The Forest of Vanishing Stars(14)

“My name is Yona,” she said. “I brought your daughter back to you. And I will try to help you.”

He stared at her for a few seconds and then closed his eyes. “I am already dead.”

“You are still alive. And I will do all I can to keep you that way.” Yona spoke with a confidence she didn’t feel, but she had to. It was the only way she could convince herself that she might be able to save him. She looked skyward and wished Jerusza were here to help her, for the old woman would know just what to do. Then again, the mere fact that Yona was here would have gone against everything Jerusza stood for. She would have told Yona that she was putting herself in danger. And Yona knew this, knew that the longer she stayed, the higher the risk was for her. But she couldn’t simply abandon this family.

“This is a gunshot wound, yes?” she asked gently after examining the gaping hole in the man’s abdomen. She had seen dead animals left behind this way by careless hunters.

He seemed not to hear her over his own labored breathing. But Chana’s mother, who was hovering nearby, said in a raspy whisper, “Yes. They shot him.”

“All right.” Yona was struggling to sound as if she was in control rather than terrified. “Do you know the burdock plant?” Chana was crying, her face hidden in the threadbare folds of her mother’s dress.

“Yes, I know it,” Chana’s mother said.

“You and Chana must bring me some as soon as you can.”

Chana and her mother set off into the forest at a jog, and Yona realized too late that she had forgotten to warn them to be quiet. Then again, she and Chana had encountered no other signs of man on their trek here, and there was no indication that anyone was watching other than the creatures of the forest. She quickly scanned the area around her for something she could use to help Chana’s father while she waited for Chana and her mother to return, and her gaze came to rest on some tiny white flowers growing thirty yards away. Achillea millefolium, yarrow. Her heart thudding, she dashed over to grab a handful of the buds. Racing to the stream, she chose a large stick and crushed the plant into a paste, adding a bit of water. Then, the rough mixture in her hands, she hurried back to Chana’s father.

Inside the listing lean-to, his breathing had grown even more labored. As Yona knelt beside him, he didn’t even look at her. “This will hurt,” she murmured. “I’m sorry.”

He grunted and writhed in pain as she turned him gently over to make sure the bullet had gone through him instead of lodging in his body. It had; there was a clean, circular hole in his lower back where the bullet had departed. She spread the paste around the outer perimeter of the exit wound, and then she turned him back over to spread it all around the jagged edges of his shredded abdomen, too, wincing at his screams. “It is going to get worse before it gets better,” she murmured once he had again fallen back into a state of semiconsciousness. “But it will be your only chance to survive.”

By the time Chana and her mother returned, pink burrs and leafy greens clutched in their hands, he was fast asleep, his chest rising and falling under Yona’s palm as she watched the blood around his wound finally begin to clot, beginning the slow work of knitting his body back together.

“Isaac is still alive?” Chana’s mother asked, staring at Yona with a blend of fear and respect. “What do we do now?”

“Now,” Yona replied, “we pray.”



* * *



Yona waited until the blood had stopped oozing from Isaac’s gut before rubbing a mixture made from the leaves, stems, and flowers of the burdock plant on his wound to disinfect it. She gently turned him over, and he groaned in his sleep as she spread it on his lower back, too.

It was two days before he awoke, clear-eyed, and asked for Esta, his wife.

“Will my husband live?” Esta asked in a whisper as she slipped past Yona and into the hut. Yona had given it a roof and walls of spruce bark supported by pine poles, which would withstand the wind and better blend into the trees. They would need to stay here for a week, at least, before Chana’s wounded father would be able to walk on his own again.

“I think so,” Yona said, but as she locked eyes with the other woman, an understanding passed between them. The words were not a promise, but Yona had done her best.

It was enough, though, and eight days later, Isaac, who had worked in a Jewish bank before the Germans forced it out of business, was walking around, albeit with difficulty, laughing with Chana, whose face had been transformed by relief.

The mirth in his smile didn’t reach his eyes, though, and Yona could see pain there, pain and fear. The way they were all living now, focusing on his healing, was just a suspension of reality. They hadn’t gone far enough into the forest to evade those who might be after them.

“Chana told me some things about the ghetto in your town,” Yona said quietly as she examined Isaac’s wounds on the eleventh day, while Esta and Chana waited outside. “Are they true?”

He winced as she rubbed a fresh paste around the large gash in his torso, which was still very much at risk of becoming infected. He didn’t speak for a moment, and when he did, his words were heavy with sadness. “The Soviets came first, three years ago, and took away our right to practice our religion, any religion. That broke my heart, for the yeshiva was such a central part of our lives, of our town. It had stood for over a hundred years, since 1803—and the godless Soviets, they turned it into a bar. We thought it could not get any worse than that.” He drew a trembling breath. “We were wrong.