A Castle in Brooklyn(4)
Jacob figured that he had been hidden in the hayloft for weeks, perhaps even months now. And although he never admitted it, he was glad for Zalman’s presence.
It was perhaps many more days, weeks, each sunrise and sunset folding into the other, that the two spent up in the hayloft. They sometimes talked as they bit into a wedge of cheese brought by Frau Blanc on one of her now-more-than-weekly appearances. They fashioned games of hide-and-go-seek, one hiding behind the chicken coop, or burying himself within the straw. They told each other fanciful stories of knights in battle and Martians with giant brains, all from other worlds, coming to save them.
Sometimes, when the silence became too oppressive and neither could sleep, Jacob had no choice but to listen to Zalman’s endless questions. He would ask Jacob about his life at home before all the madness. What was his father’s occupation? What sorts of dishes did his mother like to cook? Did he, like Zalman, have a brother or a sister who would play soldiers or read books with him? But then Jacob would clench his mouth shut, knowing that when, as the moonlight streamed through the hole in the roof, Zalman saw the angry look in his eyes, Zalman would finally stop asking questions. Instead, he spoke more about himself, how he loved the tangy taste of his mother’s goulash on cold nights or the way his father hummed Yiddish melodies to himself when he thought no one was listening.
But there was one thing Jacob did share with the boy. On particularly cold nights, Jacob told him about his dream of building a house in a land he had never been to—of the colors, the texture of the rugs, the flowers in the garden. Zalman listened intently, imagining as if he himself were setting foot into the brightly lit foyer for a visit with friends. The boys tried to form a schedule so that their days had order, a semblance of normalcy, and so when blackness pervaded the barn and they could hear only the sounds of the night, a cricket, the pig snoring on the dirt floor, Jacob and Zalman slept. But always with one eye open.
And then one morning they heard the bar lift, the barn door open perhaps a little too quickly. In the loft they waited to hear the heavy thud of Frau Blanc’s cloth bag as she set it on the floor. But before the realization came to them, that the old woman had been there only two days earlier, that their bellies were still full, they saw the glint of metal, heard the command that shook the ground like an earthquake, felt the chickens hit the wire cage as they flew about hysterically. And before their brains could register bold steps on the ladder and that Yes, this was it, they have finally come, they felt the sharp nudge of a pistol against their ribs, amid the shouts of “Aus! Aus!” Get out!
Jacob and his friend emerged from the hayloft, their bodies stooped like old men, their faces flushed with fear. The soldiers ordered them to sit, backs against the barn wall, as one of the men, a blond, blue-eyed Aryan, no older than Jacob himself, riffled through the cloth bag up in the hayloft, devouring the sausage and half slice of black bread that was left. Another, only slightly older, with dark eyes that resembled small bullets and a scar running down the right side of his face, walked over to the farthest corner of the barn, where a pile of dead mice snuggled in a corner, opened his coat and the zipper of his pants, and took a long piss. The other, perhaps the most innocent looking of all, with a white face and arched eyebrows that looked painted on and gave him the aspect of a fairy, and with platinum hair cropped in soldier’s fashion, close to his head, walked over to the chicken coop, where all now except for one running in circles were pecking at the ground. Observing the birds with the mild curiosity of an academic, he hushed the animals, said something softly under his breath that neither boy could hear, then opened the latch and reached in. With one hand, he grabbed the bird and twisted its neck as Jacob and Zalman looked on, horrified. Just as calmly, he dropped the limp creature outside the cage, where the other chickens eyed it curiously. He stared down at the animal, a barely perceptible smile on his face, removed a clean handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his hands. His companions didn’t seem to notice. In fact, not one of them appeared interested in their captives; it was as if they had become another rock, or the skinny pig, still snoring in the corner. But when Zalman, finally taking his eyes off the terrifying scene before him, leaned over to whisper “We are next” to Jacob, the air split between them as a silver bullet whizzed by, lodging itself beneath a rotting shelf on which a bucket teetered.
“Shaah!” barked the older, who eyed them from his place against the wall, gray uniform still unbuttoned, fly open. He returned the pistol to its holster, closed his eyes once more, as if nothing at all had ever happened.
How long can a man hold his breath? Jacob wondered, forcing his eyes to look straight ahead at the motionless pig, which looked more dead than alive by then. The two boys stood against the wall as the ray of roof light flickered with each passing of a cloud. They stood, breathing, Zalman imagining again that he was watching a movie, waiting for the next scene, as Jacob dared not think of his family or his dreams for fear that the tears would put an end to his inconspicuousness—so he didn’t think at all, hoping to melt somehow into the wall behind him.
Someone barked, shattering the silence again, and soon Jacob and Zalman were outside under a sun that was more radiant, more alive, than either had seen in their lifetimes. And then their feet were moving on a day when the air was light despite the still-leafless trees, light and warm and full of promise. After about a half hour of walking, always looking straight ahead, never behind or to the side, they joined the others; some were women, and there were a couple of adolescent males like themselves. Most were ageless, different, perhaps, but essentially all the same in the eyes of their captors, who laughed and pushed them forward, ever forward. They walked. The group joined others, and more joined them until they were a mass, a great wave. Were there twenty, a hundred? No one took the time or had the inclination to count. Just forward, one step in front of the other, all silent, with brains that had long ago stopped thinking and hearts that, despite their desires, would not cease.