I was staring at the huge mound of loose soil, trying to figure that out, when I noticed a barely perceptible tremor. Was it my imagination? But as I watched, the ground trembled again. A clump of dirt crumbled, revealing a flash of white. I squinted.
A hand, fingers reaching out.
All at once I realized what I was staring at. The men had been murdered. And this was their grave.
I had an image in my mind of what must have happened. The victims marched to the edge of the ditch and then ordered to remove their clothing. They were shot, and fell into the ditch, and dirt was shovelled over them. The tremors I’d noticed must have been caused by the bodies settling into the earth. The mass murder was horrible, but to force the men to remove their clothing first so it wouldn’t be damaged?
A wave of nausea coursed through me and I bent over, clutching my stomach. I fell to the ground and the world swirled.
“Krystia, what are you doing here?”
Frau Schneider’s voice.
I propped myself up and tried to focus. A tall man holding a shovel hovered above me, standing beside Frau Schneider. He prodded me with the tip of it. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
“It’s all right,” said Frau Schneider. “I know her.”
The man tossed down the shovel and walked away.
I sucked in huge gulps of air and tried to get to my feet, but my knees were too weak. One of Frau Schneider’s hands was level with my face. She held several pairs of eyeglasses, but there was one that caught my eye. They had round black frames. Mr. Kitai’s.
I looked up at Frau Schneider’s placid face. Was she evil? She seemed unaffected by the job she was doing.
“Those glasses,” I said. “Could I have them?”
“These old things?” She looked surprised. “They’re supposed to go to the Volksdeutche families, but here, take them.”
“Thank you,” I said, shoving them inside my pocket. I stumbled to my feet and limped away.
When I passed Auntie Iryna’s house, or what had been her house, the door opened and Marga stepped out, blocking my way.
“The neighbours told me this was your aunt’s house,” she said.
“Yes, Marga, it was.” I didn’t want to talk with her right then, especially after seeing what her mother had been doing in the woods.
“You stole from us,” she said. “I saw feathers out back. There should be chickens here. And our cow. I saw you with two cows. One of them was supposed to be ours.”
There was so much that I wanted to say to her, but what was the point? “My friend Dolik… his father was just executed,” I said, stepping around her. “I need to find him.”
“I’m going to tell the Commandant that you stole our cow,” she said. “Your whole family is going to be in big trouble.”
Did she realize just how much trouble she could get us into? I stepped farther to the side to walk around her.
She stepped back in front of me and poked my chest with her finger. “This isn’t the end of it.”
“I’m sorry, Marga, but I really have to go,” I said as I hurried away from her, past the blacksmith shop that also used to be ours. The rhythmic pounding of metal upon metal sounded through the door, and I imagined Herr Zimmer working steadily just the way Tato used to.
At the Kitais’ house, I pushed on the front door and was about to step in, but I could hear Dolik arguing with his mother. I closed the door quietly and sat on the doorstep, leaning against the cool stone wall. Snippets of the argument came through the door — Dolik upset with his mother for pulling him away when he tried to get to his father. “We can’t all act like sheep!” he shouted.
It was hard to hear Doctor Mina’s response, because she wasn’t shouting, but it was clear that Dolik was in no mood for comforting. I stood up and brushed the creases from my skirt, and as I did so, I felt the outline of Mr. Kitai’s glasses in my pocket. I sat back down, cradling my head in my arms.
The door creaked open. Leon stepped out. “Krystia,” he said, slumping down beside me and leaning against my shoulder, “What do you think is going to happen to Tate?”
He looked so tiny huddled beside me. I wanted to say something comforting, but all that came out was a sob. I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and together we wept.
As I got undressed for bed that night, Mr. Kitai’s glasses slipped out of my skirt pocket and fell onto the floor. I picked them up and felt the weight of them in my hand. This was all that was left of a man I had known my whole life.
I set the glasses down on the table in front of the wedding picture of Mama and Tato, then climbed into bed beside Maria. How I longed for a simple life, where fathers lived to see their children grow, and where governments didn’t kill. Sleep would not come, that I knew, but I closed my eyes and tried to think of nothing.
Chapter Ten
Seeing
It was impossible to think of nothing. When I closed my eyes, I saw that fresh grave with the trembling earth. What kind of government would allow the Commandant to kill innocent people? The Soviets had done this sort of thing. Clearly, these Germans were no better. It made sense now that these Germans and the Soviets had been on the same side of the war for the past two years.
Maybe we had been wrong to welcome them so readily. These were not the cultured Germans who believed in democracy and brought freedom. I thought about the lists they kept making. From what I could sort out, they believed that Aryans — a term they used to describe people like themselves — deserved extra privileges. But what else did they believe in? I was almost afraid to find out.
I thought about the words I’d overheard when the organizers talked among themselves. They didn’t call themselves Germans. They called themselves Nazis, because of things they believed in. I sat up in bed, and as my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I looked at Maria, fast asleep but with a face etched in grief. It was too dark to see either Mama or Auntie Iryna in the big bed across the room, but I could hear their rhythmic breathing.
And then I remembered Marga’s threat.
What if she told the Commandant that I’d stolen her cow? Could I be punished? I did take Lysa to Auntie Polina’s, and I didn’t feel guilty about it. But what if Mama, Maria or Auntie Iryna were punished because of what I did? Maybe even killed, like Mr. Kitai and the others. I couldn’t let that happen.
A beam of moonlight illuminated the outline of Mr. Kitai’s eyeglasses as they rested on the night table. Mere hours ago, he had been wearing them, standing in the square with his family. His last gesture had been a courageous one. My parents’ wedding portrait was in shadows, but even so, I felt my father’s eyes and knew what he expected. A shiver ran through me. Two dead fathers were watching, both urging me to be brave — to protect my family.
I thought about the Commandant’s wife and how I had left in such a hurry. That was certainly not brave. It wasn’t smart, either, if I was hoping to keep the job. Add to that the problem with Marga.
There was no point in trying to sleep anymore, so I got up and dressed. I put the eyeglasses in my pocket and went to the main room. I would have loved to be able to sort through my thoughts, but I felt angry and sad and frightened and furious all at once. And I felt totally powerless and not particularly brave. It was too early to milk Krasa and it was too dark to mend or collect eggs or do other useful things.
But I could get our morning bucket of water. It was a small chore, not brave at all, but what a nice surprise it would be for Maria, who for once in her life wouldn’t start a day by fetching water.