by Ann Arnold
At last Mamusia allowed them to stop. He collapsed where he stood. Zosia came over to him and sat close by. The stain of tears on her once rosy cheeks had dried. The two of them braided their fingers together, as they silently watched what the adults would do now.
Mamusia draped her shawl over them and walked over to a stone to sit down. Fish and Ignash collapsed onto the ground, as their chests still heaved to catch their breath. Romek sat on a stump, his head falling forward as if he had a great weight on his back he could no longer hold.
“Are we far enough?” Fish asked.
“It is over a mile. I think this is enough.”
The men nodded at Sala’s statement as if they were conferring and not just taking orders from her. Romek was serious and gloomy as he said, “I apologize if I brought this down on us.”
“You didn’t.”
When Romek looked at Sala with a dubious eye, she shook her head.
“They were already looking for us. I heard them the night before the wedding, remember?”
“Right,” he said, sounding relieved. “Still, I shall take the first watch.”
Romek headed to a small rise, crouched by a tree, and peered out over the dark forest, looking for signs of danger. Manek didn’t feel tired. Between the moving to a new place so fast, and then having to run for their lives, and then actually seeing a soldier so close … sleep was the last thing he felt he could do.
* * *
Manek was irritable the next day. They had to find food, gather wood, and he had to move the debris out of their way to clear the camp. Mamusia made him take a nap, and he slept so long that when he did not want to sleep that night, she wasn’t surprised. He lay down with Zosia so she would sleep, though his gaze was trained on the adults. The men had a heated discussion in a huddle far away from his Mamusia, until she finally demanded to know what was wrong.
“Idiots,” Ignash swore and stomped away from them. He took the designated watch position.
“What are you two going to do now?” she asked.
“Sala,” Romek said, “I have to go. I have to see what happened.”
“He wants to check on his girl.”
“We had friends in that village,” Romek reminded Fish. “Yes, we should check on all of them, and the others. I have to go and see just what happened after we left. I want to know what we missed.”
“You missed a bullet to the head.”
Romek flinched as if Mamusia’s words had hurt him. “I am sorry. I do not wish to bring danger for us. But if I don’t go and see what happened, what kind of man will I be?”
“What kind of people will any of us be with the Germans here?”
“I don’t know, Sala. All I know is ... I wish to be the type of man worth saving.”
“Go,” Sala ordered. “See what you must see. Just make sure no one sees you come back.”
Sala was glad Manek had finally fallen to sleep. She knew it wouldn’t be easy for him to rest after all the turmoil of the night before. Tucking the shawl up around his chin, she checked both of her children. They would have to move tomorrow. This camp site was too far from any water source and too open to the wind. She was so tired of crouching down behind a tree each time she heard a crackle or felt the unearthly impression of someone watching. Sometimes she felt a hole in the ground would be more comforting than constantly fearing that a shadow would manifest into a German.
A few hours passed before Ignash gave the signal that the men returned. The two men were drinking from the pail they somehow remembered to bring along the previous night. They sat down across from her, but they did not say a word.
“What happened?”
Romek shook his head grimly.
Fish said, “We need to move away from here.”
“Away from this place,” Romek added.
Sala looked between them in surprise. “We can go back to where we were the night before—”
“No,” Romek quickly stopped her.
“It would be best if we not go that way.” Fish didn’t look at her, he just kept his eyes closed and head down.
“Why?” Ignash asked. “What are you not telling us?”
The three men began to argue and talk as only brothers could. Romek and Fish continued to refuse saying what they had seen. For his part, Ignash would not let it go. Back and forth it went, until Sala found herself retreating from what was being said as she tried to decide what she wanted.
Sala knew why they had come back so shaken—they had seen the reason for the gunfire the night before—and she couldn’t stand not knowing. She kept thinking about the woman and two young children from that first group of people they had found in the woods. She pictured her cousins, who she was never quite sure how she felt about anymore. She knew she couldn’t trust them, but she had forgiven them, and they were family. There were precious few people she could call that anymore. After all the gunfire the night before, had the group been able to escape it? She was afraid she knew the answer.
“I have to go.”
Everyone looked at her with surprise.
“If you will not tell us what you saw, you will have to show us. I need to go and see who survived. I need to see what they did. I will never be able to explain any of this to the children if I do not know how to explain it to myself.”
“No ...” Fish said.
Romek held up his hand. “I will take you, Sala. You will not appreciate me taking you when you see the horror for yourself, though. I fear you will hate me for it, actually. I will take you so you can explain it to yourself. Perhaps then, you will be kind enough to explain it to me as well. I just have one request to make. The children should stay here.”
“Fine.” Sala stood and waited to see who would lead.
Fish gestured to the sleeping forms. “I’ll stay with them. I have had enough of such savagery for a lifetime.”
“I’ll go with you.” Ignash rose and joined them.
They walked through the woods in silence: Romek, Sala and then Ignash. Romek’s head kept swiveling around, his eyes keenly watching the shadows.
His being cautious for their safety was a nice change.
As they got closer to the scene, Sala could tell something awful lay ahead. Romek, their resident “bandit,” the one that would face anything, was tensed up. It was as if he was preparing himself to be assaulted.
The smell greeted them first. It resembled burnt meat. Such a brutal crime she had not considered since she was a young girl. The stench of burned flesh was added to the smell of cooked hair and fabric. The combined aroma burned her nose on the way in and clawed at the back of her throat. She kept swallowing hoping to keep down the contents of her stomach. This piquant sensation she knew would still be fresh on the day she died, no matter if that occurred in the next hour or in forty years. She could only hope the smell was the worst. When they stepped around the last trees, though, Sala realized she was wrong. These were not people she was seeing. Some hunters must have slaughtered their kill on the spot, not caring about the mess and debris they left behind. Her brain was slow to put together the pieces she was witnessing into a coherent picture.
All around her lay bodies. Or, more correctly, pieces of bodies.
They were everywhere.
Ignash fell to his knees, retching out the meager rations they managed to acquire that day. Romek turned his body away from the carnage.
She could not help looking for faces.
In front of her, in a pile of dead leaves, sprawled the body of the little girl Zosia had played with briefly that afternoon, so long ago. But instead of laughing and running around, this child had half of her face missing. The Germans must have shot them first, then turned the machine guns loose on the bodies. Limbs were blown all over the clearing, including an arm hanging from a branch.
Death. Nothing but the most abject slaughter.
The Germans had come and taken away the safety of their ordinary lives. They took their rights. Their homes. Their husbands, brothers
, fathers, sons. Taking the lives of innocents was inevitable. She just never imagined that at the same time they would also show no signs of decency. Where was a soldier’s honor when civilians were first murdered and then ripped apart by needless machine gun fire?
On the other side of the little girl she spotted her cousin, Bunek. Or at least what was left of him. Ringel would be confident and dismissive no longer. She saw the fat bullseye of the bullet hole between his eyes; the rest of his body must be somewhere else. Amid the barbarous killing ground another smell in the miasma assaulted her senses. When people were shot, their bowels released.
Honor truly was no longer alive in Galicia.
They walked back to their camp in a daze. Ignash was sick, his face slick with sweat. Romek was shaking, his eyes haunted holes, as if he would never see the world the same way again. Sala avoided them both, moving at a brisk pace to get back to her children. She desperately needed to see her kids.
When she got there, she fell to her knees and gathered them close to her chest.
Fish just nodded when they returned and lay down on his pallet.
Ignash wordlessly took the watch. When Romek moved to stop him, he shrugged him off. “What do you think? I will sleep after viewing the work of demons?”
So Ignash took watch. Romek picked a different pile of leaves and lay down.
Breathing slowly and deeply, Sala gently lifted the shawl back so she could see Manek’s and Zosia’s faces. She felt unworthy, for some reason, of touching them. Dirtied by what she had seen. They were safe. Zosia was crinkling her nose in her sleep. Manek’s eyes moved back and forth beneath his eyelids.
They were here. They were safe. They were together.
And perhaps that would be enough to erase the image of Zosia’s young friend’s ravaged face from her memory.
The next day, their latest flight began. They did not discuss the massacre. They broke camp, and each of them was forced to put away the memory, hopefully never to revisit it again. But a shadow had been cast on their souls, and they could not escape from that darkness. Unfortunately, for Ignash, Romek and Fish, that darkness ignited a fresh wave of anxiety in Zosia. In the worst kind of way.
Sala recognized the men were filled with fear. She understood being afraid—she was terrified. But it was not Zosia’s fault. She was a little girl. She was getting so weak she could barely keep up. She cried all the time now.
“You must stay quiet!”
Zosia bottom lip quivered, and she only started to wail louder.
Visions of the night before flooded Sala's eyes. Blood, limbs, the body of the small girl Zosia had played with, all attacking her senses at once. She could not let her child end up like that. Was she punishing her unnecessarily in her futile attempt to keep them together? Would it be justified if they all died together in another slaughter? Could she somehow save her daughter?
They had been hiding on the outskirts of their village, and she was blessed to have Antony and Heniek find them with rations and bits of news or rumors. They had been coming once a week in the beginning, but Antony’s visits had started to become more rare. Many times Heniek would come in his place. It had been a couple of weeks, but with the events of the night before, she knew they would come and check on them. The unwavering support and friendship they had extended was about to be tested but again.
Sala looked around and saw the murderous expressions on her friends’ faces. She could not delay any longer. “I have decided. The next time Antony or his son-in-law Heniek comes, I will go with them. Manek, however, will be staying with us,” she stated firmly. Before they could protest, she held up a hand. “One of them will come soon. I know it. Possibly even tonight.”
She spent the rest of the day cuddling her daughter. Manek silently watched her every move, and she knew her son sensed a terrible change was about to come.
His eyes, so like his father’s, pierced his mother’s heart.
Antony came that night, as Sala had predicted. Even though his visits had gotten more sporadic as time went on, thankfully, tonight it was her old friend.
She had warned him that she might have to take this step. Antony, as was his way, had sworn he would find a place for her daughter should she have to do it. He brought them potatoes and some bread. Each time the elder Pilat came, she felt like she could breathe a little easier for a few hours. Knowing people in the world still remembered them, cared about helping their neighbors, was often the only bulwark that kept her from becoming lost in despair.
People like Antony Pilat, like Heniek, like the Dziedics, they were the only light in this oppressive darkness.
This time, however, his coming only filled her with hopelessness.
Since Zosia was asleep, and the night sky was getting light, she knew she could no longer wait. As she gathered up her child in her arms, Fish assured her he would take care of Manek. “Antony.” He stopped talking to Ignash to turn to her in surprise. “I will walk with you part of the way back.”
“You do not have to …”
“I know. I just want to. There is something we must discuss.”
The walk through the forest was torture to her. In her arms was the girl she loved more than her own self. Now she was sending Zosia away to an unknown fate.
“Are you well, Mrs. Schonwetter?”
“I am resigned, Mr. Pilat. But surely, at this point, we can call each other by our first names?”
Antony stopped and looked at her in the moonlight, his features lined with confusion. “I only seek to give you the proper respect. How are you, Sala? How is little Manek? Not so little anymore, I see.”
“Manek is fine.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Is there a family with whom you can lodge Zosia for a while?”
He was at first taken aback that the time had come, but he could not be too surprised. He answered hesitantly, “I will find a way. Are you sure this is the right thing to do?”
“How could it possibly be?” She took a shuddering breath. “It is wrong, but . . .”
“It is all you can do.” Antony had tears in his eyes. “She needs to go someplace safe. I know a family, the Kowalskis, they are poor but have a few other children. She will disappear in their midst. I will tell them that she is my relative. Zosia will have enough to eat, people who care for her. You cannot do anything else, Sala. You must let me hide her.”
Sala shook her head, her hands tightening on Zosia’s frail body. “If she was staying with you and your family …”
“The Germans still come every week to the homestead looking for you. The family they put in your home would inform them if a new child came to live in my part of the house. Nor will your Zosia,” he touched a single finger to Zosia’s white blonde hair, “fit in with my brood. She will be noticed. Plus, Captain Zeidler still resides nearby, and he would notice. These people, the Kowalskis, will take in your Zosia.”
“I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you for everything you’ve done.”
“It is only what is right.”
Zosia stirred in her arms and sleepily looked up at her. “Mamusia?”
“My daughter, Mr. Pilat is here. Isn’t that nice?” Zosia turned her head and gave Antony a sleepy smile. “Zosia,” Sala waited until her child gazed up at her again. “Mr. Pilat wants to take you someplace safe. Some place you can run and play. Where they will feed you and keep you safe.”
“With Manek?”
“No, my love. This adventure, Zosia, you must go on your own.”
Antony waited until she had kissed Zosia’s cheek before he took her out of her arms. Zosia, still coming out of her sleep, hesitantly went into his arms, tears beginning to well in her eyes. Sala pulled out a small gem stone she had pried from a brooch she kept hidden. “Give them this when you take her to them. Make sure they understand there will be more, but only if they treat her well.”
“I swear it, Sala.”
She watched them leave, her heart pounding in her chest like
a trapped bird beating viciously against a window to be free. When she could no longer make out their forms through the gloom, Sala returned swiftly to the camp. Manek. She had to go and hug Manek. She had to feel his heartbeat, strong and true under her palm.
Yet she had gone only halfway before she had to stop. Crouching down, both of her hands over her mouth, she let the sobs that had been building up break free. Her entire body convulsed with the force of her grief, and she had to hold onto a tree to stay upright. What did she just do? How could she have? She’d given up her child. How could she give away her daughter? What kind of mother does such a thing? How could she not, though? She ... what would her husband think? What would David say?
She hadn’t even let Manek know before she sent his sister away.
Pressing her face into the bark of the tree, she held onto it as if it were a life preserver to save her from a storming sea. Her thoughts kept racing: They were not together. She’s promised they would stay together.
What was there to fight for anymore?
* * *
When she returned, dawn was almost breaking. Her eyes were swollen from crying and her throat burned from all the dry heaving she had done. She felt like a golem, a demon, little more than a lifeless shell. But wasn’t that what she was? Only a monster could give away their own child. She had made a promise to herself, and now she had broken it. Her honor was all she had left, and even that was now stained.
She found Manek sleeping soundly, and she did not have the heart to even go lie down next to her son. What would she say? How could she explain to him where Zosia went, when she herself could not even believe what she had done?
Ignash sat leaning against a tree. It was his night to keep watch.
“Sala…”
“Don’t say a word.” Her voice cracked, but she would not break down in front of these men. She would be strong.
“It had to be done. I know how hard it was for you.”
“You know nothing! How could you? Is it your child you gave away? How could you possibly know how I feel?” Her voice started to tremble. She had to get control of herself. She took a deep breath. “No, I am sorry to have snapped at you. I know she will be well taken care of, Antony promised. I just hope that one day she will be able to forgive me.” Even though I will never be able to forgive myself, she thought.