Day After Night

by Anita Diamant

  Leonie imagined Lucas’s face under her hands. Tedi throttled the men who had raped her. Zorah killed the neighbor who betrayed Jacob’s mother. Shayndel felt the muscles in her arms shaking with exertion, avenging Wolfe, Malka, Noah, her mother and father, Shmuley, and far too many others.

  Finally, Leonie, panting with effort and emotion, slid her hand under the pillow in search of a pulse. “We can stop,” she whispered.

  They stood up, avoiding one another’s eyes as they arranged the body on its side and tied it in place. Tedi fussed with the blanket, trying to make it look as if Lotte were merely sleeping. “That’s enough,” said Shayndel. “No one is going to worry about why we’re leaving her here.”

  The barrack door opened a few minutes later and the order was whispered: “Now.”

  Shayndel, Tedi, Leonie, and Zorah went from bed to bed, waking each girl as gently as they could, leaning down to whisper, “Wake up, shhhh. Don’t be afraid. We are leaving, shhh. Tonight we escape from this place. Get dressed, hurry. Don’t worry, but be quick. We are going with you, too. Bring nothing. Hurry.”

  The urgency and excitement in their voices turned everyone out of bed and the girls were on their feet before their eyes adjusted to the dimness. They bumped into the edges of beds as they dressed, while Shayndel walked up and down the center of the barrack, putting her finger to her lips and giving a thumbs-up. Zorah helped one woman hunt for her shoes. Leonie buttoned dresses.

  Esther was the first one ready, waiting beside her cot, where the blanket had been neatly tucked in. She carried nothing in her hands, as she had been ordered. But she wore the heavy fur coat she had brought from Poland, a pair of silver candlesticks poking out of its bulging pockets. She had her hand on top of Jacob’s head and kept his face turned toward the door.

  No one looked at Lotte.

  As soon as they were dressed, the women began jamming their belongings into sacks and suitcases.

  “No, no,” Tedi whispered to one girl stuffing a pillowcase with clothes. “We cannot bring anything with us.”

  Leonie tried to reason with another busy filling a bulky valise. “We are going to be running in the dark. Carrying this will be dangerous.”

  When Shayndel saw that no one was paying any attention to the order, she tried pulling things out of people’s hands until one woman clasped a photograph album to her chest and said, “If I cannot take my family with me, I will stay here.”

  “I’m sorry,” Shayndel said, and went to retrieve her ruck-sack, with her pictures inside.

  The flutter of packing and preparation came to a halt as a loud, piercing scream rose from somewhere in the near distance.

  No one moved. A minute passed and then another, but there was no alarm, no sound of boots on the ground, no orders shouted in English. Someone in the barrack started weeping softly but she was shushed from every corner.

  Shayndel could barely breathe. She kept her eye on the wristwatch for four long minutes, until the door opened.

  A silhouette of a man with a gun over his shoulder appeared. “Hurry up, children,” said a familiar voice. “Come, my little ones,” Goldberg said in Yiddish.

  Shayndel was the first one outside, with Zorah, Esther, and Jacob right behind her. Leonie stopped at the foot of Lotte’s cot, but Tedi put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s over,” she said, and gently guided her out the door.

  The women found themselves surrounded by Palmachniks dressed in dark clothes and black caps. They carried guns, waved for them to follow, and started at a fast trot toward the back of the camp; their barrack was closest to the front, which meant they had the farthest to run.

  The commandos shepherded them through the camp, avoiding the glare of the lights by zigzagging from one shadow to the next, around barracks and latrines. Crossing the parade ground, Zorah spotted four Palmach fighters dragging the two burly Poles she had talked to in the clinic—now gagged and bound at the wrists—in the opposite direction from everyone else. As she turned to watch them shoved through the back door of Delousing and out of her story forever, someone grabbed her arm and pulled her forward toward the back side of the dining hall. Esther and Jacob and the rest of the girls in their barrack pressed themselves flat against the wooden wall and listened to the sounds of footsteps moving into the distance, and then … nothing.

  Zorah began to worry. They were certainly the last group to be released; perhaps they had been forgotten. Or maybe they were being used as decoys, to be discovered and sacrificed as a diversion so that the others could get away. It took Jacob three tugs on her sleeve before he got her attention and pointed to the wall where he had found “Esther” among the names and dates scratched into the wooden clapboard. Zorah touched his hair and thought, He will be all right. No matter what happens tonight, he must be all right.

  A minute later, a man’s head appeared around the corner of the building and they were on the move again. In single file, they made for a narrow gash that had been cut in the promenade fence. Zorah thought the women were amazingly fast considering what they were carrying. She followed Esther through the jagged hole, scratching her hands on the barbwire as she held it away from the fur coat.

  When Zorah stepped into the corridor that had separated the men’s and women’s barracks, the fences, which were at least twenty feet apart, seemed to close in around her. She froze, confused and trapped, staring as the others ran toward the northern fence. They leaned into the effort, kicking their heels like athletes, racing toward an exit that she could not see. Some of the overhead lights had been extinguished, so that when people reached the shadows, it appeared that they vanished into the air.

  The image overwhelmed Zorah with the need to join them on the other side—whatever that might mean. She made a dash for it, tearing past Jacob and Esther, weaving to avoid suitcases, brushing against Palmach gun barrels, flying with strength and speed she had never felt before. Running away.

  She nearly laughed when she reached the opening in the fence, wide enough for a truck. She didn’t stop running once she got through, savoring her momentum and the air on her face. She ran past a group of men, ignoring their hoarse whispers to “Stop. Stop!”

  She would have run until daylight, but the thought of Esther and Jacob slowed her. They would be frantic if she disappeared, so she looped around and trotted back. Esther rushed into her arms. Jacob hugged her around the waist.

  Once Shayndel saw Zorah, she knew that everyone in her barrack was safely out and her official duties were over. Still, she could not help but take stock of the situation, as though she were still responsible. She counted eighty refugees, including twenty women with children, standing in the dark in the middle of a chilly field. There were at least seventy Palmach rescuers as well, smoking and muttering among themselves.

  Off to the east, she heard the faint whine of an engine and caught sight of a ragged line of people moving toward the road. There was another group, too—no more than ten—wandering due north. I hope these people know what they are doing, she thought, as time passed without a word of reassurance or a hint of where her group was headed.

  Tedi stood beside Shayndel, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She felt the muscles in her legs tense up, as though she were about to skate down a frozen canal. She leaned forward into a crouch, grabbed her thighs, and waited for the starting gun, for someone to give the order so she could go. She swayed side to side, faster and faster, mouthing the words, ready, set, go.

  Shayndel saw her rocking and noticed Leonie shivering. She walked over to the Palmachniks. “Why aren’t we going?”

  A husky man glared and put a finger to his lips but one of the others leaned close and said, “One of our guys is still inside to make sure we won’t be followed.”

  Shayndel nodded and returned to her friends, who were looking up toward the mountains, where a signal fire had been lit. She wondered how far away the bonfire was, and if that was where they were headed, and whether it wasn’t a tip-off to the British. He
r jaw ached with tension. If we don’t go soon, I’m going to start walking and the hell with them all, she thought as her hand flew up to her shoulder, searching for the strap of her long-lost gun.

  “Look,” someone whispered. All heads turned as a man ran out of the camp. The Palmachniks immediately shouldered their packs and guns, fanned out among the escapees, and began directing them east toward the road and the mountains.

  Tedi dashed over to one of the men in front and asked, “Where are we going?”

  “Kibbutz Yagur,” he said. “By the time we reach the road, the trucks should be there to pick us up.”

  It was a rough slog through the fields. Recently plowed, they were deeply rutted and surprisingly wet, and the children struggled in the furrows. People carrying heavy loads lost their balance and fell to their knees.

  Leonie was having a hard time keeping her shoes on. After the mud sucked one of them off completely, she crouched down to search for it, but a Palmachnik grabbed her arm. “My shoe,” she explained, but he pulled her to her feet and she had no choice but to limp after him. When the other shoe disappeared, she continued in her socks, which quickly became so wet and heavy, she peeled them off and walked barefoot.

  By the time she reached the road, Leonie was in tears.

  “Where were you?” Shayndel asked.

  “I lost my shoes,” she said, looking at her cold, aching feet. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize,” Shayndel said. “We’ll find you some others.”

  “Leave it to me,” Tedi said, and began walking up and down the line, asking if anyone had an extra pair of shoes, filling her nose with the expectant smell of freshly turned earth, while keeping an eye out for Zorah, Esther, and Jacob.

  They were still making their way through the field. Something about being out in the open had frightened Jacob badly. Esther and Zorah could only carry him for a few paces at a time, and they fell so far behind that a man was sent back to retrieve them.

  “Give him to me,” he said, swinging the boy over his head and onto his shoulders as though he were no heavier than a doll.

  Esther put her hand on Jacob’s leg and scrambled alongside. Zorah smiled at how much Jacob’s mount looked like a gorilla, with his bandy legs and flatfooted gait. The little boy struggled and squirmed at first, but finally settled down and rested his chin on top of the man’s head, wrapping his arms around the sides of his neck. In the darkness, they looked like a father and son on their way home from an afternoon in the park.

  Will Jacob remember this? Zorah wondered. Will he someday make his grandchildren yawn with boredom as he repeats the story of how a soldier carried him away from captivity in Atlit? Zorah remembered how her mother used to carry her little brother on her hip when he was a baby, but she had no memory of being carried herself.

  Zorah slipped her arm through Esther’s as they approached the road, where Tedi embraced them as though they had been lost for months. When she noticed Jacob’s sandals flop-ping against the Palmachnik’s chest, she asked, “Does he have another pair of shoes? Leonie is barefoot. Those might fit her.”

  “Not for him,” Esther whispered, “but wait.” She plunged her hands into the seemingly bottomless pockets of her coat and pulled out a pair of pumps with ankle straps. “They’re red,” she apologized.

  “I’m sure that won’t be a problem.” Tedi grinned and hurried back to where Leonie was sitting in the dirt, cradling her battered feet in her hands. Tedi got down on one knee and held out the shoes as though she were presenting them to a princess in a fairy tale. And, just as in a fairy tale, they fit.

  Tedi tried to get Shayndel to come celebrate the miracle of the shoes, but she would not move away from her spot near the ranking Palmachniks, who were planning their next steps.

  “Why isn’t Sergey here?” someone asked.

  “He said he wasn’t going to wait for the trucks. He took a bunch straight up the mountain.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Yeah, well, you know Sergey: ants in the pants.”

  “We can’t pull that kind of stunt with all these kids here. We have to wait for the trucks to arrive.”

  “When the hell will that be, Yitzhak?”

  “Shouldn’t be too much longer now,” said Yitzhak—who had been the last man out of Atlit.

  “We waited for so long, some of us weren’t sure we’d see you again tonight,” someone teased.

  “The inside team did a good job,” he said, reaching for the cigarette that was being passed around. “But it was weird. The place was lit up like Tel Aviv on a Saturday night, but quiet as a cemetery. Not a soul in sight. The Brits were all in their beds, sound asleep. I could hear them snoring, so help me.

  “Then, just as I was about to leave, I found myself face-to-face with a ginger-haired little guy in a British officer’s uniform. I was close enough to punch him, which I was about to do. But he blinked and walked past me, like I wasn’t there. I didn’t recognize him, but he had to be one of our guys.”

  “Must have been.”

  “What do we hear from the others?” Yitzhak asked. “Are you in touch with the walkie-talkie?”

  “Worthless piece of shit,” said one of the men, pointing at the boxy pack beside him. “I got nothing but static all night, and the damn thing weighs as much as my grandmother.”

  “That’s no joke,” someone snickered. “I’ve seen your grandmother.”

  The sound of engines somewhere in the dark silenced all conversation until two trucks and a small bus pulled up with their headlights switched off. The Palmachniks started helping people onto them almost before they came to a stop. Some of the men tried to talk the refugees out of bringing their belongings any further. “There is no room, sweetheart,” someone said to a woman with a bulging satchel. But when he tried to pull the bag out of her hand, she slapped his face with enough force to be heard up and down the line.

  “Enough,” said Yitzhak, tossing the valise into the truck. “It’s all they have, poor creatures.”

  Shayndel winced at hearing herself called a “creature” and ignored the hands extended to help her climb into the first truck, which she had chosen after seeing that the men in charge were crowding into the cab. Leonie, Tedi, Esther, and Zorah pushed their way up beside Shayndel and settled together on the floor, with Jacob squeezed among them.

  The convoy crept along slowly until they turned left, away from Atlit and east into the mountains. After another hard turn that threw everyone off balance, the headlights came on, illuminating a narrow gravel road, and the driver put his foot down on the accelerator.

  As they gained speed, the girls’ hair flew up so that they almost looked like they were underwater. Zorah threw her head back and closed her eyes. Leonie held her hand out over the side, fondling the breeze. Shayndel had the urge to start singing.

  As the truck started to climb the side of the mountain, Tedi inhaled the tang of pine and the mulch of fallen leaves and a dozen other scents: tree sap and resin, pollen from six kinds of dusty grasses going to seed. The soldiers up front added dark notes of leather, tobacco, onion, whiskey, sweat, and gunpowder. It was a wild mixture, the aroma of escape. She caught Leonie’s eye and grinned. “It smells like heaven out here.”

  The roads became rougher and in the back of the truck, the refugees banged into one another and tried not to cry out. They slowed to a crawl as the incline grew steeper and the convoy negotiated one hairpin turn after another.

  “It would be faster to walk,” someone muttered as the initial giddiness began to subside. When the truck lurched to a sudden halt Shayndel jumped up and saw that they had come to a fork in the road.

  The driver and two soldiers hurried out of the cab and immediately started arguing.

  “Turn right,” said Yitzhak, who was holding a flashlight.

  “I don’t think so,” said the driver.

  “What do you know?”

  “More than you.”

  “Yes, but I’m in charge.�
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  When they started out again, the driver turned right so sharply that everyone in back fell over.

  They inched along what seemed like a footpath where overhanging branches raked the tops of their heads. Esther held Jacob’s face to her chest to protect his eyes. After a few more minutes, the driver hit the brakes again. The other men in the cab swore at him and Yitzhak shouted, “Back up.”

  “Too dark,” said the driver. “Too steep.”

  By now, men from the two other vehicles had arrived and joined the argument. The walkie-talkie crackled to life, but no amount of fiddling with the dials brought in a signal. Yitzhak finally switched off the machine. “Never mind that. I know where we are,” he said. “Beit Oren is a couple of kilometers up this hill. It’s a climb, but we’re close enough to make it. Pass the word: we’re walking.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” muttered the driver.

  There were no smiles as the refugees were helped from the trucks, but everyone felt the urgency of the situation and within minutes, all 150 of them—refugees and Palmach—were on their way.

  As they headed into the forest, the darkness thickened, both shielding and thwarting them. A narrow path led through uneven, rocky ground that seemed to reach up and trip someone every few moments. No one spoke, but the sounds of panting and gasping grew louder as they climbed.

  Shayndel stayed near the front of the line, close to Yitzhak and his flashlight. Leonie and Tedi scrambled to keep up with her, but Leonie’s feet were on fire as the shoes rubbed through the blisters on her bruised heels and swollen toes. Tedi’s lungs ached.

  Zorah hated being separated from Shayndel, but she would not leave Jacob and Esther, who lagged behind. Esther’s fur coat, now heavy with moisture and mud, slowed her down, and Jacob stumbled beside her, dazed by exhaustion.

  With the loud crack of a gun, the rescue turned into a hunt. The Palmachniks pushed everyone to the ground as another shot echoed through the trees over their heads.