“Is it a love story?” The girl asked.
“Yes,” Yael smiled. “It’s a love story.”
Esther nodded, satisfied, and leaned back against her.
“Old man Tiskevicius’ great-grandfather was a soldier in Napoleon’s army. He was badly injured in the fighting in Russia and barely made it back as far as Selo before falling ill. He had a fever.”
She stroked the girl’s hair and gazed out into the growing darkness. In her mind’s eye she could see the old man stood by the window of the schoolroom, carefully stuffing his pipe. He smoked an English pipe, the type Sherlock Holmes would smoke in the comic strips.
“He was in the barn. The rest of the soldiers had left, beating their retreat back to France, but he could go no further. His leg was shot to bits. He was burning with fever and hallucinating.
“The men in the village got together and drew lots as to who was going to shoot him.”
“Shoot him? Why?” Esther looked up at her.
“Well, there was a lot of bad feeling about the French army; all the villages they had burned, the food they had stolen. But anyway, none of them wanted to do it, so they figured if they left him he would die anyway. What they didn’t know was that a young girl – the grafas’ great-grandmother – was secretly looking after the young soldier. She was a beauty and strong-headed too. A vixen, the grafas called her. She would creep out at night and bathe his wounds and lay a cool wet cloth across his forehead and take him in her arms and feed him broth.”
“How did he know all this?” Esther asked.
“She was still alive when the grafas was young. She told the story to him herself.”
Yael had never questioned the story at school. She listened to the old man raptly as the other children dozed or flicked things at each other.
“After a week the men went into the barn and found him sitting there, on the top of a haystack smoking a cigarette. There was a commotion. The soldier spoke no Polish and only a few words of German, but not enough to communicate. It was clear from the state of him and from the empty bowl the villagers found at his feet that somebody had been looking after him.
“The grafas’ great-grandmother stood forward, brazen as you like and confessed it had been her that had been feeding and caring for the soldier. Her father picked up a shovel and was advancing on the young girl, but the soldier picked himself up and threw himself between them. He rolled up his sleeves and made it clear that should her father want to fight, he was ready for it.
“The villagers put their heads together for a while and scratched their beards, but there was nothing much they could do about it, so they let him be.”
“Did they get married?”
“Yes, of course. He was a simple man. He never learned more than a handful of Polish words as long as he lived and the grafas’ great-grandmother never learned any French. As far as he could tell they were never able to talk to each other, but they were married for a good sixty years.”
After she had finished, Esther was silent for some time. “I don’t understand,” she said finally, her voice laced with irritation. “How could they be married and not speak to each other?”
“I don’t know,” Yael said quietly. “The grafas never explained.”
“Perhaps they spoke Yiddish,” Esther suggested.
“No,” Yael replied, “they didn’t speak Yiddish.”
“Then it’s a stupid story.”
The grafas’ great-grandparents’ grave was at the back of the churchyard, sheltered from the summer sun by the far-flung bough of an old yew. Yael had gone to see it once and sat before the weathered stone and thought about the story.
‘Can you marry someone if you can’t speak to them?’ She had asked her father later.
‘The question is can you speak to somebody if you’ve married them?’ Her father threw back at her, leaning over the shoe he was repairing, tacks sticking from his mouth, a small hammer tapping them into the sole with light precision.
“Are you married?” the girl asked her later.
Yael hesitated before she answered. “Yes,” she said.
“You don’t sound very sure.”
“I’m not sure where he is,” Yael said softly. “My husband.”
“Is he dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you miss him?”
Yael gazed up through the roof of the trees.
“Yes,” she said. “Terribly.”
26
Autumn came slowly: the scent of decay, the tips of leaves curling and sudden blusters that sent them twirling to the earth. At night it grew colder sleeping in the woods. The partisans crept together, sharing the heat between their huddled bodies. Yael slept with the young girl wrapped tight around her. Esther slept soundly every night and Yael envied her this ability to shut off. Whenever Yael shut her eyes, she was troubled by visions. Often she preferred just to lie there, gazing out across the silent camp; the dull embers of the fire, shrouded to keep its light from the Germans, the knots of supine bodies, the moon shadows, or wisps of fog that hung between the trees; Maksim constantly awake, pacing back and forth, cigarette burning between his fingers.
More and more often the scouts were coming back with reports of German divisions moving into the neighbouring areas. There was talk of Soviet advances, that the Germans were retreating, but then others speculated of another German push and that it was the Russians who were beaten not the Nazis.
There was also talk of other partisan groups operating in the area. As Yael squatted by the fire one evening, listening to the conversation around her, her ears picked out a name and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
“Josef Alterman?” she asked. She stood up suddenly, her heart beating rapidly.
The scout, a nineteen-year-old boy called Yakov Kopel, who had a handsome face, but both of his front teeth missing, turned to Yael. He shrugged.
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “They call him Volk. The Wolf.”
“Describe him,” Yael begged. “Please?”
Yakov looked at her, a little irritated. He flicked a glance at Maksim, to whom he had been talking, but Maksim nodded for him to do as Yael asked. He described the partisan leader he had been telling Maksim about. Yael nodded, listening intently. She was sure it was her brother.
“Where are they?” Yael asked.
“He commands a small unit, they’re highly mobile; a quick raid here or there and then they’re moving on. They have a girl with them, from what I’ve heard, but apart from that it’s only The Wolf and five other men. They’re local Jews as far as I know, they know the area well, but they’re backed by the Soviets, they’re all well equipped.”
That night, when finally she fell asleep, she dreamt of him. He was seated on the back of his horse, riding through the forest, neat in his Red Army uniform.
The idea that he might be close filled Yael with joy. She felt a renewed energy in her step, a vitality she had not felt for months. In the hours when she was not helping out, doing her chores, she begged Anna to teach her how to shoot.
The feel of the smooth butt of the rifle snuggled against her cheek, the hard recoil against her shoulder, the cold metal beneath her finger, the scent of gunpowder excited her. She found she was a good shot. She had a steady hand and a good eye. After a couple of days, her shoulder ached and, peeling back her shirt, she found the skin bruised blue and yellow. She probed the tender flesh with the tips of her fingers, and relished the pain. It was a badge, a mark of a new courage she felt welling up from the core of her being.
When Maksim praised her shot to Anna, Yael couldn’t help but feel proud. Giving Esther back to the other women, Yael spent as many of her nights as possible volunteering for sentry duty, preferring to wander the quiet edge of the camp, eyes stretched against the darkness, the weight of the rifle looped across her shoulder, to lying sleepless among the other women.
As she sensed the tiny child budding in her belly, no bigger than
a kidney bean, perversely she felt a growing desire to kill. To protect. The strength of the feeling scared her.
“When you go out on a raid,” she said to Anna, as they did sentry duty together, “do you feel scared?”
“Yes,” Anna said.
They were sitting on a log thirty metres away from the camp and through the thick undergrowth and the tree trunks it was almost invisible.
“Have you ever killed anybody?”
“I don’t know,” Anna answered. “There have been times when we have been caught in a fight and there has been shooting, but it’s hard to tell.”
“Anna,” Yael breathed, flushing as she spoke, “sometimes when I have the rifle in my hands I have such a desire to kill. Do you think that is wrong?”
Anna flicked a glance at her. Yael’s face was scarcely visible in the darkness. Anna snaked her arm around her shoulder and squeezed her.
“We all long to kill them,” she whispered. “How could we not? Do you remember the story of Deborah? We are Deborah’s children, Yael. Deborah and Jael.”
Yael recalled the story of Jael, of the tent peg nailed through the commander’s temple as he rested in her care. As a child she struggled to understand that level of violence. But now there was a depth of comprehension she could never have wished for.
Maksim was reluctant when Anna suggested it. He had just shaved down by the stream and his face glowed. He shook his head and cast a glance across Anna’s shoulder at Yael who stood back a few paces, the rifle cradled in her hands. He clicked his tongue and turned away, gazing off into the empty distance for some moments before turning, his forehead creased.
“There are many ways of helping,” he said. “Many ways to serve the cause. They are all important. Where would the children be if there was no one to care for them? Where would we be if there was no one to cook? The old ones…” His voice trailed off as he saw the look on Anna’s face. “Don’t look at me like that, Anna.”
“It’s like that again is it, Maksim?” she said frostily, as if picking up the thread of an old argument.
Maksim ran a hand through his hair. He looked over at Yael, as if in appeal to her, but seeing the look on her face, he sighed.
“Now you’re ganging up on me!”
“Oh, you had better believe it,” Anna said. “And you won’t stand a chance against us. Try her. One raid. Let her come.”
“It’s madness!”
“This war is mad! What is the point in sanity?”
“She’s pregnant!”
“Yakov has his two front teeth missing.”
“What has that to do with anything?”
“Exactly!”
Maksim moaned. He shook his head though and turned and walked away up from the bank of the river to the camp. Yael felt it like a stab in the heart. She had to do something. To feel useful. Anything to pass the time until she was back with Aleksei.
The railway line was a little over eight miles away. The traffic on it was regular, supplies heading east after the German troops, and west, stuffed with the broken bodies and the dead. They set off late one evening at the beginning of November. It had grown cold, but it was wet still and there was the probability of fog by early morning. Yael now had the slightest of bumps and she lightly cradled it as they walked.
Anna touched Yael’s hand as they left the camp. Yael turned and grinned. Her heart pounded and her muscles were tight with nerves. Maksim was at the head of the line, Yakov and Meyer Feldman, a medical student with a thin, cadaverous skull, followed behind him. Yael did not know what Anna had said to change Maksim’s mind; she strongly suspected she had simply talked him into submission. He looked tired and had looked at her wearily when she joined the small party at the edge of the camp. He said nothing though, simply issued orders, checked ammunition and coordinates, and then led the way off between the trees.
They walked until four o’clock in the morning. The ground was wet and muddy and often Yael found herself stumbling in the darkness. She was breathless, and her side ached. The rifle strap had rubbed her shoulder raw. Just after one o’clock, they had almost walked into a German division. Silently, slowly, they had to work their way back through the trees, losing half an hour as they tacked widely around.
“Regretting coming?” Yakov whispered. It was so dark Yael could make out only the faint outline of his face.
“Shut up, Yakov,” Anna said. She laid a hand on Yael’s shoulder. Yael pressed her hand.
“I’m okay,” she whispered.
There were German sentries at regular points along the line. The scouts had left a concealed trail, to a point where, the previous evening, there had been clear access to the railway, out of sight of any sentry position. This they followed, crawling the last few hundred metres on their bellies, silently, afraid of alerting the dogs. Yael’s heart knocked against her ribs. Her whole body was trembling and her teeth chatted so much Yakov turned back and hissed a warning at her. She clenched them so tight against each other her jaw ached. Despite the raw wetness of the night, the mud that smeared her and the dampness of the ground which soaked through her fatigues, Yael was drenched with sweat by the time they huddled in a low gully within sight of the railway line.
Maksim indicated for Yael to move out wide on the flank to help cover the position, Meyer moved out in the other direction. Maksim and Yakov slid forward on their bellies, up the shale slope towards the lines. Even in the dim moonless night they looked painfully conspicuous to Yael who crouched, shivering, thirty metres further along the line shaded by some thick brush.
The railway line curved around a slow bend, descending a hill, the line cut in tight against rocks on the far side. On the near side the forest was thick and brush grew up to the edge of the gully that ran alongside the track. Peering down the hill, Yael watched for signs of movement. The line was clear. Dark. Silent.
Maksim and Yakov were bent over the train track. Their bodies dark against the pale stone bank. Yael counted slowly to a hundred. She turned, but they were still there working away on the line. The German sentry was standing in the middle of the track when her eyes focused back on the dark slope. He stood with his back to them, fifty metres away, at the slow curve in the line. Yael’s heart leapt and the blood drained from her face.
In what seemed like slow motion to her, she raised the rifle and sighted him. He stood in the centre of the lines, a dog on a leash quietly beside him. A match flared, illuminating for a moment his clean-shaven face, as he turned to hide the flame from the breeze. She counted slowly backwards from ten, steadying her nerves, measuring her breaths, feeling the cold metal of the trigger beneath her finger, knowing intimately now the exact pressure that would be required, ready for the steady squeeze, tightening her grip for the recoil, keeping the barrel down. She could hit him from this distance, she knew. She could hit him square in the forehead if he turned a little more.
The light of his cigarette danced as he raised it to his lips, drew in the smoke and then let it drop to his side. Her muscles had relaxed. She felt like an athlete, ready, primed, awaiting the signal. Her glance flicked back and forth, monitoring the situation. The dog looked up. A slight breeze blew up the hill, bringing on it the scent of the tobacco. From behind her she heard the scrape of gravel. The dog flinched. The man reached down and stroked its head. The dog stood up, its neck straining, ears cocked. He flicked away the cigarette. It bounced off the steel line, sparks dancing in the darkness. Yael closed her left eye. Felt the muscles tighten around her right, as she sighted him once again. She eased the rifle in her hands, felt its weight comfortable in her grip. Pressed lightly against the trigger, felt its slight stiffness. He turned then, muttering something to the dog and paced down the line. Yael’s eye narrowed. His back was broad. An easy target. She felt her body float, weightless for one moment. Felt she was one with the rifle. Felt the power in her finger. She breathed out. A long slow exhalation. She lowered the gun. Placed it carefully on the ground beside her and wiped the perspiratio
n from her palms. One swift blow. She thought of Jael and was disappointed.
“Let’s move!”
Yakov was beside her, pulling at her sleeve. They hurried back through the undergrowth.
“It’s on a three-minute timer,” Maksim said, breathless as they pushed through the thick brush, the supple, thin branches of the birch snapping against their faces.
The force of the blast knocked Yael off her feet. Lying in the mud, she felt its heat race across her. The night was suddenly bright. Above her the tree was burning. Getting to her feet she raced alongside Maksim. He turned and she saw he was grinning. He reached out and grasped her hand.
“You okay?” he mouthed.
“Yes,” she stammered. “Yes.”
27
By the fire, warming her hands, the partisan group milling around her noisily, Yael found she was shaking. It was not that she had feared being killed, she thought, as she crouched down watching the uncontrollable dance of her fingers before her, it was fear that she was able to kill. That she should desire it. That she had never felt so powerful, so one with the world, as she had felt with the rifle aimed at the unknowing German soldier.
More than anything then, she wished to be back in the farmhouse with Aleksei. She longed with an aching painfulness for the quietness of his company, the silent sense of him beside her. With her.
“How are you feeling?” Maksim asked, squatting down next to the fire. She glanced up at his face. It was closed, blank, with no evidence of the boisterous joy of the others.
“I’m fine,” she said, pulling her eyes from his fixed gaze.
She felt his fingers on her back, tracing a gentle line down her spine that made her skin tingle.
“You did good,” he whispered.
Yael nodded. She did not look up as he shifted and rose to his feet. He stood for a few moments beside her as if he wished to say something further. He cleared his throat and it reminded her of Aleksei. She picked up a twig and poked it into the flames, watching it flare. He turned and walked away. Yael let out her breath in a long slow exhalation.
The Song of the Stork Page 12