The Forest of Vanishing Stars(43)

It was too much to explain her own background, so she merely nodded. “Our group is. You are, too?”

“Yes.” He hesitated and glanced behind him. From the shadows emerged the other man Yona had seen in the darkness, along with the woman with the long braid, who was younger than Yona had thought, perhaps only fifteen or sixteen. Behind them, Yona could see more movement, others hidden in the trees. “We have been walking for many days. We are hungry. Could you—would you share some of your fish with us? We won’t be a burden after that.”

“Of course.” Yona’s reply was instant. “How many of you are there?”

He took another step closer and studied her face. He was around thirty, with kind, gentle eyes, though his expression was still guarded. She could see him trying to decide whether he could trust her. He glanced once more at Moshe and Leon, and his face finally softened. “Eleven. Two are children. You?”

“Fifteen,” Yona said. She had chosen to trust him, too. There was something about his eyes that was gentle but resolute. She could see it now, that he hadn’t wanted to hurt Leon and Moshe, but that they had represented a threat to his people, and he would have done what he had to in order to protect them.

“How long have you been out here? Your group,” the man asked.

“Months now.” Again it was too difficult to explain to the man that her story was different, that she had always belonged to the woods.

The man blinked a few times. “You have survived all that time? Through the winter? But how? We left the Lida ghetto only two weeks ago. I thought I knew the forest well, but we—we are starving. I’ve never been out here in the winter, and I thought…” His voice cracked into helpless defeat.

Yona glanced at Moshe and Leon, and slowly, solemnly, Leon nodded. “Come,” Yona said. “We will show you.” Leon nodded at her once more, and she looked back at the man with the eyes that were kind, but frightened, too. She could see that now; she had mistaken fear for aggression.

He held her gaze for a moment longer before beckoning to the forest behind him. She watched as five more men, and one woman holding the hand of two little boys, emerged to join the man and young woman already standing there. Their expressions were exhausted, haunted, and their cheeks were hollow with hunger. Yona’s heart ached, especially for the two children, who were only a little older than Ruth’s girls. They looked frightened and weak, and Yona knew she had to help. She let her eyes move back to the first man, who was still staring at her, and then she turned to Moshe and Leon.

“Lead them back to our camp,” she said. “I will go get Oscher.” She looked back at the stranger and nodded. “There are enough fish for all of you to share. Leon and Moshe will show you the way. I’ll be along soon.”

And then she dashed back into the forest, her heart pounding as she wondered what she had just set in motion.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN




By the time Yona reached the camp with Oscher nearly an hour later, introductions had already been made, and it turned out that, by coincidence, the leader of the new arrivals had known Ruth and her parents a decade earlier, when Ruth’s father had hired him to build a new roof on the family’s house.

His name was Zusia Krakinovski, and he went by Zus, like the god of Greek legend. Most of the ten he’d brought with him were members of his family: his brother, Chaim; Chaim’s wife, Sara; and three cousins, Israel, George, and Wenzel. The two boys, ages six and seven, belonged to Chaim and Sara, and there were also two men who were not related—Lazare and Bernard—and an orphaned fifteen-year-old girl named Ester who had begged to come along when she’d heard of their plan to escape.

They’d all come from villages near Lida, on the western edge of the forest. Unlike Aleksander and the group he’d arrived with in the spring, Zus and his companions knew the land, knew the woods. They’d all been farmers or laborers before the war, hunting and fishing in the forests for sustenance in the summer, growing their own crops of potatoes and beets for the winter.

“It is why I thought I could take care of them,” Zus, his voice thick with worry, explained to Aleksander, gesturing to his group, who were all shoveling pieces of steaming fish into their mouths, sucking the bones dry. They’d been starving in the woods, something Yona understood more clearly now as the light from the fire in the stove illuminated gaunt faces, bloodied hands, collarbones so prominent they looked as if they belonged on birds rather than humans. They were all crammed into the largest zemlianka, the one where Moshe, Leon, Rosalia, Ruth, and the children slept, where the original group had spent the eight nights of Hanukkah not so long ago, and though there wasn’t much room for anyone to move about, the collective body heat and the warmth of the fire seemed to be succeeding in thawing the newcomers. Ester, the girl with the long braid, had edged up next to Rosalia and was murmuring something with wide, sad eyes, and Chaim’s two little boys, Jakub and Adam, were taking turns playing with Pessia’s and Leah’s reed dolls while Pessia and Leah watched with timid smiles.

“You did the right thing,” Aleksander affirmed, reaching for another fish from the bowl Sulia had just set before them. He slid it into his mouth and sucked the flesh off the bones, tossing the slippery skeleton on the floor, where Sulia picked it up without a word.

“I’m not so certain.” Zus sighed. “In the ghetto, at least, we had food.”