Stones in Water

by Donna Jo Napoli

  Roberto walked over to Enzo and handed him the potato. “Eat half and I’ll eat half and we can trade.” He took a bite of the cheese. This was the first time he’d be able to eat the cheese, since he wouldn’t be trading Enzo for his wurst anymore. That was one way to look at the new development: At least now he could have a half portion of cheese every other day. And it was such good cheese.

  Enzo ate half the potato and passed it to Roberto. “I’m not hungry. You finish the cheese.”

  Roberto put the cheese in Enzo’s hand. “Eat it. You’d do the same for me. And I need you alive or I’ll forget how to talk.”

  Enzo gave a small laugh. He ate the cheese.

  The soldier they called Arbeiter, because he was always using that word when he urged them through their jobs, shouted to them to assemble. There were mounds of barbed wire on the ground. Arbeiter shouted and gestured. They understood: Their job today was to build an enclosure. They cut down saplings for the supports and lopped off the branches till they had smooth poles. They dug deep holes and stood the poles in them. They wedged in rocks to hold the poles steady, with dirt packed into every crevice. They ran the wire from pole to pole, only a few inches off the ground. Then they ran another line of wire a hand’s width above the first. Then another and another, as high as they could reach. It had to be an animal pen out here in the field—maybe for horses. Nothing else would need so high a fence. Or maybe the soldiers wanted to keep people out. Maybe they were going to protect something in the pen.

  They finished by early afternoon. Then they drank water and sat in the shade. The water didn’t satisfy, though. The rumblings of Roberto’s stomach got louder. He looked around. The thief sat off alone, his legs crossed. He played with something in the dirt. He wasn’t hungry. He was full, on stolen food. And he’d steal again. And Enzo would let him. And for what? Indignation stirred in Roberto. “What would happen if they found out about you?” He nudged Enzo. “What would happen, anyway?”

  Enzo sucked in his bottom lip. “Maybe they’d put me in a camp with other Jews.”

  “Oh, yeah. I read about the Jewish work camps in the newspaper. They’re probably just like this.”

  “They’re a lot worse.”

  Roberto scratched his cheek. “How?”

  “I don’t know.”

  But there was something about the way he said it—he did know. “Tell me.”

  “My father heard that they kill people in some of the camps.”

  “Well, I know that. Hitler said himself that when workers get so sick that their life is nothing more than suffering, he puts them to death.”

  “Maybe in some camps, but not in these. Everyone sent to these camps dies.”

  Roberto pulled at his brows in confusion. “Camps just for sick people?”

  “No. For all kinds of people.”

  Roberto swallowed. “So why do they kill them then?”

  “Because they’re Jews, of course.”

  “They can’t kill someone just for being Jewish.”

  “Listen to yourself.” Enzo’s voice grew hoarse. “Your insomnia—my nightmares—they don’t come from nowhere. They killed the boys on the train just for wanting to go home. They killed that boy at the first work camp just for fainting.”

  Roberto’s nose stung. He blinked his eyes. He’d been keeping Enzo’s secret all along. It had been a challenge, a responsibility. It had been important. But it hadn’t been dire. He’d never allowed himself to think about what was really at stake. Not even yesterday, when Enzo said, “What could be a better place for it than water?” That horrifying, unspecified “it.”

  Roberto shook his head now. He wouldn’t believe Enzo’s words. He couldn’t. “My father brings home the newspaper every day. There was nothing in them about killing healthy Jews.”

  “Some news doesn’t get printed.”

  “But something like that, people would know. People would talk about it.”

  “Jews talk about it.” Enzo rubbed his nose and looked away. “It hasn’t been going on all that long. It started this spring. Death camps. They’re in Poland, I think.” The words came with slow deliberateness. Totally matter of fact, as though they weren’t the worst words in the world. “Jews are moved from the work camps to the death camps. There’s a work camp near Munich.” Enzo looked back at Roberto. “When our train pulled up to the Munich station, I figured I’d die there.” Enzo’s voice held the same tone it had when he came out of the water yesterday—the tone that was so terrible. The tone of resignation.

  A wall crumbled inside Roberto’s heart. It was true. He moved closer to Enzo, so that they sat with their shoulders touching. “We don’t have any death camps in Italy, do we?”

  “No. Not yet, anyway.” Then Enzo shook his head. “I’m sorry I said that. I bet there will never be any in Italy.”

  Roberto pulled a piece of straw out from the dirt that encrusted it. He picked at it, flicking the dirt away. He breathed heavily. He was facing the road that led up to the farm. That’s why he was one of the first to see them arrive. There must have been fifty or more. Men and women and children. They walked as though they were machines, as though they’d been walking forever and could keep walking forever. They looked nowhere. They said nothing. A crowd of silent people—even the children. Soldiers walked on both sides and in the front and back. Roberto didn’t know why the soldiers bothered. These people weren’t capable of running away. He could tell from the slump of their shoulders. He could tell from the listless drop of their feet.

  The people were herded into the pen. They didn’t mill around. They found a spot and sat immediately, clustered in little groups. Roberto studied them. Family groups. So many families in a pen.

  So many bare feet.

  So many bones under dry skin.

  A soldier shouted. Roberto found himself pushed backward. He realized he had gotten up and walked over to the enclosure. He’d been standing outside, staring in. The soldier yelled at him. He pointed at the people in the pen. He said the same word over and over, a word Roberto had heard before: Juden. Where? He remembered now—it was the word the German children had shouted when the soldier had marched his small troop of five boys through the streets of Munich.

  Roberto turned around and walked to the closest farm building. He sat down with his back against the wall. He pulled up his knees and looked at his feet. Those people were nothing to him. He didn’t know who they were. He didn’t know what they had done. He wouldn’t guess at it. No! They had nothing to do with him. Nothing. His stomach growled. He had problems of his own.

  That afternoon, the boys started building a low wooden storage shed near the landing strip. Roberto didn’t know what it was for, and he didn’t want to know. He swung his ax as rhythmically as he had swung the pick. At dusk the boys lined up for Brot, wurst, and potato. Enzo handed his wurst and potato over to the thief. Then Roberto and Enzo went off behind the chicken coop to eat.

  The people in the pen were being given food now, too. Brot and Wasser. Roberto waited. Where were the potato and wurst? The people ate their food, jaws moving distinctly under the tight flesh of hollow cheeks. Roberto looked at his own food. Those people were nothing to him. He handed Enzo the potato, and he took a bite of wurst.

  A girl in the pen looked out at Roberto. Her eyes were black. Her hair was stringy and dirty. Her face was unforgiving. She was older than him. Maybe Sergio’s age. A smaller girl sat on her lap. They were so thin, Roberto felt sure he could circle the girl’s arm with his thumb and index finger.

  Roberto still had a few bites of wurst left. He turned his back on the girl and ate quickly. This was his food. This was his life.

  Enzo got up and walked off without a word. Roberto watched him turn the corner of the barn.

  In the morning Roberto and Enzo shared food behind the chicken coop again. They sat on the ground in the shade. Roberto didn’t mean to look over at the people in the pen. But he did. They were eating Brot. And the girl was looking at him. He
looked away immediately.

  “They’re Polish Jews.” Enzo finished his half of the egg and handed the rest over to Roberto.

  “How do you know?”

  “I listened to the soldiers. They said ‘Polnisch.’ They said ‘Juden.’ Some words are the same in any language.”

  There was that word Roberto had heard. But it was so different from ebrei, the Italian word for “Jews.” “How did you know Juden meant ‘Jews’?”

  “Judea was the name of an ancient land of my people. You know that.”

  Roberto felt foolish for not making the connection—after all, so many of Enzo’s nighttime stories had taken place in Judea. And, worse, he felt frightened. He’d thought of himself as being more aware these days, more able to take care of himself. But if he failed to make such an obvious connection, he was still the same old Roberto—the boy with his head in the clouds, as Sergio said. He had to act smarter. “What are they doing here?”

  “Waiting. It’s a holding pen.”

  Roberto went cold. He wouldn’t ask what for. He wouldn’t ask where they were going next. He didn’t know anything about these people, really—where they had come from or how they got here. It didn’t matter to him where they were going next. It couldn’t matter to him. What could he do about it anyway?

  The yellow dog barked and ran past with the duckling flapping and hopping after it.

  The girl’s sister squealed in delight at the sight. She ran to the barbed wire and grabbed it with both hands. Roberto gasped. But the little girl was lucky; she’d grabbed between the barbs. She shouted out happy words to the dog and duckling.

  Roberto half smiled. The child was pitifully skinny and her dress was nothing but rags, yet she was happy at this moment. He stood up. He would catch the duckling—he would bring it over for her to pet.

  Arbeiter stood a few meters down. He stepped up to the fence and took the wire that the girl held on to. He plucked it—like a musician plucks the string of a violin. Just one quick pluck. The wire bobbled and a barb hit the little girl in the face. She screamed as it ripped her lips. Blood ran down her neck and over her dress. Her sister grabbed her from behind and cradled her.

  Roberto’s whole body tensed. Enzo jumped to his feet and held him by the elbow. “We can’t help them, Roberto. We can’t even help ourselves.”

  But Roberto didn’t need Enzo’s hand to hold him back. Roberto wasn’t about to go anywhere or do anything. There was nothing he could do.

  His head felt hot and full. It would burst. He looked at the half egg in his hand. He had already finished his Brot and his half of potato, but this half egg remained. And now he found he was doing something, after all. Oh, yes, there was something he could do. He shook Enzo off and walked over to the enclosure. He reached his arm through the wires. “Here,” he said to the big girl.

  She grabbed the half egg and hid it in the folds of her skirt. Her movement was like a snake striking, so fast it was as though it had never happened. Roberto didn’t realize someone who looked as lethargic as she did could move so fast. Her mouth was open, but she didn’t say anything to him. She turned her head and crooned to the little girl on her lap.

  Roberto stepped back. He expected a rifle butt in the shoulder or a whipping on his legs. Or worse. But nothing happened. He looked around. The soldiers talked in pairs here and there. The boys ate or waited in small groups. Only Enzo looked at him. Only Enzo had seen. If Roberto had tried to do it surreptitiously, he’d have been caught for sure. But he hadn’t even tried to hide. It was like when Enzo had stepped up to the stream yesterday and undressed like everyone else. If a person moved as though he knew what he was doing, as though he were doing only things he had a right to do, he didn’t draw attention. It was as though he became invisible.

  Roberto felt a sudden sense of power. And something else—he was almost happy.

  They spent the day finishing off the shed. Around dinnertime, three trucks rumbled up the road. The backs were loaded with boxes of ammunition. The drivers got out and talked with the soldiers in charge of the boys.

  The boys lined up for dinner as usual. Roberto pocketed his wurst and handed his potato to Enzo. Then he walked over to the pen. The girl saw him coming. She moved closer to the wire. He held out the wurst. She snatched it and slid it into her clothes. It was an admission: She knew she was starving. She knew her sister was starving. Roberto walked on to the chicken coop as though nothing had happened.

  Enzo was behind him. “Here.” He handed Roberto the potato. “Give her this, too.”

  “Then you’ll have nothing to eat but Brot.”

  “You have nothing but Brot.”

  Roberto shook his head. It was one thing to give the girl his own food; it was another to give her Enzo’s food.

  Enzo moved so close that his breath touched Roberto’s cheek. “They’re my people.”

  Roberto shook his head again.

  Enzo hung his head. His mouth hardly moved as he talked. “I wanted to help from the first moment I saw them, but I didn’t know what to do. You did.” He sighed. “Listen, I have to help now. I need to. But if I get caught giving food, they might find out I’m a Jew. They would kill me for sure. Then I wouldn’t be any good to anyone.” He pressed his lips together. “If you get caught, you might still live. I’m not saying you should do it. I don’t think you should risk it. I wish you wouldn’t.” He looked into Roberto’s eyes. “But as long as you’re going to anyway, give her this potato.” Enzo pressed the potato into Roberto’s hand. “Let me help. Please.”

  Roberto took the potato. He walked back toward the pen. A soldier said something to him. Roberto stepped closer to the pen. The girl was within arm’s length now, but she didn’t look at him. The soldier watched. Roberto spat on the girl. The soldier still watched impassively; then he glanced away. Roberto gave the girl the potato. It disappeared into her clothes.

  He walked back to Enzo. “How much do you love eggs?”

  Enzo looked at Roberto as though he were crazy.

  Roberto grinned. He felt reckless and as crazy as Enzo’s eyes said he was, and, yes, there was that feeling again—he was almost happy. He walked into the chicken coop. The chickens sat on shelves, roosting in smelly heat. The sun came in through the wires that covered the high, glassless windows. As he walked in, small feathers puffed out from under his feet. He stifled a sneeze. He reached under the closest hen. He took two eggs in one grab. The hen squawked and pecked at the top of his hand. He reached under another hen and took two more. He walked out.

  Enzo was sitting on the ground, eating his Brot as though nothing special was going on.

  Roberto handed him two eggs. “Ever eaten a raw egg?”

  A sick look crossed Enzo’s face, but he put one egg on the ground and held the other with both hands. “That’s the best way. I’ve heard that’s what they do in all the finest restaurants.” He jammed his thumb down on the fatter end of the egg. A piece of shell broke off. Enzo looked at Roberto and smiled. Then he put the egg to his mouth and sucked.

  Roberto did the same. He had eaten raw eggs at his cousins’ home in the country, and he liked them. He could see the eggs disgusted Enzo, though, despite his smile. Maybe Jews didn’t eat raw eggs much. But at least the religion didn’t seem to prohibit it.

  They both ate their second egg. Then they went off to the barn and lay there in the light of early evening, waiting for sleep.

  Roberto rolled on his side. “What else can we eat around this farm?”

  Enzo’s eyes got a mischevious glint. “There’s always the duckling.”

  “Raw? That’s disgusting.”

  Enzo laughed. “What about the dog?”

  “You’re really demented.”

  Enzo laughed harder. And now he looked positively wicked. “What about . . .”

  “Stop. Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it.”

  Enzo guffawed. Then he put his hands behind his neck and smiled up at the sky. “Roberto, you’re so wonderfully
easy to tease. I’m lucky to be here with you.”

  Lucky to be here. Lucky. Roberto was stunned. “Listen to what you just said.”

  “I know.” Enzo was silent for a while. Then he spoke very softly. “The words just came out of me. But they’re true. We’ll keep the girl and her sister alive. We have that privilege. We have something worth doing at last.” He whispered into Roberto’s ear, “We can do it.”

  Roberto let himself roll onto his back. Evening was just beginning. The first stars showed in the pale blue. The heavens were in their place. “Tell me that story about the hunchback again.”

  “You mean the boy who sprouted wings?”

  He sprouted wings? How perfect. “Yes, that one. Tell it exactly the same way.”

  STONES

  The girl seemed to develop some sixth sense, for she always knew precisely when Roberto was coming with food. She positioned herself in a different spot every time, close to the wires but sometimes near one pole, sometimes midway between poles, sometimes near another pole. That was smart. That way the soldier on guard was less likely to recognize that it was the same girl Roberto walked up to twice a day.

  And she usually came without her sister. She’d put the girl on some woman’s lap or she’d set her to digging a hole with her bare fingers or she’d sit her down beside another small child. That was smart, too. The little girl was maybe old enough to figure out that Roberto was the source of the food, but not old enough to be counted on to know how not to give away a secret with her eyes or hands or body.

  And Roberto did his own smart things. He made sure he went over to the pen at other times than just when he was giving the girl food. He walked by and stood with both hands in his pockets for a moment before breakfast and again before dinner. He found a few stones around the size of eggs and put them in his pockets. He took them out and rubbed them when he knew a soldier was watching. That way anyone who saw him with food in his pocket would think he just had those stones. He was acting almost clever. Memo would have been proud of him. Enzo was. Enzo told him he was smarter and braver than anyone else he’d ever known. It couldn’t be true—but it made Roberto feel good anyway.