The Forest of Vanishing Stars

by Kristin Harmel

  “You will honor them by surviving,” Yona said.

  “Perhaps,” Rosalia said. “But I must also make them proud.” And then, before Yona could say another word, Rosalia turned and walked away, deeper into the forest.

  * * *

  Two days later, Zus and Chaim had assembled a team; Leonid Gulnik would come along, as would Bernard, Rosalia, six of the newcomers, and Yona. Israel and Wenzel would be in charge of guarding the camp while they were gone. Sulia had begged to join them, but Zus and Chaim had decided against it; they needed to be able to trust everyone on their mission, and none of them believed she would put the group’s safety ahead of her own. She had huffed off angrily after her request was denied, but now, though she was still shooting Zus and Yona dirty looks, she seemed to have accepted the decision and was flirting with Harry Feinschreiber, who looked bewildered to be on the receiving end of her attention.

  They would leave the next morning before dawn, bringing with them all but one of the machine guns and all but two of the rifles; they would need as many weapons as possible to take on the fully armed Germans, but of course they couldn’t leave the camp undefended. They had carefully laid out their plan—shoot out the tires of an approaching German transport; then, in the melee, rush forward from all directions and shoot as many of the soldiers as possible before the Germans returned fire. It would be dangerous, and they’d likely be outnumbered, so the element of surprise would be everything. And then, most important, they would have to disappear as quickly as they’d come, melting into the forest without a trace, for certainly the Germans would come looking for them.

  Yona had just laid her head down in her small hut, in hopes of quieting her mind and getting at least a few hours of sleep, when there was a rustling just outside, then the sound of someone clearing his throat. “Yona?” It was Zus, and Yona immediately went to greet him.

  The rest of the group was all tucked away, the fire from dinner extinguished, the night quiet. The moon was a mere sliver, and the sky was dark, so he was barely more than a shadow in the blackness. “Is everything all right, Zus?” she asked.

  “May I come in?”

  She nodded and moved aside. When she lit a candle in the darkness, light flooded the small space, and she had to stop herself from reaching out and touching his face. She waited in silence for him to speak.

  “Yona, I’m frightened,” he said at last, his low, deep voice reminding her of a distant rumble of thunder, soothing and dangerous at the same time. He took a step closer. They were inches apart, as close as they’d been the night he’d kissed her. “What if we are making a mistake? I couldn’t live with myself if I let something happen to Chaim.” He hesitated and then looked into her eyes. “Or to you.”

  She blinked a few times, trying to escape the power of his gaze. “Chaim makes his own decision, as do I. You are not responsible for either of us, Zus.”

  “But he is my brother. I love him, and I don’t want to lose him. And you are…” He trailed off. “You are you. You are…” He didn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence, but she could hear it in the tremble of his voice now, see it in the pain reflected in his eyes. “What you said about broken pieces, Yona, I—I know you’re right. I am trying to find my way back to life, you see. It’s just taking me longer than I expected.”

  She wanted to lean forward and kiss him. But she held herself back, because she had never explained the fact that perhaps she was irredeemable from the start by the very act of her birth. So she took a deep breath and gestured for him to sit down beside her. They settled on her reed bed, and he searched her face.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I’ve been thinking about what Rosalia said,” she began softly. “There’s something I should tell you.”

  He touched her cheek. “There’s no need.”

  “But there is.” She took a deep breath. “When I was gone this summer, I met my father.”

  He blinked a few times. “Your father? I thought you were raised by an old woman. That you didn’t know your parents.”

  “I was with them until my second birthday. Sometimes at night I could see their faces in my mind, frozen there, like a piece of my past I couldn’t touch but would always remember.”

  He looked puzzled, but he nodded, encouraging her to go on.

  “That’s why I recognized my father, I think, though I never expected it. He was always there, just beyond my reach.” She dared a glance at Zus and then hung her head in shame. “He’s a German officer, Zus. He’s the one who told me the Germans were coming to the woods.”

  He hadn’t moved away, but he looked as if he’d been slapped. “Yona…”

  “You see, I’m not like you after all. Your family is dead. Mine is perhaps responsible for that. Maybe… maybe I was born to be something terrible,” she concluded in a whisper.

  He didn’t say anything, and as she looked down, she feared that he agreed, that he was appalled. But then he reached out and wrapped his hands around hers. He waited until she looked up before speaking. “We all come into this world with our fate unwritten, Yona. Your identity isn’t determined by your birth. All that matters is what we make ourselves into, what we choose to do with our lives. You are no more a Nazi than I am a creature from outer space who flies among the stars.”

  Despite the tears in her eyes, despite the gravity of their discussion, she couldn’t stop herself from choking out a laugh. He touched her face, tilting her chin up so she had to look him in the eye.

  “You are you, Yona, and you are extraordinary. It doesn’t matter who your parents are, or even who raised you. Who are you here?” He tapped her chest, just above her left breast, and then he lingered there, his palm against her skin. She could feel her heart beating against his hand.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  “But I do. You are a warrior. You are a hero, and a fighter, and a savior. You are a caretaker and a life giver.” He took a deep breath and waited until she looked up at him. “And you are the woman who has reawakened a heart I thought would sleep forever.” He reached for her hand and placed her palm on the left side of his chest so that they sat in the quiet, their hands over each other’s hearts, feeling the steady rhythm of life. “You are a woman I hope can forgive my shortcomings, and a woman I hope might one day find space in her heart for me.”

  At this, her eyes filled with tears. “You are already there, Zus. Can’t you feel it?”

  His palm pressed into her chest, absorbing the beats of her heart, which seemed to march in time with his. Slowly, he nodded.

  “I’m just not certain that there will ever be space in your heart,” she said softly. “And I understand if there’s not.”

  He looked into her eyes. “You are already there, too, Yona.”

  And then his lips were on hers, and it felt different from the last time. There was no hesitation, no question hidden in the way they touched, nothing left unsaid. Zus knew now that Yona understood his past, and she knew that he understood hers. None of it mattered, not in this moment. As she blew out the candle and felt the weight of him on top of her, his body covering hers and his hands entangled in her hair, she closed her eyes and released her fear. The only thing that remained was the only thing that mattered: love—the kind that could be found in the darkness when all pretenses had disappeared, the kind born of pain and despair and hope, the kind that was a shelter in the storm.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  In the morning, Zus was gone, but when she saw him in the clearing an hour after daybreak, his eyes were warm, and when he reached out to touch her hand, his fingers brushing gently against hers, she could feel the current running between them, a shared energy she’d never felt with Aleksander.

  “Are we sure about this?” he asked, leaning in close, and for a second, she thought he was asking if she was certain about what they’d shared the night before. But when she looked into his eyes, she understood instantly that he was asking instead about the mission they were a
bout to embark on. Already, Chaim, Rosalia, Leonid, and Bernard Zuk were clustered near the remnants of last night’s fire, talking to the Rozenberg brothers, and the two Rozenberg wives, Regina and Paula, who were handing out guns. Shimon was on the other side of the clearing with Rubin Sobil and Harry Feinschreiber.

  “There is great risk.” Yona’s gaze settled on Rosalia. “But I think it is something we must do.”

  Zus nodded slowly. “Then it is time.”

  He stepped away from her and called to the others. All around them, the members of the camp emerged from their huts one by one to listen.

  “If all goes well,” Zus began, “we will be back here in four and a half days’ time with enough food to last the winter. Our group is small, but we cannot survive on what we’ve gathered from the forest, and as you all know, the Germans have stolen from us the option of taking foods from the villages and farms. It is time we fight back.”

  A murmur of approval ran through the small crowd. Everyone was nodding in agreement, even those who looked frightened.

  “It will be dangerous, though,” Zus continued. “But all of us who are risking our lives to take on the Germans, to feed our camp, know the risks. We are all ready to fight for what is ours.”

  Rosalia stepped forward. “We stand up now. We stand up for those who are not here anymore to stand up for themselves.”

  Something shifted in Yona’s belly, a swell of nerves. This wasn’t what the mission was about, but the murmurs in the group rose to cheers, and a few people clapped and whistled.

  “Stand up for my mother!” called out Elizaveta, who had sleeping baby Abra pressed against her chest. “She was on her knees begging for mercy when the Germans shot her.”

  “Stand for our son Natan and his wife and children!” Oscher called out. Bina was by his side, tears in her eyes, nodding.

  “For my daughter, Ryka, and my wife, Sosia!” called Rubin Sobil.

  “For my daughter, Dolca!” cried Moshe.

  Ruth grasped Leah’s hand and hoisted little Daniel higher on her shoulder. “For my children’s father, Chiel.”

  “For Aleksander, and Leib, and Luba, and Lazare!” yelled Ester.

  All around the camp, names rang out. Husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, children, friends, loved ones. They’d all lost more people than could be counted, and that’s why it was time. Yona and Zus exchanged glances, the understanding of that truth passing silently between them.

  “Take what is ours!” Chaim’s wife, Sara, called out, her voice thick with tears. “But come back to us, all of you. The best revenge is your survival.”

  Chaim nodded solemnly, and so, too, did the others, all except for Rosalia, whose face was as still as carved stone. Once the grief for her lost family had finally come to the surface, it had settled there, heavy and immovable, making her almost unrecognizable.

  Ten minutes later, after exchanging hugs and kisses and handshakes with those who would remain, the small group set out toward the west. All around them, the forest was shedding her green, preparing for the winter. The world drifted down around them in all the colors of fire and flame, and they could still smell the smoked ruins of some of the villages on the forest’s edge. It smelled like autumn, too, of leaves crisp and spent, of grass turned to straw, of mushrooms taking their last gasp of air before the forest turned cold. Rabbits and chipmunks fled ahead of them as the group marched on, and ravens lifted off with great caws of warning.

  They stopped at nightfall and ate a small meal from their knapsacks, each of which was stuffed with blankets taken from neighboring towns, which Moshe had hastily fashioned into giant sacks to transport whatever foodstuffs they managed to obtain. That night, they didn’t bother with shelters; they built beds of sticks and reeds, covered them with fallen leaves and let exhaustion overtake them. Sometime during the night, Zus, who slept in a makeshift bed beside Yona’s, reached for her hand, and they didn’t let go until the first rays of dawn pierced the sky. It was time to move again.

  The group walked until midafternoon on the second day, when Yona quickly jogged to the front of their exhausted line and held up a hand to stop them. “What is it?” asked Rosalia, who’d been leading the charge through the forest.

  “We’re getting close,” Yona said. Within an hour, they’d reach the road. “Let’s rest here until midnight.” She gestured to a cluster of fallen oaks a hundred meters away. “We can find some shelter there. We’ll move again in the darkness, and we’ll find our places along the road so we’re there to greet the Germans in the morning.”

  They all gathered, sharing potatoes and dried berries they’d brought from camp. They passed around a bottle of bimber that the brothers had brought along and talked in low voices about the plan for the morning. They would position themselves so they would immediately surround an approaching transport. They would be cautious not to fire on a truck that contained only soldiers, for it would yield no food and would be more dangerous. They would also avoid convoys of multiple vehicles and wait for a truck traveling on its own.

  As the group settled in for a few hours of rest, softly singing folk songs everyone but Yona knew, Zus sat beside her, his arm around her, and though a few people looked at them with curiosity, no one said anything. After nightfall, instead of building beds, most of the group found refuge in the hollows of the fallen tree trunks, sleeping alone, except for Zus and Yona, who slept beside each other on a bed of leaves, her head on his chest.

  Just past midnight, Chaim, who had taken the second shift guarding the group, shook Yona gently awake. “It’s time.”

  Indeed, the nearly full moon shone down, bathing the forest in more light than Yona would have liked. They were close to civilization, so the trees here weren’t as dense as they were in the deeper parts of the forest, nor were the canopies overhead as thick. The stars that were often hidden in the forest’s depths looked here like spilled sugar across the blackness of the sky.

  “Are you ready?” Yona whispered to Chaim before helping him to wake the others.

  “To ambush a German convoy? No, I don’t think I ever will be. But we are in desperate times, yes?” He sighed. “I just want to feed my family and make it back to them. I want to live to see Jakub and Adam grow into adults. Is that too much to ask?”

  “No,” Yona replied. Beside her Zus stirred and sat up. “It is the very least any of us deserves.”

  In fifteen minutes, the group was awake, their knapsacks packed, their guns loaded, adrenaline buoying them. “We’ll be to the road in an hour,” Yona said, looking at the assembled group one by one. Beside her, Zus was studying his brother with concern. Yona watched as Zus crossed to Chaim, put a hand on his shoulder, and said something into his ear. Chaim nodded and looked up, sharing a moment of silent understanding with Zus, and then Zus looked to Yona and nodded solemnly.

  They moved through the woods in darkness, their path lit only by the moon and stars above, silent except for the crunch of leaves beneath their feet. The light disappeared behind clouds for a bit, plunging them into darkness just as they had to cross a small river, but it returned in time to illuminate the wide road ahead, which seemed to slice the forest in two.

  “There it is,” Rosalia whispered almost reverently.

  “There it is,” Chaim echoed, but his tone was different, filled with trepidation.

  “All right,” Zus said as the group began to whisper among themselves. “We must get in position. We don’t know how early they come through. Rosalia, you go a hundred meters east with Leonid. Remember, we will only stop a cargo vehicle, and only one that is alone, or it will be too dangerous. You two will fire the first shots to disable the vehicle. Aim at their wheels; the best we can hope for is that they spin out of control, disorienting the soldiers for a few seconds. After that, we lose the element of surprise. Joel, you and Maks head down there, across from Rosalia. If another transport truck comes up behind it, you’ll need to disable them quickly so the tables don’t turn on us. The rest of us will sp
lit up, here, there, and there.” He gestured to two spots on the other side of the road. “We will have to be ready the moment Rosalia and Leonid begin shooting, because it will be only seconds before they return fire. Anything else, Yona?”

  She shook her head slowly. The assuredness of his plan reminded her how little she knew about his past; he spoke like someone who had led military missions before.

  “Once upon a time, I trained to be in the army,” he said softly, reading her mind as the group began to disperse to their assigned locations. “I’ll tell you all about it one day.” The words were an unspoken promise that they’d both survive.

  Yona wound up beside Zus and Chaim, in the shadow of a giant oak that reached over the road. Across the way, Benjamin and Michal hid behind trees several meters apart, each accompanied by his wife. As clouds drifted across the moon, Yona could see only the white of their eyes in the darkness until the sun began to rise, pinking the sky to the east.

  It could have been hours before the first transport came through, but instead, just as the sun crept above the horizon, they heard the low rumble of a vehicle in the distance. Up the road, Rosalia stood and waved everyone down. Yona’s heart thudded against her rib cage; what had seemed like a good idea moments before now seemed like a recipe for disaster.

  Time seemed to stand still as the noise got louder and louder. A shadow appeared from around the bend, and a few seconds later, a large truck rumbled into view. It was a German Opel Blitz, a cargo truck with a dozen soldiers seated in the open rear. With that many men back there, it couldn’t be carrying many provisions, and Yona assumed Rosalia would notice the same thing and hold her fire. But then, in a flash, Rosalia rose from the bushes, her gun leveled, and fired once, calmly, accurately, into the Blitz’s front left tire.