by Dan Millman
“Nothing you can give, I’m afraid. I will go and tell the others. They will come. We live in a settlement twenty kilometers to the south. If you ever come there, ask for Heitzik.”
Old Heitzik nodded in farewell, and was about to leave, when he faltered, clutched at his chest, and fell.
Sergei ran to him.
“It…it’s all right,” he said, trying to rise, but clearly in great discomfort. “It’s happened before. Just the shock of seeing this.”
“What can I do?” Sergei asked.
“If you could help me to my cart.” He rose slowly, painfully, then tried to walk but couldn’t, so Sergei carried him. “Thank you. I’ll be all right. My horse is as old as I—she knows the way.”
Clouds were building; it might rain soon. Now Sergei had a trail he could follow. He might even overtake them before they reached the forest. His son had never felt so close.
Heitzik grimaced in another wave of pain. “I’ll be all right,” he insisted. “You go…” He could barely hold the reins.
Sergei sighed, having made his decision. “Give me just a moment—I’ll ride with you to your settlement.” Heitzik nodded, and Sergei saw the relief on his face.
He mounted Paestka and did another quick ride around the ruins. He found the body of a horse, its throat cut and one leg severed at the knee. A swarm of flies buzzed around the carcass. He tried to make sense of this, but couldn’t.
The tracks led south. He ached to follow these men while the trail was warm. He looked back at old Heitzik, hunched over on the cart seat. He tied Paestka to the back of the cart, climbed up, and took the reins. “All right, horse,” he said. “Take us home!”
“The horse’s name is Tsaddik,” murmured the old man. He added, “I only reveal his name to friends.” Then he was quiet.
By the time they reached Heitzik’s settlement, it was nearly dusk. Rain clouds had settled heavily over them and a few droplets fell. A woman ran out to meet them and pointed to Heitzik’s home. By the time Sergei got him to the door, it was dark and the rain had begun to fall in a downpour.
Few tracks, if any, would remain.
While Heitzik’s wife, Devorah, was helping her husband to bed, she spoke to Sergei as if he were family: “It’s dark. It’s raining. Please—put your horse in the barn across the street and stay the night. In the morning, you’ll have a good breakfast with us. With food in your stomach, you can be on your way. Or stay with us as long as you wish.” Then she hurried to attend to her husband.
Sergei had also heard her unspoken words: Thank you. May God bless you. You are not a stranger to this house.
Serafim had once said, “A man’s character reveals itself most clearly when he makes a choice under pressure.” Sergei had made his choice; he hoped it was the right one. But in making that choice, he might have lost the way to his child. He wasn’t going to be able to find tracks at night in the rain, so he accepted the hospitality of these Jewish people—Grandfather Heschel’s people, his mother’s people. His people.
.45.
ON AN OTHERWISE PLEASANT DAY in early spring, the dogs began barking wildly. A stranger had entered the camp. Nearly naked, his clothing torn and shredded, he cursed loudly and waved a saber in the air. His hair and beard were long and tangled, as if he had lived in the wild—not a man but a forest creature. One of the dogs growled ferociously, just out of reach. Another attacked him and was cut down.
Zakolyev and his men were away on a raid, and nearly all the young men including Konstantin were in the forest gathering wood, leaving only Great Yergovich on guard. On seeing the savage, a child cried out in alarm and ran screaming. Paulina emerged from her cabin just as Great Yergovich rushed to investigate.
Yergovich and Paulina saw the stranger at the same time, but they were both too late to save Shura, who was just rounding the corner carrying water from the stream. Startled, the nameless man spun and slashed Shura with the sword, nearly severing her head. An enraged Yergovich dashed in to take the life of this intruder, but he made the fatal mistake of underestimating his adversary, thinking him a bezoomnii—mindless, crazy. Yergovich approached boldly to frighten off the poor witless fool.
As Yergovich drew near to him, the man threw his sword in a spinning arc. It pierced the heart of Paulina’s Old Bear, who stumbled backward and fell with a look of surprise on his face as the light faded from his eyes.
Paulina stood stunned, at first thinking that the wild-eyed stranger might be the monster Sergei Ivanov. But she quickly realized that this crazed and babbling bearded stranger was not a monster but a man possessed by demons and bent on destruction. He would surely attack the other women and children—
She had no memory of what happened next, but Oxana, peering out the door of her hut, saw it all.
A FEW MINUTES LATER, the young men returned, their arms filled with firewood. When they saw the bodies of Shura and old Yergovich, and a stranger lying facedown, they dropped the wood and ran to investigate. Konstantin was the first to reach Paulina, now slumped against a wall nearby and weeping. He sat down next to her, put his arm around her, and held her close.
Just before dusk, Dmitri Zakolyev, Korolev, and most of the others returned. As soon as the Ataman saw the bodies of Yergovich and Shura—and the corpse of a stranger lying farther away—he cried, “What happened? Where is Paulina?”
“I saw it, Ataman,” said Oxana. “A crazy man came into the camp!”
Zakolyev leaped off his horse and shook her. “Where is Paulina?” he repeated, but Oxana babbled even faster, as if to save her life.
“After he killed Shura he threw a saber and killed old Yergovich—but Paulina saved us! She walked up to the wild man and held up her hand as if to say ‘Stop!’ He pulled the saber out of old Yergovich, and he let out a horrible shriek and attacked Paulina. She moved so quickly! One moment she was in front of him; then she was beside him, so his saber missed her. She struck him many times, and he fell and died.”
Zakolyev was breathing hard, trying to control himself. He said softly, “Oxana, I’m going to ask you only one more time. Where is Paulina?”
She pointed toward the Ataman’s cabin. “I…I think Konstantin—he walked her back to your cabin—”
Zakolyev released Oxana and ran toward the cabin.
Paulina had begged Konstantin to leave the instant they heard the men riding in. When Father Dmitri found her she was sitting alone, still in a daze, staring into space. She had avenged the death of Shura, who had mothered her, and the death of the man who had taught her better than he knew. She was shocked by how easy it had been to take a man’s life—sickened because she had wanted to kill him—but also because of something he had said…
At first he had only raved in words she didn’t understand, but then he’d muttered a few words in Russian. That’s when Paulina realized that he had not just stumbled onto them, he had searched for and found the camp. He had cried out, “Murderers!…killed my wife…my children…for what reason? Because we are Jews!” There were tears in his eyes. She didn’t understand the rest of his mutterings, but his voice had the sincerity of one who spoke the truth.
The wild man’s words made Paulina face what she had long ignored. She now knew where the men had found the horses, sheep, trunks, tools, books, and many other things as well. And she knew what kind of men they were…
Just then her father burst into the room in a panic. “Are you all right?”
Her answer came slowly, her voice a monotone. “I’m not injured, if that’s what you mean.” She looked up and saw what she had never seen with the eyes of childhood: Her father had aged; he was drawn, weary, haunted. His eyes were like those of the wild man. No, they were far colder.
Zakolyev let out a sigh of relief. “All right then. You did well—Oxana told me—and soon you’ll be ready.” He started to reach out to touch her hair, but she moved away.
He pretended not to notice. “You rest,” he said. “Tomorrow I will find you another instructor.”
Staring at the floor, Paulina responded, “I don’t think I’ll be needing another instructor, do you?” When she looked up, the doorway was empty.
Dmitri Zakolyev had left to wash himself in the river, to scrub his body raw, to cleanse his mind. Then he would try to sleep. He did not like losing Great Yergovich and the woman Shura. They were both useful—and he was furious about this breach of security. Yet this strange twist of fate had tested his daughter in mortal combat. So it had turned out well in the end.
She was ready.
SOON, SHE THOUGHT. He had said it would be soon. She hoped so; she wanted to get it done, get it over with, find out if she had any life on the other side of this mission. As the reality and inevitability of it dawned on her, Paulina shivered. She knew she could fight, and now she knew she could kill. But was she truly ready to kill Sergei Ivanov? Paulina touched the locket, held it gently in her fist, as if it contained the souls of her grandparents. She tried to imagine what her mother must have thought before the white-haired demon killed her.
Yes, she could kill him, and she would. Everything depended on it. Not only her life—for if she failed she would surely die—but even if she survived, she could not live with the shame. She wished her father had never given her this weight to carry. But he had. So she would not fail him. Now seventeen years old, Paulina wondered how much time, how much life, she might live beyond that.
What has happened to me? she thought. I once had dreams; now I have only this dark purpose. Paulina sighed. No, I have more. I have Kontin…
THE NEXT DAY the Ataman began muttering about moving the camp once again. Pacing like a caged tiger, he spoke without direction, as if he were talking to the air or to himself. “We have grown soft and comfortable, like a quaint village of Jews!” he ranted. “Remember what I told you long ago: We must be moving targets—so we must move!”
He slipped in and out of a dark inner world that no one could reach. Then, without apparent cause, he would wake from his trance and issue orders with complete clarity. Some hoped he would forget about leaving the camp. Others whispered about leaving themselves.
Zakolyev could no longer clearly distinguish between the waking world and the nightmares that raged in his sleep, shifting and changing like patterns of smoke rising into the night sky.
But he took consolation in the knowledge that someday soon, Paulina would be the last sight that Sergei Ivanov ever saw. If he saw her coming at all. And justice would be done.
Meanwhile, Korolev watched Zakolyev’s descent into madness with growing disdain. And whenever the ripe little Paulina passed by, Korolev’s cold blue eyes would follow.
.46.
SERGEI LEFT Heitzik’s village with little hope, but with new provisions and the blessings of a family. The cold rain had ended, leaving the air crisp and fresh—a good day for tracking if any tracks remained.
He returned to the ruins, now cold, and to the spot where he had seen the tracks. He found not a single trace of hoofprints in the muddy ground. Still, he had a direction. Or did he? Think! he told himself. Would these men, led by Zakolyev, whose existence depended on secrecy, leave the scene of a massacre in the exact direction of their camp? Not likely. Their initial trail led southwest, toward the Podolia region, and Bessarabia beyond—not the best region to hide.
But suppose they changed course and circled—where? To the north, his instincts said. Toward the forested region near Kiev where he had once found tracks before they disappeared in a streambed. He knew the region well by now, and if he were Zakolyev, that’s where he would go.
His knees told Paestka to go forward at a walk, along the line of old tracks. Up ahead the ground might show some sign. He found nothing for fifty meters…a hundred…two hundred. But at about three hundred meters, he saw the faint marks of many riders. He followed the tracks until they disappeared.
Then he backtracked until he found the hoof markings again, and rode in a circling course ninety degrees to the right until he was heading northwest. He found nothing, so he backtracked again, then covered ever-widening circles all afternoon. As the sun dropped low in the short days of early spring, he was about to give up for the day when something caught his eye. A single hoofprint. He walked in a circle and found more, leading north and east. He had found their trail.
There were times he lost the tracks again, but he could see other signs where they had ridden through tall grasses or underbrush. He looked for broken branches at the height of a rider’s head or shoulder or slung rifle—places where horses pulled up plants to eat while walking, or shrubs pushed out and down due to the circular motion of their hooves. He silently thanked Alexei for those few lessons in tracking.
He had hoped that they would head directly back to their camp, but the trail led to the outskirts of the town of Nizhyn, where the tracks were finally lost in a morass of hoofprints and the ruts left by of many travelers on horseback and buggy. There was no trail left to follow.
It was not likely that they had remained long in the town. But on the faint hope that he might learn something, Sergei entered and decided to spend the night in a room and eat a prepared meal.
He found a barn for Paestka and a small boardinghouse for himself, run by a heavy, middle-aged woman with a bun of gray hair pinned to her head. She showed him to his room and announced that the dinner meal would be ready in twenty minutes.
Sergei decided to go down to the saloon across the street and question a few locals about riders who might have passed through. He ordered a glass of vodka to warm his bones and blend in with the other customers. He sat quietly for a while, listening to random conversations. He was just raising the glass when he heard a man at the table behind him muttering to himself: “…sick of it…slaughtering for Zakolyev…no honor…last time, no more…”
Suddenly alert, Sergei quietly put the glass down. He sat still and listened, but he heard nothing more than the man’s breathing, pouring, swallowing. He picked up the bottle and casually walked to another table, where he could observe the lone man dressed in the clothing of a Cossack. It had been many years, but he still had a familiar look about him. One does not forget such men.
Soon the man rose unsteadily and, still muttering, staggered up the street. Sergei followed at a distance, until the drunken man entered another boardinghouse. Then he waited and watched through the long night, his dinner and bed forgotten.
In the morning, he thought, this man may return to his camp.
.47.
EVEN BEFORE the incident with Gumlinov’s horse, the men had unspoken doubts. Now everything was falling apart—the Ataman was acting like a crazed jackal.
In another raid, two more men had died. One was killed by a Jew who charged with a pitchfork as his wife hugged their children in the doorway. He managed to stab Chertosky before one of the men cut him down. Another of their men was stabbed in the back by a brave boy who had leaped out of hiding. It was his last act.
As Zakolyev’s men rode back to camp, those out of the Ataman’s earshot muttered about riding off, sickened by what their lives had become. One of the men said softly to a nearby rider, “Perhaps I’ll become a monk.”
The other answered, “Too late for that—our souls are already lost…”
JUST BEFORE her afternoon practice session, which she did in solitude, and mostly out of habit—and before her father’s expected return from patrol—Paulina searched the camp for Konstantin. She found him sitting on a rock outcropping overlooking the falls, staring down at the water pounding on the rocks far below. Sitting next to him, Paulina told him that she would soon be leaving to complete the task her father had given her. “Few young women have ever undertaken such a mission,” she said, as if trying to convince herself. “For this purpose he freed me from the duties of other women…gave me special privileges and protection…”
Paulina looked intently at Konstantin, desperate for his approval, but his expression revealed nothing. “He told me I was born to do this,” she continued, her
eyes pleading, her hand grasping his arm. “Oh, Kontin, I hope I’m ready! My father needs this victory so badly for his…peace of mind.”
Then she reached down the front of her blouse—a gesture that made Konstantin gasp—and pulled out her locket. She showed him the faded picture of her connection to a past of which she had no memories. “I do this for them as well,” she said. “Father insists on sending Tomorov with me. I wish you were coming instead…”
He nearly spoke then—almost told her everything he knew—but what did he know for certain? And if he told her, would she believe him? Or would it mean catastrophe for both of them?
Paulina had hoped that Konstantin might share her sense of destiny—that he might be glad for her—but the look of dismay on his face, despite his efforts to hide it, turned the moment to sorrow.
THAT VERY AFTERNOON, after Paulina left for her training, Konstantin finally made his decision: he would leave this camp—he would tell her everything and convince Paulina to leave with him. He had gone over it again and again, but any path his mind traveled, it reached the same destination: They had to go together; it was their only chance for happiness. They would run for their lives and for their future. They had to take flight this very night.
Konstantin was no fool—he knew that choosing between familiar lies or bitter truth would not be easy for Paulina—and he held only the barest hope that she loved him enough to abandon all she had known.
If she could not bring herself to join him, then he would go alone, a desolate flight carried only by the hope that he might one day make his fortune and return for her. And at least he would be able to say good-bye to the one person who reminded him that love was still possible in this dark world.
KONSTANTIN RAN to the barn, where Paulina practiced, looked around to make sure no one else was inside, and said quickly, “Paulina, this afternoon, meet me at the falls. Tell no one you’re coming!” Then, before she could speak, he ran off, thinking that if they left in the night, no one would miss them until morning.