The Forest of Vanishing Stars(25)

“Moshe is the tailor I mentioned, an old man, older than my father was. Sulia is twenty-five or so. Her older brother was friends with mine a lifetime ago, so I’ve known her since she was small. Ruth is around the same age, and she has three young children with her: Pessia, Leah, and a little boy, Daniel, just a baby. Her husband died last year, shot while Ruth and the children were out of the home, visiting her mother. There’s Luba, who is in her sixties, and Leon, who is seventy. They both recently lost their spouses to the Nazis, and they talk little, but they help with the cooking, the construction of our shelters. Leon, he was a shoemaker once, and so he helps to mend our boots. And then there is Rosalia. She has been helping Leib and me stand guard at night. I don’t know much about her, but she is resilient, tough.” He paused and glanced sideways at Yona. “You will like her, too, I think.”

Yona felt uneasy. It was jarring to hear the names of the people she had vowed to take responsibility for. These were human beings who were being hunted, people who had already lost incomprehensible things. And the majority were older people and children, the two hardest groups to keep alive in the forest. “How old are the children?”

“Pessia is four, I think, and Leah is a year younger. Daniel is perhaps a year old, maybe less.”

Yona nodded, taking this in. “And Oscher’s limp? It is serious?”

Aleksander sighed. “When we were leaving the ghetto, I had Leib lead the rest into the forest. I stayed behind with Oscher and followed at a slower pace. He couldn’t keep up. But he tries, Yona. And he’s one of us.”

Again she nodded. It was another problem. If the group had to move their camp in a hurry, he would hold them back. But Jerusza had been the same at the end, and Yona had simply become more cautious, more observant of her surroundings, more attuned to danger. She would teach Aleksander to do the same with Oscher.

“Is there anything else? Anyone who might be a problem if you need to move quickly?”

Aleksander thought about this for a moment. “Ruth’s children are slow, but they’re small. Leib and Rosalia carried the girls when we fled the ghetto and Ruth carried the baby. They made good time.”

“All right.”

They were both quiet for a while before Aleksander spoke again. “You don’t have to come with me, Yona, if you don’t want. I know this must be a lot for you.”

“It is.” Yona glanced skyward, where a flock of crows had just lifted off. “But perhaps God gives us the answers before we know what the questions will be. Perhaps I was meant to help you, if I can.”

He accepted this in silence, and when he finally answered, his voice was choked. “Thank you, Yona,” he said, and when his eyes met hers, they were damp with gratitude and pain.

It took them another twenty minutes before they reached the camp, and Yona could smell it before they arrived, which made the hairs on her arms stand on end in alarm. The scents of roasted fish, burning embers, and sweat hung in the air. They were all signs that humans were living here, had been living here for long enough that their guard was down. It would make them vulnerable if the Germans ever came to this part of the woods. “You’ll need to move your camp, Aleksander,” she murmured. “Tonight.”

“What?” Aleksander looked startled. “But it is already midday. There isn’t time to—”

“You are in danger here.” She was walking more quickly now, worried about the people ahead, in danger because they didn’t know how not to be careless. They were focused only on surviving, not erasing all traces of themselves. They didn’t realize, though, that the two things were the same.

For the first time since they’d met, Aleksander’s voice took on an edge. “Yona, I can’t. They won’t—”

“Aleksander.” Again she cut him off. “Please, trust me. We need to move now.”

He stopped and stared at her. After a second, she stopped, too, and met his gaze. “We?” he repeated.

She blinked a few times, startled by the question. “I will stay with you long enough to help you stay safe. And then I will go. But please, you must believe me now.”

He was silent for a few seconds, but she could see the storm in his eyes. “All right.”

They broke through a wall of trees, and suddenly the small encampment was in front of them, a haphazard scene of huts built inexpertly from leaning branches and leaves, a firepit in the middle ringed with mud, a large pot sitting beside it. Two old men lounged with their backs against trees, talking with their eyes half-closed, faces tilted to the sun, while a few women washed clothes in a small stream at the edge of the clearing. Yona’s skin tingled. Though convenient, it was terrible planning to hide beside a stream; trackers would follow the waterways first. Two little girls were chasing each other around the outskirts of the settlement, giggling, and a woman nursing a small boy watched them with sad eyes. Leib emerged from one of the poorly constructed lean-tos, followed by three women and an older man, and called out a greeting. All eyes went to Aleksander, and then immediately to Yona.

“Everyone, listen,” Aleksander said, striding into the clearing, his authority over the little group immediately evident. Even the baby stopped nursing and turned his head to look. The young mother—Ruth, Yona recalled—hastily covered herself and stood up, lifting the baby to her shoulder. “This is Yona. She is here to help us.”