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Run, Boy, Run(17)

By:Uri Orlev


"No, I wasn't. I couldn't help seeing."

"You wouldn't have seen anything if I was rich."

"Why not?"

"Because then I'd wear panties. Now you'll have to take down your pants for me."

Srulik agreed. Marisza examined him and said, "Yours is different from the other boys'."

Srulik was frightened. He had forgotten that he mustn't take off his pants.

"Don't tell anyone," he said.

"I won't," Marisza promised.

Some days she didn't want to hunt. She just wanted to lie in the sun. She would give Srulik some hairs and let him hunt by himself while she kept an eye on his cows and sheep. He caught some birds, made a fire, and cooked them.

One day something strange happened to the fat cow. Although its udders had been swelling, Pani Nowek had said it wouldn't give milk until it calved. He wasn't sure what "calving" was. But now something was dropping from it. He was afraid that something was the matter and ran shouting to Marisza. She came to have a look and calmed him.

"She's just calving, you dope. Can't you see?"

Srulik couldn't believe his eyes when suddenly two little feet appeared. Marisza told him to grab hold of one of them. She seized the other and they began to pull. The cow bleated and panted. A mouth and muzzle appeared, and a minute later there was a head with eyes and ears. Srulik was flabbergasted. When the head was free, they gave a last pull and the baby calf popped out like a cork.

"What do I do now?" Srulik asked worriedly. "How do I get her home?"

"It's not a her, it's a him," Marisza said. "Don't worry. He'll walk by himself."

The other two cows came to have a look. One tried licking the calf, but the mother chased it away. Soon the calf struggled to its feet. It found its mother's teats and began to suck.

Srulik couldn't take his eyes off it. He had never seen anything so exciting.

"You never saw an animal give birth? Not even a dog or cat?"

"No. I once saw a baby goat in Blonie, but I didn't see it being born."

"You want to know something?"

Srulik looked at her curiously.

"You and I were born the same way."

He burst out laughing. "That's crazy."

"I'm telling you. That's why boys are made like you and girls like me."

He could see she was serious. '

"Do you know how babies get into their mothers' stomachs?"

She told him.

"You really are crazy," he said.

"Didn't you ever see a dog mount a bitch? Or a billy goat do it with a goat? When Pani Nowak takes her cow to the stud bull, you'll believe me."

"I know all that," Srulik said. "I saw dogs do it in Blonie. But people aren't dogs or cows."

Marisza shrugged. "You'll understand when you're older. At first I didn't want to believe it either."

***

Every Sunday, Pani Nowek put on her best clothes and went to church. Sometimes, on her way out, she looked at Srulik as if wondering whether to take him too. But Sunday followed Sunday and she never did. Sometimes neighbors dropped by after church. Although Srulik tried to hide when they came, they sometimes spied him in the yard.

"I got him from my brother," the woman explained. "He's an orphan. His name is Jurek."

Some of the visitors smiled at him. One, an old woman, gave him nasty looks. Once he heard her ask Pani Nowek, "Barbara, why don't you bring him to church? Maybe he needs to be baptized."

"I'll talk to the priest," Pani Nowek said.

The conversation worried Srulik.

Something else worried him, too. And it was annoying. He had an itch that kept spreading. He didn't know if it was from dirt or lice. At first it was only on his hands. When he looked at his fingers, he saw what seemed like little white designs beneath the skin. Pani Nowek told him he had chiggers. It came, she said, from a tiny worm that burrowed into you.

"There's a salve for it," she said. "I'll ask the neighbors."

There wasn't enough time for her to get it, though.

One evening Srulik came back from the pasture and brought the cows to the barn for milking. Suddenly the dogs barked wildly and ran toward the road. A vehicle was approaching.

"The Germans are coming to confiscate livestock," Pani Nowek said angrily. "Run and hide in the storeroom. I'll shut the dogs up. Otherwise they'll shoot them."

Srulik ran to the storeroom and Pani Nowek grabbed the dogs and dragged them into the house. An army truck drove into the yard with two German soldiers. They produced a list and took a sheep from the shed. Srulik watched through a crack in the wooden door. It was his favorite sheep. A soldier lifted it onto the truck while the other headed with the woman for the barn. Srulik heard him ask, "Where's the Jewish boy?"