Beyond the Shadow of Night(74)

Asher’s slumber was peppered with dreams of fire and nightmares of the dying, but they paled to nothing as he stirred, disturbed by something heavy crawling on his outstretched legs. As he started to wake up he sensed pressure on his chest and heard close breathing.

He gasped, and the nightmares were forgotten as he woke to the rancid breath of a dog. He grabbed the thing by its wiry hair and was about to push it away when his eyes met with something just beyond—the muzzle of a shotgun.

It took him a moment to look at the other end, where he saw an elderly woman in dirty gray clothes and a headscarf. She was staring right into his eyes, her finger poised on the trigger. She whistled, and the dog hopped off Asher’s chest and trotted away to sit by her feet.

“Polish?” she said.

“Ukrainian,” Asher replied in a croaking voice.

She asked whether he was a Jew. The black holes of the rifle barrels forced the answer back down his throat. Should he lie to save himself?

As he considered his reply, the woman’s eyes bobbed down to the side of his leg—to the dark red streak on his pants.

“Treblinka?” she said.

Asher gave a single nod and held his breath. The muzzle of the rifle stayed where it was, and Asher closed his eyes and prayed. He prayed for whatever was going to happen to happen quickly.

He couldn’t hold his breath long, and let out a wheeze and some tears as he opened his eyes.

The muzzle was still there, and her eyes were still on him.

Then her eyes moved to the side, to where he’d thrown the plum stones.

“I’m sorry,” he said in his most polite Polish. “I was so hungry.”

Her nostrils twitched, and the tip of her tongue peeped out between her cracked lips and lodged in the corner of her mouth. Slowly and steadily she backed away. “Stay where you are,” she said, and climbed down to the barn floor.

Asher crept over, conscious he was disobeying but unable to resist. He poked his head far enough over to see her standing in the doorway below him.

She called out toward the house, and soon a man joined her. She talked to him while he wiped his hands on a rag, and at one point she cast a hand back in Asher’s direction. There were heated voices, hand gestures, after which the man strode past her and approached the ladder.

Asher quickly threw himself back to where he’d been told to stay, and the man’s head appeared seconds later. He climbed up and walked over to Asher.

“You’re Jewish?” he said. “Escaped from the camp?”

Asher nodded, not taking his eyes off the man. “I’m Ukrainian. I was in Warsaw, then Treblinka. I escaped from there. I don’t mean you any harm. I’m just desperate.”

Then the woman appeared again at the top of the ladder.

The man glanced back to her and said to Asher, “We’re the Malinowskis.”

“Asher Kogan.”

“On your own?”

Asher nodded.

“You can stay with us,” he said. “But not in here.”

“Thank you,” Asher said, heaving a sigh. “I’ll repay your kindness.”

Now the woman was standing next to the man. He put his arm around her. “Forgive my wife,” he said. “The farmhouse belonged to our son and his wife. They took in a family of Jews two years ago, sheltered them. The Nazis found out and shot them all. They said we should think ourselves lucky they let us have the farm.”

Then the man’s eyes grew heavy; he blinked to hold back his tears.

Asher looked at the woman. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Really.”

She nodded and said, “Me too, but thank you.”

“Anyway,” the man said, “we’re old now. It hardly matters. We’ll protect you, and if it kills us . . . so be it.” He shrugged. “Not that we won’t fight.”



Back at the camp, Mykhail had listened from his cocoon to the fires burning themselves out and the shouts turning to talk. He knew he’d probably slept but couldn’t be sure, his mind having hopped from reality to nightmare and all stages in between. But he would starve if he stayed in the engine room.

The first things he saw on removing the barricades and opening the door were rifles pointed at him. As one guard searched him for weapons, he cast his eyes over the scenes of the prisoner uprising. Dead bodies—a mix of guards, prisoners, and fellow Trawnikis—were strewn about. Blood tainted the earth everywhere. Most of the buildings still smoldered, smoke lazily drifting above. It was so quiet compared to what he’d heard during the revolt.

“Did you know anything about the prisoners’ plans?” the guard asked him.

Mykhail shook his head.

The guard briefly spoke with his superior, then turned back to Mykhail. “You have to clear up,” he said.

Mykhail nodded. Whether he understood or agreed or was just relieved not to be shot, he wasn’t quite sure.

Over the next few days he worked all the daylight hours. People who had been shot in the uprising were divided into two: bodies of guards were shipped out for a proper burial; those of the prisoners simply added to the mass of bodies. With no prisoners, it was left to the Trawnikis and guards to do the dirty work. Prisoners who had been shot, prisoners who had been recently gassed, and exhumed bodies all had to be dragged away and loaded onto the enormous pyres. The men scattered the resulting ashes far and wide, digging them into the sand and earth. They weren’t told why they were doing this, but they all knew because they’d heard the rumors: the Soviet troops were advancing, and the Germans wanted to cover up what had been happening. They were even told to dismantle and destroy what remained of the camp buildings, effectively erasing all traces that it ever existed—bodies, buildings, records, everything.