The Grayling

by Cheryl Freier

  Martin answered him, as he crouched down and sat on the sandy ground, “you must remember that you are a Jew and that there is a purpose for you on this earth. You will remember her.”

  “Oh, what purpose is there for me?” Sam asked with an agitated tone in his voice. “Yes, God is always with us even though it seems like he has abandoned us”, Martin told him. Sam got up to his feet and questioned, “Tell me, what Sara did that was so very wrong?” Martin spoke in a firm tone of voice, “God is good and God is merciful…. The Germans killed Sara and her family and the Germans are certainly not Jews”. Sam smiled a small smirk, as he said, “no, I guess not, and then he said, in a more serious tone of voice, “They are Germans, devils in disguise, but the horns and the thorns are there”. “Yes, they are, and our God has quite a job on his hands saving his people from the throes of the devil,” Martin answered. Sam breathed in and out and felt better. The brothers walked on, side-by-side.

  After at least a half hour had gone by, Martin paused and said, in a calm tone of voice said, “God’s messengers, the angels just cannot be everywhere in the same time”. Sam was much calmer now, but tired and said, “Okay, but I think I need to rest”. Martin replied quickly, “Come with me, my brother and let us live; let us escape to our hideout, and let us live to see the day when the devil is completely subdued by God and his angels. Sam muttered, “I say Amen to that”, and Martin put his hand on the top of Sam’s shoulder, and they walked together towards the hideout. Sam was almost like an inanimate stick, propelled by a physical force of motion at first. Then thoughts raced to Sam’s mind about Sara. He called out, “Martin, she could have become my wife. She could have borne my children. We could have walked together to the synagogue; she could have sat on the other side of the curtain.”

  “Yes, that is true”, Martin said, as he wondered if Sam was able to go any further. “We will rest for a minute, and we will talk, but only for a minute,” he cautioned Sam. Martin thought and then spoke, “I cannot answer your question, even though I agree with your thoughts”. He paused and then he said, “Think back to the beginning of our history— that has been handed down from generation to generation–Jacob entered the ‘promised land’ after much strife.” “What does that all mean?” Sam questioned, as he looked up to Martin. “It means that there are bad people and that there are good people and this is the way that it has been for centuries”, Martin said. “Do you think that the curse will end?” Sam questioned. Martin looked up to the stars and paused for a moment, and he sighed, “I think that God wants the hatred to stop, but has not figured out how to make people want to love. Of one thing I am certain–God chose us as his chosen people. We are a people whom are loved by God.” He paused and then smiled as he said with a comforting sound in his voice, “I know that one day there will be peace in which everyone will want to participate”, and Martin cried softly to himself. Martin blew his nose and wiped the tears from his eyes with his cotton handkerchief and announced, “Hopefully the forces of good will subdue the forces of evil soon”, and he paused and then said, “I would like to sing, maybe even be a cantor, and maybe even write a book”. Sam asked, “But what would you write a book on?” “Oh, that is simple,” he paused and nodded his head in affirmation of his thoughts, “why I would write a book about us brothers and our mother and father and sister”. Sam asked, “Would it be about the war?” Martin answered, “Oh, yes”.

  Sam chuckled as he said, “I would like to be a jeweler”. I would like to see the glitter and glow of gems.” “Well, there you have the idea—we will live through this horrible war if we keep our wits together. We will survive. Let us go now brother, please,” Martin said to Sam.

  They had the hideout in sight, when Sam faltered and missed his step and almost fell to the ground. Martin coaxed him, “come on brother, like mom always says, ‘the camps, the camps’. Sam we got to live, we have to fight for survival, because otherwise we will end up in the concentration camp, the camps.”

  “Will we ever live a life without fear?” Sam asked, as he closed his eyes for a minute, but kept his feet moving–first the right foot and then he put the left foot forward. Martin answered, “You and I, we have to hope, otherwise the game of life is over”.

  Sam said, “Martin, sing something to me.” “You got to be kidding—in the middle of the woods with Germans creeping and crawling around, no thanks,” Martin puffed the words out of his mouth.

  Sam stopped cold and cried, “Brother, I need you to sing the song about the Messiah coming”. Martin paused and pursed his lips and said, “I will sing it softly”, and he chanted the words, “the Messiah is coming. We will all be free”. He sang the words over and over again.

  Thoughts rushed through Sam’s mind, however, and he cried, while shaking his hands in the air, “I have to go back to bury them. I just have to”. “Hold on, brother, we are here to be together, to survive together”, Martin said with kindness and understanding with a soft expression and concern in his voice. “I must go back, I must go back”, Sam protested.

  “You will go back when we tell you it is safe to go back, and you will not go alone!” Martin said in an adamant tone of voice, and he asked, “Do you understand that?” Sam continued to cry. He would not move.

  Martin said, “Stay here and don’t move”. Martin ran to the hideout and tapped the signal, five taps on the opening. Joseph heard the signal, and he tapped one time back. Martin went back to Sam and waited with him. He knew that his father would find them soon. Sam gave in to his weary body and fell asleep. Martin sat down beside him and waited.

  After a short while, Martin heard a strange rustling noise through the grasses; he looked up and spotted his father walking around them. He knew to wait quietly. Shortly, Joseph appeared in front of them suddenly, at first like a shadow in the back of a dark curtain. His finger was pointing to his mouth, and Martin shook his head, and nodded “Yes” that he understood.

  Joseph and Martin grabbed Sam by the arm and walked with him; they pulled him down into the hideout. Martin puffed out a large sigh of relief, when he bolted down the hideout door.

  Sam slumped to the floor, despondent, his face colored ruddy red. He lay for two days, hardly moving his body; it was his own form of hibernation from life. On the third day, he opened his eyes; he looked around the room as though in a daze, and cried out, “I am hungry.” Everyone stood by his side and smiled at him.

  Anna brought him a wooden bowl filled with broth, which she had made from the roots of nearby plants and had cooked a wild bird in it. She made sure that Sam sipped it all as she sat with him.

  Joseph told her, “Bernard and Martin, and I will find the bodies and bury them when it is safe”. He paused, and shook his head, trying to overcome the sadness.

  Sam muttered in his sleep, “I loved her, I loved her”. The rain came in torrents the next night, and Joseph said to Bernard and Sam, “the Nazis will not be roaming through the woods in the height of the storm. Besides,” he pointed out, “Martin will be the watchman while Bernard and I dig the graves”. “Won’t the ground be rather hard in late October?” Anna queried, while she sat arched in her chair. Her eyes glazed with fright as her eyes opened wider. Joseph answered her, “I think the rain will protect us and will soften the ground”. And he paused and then said, “Anyway, we don’t expect to be there very long!”

  They exited the hideout one by one, each waiting a few minutes until they were sure they were not being watched. They walked separately, with a good distance between themselves. They had rehearsed the way so that they knew exactly where they were going, in case one of them got lost. They had a signal, the sound of a bird cawing, if they spotted any trouble, and they knew to lie down and hide.

  It was not until two hours later that the three men came upon the fallen bodies. The bodies appeared lifelike, lying in the rain with their swollen eyes wide open. The blood from their wounds had washed away
in the rain. Joseph and his sons knew their task was gruesome, but it had to be done. Joseph used a large branch like a shovel and he started digging one large grave for the family. Martin positioned himself on the top of a nearby ledge and crouched down. Bernard stood next to his father and watched as the earth was slowly moved and the grave opened into a wide, deep pit. Joseph was nearly done when he felt something metal-like under his shovel. He said to Bernard, “You dig now and find out what is buried here!” Bernard dug around the metal object and then went into the large crevice and wiped the dust off of a large metal box. Bernard lifted the metal box by himself and placed it on the ground on the top of the crevice.

  The box had rusted slightly on each of the side corners, but it stood solid. Bernard spoke with a sense of anticipation, “I wonder what is in this box?” Joseph replied with excitement rushing through his veins, “Well, open up the box and let us find out!” A gush of air rushed at them as the lid was quickly removed. They peered in and both expressed a sense of ‘awe’ at the same time, “why, it is cans of food and jars of cookies, and there is some money!” Bernard smiled and looked at Joseph and asked, “What should we do?” “I will tell you in one sentence” Joseph responded with a tone of decision and said, “Leave the box where it is, while we will bury the family”.

  When the ground was covered with a top layer of crumbled earth, and they had finished the prayers that they were able to remember, Joseph made the sound that was the signal. Martin knew to come over quickly. “Look, it is a shame to leave this food. The food will only rot or the Germans will find it and have a feast on it” Joseph said, and he continued, “Stuff your pockets, stuff your bandanas. Hide the tin box, and let us get out of this place!”

  They ran at first from the scene of death, never looking back. When they had reached some distance in the woods, they slowed down their pace and walked single file. The trail had guided them along their way through circuitous, but parallel perimeters, inundated with overgrown brush. All three carried somber expressions on their faces. Their eyes, dazed with fright, were aimed straight and sometimes looked up to the sky for guidance.

  They were more aware than ever that they were alive. Silently, they renewed their prayers to survive and to be free. Almost home, Joseph muttered to himself, “tragic waste of life”. He collected his thoughts and squatted with an arched back, as he said to his sons, “I want you to tell Sam that we buried the family in the best way we could”.

  Bernard asked, “Should we tell about the food that we found?” “Tell no one nothing. Tell no one!” Joseph said in an adamant voice. His sons bowed their heads simultaneously and replied, softly, “yes”. They reached the entrance of the hideout, but lingered for a while in the nearby woods. When they were certain that they had not been followed, they descended into the safety of the bowels of their underground bunker.

  Anna swept her feet across the hardened ground, crying, as she said in a garbled, anxious voice, and she held out her hands, “come and have some hot coffee to the three men.” All three men nodded their heads in an upward motion, and they sat down with somber expressions on their faces at the wooden kitchen table.

  A new day with hope began after a restless night. Just before the rising of the dawn, blasts of cannon roared their fierce, explosive force in the distance beyond the woods abutting the Carpathian Mountains. Joseph, and Martin, and Bernard awoke with a shudder. Sam rolled over in his bed, snoring, adding to the noise of the cannons.

  Anna started to cry. Edith sat on the ground next to her mother—not even an inch separated her body from Anna’s, as Anna held her tightly. Joseph sat in his chair, staring at the opening of the cave. They all stayed where they were for at least two hours.

  Through a crevice in the wall, a rat nervously ran out of its hiding place and ran nervously towards them. Edith screamed. Joseph and Martin ran around the room after it, cornering it as it neared the opening. Martin stepped on the rat with a fierce stomp, and the rat was silenced.

  Joseph climbed up the short distance to the opening. He opened up the hatch and threw the dead rat in the distance. Pink lines in the sky caught his eyes and gray-colored blasting smoke filled his nostrils. The sound of the blasts was deafening and frightening, making his body shake. The sound of bombs bursting, and rifles shooting, and the disheartening, echoing sounds of the wounded made Joseph say to himself, “no good, the war must be closer than I thought,” and he closed the hatch door and came down the ladder.

  CHAPTER 14

  TWO DESERTERS JOIN THEM

  Sam muttered to himself, “Even the rats can’t stand the noise.” He put on his coat and hat and announced that he was going out to get some food. He didn’t care if anyone heard him or not. He had gone out to get us some food, but he had to smell freedom in the air. But instead, he smelled the stench of war: the cannon smoke, the breath from dying soldiers, the burning of tanks and petrol, the burning of human flesh, and the shooting of dying animals. He knew that he could not go further into the woods for the Germans might be lurking there, but he shook his head out of disappointment.

  He searched the area carefully for soldiers, and when he did not see any soldiers, he went about a mile deeper into the woods–-into the underbrush, but still near a small stream; the stream he repeated to himself was his lifeline and compass; he was looking for a small rabbit or a squirrel, but he soon began to realize that he was not going to catch one this day.

  He said, “Wild onions or mushrooms will have to do”. He had bent down and picked quite a few wild onions and wild mushrooms and was ready to go home to the bunker when suddenly, he heard the snap of a twig. He turned his body in a pivotal movement, a click, an instant 180 degrees and listened carefully for any other sounds. Behold: there will be rabbit stew tonight. The rabbit, a brown one, had a thick coat of long fur, and very active, hopping legs–-which had long white spots of white, jumped right out in front of him. Sam aimed his small knife carefully and most steadily, holding his feet firmly on the ground, and the small knife hit its mark. Joyful, he packed up the rabbit with the mushrooms and onions and headed home.

  Not too far away, about fifty yards away, two men had heard the rustling noises. They were dressed in Nazi uniforms. One was very tall, well over six feet and the other one was short, around five feet four inches. They had deserted together from the Nazi army. They walked quickly and most carefully and even though Sam walked very carefully, they saw him in the far distance. They watched him like two swooping hawks. They followed him. When he was no longer in sight, they assumed that he was in his hiding place. They searched the brush. They looked for smoke. They looked for water holes. They looked for openings under the roots of trees. They could not find him. They decided to stay in the area, though, because they knew that he just could not have disappeared. They made a fire, warmed themselves, ate some provisions that they had managed to wrestle away from the Nazi army and they went to sleep right there and then, easily.

  The next morning, they awoke as soon as the sun rose and they talked it over and they decided to leave the area completely. They felt that the German army might come back and they did not wish to be found. However, being hungry, the tall one sniffed the air and smelled a trace of smoke, and he said, “that young man is cooking that rabbit”, and they both knew that when they found out where the smoke was coming from that they would find Sam’s hideout; the two deserters looked over the brush again, sniffing constantly like hound dogs for the scent.

  It took them quite a while to find the smoke. It was only when they started to follow the thick, interwoven brush downhill that they discovered a mist coming out of the ground. When they sniffed the air, they realized that this was the air vent attached to a stove. They searched the underbrush for an opening and after going through one branch after another and then another and then another, just like a designed time machine, they found the opening to the back door of the bunker and they opened it.

 
Joseph immediately knew that someone had entered the back way for the bells that were set up began to chime and this alerted the family immediately. Anna remained with Joseph, but the five children waited quietly in another underground room. The two soldiers boasted as they quickly approached Joseph and Anna, “We are hungry. We will take the food you are cooking”. Joseph said quietly to them, “You are most welcome to share a piece with us”.

  The two deserters looked at each other and then the taller one said, “We think you have to give the food to us”. Joseph cleared his throat and said, “We have been watching you for some time”. He cleared his throat and wiped his lip with his clean cloth towel and said, “You must be deserters”. The two men looked at each other and the taller one said, “So what?”

  “Well, that means that you are not Nazis, but that you are fugitives from the Nazis”. Joseph motioned for them to come to the table by pointing his open hand. The two deserters looked at each other and said, “We have a gun. Give us your food”. Joseph pulled out a knife and held it in front of them and said, “I will take one of you down–-that is for sure. My wife will clobber you both with her frying pan. Anna raised the frying pan and had a very serious expression on her face. The two deserters looked at each other and the taller one hesitated, but he put down his gun and said, “Yes, we are deserters, and we are hungry”.

  “Well, then, come and join us and we shall all be merry”. The soldiers sat quietly at the table and Anna served them food. The taller one yawned and said, “We need a place to stay”. Joseph hesitated, but then said, “Can you bring us food?” The taller one said, “Yes, I have a farmer friend who is three miles from here. He has planted rows and rows of fresh corn. We will leave in the morning for some fresh corn”. Joseph said quietly, “Okay, then you can stay”.

  In the morning, the soldiers ate some soaked bread and cans of beans and drank some water, which came from the nearby stream. They left quietly, the taller one totting his gun. When they returned, they looked well-fed, but they still ate some of the corn that they had brought back.