sophie raised her hand to him, and h
e ducked away.
Agreeing with Klara, Chaim thought, These people are risking their lives for us. Though a small, ungrateful part of him thought, They’d be doing this without us, too.
* * *
• • •
While they waited for the scouts to return, Rose showed them—mostly with hand signals and whispers—how to shoot her Mosin-Nagant rifle. How to sight through the scope, how to put steady pressure on the trigger.
Not as easy, Chaim discovered, as shooting the BB gun he’d gotten one year for his birthday, back when they lived in their old house, where Papa had set up a target at the far end of the garden. Gittel had turned out to be the more accurate of the two of them at shooting, but said she hated it and did it only twice.
Now, here in the forest, surrounded by the shadows of unseen enemies, far from Mama and Papa, suddenly the only thing that seemed to drag Gittel from her strange lethargy was that gun. She asked short, quick, whispered questions of Rose, questions that hadn’t occurred to Chaim or Sophie or Bruno. How far was the gun accurate? Did wind affect the passage of the bullet? What part of the body was the best place to aim for?
This was a new Gittel. A hard Gittel. A fierce Gittel. Chaim just wasn’t sure it was his Gittel anymore. And he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
Just touching the gun seemed to have changed Gittel. Did he want to change, too? Perhaps, he thought, I should just stick to the knife Papa gave me.
Of course, using a knife would mean having to be close up with the enemy. A boy his size and weight would be at a huge disadvantage, even with a knife as sharp as his was. He realized with a start that it had been days since he’d sharpened his knife. Could it have gotten blunt, even though he hadn’t used it? Surely it needed to be sharper to keep him safe, to keep Gittel safe.
He vowed to hone the knife once they stopped that evening.
Using a gun meant practicing with bullets, and no one was going to let them do that!