The Grayling

by Cheryl Freier

  The jeweler clasped the ring in the folded fingers of his hand. With his eye glass attached firmly and pressing almost into his left eye, he looked into the channels and inner recesses of the colorful stone, which radiated rainbows. It was almost as though he was looking into a crystal ball and silently asking, “When will this awful war end?”

  “Hum” he said, “This is a well-cut diamond. And he opened his left hand, and said, “I will have to give you $250.00 German marks more. The jeweler put the ring down on the counter and reached into his pants pocket and quickly took out a wad of cash. After counting the money, he gave Sam the money and said, “I am so sorry that you are having such a hard time”. Sam nodded and then a blushing redness filled the colors of his cheeks, and the man thought that Sam was going to cry.

  Sam went to open the door when the man called at him and speaking loudly, “Please, take some bread, and cookies, and some fresh pot cheese with you and remember that the ring will be waiting for you when you come back”. Sam shook his head up and down once, and looked at the man through the lens of a tear on the front of his left eye, and said, “Thank you”. His heart pounded away–-beating to the tune of goodness. He was about to say, “If we make it back”, and he could not mutter any other words, as his face turned red and more tears began to flow. Not wanting the jeweler to see him crying, he turned and walked out the door.

  He knew his task was not completed. He had to find the doctor’s office, and then he had to take the long trek home. He looked up into the sky and breathed more easily. He snapped the first two fingers of his right hand, “Remember, fear not, you will survive, because my father says that I will”. He stood outside the jewelry shop and looked carefully at all of the stores, which were lined-up across the street. He spotted a pharmacy. He looked to see if anyone was watching him for it was now almost instinctive.

  There were people walking in the street. One or two were carrying breads in their hands. But they were hurrying along, and this gave him the confidence to walk amongst them. He pulled up the collar of his jacket as though he was cold and he walked boldly on. He walked into the pharmacy and stood behind a woman who was buying some cough medicines and cough drops. The lady thanked the pharmacist and Sam moved up front in her place. He pushed the souls of his shoes up, arched his nose high and looked even taller than he was. He blurted out. “I will have the same as the lady,” and the pharmacist reached for the bottles, which were on the shelves behind the pharmacist. “By the way”, Sam asked, “Is the doctor nearby?” “Is something very wrong?” the pharmacist asked, and he looked Sam over very carefully.

  Sighing and thinking that perhaps he is questioning too much and is being too careful and that Sam looks like a regular fellow, he said, “The doctor lives just down the street in the big old white house with the white fence in the front of it”. Sam nodded and left the pharmacy, while swinging the bag back and forth that was in his hand. He whistled as he walked and to anyone watching him, it would easily have appeared that he didn’t have a care in the world.

  They laughed some more. No one spoke about the war. No one spoke about tomorrow. Joseph said, “We are safe now”. They fell asleep where they were sitting. In the town of Micholovce, the war waged on. Jews who had been hiding behind hidden walls were found. They were immediately deported by train to a concentration camp. The air around the town was gray and gloomy. The taste of ashes and burnt fire powder was on the tongues of the few Jews who were not caught. Desolation, depression, hunger oppressed those who were not caught. Many, like Joseph fled to the woods.

  Joseph awoke to the sound of the water rushing in the nearby stream. He bathed and ate some more mushrooms and then went back to the others. “Anna”, he said, “we must find a better place to hide”. And he paused and caught his breath and felt the blood rushing through his arms and fists, “we must build a shelter that will not be found by the Germans. They began their march to safety through the uncharted territory. They walked on. They covered many miles. Sometimes there were trails, but other times, there were no trails. Joseph stayed close to the stream. Occasionally, they would see a group of grayling fish rising to the surface. Joseph took off his shirt and made it into a make-shift net and scooped up two of the grayling fish. Bernard, my brother and I cut up the fish pieces and we ate a delicious meal. We were most grateful.

  It was almost nightfall, and everyone’s feet were sore and ached. Stomachs growled for want of food. Lips begged for a drop of water, but Joseph told them to walk deeper in the woods. Night and its scary darkness were falling heavily upon us. Joseph held up his hand, and we knew we would finally stop for the time being. Everyone sighed with relief. Joseph said, “This is a clearing that I had visited just once before when I walked through the woods with my own father when I was a very young boy. We had gone on a hunting trip for deer and we had gone further than we had expected to go. It took us a while to find our way back, but we learned the landmarks, certain thicknesses in the woods, unexpected crevices, caves, but most of all to follow the stream, because the stream is always the source for your location and for food.”

  Sam called out, “look father”, and he pointed to a tree, and then he pointed to another, and then to another, and then yet another. “You have found trees that grow quince.” “Oh, yes, Joseph said, and there are wild berries that are you can eat too. They are just up around the bend”. They all sat and rested. They picked the quince and put some away in their knapsacks. They rested, but Joseph insisted that Sam stand as the watchman.

  My father’s foreman brought us food whenever he was able. He came many times by horse and sleigh, looking like a perfectly innocent ride. No one would question him. He was to say that he was looking for pine cones for decorations on the Christmas trees and the front doors of houses. Or he was to say he was looking to see what animals were coming close to the town–-to see if h could catch some deer––the Germans loved deer meat; venison was absolutely one of their favorites.

  Once he brought us bags of onions. My mother mixed the mushrooms with the onions and we ate heartily. We got tired of eating the onions though. Once he brought us some Christmas cake with icing on it; it was a sight to behold; a breathtaking treasure worth more than gold in the middle of the woods. The taste of the sweet sugar lingered in our mouths and sweetened up our thoughts about these tragic times of having to hide in order to survive.

  Aside from the daily survival of finding food, keeping warm and being safe, there was the problem of dealing with boredom and the constant fear that we had to contend with. Most of the time, we played chess with my father, and this sharpened our minds and we always discussed our moves, which helped us to develop our thinking and to get our minds focused on something else. We prayed together. We talked a lot about the Bible, its history and why the characters in the history were rewarded or punished accordingly. I always had my opinions and I always seemed to disagree with my father, but in the end we saw each other’s viewpoint and we learned from each other. If we had had paper there, we could have written a commentary on the Bible, and it would have been a very informative one.

  We talked over our problems, our fears about the Nazis, mostly; but my father tried to stir us away from this, because this promoted crying and depression. It did not help us. My father told us, “A lot of this is not under our control. A lot of this is not under the control of G-d either. G-d is omniscient, yes, but there are millions and millions of people and creatures in the world and G-d cannot be everywhere all the time. My father would always tell us, “Do good deeds. Read the Bible. Elevate yourself. Study to get ahead in life! This way you will signal the angels and they are the messengers who report directly to G-d.

  CHAPTER 12

  SAM’S ADVENTURE

  One day, Sam was walking at a brisk pace in the woods. The trees in the dense forest bowed their graceful branches, as once in a while leaves would fall off gracefully, descending through the air in hoops and
loops, and falling gently to the ground. The colors of the forest were a complete contrast to the gray, molding, decaying, and often bombed-out homes and businesses in Micholovce.

  Sam breathed in the scent from the smell of the blowing of the multi-shaped, colored leaves, and flowing grasses; he whistled along with the chirping and whistling of the birds as they chattered and peeped out their calls. He smiled when he saw a flock of geese flying overhead.

  But he quickly stopped smiling as he remembered the pictures in his mind about neighbors and family being rounded up and pushed into cattle cars. He shook his head and cried for a minute, and said to himself, “must go on, must go on in spite of the Germans”, and he stepped up his pace. “It helps to pick up the pace. I think a lot less about the dangers,” he paused. “Hmm, seems like just yesterday that my mother was looking over the stove and watching to see if the noodle pudding and baked chicken were warm enough. She would always make certain that the door to the stove closed tightly, and she would drape her dishtowel over the handle of the door of the stove”. “Oh”, he cried silently, “my family will never be the same”.

  Sam was on a mission to find food for his mother, and father, and sister, and three brothers. Every day was a new mission to stay alive. Every day was a new quest for survival and sanity. “Oops”, he thought to himself, and he immediately turned around and looked behind himself, “got to remember to always be on guard”, he muttered to himself. He chuckled, “maybe I look like one of the trees or maybe I am invisible to the Nazis…Wouldn’t that be something—a real war weapon—invisibility”. Moments passed and he got a grip on himself, saying with courage, “No such luck—have to face this”.

  Sam stepped up his pace and walked briskly—even though thickets of entwining bushes lay ahead. He had been walking for over an hour, but Sam showed no sign of weakness. Sam was muscular with broad shoulders and taller than most of the men his age. His eyesight was very sharp and his mind was very keen. Suddenly and quickly as the wink of an eye, a brown colored hare with propped up ears darted out of the brush and thicket. It shilly-shallied back and forth for a few moments. Eyeing Sam for a flash of a second as his eyes rotated, he made a beeline dive for the thicket up ahead. Sam shook his head from left to right a few times—“missed out on a special dinner” he said to himself. His mouth watered for a plate of rabbit stew, cooked over an open fire in a big pot. “Might even have some berries and mushrooms on the plate to eat with the rabbit stew”, he said, while slurping his tongue, as he pictured the meal in his thoughts. His family had never eaten rabbit before the war, but faced with the situation of starvation or eating animals that were not considered kosher, and found running wild in the woods, the family chose to eat whatever they could find.

  Blessings were always whispered before and after meals and often Joseph talked of someday eating kosher foods. Sam often thought about the cholent, the potato puddings, rice puddings, chocolate-layered cakes, fresh baked apple strudel, baked sweet potatoes, and fresh roasted chickens. He could still smell the sweet aroma of the food. He could still taste the dill in the chicken soup. Sam often thought about his brothers. I was his favorite brother. This is my story about Sam. I am Martin.

  He sang music like a Cantor. Sam sighed. Sam looked up into the sky. The sky seemed so high and yet reachable. He felt he could put his arm out and that his fingers could touch the sky. He stared or a few minutes at the sky–it was a wonder to him—the clearness, the smooth stretching out of the clouds in the sky–even a short smooth line of pink ran through one of the clouds–-Sam was in awe of its beauty. His heart began to beat a normal rate.

  Birds flew high in the sky this September morning, providing an assurance that it was safe to roam through the woods. Sam was cautious, however. He knew that he should look over the terrain, and leave a mark on one of the trees every mile or so. Then Joseph, his father could easily follow him. As he went along his way, kind of a zigzag path amongst the tall and sheltering pines, he felt his legs moving upwards as the slope got steeper and steeper; but the muscles in his long legs held him tightly so that he did not lose his balance. He, too, had been trained to listen for sounds–-he knew the sounds of birds, the sounds of guns, the sound of motors, the sounds of snapping twigs–and he knew that any sounds had to be investigated and guarded against!

  He stopped walking and listened. There were no sounds, except for a soft rushing sound. It was the sound that he could not identify at first that was unnerving. With a puzzled expression on his face, he walked a few more paces, then stopped, and listened very carefully. “Strange”, he said to himself, and then he realized that the soft flowing sound that he heard was the sound of the ripples of water. He sniffed quickly into the air and decided that his nose, and not his ears, knew best—he would follow the scent of the water. The trail led to the East. He walked quickly, stopping only to engrave with his pen knife the letter “S” into the black, ruddy, ridges of the bark of one of the particularly taller trees: for that was his signal and signature, adamantly stating, “I am here”…”I dare you to take me”– all in one combined thought: while the war waged, and when he had to fight for survival every minute of the day.

  The smell of the fresh water became stronger and stronger; he smelled green algae that had reached the surface. He quickly searched with his large, rounded, light blue eyes––looking for the body of water he had come to believe was there. His tuned his ears in hopes of hearing even the smallest of sounds, and surveyed the area more carefully, saying, “in these deep woods, anything area can be easily hidden from view”.

  Birds flew swiftly overhead as they swooped and darted out from the straggling briars and the overgrown bushes that surrounded the lake. The fresh smell of green grasses, and wild flowers, and moist untouched earth permeated the air. Rustic looking crisp-shaped leaves remained suspended on the branches of the monumental sized trees, but there were signs in their color that they were looking forward to fall.

  He smelled the rushing waters better now, as the scent permeated his nostrils and put his mind at peace, and assured him that he knew that he was doing; yet there was an ominous and foreboding silence about the deep woods, as he muttered to himself; “there is a secret here—I feel it in my bones, and I sense it with my whole being”.

  The birds chirped continuously to each other, as though talking about what was happening in the woods. The animals softly chattered all day and nervously ran about the terrain, hinting that they knew what the secret was all about”. Sam looked on. He muttered to himself, “Watch carefully—these are the two words of survival”.

  He walked further about another 60 feet and passed through a thicket, getting his shirt torn at the wrist, while his pants were torn at the right knee by the thorns of the wild rose bushes that wanted him to stay and gnawed at him and looked as if they wanted to chew a piece off of him. These branches of the thicket had held fast and pulled and tugged, trying their best to stop him from passing; but he tugged and pulled with all of his might until the strong grip of the vines quickly knew who was superior and quickly released their tendon grip. The thicket, too, whispered quietly in the air—“There is a secret”. Sam listened and thought, “I can almost hear the “shush sound echoing from tree to tree”.

  With a quick startle of a sound, a chipmunk rushed quickly out of the thicket. It darted to a group of trees towards the right. Following the path of the chipmunk, while squinting with his eyes, he saw it! Puffing hard with his lips, the lake unfolded slowly before his eyes, as it had done to its own world and its creatures so many times before in the forest.

  Pristine light blue water extended as far as the keen eye could see. It was flowing downwards in a soft, slow, warm rhythm of its own–-almost hypnotizing Sam, especially as the sun gently dotted its highlights of natural colors on the very crests of the waters. About ten feet above the large body of water, a small waterfall with a width of five feet, poured precious flowing water all day and
all night long. “Fresh cold water to refresh my body and my soul”, Sam thought and he supped up handfuls of the precious water. He suddenly heard the sound of a soft-sounding siren. He turned 180 degrees immediately towards the sound.

  As the momentum of the water moved past, the second secret, another secret was revealed–- With stretched out arms, and feet almost welded together in a straight pose, a figure slowly appeared by the bank of the lake. She had long black hair dangling from the sides of her head, which flowed downward towards the narrow depths of the river. She was clothed in a long dark blue skirt and a long-sleeved white blouse.

  The sun shined ever so brightly, but the water was chilled. The young woman floated with the movement and the rhythm of the water. Peacefully, she glided on the surface of the water, and she moved ever so slowly with the gentle waves to the edges of the water’s banks. Her mouth was open as she was singing the same tune over and over again in a high-pitched tone. Sam could not figure out the name of the tune.

  Seeing the young woman was a precious moment in time where Sam said to himself, “I can forget about the war for a few moments at least. But his caution about the Nazi hunters and his training took over, as he crouched behind some large bushes and surveyed the area. He thought to himself, as he blushed and felt for the yarmulka in his deep pocket in his pants. He asked the question, “What do I do now?” He was comforted by his education for the answer to his question–for as a Jew he knew that it was forbidden for a young man to touch a young maiden. He remained almost mute for at least a few minutes, watching her floating and drifting to the bank. He could not decide what to do. But as the water moved her to the shore, he knew that he had to make a decision. “Nothing stands still”, he said to himself, and he said, “I will just talk with her”.

  She emerged from the water as a goddess who came from a castle from beneath the waters. Walking with straight and complete strides, without flinching or bending her knees, she held a ‘pinch’ of her blue skirt in her left hand. Continuing on, she walked to the magical, mystical, gigantic trees that inundated the mossy turf of the nearby woods. Sam blew a big breath and puffed another breath and said to himself, “Speak to her before she disappears!” and while stammering and clearing his throat, he rushed to the woods.