“It has been a long day, Stephan,” Andrei said. “You should get some sleep.”
Stephan looked at him with suspicion.
“Tomorrow you and the girls will be taken on the next stage of your journey.”
“What about you, Uncle Andrei?”
“I must be getting back to Warsaw with Gabriela.”
“You said I had a mission. What is it?”
“Yes ... I’ve come to give you your orders now. Your orders are to survive.”
“I don’t understand you, Uncle Andrei.”
“Stephan, you and the girls will be staying in the forest at the home of a very wonderful old couple.”
“Staying?”
“Yes, Stephan. I’ve come to say good-by.”
The boy’s eyes grew wide with astonishment. “You tricked me!”
“I told you to obey orders without question. That is not trickery.”
“You tricked me. You promised me you were taking me on a special mission.”
“You have a very special mission.”
“No. I won’t stay. I’ll run away if you don’t take me back to Warsaw!”
“This was a decision of your elders, Rabbi Solomon and Alex.”
Andrei walked to the boy slowly and put his hand on his shoulder. Stephan twisted away from him abruptly. “You lied to me, Uncle Andrei! I’ll get back to Warsaw myself!”
“I overestimated you, Stephan. I thought you were a good soldier. I guess you’re still a little boy.”
“I am a good soldier! I am as good as any runner in the ghetto!”
Andrei shrugged. “Not really. A good soldier knows how to obey orders even though they may not please him.”
“It is not a soldier’s assignment to hide in the woods like a coward.”
The boy was too clever to fool with games of words. Andrei had no alternative but to give him the hard facts in all their naked cruelty. Perhaps he should have done so earlier.
“Are you man enough to hear the truth? Can you take it, Stephan?”
“I can take it,” the boy answered firmly.
“Your momma is going to die. There is no way out for her.”
“No!”
“Truth, Stephan. Momma is going to die. She cannot leave those children and she cannot get them out. She is trapped and she is doomed.”
“Momma will live!”
“Only if you survive and preserve her memory.”
“I’ll go back and die with Momma!”
“I said are you man enough to hear the truth? I have not finished.”
Stephan’s eyes burned with an anger that told his uncle he had the courage to see it through. Andrei pointed for him to sit down on the sofa.
“Your sister and Wolf and I are in an impossible situation. The odds on reaching a star are better than the odds on any of us coming through. Do you think I lied to you when I told you I have a mission? It is the job of your mother and your sister and me to die for the honor of our family. It is your job to live for our honor. I say this with all my soul, Stephan. It is you who has the more difficult mission. You must go from this battle to fight your way into Palestine, and you will have to fight again for your freedom.”
Stephan looked up at his uncle, who was pleading for a sign of affection. The boy bit his lip hard to hold back the tears, but his eyes still showed anger.
“Stephan, one of us must get through this to show who we were and what we stood for. It is a big, big job, son! Only the best soldier can do it. You must live for ten thousand children killed in Treblinka and a thousand destroyed writers and rabbis and doctors. It’s a hell of a big mission.”
Stephan flung his arms around his uncle’s waist and buried his head on Andrei’s chest, and Andrei patted his head. “I’ll try,” Stephan wept.
Andrei comforted him and knelt beside him and held his tear-stained cheeks in his hands and winked. “You won’t let me down, Stephan ... I know it.”
Andrei removed the large gold ring which had been given to him as a member of the Polish Olympic team. “To seal the bargain,” he said.
Stephan looked at it in disbelief and tried to slip it on a finger. It was even too large for his thumb.
“Well now, don’t worry about that. Once you get at that woodcutter’s cottage and get fresh air and food and exercise, that damned ring will be too small for you. See if I’m not right.”
Stephan tried to smother his tears, but he could not. He wept convulsively. “I’ll try ... I’ll try ...”
“Come on now, let’s get you undressed. It’s been a long trip for any soldier.”
Stephan submitted as his uncle unbuttoned his shirt and trousers and lifted him in his arms and carried him to the sofa. He clutched the ring in his fist and buried his head in the pillow.
“Now there are parts of the orders which you will understand as a good soldier whose duty it is to survive. You’ve got to learn all this Hail Mary business, but it’s not so bad as you may think. You know Gabriela has been doing it all her life and she is a fine woman. We Jews have had to pray like that before—during the Inquisition, to fool the Spaniards—”
Andrei stopped short. The pillow was wet with the boy’s tears.
“Tell me about Batory.”
“Batory! Hah! Now there’s a horse for you. The blackest, fiercest animal in all of Poland. Only a few weeks ago I took him to England for the Grand National and he ran so fast he split the air and caused it to thunder. Well, sir, those Englishmen ...”
Father Kornelli and Gabriela waited in the tiny vestry. The priest poured two fingers of kirschwasser. She sipped it with controlled slowness, capturing its warmth.
“I was filled with unpriestly forlorn when the archbishop exiled me to limbo or purgatory or what have you. May the Holy Mother forgive me, but I am quite certain that the Lord won a battle with the archbishop. My little church has become a vital link to the partisans in the forests.” He winked with slyness. “There are grenades stored beneath the altar.”
“Shame on you, Father.”
“Gabriela Rak! I was delighted that I was able to make contact with you. I want to find places for more children. Dozens of them. Gajnow is a good man. I must find others.”
Suddenly Gabriela grimaced, paled, and drank the rest of the cherry brandy in a single swallow.
“Is anything wrong?”
“Just a little queasy spell.”
“Do you think you should be making such strenuous trips in your condition?”
Gabriela was startled at the sudden unmasking. “I didn’t realize I was being so obvious.”
“There is nothing in my vows which says I cannot recognize a pregnant woman when I see one. The first month or two is always the worst, I understand.”
Gabriela fumbled nervously with the empty glass. He poured her another drink. “I don’t want a sermon, Father. I don’t seek forgiveness, nor do I confess to sin.”
“I am offended that you look upon me as an old fishwife in whom you cannot confide.”
“I’m sorry, Father. Yes, I would like to hear my own voice speaking the thoughts I’ve held locked for so long.”
“Having a child under your circumstances is a very difficult task.”
“I’m fully aware of the consequences.”
“Does Andrei know?”
“Perhaps and perhaps not.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We have had to adapt our lives to each other in a strange way. It’s full of unsaid things.”
“It is a constant source of amazement,” Father Kornelli broke in. “The capacity of the human being to live with tension. The way nerves can be controlled, thoughts and fears locked—”
“Not really, Father. Andrei and I know each other’s thoughts. A look, a touch, a sigh. A way he avoids my eyes. A way I avoid his. We read each other’s fears, though we never speak them. The sound of his breath in the darkness, the touch of his fingers are all silent couriers.”