A Boy in Winter

by Rachel Seiffert

  But his sleeping face was still a boy’s, when she sat up and looked at him; his eyes closed, soft mouth open, just the way he’d always slept.

  He was home, and he was safe. And he still wanted to lie with her in the orchard. Yasia thought she would feed him and they would lie here, and soon he would speak again, as he used to. Soon she would be his bride too.

  So when the first German land troops arrived, she had bread and salt ready for them.

  Mykola’s grandfather saw her baking, and he told her he would only wave to a German soldier to wave him on his way again.

  “No more invaders.” He shook his head at her and the loaves she’d made. “What our good country needs now is good Ukrainians.”

  But Yasia’s father saw her too, and after the old man went into the yard, he said she didn’t have to mind him. Her papa had tended the cows with Mykola’s mother ever since the farm was burned; they had to share the milking and the herding, because Grandfather couldn’t or wouldn’t be relied upon. He spent all his days sitting and smoking, still shocked and muttering over his losses, and Yasia knew her papa found it hard to stomach that. We all have to get on with our lives.

  She walked out early, in any case, with Myko’s sister and all the youngest boys: Yasia took them long before the menfolk were awake and could do any arguing. So they were there at the roadside, a small and young crowd of them, waiting with gifts when the Wehrmacht convoys came riding.

  They came in jeeps and on motorbikes, plastered with the black mud thrown up by their tyres. Did they not realise? These lands below the marshes, they are good for horseback only, or foot travel; for sledges in winter, impassable after summer storms. The tracks here were either mire or dust or snowdrifts—not meant for taking at lightning speed—and Yasia laughed behind her hand with Mykola’s sister, about how little these Germans knew of the country they had conquered in their Blitzkrieg: Perhaps Grandfather was right after all, and they should just wave the soldiers on again?

  But the Germans had phrasebooks; words they had memorised from so many repetitions as they’d crossed the countryside.

  “Hey, girls! Miss!” They called to them, these dirt-streaked and motorised invaders, who seemed to her to be liberators—bringers-back of her husband-to-be, their orchard secrecy; all her hopes of motherhood too.

  Mud-bespattered, they halted at the roadside, pulling off their helmets and smiling.

  “Bolshevik finished,” they told her. “Now Ukraina.” Wiping their foreign and well-fed faces.

  “Ukrayeena,” Yasia corrected.

  She saw how they looked at the swing of her skirts, and at the brown roundness of her calves, pleased by what they’d found here; all eyes on the open buttons at her blouse neck. And Yasia knew that she could please men this way, and easily, but she would not flirt, because she was as good as married now, of course.

  “Ukrayeena.”

  She told them, firm; one brother at her hand, another at her hip, like the young mother she would be soon enough. And the soldiers grinned at her as they rode off eastward.

  —

  Others are here now. More of their number, circling the town streets—and none of them are friendly.

  Yasia hears the jeeps returning as she reaches Osip’s workshop: they are still streets away, but their sirens echo shrill across the rooftops as she ducks along the lane walls.

  Yasia rattles at Osip’s yard gate, flinging a handful of gravel at his shuttered windows. She took a wrong turning coming in from the outskirts to find him, and the place looks so different with all the streets empty. Osip’s grey head comes as a relief, the bulk of him too, as he opens the gate, finally. Just a crack, just enough to peer through.

  “Oh! It’s you, girl.”

  His eyes widen at seeing a family face. But the frown lines around them are dark.

  “What have you come for?” he asks, although Yasia has stayed here so often before.

  A little fatter, a little greyer even than the last time she saw him, he throws anxious glances at her muddied skirt hems and the sacks of apples she bound so hastily across the horse’s back this morning. But then the loudhailer comes blaring, and he pulls her inside, tugging the horse and its burden after her.

  “Did your mother send you? Does your father know?” Osip hurries her—and then he hushes her straight after: “Not now—not so loud, girl. Don’t you hear them?”

  He points behind his shoulder, as if at the sirens’ wailing, closing the yard gate swiftly behind himself.

  “Only safe inside,” he cautions, and he pulls Yasia further, into the shelter of his workshop doorway.

  Around her, all is as always: Osip’s low house, just across the yard bricks; his workshop behind her, with its smell of resin and sawdust. But even among his tools and benches and broken cart wheels, the familiar mess here, Yasia sees how Osip glances, nervous, up at the house fronts rising above his yard walls; she sees all those shuttered windows, and Yasia thinks of how many townsfolk must be crouched and listening behind them.

  Then the loudhailer barks again: “... under curfew, until further notice.”

  The jeeps pass far too close beyond the yard walls, and she stands with Osip as the voice announces: “Anyone flouting this order will be taken prisoner. Will be removed from here. Under the law of occupation.”

  So Yasia hears now: the Germans haven’t only come giving orders, they have come to take as well. They take whatever they want, whoever they have use of. Who have they come for?

  3

  The schoolmaster has not moved yet.

  He is still on the floor where he landed, where Ephraim laid him—as carefully as he could without the guards getting angry. And Ephraim stands as still as he can now, holding vigil over the old man.

  He has stood here for a long time, silent, with his wife beside him and their youngest, their small Rosa. With the schoolmaster at their feet, on the cold brick of the factory floor.

  Miryam stands firm, Ephraim can feel her: dark hair knotted, coat collar buttoned, Rosa’s small hand in her own, keeping her upright. But with each new arrival, the crowd has become pressed more tightly around them, and each time it shifts now, Ephraim has to check on the doors first, to see who is pushed in, and then on the old man: that he still has space around him, and he is still breathing; that his condition has not worsened.

  Ephraim is mindful, both of the schoolmaster’s welfare and to keep the doorway in his eyeline—so that he can see the face of each new person brought in. But there are long and painful lulls to contend with, where all he can do is wait here for the next arrival; wait and wait in amongst this crush of people. So mostly he finds it is easier to keep his eyes closed, not to take in his surroundings, not to believe that this is happening. The whispers tell him anyway: all the uncertainty he hears, and the resentment.

  “It is a ghetto, I tell you.”

  “Yes, it is a ghetto they will take us to.”

  They are so pressed together, all the Jews from the lands below the marshes; Ephraim is with all of his own kind, and they are made to stand, all of them: the old and ill too, as well as the children. All except the schoolmaster. He is allowed to lie still, recover from the blows. Small mercy, but it is a mercy all the same, and Ephraim keeps expecting it to be extended to the schoolmaster’s mother, because it should be extended, surely: her son is injured, and she is too old for this.

  Ephraim has felt her bending, again and again, as though to sit by him. She does not understand why they must stand and stand here, and so she tries to sit—she has tried repeatedly—but then Miryam has pulled her gently, persistently, to her feet again, minding her: Careful, careful of the guards.

  They must be careful, Ephraim thinks, not to whisper reproaches, as so many around them do; not to draw attention.

  “This is what I think of their resettlement.”

  There has been far too much whispering, all through the long hours while it was still dark outside, and when the light began rising; and every fresh wa
ve of murmur, of rumour, has given him new cause to be anxious. He wants to know what awaits them as much as anyone, but all these whispers are unsettling; any noise makes him nervous. So now, as the loudhailer calls return, Ephraim feels himself shrinking, even as he strains his ears to pick up the announcements.

  “... the curfew in force, from sun-up to sun-down.”

  The inflection is strange, but the words are still loud enough to be made out above the blaring, above the vehicle engines.

  “Movement is permitted, but for work purposes only.”

  German jeeps, he thinks, and German trucks: in his mind’s eye, he sees them; so many Germans inside them.

  “... found hiding Jews, or supplying partisan gangs, or supporting ...”

  It is such a bellowing noise they make, Ephraim has found himself shrinking back, despite himself, each time they have passed this morning. And they pass again now—for the fourth time? The fifth time?—beyond the factory, their noise receding again as they take the turning.

  “... punished accordingly, under the law of occupation.”

  Ephraim knows the town’s streets so well he can picture the route they are taking: right now, the Germans will be driving over the ruts and flagstones along the northern boundary, and they will keep on going until they get to the old bridge, where they will have completed another of their circuits.

  “... repeat, for work purposes only ...”

  The noise of them, still just audible, has stopped the whispering for the meanwhile. It stopped the whispers last time too, as all the people stood and listened to the announcements, hoping for any hint of what might be coming next for all of them. It sounded like so many trucks were passing, the noise of their engines set off a new and swiftly spread conviction: surely these are the trucks the Germans have brought to take them?

  “But where will they take us?”

  “Why must they make us wait, then?”

  The people around Ephraim cannot help but fret about how long all this is taking, because it is too cold, and the waiting is intolerable. It leaves them with too much to worry over: If they have taken enough food for the journey, enough clothing?

  “How long will they keep us here to freeze?”

  “Soon, they will take us. Soon, I can feel it.”

  Ephraim understands their fretting. But still, he is fearful that the silence he now stands in will be replaced again before long by more such anxious speculation. He is not ready for leaving; he is not ready, so he cannot abide all this talk of it. Talk of being taken only serves to unnerve him, as does any shifting he hears around him.

  Last time, the silence that followed the vehicles was broken not by talking, but by the scuffing of cloth against concrete; the rasp of a bundle of clothing, pushed steadily—by a foot, most probably—inch by inch towards the schoolmaster. The noise was so close, Ephraim felt certain the foot must be his wife’s, it must be Miryam’s, though he kept his face stiffly forward, so as not to alert the guards. She should do nothing to alert them. Ephraim did not see his wife do the pushing, but he did see her, out of the corner of his eye, when she bent swiftly and pressed the bundle under her old teacher’s nape. It was to support his head, to let him rest—Ephraim knows his Miryam well, and what she would be thinking. And perhaps it even worked, because this is what woke him, the old schoolmaster: this kindness. The soft rasp of the bundle first, then the lifting of his cheek from the cold brick beneath it. Miryam brought him round, briefly, allowed him to rest a little more comfortably.

  But then came shouting; the sharp rap of coshes on the iron doors, and the barked order to stand still.

  “Stand upright! As you were told to.”

  The start this gave Ephraim was painful. It sharpened his fears, too; had him blinking and squinting again towards the doorway, through the few gaps in the people surrounding him. He has heard this noise so often this morning; he’s even counted the guards who make it: four of them, all told, making themselves broad in their police uniforms. He knows there are many more guards, many more soldiers still outside, searching the town. He knows the Germans will search out all of them.

  And that shutting his eyes will not stop them.

  It is light on the factory floor by now; it is bitter cold too, and when Ephraim opens his eyes properly, he sees his breath comes in clouds. It is the same for the breath of all those in here, so now he can watch the whispers as they pass from head to head around him; clouds of rumour passing from one group to the next.

  “They will take us to a ghetto in trucks.”

  “But they must find us all first.”

  “Don’t you have all your people? Who is still missing?”

  “Who is not with you?”

  Ephraim has seen many of his customers in here already; the backs of their heads enough to alert him, their winter hats, the curve of the frames he made them hugging familiar ears.

  He recognises their voices, too. Because people do not only whisper, they call as well, now and again, across the crowd around them; whenever they dare, whenever the guards allow this, they call out to friends and family, checking they are in here.

  “Binya?” Someone takes a chance. “Binya? Are you here now?” And then, from the far side: “Tomas? Tomas Ribchov?”

  “Yevgeny, Marta.”

  “Marta, dear? Riva?”

  The calling of names rises, the voices with them, in tones of growing urgency, which fall away again as the crowd shifts, uneasy.

  Not too much. That’s enough now. We’ll only make the guards angry.

  The calling has risen and then fallen with every new set of people pushed onto the factory floor this morning; there are always new groups, new people chased out of hiding.

  First comes running and shouting, out in the corridor, then the opening of the doors, and with that comes the awful feeling of more people falling—it seems to Ephraim each time that they are falling inside to join them. Sometimes it is a handful, sometimes it is whole families. Once there came twenty or even thirty new faces, all unfamiliar to him: a whole village cleared of its Jews, perhaps, all calling and crying out to one another for reassurance. For a while the guards allowed this, then they banged on the doors for silence.

  Ephraim has searched and searched, each time, for faces dear to him. He knew the schoolmaster, as soon as he saw him stumbling, and he knows his customers. But he doesn’t know any Binyas, any Ribchovs or Martas. There must be a hundred, two hundred Jews in here he’s never met before. More all the time.

  He and Miryam have been pressed and pushed with their Rosa, forced further and further from the doorway with every new set to join them. They have lost the schoolmaster and his mother in the crush, and then found them again—thankful for such mercies. Miryam has made sure to hold the old woman’s hand now, as they have been forced to stand ever closer, pressed up against strangers, watching their clouds of breath, listening to their whispers, to their crying and their calling and then falling into anxious silence.

  “Liba. My Liba dear?”

  That call came an hour ago; the cloud of breath just a few heads away.

  “Here, Papa! We are over here.”

  Thanks be. It was such a relief to hear a call answered. Although Ephraim didn’t know this Liba or her family, he felt the lift it gave them, and all those around him.

  We cannot go, you see? he wanted to tell them. Not until we have everyone here, every one of us. And for a while that morning, each new set of captives saw another family completed, or so it seemed to him.

  “You have the children? You have them?”

  “Yes, Mama, yes! We are all together now.”

  Each answering call was met with a rustle of movement, of bags and of children pressed ahead through the crush of people, following the sound or a hand raised, a handkerchief waved. And this is what has sustained him: Ephraim saw them waiting, just like him, and then he saw them reunited.

  So each time the doors opened, Ephraim has called too. For his two sons, his two boys, sti
ll missing.

  “Yankel?”

  His voice so loud in the quiet.

  “Yankel and Momik?”

  They should have come by now; they should have been found. Although he feared what the SS might do to them, he still felt the boys should be here—with him and with Miryam.

  So Ephraim called out as loud as he dared. Feeling the surge of hope, high and tight in his chest, that this calling gave rise to. And that surge of fear, too, sharp and painful, that they’d been hurt by the Germans.

  He’s seen—all too clearly—how often those pushed in here are injured; he can hardly look at the bruise, spreading blue and slow across the schoolmaster’s jaw below him.

  “Yankel and Momik? Speak if you are here now, my Yankel,” Ephraim has entreated, each time the door opened, with Miryam silent, breath held and listening beside him.

  But there has come no answer. No shout, no sign of them coming through that doorway.

  Where are they? Where are they?

  For a long time now, there has been only waiting, and only whispering to fill it. The doors have not opened; there have come no more people.

  Still, Ephraim keeps his eyes open. He knows Miryam is vigilant also, and this is some comfort: his wife standing firm beside him, hoping for their two sons. They cannot leave without them—Ephraim cannot even think of it—so he watches the doors, just as Miryam does, and he will keep on watching.

  —

  “Hurry, girl.”

  Osip sends Yasia up the ladder in his workshop, into the low room above, strewn with straw bales, where she sleeps with her mother on market days.

  The last jeeps passed a while ago, and Yasia doesn’t know if the patrols are over, or how long they’ve been waiting either, but Osip wants to find out—and to be sure of the curfew hour—so she peers through the window, pane rippled with age, frame set deep into the stone wall, looking for the town-hall clock as he instructed.

  “Can you see it?” Osip calls again, from below on his workshop floor.

  It hasn’t struck all morning; not even the bell-ringer is out. Yasia can’t see the face, just the tall shape of it in the fog, beyond the roof tiles of the houses. But the grey is lifting, so it must already be late morning; and she feels Osip’s impatience, so she is quick about stowing the blankets he gave her and clambering down again to join him.