Run, Boy, Run(11)

He doesn't see me, Srulik thought. He didn't answer or budge. Shleymi called again. When there was no response, he began to look for Srulik, carefully poking at the undergrowth. But he was walking the wrong way. Something in Srulik wanted to run after him. He opened his mouth to speak. But nothing came out. It was better to be alone than with Shleymi.

Toward evening the sky clouded over and cast its pall over the forest.

Srulik decided to sleep in a tree. He climbed a big oak and found a comfortable spot in the cleft of two big branches. Yet he couldn't fall asleep. Would he find the other boys? And how would he manage in the forest if he didn't? He reached for his butterfly pin. But the butterfly had spent too much time in his pocket and hardly glowed.

In the morning he decided to look for Poles—the good ones that gave you food when you knocked on their door. He walked for a long time. He was thirsty. When he came to a puddle of rainwater, he bent down to drink. Little bugs were crawling in it. He shut his eyes and drank anyway.

Suddenly he found himself in a familiar place. He looked around him. There was the tree with the hollow trunk! He felt as happy as if he had come home from a long journey. He ran to drink from the brook and poked through the ashes of the fire until he found a little bird cased in mud. There were still some vegetables and eggs in the tree trunk. He decided to stay put and wait.

He slept in the tree that night, too. The next morning he performed an experiment, walking carefully away from the brook while watching the moss on the trees. Then he stopped and walked back the other way. Now he understood how to tell directions from the moss. He left the brook again, stopping to look back now and then. From time to time he halted to pick berries. A snail was crawling on a bush, its two horns groping in front of it. No, that was one thing he never would eat. He reached a blackberry bush, turned around, and managed to find his way back. He wished Yosele were there to tell about it.

Slipping down from his tree to the ground on the morning of the third day, Srulik knew he had lost the boys for good. He drank from the brook, ate the last two eggs in the tree trunk, and walked off without turning back. His eyes strained to make out a patch of clear light that would tell him where the forest ended. But he saw none and in the end he grew tired and sat helplessly on the ground.

Someone was coming. He crawled into a bush to hide. From it he saw a man in an official-looking cap and green jacket walking toward him with a rifle on his shoulder. It must be the forester who turns Jews over to the Germans, he thought. Perhaps the man was on his way home. Did foresters live in forests or villages? Srulik decided to follow him. The forester walked along a narrow path for a long while. Eventually Srulik spied some light between the trees. He waited until the forester was gone and stepped back out into the world.

The path grew wider, winding through fields until it reached a village. Srulik knocked on the door of the first house he came to. A woman opened it. He looked at her without a word. She looked at him. "Come on in," she said after a while.

She asked no questions, just as Yosele had said. It was as if she knew exactly who he was. She sat him at a table and gave him a big slice of bread and a glass of milk. He wolfed it all down. He couldn't remember when he had last seen fresh bread and milk. A small child was playing in the corner with some pieces of wood. The woman sat beside the child with some food. She called him "Jurek" and fed him with a spoon.

"Who's there?" a man's voice asked.

"A boy," said the woman.

Her husband entered the room and regarded Srulik thoughtfully.

"Would you like to stay and work on the farm?" he asked after a long silence.

"Yes," Srulik said.

"Finish eating and I'll give you something to do."

Srulik finished eating. The farmer returned, wearing his coat and boots. He led Srulik outside and took him to a storeroom full of differently sized and colored bottles.

"Arrange all the bottles on the shelves by size and color," he said. "Do a good job."

Srulik nodded.

The farmer left. "I'm shutting the door so that no one bothers you," he said.

Srulik set to work. Suddenly he heard a key turn in the lock. Alarmed, he went to the door and put his eye to a crack between its wooden planks. At first he saw nothing. Then he spied the farmer pushing a motorcycle. The man mounted it, started it up, and drove off. Srulik tried opening the door. It was locked. He tried breaking it but couldn't. Panicky, he ran around the room like an animal caught in a trap, screaming and knocking bottles off their shelves.

"Just a minute, I'll let you out!" It was the woman, standing outside.

Srulik calmed down. He heard banging noises. The woman smashed the lock with an ax and opened the door.