The Devil's Arithmetic

by Jane Yolen

  “My wife, my mother, my sisters—and all of yours—those who were waiting here in Viosk for our return from the forest, those who were getting ready for the wedding, they have been sent ahead. They have taken with them what clothing and household goods we shall need in the resettlement camp.”

  “But what of our clothes and our goods,” called out Yitzchak, “those of us who are not from Viosk?”

  “We will share what we have,” said the rabbi. “For are we not all neighbors and friends? Are we not all brothers and sisters in God’s eye? Are we not . . .”

  “All will be taken care of,” said the Nazi colonel, interrupting smoothly. “You will want for nothing.”

  “We wanted for nothing except to be left alone here in Viosk,” said a voice.

  “Nevertheless,” the colonel continued, smiling, “in this matter, we will make the ruling. When you get to your new homes, anyone who wants to work will be treated humanely. The tailor will sew, the shoemaker will have his last. And you will be happy among your own people, just as we will be happy you have followed the government’s orders.”

  “The snake smiles but it shows no teeth,” murmured the badchan. Hannah wondered if anyone else heard him.

  Raising his hands, the rabbi began to speak. “The colonel has assured me that some of his soldiers will remain billeted here to guard our stores and houses and schools from harm while we are gone. At my request, the soldiers will pay special attention to the shul to make sure the peasants do not desecrate it.”

  “Better the fox to guard the hens and the wolves to guard the sheep,” the badchan said.

  This time he was heard, and there were murmurs in the crowd. One man called out, “But Reb Boruch, why would they billet soldiers here if they are needed elsewhere for the war?”

  “Am I a general to answer such questions?” the rabbi asked. “Am I the head of state? I only know that they have promised me this, so this I believe. They say the war is almost over, and we will not be gone from Viosk for long.”

  “How long is eternity?” the badchan muttered.

  Hannah tried to speak again, but this time Gitl’s hand covered her entire mouth. “Be still, child,” Gitl whispered. “Whatever your objections, be still. This is not one of your stories that ends happy-ever-after. There are not imaginary bullets in those guns. Listen to the rabbi. He is right to calm us. If we go quietly, no harm will come.”

  Suddenly remembering the pictures on television, the ones that made her grandfather so crazy, Hannah shook her head. But she shook it silently, as Gitl commanded. She wanted to cry. She knew she’d feel better if she could. But no tears came. Drawing a deep breath, she heard the rabbi begin to pray aloud.

  “Shema Yisrael, Adonai eloheynu, Adonai echod. Hear, O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”

  The others joined in. Even Hannah.

  They climbed into the trucks in family groups, reluctant to be parted. Since Shmuel would not let go of Fayge’s hand despite the rabbi’s fierce stare, the rabbi was forced to climb into the truck with them, standing next to Hannah.

  Yitzchak handed his children up to Gitl one at a time, and she kept her arms tight around the little girl, Tzipporah. There were finally so many villagers packed into each truck, there was no room to sit down. So they stood, the children up on the men’s shoulders. They looked like holidayers off on a trip. But they felt to Hannah, all crushed together, like cattle going to be slaughtered for the market.

  The trucks barreled down the long, winding road, their passengers silenced by the dust deviling up and by the heat. After a bit, to keep the children in her truck from crying, Gitl began to sing. First she tried a lullaby called “Yankele” to quiet them, then several children’s songs. But as the truck continued without a stop, carrying them farther and farther from Viosk, onto roads most of them had never seen, she broke into a song that, for all its wailing minor notes and the lalala chorus, sounded angry.

  Hannah tried to make out the words above the noise of the truck. They were about someone called a chaper, a snatcher or kidnapper, who dragged men off to the army. One verse went:

  Sir, give me a piece of bread,

  Look at me, so pale and dead.

  It hardly seemed a song to calm the children. But first Shmuel, then Yitzchak, then several of the other men in their truck joined in, singing at the top of their voices. The children on their perches clapped in rhythm. At last, even Fayge and her father began to sing.

  Hannah listened to the growing chorus in wonder, as the song leaped from truck to truck down the long road. Didn’t they know? Didn’t they guess? Didn’t they care? She kept remembering more and more, bits and pieces of her classroom discussions about the Holocaust. About the death camps and the crematoria. About the brutal Nazis and the six million dead Jews. Was knowing—or not knowing—more frightening? She couldn’t decide. A strange awful taste rose in her mouth, more bitter even than the Seder’s bitter herbs. And they were for remembering. She fought the taste down. She would not, she could not be sick. Not here. Not now. She opened her mouth to catch a breath of air, and found herself singing. The sound of her own voice drowned out the steady drone of the tires on the endless, twisting road.

  10

  “LOOK!” SHMUEL CRIED OVER THE NOISE OF THE SINGING.

  At his voice, everyone suddenly quieted, following his pointing hand. Ahead of them was a train station, its windows sparkling in the bright spring sun. There were armed guards standing in front of the station house door and scattered around the periphery. Two wooden boxcars squatted on a nearby siding.

  The trucks pulled up to the station house. Jumping out of the cabs, the soldiers called up to the villagers, “Get out. Out. Quickly.”

  When no one moved, the soldiers raised their guns.

  Shmuel put his hands on the raised panel, and leaped down. Yitzchak handed his son down to Shmuel, then jumped down himself. The other men climbed out, turned, lifted their arms to take the children. Then the women and girls, clumsier in their party skirts, climbed down with help from the men. Fayge’s wedding dress caught on a protruding nail. When she had to rip it loose, she began to cry and could not be comforted.

  “Quickly, quickly,” the soldiers called, gesturing with their guns. Rounding up the villagers, they herded them toward the trains.

  There were piles of things spread out along the tracks, as if they had been dropped by a fleeing army. Hannah saw suitcases and carpetbags, some carefully packed and some with their contents spilling out. Dresses and shawls were scattered around, and there was a bag of what looked like medicines, several dozen jewelry cases, a sackful of milk powder, even a small chest of baby toys.

  “That is Grandma’s satchel,” Fayge shrieked, pointing to a tapestry bag with wooden handles. “Papa, Papa, they have left Grandma’s things here. What will she use in the resettlement camp?”

  Before the rabbi could answer, Hannah had turned to Gitl. “I know . . .”

  “Do not say a word, child,” Gitl pleaded. “Not a word.”

  More and more, the villagers began to recognize baskets and bags belonging to their families. But they were not allowed to stop by the piles, simply pushed closer to the boxcars. When the last of them was out of the trucks, the soldiers made a great circle around them. A high-ranking officer—but not the colonel who had spoken to them before—stepped into the circle with them. They looked to him and he raised his hand for silence.

  “Now, Jews, listen. Do what you are told and no one will be hurt. All I ask is your cooperation.” His voice was ragged, as if it had been used too much recently. He had a dark blond mustache and bad teeth.

  Hannah felt Gitl’s arm tighten on her shoulder, and the villagers began to murmur among themselves. Hannah held her breath. If she held it for long enough, she thought she might wake up from this awful nightmare and be back safe at her family Seder. But when she had to let her breath out at last, she began to cough desperately and Gitl pounded her on the back.

  “. . . li
e down” was all she heard.

  “What? Here? On the ground?” someone cried out.

  “Of course, Jew,” came the officer’s voice. “And then my men will move among you and take your papers and jewelry for safekeeping.”

  “You mean for your own keeping,” a man called out. Hannah thought it might have been Shmuel.

  “Who said that?’ the officer asked. When no one answered, he narrowed his eyes. “The next one who speaks I will shoot.”

  There was silence so profound, Hannah wondered if she had gone deaf.

  “Now—lie down!” the officer commanded at last. He gestured with his hand and the soldiers behind him made the same movement with their guns. When still no one moved, the officer very slowly and deliberately removed the pistol from his holster and pointed it at the feet of a man standing near the edge of the crowd. He fired a single shot. Dirt and pebbles sprayed up and several women screamed. A little girl cried out, “Mama, Mama, Mama.” Hannah was suddenly so cold she couldn’t move.

  Gitl shoved her in the back. “Lie down,” she whispered. “Lie down, quickly.”

  Hannah fell to the ground on her stomach and didn’t stir. When she finally forced herself to open her eyes, there was a pair of large boots by her head. She could hear children whimpering and somewhere, off to her left, a woman was crying. There was a low undercurrent of men’s voices. It took a moment before she realized they were praying.

  Hours later—or so it seemed—they were allowed to stand up again. Gitl had her hand up to her neck. There was a red mark that ran around it as if a necklace had been torn from her. Fayge’s beaded headdress and her earrings were gone. Her dress was smudged and torn. Several men were bleeding from their noses and Shmuel had a dark bruise starting at his temple. But except for the quiet snuffling of the children, a man’s persistent hacking cough, and Rachel’s labored breathing, no one made a sound.

  “Now,” the officer said, smiling down at them and showing his rotten teeth, “now, Jews, you are ready for resettlement.”

  “Where?” a tremulous voice called out.

  “Wherever we choose to send you,” he answered. “Get up.”

  They stood raggedly, and the soldiers herded them toward the two stationary boxcars. They went silently, almost willingly, eager to be as far from the officer and the soldiers’ guns as they could.

  “But, Gitl,” Hannah whispered her protest as she stared at the two cars, “we can’t all fit in there.”

  “With God’s help . . . ,” Gitl mumbled, squeezing Hannah’s hand until her knuckles hurt.

  The older people were pushed into the boxcars first, then the women and the girls. Someone shoved Hannah from behind so hard, she scraped her knee climbing up. She could feel the blood flowing down and the sharp gritty pain, but before she could bend over to look at it, someone else was behind her. Soon there were so many people crowded in, she couldn’t move at all. It was worse than the worst subway jam she’d ever been in, shopping with her Aunt Eva in the city. She was caught between Gitl on one side and the rabbi on the other. There were two women behind her and the boards of the boxcar by her face. By bending her good knee just a little, she could see out a small rectangular space between the boards. She’d just gotten a look when the car shifted and the door was shut and bolted from the outside.

  “We’re locked in!” a woman screamed. “My God, we’ll suffocate.”

  Everyone began to scream then, Hannah with them. The ones by the door hammered on it with their fists, the car rocking with their efforts, but it did no good. No one came to open the door. After a while, exhausted by all the screaming and the tears, they stopped.

  It was pretty dark inside the car, with only small patches of light where the boards did not quite fit together. And it was airless. And hot. One of the two women directly behind Hannah smelled of garlic. Somewhere a child cried out that she had to go to the bathroom. A little while later, a smell announced that she had.

  “How long?” someone called out.

  The rabbi’s voice replied calmly, “We are in God’s hands now.”

  “God’s hands are very hot and sweaty,” Gitl said.

  “How can you say such a thing?” It was Fayge.

  Just then the car shook and everybody screamed.

  “I hear a train,” Hannah cried out. She bent her good knee again and looked through the crack. A dark engine was coming down the track, backing toward them. “I see it.”

  “God’s hands, my children,” the rabbi said loudly.

  As the engine bumped against the two cars, shaking them and making it hard to stand, Hannah managed to twist just enough to speak directly to the rabbi. “Please, Rabbi,” she pleaded, “we must do something. And quickly. I know where they’re taking us. I am . . . I am . . . from the future. Please.”

  Rabbi Boruch cleared his voice before speaking. “All children are from the future. I am from the past. And the past tells us what we must do in the future. That is why adults do the teaching and children the learning. So you must listen to me when I tell you that what we must do now is pray. Pray, for we are all in God’s hands.”

  Gitl was right, Hannah thought. God’s hands were very hot and sweaty. The stench in the crowded boxcar was overwhelming, a powerful stew of human perspiration and fear and the smell of children being sick. As the train clacketed along the tracks, Hannah thought how lucky she was to be near a pocket of fresh air. Most of the others were not so fortunate.

  For the longest time, no one spoke. But after an hour, the silence was too depressing and voices volunteered what comfort they could.

  “I can see a little bit,” a man near the door said. “We are passing a town. Now I see peasants in the field.”

  Spontaneously several voices cried out, “Help! Help us!”

  “Any reaction?” Yitzchak asked.

  “Yes. They ran their fingers across their throats.”

  “The bastards. Do they care nothing?” a woman asked.

  Shmuel answered, “Did they ever?”

  A man with a deep, rough voice spoke. “I hear there was another shtetl taken to a railroad station somewhere in Russia.”

  “Why resettle Russian Jews? Russia is not big enough for all?”

  “Big enough so a story could get lost there. So tell us, where in Russia?” Gitl said.

  “Who knows where?” the man called out. “What does the where matter? The shtetl is no longer there anyway. But wherever it was, the villagers were made to lie down in trenches, like herring, head to foot. And then, Lord God, they were slaughtered as they lay there, by soldiers with machine guns. Lime was put on top of them when they were still warm and the next ones were made to lie down on top of that. Six times they made herrings. Six times. Until they were all dead.”

  A woman, her voice edged with hysteria, said, “You heard, you heard, but if they were all dead, how could anyone know for sure?”

  The man coughed, and continued without answering her, “When they made us lie down, I remembered what I had heard.”

  Another woman said, “But they did not kill us. Just made us a bissel uncomfortable.”

  “Uncomfortable! They took my wedding ring. They kicked my Avrom in the nose. Uncomfortable!” It was a third woman.

  “It is just a story,” the first woman said. “A nightmare. Do not tell us any more of your awful stories.”

  The man coughed again, then said, “Is it not written that we must bear witness?”

  “What witness?” Fayge cried. “Were you there? It is only gossip. Vicious, cruel gossip. Rumors. Shmuel, tell him it is only that.”

  Shmuel was silent.

  “Not gossip, Fayge. It’s true. I know . . . ,” Hannah said.

  Gitl pinched her above the shoulder to silence her.

  The man spoke again. “The one who told me was a distant cousin. He knew someone who escaped.”

  “You said no one escaped,” Fayge put in.

  “Hush,” a woman near Hannah said. “The children will hear you a
nd be afraid.”

  “I heard . . . ,” another man began. Hannah recognized Yitzchak’s voice. “I heard another story when I was in Liansk buying poultry. There was a doctor, a fine man, very educated. He was operating in the hospital on a Christian woman. She trusted him more than her own, you see. And right in the middle of the operation, because her husband had called them in, the soldiers came and dragged the doctor away and killed him. With his own instruments. In front of his family.”

  “Did the woman die? The shikse he was operating on?” another man asked.

  “I hope so,” a light voice chorused.

  “No,” Yitzchak said. “She did not die. And she did not deserve to die.”

  “Perhaps she did not,” Gitl said. “But her husband did. And the soldiers. Monsters.”

  “Hush,” the woman near Hannah said again. “The children will hear you.”

  The rabbi cleared his throat loudly. “These are just rumors and gossip. The proverbs say ‘He who harps on a matter alienates his friend.’”

  “Well, I heard”—a man’s voice came from the back of the car. He spoke so softly at first that the people near him shushed the others so he might be heard. “I heard, and reliably, too, that in a town on the border of Poland, the entire population was locked in the synagogue. And then the Nazis set fire to the building. Anyone trying to jump out the windows was shot. Only there was a Pole, a good man, the Shabbos goy, who opened the back door, so a few of the villagers escaped and were hidden by the Shabbos goy in his own house. In his own house! I had a friend who was one of the seven who got out. He told me the smell of people burning is not unlike the smell of cooking pigs.”

  “Hah!” said Gitl. “And how does he—a good Jew—know what pigs smell like cooking?”

  “So—so he was not kosher. Or the Shabbos goy told him.”

  “So!”

  “How can you joke about such things?” Hannah said in a very small voice.

  Gitl made a tching sound with her tongue. “If we do not laugh, we will cry. Crying will only make us hotter and sweatier. We Jews like to joke about death because what you laugh at and make familiar can no longer frighten you. Besides, Chayaleh, what else is there to do?”