The Forest of Vanishing Stars

by Kristin Harmel

  He nodded slowly. “It was the nuns themselves who came to us with this bargain. You are trying to save people who do not want to be saved.”

  “We all want to be saved.”

  He glanced at her. “Some must sacrifice for the greater good.”

  Yona swallowed the lump in her throat. “So you intend to kill them after all?”

  “I know this matters to you. But I don’t know what to do.” He looked down at her as they turned a corner. The circles beneath his eyes were pronounced, his forehead creased with fatigue. “You must understand that I am merely a cog in a wheel, Inge.”

  “But you’re in charge here. Surely you can do something. Surely you can—”

  “Enough!” His voice was low, but she could hear the fury in his tone, the frustration. “You know nothing about it. You think I want to be living in a godforsaken Polish town on the edge of nowhere? You think I wouldn’t prefer to be in Berlin? No, Inge, I am here for a reason, and I can’t let myself become distracted. If I let myself forget, I will fail. And that is not an option. We have work that needs to be done, and soon, but first the villages must be controlled. And that means people must know the consequences of undermining us.”

  “Why are you here?” Yona asked as they turned another corner. They were near Jüttner’s home now, but at the end of the long avenue, the forest loomed in the distance. As Jüttner looked directly at it now, and then quickly away, as if he hadn’t meant to let his eyes travel there, Yona understood in a sharp instant of clarity. They were here for the Russian partisans—and the Jews—hidden in the trees. Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. “The woods,” she managed to say.

  His expression hardened. “There are people out there making trouble for us, blowing up our railway lines, killing our men. And what are they? Russian deserters and Jews who ran like cowards from their fate. They don’t deserve to live.”

  Yona felt her blood run cold as ice, and she shivered. “Who are you to decide that?”

  He stopped walking and whirled to face her. His eyes traveled over her, peeling back layers like those of an onion. “That’s where you were before you came here, isn’t it? With one of those groups?”

  Yona didn’t say anything, and after a moment, he grabbed her arm and squeezed so tightly that she yelped in pain and surprise.

  “Jews or Russians?” he hissed. When she still didn’t answer, he shook her, hard, and she could feel his eyes burning into her. “Jews or Russians?”

  Still she stayed silent, and after a few more seconds, he dropped her arm with a sneer of disgust. “Jews, I’m guessing. The Russians use their whores up and discard them.”

  She bit her lip so hard she could taste blood.

  “Well, you’re here now.” He was trying to console himself. “Perhaps you had no choice when you were all alone, but now you are with me. And certainly you know that the Jews are lazy and conniving. They’re a drain on all of us. If you feel sympathy for them, you have been conned.”

  “No, you have.” She finally found her voice. “You’ve been brainwashed, and you’re too foolish to see it.”

  His face turned red, and his whole body seemed to stiffen. “How dare you.” His voice was flat, emotionless, but she could feel the anger rolling from him in waves as he grabbed her arm and began walking again, pulling her with him. She stumbled a bit, but he didn’t slow his pace; he merely tightened his grip. They were silent as they turned onto his street and as he nodded at the soldier outside his house. Neither of them spoke again until they were both inside, the door closed behind them.

  “You will never speak to me that way again,” he said, his tone lower now, deadly.

  “When?” she asked softly, ignoring his words, though they made her feel as if she’d been plunged into the Neman River in the dead of winter. “When are you coming for them?” In her mind’s eye, she could see Ruth and her three small children, Oscher with his limp, Chaim’s young sons. She could see all of them, one by one. But the face that lingered was that of Zus. Stay, Yona, he had said, his eyes boring into hers as he touched her face. Please. We need you.

  “You aren’t thinking of going back?” Jüttner’s eyebrows were raised so high that they nearly disappeared into his hairline. He sputtered a laugh of mocking disbelief. “No, no one would be that foolish.”

  She refused to react. “When?” she repeated.

  He flexed his jaw, and then, he smiled slightly. “Two weeks from today.”

  “Please, don’t.” She hated that her voice shook, that it sounded so desperate. “Please stop it.” He didn’t say anything, and after a few seconds, she added, “Please, Father. Papa.”

  It hurt her to call him that, but she could see the reaction it elicited. He flinched as if she’d hit him, and she knew the word had made a difference. He sighed, and at last he met her gaze. “It has nothing to do with me, Inge. The woods are full of Russian partisans who wish to destroy us. They are our first target. There is also a man named Bielski in the woods. A Jew, a swine from Stankiewicze. He has taken hundreds of Jews into the Nalibocka, and they work to damage the German train lines, the German transports. You see why we have no choice? Why we must strike back? There’s another group of Jews, too, under a man named Zorin, and they do the same. These are not innocents, Yona. They are fighting against us. This is war.”

  “They are only trying to survive,” she protested, ashamed of the flicker of selfish hope that went through her when she realized he was targeting the larger groups, groups whose location she didn’t know.

  “But they have no right to survival, Inge,” he said after a long pause.

  “Who are you to decide such a thing?” she demanded.

  Before he could say another word, she was running for the stairs, desperate to put distance between them. Her mind was spinning. She had to warn Zus, Aleksander, and the others that the Germans were coming. She had to find a way to get to the Zorin and Bielski groups, too, to tell them to be ready. But how could she leave the nuns? They would be executed the moment she left. How could she put one life above another? Who was she to choose?

  She refused to join Jüttner for dinner that night, and she cried herself to sleep, safe in a warm room granted by the enemy, as an inevitable darkness moved in across the night sky, inching closer and closer to everyone she cared about, blotting out the stars.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Jüttner refused to take Yona to the church the next morning, but when he returned that evening, just as twilight was settling over the town, his first words to her were a promise that the nuns were still safe.

  “I spoke with your Sister Maria Andrzeja myself today,” he said stiffly. “She asked me to tell you she’s praying for you.”

  Yona couldn’t imagine the two of them having a conversation, and she wondered what had prompted Jüttner to speak to the nun himself. “Thank you.” It was hard to force the words out, to express gratitude for anything at all.

  He sat down in the parlor and gestured for her to do the same. She settled across from him, her stomach swimming. He sounded lighter today, more cheerful. It made her uneasy. “I’ve come up with a solution, I think.” He was beaming at her proudly when she finally dared look at him.

  “A solution?”

  “The nuns will be taken to the woods. There will be guns fired, eight shots. And then they will be taken in a truck to another part of Poland, far from here. They will be ordered not to return, or they’ll be shot on sight. No one in town would need to know that a punishment has not been handed down.”

  Yona stared at him. “You would spare them?”

  “On two conditions. When I leave for the forest the week after next, you will return to my home in Berlin, where you belong. I have already arranged transport for you.” He waited for her to reply, but when she didn’t, he went on. “The second condition is that you will tell me where the Jews are hiding. You will direct me to the Bielski camp.”

  “I have never seen that group,” she answered honestly.

&
nbsp; “Don’t lie to me, Inge. I am trying to help you.”

  “It’s not a lie.”

  “Then who were you with? The Zorin group?” His voice was rising.

  “No. I was alone.” Was it really a lie? After all, even when she’d been with the group, she’d been on the outside looking in, no matter what she told herself. “But there’s a group in the western part of the Nalibocka, just south of the big road that crosses the river. I saw them.”

  It was a part of the forest where she was almost certain no one was hiding, for she had traversed it just the week before, and there had been no signs of human life. It wouldn’t have been a logical spot to hide, either; the trees were younger, thinner there; there were fewer animals to snare, fewer streams to fish, fewer places to hide. But certainly Jüttner knew none of that.

  Still, he narrowed his eyes at her after a moment. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m trying to save the nuns,” she hissed. “We are making a deal, right?” She took a deep breath and channeled Jerusza, inventing details to sell her story. “You think I feel good about betraying people who haven’t done anything wrong? But there are at least thirty people hiding there, in tents made of marsh grass. At least some of them are armed; I could hear them hunting deer when I passed by.”

  After a few long seconds, his expression cleared. “Good. I’m glad you’re seeing things my way. You’ve done the right thing.”

  “Have I?”

  He frowned. “I understand that this, what lies between you and me, is very fragile right now. I am trying, Inge. I will keep your nuns safe.”

  The words sat between them, and Yona’s throat felt dry. Emotion rolled over her in waves: relief for the nuns, guilt for the fact that she’d leave as soon as the nuns were safe, for she needed to warn the group in the forest. She was taking something of value from Jüttner under false pretenses, and she knew it. “Schneider agreed to this?”

  “I have organized this without his knowledge. As far as he is concerned, they will be dead in two days’ time.”

  “He won’t insist on carrying out the executions himself?”

  “As you pointed out, he takes orders from me.” Jüttner was silent for a moment before clearing his throat. “I hope you realize I am making an attempt to give you what you want.”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I know you are.”

  “I realize you think I’m cruel. But I hope that once you get to know me again, you will realize that I am only doing what I need to.”

  To Yona’s surprise, the words brought some comfort, for she, too, had things she needed to do, things that would hurt him. “I know you believe that.”

  Later, over a dinner of hearty veal-head soup, prepared by Jüttner’s silent Belorussian housekeeper, Yona blurted out the question that had been gnawing at her for days. “How do you live with it all?”

  Jüttner paused, his spoon halfway to his mouth. His hand shook as he lowered it back down to the bowl. He took his time wiping his mouth on his cloth napkin before asking, “Live with what?”

  “The things you’ve done. The deaths you’ve been responsible for?”

  His eyes narrowed, and color rose in his cheeks. For a moment, she feared that she’d gone too far. But his shoulders slumped, and he shook his head. “Frankly, I have not yet figured out how to do that, Inge.”

  “So why do you continue?” she pressed after a few seconds. The clock in the foyer ticked loudly in the silence, reminding her that time was running out: for her, for the groups in the forest, for the nuns. She would have to leave as soon as the sisters were safe. “Why don’t you abandon your post and try to redeem yourself?”

  His laugh was sad and empty. “It isn’t that simple. Don’t you see? If I abandon my post, as you suggest, I’ll be arrested and executed as a traitor. Is that what you want for me?”

  “Of course not.” She stared at him, surprised by how emphatic her answer felt. He might have been a terrible man, but she didn’t want to see him dead.

  “Then you see that I have no choice.”

  They ate in silence, Yona taking only small tastes of the soup to be polite, for once again, she’d lost her appetite. “Is it my fault that this is who you’ve become? Did the theft of your child, and the death of your wife, turn you into this?”

  He blinked at her a few times. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

  But Yona could see in his eyes that he did. Might he have turned the other way, to goodness, if he’d known the unconditional love of a child? If he and his wife had grown old together? Had Jerusza herself shaped his fate, and that of everyone who died at his hand, with her decision to steal Yona long ago? Or if Jüttner had become someone different, would it merely have been another man in his jackboots doling out death? The answers were terrible and unknowable. “I’m very sorry,” she said softly.

  He cleared his throat. “You have nothing to apologize for. You were a victim, as was I.” He paused to take another bite, and for a moment, though the space between them was filled with sadness and regret, there was a sliver of understanding there, too, a bridge connecting them at long last.

  * * *

  That night, Yona dreamed of the forest, but instead of clear, burbling water, the familiar streams ran red with blood. In the middle of the night, she awoke in a sweat, certain she’d heard gunshots, a sharp series of crack-cracks in the distance, but when she sat up in bed, she realized it had been merely a dream. She went to the window and opened it to let the cool night air in, peering out at the alley below. Overhead, the sky was dusted with stars, and a full moon bathed the rooftops. She listened, the silence convincing her once and for all that the sounds hadn’t been real. Still, when she lay back down again, sleep eluded her for hours.

  She awoke late, still groggy from her restless night, and when she descended to the kitchen, she found Jüttner already gone, the maid, Marya, scrubbing the dishes.

  “Good morning.” Yona greeted the maid in Belorussian. She guessed it was the language the woman spoke, though she’d never heard her say a word. “Is Jüttner here?”

  Marya turned, her eyebrows raised. “Your father?” she asked in Belorussian, her voice dripping with barely concealed hatred. “Yes, he’s gone. You had a leisurely sleep, I see. How nice for you.”

  Yona wanted to protest that Jüttner wasn’t her father, not really. That she wasn’t accountable for his sins. But she was sleeping under the roof of a Nazi commander and eating the food his position provided. “I’m not him,” she murmured.

  Marya regarded her suspiciously. “And why do you speak our language, then? You are German, no?”

  “I was not raised there.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard. Your father’s vanished girl. And how have you come to be here now?” Suspicion glinted in her eyes. “At this moment? In this town? It is all very suspicious.”

  Yona thought of Sister Maria Andrzeja’s words. “Perhaps it was God’s plan.”

  The maid snorted, but she didn’t say anything more.

  “Was this your home?” Yona asked after a moment. “Before the Germans came?”

  “No.” Marya paused, as if considering how much to tell Yona. “But I worked for the people who lived here.”

  “What happened to them?”

  Now there was something else in her eyes: rage. “The father, shot in the street. The mother and children, shot in their beds. The youngest was just four. Russian sympathizers, the Germans said. You tell me how a four-year-old can be a Russian sympathizer, hmm?”

  Yona put a hand over her mouth. “The room I’ve been sleeping in…”

  “The teenage daughter. Czesława. She died right where you’ve slept.” Marya crossed her arms over her chest, looking both smug and devastated. “The snow globe on your nightstand? The beautiful one with the forest and the snow? She used to look at it every night and dream of a future far away. And now, because of people like your father, she is dead, buried in the dirt here. She never even left the town where sh
e was born.”

  Yona quickly crossed the kitchen and retched into the sink. When she straightened, the maid was still staring at her. “I’m sorry,” Yona said.

  The maid just grunted. “That does not bring them back, Fräulein Inge.”

  Her given name coming from Marya’s mouth sounded strange and wrong, even worse than when it was uttered by Jüttner, who had at least known her as something else a lifetime ago. “It’s Yona,” she said softly. “My name is Yona now.”

  Marya scowled. “You think you can escape who you were born to be? None of us can. Can’t you see that?” She turned away without another word and swept out of the room, leaving Yona alone, the taste of bile and regret in her mouth.

  She dressed quickly, once again donning the dead girl’s clothes. Her own things were neatly folded in the corner; Marya had laundered her dress, her shirt, her trousers, her underthings, even mended the holes in her socks. They seemed to taunt her now, reminding her that this was no time to play dress-up, but it had to be. If she could just keep the ruse of being a dutiful daughter going a little longer, she could save everyone. Wasn’t it foolish not to try?

  She was relieved not to see Marya as she slipped downstairs again, but the relief faded when she peered out the front door and saw two soldiers outside, both of whom turned to stare with curiosity until she’d closed the door once more.

  It took her a full minute to realize that if there were two soldiers out front, one of them might be the one who was supposed to be guarding the alley. Quickly, she flew across the house and flung open the back door. She looked left and right and saw not another soul. Without hesitation, she slipped into the alley, closing the door softly behind her, and then, hugging the shadows, she walked quickly to the end of the block, where a glance told her that the street was deserted. She didn’t wait another second before breaking into a run, putting as much distance between herself and Jüttner’s stolen home as she could.