It was four in the morning. With no warning the anti-Semitic major barged into the tent. “What the hell is this?” he roared. “A midnight meeting? A plot? An insurrection? I’ll teach you how to live. I’m going—”
He wasn’t going anywhere; or rather he went a long way,
as far as death itself. David smashed the major’s skull with one blow of the bottle. Terror spread across the Jewish faces. A mutiny meant the firing squad.
“Good riddance,” the young partisan said. “Now there’s no turning back. Strip him. Take his boots. I’ll take his pistol.”
Someone felt that the dead man was entitled to a moment’s pity.
David feigned agreement: “You’re right. The poor son of a bitch may freeze to death.”
Some fifty of them escaped. Two partisans were waiting about ten minutes outside of camp. David questioned them briefly. “No problems?”
“None.”
An hour or two later, they reached the partisan camp, where Elhanan discovered whole Jewish families, children too.
“Surprised?” David laughed. “You think only grown men make partisans? Everybody’s welcome here. Even children. If you only knew how daring Jewish children can be.”
A new life began for Elhanan Rosenbaum. Instantly adopted by the
otriad
, the Hungarian-Jewish laborers were quickly integrated. Still inseparable, Itzik and Elhanan were assigned to a unit that attacked German convoys. A week after they arrived, they had already liberated one machine gun and one pistol from the enemy. David offered public congratulations: “Well done, you two. Elhanan, now we know what a Talmudic scholar can do.”
A young woman from Kharkov, her hair hidden by a fur hat, kissed him on the mouth. Her face glowed with beauty and warmth. To Elhanan she was the woman he had never encountered. “Listen, young man,” she said. “You look shy and brave to me. If you want, I’ll take care of you.”
“What do you mean?” Elhanan stammered.
“Don’t you feel lonely here?”
“No. I have Itzik. He’s my best friend.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
Partisans started to needle him gently. “She doesn’t bite. What are you scared of?”
“Leave him alone,” she said.
When the others had gone off, he asked, “What’s your name?”
“Vitka. My name is Vitka.” She was a widow. Her husband and two children had been killed.
“You were married young,” Elhanan said, to show that he was not as shy as she thought.
“Go on,” she said. “I love flattery.”
Elhanan coughed, and hesitated, and then decided. “I would like to be with you,” he said, not looking at her. “On one condition: don’t try to separate me from my friend.”
“I promise.”
So they formed a team with Itzik the Avenger, as people called him from then on. He wasn’t interested in demolishing tanks with Molotov cocktails. What he liked to do was kill Germans. “If they’re so fond of Death, let them marry it.”
Of course Elhanan was in love with Vitka. Of course he didn’t dare show it. Of course everybody knew it.
“Go love her,” Itzik said. “She loves you, too, believe me. I know all about love. If you let her slip away, watch out, some other man won’t be so slow!”
“Who?”
“Me.” Itzik laughed.
“I don’t believe you,” Elhanan said.
After all, wasn’t friendship stronger than love?
In a little Ukrainian hamlet the
otriad
was assaulted by a band of urchins. Emaciated, ravenous, they had no strength
left to beg; they only stared. But such suffering shadowed their eyes that Itzik and Elhanan gave out all the bread they had. “Who are you?”
The children were afraid to answer.
“Jews?”
Panic-stricken, they looked for ways to flee.
“Don’t be afraid,” Itzik said. “We’re all Jews.”
The children exchanged incredulous glances.
“You speak Yiddish? We do. Listen.” Itzik and Elhanan conversed briefly in Yiddish.
Relieved, the children grimaced. “Yes. We’re Jews.”
“What did the Germans do to you?”
The Germans had locked them into a barn. Without food. Several days, a week. Some had gone mad, others had died of thirst.
“Who liberated you?”
“A peasant.”
“No, it was a logger.”
“No, it was a robber.”
“It was the prophet Elijah.”
As they devoured their bread they went on squabbling. Poor kids, Itzik murmured. He stared at them for a few moments and then seemed to reach a decision. “Come on, kids. Follow me.”
He led them to a cabin at the edge of the village where six German prisoners were being held. He turned to one of the boys, handed over his submachine gun and said gently, almost tenderly, “Fire, boy. Fire at the whole lot!”
The boy trembled. He looked at the weapon, examined his own hand, seemed to hold a debate with an invisible presence and finally said, “I don’t know how.”
“Don’t worry,” Itzik said. “I’ll show you.”
The boy lowered his eyes and said, “No.”
Itzik turned to another. The same answer. A third. Still the same answer.
Itzik clapped them all on the shoulder and said, “All right, all right, I understand. Later on you’ll know how.”
God of Israel, Elhanan thought, watch these Your children and be proud.
Somewhere in Polish Galicia one night the
otriad
sheltered a Soviet paratrooper. He was carrying a radio and passed along an order from headquarters to David: stop a convoy of German armored cars. Moscow considered this operation of the highest priority. The partisans prepared feverishly. David brought his lieutenants together to organize the attack. The convoy was to pass through the village of Turek early in the afternoon three days later.
Elhanan and Vitka, disguised as peasants, bundled up from head to toe, trudged to the village to reconnoiter. How many Germans were on hand? How many police collaborators? It went well. Vitka and Elhanan brought back accurate and useful intelligence: so many soldiers, so many police. All in all, the village was thinly populated, almost a ghost town. There were many cottages without smoke.
“You’re sure of that?” David was insistent.
“As sure as anyone can be,” Elhanan said.
“Are you ready to go in again tomorrow?”
“Why not?”
“We have to know where to set up our machine guns. Find two or three empty huts along the roadside, near a bend if possible.”
Vitka and Elhanan went back to Turek. They inspected several huts, prowled outside three or four wooden houses, and broke into the wrong one. Elhanan was taken prisoner. Vitka got away.
“Come here,” said a shrewd and surly Polish policeman. Elhanan obeyed.
The policeman punched him in the face. “That’s just to get acquainted,” he explained politely. Another blow, and a third. “Now, while I rest, you’re going to tell us who you are, what you’re looking for and who sent you.”
Elhanan understood Polish but spoke it badly. In any case he would have held his tongue; once you started answering, you ended up telling all.
“Hey, men,” said the Polish policeman, “we got us a tough guy. Come look at this.”
Three smiling torturers set about beating Elhanan. His head, his chest, his stomach. He felt as if he were floating on air and falling down a well. Blood gushed from his nose. He was suffocating. He passed out.
He woke with a heavy, aching body, on a farm the Polish police had requisitioned to interrogate chicken thieves, black marketeers and drunks, far from German surveillance. From time to time they brought in Jews with false documents who were trying to pass for Aryans. “Now, my little kike, no more aggravation, all right?” The same policeman was kicking him, not to hurt him, only in fun. “What’s your name? Avrom? You’re a kike, we know that, we took down your pants. So we know what you are but not who you are. Who’s been sheltering you?”
Elhanan wondered, How long have I been here? Through the slit of his swollen eyelid he saw an oil lamp on a large kitchen table. What time is it? Nighttime yet? He pictured Vitka: let her be free and safe, O Lord.
There, too, if God willed, anything could happen. And God was good enough to will it. Vitka was free. She had rejoined her comrades and was trying to talk them into following her to the village, attacking the farm and liberating Elhanan. A few of the men objected. “Is it worth it, to kill us all for the sake of one?”
The Soviet paratrooper made a weighty argument. “This
raid may be the right thing to do, but won’t it compromise the mission general headquarters has ordered?”
Vitka lost her temper. “I don’t see why. I take four men with me, volunteers, of course, and before you can blink we’re back with our—”
“In saving your friend, you’ll reveal our whereabouts to the Germans.”
Vitka was no amateur. “The Germans know very well that we’re around.”
David made a decision. “We’ll do it. Solidarity is not an empty word.” And to the paratrooper, “Also, Elhanan knows our plans. Let’s save him before he cracks.”
Vitka protested, “He won’t crack.”
David threw her a stern look; she swallowed the rest of her speech.
Elhanan was half conscious when he heard, as if in a fever, the sounds of a fight. They had broken down the door and invaded the farmhouse. The three policemen were on their feet, hands up, and they stank of fear.
“All right, little one. It’s all over,” Vitka said. Kneeling above him, she was wiping his face. “Did they make a mess of you?” When Elhanan gave no answer, she turned to the policemen. “Which one beat him?” Silence. “Which one is the interrogator?” Silence. Staring straight ahead, the police shook their heads, no.
“Let me do this,” Itzik said. They left him alone with the policemen. Half an hour later, he came out. “They won’t be beating any more Jews,” he growled.
They made it back to camp without incident.
That night Elhanan and Vitka did not separate. She bandaged his wounds and comforted him, stayed at his bedside and watched over his sleep. In the morning he woke before the rest. Vitka smiled at him. “Better?”
“Much better.”
She held him to her. “Sleep. It will do you good.”
“One question, Vitka. What did Itzik do to the policemen?”
“I don’t know.”
“He didn’t say?”
“Not a word.”
“What do you think he did?”
“I don’t know, but—”
“But what?”
“I’m sure they got what they deserved.”
Elhanan fell back asleep.
Next day they attacked. It went off as planned. Four machine guns in huts at the entrance and exit to the village. Mines, Molotov cocktails and grenades. Organized to be the
otriad’s
most ambitious operation, this would remain its biggest success. Two tanks on fire, eight vehicles destroyed, thirty-odd Germans killed. For the partisans, two dead and five wounded. Among the dead, Vitka.
Elhanan wept in secret; the whole
otriad
wept openly. All but Itzik, who clenched his teeth and vowed revenge.
Vitka and her comrade were to be buried in the forest, as was customary. Elhanan had a better idea: “I saw a Jewish cemetery nearby.”
“Let’s go there,” David decided.
A nighttime burial. Solemn and sorrowful. Shadows digging two graves for shadows. Murmurs instead of words, mute tears as the funeral oration. Who will say Kaddish? They all said it, in a low voice. Lianka, who was younger than Elhanan, took his arm during the prayer. “I know how you feel,” she whispered on the way back. She had lost her boyfriend the year before.
The
otriad
moved on. Other goals and other targets
awaited them. Soon Elhanan and Lianka were a couple. Had he forgotten Vitka? Of course not. It was something else altogether: because he had loved Vitka, he was capable of loving Lianka. He had loved Vitka so much that the love overflowed; there was still enough in him for Lianka and the whole
otriad.
In spring the partisans pitched camp about seventy miles from Feherfalu. Purim in the Carpathians. Passover in a remote mountain village. Being youngest, Lianka asked the four ritual questions. “Why is this night different from all other nights?” David improvised a response: “Because the Jews are fighting their enemy and we have sworn not to lay down our arms until he is defeated.” And Itzik added, “Because we know that revenge is near.” And Elhanan thought, Because I’m close to home, almost under my parents’ roof. The Seder ended with the traditional promise: “Next year in Jerusalem.”
“I wonder how many of us will live long enough to keep that promise,” Elhanan said to Itzik.
“You and I will be there. But between now and then, a flood of German blood will flow. That, too, I promise.”
“All you can think of is revenge.”
“And what do you think about?”
“My parents. Where are they? How are they doing? Who are they celebrating this Seder with?”
He had not noticed Lianka coming closer. She took his hand as if to say, I know and I understand.
Over the following days Elhanan tried to persuade David to send him into Feherfalu.
“Are you crazy? There’s the whole front between us and the town.”
“I know every inch of it.”
David would not be persuaded. “Patience, Elhanan.
You’ll show me your town before too long. You’ll introduce me to your parents. Be patient.”
Nervous, worrying, Elhanan hardly slept nights. He pictured his homecoming. His mother and father. Had they changed, had they aged? He’d introduce Lianka to them. He was sure they’d like her.
Unfortunately, the front stabilized. The Russian offensive pausing for rest? Stiffer resistance from the German army? Battles raged, but if they advanced a few miles one day, it was only to withdraw the next. April passed, and then May. In June the offensive picked up speed again. Now the Red Army was operating in full liaison with the partisans. David’s group was attached to the divisional staff, just as divisional officers were assigned to the partisans.
Elhanan struck up a friendship with a one-armed captain. He had a mustache and was called Podriatchik. He was from Borisov and had been in the lines since the German invasion. Elhanan loved hearing his stories. The Russian’s voice was a solemn, melodious bass, and he chanted as he spoke. He sensed Elhanan’s curiosity. “You want to know how I lost my arm? I got careless because I was impatient. I wanted to take out a tank with grenades. But I pulled the pin too soon. The grenade went off and my arm with it. A partisan should have known better.”