Beyond the Shadow of Night

by Ray Kingfisher

  “Asher!” Mykhail shook him. “Wake up, Asher!”

  Nothing.

  He tried again and looked back toward the men, briefly considering asking for their help getting Asher home. “Don’t be stupid,” he muttered to himself.

  He lifted Asher’s head off the ground, and held his ear to his friend’s mouth.

  Yes, there was a rhythmic rush of air.

  He lifted Asher’s arms up, grabbed his torso as best he could, then heaved him over his shoulder. With two long grunts, he pushed himself up onto one foot, then the other, thanking God he was a little bigger and stronger than his friend.

  But bigger than Asher or not, it was a struggle, each step a wild stamp, each breath a gasp. Ten yards became twenty, but a few staggers later he lurched and stopped, exhausted, and stared ahead. They were still some way from home, and he would collapse if he tried it all in one go, injuring them both, so he laid his friend’s body down on a grassy mound.

  “Only a rest,” he whispered. “Only a rest.”

  He rubbed some feeling back into his shoulder, took a few deep breaths, then grabbed Asher’s arm again.

  This time Asher resisted, and with a cough and a few blinks he was conscious. He spat out blood, but his lips were numb and swollen, so it merely dribbled off his chin and onto his clothes. He looked up. “Mykhail?” he said. “Where are we? My head hurts.”

  “Can you walk?” Mykhail asked.

  Asher staggered to his feet like a newborn foal. “What happened?”

  “We were fishing. Some men came.”

  Asher cast a glance back at the riverbank.

  “A man hit you.”

  Asher held his head, grimacing. “Now I remember. Did they get the fish?”

  Mykhail nodded.

  “Did you carry me over here?”

  “Of course. I was going to carry you home.”

  “Really? All the way?”

  Mykhail shrugged. “You’re my best friend. You helped me get home when I fell from that tree, remember?”

  Asher tried to smile, but only half of his face responded, the other half numb. “They’ll be expecting fish,” he said.

  “We can only tell them the truth,” Mykhail said. “Papa says good Ukrainian boys always tell the truth.”

  They started walking.

  Once the cluster of thatched, whitewashed shacks came into sight, the boys’ pace slowed, as if each was trying to be the last one to arrive.

  Eventually, Mykhail took the lead and strode into the farmyard.

  His papa was busy grooming one of the horses, but stopped and flashed a smile when he saw his son. He hurried over, rubbing his hands on his overalls and chewing on nothing, as though priming his digestive system. His eyes darted around his own son, then Asher. “Where are the fish?” He struggled to hold his smile, which turned sickly before falling.

  Asher looked to Mykhail, who shook his head.

  “You didn’t catch any? None at all?”

  “We were robbed,” Mykhail said.

  His papa dropped the brush and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Robbed? Are you okay?”

  “They stole all our catch.”

  Mykhail’s papa cursed but didn’t take his eyes off his son. “Did you fight them?” he said.

  “They were much bigger than us.”

  “But you put up a fight, yes?”

  Mykhail looked at Asher, and so did his papa.

  Asher patted the dried blood on his chin and clothes. “We tried, Mr. Petrenko. Mykhail punched one of them and I kicked the other.”

  Mykhail’s papa turned his attentions to Asher, peering at his face, holding his jaw and turning it left and right. “You have a split lip there, Asher. And a nasty bruise. Any loose teeth?”

  Asher shook his head.

  “And you . . .” Now he spoke to his son. “Did you take any blows?”

  Mykhail made to speak but instead just stared at his papa.

  “He’s a better fighter than I am,” Asher said. “So he didn’t get hurt.”

  “But I gave one of them a black eye,” Mykhail added, with that same straight expression.

  His papa’s gaze hopped between one boy and the other for a few seconds, before the man gave a well-considered nod. “Good,” he said, and gave his son a slap on the back. “You didn’t give up without a fight. You’re good Ukrainian boys.”

  That evening, the two families ate together. As usual, the talk was more plentiful than the food.

  The eight of them thanked God that they had some food at all when so many didn’t, then ate in silence for a few minutes. There was potato soup with matzos, a little cream, a few raisins, and water.

  “I’m sorry,” Mykhail said.

  “What for?” Asher’s sister, Rina, said.

  “Well, I . . .” Mykhail stopped and looked across to his papa for approval.

  “Mykhail and Asher caught some fish today,” Mykhail’s papa said, sullen-faced. “But they were robbed.”

  “These are desperate times,” Asher’s papa said.

  Mykhail’s papa harrumphed. “And we all know whose fault it is. If the—”

  “Never mind that,” Asher’s mama said. She looked at her husband. “Hirsch, tell me what happened with the boys today. You told me the fish weren’t biting.”

  “I’m sorry, Golda. I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “Worry me?” She stared at her son. “I thought your face looked a little swollen, and I was right. Well, that’s it. No more fishing trips for my son—not without one of the men.”

  Asher and Mykhail stopped chewing for a moment and looked at each other.

  “We can discuss it later,” Asher’s papa said to his wife. “Let’s eat, not talk.”

  For a few minutes, the only sounds were clinks of spoon on bowl and a few slurps.

  Then Asher’s mama let her spoon rest on the bowl and wiped a tear from her face. “This is our only son, and we need him to risk his life to feed us?”

  “Later, Golda.”

  “No, we won’t talk about it later. He’s not going anywhere without an adult.”

  Mykhail’s mama, silent until now, cleared her throat and said quietly, “I agree.” She looked at her husband. “The same goes for our son. It’s no use pretending, Dmytro. We’ve all heard the stories.”

  “What stories?” Asher’s eldest sister, Keren, said.

  “Please, Iryna, no,” Asher’s papa said before the question could be answered. “Not at the dinner table.”

  She stared defiantly at him. “But everyone needs to know, Hirsch. My sister on the other side of the village has a friend. Her daughter was sent to fetch water from the well, but on the way there she was killed and . . . so they say . . . eaten.”

  Her husband shot her a stiff glance. “Hirsch is right,” he said. “We are all eating, Iryna. Eating! Stop talking like this.”

  “Yes, well . . . Yes, you’re right, I’m sorry.”

  Asher’s mama picked up her spoon and pointed it at her husband. “I kept telling you. We should have gone to Warsaw with my sister.”

  “Well, we can’t go now. The borders are sealed and people are shot for trying to leave the country.”

  Mykhail’s papa slammed the palm of his hand down onto the table. “Damn the Russians! They stop us leaving, but when we stay they take our produce, give us so little in return, stop us buying and selling. Did you know that my cousin was arrested for trying to sell some of his hay?”

  “The Russian people are suffering too,” Asher’s papa said.

  “So we are told. But in Ukraine, we know. We only see a little but we all know. Whoever we talk to, the stories are the same: thousands of dead bodies lying in the cities—probably hundreds of thousands.”

  “But not us. We’re surviving.”

  “But for how long?” Asher’s mama said.

  “Not very long if we don’t eat what we have.” Asher’s papa pointed a finger down at the table. “Now, please. Everyone. What’s happening is ter
rible. But let’s eat, not talk.”

  They nodded, and soon they were all eating in silence.

  Mykhail was first to finish, and sat with his arms folded. He coughed. Then again.

  “Yes, you can leave the table,” his mama said wearily.

  He jumped to the floor and ran around the table. “Papa, can I sit on the tractor?”

  “Of course.” Mr. Petrenko patted his son on the head. “Perhaps one day you can show me how to use it.” He forced a laugh.

  Mykhail left, and Asher started to eat more quickly, eyeing the door every so often.

  “At least the tractor is free,” Mykhail’s mama said. “And the fuel too.”

  “Free?” Mykhail’s papa said. “Free? Pah! Nothing under the Russians is free.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He means we pay in other ways,” Asher’s papa said. “In return for the tractor we’ll have to give most of our crops to the state.”

  “Oh, yes,” Mykhail’s papa said. “Also we have to produce the crops they tell us to, not what we need. And then they have the nerve to tell us it’s all for the greater good of our beloved Soviet comrades.”

  Asher placed his empty bowl down on the table, making as much noise as he could.

  “Oh, go on,” his mama said before he had the chance to ask to be excused from the table.

  He scurried out and ran all the way to the barn where they kept the tractor, and found Mykhail sitting on the seat, making his best engine noises.

  Asher clambered up, and the boys were shoulder to shoulder.

  “Can’t you see?” Mykhail shouted above the imagined noise. “I’m driving.”

  “I’ll drive with you,” Asher shouted back.

  Ten minutes later, they were still making noises, smoothing their hands around the huge steering wheel, and leaning left and right as they imagined the tractor turning. They both stopped when their papas came into the barn.

  “Papa,” Mykhail asked, “when are we going to use the tractor?”

  His papa looked at Asher’s papa. “It’s your farm, Hirsch. What do you think?”

  Asher’s papa took his cap off and scratched his head. “This new contraption? I’m not sure what to do with it.”

  “So why have we got it?” Asher asked.

  “Because we’re told we have to use it,” Mykhail’s papa said. “The Russians don’t think we can make our own decisions.”

  Asher’s papa wandered over to the rear of the contraption and rubbed his chin, pondering. “It’s a worry. Our horses are underweight. Perhaps this could help. It doesn’t need feeding.”

  “And the horses?” Mykhail’s papa said. “We let them die?”

  But Asher’s papa was still looking at the tractor. “I still don’t understand how it works. It pulls equipment just like a horse would. But what makes it move?”

  “You put gasoline in it,” Asher said.

  Mykhail pointed to the filler cap. “In there.”

  “Children,” Mykhail’s papa said. “What do they know?”

  “More than us by the sounds of it,” Asher’s papa said. “One year at school and they can run the farm better than us.”

  “Tractors,” Mykhail’s papa said. “What nonsense.”

  Chapter 2

  Dyovsta, Ukraine, 1936

  The men’s laughter turned out to be hollow. By their teenage years, Asher and Mykhail had worked out all there was to know about running a tractor. Air filters, carburetors, oil changes—Asher and Mykhail read the sheaf of papers that constituted a manual, asked questions at school, and read more books. The men eventually gave up trying to figure out how this modern metal horse worked, and just let their boys get on with it. The boys sometimes even drove the tractor, and between them they carried out most of the basic maintenance tasks, even giving advice to other farmers who had been encouraged by the state to use this new technology.

  The Petrenkos and the Kogans had jointly developed the farm, introducing new crops and improving yields, and there was now more food for the families, so the pain of empty stomachs was gone. Mykhail’s papa, however, never allowed anyone to forget the time of great famine, nor how some desperate people had coped with it, nor—most importantly—who was to blame for it.

  For a year or more, food had been sufficient, arguments rare, and smiles easy to come by, but now both boys sensed something else was around the corner. Their parents’ faces became sullen, there were whispered discussions, and there were silent meals. The boys talked on their fishing expeditions, or when tinkering with the tractor, but neither had any answers.

  One day, after breakfast, Asher’s papa ushered everyone out of the house.

  Except one.

  “Not you, Asher. Come over here.”

  As Asher’s sisters, Keren and Rina, passed by, they patted his shoulder and showed him pitying smiles.

  His papa pulled two chairs over to the stove and they sat together.

  “My son, there’s something I have to tell you.”

  Asher knew already that this would be no trivial matter, but his papa wore a frown and his voice was deep, his speech slow and staccato, which made Asher even more nervous.

  “I know you won’t like this, but . . .”

  “What? What’s wrong, Papa?” Asher wanted to smile, but it wouldn’t come.

  “We’re leaving the farm.”

  “All of us?”

  “Just the Kogans. The Petrenkos are staying.”

  “Including Mykhail?”

  “Mykhail has to stay with his parents. I’m sorry, Asher. We’re going to Warsaw.”

  “For how long?”

  Now Asher saw his papa’s eyes turn glassy. “I don’t know.”

  “But . . . what about the farm?”

  “Mr. Petrenko will look after it. In time, Mykhail will help more.”

  “And we’ll be coming back, won’t we?”

  Asher’s papa took a long breath and held his son by the shoulders. “Asher, I promise you. I give you my word. We will come back here one day, when things are better.”

  “Better?”

  “You’re a clever boy, Asher. You must have heard how the authorities are closing down Jewish schools and discouraging the use of Yiddish. But politicians change like the tides, and one day the situation will improve for us.”

  “I don’t want to go, Papa.”

  “I know, Asher, but try to be positive. I can get a factory job in Warsaw. So can Keren and Rina. You’ll probably end up at a better school.” A crooked smile played on his lips. “You might be able to study tractors—even those new motor car contraptions.”

  “But I want to stay here.”

  “Asher. Listen to me. Your mama misses your Aunt Freida; she’s wanted to go to Warsaw for some time now, but we couldn’t afford it. Now we’ve saved up a little money to get there and we think it’s for the best.”

  “You mean it’s best for Mama.”

  “Don’t be like that, Asher. She’s . . .” His papa struggled to carry on. As he took a breath, Asher jumped off the chair and ran for the door.

  “No! Asher! Wait!”

  But the boy was gone.

  A few seconds later, Asher wiped the tears from his face as he rounded the corner of the farmhouse, where Mama and Rina were hanging out the washing.

  His mama smiled sadly. “So, your papa’s told you.”

  “I don’t want to go, Mama. I’ll be lonely and I want to stay here.”

  “Oh, Asher. I know you’ll miss Mykhail, but Warsaw is a big city with so many things to see and do. You’ll make new friends, just like your sisters will.”

  “But why can’t Aunt Freida come here instead? Why do we have to go there? Why, Mama, why?”

  “It’s . . . safer.”

  “Safer?”

  Rina handed the washing basket to her mama and crouched down in front of Asher, her brown eyes large and warm looking up at him. “Asher. Listen to me. I promise that you won’t be lonely.”

  “But w
hy do we have to go?”

  “Well . . .” She looked up to the clear sky, using her hand to shield her eyes from the brightness. It wasn’t long before she pointed into the distance. “Look over there, Asher.”

  “You mean the birds?”

  “Yes. Have you ever wondered why they flock together—why each one doesn’t just fly off wherever it pleases?”

  Asher stared at the cloud of dark spots constantly changing shape.

  “You see, they do that because they feel safer when there are lots of them together.”

  Asher nodded, although he didn’t really understand. But perhaps life in Warsaw wouldn’t be so bad after all, not with a sister like Rina.

  At the same time, in the smaller farmhouse, Mr. Petrenko was breaking the same news to his son.

  “But we get the farm,” he said. “Isn’t that good?”

  “I don’t want the farm,” Mykhail said. “I want the Kogans. I want everything to stay the same. Why can’t everything stay the same?”

  Pain briefly flashed across his papa’s face. “Nothing can stay the same, Mykhail. They want to be with their own kind. You’ll learn to accept it, and eventually you’ll make more friends. The harvests are getting bigger. And now the laws have changed to allow us to sell some of what we produce, so we can pay people to work.”

  “But I don’t want other friends.”

  “Trust me, Mykhail. Be a good Ukrainian boy and be strong. Things will get better from now on. I promise.” His fist playfully nudged his son’s chest. “And when you make more friends you can go fishing with them, yes?”

  Mykhail looked down at his feet and nodded slowly.

  “Are you crying?”

  Mykhail sniffed and shook his head. A moment later, he sensed a rare closeness as his papa put an arm around his shoulder. He smelled the stale earth and sweat, then heard the words, whispered with coarse passion: “Good boy. You’re nearly a man now. Be strong. Strong Ukrainian boys don’t cry.”

  For days after the Kogans left the farm both boys felt numb inside, and each had their own way of dealing with the problem.

  Asher kept asking his parents about Warsaw—whether they had motor cars there, whether there were rivers to fish in, whether he would have his own room to sleep in, how many people lived in the city—and eventually his mama told him to wait and see, to just enjoy the train journey.