Run, Boy, Run(35)

The two mounted soldiers galloped up. Only now did the driver of the wagon realize who Jurek was hiding from. Their Gestapo uniforms were easily recognizable.

"Have you seen a blond, one-armed Jewish boy?" they asked.

"Yes," the soldier said, pointing to the forest. "He went that way."

Jurek heard the horses gallop off. The wagon lurched slowly out of the forest and onto the paved road. The driver whistled. After a while he asked in broken Polish:

"Where to?"

"Where are you going?" Jurek asked from under the seat.

The soldier laughed. "To Nowy Dwur."

"That's good enough for me," Jurek said. He thought for a minute and asked, "Is that across the Wisla?"

"Yes."

"That's very good." This time Jurek spoke German.

"You know German?"

"A bit."

The soldier stopped the wagon, cleared some room amid the firewood, and moved Jurek to it from his place beneath the seat.

"Lie down here," he said.

He took off his coat and covered him. "Now no one will see you."

He whipped the horses.

"Are you really a Jew?"

"No," Jurek said.

"Tell the truth."

"No. I'm not."

"What's your name?"

"Jurek Staniak."

"I mean your real name."

Jurek paused to reflect. He couldn't remember it.

"I've forgotten," he said.

The soldier resumed whistling. After a while he asked, "Are you hungry?"

"Yes."

He took a large sandwich from a box by his feet and gave it to Jurek. When Jurek had finished eating and lain down again, the soldier asked what happened to his arm.

Jurek told him.

"Where will you go in Nowy Dwur?"

"I'm not going anywhere in Nowy Dwur. I'll get off before that. As soon as we cross the Wisla."

"Why do you want to cross the Wisla?"

"Because everyone around here knows me."

"The one-armed Jewish boy?"

"Yes," Jurek said.

The traffic on the road grew heavier. Farm wagons passed in both directions. German army trucks went by. There were military motorcycles with sidecars and an occasional soldier or Polish worker on a bicycle. They reached the bridge over the Wisla and crossed it. The rattle of the wheels on the wooden bridge made Jurek sit up to look.

"Lie down," the German said sternly.

On the other side of the bridge, he stopped the horses and helped Jurek to get out. He reached into his box and gave him another sandwich. "For the road," he said.

"Thank you very much," Jurek told him.

"God look after you, boy."

The soldier climbed back on the wagon and drove off. Jurek walked quickly away from the road and found a dirt path that wound between fields and meadows. He gazed at the horizon. Here and there were what looked like small woods, but nowhere did he see the reassuring black line of a large forest. The small town of Nowy Dwor was at his back. He walked on, trying to put his painful memories behind him.

It began to rain. Not until evening did he spy the smoke of chimneys spiraling up to the low, cloudy black sky. He tramped through mud until he reached the village. Its thatched roofs were blurry in the fog. He came to a farm. Going to the door of the farmhouse, he knocked. A farmer opened, regarded him hesitantly, and let him into the house. Two young girls and a middle-aged woman were sewing by the stove. Jurek politely doffed his cap and greeted them.

The women greeted him back.

"Help him out of his jacket," the woman said. "Sit the boy at the table."

The farmer helped Jurek out of his jacket and hung it by the stove to dry. One of the girls filled a plate from a bowl on the table and gave it to Jurek. On it were potatoes with sour cream, cooked carrots, and an omelet with large slices of sausage. Jurek didn't look up until he was finished eating.

The questions began. He was used to them. He told them his name and his story. Then he laid his head on the table and shut his eyes.

"The boy is tired," the woman said.

"Come," said the farmer. "I'll put you to bed."

His wife gave him a nightshirt and two blankets. He took a lantern and ran through the rain with Jurek to the hayloft. Jurek heard a loud banging, as if someone were firing bullets at the roof.

"What's that?" he asked in a fright.

"What's what?" The farmer didn't know what he meant.

"That noise..."

The farmer laughed.

"It's the rain on the tin roof," he said.

"How can anyone sleep with that noise?" Jurek asked.

"You'll get used to it. You can't sleep in the hayrack in the barn because there are bags of seed in it."

The farmer waited for Jurek to make his bed and returned to the house. Jurek was left alone in the dark. He took off his wet clothes, put on the nightshirt, and lay down beneath the blankets. Yet he couldn't fall asleep. He had never heard rain drumming on a tin roof before. Although in the end his fatigue got the best of him, he kept waking from time to time, the sound of the rain drifting in and out of his dreams. One dream was an old one. In it he was climbing a tree. Suddenly he slipped and reached out to grab a branch. But the hand he reached with belonged to his missing arm and he fell. The falling woke him. He clutched at the hay beneath him and let out a horrible moan. He opened his eyes. But it wasn't he who had moaned. The moans were coming from the darkness. Two beams of light were moving toward him.