In the Land of Armadillos

by Helen Maryles Shankman

  * * *

  Pavel would have liked to keep her in the barn, but he was afraid of what the partizans would do if they found out. So he made her a bed near the stove, a crate of straw covered with a burlap sack and a horse blanket. When he had finished, he crouched over her small body, intending to move her. To his great astonishment, Cezar curled his black lips, emitting a low, threatening sound from somewhere deep in his chest. He was about to club the dog when a random thought popped like a soap bubble in his brain. She must be starving.

  “Hungry?” he grunted at the girl. “You want to eat?” He made gestures with his hands and mouth, a charade of feeding himself.

  But she only stared at him, her eyes round and liquid and dark, like a baby calf’s. Pavel had never liked brown eyes; he found them opaque, inscrutable. He went to the cupboard, took out a heel of bread, a hard-cooked egg, a bone with a little meat left on it that he was saving for the dog, and set them before her.

  Five little white fingers crept forward like inchworms, snatched the bread as though she thought someone would steal it from her. She ate the egg, too, wolfing it down so quickly, he thought with some alarm that she might choke.

  The bone, however, she pushed away as if it would burn her. This enraged him further. Meat was a luxury, he’d earned it by the sweat of his labor, what was she thinking, rejecting his offering? And then it came back to him, he must have heard it somewhere—in church? the schoolyard?—Jews didn’t eat pigs.

  “Not good enough for you?” he barked ferociously. “Fine. Starve.”

  She flinched at the violence in his voice, looking up at him through eyes that were fathomless but for a glimmer of raw fear, which he found he rather liked. He seized the plate and stomped outside, scraped it loudly into the pig’s trough.

  How dare they do this to me, he thought bitterly as the sow grunted happily, crunching on her treat. Me, who hates Jews more than anyone, who gives their fighters away to the Germans even though they’re part of the resistance. His self-pity swelled, made him feel righteous in his anger.

  When he skulked back into the house, he found that the girl hadn’t moved from her place before the fire. Why didn’t she go to her box already? Was she able to walk, or would he have to do everything for her? What about the toilet? Could she use it, or would he have to change her diapers like she was a baby?

  “The toilet is outside,” he growled. “You understand? Through there.” He thrust his chin in the direction of the kitchen door.

  No response. Cursing, he hefted the small, light body into his arms and carried her across the room, the dog padding silently after them. When he lowered her onto the straw, the beast circled three times, then lay down beside the crate. He’s guarding her, thought Pavel, with amazement and some annoyance.

  Disgusted, he turned away from the sight of her. He kneaded the sore spot at the back of his neck with calloused fingers, chafing under the noxious burden of having to care for the Jewish child in his house. He even thought he could smell her, an odor of forest floor, of bog and fungus and rotting vegetation. How dare they? The girl was an affront to everything he believed in: his religion, his politics, his sensibilities. The injustice of the situation rose up and overwhelmed him.

  “You pee outside!” he roared. “Outside! Understand?”

  The child recoiled from him, her eyes glittering with tears. Satisfied, he extinguished the lamp, got into bed, and turned toward the wall.

  * * *

  The next morning dawned raw and ugly, a thin rain hurling itself at the windowpanes. Pavel rolled out of bed, went outside to urinate. Only half awake, he contemplated the dream he’d had the night before. Partizans in his house, threatening his life, leaving a Jewish child in his care.

  Returning to the warmth of the kitchen, he was confronted with the crate before the stove. His heart sank.

  But the girl had vanished. She wasn’t under the bed, or in the cupboard, or in the other room. Only the dog greeted him, tongue hanging out, wagging his stringy tail.

  Had she run off to join her brother in the forest? Was she gone? Could it be? He hardly dared to hope. He sat down at the table, covered his eyes, laughed weakly with relief. Joyfully, he felt the anxiety of the night before evaporate into the air.

  Throwing himself at the door, the dog began to bark.

  Pavel knew all of Cezar’s barks. The sharp yelp he made when he hit him with the stick, the soft gurgle announcing that a deadly attack was imminent, the full-throated protective baying that heralded visitors or meant keep on moving. The savage, deep-chested burst of rabid, frothing vitriol that meant danger.

  This bark was a combination of the last two categories.

  Buttoning up his fly, Pavel went to the door. Though it was barely eight in the morning, his visitor smelled of alcohol and was already in need of a shave. “Heil Hitler,” he said.

  A chill glided down the length of his spine, clutched the pit of his stomach in its fist. If the little girl chose to reappear now, they were as good as dead.

  Once upon a time, Lothar Hahnemeier had grown beets. But the beet farmer had come up in life since the arrival of the German panzer battalions three and a half years ago, though his leadership of the local Volkdeutscher organization was apparently not important enough to warrant a uniform. He’d made do by augmenting the sleeves of his civilian overcoat with red swastika armbands. Pavel knew him well, for it was to Hahnemeier that he carried his tales of partizan movements and sightings of Jews straggling furtively along the pitted road.

  “Come in, sit down,” said Pavel, stuffing his shirt into his pants and pulling up his braces to hide the fact that his hands were shaking.

  “No, no, just passing by,” Hahnemeier puffed with a trace of self-importance. Still, he stepped eagerly out of the piercing wind into the warmth of the room. “Our soldiers cleaned out a nest of partizan snakes yesterday, just where you said they would be. There were upward of eighty Jews living in that forest behind you! And not just partizans, either. Old men, women, children. A whole village.” He brayed out a laugh. “Well, they got what they wanted, their own village. In heaven!” He reached into the pocket of his thick overcoat. “I have something for you, Pavel. A gift. Something special.”

  Pavel wished he would keep his gift and just leave. “I don’t suppose you have a tractor in there, do you? This farming business is for the birds.”

  Hahnemeier guffawed, his small, piggy eyes squeezed closed by pockets of fat. With reverence, he set a squared-off bottle of clear spirits on the table. “Real slivovitz,” he said worshipfully. “None of the local bathtub junk. Rohlfe was grateful, very grateful.”

  Pavel gave a terse nod. He wanted Hahnemeier out as quickly as possible. But the Volkdeutscher wasn’t moving; Pavel realized he was hoping to be offered a taste. “Well, what are you waiting for?” he said immediately. “Let’s crack it open.”

  “At this hour? I wouldn’t think of it,” Hahnemeier said. A smile broke across the shining fat face. “Who am I kidding, I thought you’d never ask.”

  The rush-bottomed chair squealed under his weight. Pavel found two glasses, poured the customary finger’s depth in each. After a moment’s hesitation, he filled the second one to the top. “Nazdrovia,” he said.

  “Proste,” Hahnemeier replied, then downed the slivovitz. His face grew red, with a grimace of his livery lips. “Oh, that’s good,” he wheezed. “That’s very good.”

  “Have some more,” said Pavel, tipping the bottle into Hahnemeier’s glass.

  “What are you trying to do, get me drunk?” he said sternly, avidly following the movement of Pavel’s hands. Afterward, he sighed with satisfaction and sat back in his chair with a loud scraping sound. He wiped his lips, his forehead, and then his nose with a white handkerchief. “You’re all right, Pavel,” he said cheerfully, cramming the handkerchief back in his pocket. “Not like some of your neighbors, smiling to your face but helping those AK murderers behind your back.” His voice turned emotional. “You know
what it means to be a friend.”

  Hahnemeier’s unfocused eyes roved muzzily around the room. Had he given the man too much schnapps? Pavel wondered. He looked as if he were going to pass out. In his heart, Pavel cursed the dark-haired partizan. He had no experience with this sort of thing. Who did they think he was, anyway? He was just a farmer, a plainspoken workingman.

  Slowly, the Volkdeutscher’s gaze came to rest on the girl’s box before the stove. “What is that?” he said, squinting. “Looks like a bed.”

  Desperately, Pavel tried to think of a lie through the haze of plum brandy, hoping the partizan was already roasting in hell. “It’s for Cezar,” he blurted. “My dog. I think he has arthritis.”

  At the mention of his name, Cezar padded across the room, stopping only to lift his lips in a sullen growl. Pavel kicked him in the ribs, silently wishing upon him a painful and lingering death.

  “He looks fine to me.”

  “You should have seen him yesterday.”

  Hahnemeier looked at the dog, the box of straw, then at Pavel again. “You know,” he said slowly, laboriously selecting his words, “if it was anyone else, I’d think they were hiding something. But you . . . I think I would believe that you were fucking my wife, and my mother-in-law, and my best nanny goat, before I believed that Pavel Walczak would have anything to do with Jews.”

  It must have been the tension, or maybe it was the schnapps. Simultaneously, they burst into whinnies of giddy, sodden laughter. Hahnemeier was beating his fists on his knees; Pavel, sliding off his chair, grasped at the table for support. The Volkdeutscher wagged a knowing finger at him. “Pavel, Pavel. That dog is smarter than you are. What will he have you doing next, wiping his bottom for him?” He leaned conspiratorially across the table, his earnest puffy face damp with sweat. “Let me tell you what I think. I think you need a girlfriend, a girlfriend with a nice, soft ass and nice, big tits—”

  Here, he broke off. Hahnemeier had actually known Pavel’s wife; they’d all been in elementary school together. Perhaps he’d sobered up enough to see that he had said too much. Perhaps it was the expression on Pavel’s face. Whatever the reason, he leaned back in his chair again and clapped his hand over his heart like he was taking a vow. “It’s not good for a man to be alone. That’s it. That’s all I’m going to say.” He put his hands flat on the table and swayed to his feet. “Well, I’m off. I want to see the place where the Jews had their village. Sounds like it was quite a battle; we lost three men. Of course, the Communists are arming them.”

  Pavel knew where he was going. It was always the same. When Jews were taken away, their neighbors dug up the yard and pried up the floorboards, looking for valuables. It was an undisputed fact that all Jews were rich. Maybe these had time to hide their bags of gold in hollow tree trunks or bury it under roots and leaves.

  At the door, Pavel gave Hahnemeier the name of someone he suspected of hiding Jews, his neighbor to the west. It was a precautionary measure; truthfully, he had no idea whether they kept Jews or not. If so, they deserved whatever they got. If they didn’t, the szwab might search their barn, shake them up a bit, but they’d be all right.

  The door safely closed behind him, Pavel leaned his stubbly cheek against the rough wood and experienced a dizzying wash of relief. At every moment, he’d expected the Jewish child to pop up from some cupboard or sashay through the door. He glanced at the clock over the fireplace. Already nine, the cow would be bursting. He clambered into his boots and pulled on his corduroy jacket, whistling for Cezar, but the dog had disappeared again.

  The wind was coming from the east, blustering across the barren fields. Head down, he slogged his way across the muddy courtyard and hauled open the barn door.

  There was the dog, lying astride a mound of hay in the far stall. When he saw Pavel, his stringy tail thumped steadily on the floor. With his tongue hanging out, he looked as if he were smiling.

  “Hey there, you son of a bitch. How did you get in here?” Pavel greeted him. Frowning, he checked the doors and windows, counted the animals. Had there been thieves during the night?

  In answer to his question, the haystack heaved, began to stir. The little girl emerged, first her head and then the rest of her, thistles and seedpods rooted in the wool of her Sunday coat, blades of dried grass sticking at wild angles from her hair.

  His heart froze inside his body. If she had said one word, made one sound while Hahnemeier was in the house . . . But then it came to him, she was the master and he was the student here. She had been hiding from people like Hahnemeier all of her short life.

  Her eyes were frightened and teary. He let his hand fall on the small shoulder. “All right, all right,” he said stiffly. “You’ve been a good girl, a very good girl. How about some breakfast.”

  * * *

  As winter turned to spring, the little girl lay in the bed of straw he had made for her before the stove. Mindful of the partizan’s threats, Pavel washed and rebandaged her wounds, smearing on a salve of Lidia’s invention, made from honey, butter, beeswax, and the resin of a particular pine tree. Within a few weeks, new pink skin grew over the site, leaving nothing but a dip in the skin the width of a fingertip.

  To him, she said nothing; when he gave her directions, she obeyed, her eyes expressionless like the bottom of a grave. But he would catch her conversing in her language with the dog, manipulating the toes of his front paws in mysterious, complicated finger games. At the sound of her whispery voice, Cezar would cock his brutish head to the right as if he understood every word.

  Months passed without any sign of the partizans. Pavel was restless; it was time to be out working the soil, hoeing and raking, plowing and fertilizing. There could be no putting it off. This far to the east, the growing season was short.

  But what would he do with the little girl? She could hardly be out in the fields. The Gestapo had eyes everywhere, no one knew that better than he did. Her appearance was certain to provoke unwelcome interest from the local farmers and their workers.

  He decided it would be more prudent to leave her in the cottage. Despite the fact that she would be alone from dawn until dark, he persuaded himself that she would be fine. Jews were so resourceful. Everyone knew that.

  * * *

  The sun was setting in a fiery display behind the treetops as Pavel stumped up the road leading his horse. He had been shoveling manure over the eastern field since dawn, and he was bone-tired, his shoes, his clothes, his face, his hands coated in a fine brown dust. As he neared home, his heart swelled painfully inside his chest. Silhouetted against the vastness of the sky, a figure was standing on the road in front of the cottage.

  Quickly, he reviewed the lie the dark-haired partizan had suggested. My sister’s daughter, a city girl from Drohobych. Behind him, the horse’s hooves went clip-clop, clip-clop; a murder of rooks stalked through the rows, pecking at his seedlings. When he made an angry gesture, they launched themselves halfheartedly into the air, black crosses against a turbulent sky.

  The silhouette gained shape, definition. He recognized the proportions of the widow Michalowa, from the nearest neighboring farm. Next to her sat the little girl. Pavel’s feet grew heavy, for Marina Michalowa was the name he had given Hahnemeier.

  He stopped in front of the porch. “Dzien dobray,” he said carefully.

  “Dzien dobray,” she replied. Her fists were planted on her hips, never a good sign in a woman, he knew. “I was checking on my field, the one close to the road, and what do you think I found? This little one, digging up my potato plants. I think she’s hungry. She belong to you?”

  He couldn’t meet her eyes. “My sister’s daughter,” he mumbled.

  “I wasn’t born yesterday, Pavel Walczak.” She nodded brusquely at the golden-orange curls. “Only Jews have hair like this.”

  As she waited for an answer, Pavel’s mind raced through the possibilities. Did she know that he had given her name to the SS? Was this revenge? Would she turn him in?

  Cezar
bounded up to her, barking ferociously. “Call off your bastard dog, Walczak,” she said impatiently. “I can’t stand the sight of him. He’s already killed two of my cats.”

  He whistled, but the dog wouldn’t leave her alone, his stringy tail batting against Michalowa’s potato-colored skirt. He butted his nose against her hand until she was forced to pet his ugly head. When she smiled, she looked pretty. Casually, she addressed the little girl. “What’s your doggie’s name?”

  He opened his mouth to reply, but the little girl beat him to it. “Fallada,” she answered promptly. Pavel stared. It was the first word he’d heard her speak.

  “That’s a nice name. Like in the fairy tale.” The girl nodded. Thoughtfully, the widow scratched the dog behind his ears. “Who is she?” she asked.

  “I told you. My sister’s daughter. From Drohobych.” Drohobych was a big city, with oil refineries, wide boulevards, fancy architecture with angels and columns and vines. Men wore suits, ladies dressed themselves in the latest fashions. Surely, there one could find women with red hair.

  “Oh, come on, Walczak. You forget whom you’re talking to. You don’t have a sister in Drohobych. Your sister is married to a forester in Lubień.”

  He would never know why he relented. Was he tired of living? Was it exhaustion after a long day’s work? Was it the way she tied her apron, white with tiny flowers, in such a way that it clasped enthusiastically her small neat waist? Or was it her eyes, a clear lake gray that made Pavel feel as if she could see right through to the back of his head and read his private thoughts?

  “Soroka’s daughter. You know, the saddlemaker. She’s been living in the forest.” He decided to lie about the partizans. “I found her hiding in my barn.”

  “Soroka’s gone?” She pressed her hand to her cheek. “Was that your handiwork? Did you give him away?”

  Pavel felt stung. Just last week he had whittled the Jewish girl a toy, a baby doll, even bequeathing her one of Kazimir’s precious little shirts to use as a dress. Didn’t that count for something? “No,” he said. “He was in Adampol.”