The Forest of Vanishing Stars

by Kristin Harmel

  His name was Zusia Krakinovski, and he went by Zus, like the god of Greek legend. Most of the ten he’d brought with him were members of his family: his brother, Chaim; Chaim’s wife, Sara; and three cousins, Israel, George, and Wenzel. The two boys, ages six and seven, belonged to Chaim and Sara, and there were also two men who were not related—Lazare and Bernard—and an orphaned fifteen-year-old girl named Ester who had begged to come along when she’d heard of their plan to escape.

  They’d all come from villages near Lida, on the western edge of the forest. Unlike Aleksander and the group he’d arrived with in the spring, Zus and his companions knew the land, knew the woods. They’d all been farmers or laborers before the war, hunting and fishing in the forests for sustenance in the summer, growing their own crops of potatoes and beets for the winter.

  “It is why I thought I could take care of them,” Zus, his voice thick with worry, explained to Aleksander, gesturing to his group, who were all shoveling pieces of steaming fish into their mouths, sucking the bones dry. They’d been starving in the woods, something Yona understood more clearly now as the light from the fire in the stove illuminated gaunt faces, bloodied hands, collarbones so prominent they looked as if they belonged on birds rather than humans. They were all crammed into the largest zemlianka, the one where Moshe, Leon, Rosalia, Ruth, and the children slept, where the original group had spent the eight nights of Hanukkah not so long ago, and though there wasn’t much room for anyone to move about, the collective body heat and the warmth of the fire seemed to be succeeding in thawing the newcomers. Ester, the girl with the long braid, had edged up next to Rosalia and was murmuring something with wide, sad eyes, and Chaim’s two little boys, Jakub and Adam, were taking turns playing with Pessia’s and Leah’s reed dolls while Pessia and Leah watched with timid smiles.

  “You did the right thing,” Aleksander affirmed, reaching for another fish from the bowl Sulia had just set before them. He slid it into his mouth and sucked the flesh off the bones, tossing the slippery skeleton on the floor, where Sulia picked it up without a word.

  “I’m not so certain.” Zus sighed. “In the ghetto, at least, we had food.”

  “Not much, though, brother,” Chaim said. He was slimmer and a few centimeters shorter than the broad-shouldered Zus. He was sitting with his back to his brother, rubbing Sara’s shoulders with one hand as he grabbed a fish with the other, tossing it straight into his mouth. He paused to chew and pull the bones out. “And in the ghetto, they also had bullets for us.”

  “I don’t forget that.” Zus scratched his jaw and glanced at Yona for a few seconds before abruptly looking down. “But if I can’t keep us alive in the forest, maybe we would have been better off.”

  “Penned like someone’s livestock?” Chaim asked. “I would rather die out here, on our own terms.”

  “You will not die.” Yona spoke before she could stop herself, and she was unsettled to feel Aleksander’s eyes on her, as well as Chaim’s and Zus’s. She glanced at Aleksander, but his expression was unreadable. “You will not die,” she repeated, looking back at Chaim and then at Zus, who was staring at her again in a way that made her stomach flutter. “We will not let you.”

  “Yona,” Aleksander murmured, his tone a warning.

  She glanced at him again, and she could see what he wanted to say, that they couldn’t support eleven new, hungry mouths. But she couldn’t send these people back out into the wild to perish during a harsh winter, either. Nature had given her a gift, and she couldn’t turn her back on people who wanted only to live. “You will stay until the spring,” she said, looking directly at Zus. “All of you.”

  Beside her, Aleksander murmured her name again, his tone sharper this time, but she didn’t look at him. She had a say, too.

  Zus looked from Yona to Aleksander and then back to Yona. “Thank you,” he said, his voice deep and warm, but also uncertain. His eyes returned to Aleksander. “Thank you,” he repeated, but this time, some of the warmth was gone.

  Aleksander nodded at Zus, accepting the gratitude, but then he stood abruptly and left without a word, disappearing out the door of the zemlianka into the wind-whipped night. Yona watched him go, wondering if perhaps she could have handled things differently. He would understand later; he had to. She believed in speaking what was in her heart, but in a group, there were clearly roles they were all meant to be playing, roles that had been determined long before she got here, and she didn’t entirely understand them yet. She had the sense she’d made a serious misstep.

  “I’m sorry,” Zus said a moment later, and by the time Yona turned back to him, Chaim had slipped into conversation with Sara and one of the cousins, and Yona felt suddenly as if she were alone with Zus, though they were elbow to elbow with two dozen other people.

  “You don’t need to apologize for anything,” Yona said, looking away.

  “I didn’t mean to create a problem.”

  She turned back to him. His eyes were as green as oak leaves at the peak of the summer, and they were so full of sadness that looking into them for more than a few seconds made her own soul heavy with grief. Still, she held his gaze in silence. “Aleksander is just worried about everyone surviving, but we will. All of us will. I promise you that.”

  He studied her. He seemed to be trying to read her eyes, her thoughts, and she wondered what he was seeing. “Thank you, Yona.”

  She nodded, and as the light from the fire flickered across his face, sending shadows dancing across his eyes, she found she couldn’t look away.

  * * *

  Aleksander wasn’t in Yona’s shelter when she returned an hour later after helping to sort the sleeping arrangements for the rest of the camp. There would be more time to talk about how to spread out tomorrow, but for now, the newcomers would take the second-largest zemlianka and the original group would take the largest. There was barely enough room in Yona’s small shelter for Aleksander to share her space, so there was no mention of new occupants there.

  It took Yona more than an hour to fall asleep, and before she did, she went out for a walk around the camp in the cold just to see if she could find Aleksander. He had not returned to the shelter, and she was worried. “He’s in our group’s zemlianka,” said Leib, pausing in his patrol around the perimeter to press his gloved hands to his red, cold face. He blew steam into the air and looked at the sky, which was clouded and starless. There was a snowfall coming; Yona could taste it in the air. “Some were upset with the new arrangements.”

  Yona nodded and returned to her shelter, her stomach twisting. Why did it feel as if she had something to apologize for? The existing group was no more entitled to survival than the newcomers. Weren’t they all obligated to help each other?

  Once, Jerusza had told Yona of her travels south, down through Austria-Hungary, through Bosnia and Herzegovina, edging into Serbia, and finally the Ottoman Empire. She’d been a young woman then, and Yona had listened with fascination to this rare glimpse into Jerusza’s life long before Yona had existed. Jerusza had been in the forests near Prizren, in the Šar Mountains, when the Albanians there had sworn a besa to preserve the integrity of their land, and that besa had come to mean, over the years, a word of honor, an obligation to help their fellow man in moments of need.

  Yona had liked that, the idea that there was a term for that sense of integrity, of responsibility to all those who shared the earth. Over the last few months, she had found herself rolling the word around in her mouth, tasting it, reminding herself that though it was a concept that belonged to the Albanians, it was also a belief that should apply to all humankind. People should always help others in need; there was no other way for the human race to survive. And now, there was no choice but to extend that besa, that protection, to Zus and his group. Aleksander would have to understand.

  In the morning, his side of the reed bed was still cold and empty, and as Yona emerged into a dim, foggy dawn, their footprints from the night before erased by a fresh blanket of pristine snow,
she took a deep breath of damp, cold air and looked skyward for a second, wondering if it would snow again, whether they’d be able to return to the stream to fish some more. They needed the food. When she looked back down again, across the clearing, she locked eyes with Aleksander, who was standing in the woods, one of the rifles slung across his chest, watching her. She felt her heart skip, but she took another bracing breath and trudged across the snow toward him.

  He leaned down to kiss her, but his lips landed on her cheek rather than her lips, and they felt cold against her skin.

  “I thought Leib was on patrol,” she said.

  “I wasn’t tired. I offered to take over.”

  “You could have come to bed.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment. His breaths were clouds, hanging between them before vanishing. “I needed time to think.”

  There was something about the way he said it, something about the way he averted his eyes, that made her uneasy. “Think about what?”

  “Think about what? About our survival, Yona! About all the people I’m trying to protect. About the way you’ve put them all in danger!” His words burst from him, a series of tiny explosions.

  She took a step back, snow crunching beneath her feet. “We can’t let anything happen to any of them. You know that, Aleksander.”

  He made a noise in his throat, half grunt, half laugh. “You say it like you have control over it, Yona. Like you have some sort of deal with God. But you don’t have that kind of power, and I’m not even sure God is listening. We’re out here all alone in the middle of the woods, and it will be weeks, maybe months, before the snow thaws. We don’t have enough food.”

  “We will gather more,” she said softly.

  “We don’t have enough shelter!”

  “Everyone fit last night. It might not be comfortable, but there is enough.”

  “And what about when the Germans come?” he shot back. “What then? With fifteen, we could hide, we could move. But with twenty-six? It will be twice as hard. You’ve exposed us to danger, Yona.”

  She watched her breath in the air for a moment, an unfamiliar ball of anger rolling slowly in her stomach. She had never felt that way toward Aleksander before, but now she wanted to grab him by the collar and shake him. “What would you have done without me?” she asked softly.

  “What?”

  “What would you have done without me? You are an intellectual, Aleksander. A bookkeeper. You said it yourself; you don’t know these woods. Would you have known what foods could be stored for winter? How to hunt or fish when the animals became scarcer? How to hide? How to stay warm in the winter? How to build safe homes in the earth?” She hated to bring it up, but the fact was, he’d only survived because she had offered help, besa. Now it was his turn to do the same.

  His eyes were hot coals as he stared at her. “Well, Yona, I suppose you’ve put me in my place, haven’t you? I’m useless, yes? That’s what you’re saying? Good, I’m glad you’ve finally spoken the words aloud.”

  She took a step back. “Of course that’s not what I meant. Not at all.”

  When he laughed, the sound was cruel. “No, Yona, your words were very clear. You’re our savior, and I should just close my mouth and be grateful.”

  “That isn’t what I—”

  “Well, I suppose you should go back to your shelter.” He’d said your shelter, not our shelter, and somehow this, more than everything else he’d said, felt like a blow. “It’s cold out, and since we apparently can’t survive without you, you should probably go rest up for all your future heroics.”

  “Aleksander—”

  But he was already moving away, trudging back into the black expanse of the forest, defending the group from dangers that might be lurking in the darkness.

  But what about the danger they couldn’t see, the treacherous, icy water of their own decisions? Perhaps there was no protection against that.

  * * *

  “I’m sorry, Yona.” Aleksander’s words were soft, full of remorse, as he entered their shared zemlianka two hours later, his face red from the cold, snowflakes still clinging, frozen and resilient, to his lashes. Yona had already been to visit the other shelters, checking first on the newcomers, who were all grateful to have made it through another night, and then the original members of the camp, who were cramped but in decent spirits. Luba had a low fever and a cough, and Yona had returned to her own zemlianka, after a quick visit to the larder, with a handful of dried herbs to brew into a tea for her.

  Yona didn’t reply now, because what was there to say? When a person apologized, you were supposed to pardon them, she knew. But she couldn’t do that here, because what Aleksander had wanted wasn’t right. There was nothing acceptable about allowing innocent people to go to their deaths because their presence didn’t suit your needs. That was what the people of Poland were helping the Nazis do to the Jews, wasn’t it?

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I was only thinking of the people I brought out of the ghetto myself, because I feel responsible for them.”

  “I understand.” She looked down. “But now the others need you, too.”

  “I know.” He was breathing hard as he took a step closer. “You have a big heart, Yona.”

  But as he covered her mouth with his, as he pulled her to him, as he tugged off his overcoat and ran his frigid hands roughly up the front of her sweater, cupping her breasts with a low moan, she knew the words hadn’t been a compliment, and the knot in her stomach twisted tighter, even as she closed her eyes and kissed him back.

  It was barely noon when Yona emerged from the shelter, followed by Aleksander. The sun was filtering through the heavy clouds, and Sulia was across the clearing, staring at Yona, her jaw tight, as she sorted berries. Before Yona could stop herself, she trudged across the snow. Despite the months Yona had spent with the group, Sulia still hadn’t warmed up to her. Perhaps it was time to try to change things.

  “Can I help?” Yona asked, reaching for a handful of berries.

  Sulia gave her a sideways look. “What, and dirty your hands with women’s work?”

  Yona blinked a few times as she picked out a couple of berries that had withered and begun to grow mold. It was important to periodically remove the bad ones before they destroyed the rest. “You don’t like me,” she observed, keeping her voice low and even. She had never known this kind of venom before, and she didn’t understand it, though it reminded her a bit of the strange way Chana’s mother had reacted to her after Yona had helped heal her husband.

  Sulia’s face turned pink as she ducked into her overcoat and busied herself with the berries, avoiding Yona’s eyes. “I like you just fine.”

  “I—I don’t think you do.”

  Sulia’s jaw flexed and relaxed a few times, and then, as suddenly as a shot, her head snapped up. “It’s just that you have no place here!” she exclaimed. “Who are you, anyhow? What kind of a person is raised in the woods with no human contact? It’s unnatural.”

  Yona sat back on her heels. “I’m not—”

  “I watch you sometimes with Aleksander, you know. The way you know how to talk to him, how to get him to do the things you want him to… I’m sorry, but you’re not normal, Yona. You’re up to something, and I won’t let it happen. Someone has to protect him, protect the group, even if you have everyone else fooled.”

  Yona felt an unfamiliar tightness in her chest, a confusion. Her whole life had been straightforward, even her interactions with the perplexing Jerusza. Though the old woman had often gone about things in an infuriatingly roundabout way, she had never been anything but honest. Yona had always known where she stood, and why, even if she didn’t always like or agree with it. But this feeling was alien to her, this sense that she had to defend herself against wild, unfounded accusations. “I don’t—I don’t know what you mean, Sulia.”

  “You’re not one of us, Yona, and sooner or later, Aleksander will notice it, too. You act like a man, like you think you’re b
etter than me, than the other women. But you’re not. And there’s something else. I don’t care who raised you. You’re not like us. You call yourself a Jew, but ours is a religion that passes by blood or tradition—and you have no claim to either.”

  “Sulia, I—”

  But Sulia was already standing, brushing the snow off her hands. She turned her back and trudged toward her zemlianka without another word.

  Yona stood, her fingertips blooming red with berry stain as she closed her hands into fists. Did everyone in the camp feel the same way? She’d done nothing but try to offer her knowledge, her skills for survival.

  She was still standing there, staring after Sulia, when Zus approached, trudging in from the woods to the east. “There you are,” he said, his voice deep, warm. His stride was confident and long, and the way he carried himself reminded her of a mountain lion, proud and strong and sure. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  She turned, still a bit dazed, and tried to smile. “Zus.”

  He searched her eyes as he came up beside her. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded, already feeling foolish. She had nothing to regret, nothing to be ashamed of. “Yes, yes, of course.” She coughed and bent to grab the basket of berries Sulia had huffed off without. They’d need to be returned to the larder. She began walking in that direction, and Zus fell into step beside her.

  “What is it?” Zus asked after a minute had passed. “You’re not yourself.”

  Yona might have smiled if she hadn’t been so upset. How did he already see her so clearly? “It’s nothing.” But when she glanced at him, she could see that he didn’t believe her. “It’s Sulia,” she amended after a pause. “She said something about me not belonging. I—I don’t understand why she seems to dislike me so much.”

  “She’s jealous of you.” Zus’s reply was so immediate and matter-of-fact that it made her stumble. He caught her elbow with a smile, righting her.