Beyond the Shadow of Night(56)

“You did well,” Josef said to Rina between hard breaths, as they rested on the floor of their hiding place a few minutes later. He glanced at Asher. “You can shoot on the next mission.”

Again, Josef was true to his word.

Asher was told it would be a simple mission. Ground level. Along the way, Anatoli disappeared for a few minutes, rejoining them with a large box under his arm. The team made their way through ruined buildings—too many for Asher to keep count of—before settling inside one, crouching below three large holes in the wall, which afforded good views of a small square outside.

“Our intelligence tells us they often meet up here,” Josef whispered to Asher. “It’s just a question of waiting.”

Walls full of holes and no roof to speak of allowed a bracing wind to cut through, and as Asher hunkered down he had time to work out where they were—or what this place had once been. Blackened objects, row upon row of them, occupying equally black shelving cabinets of some sort. A few fragments of printed paper, shapeless and edged in brown, fluttered down next to Asher. This had been a library, a place of peace and learning, now of no use except as a barricade, a piece of guerrilla-war machinery.

The noise of a vehicle approaching snapped Asher out of his thoughts.

Josef handed him a gun, but held Asher’s hand down. “Wait,” he whispered. “There will be more.”

He was right. Within minutes more vehicles had arrived, guards were chatting, helmets were removed, and cigarettes were being exchanged. One or two guards opened small flasks and swigged from them.

“Okay,” Josef hissed, and nudged Asher toward one of the holes in the wall. He turned to Adolf and Anatoli, who nodded, then he whispered a countdown.

Asher pointed the pistol at the nearest soldier, stilled his breathing, and squeezed the trigger. Before the man’s body fell to the ground there was more gunfire from Josef and Adolf, and then an explosion made Asher jump. He looked left to see Anatoli lobbing hand grenades over the top of the wall.

Asher looked through the hole in the wall again. The soldier he’d shot was sprawled, lifeless, on the ground where he’d fallen. Asher should have been pleased with himself; he should have been proud. It was an excellent shot for a first kill. One less Nazi. But he felt sick, and for a few seconds was unable to breathe. He’d always thought ending any life was unacceptable. And he still did. But there was no time to consider his feelings: the return fire had started.

“Let’s go,” Josef said, not panicking, not shouting, merely speaking as if suggesting it was time to leave the library for the matinee performance of a show.

They started running.

Again, Asher couldn’t keep track of the number of ruined buildings they entered and exited, nor the number of streets and alleys they crossed. At one point they came under fire again, and Josef shouted for them all to go back. They turned, and Anatoli took the lead. Asher didn’t know how, but Anatoli somehow led them all back to the hiding place, and they got through the oven before the guards even reached the same street.

Whether Asher liked it or not, and even though it sounded ridiculous, this dark, fetid place was now his and Rina’s home.

In the darkness, they stayed silent as the sound of the guards came and went.

Josef put an arm around Asher and squeezed him. “You’re getting used to it,” he said. “Aren’t you?”

Asher nodded, although it wasn’t true.



The next mission was a similar operation, an ambush of soldiers taking a break. The ruin they were in was even more unsettling than the library. It had once been a synagogue—one Asher had been inside when it was in full possession of its glory and solemnity. Today, it was merely another part of a battlefield.

Asher shot and killed two guards—they looked like local police. Again, the feeling was one of nausea, not glory, and he felt unable to shoot more. Josef grabbed the gun back and continued. This time there were no hand grenades, and they quickly ran out of bullets.

And this time the retreat to the hiding hole didn’t go so well; bullets flew around their ears as they weaved and ducked. At one point Anatoli—in his customary position bringing up the rear—yelped in pain. Asher looked back. The man had taken a bullet in the shoulder. He shouted at Asher, telling him to carry on, and quickly.

They reached their street and dipped into the house, to the sound of guards running after them. After a frantic clamber through the oven, Josef pulled the door shut only a few seconds before they heard the clatter of boots on the kitchen floor.

As before, Asher heard the guards talking, arguing, walking out then back into the house, all melded with the sound of the five resistance fighters gasping for breath but trying to keep those gasps quiet.

When the guards could no longer be heard, Josef lit a candle, which showed off his crooked smile of crooked teeth. By now Asher had a lot of respect for this man. After all, he’d been living in these horrible conditions for much longer than Asher and Rina, and seemed happy to kill guards, whereas Asher felt uncomfortable ending someone’s life. The same could be said of Adolf and Anatoli too.

And Anatoli was now paying the price for that bravery.

“Anatoli took a bullet,” Asher said to Josef.

But Josef was more interested in Adolf, and was staring, wild-eyed, across at him. Asher, Anatoli, and Rina looked too. Adolf had a concerned, almost pained expression on his face—as if he were the one who had been shot.