Jack and Rochelle

by Lawrence Sutin

  There was a bush behind Tanya and me. Instead of drinking the vodka, we kept secretly pouring it into the bush. I must have poured out ten glasses. We watched them drink, and they thought that we were as drunk as we could be. But in fact they were so drunk that they couldn’t tell what our condition was. The river had started to freeze up a little. When it got to be evening, they told us to run. They said, “Okay, now it’s time to get rid of you.” We ran to the river; they were shooting and I was waiting for the bullets to hit.

  I don’t know whether they weren’t really trying to kill us or whether they were just too drunk to hit us. It was kind of dark, and that might have affected their aim. But we ran across the river—the thin ice was cracking under our boots. I kept yelling to Tanya, out of panic, as we ran, “Are you bleeding? Can you keep moving?” But neither of us was hit. We crossed the river and ran back into the woods. Why not the woods? By now it felt natural. We were nothing but hunted animals.

  Late the next day we found another Belorussian farm. The farmer said, “I can’t keep you for long. But you can stay overnight in this barn.” It had big bales of hay, and so we cuddled up and waited for morning. During the night we decided that we had both had enough of the partisans—of the entire business. I told Tanya, “Let’s go back to the Stolpce ghetto. We’ll find a floor in a house to sleep on until the Germans discover us.”

  I thought I might as well die like a human being—in a house, the way I used to live. We were cold, full of lice, miserable, hungry. It was nothing but a prolonged death. A bullet would have been a good thing!

  The next morning, while we were still sleeping in the barn, they came in. They found us … the parachutzistn. They started yelling, “You Jewish sluts! We thought we got rid of you! You’re still here!”

  I was sure they would kill us. But they were very drunk and finally they fell asleep.

  At that point, Tanya and I crawled away and started walking toward Stolpce. Let the Germans shoot us, that’s it. There was no more fight left in us. Stolpce was where my family had lived, and to die in Stolpce would be to join them in a sense, in spirit.

  Tanya agreed with me. We were both ready to die. We even walked for a time by way of open roads—an invitation to death. At last, we came to the outskirts of the village of Luze, maybe twenty miles from Stolpce.

  There was a farmhouse. We decided to knock on the door. Let the farmer kill us, let anyone kill us. As it happened, the man who lived there was a Belorussian who worked as a forester and had once supplied lumber to my father’s factories. He said to me, “I know you. You’re Schleiff’s daughter.” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Come in. I’ll give you some food.”

  So we went into the house, and he gave us some hot soup. He asked where we were going and told us that we looked terrible. I said to him, “We’ve been wandering in misery for a month. We can’t find a Russian partisan group that will let us live. Now we’re heading back to the ghetto.” I didn’t go into detail.

  He said, “Wait! Don’t be silly. See the little hill over there, near the woods? There are some Jewish boys and girls living there in an underground bunker. They’ll probably help you. Don’t go back to Stolpce!”

  I wasn’t very taken with that advice. We wanted to die. We were still in our two left boots each, sitting in ripped clothes that left us virtually undressed. The forester cut some blankets in half for us to use as shawls. As we were eating, he pointed out the window and said, “You see over there! Some of the Jewish kids are on their way somewhere. I’ll go call them.” He knew them because they had come to his house before for food.

  Two of these Jewish partisans came back with the forester. A girl and a boy. The girl had gone to high school with me! She was from Mir—her name was Fania. She was a bright girl and had always been very pretty and sure of herself. She had a rifle and was wearing a jacket and boots. We looked at each other and said, “Oh my God!”

  I had already mentally and physically given up. And she was saying, “You know, there’s a guy with another Jewish partisan group near here.… Izik Sutin. Remember him? He’s looking for you.” I thought, “Oh great! What should this boy whom I barely knew once upon a time want from me?” She went on, “His group has a bunker not far from here. When they built their bunker, Izik swore to everyone that you would be coming, and that he would save a place in it for you!” I thought either she was crazy or I was crazy. I didn’t even remember what Izik looked like.

  Fania said, “Come on! I’ll take you there.”

  I looked at Tanya and Tanya looked at me.

  I should say something at this point that somehow I skipped before. Before we had arrived at the forester’s house, Tanya and I were walking down the road that led to Stolpce.

  Like Jack says, certain things you can’t explain. Maybe there is something, some power.…

  We were heading toward the ghetto. All of a sudden an old man came out of the woods. He had a salt-and-pepper beard, was dressed in a worn jacket and hat, and walked bent over with the help of a stick. I don’t know where he came from. He said, “Get off the road and run into the woods. A convoy of German police cars is coming in a couple of minutes. Run away!”

  So we ran into the woods and lay down. Within five minutes maybe twenty-five cars and trucks came—German police and troops. Our lives, which we had felt ready to surrender, were saved. When it came down to it, we hid rather than be shot. But who was the old man? I had never seen him before. And as soon as he spoke he disappeared into the woods again!

  It was soon after this that we found the forester’s house and got in touch with the Jewish partisans. And now Fania was telling me about Jack and offering to take me to his bunker.

  Tanya looked at me and asked, “Do you still want to go back to the Stolpce ghetto?”

  I said, “Well, we can always do that.” I saw Fania with her boots, her jacket, and her rifle. She looked good. I thought, “Maybe there is hope. Maybe with Jews we won’t go through such misery.” So Tanya and I agreed to give it a try. We went with Fania. At the edge of the forest, she told us to wait—she would go and tell Jack that I was there.

  There I was, with two left boots, the blanket around me, lice in my head, dirty, smelly. Ready for the garbage pile.

  Within fifteen minutes, Fania came back with a guy in a big sheepskin coat. He had a mustache, a fur hat, a rifle. I thought, “Who is this?” He looked like a wild man from the woods.

  It was Jack. Even when he told me who he was, I could barely recognize him. And he was saying that I could come with him to his bunker. Beyond the fact that I was surprised he was there in front of me, a survivor, I felt no emotion as he made his offer. I was dead inside, exhausted. It was a relief to see Jews who actually looked like human beings—who had food to eat and clothing to wear. But basically my feeling was, “If you have a hole that I can lie down in and sleep, fine. That’s all I can do.”

  There was no room in Jack’s bunker for Tanya, but there was a Belorussian farmer nearby named Petrovich. His family came from Russia, he was a friend of the Jewish partisans, and we were told that he would give Tanya shelter. Tanya agreed to this.

  So I went with Jack to the bunker, and Fania took Tanya to Petrovich.

  VI

  Courtship in the Woods

  JACK

  At once I invited Rochelle to come join us in my bunker. She hardly knew what to think, I’m sure. Still, she accepted. It wasn’t that she was so taken with the sight of me. But where else did she have to go?

  There wasn’t room enough for Tanya, but I promised to find a place for her as well, and I did the best that I could. Petrovich, the Belorussian farmer to whom I sent her, was very good to the Jewish partisans. If we needed medication, he would go to town and get it for us. But the Russian partisans, who were also active in this Nalibocka Forest, were convinced that Petrovich was a double agent pretending to help the partisan cause but secretly informing to the Germans. I could never verify whether it was true or not.

  Ta
nya came to visit us at the bunker after she had lived with Petrovich a couple of weeks, to see Rochelle and to let us know how things were going. Tanya explained to us that there were Petrovich and his three sons—their mother was no more—and that she had to satisfy all four of them as a wife. Otherwise, they were nice to her. She had enough to eat, a warm house in which to sleep. She went back to Petrovich’s that same day. Given the kind of hell we were living in, it was the best refuge she had.

  Some time later, we found out that Tanya had become pregnant. The father was one of the members of the Petrovich family—precisely which one was unclear. But the baby was never born. The Russian partisans decided to take revenge on Petrovich for his alleged betrayals. So one night they surrounded his house and burned it down—burned everyone in it alive. Maybe Petrovich was too good to the Jews and the Russians hated him for it. I heard later that Tanya had begged the Russians to let her go because she was Jewish and not an informant—and also because she was pregnant. Even if the Russians genuinely suspected Petrovich, they could have let a pregnant woman go. But they killed all of them. So that was Tanya’s fate.

  You can imagine the reaction of my fellow group members when I brought Rochelle back to our bunker. They couldn’t begin to believe it at first. And Rochelle had her own difficulties believing me. Yes, Fania had told her how I had saved a place for her. But when I revealed to her the story of my dream and how I had been waiting for her, she was sure I was bluffing. It was just a fantasy to win her over, to get her to have sex with me. That is what she believed until she talked to the other members of the group and they confirmed that what I was telling her was true.

  Even if the whole story had made half-sense, it would have been difficult for Rochelle to accept. At the time she came to us, she had just gone through a period of terrible suffering. How could she accept the fact that a strange man in the woods was waiting for her arrival and offering his love?

  I can’t say that the other members of my group were very thrilled by her arrival. But they had no choice. I was the leader, and they felt they needed me to keep their food supply secure. Thank God there was a space that had been prepared for her—without that space, the complaints would really have been overwhelming.

  ROCHELLE

  My mental state, as I went with Jack to his bunker, was that it was easier and better to die than to suffer further cold and humiliation. My expectations were low, my emotions were non-existent. I was thinking to myself, “Well, we’ll see what will happen here!”

  The other members of the group did confirm that Jack had predicted my arrival. But even so, I didn’t really accept it as true. How could he know that I was alive? What kind of dream could prophesy to him to wait for me in the middle of the wilderness? I thought that the other group members were reciting the whole business only because Jack had told them to, to make me feel more welcome.

  But welcome I never felt. To those other members I was another mouth to feed. And I was a woman. It was the men who went off on the farm raids to get the food. The women were waiting behind to be fed. So now there was one more woman waiting on a little bed of six small trees.

  Living with their feelings toward me was bad enough. What made it worse was that I had never lived under the ground before—I wasn’t used to the bunker as the others were. When Tanya and I had been roaming around, we had slept out in the open or occasionally in barns. It was miserable, but I was like an animal in the woods—I had gotten used to living in the fresh, open air.

  The first time I entered Jack’s bunker, it was through a hole in the ground with a square cover. You slid into the bunker. Inside it was very dark. And with twelve or so people inside there, you can imagine the air … so stale. Almost at once I got so sick to my stomach that I thought I would pass out. I had to get back outside immediately, just to catch my breath. The stench was terrible. None of the group members bathed—there was no way to do so in the cold weather. All of them were full of lice and vermin. Eventually I learned to stand it, but in the first days I was sick continually, nauseated and fainting, running in and out of the bunker just to keep from vomiting in their midst.

  The members of Jack’s group saw this and said to him, “See what you’ve got on your hands? Not only another person to feed, but she’s probably been raped and is now pregnant to boot!” Jack’s little group was half men and half women, but the men and the women alike spoke that way about me.

  None of them came up to me and asked me personally if I was pregnant. All of this was said behind my back. But of course these accusations began to reach me—I would overhear comments, and I could see that they were trying to torment Jack with their charges.

  I knew that I wasn’t pregnant. But I thought that, in a way, they were right. Who needed me there? That was my state of mind.

  JACK

  They would pester me about Rochelle being pregnant. I kept telling them that it wasn’t any of their business and that it didn’t matter—I would take responsibility for everything, however matters stood.

  ROCHELLE

  Jack was also very forceful in making a moral case for me to stay. He would say, “If Rochelle is pregnant, that’s all the more reason to keep her with us and give her shelter. That’s what she needs—shelter and someone to care for her.”

  That was the nicest thing anyone could have said to me at that time. Of course, I had no idea how to take it, because I could not really believe it. I would think to myself, “There is something wrong with this guy.” All I had been hearing for a year or more was “Jewish whore” this and “Jewish slut” that. And now Jack, who as far as I was concerned didn’t know me from Adam, was saying he would take care of me.

  Jack was an effective leader of that group. He knew how to smooth things out, to keep the morale up. So he would add that—if worse came to worse, and a baby was actually born in the bunker—he knew a Belorussian farmer who would take my baby and raise it.

  JACK

  This was the same Kurluta family that had helped me in the past. Because of our background together, I knew I could trust this particular family.

  I should say that both the farmer and his wife liked me very much—they considered me as the son they had never had. If I had been willing to marry one of their three daughters—all in their late teens to early twenties—they would have been delighted. I had a very nice relationship with their daughters. I would sometimes spend nights in the barn with them.

  ROCHELLE

  The family loved Jack. It didn’t bother them that he made love to their daughters. They approved completely, and it didn’t happen only in the barn. They had a small farmhouse, and all of the family shared a single bedroom—the parents in one bed, the three daughters in another. Jack was sleeping with the daughters right in front of the parents and they didn’t care. In part it had to do with the atmosphere of the war—the attitude toward sex changed for a lot of people, because life itself was so uncertain.

  At the time, of course, I had no idea that Jack had been having his little affairs. He didn’t talk to me about them. If he had, it wouldn’t have mattered to me. I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have felt jealous.

  Clearly, the Kurluta family was not particularly jealous either, because one night—we never really left the bunker, except at night—Jack suddenly said to me, “Let’s go. I’ll introduce you to this family. I’ve let them know you’ll be coming.” So I said all right.

  I don’t know to this day how Jack found his way so well in the dark woods. He moved in and out of the trees and branches like a rabbit, and I followed him as best I could. Somehow, we arrived at the house. It was the middle of the night, but they let him in when they heard his knock.

  Well, they had prepared a feast for us. Blinis, fried salt pork with onions, even a little jar of honey to bring back with us to the bunker. And I should mention that Jack introduced me to them that night as his wife!

  All I could think to myself was, “I don’t know what’s going on.” I still had no emotions. My body w
as not responding, my mind was not responding. None of it seemed to be happening to me. None of it made sense. We returned home through the woods in the hour before dawn. I was in a daze.

  I remember one thing about the end of that night. There was fresh, shining snow on the ground, and we were carrying that tiny jar of honey that the Kurlutas had given us—a tremendous gift. When we returned to the bunker, we decided to see what it would taste like to drizzle some of the honey on the snow. So Jack went in and fetched a small dish, and then we sat outside together and tried it. Fantastic! The most delicious thing I can remember eating in all of the war years. We sat and ate and we couldn’t get enough—I think we ate the whole jar of honey that night with the snow.

  Maybe twenty years later, when we were living in America, I remembered that night and how delicious the snow and honey had tasted. It was a snowy winter night and I went outside our house and scooped up some of the newly fallen snow into a bowl and poured some honey on it. It tasted awful! A sticky frozen mess that melted into water. Nothing like the heavenly pleasure I had remembered. But that night we must have been so desperate for something cool and sweet and refreshing. Anything that enhanced the flavor in your mouth … sweet or salty … was wonderful.

  Within our group, I was considered Jack’s woman even though nothing romantic was happening between us. All the same, none of the other men in the group would have dared approach me. But I could see how, with the other men and women, relationships would develop as a result of being together, talking about the past, sometimes softly singing Yiddish songs to lift our spirits.

  In general, in the partisan groups, the men were always looking for a woman because there were more men and a shortage of women. Affairs would arise now and then—very seldom were serious feelings involved. It was an atmosphere of “Live today, and die tomorrow, so make the best of it while you can.”