Run, Boy, Run

by Uri Orlev

  The priest sat watching him. From time to time he shook his head and smiled.

  "How old are you, my son?"

  "About nine," Jurek said.

  The priest asked the usual questions. Jurek answered them. When he was done eating, he asked, "Does anyone around here need a boy to do some work?"

  "Try the big house. Come, I'll show you where it is."

  The priest walked him to the churchyard. "Just follow this street," he said. "And if you stay in the village, come back and see me again."

  "I will, Father."

  The priest blessed him and Jurek limped off, leaning on his stick. A group of boys was playing rag soccer in the street. He would have joined them if not for his foot. They stopped their game to watch him go by. He heard a boy say, "See that blond kid? I know him. He used to play with us when I visited my cousins."

  The boy added something in a whisper.

  "Go on!" said a second boy. "I just saw him come from the priest."

  "I'm telling you it's true," the first boy insisted.

  Jurek kept walking without hastening his stride. When he reached the end of the village, he continued as fast as his foot allowed him to. Now and then he turned around to look. No one was following him.

  He had never heard anyone call him "that blond kid" before. He had always been "Red." The sun had bleached his hair without his knowing it.

  10. Do You Smoke?

  Jurek realized that he was known by too many people in the area. He decided to cross the Wisla River and try his luck elsewhere. As soon as his foot was better, he left the forest and set out. A wagon loaded with sacks of wheat passed on the road. A farmer and his wife were sitting in the front seat. Jurek greeted them and asked if they were traveling toward the Wisla.

  "Yes. To the flour mill."

  "Can you give me a ride?"

  The farmer's wife looked at him and whispered something to her husband.

  "Hop aboard," the farmer said.

  Jurek climbed onto the wagon and lay on the sacks, which were growing warm in the morning sun. The wagon jolted slowly along the cobblestone road, and he fell asleep.

  He awoke and opened his eyes when the wagon came to a halt. He wasn't at a flour mill. There were no waterwheels and no river. He was in the yard of a large, three-story house with pretty trimmings. Surrounding it and several nearby structures was a metal fence topped by barbed wire. The wire pointed outward, against intruders. Jurek had never seen such a fence around a village house. But it was too late to do anything about it. The gate had swung shut and was guarded by a German soldier.

  He was at the local headquarters of the Gestapo.

  The farmer brought him into the house. A soldier shut the door behind them. The farmer let go of Jurek and stepped into an office. The soldier pointed to a kitchen and told Jurek in German to go there. A Polish woman was working in the kitchen. Without a word, she sat Jurek at a table and gave him a large bowl of meat and rice. He crossed himself and ate hungrily, finishing it all. Then he leaned back with a contented sigh.

  "That was a serving for two grown men," the woman said, laughing and taking the empty bowl.

  Jurek rose and went to the window. The forest was near.

  "Is there a road leading to the forest, ma'am?" he asked.

  The cook pointed out the window. "Do you see that wooden shack? The path to the forest is behind it."

  He peeked into the corridor to see if he could make a getaway. The soldier at the door spotted him. Grabbing Jurek's arm, he pulled him down some stairs and locked him in a basement. The basement was ankle-high in water. Some broken wooden crates were afloat in it. Jurek sat on one of them. After a long while the door opened and the soldier told him to come out. He led him upstairs and knocked on a door. "Come in!" said a voice in German.

  The soldier ushered Jurek into the room, saluted, and left.

  The room was a large one. A young, blond, handsome officer was sitting behind a long table. His uniform brimmed with decorations. Beneath the German eagle and the swastika on his officer's cap, which was placed on the table, was the insignia of a skull. A large photograph of Hitler hung on a wall. The officer gave the barefoot child in tattered clothes a bored look. He went over to him and asked in broken Polish, "What's your name?"

  "Jurek Staniak."

  "Are you a Jew?"

  "No."

  The German gave him a slap.

  "Where do you live?"

  "Wherever there's work."

  "Where are your parents?"

  "They were killed when the war broke out."

  "How?"

  Jurek told his story.

  "And since then you've been on your own?"

  "No. At first a couple took me to their village. But the husband got drunk and beat me, and I ran away. I don't stick around if I'm beaten."

  "How old are you?"

  "About nine."

  "And when were you last beaten?"

  "Just now. By you."

  The German laughed.

  "I don't mean just one slap."

  "A month ago."

  "Why?"

  "Because the cows got into the carrots."

  "And you ran away?"

  "Yes. To the forest, with my dog."

  "You had a dog?"

  "Yes."

  "Where is it?"

  "Some farmers killed it because a mad dog bit it." Jurek wiped his nose. "How?"

  "They shot it."

  "They did?" The German raised his brows. "Where was that?"

  Jurek shrugged.

  "I don't know. In the forest."

  "Are you a Jew?"

  "No."

  "Can you cross yourself?"

  He crossed himself.

  "Can you pray?"

  Jurek said the prayers he had learned.

  "I'm afraid I don't believe you," the German said. "Take off your clothes."

  Jurek undressed, covering his private parts with his hands. The German rapped his hands with a ruler. Jurek dropped them and the German said:

  "What's this?"

  "I was operated on because of an infection."

  "No, you weren't. Only Jews have that."

  The German slapped him hard.

  "I'm not a Jew," Jurek insisted.

  "All right, get dressed," the officer said.

  Jurek dressed.

  "You're a smart kid," said the German. "It's too bad you're Jewish. Come with me."

  The officer led him through the door and into the yard. He walked up and down there with Jurek at his side. Pulling out a gold case, he took a cigarette and offered one to Jurek.

  "Do you smoke?"

  "No."

  The German lit the cigarette. They resumed walking up and down in silence. From time to time the German puffed on his cigarette and blew out smoke. Jurek saw his right hand steal toward the pistol in his holster. Like an arrow from a bow, he took off for the back of the wooden shack. But he hadn't understood the woman in the kitchen. Although there was a path to the forest, it was on the other side of the fence. Jurek didn't slow down when he reached the fence. He just kept running right up it, scaling it like a wild animal. The first two shots rang out when he had reached the top. One whistled past his ear. The other grazed his shoulder. He vaulted the barbed wire, fell to the ground on the other side, and got to his feet and ran some more. There were three more shots. He heard a motorcycle and the barking of dogs. Turning around to look, he saw a cycle bumping over the field. Two Germans on horseback, dogs loping at their sides, were closer to him.

  He was already in the forest, pumping his long legs as fast as they would go. From somewhere came a swampy smell. He ran toward it, remembering what his father had told him. Suddenly his legs were sinking into mud. He ran on until he could no longer pull them out of it. Then he grabbed hold of a low-hanging branch and lay down flat. He could feel his body sinking slowly into quicksand. Soon only his head and his hands gripping the branch were above the surface.

  The dogs reached
the swamp. They stopped at the edge of it and went off in another direction. After them came the two soldiers on horseback. Jurek could tell from their shouts and curses that their horses were deep in mud too. For a long time afterward, he heard them calling to the dogs.

  He pulled himself up by the branch. It creaked and he was afraid it would break. Slowly he managed to extricate himself. Then he crawled forward on his stomach, holding on to the bushes.

  11. Ration Tickets

  Jurek spent the next few weeks in the forest. One day he left it, walked to a village, and sneaked into a farmyard in the hope of finding some cheese or a chicken. A farmer stepping out of his outhouse caught hold of Jurek with one hand while the other was still buttoning his pants.

  "What are you doing here?"

  Jurek kept his wits about him.

  "I'm looking for work."

  "Good," the farmer said. "My oldest son has a job in town and the little ones are too small. I need a cowherd."

  Jurek liked the looks of the man. He liked his wife too, a fat, smiling woman. After a few days his new employer asked him to come with him to the mayor of the village.

  "The times are hard," he said. "The Germans confiscate everything. What they allow you to keep depends on the number of heads in the family. And you," he said, laughing, "have a head."

  "But why are we taking the wagon?" Jurek asked.

  "Because after the mayor fills out a form, we need the signature of the authorities."

  Jurek climbed onto the wagon. From the mayor's they continued on their way. Jurek lay in the straw on the bottom of the wagon and fell asleep. He awoke when the farmer stopped his horse. They were in Gestapo headquarters. At first he thought he was having a nightmare. No one had told him that "the authorities" meant the Gestapo. The young officer was standing in the yard. He hurried over to Jurek with a big grin and yanked him out of the wagon.

  "So you're back, eh? I know you're a Jew. But this time I'm not going to kill you. You're too smart for that, and I like you."

  The astounded farmer let himself be consoled with the bounty he was given for turning in a Jew and drove off. The officer handed Jurek to a soldier. The soldier made him take off his clothes, shaved his head, ordered him to bathe, and gave him clean clothes and a pair of shoes.

  "They're the smallest size I have," he said. "Stuff some rags into them."

  "Give me back what was in my pockets," Jurek said.

  The soldier gave him back his slingshot and Marisza's magnifying glass.

  "Where's my knife?"

  "The officer kept it."

  The soldier took Jurek to a small room with a chair, a table, and a large window looking out on the forest. He had never had his own private room before. Sometimes, at night, screams and moans reached it from the basement, where Jurek had been. He would awake shivering all over. In the morning it was quiet again. A wagon would come and leave with something beneath a tarpaulin.

  Jurek became the officer's valet. He cleaned his clothes and brushed his boots. At first, the German wasn't satisfied. He explained that he wanted his boots to be so shiny that he could see his reflection in them. It took Jurek a while to master the art of it. While he was still learning he was given a slap for every speck of dirt on the boots. In his spare time he sat in the kitchen with the Polish cook. He ate so much that he developed a paunch.

  "So you're a Jew?" she asked him one day.

  "No. I'm not."

  "I know you are, son. The officer told me."

  Jurek said nothing.

  "It's nothing to be ashamed of. Jews are human too."

  As though to prove it, she took a large piece of chocolate from the closet and gave it to him.

  ***

  It was already summer when the officer summoned Jurek one day and said, "Put on your shoes and come with me."

  Jurek came back with his shoes on. The officer put him, together with a dog, in the sidecar of his motorcycle, and they set out.

  Jurek wondered where he was being taken. Although the German saw the worry in his face, he merely smiled and said nothing. After a while they left the main road and crossed some fields until they came to a big farm.

  "The village near here is called Krumnow," the German said, parking in the yard. "I'm bringing you to a girlfriend of mine. You'll work for her. Behave yourself and everything will be all right. And here's your knife back."

  "Thank you," Jurek said in German.

  The officer dismounted. A young woman came to greet him. She was wearing boots and her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows.

  "This is Frau Herman," the officer said, introducing her to Jurek. He winked. "She's the beautiful wife of Meister Herman."

  Jurek didn't know why he was being winked at. The officer said to the woman, "I've brought you a new hand. He's an excellent worker. Look how he polishes my boots." He raised one boot for Pani Herman to inspect it.

  She looked at Jurek.

  "Watch the dog while I'm gone," the officer said. He and Pani Herman walked off, laughing merrily.

  Jurek stayed on at Pani Herman's. From her other workers he learned that she was a Pole of German extraction. Her husband worked for the Germans, and she ran their farm by herself. The Gestapo supplied her with free labor from the ranks of convicts and debtors. It didn't take Jurek long to learn that you had to toe the line with her. Any slackers could expect a beating from the Gestapo. He did as he was told and carried out orders promptly and carefully. The work he liked best was taking the cows to pasture, because then he was far away from Pani Herman's demands.

  The officer came to visit often. Whenever he saw Jurek, he told him to mind his dog.

  "Can I play with it?" Jurek asked him one day in German.

  "You know German?"

  "A bit."

  "I forgot you once had a dog. Yes, you can throw him a stick and tell him to fetch. Say 'Good dog' when he brings it back to you. Can you say that in German?"

  Jurek said it.

  "Excellent."

  Jurek missed Azor.

  ***

  It was threshing time. The Hermans' farm was large and mechanized. The threshing was done by a machine with huge wooden wheels turned by something called a rotary walker. This was made of cogwheels propelled by a shaft operated by a team of horses driven in a circle. A long, wide belt ran from the shaft to the thresher, from which grains of wheat poured like pure gold.

  Jurek was given a whip and told to keep the horses walking steadily. He was proud of his new job and liked to crack his whip from time to time with a sound like a rifle shot, even though it was rarely necessary. For long hours each day he walked behind the horses, who circled on a track of packed dirt. During lunchtime he hung sacks of barley around their necks and joined the other workers for the meal.

  On the next-to-last day of threshing, soon after the lunch break, he heard someone shout a warning behind him. There was no time to make sense of it. His whip, trailing behind him, had gotten caught in the cogwheels, dragging his arm into the machine.

  "Stop the horses!"

  Someone grabbed the horses. Jurek felt an unbearable pain. Someone helped pull his mangled arm from the wheels. He managed to get it into his sleeve before he passed out. From time to time he came to and tried to grasp what was happening. Pani Herman was sitting beside him in a speeding wagon. She tried to keep his arm from being jolted by the bumps. Now and then the black ness that he saw turned to blue and he understood that he was looking at the sky. Then everything was black again.

  Jurek was brought to a hospital in Nowy Dwur, a small city on the right bank of the Wisla. He was placed on an examination table and washed by two nurses. Pani Herman went to pay for his hospitalization. When she returned, he was on the operating table. A young surgeon entered. He examined Jurek and said:

  "I'm not operating on this boy."

  Pani Herman was startled. "Why not?"

  "Because he's a Jew."

  "He's not a Jew!" she shouted. "I got him from the Gestapo and h
e's my worker. You'll operate on him at once!"

  "He's a Jew," the doctor insisted.

  "You don't know what you're talking about!" Pani Herman shouted. "I paid 157 marks and 25 pfennig for him!"

  She made a scene, screaming, sobbing, and threatening to call the Gestapo if anything happened to Jurek. Then she drove off.

  The doctor refused to back down. He ordered Jurek to be put in the corridor on a stretcher.

  Jurek lay there in shock. In the moments when he regained consciousness, he felt as though he and his excruciatingly painful body were two separate things. As soon as they became one again, he passed out. He no longer knew where he was. His lips mumbled words that had no sound.

  The next morning the senior surgeon, Dr. Zurawski, arrived. He saw Jurek in the corridor and exclaimed, "What have you done? You could have saved the boy's arm!"

  Jurek was taken to the operating room and anaesthetized. His gangrened arm was amputated above the elbow. When he awoke, he rubbed his eyes and tried lifting it. Nothing moved except for a bandaged stump. He broke into bitter tears. And yet by shutting his eyes he could feel the whole arm again, from his shoulder to his fingertips. He could even feel the whip in his hand.

  In the first days after the operation, Jurek cried a lot. The nurses fed him and bathed him. They dressed him in a long hospital gown and he spent hours kneeling by his bed and praying to Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Often, trying to support himself with an arm that wasn't there, he nearly fell. Everything was an overwhelming reminder of his condition.

  One morning he was woken by a nun. She bent over him and said, "Come, Jurek, sit up. I'm here to help you."

  She took him to the shower and taught him how to wash with his left arm. She showed him how to cross himself and hold a spoon with it.

  She came to see him every day.

  "There's almost nothing you can't do with one arm," she promised him.

  "Are you sure, Sister?"

  "Yes. It's only a matter of time and patience."

  For the first time since the accident, he felt a spark of hope.

  In his second week in the hospital, Jurek began to roam its rooms and corridors. He visited the different wards, was met by smiles, and even began to smile back.