Many said there was no chance of survival if they were not close to Pechersky.
In the late afternoon, Samuel was waved forward.
He had released my hand. I think the feeling had gone from it, leaving it numb, because he had held it so tight and so long.
I watched him go into the inner core of the group. He stepped round and through the Polish Jews, who huddled near to the Russians. He was taken right in, near to Pechersky. It was not Pechersky who spoke to him, but others among the Russians. It was where the leadership was and the weapons, and they were the men who had not been inside Sobibor long enough to be exhausted and starved. There was talking, but so quiet that the Jews in the outer ring did not hear. Twice I saw Samuel shake his head very violently. For a few seconds he looked away from them and towards me, but I couldn’t see what he thought. The Russians he had been speaking to shrugged, as if a matter had been discussed and an answer had not been found. Then he came back to me.
I didn’t ask Samuel what had been said, why he had shaken his head as if refusing something. I had to rest. My weight was against his shoulder and his arm was round me. I think I slept, and I don’t know for how long.
I slept pure sleep. I forgot about hunger and tiredness. I had no dream. When I woke, it was the afternoon. It might have been rain on my face, dripping from a tree, that had woken me. They were going in a short column. The Russians were going. I didn’t see Pechersky and I assumed he was at the front. I started up. I knew we should follow them, but Samuel didn’t move. When I tried to stand he pulled me down roughly. It was the first roughness I had seen from him.
I asked why we didn’t stay with them, go where they went.
I could hear then the aircraft away to the west, more shooting. The last of them went. They disappeared into the trees. I lost sight of them.
I asked Samuel why we were not with them. He told me they had gone to find food, and he said it in a clear voice, quite loud. He said that the Russians, led by Pechersky, were the fittest and strongest and would be more likely to find food. In ten minutes — it is difficult to have any real understanding of time, but it wasn’t long — Samuel helped me to my feet. For a moment we were at the edge of the group, and then we were gone from them. We slipped away. He led me by the hand and had that same secure, tight grip on me. We did not, either of us, look back. We left that clearing where the group was gathered.
Why?
The direction he took me was towards the fall of the light, towards the west. The Bug river was to the east, and the Russian army was in the east, but he took me west and deeper into the forest, almost, I reckoned, in the direction of the camp. We saw, on a wide track, four Germans on big horses — fine, well-fed and — groomed horses — and the Germans had rifle butts rested on their thighs. We watched, and were frozen against a wide pine’s trunk. A fugitive broke clear, came on to the track, saw them and started to run. I heard the shots and the laughter, but I didn’t see the death.
Why?
Samuel told me that Pechersky had not gone to get food. He had said he was going to get food, and to make his statement more believable he had collected money from the group and told them it would be used to buy food from farmers and woodsmen. Samuel told me that Pechersky did not believe so large a group had a chance of crossing the Bug, that he had achieved what he had hoped, had led the successful break-out. He had responsibility now only for his Russian comrades. Pechersky had abandoned the group with one rifle.
I asked Samuel why he had not gone with Pechersky.
He almost stuttered the answer. I promise, then, that blood ran in his cheeks. He could have gone. They would, of course, have taken him — but not me. It had been said to him that if one non-Russian was taken, because of a friendship, a hundred should be taken because of friendships. Only those who were Russians would go with Pechersky.
I asked Samuel again why he had not gone with Pechersky and taken the best chance of living.
The blush made his cheeks scarlet. ‘I refused to leave you. I told them I was with you and would remain with you. It was why they shrugged … but they wouldn’t change their decision and let us accompany them.’
I had found love, and the ultimate moment of deceit. I believe I would have done it, told the lie and gained a better opportunity of survival. Samuel did not.
That was love. We went far into the forest. We were together, only us two. The aircraft overhead seemed further from us, the gunfire more distant. We moved on.
Carrick stood. Reuven Weissberg had hold of his arm, and there was venom in his voice. ‘I owe nobody anything. I have no responsibility, no obligation, to anyone. There was one love, but around it were the layers of betrayal. They rot in hell and they don’t matter to me, those of the past and those of today. For what was done here, for the lies spoken, I owe nobody anything.’
‘I think I understand, sir.’
Shafts of sunlight pierced the canopy and made gold pools on the leaves of the last autumn. He seemed to see them walking, the boy and the girl, and maybe — in that false brightness — they laid the trail of cotton thread. He was captivated by the place and the images of it given to him, as he was captivated by the presence, personality and almost manic intensity of the man who had brought him there. Always they were in front of him, the boy and the girl.
It rang in his head. I owe nobody anything. He thought the birds sang prettily, but then, abruptly, their calls were overwhelmed by the distant whine of a chain-saw. He had crossed lines — demarcation strips of ethics and morality — had not seen them, would not have recognized them. He followed Reuven Weissberg.
Lawson had an eye half open.
He heard Deadeye quiz Bugsy, ‘That thing still working?’
‘Mind your manners. Of course it is. Good signal, clear and strong.’
‘What’s he doing, the subject?’
‘Not doing anything.’
‘Come again?’
Bugsy said, ‘He’s not doing anything because he hasn’t moved. The location is at the side of a lake south-west-south of Okuninka, about a klick out of the place, and he hasn’t shifted. A ten-metre move’ll register, but nothing has. Must be sleeping.’
‘Funny place to sleep.’ Deadeye shrugged.
‘Well, he hasn’t moved, that’s for certain.’ Bugsy was defiant, always would be if his gear’s capability was in question.
Lawson intervened. He had arched his back, stretched out his legs and coughed a little. He said, ‘Chuck the item out of the car, Deadeye. Put yourself in it with Bugsy — please, my friend, if you don’t mind — and drive into the metropolis of Wlodawa. I doubt there are croissants on sale, but some rolls and cheese, perhaps a bag of apples, coffee if you can find it — yes, and toilet rolls, some pairs of socks, if there’s a shop. I would suggest the Okuninka road into Wlodawa. Well, don’t hang about, Deadeye.’
He watched Deadeye go, and Bugsy follow him. They did, indeed, chuck the item out of the car, Davies from the front and the girl from the back, which was hardly red-blooded of either, and the car was driven away from the camping area. He could always rely on Deadeye, and he valued that man’s abilities above the rest of his team — and needed the abilities. A phrase that had come from Clipper Reade, was trotted out in moments when crisis seemed to loom: an agent not showing, a covert observation post identified overlooking a dead-drop, a tail in place and seen. Clipper Reade would say, ‘I think we have, Christopher, an IAP moment, don’t you?’ Clipper Reade was rarely vulgar. Lawson thought he now faced an Intensifying Ass Pucker moment, and felt that tightening of those muscles.