by Ann Arnold
“Where is my cow?”
“Your cow is with the Germans. They took it, but I would not try to get it back. Leave it be. I told them we were Polish refugees and you had given us refuge in your stable.” No need to go into details, she thought.
She rose and gestured the children to her side. “We will not stay here any longer. They believed the story and we should be thankful, but not stupid. We will leave in the morning. You have been more than kind and generous.”
She placed her hands on her children’s shoulders and they walked into the stables.
“Tonight, my lovely children. Tonight we shall sleep on top of the hay rather than beneath it. And tomorrow we return to the woods.”
Settling in, Sala sighed with ecstasy at feeling hay underneath her, the warmth of the children on either side of her, and the comfort of their bed. “This is much better than our usual bed of leaves or dirt, isn’t it?” Zosia nodded sleepily, already drifting away. Looking at Manek, she couldn’t help but ask him something that was bothering her. “Son, why did you run from the soldiers? It worked out fine in the end, but your Mamusia was handling it.”
“I remember what I was once told.”
“What?”
“Mamusia, you and Zosia can hide that we’re Jewish. I cannot.”
“Your coloring is the same as mine.”
Manek’s big, solemn eyes stared at her, waiting for his mother to realize what he meant. When she didn’t guess, he looked down at his lap. “Poppa told me once, Mamusia. There is a way for men to always know if they are Jewish or not. I didn’t wish the soldiers to do it.”
“Do what?”
“Remove my pants.”
“Why on earth did you think they would remove your pants?” Sala suddenly realized what was scaring her child. He was circumcised when he was seven days old. It had happened so long ago, and the ancient Jewish covenant was a matter of a ten-minute ceremony. How smart her child had become. “I see. I understand, Manek.”
“You understand now?”
“I do, Manek. I apologize for not thinking about it sooner.”
“Why would you, Mamusia? It’s not like you have one.”
The two of them giggled at his silliness. “I will not forget again,” she promised.
“Mamusia …”
“Yes, Manek?”
“Could we please have a treat when we go to the forest?”
“What would you like?” Sala wondered what a normal ten-year-old would want. Manek hadn’t asked her for anything in four years. What did he miss? What did he long for? A toy? An adventure? A special type of food? “Tell me, my brave boy. What would Manek like most of all?”
“A bath,” he answered. The stables rang out with their laughter.
In the forest, the first thing she did was deliver on the much needed bath. A stream didn’t provide the immersion-in-hot-water dream she’d been having for weeks, but that was the only option she had. She took a pail from the Ribbas and some soap. Their clothing was little more than rags at this point, but they became officially clean, or as clean as she could manage. The soap didn’t last longer than the second child’s bath, but at least her children were glowing again. Yet a drawback was that once their skeletal bodies were no longer hidden by mud and grime, their bones seemed to protrude out even farther.
The quiet in the forest had disappeared. The roads that ran through their neck of the woods were now filled with an exodus of people escaping the front, which was getting closer. Even though they were not as gaunt as she and the children, the look of despair was familiar. They at least had left with as many belongings as they could carry, either on their back, or in baskets that they held.
She also kept seeing groups of armed men. One, Army Ludowa, the People’s Army, were not so bad. None of them held anti-Semitic views. However, another group was a different story. The Home Army, Army Krajowa, was a lawless bunch who were said to be as violent and filled with hate against the Jews as the Germans were. The problem was, it was impossible for Sala to tell them apart.
Hunger was the most pressing problem, though. She was appalled at how thin all three of them had become. They returned to their “home” from last summer, the prearranged meeting place she and the men had discussed. Yet they found little to eat. Day after day their three former companions did not appear, and the mushrooms were gone. She knew she had to do something. Starvation would kill them before the Germans. So one morning, she left Manek in charge of Zosia and went out to explore. Stopping at the nearest village, Sala was shocked at how devastated it was. Signs of fighting appeared on the houses. The war had finally come to surround them.
The retreat of the German army not only brought more danger. Its soldiers ate food faster than hungry children.
So she did the one thing she swore once to never do.
Returning to the clearing later, Sala could hear Manek softly telling Zosia another of his exciting adventure stories. So like a boy. Even with the violence and terror surrounding them, he still loved to tell tales of mighty heroes accomplishing great deeds. She wished she had some whimsy still inside her soul so she could share a story with them as well. They asked, but she had no thrilling, courageous tale. No memory of daring escapades from the past to stave off their boredom. She had only fears for their future.
“Come, my wonderful children. I have a surprise for you.”
“What is it, Mamusia?”
She sat down at the fire they’d made and began to empty her pockets. Her soul might be empty, but she knew how to make a meal fun. It was the gift of every good Mamusia. “I found a secret treasure.” She bumped Zosia’s shoulder with her own. “Guess what is inside?”
“Is it gold?” Zosia asked.
“Blankets and pillows?”
“Much better.” First she pulled out a pan and set it on the hot coals. Next, from the depths of her coat, she pulled the burlap sack, half-filled with flour.
“Are you going to make bread? Out here?”
“No, Manek. This is impossible for even your Mamusia.”
For her next move, with a dramatic flourish, Sala pulled out the cloth covered package she had been both repulsed and joyful to find. Opening it up, she showed it to the children, who looked at it with confusion. “This is a magical substance you have never had before. It is only to help us tide over our tummies until the men return and help find food.”
“What is it, Mamusia? What is it called?”
“It is … bacon!”
The two children made appropriate oohing noises. Sala chopped up the cured pork and put it in the hot pan. Once some grease coated the bottom of the pan, she mixed in the flour, using the knife to help her combine the two ingredients. The results were an oddly colored type of cake, but it was the best they could do. At least the children would have meat and something hot and filling for them.
Cutting it with the knife, she used clean leaves to wrap pieces so the children could eat without burning their fingers. Manek, the hardest critic of all, was the first one to bite into it. His eyes closed, and he made a mmmm noise which seemed to indicate it was safe. Zosia didn’t wait for long. As soon as she saw Manek liked it, she started to eagerly gobble hers up.
“Mamusia?”
“Yes, Manek.”
“If this war ever ends, I hope you make this for us every day. This is the best food I have ever tasted in my whole life.”
They all giggled at his joy. As her children broke one of the firmest rules of being a Jew, she silently sent an apology to her husband for this crime. Starving to death would surely insult the Lord far more than two little kids eating pork, she pointed out to him. Keeping Kosher was something all Jews did, but few Jews went without food for so long. Fewer still were watching their children waste away before their eyes. When there was one piece left, Zosia and Manek both insisted she eat as well. She tried to hide how much she liked it, but they quickly saw through her expression. “Maybe you were right, Manek.”
“Every day, Mamusia
. That was delicious.”
A few days later the three men finally appeared.
She and the children were so excited to see Fish, Ignash and Romek. All their disagreements from the summer before were forgotten. Yet she had to raise the problem she’d been trying to keep from the little ones. The weather had been long and hard on the land. They’d barely found any food the few short days they were here. The forest would not be the haven she’d come to expect. She explained all this to her cousin.
“We have a surprise for you three.”
Sala turned when she heard Ignash talking. “What have you three done?”
Romek went to a stump in the center of their favorite clearing and brushed away the dead leaves. He’d buried a trunk halfway in the dirt so that only the lid could be accessed. “On my way here, I saw a big truck. The two German soldiers got out to go and …” he glanced at Sala and Zosia, “relieve themselves. While they were busy in the bushes, I snuck up behind them, pulled the knife I have, and cut their throats. After they were dispatched ...” At Sala’s horrified expression he shrugged. “Two less Germans has to be a good thing. Well, after they were taken care of, I got busy in the back of the truck. Much to my surprise, it had just what we need.” With an exaggerated flair Romek and Fish opened the trunk to reveal …
“Food,” the three Schonwetters yelled in unison.
Crackers, biscuits, jam, canned meat, even cheese. Forgetting the means by which Romek had “procured” the food, Sala wiped her eyes with the relief of seeing so many choices. It had been years since their diets had any form of variety. She wasn’t sure if she even knew how to eat so many different things at once. Her stomach might die from shock.
“This is …”
Ignash pulled her into his embrace, hiding her tearing eyes against his coat. “We know, Sala. We can eat for a few weeks from this alone.”
“We have more,” Fish told the children.
He and Romek next uncovered another stash, this time of weapons. “We will use these to protect our women,” Romek said. “Manek, you must learn how to shoot them so when we go on raids to find supplies, you will feel safe.”
“The women will feel safe,” Manek corrected him.
Sala wondered if she’d ever feel safe again. They could have stolen an entire factory of weapons and she would still be scared. There were Germans, Kapos, Volksdeutche, militias which were impossible to tell apart, and Polish collaborators willing to trade the lives of Jews in for a crust of bread.
“What will you take next?” Sala asked.
Ignash looked at their clothes and smiled. “I think it is time we found you three something else to wear.”
Sala laughed as the children cheered. Perhaps it would be okay.
The next day, they started to train Manek on how to use the gun. The rifle looked like an instrument of evil to Sala, but her child regarded it as a longed-for step toward adulthood. He was ten years old, about to be eleven. If the war hadn’t happened, he’d be an experienced helper in the fields, walking in the footsteps of his father, as Israel had done so in his. Her son would be used to going to shul, driving the wagon by himself, even attending Israel’s meetings with town leaders. He would have friends, and be thoroughly schooled in reading, writing, mathematics, history, science and of course, being a good Jew. They had money once. He would know birthday presents. He would have a bath every day, his clothes washed each week.
Instead he was sitting in the dirt, meticulously taking apart a rifle, cleaning it, and putting it back together again.
She refused to touch the weapon, a decision the men agreed with, yet Sala remained uneasy. Being armed did not help their main problem. They had food from Romek’s raid on the supply truck, but they were going farther and farther each night to find them more supplies. The forest was frighteningly bare. The nearest farms were idle, the soil dry, the cattle skin and bones. On the roads all they saw were people, refugees, looking for food just as much as they were. Sala didn’t like the snippets of conversations she was able to catch from the stream of tired women and haunted men. Worst was the endless despair written into their children’s faces. The towns all around them had no food. The cities were deserted. Villages still had limited supplies, but the earth had turned its back on the Polish people.
Just as the world had turned away from the plight of the Jews.
When the area was clear of people, Ignash and Fish would help Manek with his shooting. They would have him practice on leaves and small branches on the trees for targets, cautioning the boy to never take a shot unless he was positive he was going to hit what he aimed for.
Rifles were easy to find. Bullets were far more rare.
“Come on, it will be funny.”
“What?”
“You’ll see,” Fish told Romek.
The next day, Romek and Ignash went to the next village to visit their new sweethearts. Sala saw Fish sneaking away from the camp when she returned from the stream with a fresh bucket of water. She didn’t think anything about it. Zosia was sorting tea leaves for her, and Manek retrieved some crackers and jam from the stash when he whirled around and stared at a group of bushes with suspicion.
Manek ran to the rifle, loaded it, and calmly aimed at the rustling foliage.
“What’s wrong?”
“Someone is coming,” Manek said. “I’m going to protect you.”
“Put down the weapon, Manek.”
“I am sorry, Mamusia, but I cannot. I hear someone coming.”
“Manek, please.”
“I must protect you and Zosia, Mamusia.”
“Manek, put down the gun.” Sala yelled as loud as she could.
Fish took that moment to jump out of the bushes, laughing his fool head off. “I almost got you, Manek.” He chortled. “You should see your faces. Manek, you are white as a cloud. Your Mamusia’s voice was so loud she probably brought the entire army down on our heads.”
He held his sides as he continued to laugh at his great joke. Sala saw Manek un-cock the gun and, with shaking hands, place it back against the tree where he had snatched it. “You idiot,” Sala yelled, whacking Fish in the back of the head over and over. “He was ready to shoot you. With all of the dangers we are facing, why would you invite such pointless tragedy? How could you do such a thing? Have you no sense? No sense at all?”
“Sala … Sala … It is fine.” He kept laughing as he held his hands over his head where she was hitting him, trying to protect himself.
“If my son had to live with killing a friend of his, I’d dig you up from your grave just to shoot you again!” Sala continued to hit the fool, her temper red-hot, her patience burned through. The idea her son would have to live with such a crime, after all the other horrors of his childhood, made her want to scream at the injustice to the heavens. Instead, all she could do was hit the laughing man until her arms were tired. After a while, she continued just because it was making Manek and Zosia laugh as well, and that sound was worth any effort.
When she sat down once more, her heavy breathing was the only sound in the clearing. Fish came to her on a bent knee to offer her a cup of water and a cracker with cheese. She took them begrudgingly.
“Manek,” he said. “Make sure you marry a woman like your Mamusia one day. I cannot think of a wiser choice a man can make than to have such a woman by his side.”
Her son’s eyes, so large and solemn, took in Fish’s face, turned to Sala and nodded.
Spring turned to summer, and still no wild edible food appeared. The men were getting more daring with their “expeditions.” Sala knew the long forays would catch up to them eventually. What concerned her the most was the coming cold. It had been hard enough to find a place to stay during the winter last year, and she suspected this time it would be impossible. She had thought that perhaps she would try to go back to Ribba, beg him again to take them in. Living with a pig was horrible, but being turned in or caught was far worse.
One day, while hearing the men talk about
the latest news they had heard from the outside world, she caught them mention Ribba’s name.
“Ignash, what did you say about Ribba? What happened?”
The men exchanged sideway glances. They knew she had gotten shelter at the Ribba farm the winter before.
“I don’t think you will be going back to him for shelter anymore,” Fish replied, lowering his head.
“Why, what has happened?”
None of the men spoke at first. Finally, Romek looked at her solemnly. “They are all dead.”
Sala gasped, it could not be. With barely a whisper, she dared to ask, “How?”
She knew the answer before he spoke.
“Those filthy Germans heard they were Jewish sympathizers. They said they found out they were hiding Jews. They took the children first. Made the parents watch as they executed them right in front of them. And then they turned their guns on them. Left them to rot, right there, right in front of the stables.”
She could not afford to be consumed with guilt, or despair, or grief. She had to close off every part of herself that wanted to feel. She had thought she had hit rock bottom before, but it seemed now that the pit was a bottomless well. She had suffered enough deprivation, but she had nowhere to turn. And worst of all, her next thought was, now where will I go?
The constant stress of what to do, where to go, how bad could it actually get, was horrible. She could feel that something even worse was yet to come. And happen it did, but not until the summer was fading, and unfortunately, when it did, it was far worse than she could imagine.
Romek and Fish came running into the camp one morning at dawn. Sala exclaimed when she saw their panicked faces and the blood on their upper bodies, “What happened?” She went to feel their chests to see where they were hurt, and that’s when she realized what was missing.
Ignash was gone.
“The police,” Fish said.
“The bastards are trigger happy.” Romek knelt at the bucket and tried to wash his hands. Fish kept himself busy getting out fresh clothes for them to change into. “The police were in the village we targeted. We haven’t raided that place in a while, but still we went back too early. The bastards were there.”