Run, Boy, Run(5)

Yoyneh kept his promise and went to the Jewish ghetto police, but no child had been reported missing. There was just a long list of nameless children who had died in the streets and were known only by the addresses of the houses by which they were found.

Whenever their rovings brought them to a new part of the ghetto, Yankel asked, "Srulik, was it near here?"

Srulik would look hard at his surroundings. He never recognized them. If he had stayed with Yankel's gang long enough, he might have found his house in the end. But one day there were shouts in the streets, accompanied by the harsh whistles of the ghetto police.

"A roundup!"

This was something new. The shouts came from men and women running from the police. They wanted to warn others. The street emptied at once.

Yankel led the gang through some backyards to another street.

"Let's ask Yoyneh," he said. "Maybe he knows what it's about."

Yoyneh was mending a shoe stretched upside-down on a shoehorn.

"Everyone's shouting 'roundup,'" Yankel told him.

Yoyneh nodded sadly. "The Jewish police," he said, "are rounding up Jews for the Germans and putting them on trains. It looks like they're planning to empty the ghetto."

"Trains for where?"

"Resettlement."

"Where?"

Yoyneh pointed with a finger at the sky and moved his shoemaker's stool into his cubbyhole. "I'm closing," he said. "I have a wife and children to worry about. You boys should get out of the ghetto."

"Where to?"

"The Polish side."

"I was already there," Srulik said. "The Germans caught us."

"Get out," Yoyneh repeated. He locked the door, glanced at the keys in his hand, put them in his pocket, and went off.

The boys sat on the sidewalk, talking things over.

"There's a gate to the ghetto that always has wagons by it," Yankel said. "They come to haul away the garbage. Maybe we can hide in them."

He led them to the gate. They followed him somberly, stopping to survey it from afar. There were two German soldiers armed with rifles and four policemen—two Poles on the Polish side and two Jews on the Jewish side. The wagons, hitched to horses, stood inside the gate.

"The first to make it through," Yankel said, "gets out at the first corner and waits for the rest of us. If there are more than two of you, you'll have to hide."

"For how long?"

"For as long as it takes for all of us to cross. If we don't all make it, go without us."

"Where?"

"Search me."

They split up. Srulik inched toward the wagons, which stood parked in a row inside the gate. One began to move. He jumped onto the back and burrowed into the pile of garbage. The smell didn't bother him. The farmer whose wagon it was heard the sound and turned around. For a second, as Srulik disappeared, their eyes met. The farmer hesitated. Then Srulik heard the crack of his whip and the cry:

"Giddy-up!"

The wagon lurched over some cobblestones and stopped. There were Polish and German voices, and then they set out again. Then a German shouted behind them:

"Halt!"

The wagon came to a stop. A soldier ran toward it on studded boots. He made a German remark and Srulik felt something cold slide past his right leg, rip his pants, and slice into the heap of garbage. It withdrew and plunged back two more hair-raising times, once close to his head.

"Get a move on!" the German said in Polish. "There's no boy in there."

The wagon set out again. The rattle of the wheels and the clip-clop of the horse's hooves made Srulik feel hopeful. But now came more shouts—this time far away. The wagon stopped once more. Srulik raised himself and peered out from the rear. The German soldier and a Polish policeman were running toward them, shouting and waving their hands. The farmer leaned back, yanked the frightened boy from his place, and set him down on the road. Srulik's first instinct was to run. The farmer said, "Don't move, boy. I'll get you out of here."

The policeman and the soldier were coming closer. Srulik froze. A shiver ran through him. The farmer bent over the horse with a knife and cut the harness strap. He swung Srulik onto the horse and mounted behind him, and they galloped off. Two shots rang out. Srulik tried turning around to look, but the farmer gripped him tightly. When he finally caught a glimpse over his shoulder, the gate of the ghetto had vanished, as had the soldier, the policeman, and the wagon.

After a while the horse slowed to a trot. The farmer relaxed his grip, and Srulik breathed a sigh of relief. It was the first horse he had ever ridden in his life.

They left the city behind them. Before long they were riding through fields with woods on either side. Now and then they passed a solitary cottage. After a while they came to a village of thatch-roofed houses. Each house had a vegetable garden with some fruit trees and small buildings around it. Srulik saw horses, cows, pigs, and chickens in the farmyards. Wash hung from laundry lines, and here and there an empty pot was drying upside-down on a fence post.