[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
oak was old and gnarled and he leane(
against it, borrowing from its strength. The woodcutt shoulder to shoulder,
clustered around Holz-Wadel. Stan apart was Rebbe, arms folded over his
massive chest. K, and Avenger were arm in arm, her red hair now braided well
below her shoulders. He had the start of a fine b golden feathers, on his chin
and cheeks.
Josef told them his plan. It was simple. It was direi deadly. He held out his
hand. "Will you come?"
One by one by one they had nodded and taken his haj for the boy who bit his
lip. "First, there is something to he said.
"What?" Josef asked, his voice smooth, but there waE
chill in his chest and belly, as if announcing the coming of
Ksi~iniczka smiled shyly and taking the boy's hand, sl it up to her breast.
"We wish to be married," she said. The they grasped Josef's hand.
Briar Rose
vith the ook
`~Ve em-
.1 as rhat arik
:ory arn.
e
Page 104
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
)a~k
Dod
. bit zka.
iing like
was
:ept le'll
den
Ws.
tght
:her
171
Three days later, the marriage was held under a canopy of sticks and leaves
threaded through with vines. The woodcutters and Rebbe and Josef stood at the
corners of the chuppa to give the bride away.
One of the partisans, a real rabbi who had somehow managed to keep his white
fringed tallis through the months of living in the woods, said the words over
the couple as he remembered them, for he had no prayer book. Those who had no
head coverings wore makeshift hats of wood. The few women converted petticoats
into headscarves. One even tatted a bridal veil from the tassels of the
rabbi's tallis.
The bride was given the marriage name of Eve. "Because," the rabbi said, "you
are the first woman to be married here in the woods and because Ksi#niczka is
not a Jewish name." The groom offered his own real name: Aron Mandlestein.
There was no singing; it would have been too dangerous. But when the rabbi
pronounced them husband and wife in the sight of
God and the groom kissed his bride shyly but with growing enthusi-
asm, a murmur ran around the ragtag forest congregation.
"Mazel toy, " they all whispered, and Holz-Wadel explained to
Josef that it meant "good luck."
'Mazel toy, " Josef whispered, too, though his eyes had begun to
fog with tears and he turned away from the sight of all that happi-
ness.
Then men with men and women with women-and the bride with the groom-they began
to dance to no music at all around the clearing, the only sound their feet
shuffling through the fallen leaves.
Josef stood apart, leaning against a tree, remembering Paris, Vienna, Berlin.
Remembering Alan. Remembering life as it used to be and could never be again.
The nine of them left in the morning, tracking back towards
Chelmno, returning out of life to death. It was late November 1943.
The woods were grey with the end of fall. Few birds sang. Then very early in
the morning, the sky threatening rain, they came at last to the thinning-out
of the forest less than a kilometer from the
Chelmno fields. They did not know that in the year since they had been gone,
the camp had been disbanded, then reinstated. That in the year since they had
rescued Ksiqiniczka from the pit, transports to Chelmno out of the Lodz ghetto
had resumed at an accelerated
172
Jane Men
Page 105
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
rate. That crematoria had been built in the fields to facilitate problem of
dealing with dead bodies as well as to aid in the recl,, tion of dental gold.
That the numbers of guards had multiplic
And even if they had known, they would have come back.
They stopped by the Narew to wash, the men first and ther girl, not so much to
bathe but to prepare themselves for the i ing fight. They dipped their hands
into the water and anoi their heads with it. Rebbe washed his hands over and
over over again, muttering Hebrew prayers. Then the men climbe and turned away
to let Ksi~iniczka take her turn.
She slid down the embankment and was just bending ovi wash her face when the
machine guns split the grey air with chatter.
Holz-Wadel fell first, face down into the hard-packed e
Rebbe fell on top of him. Aron-Avenger-was next and he rn~
funny sound as he went down, part gasp, part cry. Ash and R(
threw themselves to the ground and tried to crawl towards hirr the bullets hit
them simultaneously, shattering both their hea thoroughly, they no longer
looked human.
Josef had been standing somewhat apart from them and s(
had a moment to try and flee to the Narew. He never saw happened to the rest.
A bullet caught him in the leg as he turnei he went down the embankment,
tumbling toward the rive:
Ksiq~niczka who was still bent over. He knocked them both ini cold water.
She screamed out Aaron's name and tried to scramble up tc but Josef grabbed on
to her and held her down, partially to ke(
from her death but also because at the moment all thoughts es~
him and he was simply too terrified to let go. The pull of the caught them and
they floated entwined in one another's downstream, chilled to the bone but
otherwise unscathed.
After several meandering turns, they managed to haul them out of the river and
climb the embankment. Ksi~iniczka had t
Josef after her, for his right shin had been shattered. Alteri dragging him
and cursing him, she got him into the woods.
They clung together that night for warmth, not love, and we morning for the
others. But mostly for Aron.
She bound up Josef's leg and made a splint for it, using the
Briar Rose
she still had because it had been in a sheath held fast by her belt.
Neither of them had managed to keep their guns.
Somehow they made it back through the woods over days or weeks, Josef was
never to be sure. He was feverish much of the time.
His memories of the trip back remained forever phantasmagoric.
The one thing he could clearly recall was lying on his back, staring up
through the canopy of trees, and thinking that the stars were until the first
ones hit his face and he realized it was snow.
Two weeks after they found a group of partisans, the fever gone and his leg
mending, but crookedly, Josef looked around for Ksiqi-
niczka, but could not see her anywhere. As had become usual for him, he
panicked when she was not close by, and he asked some of the women if they
knew where she was. They pointed to one of the paths and he limped down it,
looking for her.
She was kneeling in a small clearing, and at first he thought she was weeping.
But she was not. She was vomiting quietly and efficiently into a small hole
she had dug.
When he touched her shoulder, she turned around, simulta-
Page 106
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
eously wiping her mouth with her sleeve.
"Are you ill?" he asked.
I am with child," she said. "And I will not let it die."
So they forged papers for her in the name of Eva Potocki, and
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]