Beyond the Shadow of Night(16)

“Mama?”

“Don’t put the light on, Asher.”

He didn’t need to. A little moonlight beaming through the window caught her as she turned. Asher saw a blanket wrapped around her and a glistening under her eyes.

“I got it wrong, didn’t I?” she said.

Asher said nothing, just sat down next to her, their shoulders touching. Then he felt the warmth of the blanket envelop him too. A hand rubbed his back between the shoulder blades.

“Freida kept telling me how good life was here—the people, the food, the freedoms. Now she apologizes to me, she says it had already started to change—the new regime in thirty-six . . . the new broom to sweep the city clean, so they said. She didn’t tell me all of that at the time because she wanted me to come here and assumed it would only be temporary.”

“I like living here,” Asher said. “It feels good to be part of the flock.” He drew breath before adding, “Well, it did until September came along.”

She sniffed and wiped under her eyes with the corner of the blanket. Asher put his arm around her and rocked her from side to side.

“I’m sixteen now, Mama.”

“Taller than me.”

“And much stronger. I can take care of you. And I can fight if I need to.”

“Please don’t say that, Asher.”

They stayed silent for a few minutes, then Mama reached out for a cup of hot milk on the table in front of them. “Here,” she said. “I’m guessing you came in for a drink.”

As he sipped the milk, he heard her say, “I’m sorry.”

She kept repeating the words.



Dyovsta, Ukraine, 1939

News of the events in Poland took a few days to reach the Ukrainian prairies, and finished off any lingering hopes Mykhail had of traveling there.

He was in Dyovsta village center, listening to the radio—yet another of those newfangled machines his papa didn’t approve of—and ran all the way home as soon as the news bulletin finished.

He found his parents sitting outside, resting in the last of the year’s afternoon sun.

“They’ve done it,” he said to them, gasping to catch his breath between words.

They said nothing, just showed him puzzled expressions.

“The Germans and Soviets have marched into Poland.”

“Oh, that.” His papa stood up. “It hardly comes as a surprise.” He slapped the dry dirt from his pants. “Are you going to help me complete this harvest? I’ve been waiting for you to come back from—”

“Didn’t you hear me? They’ve both invaded Poland. The Germans are bombing Warsaw.”

“Yes. We heard you.” Papa’s look was piercing, almost threatening.

“But . . .”

“Aha.” Papa nodded. “I know what this is about. Our friends, the Kogans. They’re probably still in Warsaw, God bless them. But it’s not the only place being invaded. These things happen. And we can’t do anything about it, can we?”

Mykhail’s mind raced, thinking of arguments to the contrary. His papa continued before he could put them into words.

“But we can do something to help ourselves. We must finish this harvest. We’re nearly there, but it could be a harsh winter, so we need to collect every last grain we can find. I’ve made a start, and you can help this afternoon. Yes?”

All Mykhail could do was nod.

His papa spoke little more about the invasion of Poland, and Mykhail thought that perhaps his papa was right. Out here, only the weather seemed to matter. Perhaps it was irrelevant after all, and it wasn’t as if they could do anything about the situation. And the crops did need harvesting. Once that was done they could relax.

A few days later, the three of them walked into the village center. There was talk throughout the marketplace and the streets. Mykhail just listened. There were heated voices, some fearing the Germans, some thinking it good that they and the Soviet Union were on the same side, and some thinking the Germans could hardly be worse than the Russians.

Someone mentioned the threats by Britain and France to intervene and defend Poland. There was laughter at the idea.

“Empty threats,” one of them said.

“They wouldn’t dare,” another said.

“They don’t have the resources,” a third said. “It’s all a bluff.”

“It’s better that we stay out of the argument,” Papa said. “We’re Ukrainian, not Russian or Polish. We’ve recovered from our own problems—that famine Mr. Stalin engineered for us. We don’t want more trouble.”

“That’s a little harsh,” Mama said. “It must be terrible for those poor people.”

But Papa shook his head. “I tell you, after that mass starvation, the number-one priority of every true Ukrainian is to keep grain production high. That’s much more important to us than some invasion hundreds of miles away. And who cares what other countries do about it?”

Mykhail nodded as if to agree, although that didn’t feel right.

Mama bought some cloth and they all went home.



Warsaw, Poland, 1939

In Warsaw, in the middle of September, the rate and ferocity of bombings started to increase dramatically, shaking the parts of the city they didn’t pulverize. Sleepless nights and hunger pangs became part of life. But for Asher there were no more tears; every crash made him feel more like an adult. The resistance to the German invasion was brave, the Polish Warsaw Army dug in deep, and from the relative safety of the apartment Asher would watch them rushing around the streets, thinking there were so many of them that they couldn’t possibly lose. But the aerial bombardments were relentless. News spread that schools, medical facilities, and waterworks had all been bombed, along with the aircraft factory and the army barracks.