"Let's go," Yosele said.
He gave the matches to Avrum and they continued on their way. Yosele and Srulik brought up the rear.
"How come Avrum sent us to buy the matches?" Srulik wanted to know.
"We're too small to scare the Polish kids."
"But why did you take those broken bottles?"
"They're for you." Yosele handed him the two pieces of glass.
Srulik didn't get it.
"They're in place of a knife."
"Who else has one?"
"Just me."
"Where did you get it?"
"I found it in the forest."
Srulik examined the broken glass.
"You have it to wrap it rags so it won't cut you."
"I don't have any rags," Srulik said.
"Cut some from your shirt."
Srulik took a piece of jagged glass and cut off part of his shirt sleeve.
The sun had set. The black line of the forest in the distance was now a row of trees. They sat down to eat in the fading light instead of waiting to reach the forest. Srulik had never eaten a raw egg before. Yosele showed him how to make two small holes at either end with a toothpick and to suck it out through one.
"Why don't you use your knife?" Srulik asked.
"The blade's broken. Look." Yosele opened the knife.
No one mentioned the boy who had been caught. "What will happen to him?" Srulik wanted to know.
"He'll be beaten and handed over to the Germans for money or vodka," Itsik said.
"And then?"
"No one who was caught has ever come back to tell us."
"Don't talk so much," Shleymi scolded them.
They went on eating in silence. When they were done, they put the leftover vegetables in their pockets and bags and set out again. It was dark, but the darkness was different from the ghetto's. The land loomed around them, as flat as the palm of a hand, and the vast sky overhead was strewn with stars. Just as they entered the forest, a big orange moon came up. Srulik remembered moons like that from Blonie. In the ghetto, he had never seen one. They were almost in the forest now. "Where are we going?" Srulik asked.
"Into the forest to sleep."
He was scared. He had gone to the forest with his older brothers during the day to gather mushrooms and pick blueberries, but at night it was a scary place. They passed the tree line and kept walking.
"Hold hands," Avrum said.
Srulik gave one hand to Yosele and the other to Itsik. They came to a place where they stopped and lay down. For a few minutes there was low conversation. Srulik lay with his eyes shut. Then he opened them wide. The forest was talking. He listened. Was it the same forest as the big one near Blonie? The moon was hidden behind the treetops. Here and there a patch of sky shone brightly through the darkness. Stars glittered. The silhouettes of the branches were outlined against the sky. Srulik heard a strange sound, like someone groaning or breathing. He gave a start.
"What's that?" he whispered.
Yosele, lying beside him, whispered back, "An owl."
"Aren't you afraid to be here at night?"
"Don't you see, Srulik?" Yosele said. "If not for the forest, the farmers would have caught us long ago. It's this darkness that keeps them from finding us and handing us over to the Germans the way they'll hand over Leybele. It protects us. That's why I like it. The darkness keeps us alive. Do you see now?"
"Yes."
"Are you still afraid?"
"Yes," Srulik admitted.
"You'll get used to it. I was afraid too."
"How did you meet the other boys?"
"I heard them talking. Their Polish sounded Jewish, so I went to them. At first Shleymi didn't want to take me."
Srulik suddenly realized why Shleymi had told him not to talk to Poles. "Do I talk Polish like a Jew too?" he asked.
"No. Neither does Avrum. But some of us have Yiddish accents. Like Shleymi."
"And why shouldn't I go swimming or take my pants off?"
"Because you're circumcised."
"Aren't the Poles?"
Yosele laughed. "No. Only the Jews."
Yosele was from Warsaw. His mother, he told Srulik, made a living in the ghetto by sewing and selling the blue stars of David that Jews had to wear on their sleeves. With the money she made, he had bought potatoes and bread on the Polish side of the wall and smuggled them to the Jewish side. It was hard, dangerous work. Twice he had been caught. Each time he was beaten and the food was taken from him. Before being taken to the hospital with typhus, his mother said to him,"Yosele, cross to the Polish side and don't come back."
"And you've been in the forest ever since then?" Srulik asked.
"No. At first I hung around the villages. Until I was almost caught."