by Irma Joubert
“I know we will,” he said, against his better judgment. “Try to get some sleep. You need your strength. Lie down on my sheepskin at the front of the cave.”
But there was no question of sleep that day. Mrs. Rozenfeld’s condition rapidly deteriorated. By eleven that morning there was a rattling sound in her throat. She managed to raise herself slightly and stare at them with unseeing eyes before she gave a deep sigh and sank back on her tangled bedding, lifeless.
“Mama?” Ester put out her hand, but she didn’t touch her mother.
Marco took Mrs. Rozenfeld’s hand, and his fingers closed around her wrist. He looked up at Rachel and shook his head.
Rachel bent down, hesitated a moment, then gently closed her mother’s eyes.
Mr. Rozenfeld sank to his knees beside his wife, rested his head on her thin body, and remained like that without moving.
Ester jumped to her feet. “No! No!” she screamed and stormed out of the cave. They let her go.
After a while Marco went in search of her. The icy landscape outside the cave was perilous. He found her in the next gorge where, two summers before, she used to leave her goats at night. He sat down beside her and gently put his arm around her shoulders. She turned and clung to him. “Now I have no one,” she sobbed.
“You have your father and Rachel. You still have each other,” he said gently. “And I’m here too. You’ve got me.”
But she kept shaking her head. “You and Rachel are together, and Papa is . . . gone.”
“You’re Rachel’s only little sister. No one can take your place in her heart or her life,” said Marco. “And I don’t have a sister, you know? After the war, when Rachel and I get married, you’ll officially be my sister too. But I already consider you my sister—if you’ll let me.”
She thought for a while. “Okay,” she said. “Just don’t take my place in Rachel’s heart.”
Marco smiled. “I could never, Ester. No one can take your place. You’re unique.”
He felt her nod. “Fine,” she said. “And Papa?”
“Your papa has lost his lifelong partner. It’s . . . tragic. I think we should give him time to come to terms with his loss. I think he was expecting her to die. That’s why he’s been so quiet the past few weeks. Just love him, and Rachel too. You need each other now.”
Ester gave a deep sigh and one last sob. She wasn’t really crying anymore. “You know what, Marco, I also knew Mama was going to die. I’ve known it for a long time. I don’t think she wanted to live any longer. She didn’t even speak to us anymore.”
Marco remained silent.
“She said we’d have to bury her here, remember?”
He remembered. A lifetime ago. Could it be that only a little more than two years had passed?
Ester sat in silence for a long time before she asked, “Do you think we’re all going to die?”
“No, Ester, I don’t think it for a moment. We’re going to survive. The war will end. Sooner or later all wars come to an end. Then we’ll pick up the pieces and carry on with our lives.”
“You told us in one of your history lessons about a war that lasted eighty years. If this war lasts that long, I’ll be ninety-five when it’s over!”
He laughed softly. “Do you remember which war it was?”
“No, Marco, I never listened. You know how I hate history.”
“Hmm,” he said. “It was the Dutch War of Independence, from 1568 to 1648. But that was centuries ago. No war lasts that long today.”
“Yes, sir, if you say so.” After a while she drew a deep breath. “I’m sorry if I’m a bit . . . difficult at times. I don’t really want to be that way.”
“You’re not a bit difficult at times, Ester. Sometimes you’re impossible. But we’ll survive that as well.”
“I’m not all that bad!”
He gave a slight smile and got to his feet. “Come, let’s get back to your father and Rachel,” he said, holding out his hand to help her up.
Under the snow the soil was rock hard, and Marco didn’t have a shovel. The wind was icy, and there was very little strength in his emaciated body. After a while he stepped back and shook his head—he certainly wasn’t going to be able to dig a grave.
He fetched the handsaw and removed a few branches from the nearest fir tree. If he could stack them over the body, it would hopefully keep the wolves away at night.
They wrapped Mrs. Rozenfeld in the cloths they had used for the meat. “Can’t we just put Mama’s coat on her?” Ester sobbed. “It’s so cold.”
“Your mama doesn’t feel anything, Ester,” Marco said softly. “And I think she’d want you to take her coat, now that you’ve outgrown your own. Yes, I know for sure that if she were here now, she would say, ‘Ester, put that coat on.’”
Ester averted her face and clung to Rachel.
Mr. Rozenfeld laid his wife in the shallow grave. “Her suffering is over,” he said, his voice choked. “Marco, will you please say a prayer?”
Mother of God, help me! Marco thought. How do . . . Jews pray?
But he prayed from his heart to God in the wide heaven above them. They stood around the open grave, motionless, dazed, exhausted, unwilling to take their final leave.
At last they piled branches on top of the body and covered everything with a thick layer of snow.
That night Rachel slept in Marco’s arms for the first time. All night long she lay with him under his blankets, huddled against his body.
“Maybe it would have been better if they had taken us to a Jewish camp,” Rachel said one evening in the new year. They had each eaten a spoonful of thin porridge made from flour. “At least there would be food.”
“We don’t know what the conditions in the camps are like,” Marco said earnestly.
“Food isn’t the most important thing in the world,” Mr. Rozenfeld said softly. “At least here we have each other. In the camps the men would probably be separated from the women.”
“I want us to stay together. I want to be with Papa,” said Ester.
“As soon as it stops snowing, I’ll go down to the village,” Marco said. “My tracks would be visible in the snow if I went now.”
Later that night, lying in his arms, Rachel whispered, “I didn’t really mean it when I said I want to go to a camp. This time in the cave is precious to me, Marco. It’s something we’ll always have—the knowledge of this time we spent together. And . . . even if something happens to either of us . . .”
“Nothing is going to happen to us, Rachel,” he said and held her more tightly. She was so terribly, terribly thin.
“. . . even if something happens to either of us,” she continued, “the other one will always have the memory of this time we had together.”
Marco made the trip down to the village before he was sure it was safe. They had run out of supplies, including flour to make porridge. “We can stretch it for three days,” Mr. Rozenfeld said, his eyes unnaturally bright and deep in their sockets.
On the lower reaches of the mountainside close to the village, Marco saw two soldiers on foot, clearly patrolling the area. He waited until late at night before he crept down to the village.
It was his youngest brother, Lorenzo, who opened the back door to his soft knock. “Marco!” he exclaimed before turning and softly calling, “Mama! Papa! Come, Marco’s here!”
When he opened the door wider, Marco noticed at once: Lorenzo hung between two crutches, his right leg missing. “Lorenzo? You’re here?” he said, holding out his hand.
“Yes, well, as you can see, half of me stayed behind on the battlefield, but at least my head is still in place. Come in.”
He looked up and met his parents’ eyes, which registered shock and disbelief. He knew he was painfully thin. His coat hung loose on his frame. His face was gaunt and gray, his hair long and unkempt. He had come home hungry.
He ate, wolfing down the food and washing it down with hot coffee. “We don’t have any food left,” he said. “It m
ight have been better for them in a Jewish camp.”
“No,” Lorenzo said firmly. “Pietro says there are terrible rumors about conditions in the Jewish camps.”
“I can’t stay. I must get back as soon as possible,” Marco said. “It’s too dangerous. There are spies everywhere. Even if you brought supplies here from another house, they’d be suspicious.”
“We didn’t expect you so soon,” Maria said uncertainly. “We don’t have much, but I’ll give you what we have. We haven’t been able to harvest anything from the gardens yet, and we seldom get any supplies from Turin these days. But we have some ham Papa smoked last week, and I made cheese the day before yesterday. We still have flour and oil and salt. The sugar is finished, but one can do without it,” she said, scurrying around. “Papa will take some more provisions to the second cave as soon as possible. Come in about a week. Oh, Marco, I’m so happy to see you!”
She took the last bag of dried tomatoes and the last two bottles of pickled olives from the back of the kitchen cupboard. “The vitamins and oil will do you good,” she said.
Within an hour he was on his way back up the mountain. He had eaten. He was feeling stronger.
The minute he arrived, they ate—carefully, their hands trembling. Then Rachel began to stack the food into small piles.
“Next week I’ll go again, to the second cave. My father will leave food there. Lorenzo will slaughter a goat and cure the meat. We’ll have enough to see us through.”
“I hope they’ll use less salt than you did with my two goats,” Ester remarked before glancing up quickly. “Why is Lorenzo home?”
“Lorenzo was at El Alamein. He says it’s a hellhole in North Africa, with nothing but sand and sun, where the generals play their chess game and the enemy lies in wait behind every dune. He was wounded in the leg.” He did not tell them that Lorenzo had lost his leg.
“Wounded!” Ester cried. “How serious is it?”
“It’s serious, but he’s at home recovering. It’s been six months since the battle of El Alamein,” said Marco.
“And Antonio?” Rachel asked softly.
“Tonio was taken prisoner. He’s somewhere in South Africa, but he’s not in a camp. He’s building a bridge. He writes that he’s doing well, that he’s stationed with good people.”
“Does he have enough food?” asked Ester.
“Yes, he gets good food. But . . . things aren’t looking good for Italy. The army is retreating from North Africa,” Marco said. “There are rumors that the Allies want to invade Italy. I truly don’t know how much longer our armed forces are planning to hold out. It’s stupid. The war is choking our country to death. Our men are being ripped apart on the battlefield, thousands of women and children are starving in the towns. And if the Allies invade Italy as well . . .”
Mr. Rozenfeld gave a deep sigh. “We’re far removed from the war here, surrounded by the mountains. Out there the soldiers are battling to survive in the trenches. I know, I was in the trenches myself during the Great War. Men intent on destroying each other, while actually they’re destroying themselves.” He paused, then added, “Centuries of progress seem to have resulted in nothing but self-annihilation.”
“It’s definitely better up here in the mountains, even if we are always hungry,” Ester said, nodding.
“Yes, it’s better here,” said Marco, but his anxiety did not subside.
He did not tell the rest of them that on his return trip he had twice noticed foreign soldiers in the mountains—even as far up as the second cave.
That summer they lost all perception of time. They had no calendar. It was no longer important. They had no idea of the time of day. They had stopped winding their watches a long time ago. They had no idea what day of the week it was, nor what month. They measured the passing of time by the sun. Sometimes it was warmer, sometimes colder. Sometimes it was overcast and dark, and they ate earlier than usual.
They had to go farther afield in search of wood. They had to be more and more resourceful when hunting for edible plants and bulbs.
Marco could no longer go down to the village. It was too dangerous. At times he would still venture to the second cave for flour and salt. They caught hares and birds in traps. They dug out bulbs and boiled infusions from leaves, which they drank.
They survived, and day and date were unimportant.
“Our crooked path is going round in a circle now,” Rachel remarked to Marco late one night.
He drew her stick-thin body closer. That way they both felt a little warmer, and not only physically. “But it’s a good circle, isn’t it?” he asked.
“It is,” she said. “If you think about it, we are lucky.”
One morning—it was growing chilly, even by day, so they knew that winter was close—Ester’s bloodcurdling scream raced up the ravine, bounced off the cliffs, and echoed back down.
Marco’s blood ran cold. Ester had gone in search of wood. He had warned her over and over to be quiet, careful. It was quite possible that the soldiers could come up to where they were. That scream . . .
The three of them stormed out. “Hide! Hide!” screamed Ester—and the mountains repeated, Hide, hide . . .
Rachel was already running down the mountainside. “Rachel, slow down!” Marco cried. But she kept running.
Then Marco saw them. Three soldiers in Nazi uniforms stepped out of the trees. One had Ester in a firm grip. A second raised his rifle and aimed it at Rachel. “Halt! At once!” he shouted.
Rachel froze.
“You two up there, come down slowly, with your hands in the air!” the soldier bellowed. When Marco and Mr. Rozenfeld seemed to hesitate, he raised his rifle higher. “At once! I have the two girls in my sights. I won’t hesitate to shoot the Jewish pigs.”
Slowly Marco raised his hands. “Come,” he told Mr. Rozenfeld. “Our time in the mountain has come to an end.”
chapter
FIVE
May we just fetch our things? Our coats?” Marco asked when they were standing in front of the soldiers. They were no more than boys, he realized, children who should still be at school.
The soldier with the sparse Hitler mustache pressed the barrel of his rifle against Marco’s chest, while the red-faced one prodded Rachel in the back with his weapon. “Keep your hands in the air,” he bellowed nervously.
“Our hands are in the air,” Marco said in German as calmly as possible. “Please allow one of the girls to fetch our things. Or the old man. We won’t survive without our coats.”
The soldiers glanced uncertainly at each other. One of them nodded at Ester. “Fetch your coats!” he ordered. “But only your coats!”
“Bring our coats, and our caps, gloves, and sweaters,” Marco said in Italian.
“What are you saying?” one of the soldiers roared. “Speak German!”
“She doesn’t understand German,” said Marco. “I told her to bring our coats and caps.”
“Don’t try anything. If that one tries something, we’ll shoot the rest of you on the spot. Tell her!” the man with the mustache shouted.
“She won’t try anything,” Marco said calmly.
Like a frightened deer Ester scampered up the ridge on her skinny legs. When she came hurrying back, slipping and sliding down the mountainside, she was laden with coats. “I brought the two griddle cakes Rachel made last night,” she whispered as they began to walk. “And our mugs and plates. I didn’t know what else.”
“Good thinking,” said Marco.
For two days they struggled down the mountain. The second day Mr. Rozenfeld couldn’t go on. “Leave me here, Marco,” he said dully.
“We’re nearly at the bottom,” Marco said, firmly grasping the old man’s arm.
“And when we’re there?” the old man asked.
Marco did not reply. What could he say?
At the first village they were bundled into the back of an army truck and trundled down the mountain. “Where are they taking us?” Rachel asked in a
small voice.
“I don’t know,” Marco answered. “Probably to some . . . camp.”
Mr. Rozenfeld sat bunched up, his neck drawn into the collar of his coat, his head and shoulders drooping. Ester was huddled against Rachel, one hand clinging to her sister’s arm while she ate the last scrap of griddle cake with the other. Her teeth bit into the dry, rock-hard cake, and she swung her head from side to side in an attempt to tear off a piece.
Their temporary dwelling was an army tent they shared with a Jewish family from Milan. More Jews from the northern and northwestern parts of Italy arrived daily.
For the first time in many months they had news from the outside world. They learned that it was the end of October 1943. Mussolini had been defeated at the beginning of August.
Marco gave the man who told them this an incredulous look. “Mussolini is no longer in control?” He wanted to make sure.
“Not in most of Italy,” the man answered. “Do you know that the North African front surrendered in May?”
“We don’t know about anything that happened after April,” Marco said.
“Well, the Germans were also forced to retreat. They got a beating in the desert,” the man said with satisfaction. “And then the Allies came across and landed in Sicily.”
“The English forces? On Italian soil?” Marco repeated.
“The English and the Americans,” the man confirmed. “The government sent Mussolini packing, and sometime toward the end of July King Victor Emmanuel threw Mussolini in jail and appointed Marshal Badoglio prime minister.”
“Badoglio? Who’s he?” Marco frowned.
“The new prime minister, you heard the man,” Ester cut in.
“He’s a military man and a true fascist,” said a young man named Josef whom Marco had met.
“Anyway,” the older man carried on, “Badoglio negotiated in secret with the Allies and on . . . er . . . sometime in September Italy surrendered.”
“We surrendered unconditionally on September 8,” Josef corrected him.
