Eventually Nicolae fell quiet, exhausted by his eager salutation, and I clutched him tightly, braving the pain, wondering if I dared voice the question poised on my lips.
I had to know.
I asked quietly, “Nicolae, is Elone with you?”
38.
I felt his hands grip mine and knew instantly that she was not.
I felt him shake his head and his body heave as he struggled with the words.
“She is gone, Anca. Nobody knows where.”
I fought back the tears, but the resistance was futile. Already weakened, I had no control over my emotions and wept openly, until I could feel the bandage against my eyes reach saturation and salty tears began to drip down my cheek. I felt the firm hand of my benefactress against my shoulder, offering incomprehensible but comforting words.
Composing myself with difficulty I said, “Little one, do you know where we are? Who is this woman that aids us so?”
Nicolae raised his head from my chest. “I do not know, Anca. She is a lady. There is a man, too, but they cannot speak properly. Their words make no sense. I tried to tell them about Elone, but they would not listen.”
I traced Nicolae’s face with my fingers. “We are in a different land, Nicolae. It is not that they will not listen, just that they do not understand. They speak a different language. Polish, I suspect.”
I paused, realising my explanation was beyond Nicolae’s comprehension.
I asked, “Nicolae, are we still in the forest? Are we in the dwelling we sought?”
“I think so, Anca.” I felt his fingers near my eyes. “Why are your eyes bandaged?”
I took his hand in mine, guiding it away. “My eyes need to rest, Nicolae, that is all. How about you, little one? Are you harmed in any way?”
“No, Anca. The man and the lady looked after me when they found me. I have had a bath and lots to eat, while you have been asleep.”
“That is good to hear. Have I been asleep long, Nicole?”
“Two days.”
“Two days?”
Was this an accurate statement or a misconception of time’s passing by my little brother? I had no way of knowing. But if it were true then there could be scant hope for Elone, lost still in the forest.
I fought back tears and clutching my brother’s arms said, “Nicolae, the people who helped us. Are there just the two of them?”
“Yes, Anca.”
“How did they find you?”
“I found them, Anca.”
“You found them? Explain, little one.”
Nicolae paused, as if gathering his thoughts, mentally rehearsing his response.
He said at last, “It was after you told us to run, Anca. Do you remember? The big dog was there, then you told us to run and me and Elone both raced as fast as we could. We ran and ran until we heard you scream and then we stopped, frightened, and heard a really loud bang. We did not know what it was, Anca, but Elone said she would go and see. She told me to stay where I was, that she would come back for me...”
His voice trailed. I took his hand, stroking his wrist, wishing I could see his face.
“What happened then, little one?”
“She never came back for me, Anca. I waited for ages and ages, truly I did, but she never came. I was so frightened on my own that I decided to go to her.”
“But you could not find her.”
“No, she was nowhere, Anca. I just kept walking, hoping I would find you or she. Then I saw this house and went to the door. The lady answered and took me in and there you were, lying on the floor in front of the fire, covered in blood. I ran to you, but the lady would not let me hold you. She would not listen to me or speak properly to me or anything.”
“That is okay, Nicolae. Do not hold it against them, for they are kindly people. The lady, she is still here with us now?”
“She is there, Anca.” He took my hand and guided it to my benefactress, evidently sitting just beside me, perhaps trying to make sense of our conversation.
I held my hand out and felt rugose fingers slip into my palm.
I said slowly, as if hoping I might be understood better for it, “My name is Anca.” I released her hand and put my palm to my heart. “Anca. Anca.” I found Nicolae’s head and patting it said, “This is my brother, Nicolae. Nicolae. Nicolae.”
“Nicolae,” the woman repeated. “Nicolae. Anca.” She took my hand and held my palm against her face. “Izabella,” she said. “Izabella.”
“Hello, Izabella. I am so very pleased to meet you. Nicolae, the lady’s name is Izabella.”
“How can you know, Anca? How can you know what she says?”
“Be assured, little one, we will manage.”
I turned to my benefactress again and held my hand to her, then to Nicolae and myself, saying, “Izabella. Nicolae. Anca.” I moved my hands together and gestured a human form, flattening my palm to indicate Nicolae’s height.
“Elone? Izabella, please, there is another child. Elone. Elone. Nicolae, say it too. Elone.”
“Elone. Elone,” Nicolae repeated.
There was silence, as if digesting this message, then from Izabella, “Elone?”
I nodded, “Yes, Elone. She is nine years old, but small like Nicolae. She was in the forest with...”
I stopped, remembering I was not being understood, that only the simplest of communications were appropriate.
“Elone,” I said, using my hands to illustrate an imaginary child in the air. “Elone.”
Suddenly I felt Izabella’s hands against my cheeks as she stood before me. She said something quietly, eased me to a prostrate position, speaking again. I guessed it was for us to remain still while she left us, and I could only hope she had understood that a further child was still in the forest somewhere.
As the door closed, Nicolae said, “Where is the lady going, Anca?”
My answer was immediate and confident. “To fetch Elone, little one. Be patient. She will be here with us soon.”
I prayed my intuition would not prove me a liar.
I felt Nicolae leave my side and run across the room. “I can see the lady, Anca,” he said excitedly. “She is talking to the man.”
“Her name is Izabella, Nicolae,” I chided quietly. “I would think the man must be her husband. No doubt we will learn his name in due course. What is he doing?”
“He was chopping wood, Anca, but now he is coming back to the house. But the lady, Izabella, she is staying outside.”
“Keep talking, Nicolae. For the next few days, at least, you must be my eyes. You will have to tell me all the things I cannot see. Will you do that for me, little one?”
“I will try, Anca.”
“So what can you see, Nicolae? Tell me what you see.”
“Just the forest, Anca. There is a garden, where the lady, where Izabella, is standing, and then the forest. And here comes the man again. Anca, he has a gun. A huge gun! Why has he— Oh! Oh, Anca! Anca!”
I sat up, his excited tones demanding my attention. “Nicolae, what is it?”
“The dog, Anca! The big dog! I can see it!”
My heart missed a beat and I was struggling to my feet. “Nicolae, shout to Izabella quickly! It is a wolf! Warn her!”
Nicolae’s laughter in response was at once disconcerting and reassuring. “But Anca, it has no head!”
“No head?”
“Honestly, Anca! It has been chopped clean off! I can see it on the ground near the body. And lots of blood! Lots!”
I could not help but smile at this macabre report, for there was no prospect of sympathy for the beast that had so nearly claimed my very life. It was, of course, but supposition that this was indeed the same creature, but all reason suggested it must be.
Nicolae’s earlier story began to make sense in my mind now. Izabella’s husband must have been in the forest at the time of our attack and came across the wolf even as it set about me. Presumably armed with the same gun Nicolae had just seen, the man had been abl
e to finish the creature there and then, bringing both the beast and its victim to his home, the one to behead, the other to tend her injuries. Nicolae must have presented himself at their door soon after. That much I could fathom.
But of Elone, I could only hope and pray that she was still safe and would soon be found. For now, exhausted by my ordeal and thankful at least to have Nicolae with me, I allowed myself to be lulled by the aeolian chimes and the tranquil sussuration of the forest.
39.
I awoke to the sound of birds singing and for a moment I was back in my own bedroom in far away Medgidia, listening to the dawn chorus that greeted me each morning before Mama would call me to prepare for school.
From the birds’ song I guessed it must be dawn now and that I had therefore slept soundly through the night. Certainly I felt better for it. But as I tried to open my eyes and felt the cloth restraint, my plight came rushing to mind. At once I was concerned for the children.
I called out, “Nicolae? Are you there, little one? Nicolae?”
After a brief pause I heard the door open and Izabella’s voice greeted me with a salutation in her own tongue. I heard her approach and felt her peck a greeting kiss on my cheek, just as Mama used to do. I reached out and, finding her hand, clutched it tightly, knowing words were pointless at this stage.
She spoke to me softly, guiding me with her hands to indicate her intent. I was lifted to a sitting position and my legs drawn to the floor. I guessed she wanted me to try and stand and I resolved to put all my energy to that purpose. The long rest had indeed done me good, for I found the task not too difficult, though I needed to lean against my benefactress for support.
She continued to speak to me, though she surely knew her words were not understood, and began to guide me forward. I heard the door open and was led through into the next room. I could hear water splashing and turned in that direction. The sound of children laughing. I held my breath, not daring even to hope.
Izabella called out something and I heard the water foam as bodies turned.
“Anca! Anca!”
My arms were outstretched and tears streaming even before her tiny body reached me. As Elone leapt up at me I felt Izabella steady me from behind and my arms wrapped around the child’s soaking body, clasping her to me heedless of the pain in my chest the action wrought.
I heard Nicolae running towards me too, shouting my name, and braced myself for his arrival, unable to muster words to express my feelings.
If learning that Nicolae was safe the previous day had been emotionally draining, to have both Nicolae and Elone together now was beyond compare.
I felt Nicolae clambering upon me, his wet body soaking my clothes, and for a moment could do nothing but stand and cry, supported by Izabella by my side, as I was assailed by their eager greetings.
The children gabbled simultaneously, each telling their own tale, but I was too overcome with emotion to listen. At length I heard Izabella’s voice cajoling them to climb down and felt the burden lift as she prised first one child, then the other, from around my neck. I heard each one splash into water and Nicolae shout out, “Anca, we are having a bath! Come watch us!”
Of course I could not see them, though the splashing water and their naked, wet bodies had already apprised me of their activity.
“I am coming, children,” I said, and tentatively stepped toward the commotion.
I felt Izabella take my arm and guide me to their location. She eased me onto my knees and I gripped the sides of an iron tub to gain my bearings. One of the children playfully splashed me with water and received what by tone was clearly a mild rebuke from Izabella.
“Anca, what has happened to your eyes?” Elone demanded. “Are you blind?”
“Of course not, Elone,” I said, though the suggestion caught my breath, for I had not until then considered the possibility my disability might be permanent. I dismissed the thought. “Izabella will tell me when I can take the bandage off.”
“You understand her, Anca? But she does not speak Romanian.”
“Nor I Polish, Elone, but we can understand each other if we try. Now little friend, tell me what happened? How did you come to be here? I cannot begin to express how worried I was about you.”
“And I you, Anca.” She took my hand, clutching it tightly. “I thought I should never see you and Nicolae again.”
I could imagine her earnest face as she spoke, and not for the first time was thankful for her friendship. If her tender nine years told against her in terms of experience of life, still she was a friend in a way I could not conceive of considering my beloved little brother.
“How did they find you, Elone? Did you come to any harm?”
“None, Anca. The man found me, in the forest. I remembered what you had taught us, Anca, that he might be a soldier, a Nazi, and I hid from him, but my camouflage was poor for he saw me hiding and shouted out to me. He called my name, Anca, so I knew he must have found you and Nicolae already.”
I smiled to acknowledge her story. “Go on.”
“He is a nice man, Anca. He brought me home, here, and that is when I met Nicolae again. He told me immediately that you were safe, but they would not let us see you. I think they wanted you to rest. They fed us both, and this morning they prepared us this bath first thing. Then suddenly we turned and there you were! Oh, Anca, please promise you will never let us be parted ever again. I was so frightened out there all on my own.”
I replied with quiet assurance. “I promise, Elone. I promise.”
40.
For six long months keeping that promise was to prove a simple task, for that entire time we spent as guests of Izabella and her husband, Wojciech.
Certainly it was not our intention to stay so long. If the first week was unavoidable, until my bandages were removed and my sight restored, that weeks became months was very much at the insistence of our hosts.
I had correctly surmised they were but peasants eking out an exiguous subsistence from the forest, and though they spoke no language beyond their native Polish the problem of communication proved quickly surmountable. Even in the first week we began to pick up occasional words, the better to make ourselves understood, and as the months passed all three of us began to develop a command of the language, perhaps Elone most of all.
Spring turned to summer almost unrealised in the sylvanian cocoon of the forest’s depths, and by the time autumn beckoned we were, if far from fluent, certainly competent to converse of simple subjects with our hosts.
In the latter months of our stay I was to learn much about our situation. My early fear that we might be turned over to the Nazis, especially when Elone’s Jewish background became known, was quickly banished, for Izabella and Wojciech were among the kindest people one could wish to meet, devoted selflessly to our welfare.
If their lifestyle was unfamiliar to us, both for its pastoral nature and its senescence, still we fell quickly into the diurnal routine of forest life.
The first month was one spent resting and re-nourishing our bodies, building up our strength after our harrowing ordeal, but once my bandages were removed I was able to help Wojciech about the forest and later even to accompany him to a nearby town where he bartered chopped wood and mushrooms for other goods.
Elone too made herself helpful, assisting Izabella about the house, always to be seen besom in hand, and even taking on a maternal role to my little brother, caring for him when I was unable to.
Somehow this remarkable child played the roles of juvenile friend and substitute mother simultaneously, at once a laughing, giggling little girl playing silly games with Nicolae, yet also tending his needs and caring for him in a manner that entirely belied her years and left me eternally indebted to her.
As my command of the language developed, I began to piece together the nature of our Polish hosts’ lifestyle, and soon came to realise it was not quite the epitome of rustic innocence it first appeared.
Early into our stay Nicolae had, in the cours
e of a game of hide and seek with Elone, stumbled across a cache of weaponry that stood in stark contrast with the peasant shotgun Wojciech carried about the forest to procure our meals and fend off wild beasts.
I urged the children to ignore their find and play elsewhere, but my suspicions were now aroused and for several weeks I was fearful that my first impressions were in error and that our hosts were indeed Nazi sympathizers, perhaps awaiting the opportunity to turn us over to the authorities for some indecent reward.
But in the second month of our stay all was to be explained and my mind put at rest.
We woke one morning to find new guests, one a badly wounded soldier wearing a uniform instantly recognisable by the hammer and sickle insignia as Russian. The others were clearly Polish partisans, dressed and armed much as those who had dragged us from the train after the derailment, and though at this stage my Polish was not up to conversation it became apparent Izabella and Wojciech were fierce patriots to their country, ready to risk their life to take in and tend the needs of wounded men leading the fight against the Nazi occupation.
The Russian spoke no Romanian but was competent in Polish and so able to inform our hosts of the latest developments in the war, which in due course Izabella would impart to me. I was heartened to learn advances were being made on both the eastern and western fronts, and that the wounded Russian believed the war to have reached a turning point.
That said, there was no hope of a cessation of hostilities in the near future and the fate of the occupied countries, Poland and my native Romania among them, hung in the balance.
I was fired with inspiration by this news, wishing I could do something constructive to help, but knew my immediate duty was to my little brother and Elone, and the reuniting of our families.
In the last month of our stay, in my broken Polish, I put my concerns to Izabella and Wojciech as we sat around a log fire one autumn evening, soon after the younger children had retired for the night.
Anca's Story--a novel of the Holocaust Page 11