TWENTY-FOUR
Czechoslovakia, 1942
Julia stirred at dawn after spending her first night with the gypsies huddled with Eva and Josh by the fire, now only a few smoking embers. She had made a small bed on the forest floor, using heavy straw taken from Django’s cart where he slept warmly, unconcerned about the weather. Wrapped together like a large cocoon, with Josh squeezed tightly between their bodies, Julia and Eva kept the cold away and slept as best they could. As the first light from the rising sun made its way through the woods, Julia saw the first of the many strange sights that would come to her during her stay with the gypsies. Back in several openings in the woods, hidden by the night when she arrived, were several small earthen mounds rising no more than three feet above ground. Covered with pine needles and twigs and tree limbs of all sizes and shapes, they were largely indiscernible to the eye at first glance. Inside, still sleeping, were the families she and Eva saw gathered around the fire, families they would come to know well and love. She had assumed they slept like she and Eva had, huddled together with those they loved and covered only by the heavens above them.
“You and Eva must build your own forest nest today if you are to stay with us for a little while,” Django said, coming up behind Julia, startling her.
Turning to him, she saw a different face than that of last night. Somehow it seemed less gentle, more rugged and weathered than she remembered. Looking at him closely as he walked around stirring the campfires, she realized there was nothing more astonishing than a human face, how the slightest of shadows can create a new and different person, only to change again when the light comes and the shadows drop away. Much of life was this way, she had learned, for those who exist only among the shadows, and see nothing more than images of truth.
“You will teach us then, if we stay for a few days?” Julia asked, as he walked back to where she was standing.
“Yes, before night comes again, you and your friends will have a warm place.” Saying nothing more, Django walked away from Julia, much like he would do many times in the two months she and Eva would stay with his family of gypsies.
Jews living with gypsies would have been a very odd anomaly at any time in history, but war has a habit of changing relationships and dismissing culture, when staying alive is the only topic on the table for discussion. So it was with Julia and Eva and all the gypsies they found themselves living with. Each knew little about the other, though they quickly decided their Gods were the same, which made them happy. At first Julia was puzzled because, though the gypsies were Christians and had their Jesus, He seemed very different from Angie McFarland’s Jesus. He seemed more mystical, like everything around them, especially their amulets and talismans and good luck charms, which they kept with them at all times. It was Eva, though, much to the surprise of Julia, who became fascinated with their belief in the existence of bad luck, bibaxt, they called it. Through all the droughts her family had suffered that destroyed their grain and vineyards, she had never once thought of it as being the doings of an alien power that had its own existence instead, always accepting that’s just the way life was. Now she wasn’t so sure, and it bothered her deeply that she had learned such a thing as bibaxt. Neither she nor Julia took issue with their healing rituals, which came to them early the third day they were there, the day they had planned to leave the camp. Josh had awakened, coughing and unable to breathe, fighting for what air he could pull in to his small lungs in quick gasps. The chest cold that had set in the morning after their first night had seized his body and would take him away, Julia believed, and she had no way of stopping it. She had watched her little sister die from the croup when she was no older than Josh. Nothing anyone did mattered, not even praying. But Django came and took Josh from her arms, and, summoning two women to bring their amulets and talismans, placed him close to the fire. Then a healing ritual with chanting words unknown to Julia and Eva began as the women’s amulets were emptied on and around Josh, while some kind of warm fluid was forced down his throat, which seemed to help him breathe better. Julia wondered if they were calling on God in their words, or to a separate power of healing, like bad luck was thought to be. Later Django would tell her that God was seldom called on, or mentioned, though he might have been there with them a few times. Yet he couldn’t explain Josh’s healing when pushed by her to talk about it. All he would say was that it wasn’t Josh’s time to quit living, as if one’s existence was somehow tied to the sands of an hourglass, which Julia didn’t believe. What was certain, though, was that she and Eva would have to remain with the gypsies for an uncertain time until Josh was well enough to travel.
In the days ahead, spring came and life began again. The barren brush throughout the forest turned bright green and armies of wildflowers pushed upward from beneath the thick blanket of thistles and pine needles that had kept them warm through the long winter, while young fawn danced and played nearby. For Julia and Eva, new things would be learned in an existence neither could have ever imagined.
For Julia, more than Eva, the time she would stay was like living in a theater of wondrous lore, offering something new each rising day, something that had never reached her soul before. It was like when she was a child. Her father would take her to the Vltava River and teach her how to carefully select the flattest of rocks and skip them three and four times across the dark moving waters. It seemed like magic to her then. And so it was with Django and the gypsies. Their music, more than anything, would bring her to her feet, clapping as a child would in the delight of the rhythms and sounds. All they had was an old guitar and a tamboura and a badly scarred violin, but the music that came from them filled the forest with song as if there were a thousand strings playing. Julia soon learned that anything that could create a sound became an instrument. Rubbing fingers on brass surprised her the most, creating a magical melody for Josh and the other children. One night when the dancing and singing started, the music became tribal and wild and unshackled, with several men jumping through the fire as if responding to some ancient voice within. When Julia entered the circle of dancers, she was quickly joined by Django, who held her tightly around the waist as she struggled to keep up with the rapid beat. Their bodies never touched, yet they were close enough that the scent of their sweat aroused their senses. Later, when she asked about such music, Django would say, “It is who we are when we are free,” and walk away into the darkness of the woods.
Later that night he came for Julia and took her deep into the woods where they would stay until the early morning hours, talking of things that mattered most in their lives, but nothing of war. She was fascinated that Django would care to discuss so deep a subject as death, with it always being so close to him, living as he did. Yet he spoke with the passion of a poet, choosing each word carefully, so that who he was as a man could not be misunderstood. She decided he was a good man, raw and uneducated as he was.
Although Django was a Christian, he was quite different from the ones she had known and cared about, particularly his belief in what happens to us when death does come to take us away. Coming back to earth again was very real to him, much like it was to many of the first Christians, but not as a human being. He would return as a wild animal, but never one of his own choosing, God would do that for him. When Julia asked about such a strange belief his only words were, “It’s from the ancient roots of my blood that came out of India with my people.”
“What animal do you hope God would choose for you?” Julia asked, watching the exuberant expressions on Django’s face as he expounded on his beliefs.
“Perhaps a wolf, or a deer, like those in the Black Forest that are free to sleep and play under the stars.”
“I would want to be a bird,” Julia said.
“A bird—they are too puny.”
“Yes, but they sing with such joy, even though their world might be ending, and they fly away from all that is bad,” Julia said, as if she believed all he was telling her.
Then she told him of the Old Jewish Cemetery
and Rabbi Loew and his golem and how she would like to be buried there someday when she lived again in Prague. But when she told him how the bodies were stacked on top of each other, he became upset.
“How could they go before God that way?” he asked in an uneasy tone.
“I don’t know, but I’m sure at least their souls do if they have one.”
“Well, I will be buried alone, standing up, so I can walk as a man before Him. I have been on my knees too long.”
“That would be good,” Julia said, which seemed to please Django.
Then he asked her what she thought about going before God as a Jew and not a Christian, which was not the kind of question she would have thought necessary to keep a ready answer for.
“I don’t know what you’re asking. The ancient Jews were afraid of Him, our book says, but I’m not,” Julia said rather proudly.
In a while Django told her of his wife, who died two years back from blood poisoning, dying over three long days and nights in agony. When asked about the healing ritual for her, like that of Josh’s, he had no explanation for its failure, except maybe she had done something terribly wrong in her life, or perhaps he had, though he wasn’t sure what he had done that would have made God angry enough to take her from him. Perhaps God would tell him someday when his time came to go. With that, Django stood up and said they should get to their beds, that it would rain soon.
But as he was leaving he took Julia’s hand and simply said through tears, “It is when the spring rains come that I weep for her because our love was born then.”
Julia turned away from Django quickly, not wanting him to see her own tears, because she had left her love with Erich when the first spring rains came to Prague.
As this strange bond between them grew over the weeks, Julia would hike with Django through the mountains a day’s distance to a small village, which held few folks and had no name. There they would bargain for vegetables and a pig or a goat, and sometimes for woolen yarn that had been dyed bright colors. Accessible only by a dirt road full of deep potholes and ruts and rocks, the German patrols had come but a few times to the village since the war began, taking what they wanted in food or livestock and sometimes home-brewed beer.
But the last visit they stayed longer because the Gestapo was with the patrols. Watching from the hills above the village, Julia saw their autos and knew more than Django that something serious had happened to bring them to such a remote place. Eva had come with them this day to carry a second pig back to the camp, which had grown by three more gypsy families, who wandered in unannounced as she and Julia had.
Had she and Julia been there to meet the newcomers, they would have known then who the Gestapo was looking for. Twilight would settle in before the Germans would leave and they could come down from the hills. It was then that they learned from a friendly farmer that Reinhard Heydrich had been assassinated in Prague by Czech intelligence. The countryside was crawling with soldiers and the Gestapo arresting and killing anyone they thought might be involved. Julia listened to the sadness in the man’s voice, as he told them of his own loss. His two sons were visiting kinfolk in Lidice when the Germans came, and had been executed along with every man and boy in the town. When the horrific slaughter was complete, the village was burned to the ground, leaving nothing but an echoing silence for those that would later come there.
Julia and Eva glanced quickly at each other as the farmer talked. The secret operation Anthropoid connected to their own mission had been successful, and that was good, but at what price? More would die soon in the days ahead, they knew, from the Nazi’s means of exacting revenge. Julia walked over to Django, who had separated from them to watch the emerging red colors of the setting sun bounce wildly across the rocky hills above the village.
“We must return to the camp tonight, Eva and I, to get Josh. We will gather what food we can here, and go immediately,” Julia said.
Django seemed surprised at her words. No woman had ever told him what he must do, because he was a person of consequence, a don among the gypsies. Women had always sought his permission, rather than taking it upon themselves.
“Trying to make our way through the hills without light will be too dangerous for us. There are deep drop offs. No, when morning comes we will leave.”
Django’s words fell on deaf ears. Eva moved quickly to select a small pig from the farmer’s sty, tied its legs together, and hoisted the squealing animal across her shoulders. Without bargaining the price as she had enjoyed doing with Django by her side, Julia paid what the farmer asked, filled her backpack with carrots and potatoes, and followed Eva, who was starting up the first of many steep inclines ahead on the mountain trail. Angered by Julia’s sudden display of independence, and what he thought was a crafted insult to him, Django watched them for a few minutes as they climbed higher into the hills, disappearing from view. He would soon follow though, and learn of their deftness at navigating through the blackness that now surrounded them. They were better than he was and he didn’t know why, which disturbed him even more.
Stopping only twice to rest, the three travelers ended their fourteen-mile journey as dawn came to an end, lifting the darkness from the trees. Looking ahead to where the camp should be, Julia slowed her pace, then stopped. There were no camp fires to be seen, no voices to be heard, only a stillness so soft she could hear the early morning dew dropping from the leaves to the forest floor. For a moment it was as if she were walking once again as a child through the Old Jewish Cemetery, because the smell of the dead was all around.
Julia signaled for Eva and Django to wait hidden in the trees while she entered the deserted camp alone. No sign of life could be seen. Unable to stay back any longer, Eva and Django rushed forward and joined her in the broad opening of the camp. Julia saw it then, as if she knew it would be there: Josh’s woolly toy dog. Julia picked up the toy dog, lying alone on the ground next to the cold fire, and held it close to her cheek, stroking it gently while trying to get a sense of what might have happened. There was no real solution before her, other than that the camp had been vacated hurriedly by the gypsies. They had been eating, was all she knew. How else could you explain the pots and pans and plates strewn throughout the camp, some still full with roasted cabbage and pork slices.
Julia circled the camp to a smaller opening that led to several family huts. Seeing nothing to alarm her, she walked back to where Eva and Django were standing, who seemed puzzled by the empty camp.
“There is no ready answer for what happened,” she said. “Unless they are scattered in the woods hiding, they have been taken by the Germans.”
“The Germans will come back again, I’m sure. We should get the hell away from here,” Eva said.
Julia nodded and knelt down by the pig they had brought from the village and cut the twine binding its feet, setting it free to roam the forest and root for food like its ancestors once did. Scampering away, the animal set its course towards the woods near the small opening where Julia had been. Waiting for the pig to disappear among the trees and brush, now grunting happily, Julia walked around the empty camp once more to breathe in the warm joys that had captured her heart here. What memories and stories they would make someday when she was back with Anna. Though the grunting of the pig could still be heard, now deep in the woods rooting for acorns and black walnuts along the forest floor, Julia looked no further. Picking up the backpack full of potatoes and carrots, she started back through the woods in the direction from which she emerged two months back with Eva and Josh. Had she gone farther, deeper into the woods where the pig was grunting loudly, she would have seen the bodies, all naked and dead.
They came to kill, that was all. It was their only duty as Einsatzgruppen, chosen to kill the Jews and Gypsies and anyone else Himmler and the Reich Ministry decided must die. And that is what they did, coming unexpectedly from the woods, descending on the camp like an ancient Mongol horde. Within minutes the small band of gypsies, with little Josh among them, were marched
naked into the woods, lined up in a row, and shot in the back of the head. Taking the gypsies’ sparkling bracelets and rings, Einsatzgruppen left singing, because it had been a good morning for the chosen.
No one would ever know what they did here. The bodies would soon be food for the animals of the forest, including the lonely pig set free by Julia. Nor would it ever be known how the chosen knew the gypsies were there. But one might suspect they knew from Django’s many shopping visits to the village with no name. How else could you explain the strange man who would carry a pig strapped to his back and disappear into the forest?
At first he had refused to leave the camp, certain all of the gypsies would soon return. But it was Eva who cut through his quick denial of what had happened, pushing aside the curtains hiding his grief with her strong voice so that he might at least hear the truth. His family would not leave without him, and if the Germans took them, they were dead or soon would be. Django only nodded, as if he understood, then waved them on without him.
“You must wait for me when you are outside the forest and I will tell you my plan. But right now I want to look at the emptiness around me and listen to its silence for a few moments—some precious souls may be waiting still to say goodbye,” he said, turning and walking back to his cart.
Julia hesitated for a second, then motioned for Eva to follow her as she continued on into the forest. When they emerged, Julia and Eva sat down on a large rock to wait for Django, who was following slowly, crying aloud for his family with every step taken. Looking back east across the long rolling hills and summer-brown fields, Julia felt like the world had suddenly shrunk in size a million times over. Everything and everyone seemed much closer now, leaving little room to hide in. Heydrich’s death had put the Germans everywhere, in every village that lay before them.
“There is no place for us, Eva, no place. Pilsen and Prague are out,” she said, openly despondent over their situation.
“Bratislava should be open. Hitler gave Slovakia its independence from Czech rule when he took Prague,” Eva said, eyeing Django, who was stepping from the edge of the woods to join them.
“No, the Nazi puppet Father Tiso is there, and he is delivering Jews to the Germans as quickly as he can find them. We would be captured in no time.”
“It’s my home, I know the people,” Eva said loudly, exasperated with Julia’s indecisiveness.
“You are still a Jew and loyalty is a rare virtue in wartime, especially when one’s own life is at stake.”
Eva knew Julia was right and said nothing more. With a Slovakian government as Hitler’s ally, they would easily be trapped by the Gestapo in Bratislava. Django had listened with interest to their words, shaking his head all the while in disagreement.
“We should go north to the tall mountains around Banska Bystrica where there will be friends and few Germans,” he said, smiling proudly with the solution he had offered.
Julia had thought of the Carpathian Mountains, too. The partisans were strong there and they could reestablish contact with intelligence in London. But to travel across the open country that lay distant before them would be no different from playing Russian roulette with six bullets instead of one. Yet to stay and not try would be just as suicidal.
“How far are the mountains, Eva?” she asked.
“Depending on how far north we head from here, seventy-five miles, maybe a little more. There will be nothing to hide us. The land will be open clear up to the arms of the mountains.”
Django began to shake his head again listening to Julia and Eva’s words. “There is a way—an old Romani road used by my people many times when they would go and hide back in the valleys of the mountains as we wish to do now,” he said, smiling sadly.
Julia looked into Django’s eyes, as she had the first night sitting around the campfire. Black as round bits of coal anchored deep in the sockets of his face, they could never look at you but through you, as if you carried a shallow and empty soul. How fond she was of him. He was more a man than her Erich; he had cried unashamedly in her arms the night they sat together deep in the woods, speaking of his dead wife. But the passion she felt for Erich had wrapped itself around her soul the first night each gave their love to the other. Only time would loosen such a passion, and time no longer existed. All that had been lived, all that had happened in these years of a terrible war would be spoken of with the voices of storytellers, rich with disbelief in what had passed. There was nothing that seemed real around her now except death. Django’s way would have to be their fairy tale gamble. Had she still been a child, the golem would be here to carry her away.
“Show us the road and we will follow,” was all Julia said as she stood, waiting for Django to begin the long trek to the mountains.
Django smiled and beamed with pride. He was in charge again, as a man should be.
“We will go south a few miles to find the old road, then turn north for the mountains. Perhaps my family is walking on this road also,” he said, motioning for Julia and Eva to follow.
***
A Perfect Madness Page 24
