Run, Boy, Run(34)

In the first village he came to, a gang of boys sicced their dog on him. He tried to run but the dog was too fast. He turned and struck it on the snout with his stick, the way he once saw Avrum do. The dog yowled and ran off. But the boys continued to hector him and throw stones until he was out of the village.

A long walk brought him to the next village. It looked familiar. Taken aback, he stopped to regard the houses. Suddenly he heard shouts. A group of German soldiers had noticed him and was running in his direction. But now he knew where he was. Without hesitating, he ran to the pretty woman's house and knocked. She opened the door, took one look at him, and sank to the floor with a groan.

"Hide me, ma'am!" he cried. "They're after me."

The woman pulled herself together. She led Jurek inside and opened a trapdoor in the kitchen. He climbed into the cellar and she shut the door and poured water on the floor to wash away his footprints.

The Germans burst inside and began to search.

"Who are you looking for?" she asked.

"The one-armed Jewish boy."

"I haven't seen any boy."

"We saw him run in here."

"No one is here," the woman insisted.

The soldiers combed the house, sticking their bayonets wherever a child might have been hiding. They seemed to take pleasure in the damage they did. One bayoneted a straw basket in which a hen was sitting on her eggs.

"Are you going to hand him over or not?" they asked.

"There's no one here," the woman repeated.

The Germans were furious. They beat her, dragged her out of the house, and set it on fire. Then they torched the whole village.

Jurek sat huddled in darkness. He heard the woman's screams, the Germans' curses, and the heavy steps of boots. Screams came from everywhere. The cellar filled with smoke. He heard heavy objects tumbling to the floor above him. He didn't know they were the rafters of the house. It was hard to breathe. He was gasping for air. After what might have been long hours or only a few minutes, the trapdoor opened and he saw light.

"You can come out," said the woman. "Jurek? Are you all right? You can come out. They're gone."

He climbed out of the cellar. He hardly recognized her. She was not the same woman who had opened the door for him a short while before. She was old and beaten, and her clothes were torn. He looked in horror at the ruined, half-burned house.

"Is this because of me?" he asked, racked by spasms of coughing.

She didn't answer. She took him outside, scooped some water from a puddle, and washed his face with it. Then she washed her own face. He looked around. The village was no longer there. The houses stood charred and smoking. Some were still burning. People stood helplessly in the street. Farmers carried water from the well and threw it on the smoldering ruins. Women wailed.

He pointed to the smoking village with horror. "Is this because of me?" he asked again.

"No. It's not because of you. You may have been the reason they burned my house first. But they've been here for the past three days. They know we helped the partisans. They beat us, they shot us, and today they burned our village. What happened to your arm?"

"It was caught in a machine."

"Jurek, I can't help you anymore. You have to go now. And don't come back. I've had all I can take. Do you understand? I can't take any more of this. I don't even have food to give you. Just keep walking east. Do you know where east is? It's where the sun rises in the morning. That's where the Russians will come from. Dear Jesus, save this boy from harm."

She crossed herself. Big tears ran down her cheeks.

Who were the Russians? He didn't ask.





13. An Unknown Soldier


He walked toward the east, keeping close to the villages by the edge of the forest. He never entered them during the day. He was known and on the Wanted list. His third day on the road gave him additional proof of this. As he was thinking of how old, stooped, and crushed the pretty woman had become in a few minutes, he saw two Germans on horseback coming toward him. He recognized them at once. They were the soldiers who had chased him after he escaped from Gestapo headquarters. He pulled his hat over his eyes and kept walking while turning his right side away from them. It seemed to work. They passed him and rode on. Each time he turned around to look, they were smaller against the background of the cloudy sky. Yet suddenly they stopped, wheeled, and galloped toward him. He left the road and sprinted toward the forest. As he reached the tree line, a horse-drawn wagon piled with firewood came toward him. Driving it was Werner. Jurek ran to him with relief and cried, "Quick, hide me! They're after me!"

But up close he saw it wasn't Werner at all. It was an unknown soldier. The hat and uniform were the same, but not the face. For a second, Jurek froze. Before he could get a grip on himself, the soldier grabbed him by the collar, hoisted him into the wagon, pushed him under the seat, and sat down on it.