In the Land of Armadillos (23 page)

One of them glanced up, catching her eye. Shayna looked away, remembering the way the fishmonger's blood had pooled around the cobblestones, but it was too late; the soldier separated himself from his comrades and blocked her way.

“Good morning, miss,” he said, as if he were delighted to see her. He assured her she wasn't in trouble, it was just that he and his companions had a friendly little competition going. Which of these ladies could do the most push-ups, they wondered. Could she help them out?

Beaming benignly, another soldier took the horse's bridle, stroked his head as Shayna climbed down from her seat. Maybe she wasn't moving quickly enough, maybe he didn't like the look on her face. He smashed the butt of his rifle into the side of her head, knocking her off her feet.

The soldiers parted to make room for her to pass. Inside the circle, three women were waiting on their hands and knees on the cold paving stones. The place he guided her to was already occupied by a steaming pile of horseshit.

I'm dead,
she thought, tears stinging her eyes.
Will Hersh ever know what happened to me?

The soldier leaned close, smiling confidentially. “Go on. You're younger than the other ones. I'm betting on you.” He winked. “Don't let me down.”

Shayna lowered herself onto the pile of manure.

The officer's cap was pushed back on his head, his cheeks flushed with excitement and the cold. He held a stopwatch in his hand as he counted off
eins, zwei, drei.

For the first set of push-ups, she held her breath, almost blind with the pain and odor. But with the deprivation of oxygen to her muscles, she soon found her arms weakening, her pace slowing. It was suicide. Giving in, she gasped great lungfuls of stinking air. The stench filled her nostrils, made her light-headed, made her eyes water.

Up, down. Up, down. Up, down.
She was careful to keep her face blank, expressionless, but her injured eye leaked continuously. For a while she kept track of the numbers, and then she lost count.

The woman to her left collapsed first. Shayna was conscious of the harsh wheeze of labored breathing as a pair of polished boots clicked slowly to a stop behind her head. There was a moment that felt like forever, and then a gunshot exploded near her ear, the report ricocheting off of the buildings surrounding the square.

The woman beside her jerked violently, lay still. When the boots had clicked away to a safe distance, Shayna dared a glance. Recognizing the staring blue eyes, the astounded round mouth, she went weak in the knees, her pace slowing.

“Come on,” the soldier's voice was nearby, encouraging her. “You can't stop now! One down, two to go.”

Her chest was on fire, her head throbbed.
Up, down. Up, down. Up, down.
Every movement an agony. It wouldn't be long now.

A pair of cognac-colored oxfords stopped at the edge of her field of vision. The soldiers stiffened to attention. With the sound of Reinhart's hearty voice, she felt tension spark and fizzle in the air. He made a crude joke, the soldiers laughed knowingly, and then the crisis was over, the soldiers drifting apart, strolling away.

Shayna swayed to her feet. She put a hand to her forehead, recoiled from the stink of her own clothing. Her bruised eye had swelled shut.

Reinhart was standing right in front of her. “Mirsky?” he said softly. Incredulity, followed by rage, blazed in his bright green eyes, hidden under the wide brim of his fedora. Then the expression was carefully tucked away, the clean-shaven face urbane and bland and smooth again. “You should see a doctor.”

“I'm fine, Herr Kommandant,” she said stiffly. “I just want to go home.”

He nodded toward the corpse on the dirty cobblestones. “Who is she?”

“Zimmer. She sold eggs in the marketplace.” Her voice wobbled. “She knew my mother.”

Reinhart averted his gaze. “Don't come back here anymore,” he said in a low, tense voice, just loud enough for Shayna to hear. “You understand? Don't come back.”

With a swirl of caramel-colored coattails he strode off, instructing the soldiers to unload the bags at the bakery and escort his miller and her horse safely out of town.

It took a staggering amount of effort to climb back onto the seat. The soldier who had struck her was now as polite as could be. Shayna struggled to keep her composure as he cheerfully unloaded the flour, then swung himself up into the wagon. She could hear him whistling as they rolled away. At the edge of town, he swung back off.

“I still think you would have won,” he said, grinning engagingly. “And what a prize I had waiting for you!” He winked. Shouldering his rifle, he stopped to light up a cigarette, then strolled at a leisurely pace down the road that led back to town.

Shayna lashed the reins over the horse's shoulders. Toni leaped forward, almost tossing her out of the seat. In a frenzy of fear, she whipped the reins against the horse's neck until he was going at a full gallop.

When she reached home, the courtyard was empty. Shayna uncoupled the wagon and led the horse into the barn. He gave a sympathetic whinny and nudged his big head into her side. Exhausted, her head throbbing, Shayna finally dared to look at herself in a cracked vanity mirror hanging from a nail next to Toni's stall.

She was covered in shit from head to toe; it was caked in a solid coat across her thighs, her chest, her sleeves. Stench rose around her like a cloud of carrion birds. Her injured eye seemed unable to stop weeping.

They were all Golems now, the Jews of Europe, forced to commit the same acts again and again like machines, free choice a dim memory. Automatically performing their duties until told to stop, easily replaced, their lives in the hands of the men who called themselves their Masters. The first helpless sobs burst from her throat.

Yossel was in the empty stall, watching her. Something moved in the blank face, struggled for life in the shadowy eyes. With the tip of his index finger, he traced the black and purple stripe that crossed the orbit of her eye and ran down her cheekbone.

He left the barn, moving quickly and with purpose. Her stink had chased away even him, she thought dully. But he returned with pails of hot water, sloughed them into a washtub he set in the straw. Steam curled lazily into the air as he pushed the shawl back from her face.

His long fingers worked the buttons of her coat, undressing her as if she were a child. He unpinned her hair, shaking out the plaits of her braid; freed, it splashed down her back like a puddle. He unfastened her sweater, then her skirt, letting them slip down around her ankles. With great care he untied her boots, sliding the muddy, hobnailed things from her feet as if they were holy relics. He went down on his knees to roll the thick wool stockings down her legs.

When she was stripped down to her underwear, he lifted her, carried her to the tin washtub. Dipping a cloth into the water, he washed gently around her blackened eye, rinsing away layers of blood and muck until she was clean.

With the washcloth, he massaged along the nape of her neck, down the length of her arms to the tips of her fingers. He made slow, lyrical circles on her back, sweeping the flannel over her belly, her thighs, her knees. Emotions dawned one by one across the planes of his face, shaped by the liturgy of flickering shadows. There was a ragged catch in his breath as he passed the cloth over the swelling of her breasts, down the slope of her bottom.

He made her close her eyes as he poured the last of the warm water over her head. Clean water ran in rivulets from her hair, down her body, draining away into the dirty straw.

Steam rose from her skin in the cold of the barn. Yossel towered over her, massive in the yellow light of the kerosene lamp.

“Shayna,” he wondered in his dusty, disused voice. Putting his hands on either side of her face, he kissed her.

He laid her down in the hay. She didn't see when he took off his clothes. Then he was kneeling over her, his skin pale and smooth and smelling of green fields and mowed grass and children's games and summertime. His chest was so deep and broad, she couldn't reach all the way around him. She buried her face in the curve between his neck and shoulder and gripped him between her thighs, and for just a little while, everything was all right.

*  *  *

It was already dark when the soldiers came for Achim, the German farm boy. His chair made a scraping sound on the floor as he pushed away from the dinner table. A few minutes later he reappeared in the kitchen, dressed in his uniform. There was a moment of awkwardness, as if he wasn't sure which group he belonged to anymore. “All right, let's get going,” he said sheepishly, gesturing with his rifle.

They were walking to Włodawa, where they would meet up with other Jews from the Lublinskie province. From there, they would get on trains for resettlement. No need to pack food or belongings; everything would be provided at their destination.

Shayna's fingers shook, making it difficult to button her coat. Fear bled through every thought, the way frigid air bled through the seams of her clothes as she shut the kitchen door behind her.

The nine occupants of the Mirsky mill joined the convocation of Jews waiting outside, collected from the many little towns nearby. They were quiet for such a large crowd. There must have been two hundred and fifty of them, shepherded by five soldiers with rifles. As they tramped down the road, Shayna peered back toward the place that had housed her family for generations, the mill a landmark in these parts, but it had already been swallowed up by darkness.

The barren fields along the road were a ghostly white in the moonlight. Dogs barked at them from each shuttered farmhouse they passed. Shayna had no illusions about where the Jews of the Lublinskie province were headed. She couldn't bear to look at Hersh, pale and frightened, his face sunk deep in the collar of his coat. If she had listened to him, they might have been safe in the forests with the partizans. His birthday was next month, he was going to be eighteen, a man. This year he had finally managed to coax forth a blond wisp of beard. Tears leaked continuously from her injured eye. All those tales of miracles and wonders, did they give him comfort now?

The column of Jews wavered, came to a halt. Word passed down the line. They were turning off the main road, into the Parczew Forest.

To her left, Yossel grew agitated. She could see him trying to glance ahead and then behind them, his breath gusting out in great plumes, like Toni when something disturbed him. She took his hand and wove her fingers through his, hoping to calm him. Hersh's jaw dropped open in surprise.

From somewhere far ahead they could hear commands shouted in German, a burst of caustic laughter, something that popped like a string of firecrackers. The guards looked relieved. German soldiers disliked the forests around Włodawa, rife with saboteurs and partizan activity.

A corona of green light dawned in the night sky. Shayna caught her breath. The aurora borealis was rarely seen this far south. For a few minutes, it undulated gently among the stars. All at once, the great green ribbon flushed red.

A frenzy of strange sounds discharged all around them. A muffled whine. The screeching of birds, wheeling through the trees just overhead. The roar of an attacking bear grew in volume, then receded as it bounded through the woods. Branches shook as some huge beast galloped past them, just out of sight.

The Jews muttered among themselves, the guards glanced at each other uneasily. All down the line, they held their rifles at the ready, swinging their flashlights wildly at the underbrush.

To Shayna, it seemed like an opportunity. She whispered to Hersh, “They're distracted. If we're going to make a run for it, now's the time. There are only five of them.”

Hersh hissed furiously. “Are you crazy? He'll shoot us.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the soldier guarding them.

“They're going to shoot us anyway,” she said.

Sweat was making rings in the armpits of Achim's greatcoat. Breathing heavily, he swept his rifle at the woods, at the prisoners, at the woods again. In the flashlight's beam, Shayna could see that his eyes were round and fearful. She almost felt sorry for him.

Yossel followed Achim's movements with a troubled expression, his muscles jumping and straining under the skin. Perhaps he was frightened. Turning toward her, he laid his hand on the side of her face. “Shayna,” he said in his gravelly voice.

All the tenderness in the world resided in that one word. He leaned over, rested his head on top of her shining hair. Then he separated himself from her and launched himself at their guard.

Taken by surprise, Achim wheeled around, bringing up the barrel of his weapon. He managed to squeeze off a solitary burst before Yossel struck him to the ground. As if he were taking a toy from a child, Yossel took the gun out of his hands. With a single killing blow, Achim was dead.

Yossel climbed to his feet. He seemed to grow larger before her eyes, the muscles of his arms and legs and shoulders and chest rippling and swelling as if he were a giant in one of Hersh's stories. “Run,” he said.

A line of bullets drilled across Yossel's chest as he hurled himself at the next guard. The Jews fled, scattering in every direction. Hersh grabbed Shayna's wrist and dragged her into a thicket, where they lay flat in the underbrush.

They heard men shouting and pleading in German, the staccato rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire. The creak of leather boots running frantically back and forth, fewer at each pass. The snap of breaking branches, or was that bone? The desperate cries all creatures make when they're wounded. Shayna buried her face in the shoulder of Hersh's coat, put her hands over her ears.

The shooting grew sporadic, then ceased altogether. Eventually, so did the moaning. Quiet settled over the woods, more dreadful than the sounds that had preceded it.

Men came fanning through the brush now, calling furtively in Yiddish and in Polish. Soldiers of a Jewish partizan unit, seeking survivors. A man in the uniform of the Soviet army helped Shayna to her feet, told her she was safe. They had to move quickly, he said. The forest would be swarming with German soldiers by morning.