Authors: Gemma Liviero
“But first, as Tobin says, you can earn your keep and help us steal some weapons from the station.”
I pause before nodding.
The night is cold and I am glad that Femke made me take a coat. Kaleb goes to light a fire in the fireplace with matches but I offer the silver lighter. He examines it and raises his eyebrows.
“A spoil of war,” he says casually. I do not tell him that its real value is the initials of the man I have dreamt of killing. He hands back the lighter and looks at my clothes.
“It will be winter soon. Is that all you have? Do you have anything warmer—hats, gloves, proper walking shoes?”
“I don’t intend to be away from home for long.”
The two boys look at each other and Tobin shakes his head, as if they know something that they are not willing to share. They then turn their attention to a discussion of tactics. It seems that I am required to spot for them, which means to hide, look out, and whistle if we are unsafe. They ask me to whistle. It is pretty good, I think, but they tell me it needs to sound more like a bird. I practice several times to get it right. I used to whistle on the way to school so it does not take me long to sound how they want me to. Tobin looks at his watch and says that we leave at midnight. There is only half a moon tonight.
They both came from Cracow and went to the same school but the boys weren’t friends before the war. It makes sense. They don’t appear to be anything alike.
Rebekah moves near the warmth of the fire. I watch her purposeful movements as she brushes the dirt away from the hearth, then from her skirt.
Tobin whispers to me when Kaleb moves away from the table: “Eyes off. She’s mine.”
I can’t believe what he says, as Rebekah hardly makes contact with Tobin and only directs her questions to her brother. Tobin gets up and walks outside to relieve himself.
When I ask Rebekah if she needs help, she ignores me. She does not seem to like me.
Kaleb leans towards me. “Don’t mind my sister. She has taken this hard.”
“I can’t see what other way to take it,” I say. “It seems she does not like me here.”
“She can appear sour but that is not what’s in her heart. You survive or you don’t. That’s how you have to see it. That’s how she is living. That’s how we all are now.”
What he says sounds reasonable, considering our circumstance. However, something about his statement makes us sound less human—primitive, almost. It is as if we are facing life or death, without any of the good things in between. But Kaleb is kinder than Tobin, who has an edge that makes me nervous—as if at any moment he will change into some other kind of animal.
“So what happened to you?” I ask.
“It is a long story. Now is not the time.”
I find my bag and take out the contents. The leather cover of my drawing book is scuffed but the pages are dry and the pencil is still there. I draw the fireplace with the remains of the burnt wood and ash, and the fresh woodpile beside, and the empty chair beside that. I make the chair extra large as if it might belong to a king or a giant, or perhaps a boy who believes he is bigger than he is.
Tobin does not come back in. He is sitting outside smoking a cigarette. Kaleb has joined him now. I can hear them discussing things together. Sometimes my name is mentioned. I continue to draw and fail to notice that Rebekah has moved behind me to view my work.
“It’s good,” she says, startling me.
I am suddenly embarrassed. “It’s adequate,” I say.
“Do you have other pictures?”
I turn the pages. Inside are pictures of my mother sleeping after she became sick, of Greta, and of Femke. There are pictures of cows, a caricature of my teacher and friends, and the barn in our fields. Rebekah turns each page over gently as if she is handling something precious.
She stops at the picture of my mother. “She appears to be sleeping.”
“She was.”
“I don’t think she was,” says Rebekah. “I think she knew you were there. She is listening to everything. She is not rested. She wishes she could speak.”
While Rebekah is distracted—studying the face of Mama—I notice several things about her: the translucency of her skin, her long fingers, and the curve of her back.
“She looks beautiful. What is she like?”
The question takes me by surprise. I have to think about this because I have never had to put Mama in words.
“She is not tall or small.”
Rebekah is staring at me as if every word is important.
“What about
her
? What is she like?”
“Oh, umm, she was busy, always busy. She loved my father and my father loved her. She didn’t cook well but she got better . . .”
“Your poor mother, to have such a son who does not appreciate her.”
“Why?” I say, suddenly offended. I love my mother and this person knows nothing about me.
“If she dies, that is all you are going to say?”
“She is not going to die.”
Rebekah stares at me with angry eyes. “Boys are so stupid,” she says and walks to the fire, her back to me.
I am confused by her. I don’t know what it is that has upset her. I am putting my drawing book back in my bag as the others enter. They tell me that I must be ready in an hour and to get some rest in the meantime. Rebekah goes into the small room that was mine during my recuperation. I feel gratefulness towards her for looking after me, for sacrificing her room, but she is gone and the door is shut before I can make eye contact.
The boys climb into small cots and I lie on some blankets near the fire. Tobin is snoring and I cannot fall asleep. Kaleb stays awake in his cot near the door. Some time later, Kaleb wakes Tobin and then shakes my shoulder, even though I am already awake. “We must go,” he says.
As we head out the door, I say that I have forgotten something. Before Tobin can turn to complain, I re-enter the cabin and knock on Rebekah’s door. When I don’t hear anything, I open it slightly.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “For taking care of me when I was sick.”
I rush out of the cabin and sense that Tobin is scowling at me in the dark.
We walk for nearly three hours over rough terrain. The boys have been this way several times before but I do not know what I am walking into, what to expect. They carry their firearms in readiness.
We are heading up a hill and I can see the lights of a small village ahead.
“This is it,” says Tobin. “See that house over there?” He points, but I do not know which house he is talking about. “That is where the Germans sleep and dream about our women. We will go to that house and steal the firearms, and we will kill them while they sleep.”
“No!” says Kaleb. “You know we can’t do that. If they wake, we shoot, but only then. We steal food and guns and come and go silently, and hope they don’t kill
us
.”
The mission is sounding more difficult, and I am suddenly fearful. We spread mud on our cheeks and slowly creep into the town. Only one room in the house is lit.
Kaleb is the tallest and peers through the windows to find where they store the ammunition. He reports back to Tobin and me where we are crouched beside the road, near a fence.
“There is a closed room where I think they must store their ammunition and supplies. There is only one soldier on duty that I can see. But there are other coats hanging on a hook, which means there are probably more men sleeping in another room.”
“We have to kill the guard then.”
“Stop saying that! If we kill him, the noise will wake them up. We will walk in and tell him to be silent. I will hold the gun on him while you go and retrieve everything you can from the storeroom. Henrik will wait on the other side of the house to alert us if there are others who wake.”
Tobin doesn’t nod, but the fact that he has said nothing means that the plan is going ahead, and they both stand to walk towards the back door. I follow with a lump in my throat and a heart that is threatening to burst through my rib cage. Tobin uses a piece of wire to unlock the door. It is one of his many skills that he bragged about earlier: breaking and entering. At the time I did not see how he could consider this as some sort of skill or honor, though, watching him now, I am impressed.
As I walk to the other side of the house, I glance through a different window that allows me to see inside from another angle. The German on duty is standing while Kaleb points a rifle at him. There is silence from within. Kaleb and Tobin do not say a word. I need to see if there are other soldiers in the house, sleeping. I walk farther around the building and roll a nearby log quietly to the base of a window of a darkened room. I climb onto the log to peer in. Light from the main part of the house shines into the open doorway of this room and I can see two beds, each with a form lying on it.
Through the doorway I can see that the on-duty soldier has his hands on his head and is facing towards the window where I am peering in. Our eyes meet and the shock of it causes me to hold my breath. Kaleb stays very still and silent as he holds the gun while Tobin tries to pick the lock of the room that supposedly contains the ammunition. But this action seems to be taking a long time. I wonder why there is no key.
The form in one of the beds stirs and then changes position. I duck my head down quickly, then slowly raise it. When I peer in again, he is sitting upright at the edge of the bed. If he turns right, he will see Tobin and Kaleb and the gun pointed at the head of the soldier. Tobin has been unsuccessful in unlocking the storage room door. I whistle to alert the boys, and tap on the glass to divert the attention of the sleepy German. Then I jump off the log and sit beneath the window. I hear the window being pushed open—wood scraping wood.
“Who’s there?” says a voice above me, and I hear the click of his gun.
“I am lost,” I say. I stretch and twist my neck so that I can just see the tip of the gun an inch back from the edge of the sill. I jump up to grab it, jerking it from enemy hands. It slips through his fingers—which is the last thing he is expecting—and I run back around the house to the other side. By this time, both Germans who were sleeping have no doubt seen Kaleb and Tobin. I have used a gun before and I fire this one into the air to scare the Germans, but I am unprepared for its force and it throws me back onto the ground. Kaleb and Tobin tear out of the back door.
“Run!” they yell without looking at me, and I follow them towards the forest. I do not turn around, but I don’t have to. There are German voices at the back door and the soldiers are firing their guns in our direction. We run fast through the forest for thirty minutes or more, until we have all lost our breath.
Tobin is angry. “I told you we should have killed them. There were only three. All we got is one gun from the guard.”
I hold up the other one that I have taken.
There is surprise on their faces, which are half-hidden in the night, and then Kaleb laughs as I tell them how I grabbed the gun.
“That was you who took the first shot?”
I nod.
“It seems that the boy has some talents after all,” Kaleb says. “You should come and join the resistance.”
Tobin scowls and curses.
“Enough, Tobin!” says Kaleb. “Two guns are better than none.” But Tobin is not yet over his anger. It seems the key to the storeroom was with one of the sleeping men. Tobin does not put blame on his inability to open the door, but rather on the fact that there was no killing—something I am starting to believe he wishes to engage in more for pleasure than out of necessity.
We return, exhausted, to the cabin. It is still dark, and Kaleb and Tobin throw themselves onto their cots. I take my place beside the fire again but it is hours before I can fall asleep. The excitement from the raid is keeping me awake. I have never felt this exhilarated and it is Kaleb’s approving eyes that I remember as I am falling asleep, listening to the wind whistling through the gaps in the walls and shutters.
C
HAPTER
18
Daylight. My eyes are crusty and hard to open. It is cold and Rebekah is leaning over the stove, trying to stoke the sparks on the twigs into flame. Once she is successful, she goes back to stirring the oats.
Kaleb is still asleep but Tobin sits at the table, his eyes following the girl.
“We have to eat like horses again,” Tobin says to me as I approach the table, as if I might have something to say about it too.
I sit down, just grateful that there is a meal. “If it is good for horses, it is good for me,” I say. I sneak a look at Rebekah’s face, which is paler today and expressionless, as usual. Tobin does not like what I said. This is written clearly across his face. Opposition, it seems, is something he is not expecting from me, and he is stunned into silence.
Kaleb wakes and stretches, and as he walks past, he pats me on the head like a favorite pet. Rebekah spoons porridge into each of our bowls. It smells good and tastes even better. I remember complaining to Mama about the same food, just like Tobin does, and I wish now that I had never made a fuss.
Tobin eats like a pig, with his snout in his bowl. Rebekah doesn’t say anything; she does not even look his way, as if she is used to such manners. If Mama or Femke were here, there would be a smack to the back of his head.
“Why are there no partisans around here?” I ask.
Tobin says that the partisans built the cabin when they escaped to the forest and stayed here until they found better lodgings farther west. Now that my head is clearer I can see the gaps between the uneven timber slats. The cabin was made in haste with crude, miscellaneous materials: uncut pine, stolen fence posts, and train sleepers. The wood oven is small and was perhaps stolen also. The toilet is a hole in the ground behind the cabin. I ask Tobin what time we will be leaving and he says not until the following day. I feel angry because I must get to Cracow to search for Greta.
Tobin complains that we must go back and try again to steal the Germans’ guns, but Kaleb shakes his head. “That would be madness,” he says. “They will be waiting for us this time.”
“No,” says Tobin. “They will not think we are stupid enough to try it two nights in a row. It is the last thing they will be expecting.”
I see Tobin’s reasoning but Kaleb is right. They will be more watchful and nervous.
Later, when Tobin goes outside to relieve himself—which he always does loudly, always close to the window—I ask Kaleb why we are not leaving until the next day.
Kaleb twists his mouth in regret. “Sorry, Henrik,” he says, “but we have decided not to leave tomorrow.”
“I have to find my sister,” I say.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “We need more guns and food before we return to the others. We have to find them somewhere else. We have promised that we will return with them.”
“Promised who?”
“The partisans. The ones we are working with,” he says slowly, as if I haven’t understood. “The ones who sent us to search for weapons and return with them. Our mission is not yet complete.”
Kaleb sees the look on my face.
“The moment we steal some more we will leave, and you would do best to wait and travel with us. Our base is in the same direction as Cracow. It will be safer for you in a group. Do you want to come to another village with us tonight?”
I think about it before I answer. I think that we were lucky the first time and I’m already feeling butterflies in my stomach at the thought of more danger. But then I remember the rush of stealing the gun, and I wonder if I am capable of doing more. I don’t want to go out again, but neither do I want to travel the forest alone. I nod.
“Perhaps you can steal some food while Tobin and I look for guns.” He glances around, then talks more quietly. “Listen . . . Tobin is not happy that you are eating our food, but if you contribute, there will be nothing for him to complain about.”
“Maybe I should just leave.”
“No. It will be fine. I like you here anyway. I think Rebekah likes you here too.”
I look across to Rebekah, who does not appear to be listening. She never looks at me and I can’t think why he would even say that. She is hostile, in her silence, to everyone. Tobin returns to pace the cabin. He looks at me with something close to menace. I do not like the way his eyes dart around and then suddenly home in on me at times. He is restless, the cabin too small. I am relieved when he finally goes outside again. Kaleb checks his gun and polishes it with a cloth.
Sounds of gunfire ring out through the forest, cracking the air in two and scattering the birds that have not yet departed from the approaching winter. Kaleb walks outside to investigate and I follow.
“What are you doing?” Kaleb asks Tobin. “You are wasting ammunition. We are supposed to be bringing some back, not using it.”
“I am testing the gun.”
“Then stop it!”
But Tobin ignores Kaleb and fires several more times. I do not want to hear their arguments and I walk towards the stream. There are more shots fired behind me, and then the shooting stops.
As I come nearer to the stream, I can see her through the trees. Her dark hair shines a lighter shade of brown in the sunlight. One long plait hangs over the front of each shoulder. She is bathing in the icy water, wearing only a cream lace slip, like the ones my mother used to wear in Germany.
For a few moments I watch her soap her thin white arms and then feel guilty that I am watching. I step towards her noisily—on purpose—and the crunching of leaves causes her to turn sharply.
As I approach, she looks at me directly. “Do you always spy on girls?”
“I wasn’t spying.” I wonder how she knows, then presume that she is merely speculating, angry at the interruption.
I take off my shirt and splash some water on my face and neck.
“I want to thank you again for taking care of me.”
“It was nothing.” She looks at me with eyes half lidded. I detect a hint of regret for something.
“We have to go out again,” I say.
“I know,” she says. “I heard. It is a stupid idea. We should just leave here. I don’t like the cabin. I don’t like it here. It is too close to enemy bases. We should return to the house.”
“Why don’t you tell them?”
“Are you joking? My opinion doesn’t count. Tobin holds the power. He tells my brother what to do and my brother does what he is told because he is not a fighter. He is a scholar and a theologian but he is not a soldier, despite what he thinks. He will get himself killed.”
“I think he is just looking for ways to protect you both. War limits choices.”
Rebekah is silent and goes back to the water to clean the cooking pot and plates.
I take out my notebook and draw a picture of Tobin. I accentuate his ears so that they appear enlarged and elfin-like, and I draw a wide maniacal grin; his exaggerated, round head sits on a small body. On his shirt I draw a small badge with a handwritten inscription: “Head Soldier.” He holds the rifle beside him and there is a tag on the rifle that reads: “From the Germans, with our compliments.”
Once her task is completed, Rebekah comes over to where I am sitting.
“Why are you here? Why aren’t you back with the boys?”
“I prefer it here.”
She puts on her dress and I look away shyly. I go to close my drawing book but she touches the back of my hand.
“Can I see?”
Rebekah views the picture carefully, then surprises me by laughing, her mouth wide, before cupping her mouth with her hand. Her teeth are crooked, with her incisors slightly overlapping the front middle ones. For some reason I find this pretty, along with the fact that she is laughing. Her laughter sounds faint and sweet, like a night bird.
“You are quite the artist—or should I say comedian?” She is looking at me, but this time her face is not hard and fixed, but softened, her cheeks round with amusement.
“I don’t know,” I say, feeling suddenly shy under her gaze.
“Your talent is wasted here.”
As she picks up the sack to fill it with the washing, I hear footsteps downstream, and voices. She hears them too. We creep up the hill and hide behind the trees to wait and see who comes.
The men who come carry rifles. They are from the German army, in uniforms different from the ones worn by the officers who took my sister. From where we sit, Rebekah and I look down upon their hard hats, which conceal their faces. I hear them saying in German that they have found some tracks. Rebekah and I retreat stealthily and slowly through the forest for part of the way, so as not to alert them, and then run the remaining distance to the cabin. Out of breath, we announce what we have seen.
Tobin picks up his gun, which is already loaded, and Kaleb loads bullets into his rifle.
“Are you sure there are only two?” says Kaleb.
“Yes.”
“They’re looking for us. They are scouts. Let’s go,” says Tobin to Kaleb.
“No,” says Kaleb. “We should just wait for them to come. They may not find us. They may just stay along the water.”
“We are sitting ducks here. We should meet them at the crest.”
But there is no time. “I see them,” says Rebekah, who has remained at the window, spying, since our return.
The boys take a window each and aim their guns. “Get down!” commands Kaleb to his sister. “Away from the window!”
There is silence and then a slight rustling outside as the Germans retreat. I think that perhaps they have seen the guns at the window. I am sitting just behind Kaleb, peering over his shoulder. Much of the view is obstructed. Gunfire from Tobin’s rifle erupts loudly from inside the cabin, shaking the boards and numbing my ears. Rebekah is curled on the floor, her hands over her ears, eyes closed, teeth clenched. She does not move.
“Wait,” says Kaleb, grabbing Tobin by the shirt before he can aim at the other soldier, giving the target precious seconds to disappear from view.
Kaleb is pushed out of the way by Tobin, who rushes outside just ahead of him. I touch Rebekah to break her from the spell and then run after them. One soldier is on the ground, blood seeping from a wound, but he is still alive. The other has gone.
“You idiot!” says Tobin. “Why did you stop me? Now the other one has escaped.”
“We should have waited for them to get closer and told them to put down their weapons. We could have captured them alive and taken them to the partisans.”
“No, fool! They are better dead.”
Tobin runs off in the direction he thinks the other German has gone. Kaleb has already retrieved the gun from the fallen German. The wound is in his shoulder. He is cursing in German and attempting to stop the blood flow with his hand.
“Help me,” he says in German. “I will not harm you.”
“How can you harm us?” I say in German. “You have no gun and you are wounded.”
“What does he say?” asks Kaleb.
“He wants our help.”
Kaleb points the gun at him and thinks for a moment. The soldier is not much older than a boy. His helmet has rolled off, revealing his sand-colored hair.
“Ask him what he is doing here.”
The soldier replies to my question: “We were told to see if there were any Polish resistance hiding here after our station was ambushed last night.”
“But that is miles away. How did you find us so quickly?”
“The gunfire. We were not supposed to come this far but we heard it.”
When I tell Kaleb this, he nods as if he is not surprised.
“Imbecile,” he says under his breath. He is talking about Tobin, not the German. “Help me take him inside, and tell him that if he attempts to harm us or tries to escape, we will have to kill him.” It is hard to believe that Kaleb is capable of killing in view of what Rebekah has said about her brother. It is more likely that he would argue against the necessity of such an act. Still, anything is possible. Circumstances such as ours can change a person.
The German is placed on the floor near my bedding. He is squirming in pain.
“What do we do with him?” I ask.
“We wait until Tobin returns.”
The begging, whining, and moaning from the German is fraying my nerves and I take him some water.
“Can we give him anything for the pain?”
“We cannot waste medicine on a German soldier,” says Rebekah. She sits with her brother at the table. They look at their hands while I sit against a wall and watch the German writhe.
“What if he dies?”
Neither of them answers. I ask again.
Rebekah stands this time. “What does it matter if he does? How many have
we
lost?”
I say nothing more but look at my hands too. Eventually, the moaning stops and the German falls asleep. I wonder if he is in shock and if he might die.
Tobin returns. His eyes are wild and he is cursing and punching the wall.
“We’ve lost him.” He marches over to the German and kicks him hard in the stomach. Then he kicks him again. The German is winded and tries to vomit, but nothing comes up.
“Enough!” says Kaleb.
“We will have to go now because they will return with others.”
“Shit!” says Kaleb, running his fingers through his hair. “This is all because of you, because they heard you firing.”
Tobin ignores what he has said.
“We leave tonight,” says Kaleb decisively. “We take the German with us.”
“What is the point?”
“We take him with us for the partisans to question.”
“But look at him. He is barely older than us. He will know nothing. We should just kill him now and save the fighters the trouble.”
“No,” says Kaleb.
The two argue for a few minutes in Polish. I notice that the German is awake and watching. I wonder how much he understands.
“Gather your things,” says Kaleb suddenly to his sister. He turns then to Tobin. “We take the German. I have just as much say.”
The two youths face each other; then Tobin shakes his fist in the air before disappearing behind the curtain to pack his knapsack.
I am instructed to take care of the German since I “speak like a traitor,” according to Tobin. While the others wait outside, I go to the German’s side. The blood has stopped leaking from the wound but he has broken out in a sweat. It is clear he is suffering; color has drained from his face.