Beyond the Shadow of Night(76)

“Look,” Mr. Malinowski said. “Rifles. Definitely soldiers.”

Then there were six, then ten, and soon there were too many to count.

Mr. Malinowski gulped. “My God, so many of them. Do we start shooting?”

His words registered with Asher, but Asher was struggling to think, let alone reply. It seemed too good to be true. He waited to see a little more clearly, and yes, he was right. “Look!” he said, pointing at the nearest soldiers. “Can’t you see?”

“See what?”

“The uniforms.”

Mr. Malinowski squeezed his eyes to gray slits and peered at them. Then he gasped and tears filled his eyes.

“They’re Soviet troops,” Asher said.

All Mr. Malinowski could do was smile.



By this time, with all obvious traces of the Treblinka extermination camp destroyed, Mykhail had found himself transferred back to the Trawniki camp to train other men. But that camp was eventually abandoned too, again because of the approaching Soviet troops.

From there, Mykhail became a gun. Nothing more. Not even a gun for hire, but a gun to be commanded. With the rest of the diminishing band of Trawnikis, he was transported to one place, told to shoot people, then transported elsewhere and told to do the same.

He tried not to consider who the victims were. He shut down his conscience. The excuse he gave himself was hope—hope that the Germans might control Russia one day and give Ukraine independence. Behind the excuse, he was a robot. In his head it wasn’t him who was perpetrating the killings: it was the gun he’d been given. When he was shooting, he took his mind to a better place. Some of the other Trawnikis seemed to enjoy what they were doing. Not Mykhail. Nor did he hate it. He just did it. He aimed and pulled the trigger like he was back on the farm in Dyovsta destroying pests. He considered himself a non-human.

Self-preservation was everything.





Chapter 25

Warsaw, Poland, 1944

After welcoming the advancing Soviet troops, Asher and the Malinowskis rejoiced at the land being Polish once more. Asher stayed on the farm for a few more days, but was soon conscripted into the Red Army.

But by the summer of 1944 the war in Poland, like the German fighting machine, was on its last legs. Yes, there were battles to fight, but Asher managed to avoid those duties. A few months later, the Soviets took Warsaw, and soon after that, the rest of Poland.

Asher heard that the war was over, but didn’t dare believe it. It had been five and a half years since he’d witnessed those bombs dropping on Warsaw. The war had cost him his family and had effectively left him homeless—without a country as much as without a home.

Was he ready to believe this was the end?

He read the newspapers, listened to the radio, and got his papers to leave the army. So yes, the war really was over, Asher’s obligations to the Red Army were fulfilled, and before he knew it, he found himself being deposited in Kiev.

Kiev was, after all, the capital city of Asher’s country of birth, and as good a home as any, but only on a temporary basis. Returning to Dyovsta was an option, and there was a lure, he had to admit—a burn of nostalgia. But would Mykhail and his parents still be there after nine turbulent years? If so, would they welcome Asher? Would they even recognize him? And how would he settle there with no job and no property?

No. He had so many happy memories of Dyovsta and of Mykhail, perhaps it would be better to keep it that way. And he had another home—one of even happier memories, as well as bitter ones. There was a time he’d been content in Warsaw. Before the wall went up. And there was a compelling urge to find out what had become of Izabella. If he found her, they would talk and he would find out whether she still wanted to marry him. Now the war was over there was no barrier to them being together. He would have to be brave—he could no longer live on his dreams of her; he would find out whether those dreams were realistic.

So Asher found work repairing tractors in Kiev, and by summer 1946 had saved enough money to board a train bound for Warsaw.

But sitting on the train, he was having second thoughts. Perhaps he was wasting his time. Had he and Izabella really been in love? Perhaps it was only the closest thing to love they could find. Had she really been honest with him about wanting to be with him when the war was over? By now she could be a completely different person. She might not even be alive.

Every permutation of every possibility whirled around in his mind, one moment urging him to stay on the train and find out, the next moment telling him to get off—to leave his sweet memories of Izabella to be savored in future years like fine wine.

The jolt of the train made his decision for him, and for the briefest moment the jolt took him back to that other train ride—the one departing Warsaw.

An old man struck up conversation, and within a few minutes they were chatting about what they did for a living, whether tractors really were better than horses, moving on to how hard the next winter would be and what might happen to the price of vodka. And Asher’s reservations were forgotten. He was on his way to Warsaw.



The journey took a day and night—a sleepless one for Asher—but on a still Saturday morning he stepped off the train and set foot on Warsaw ground. He gasped, partly at the fresh, cooler air, and partly at his memories of this place. His first few steps were staggers.

“Careful!” the old man said, his grin showing Asher yet again all eight of his brown pegs. “I’m not strong enough to hold you up. Are you okay?”