The Forest of Vanishing Stars(47)

Zus looked as confused as she felt. “Do you honestly not see it? The way she acts around him?”

Yona blinked a few times. “She is friendly, I suppose.”

Zus laughed. “Well, that’s one word for it.” He glanced at her and sobered as she continued to look at him blankly.

As they walked in silence for a moment, Yona’s mind spun. Falling together with Aleksander had simply happened. How could anyone begrudge her something that felt so natural? After all, if Sulia and Aleksander had had similar feelings for each other, wouldn’t they have been drawn together in the same way before they met Yona? None of it made any sense, and Yona’s frustration mounted; how was it that she was so easily able to survive but so confused when it came to what should have felt like a basic social interaction? She shook her head and sighed. “You said you were looking for me?”

“Oh, yes.” He hesitated. “It’s actually about Aleksander. He’s the one in charge of the group, yes?”

Yona nodded. He was certainly the de facto leader, the one who made the decisions, though Sulia’s accusations about Yona controlling him still rang in her ears. “He is. He led them out of the ghetto. They trust him.”

“Good. That’s good. I was thinking that perhaps I should meet with him, man to man, to discuss what we shall do for the remainder of the winter. I know we’re a burden on all of you.”

“You’re not a burden.”

His smile was weary. “Of course we are.” He hesitated. “Can I ask you something?”

Yona nodded.

“You didn’t come out of the ghetto with them, did you?”

She shook her head, but suddenly she felt exhausted. Was Zus, too, here to point out that she didn’t belong? “Is it that obvious? I—I thought that they had become like my family. But now I think perhaps I was only seeing what I wanted to see.”

He reached for the basket of berries, wordlessly offering to carry it for her as they trudged through the snow toward the larder. “All of us are family,” he said after a few minutes. “I don’t think the details matter.”

She hesitated. “I was raised by a Jewish woman, but I wasn’t born to Jewish parents,” she blurted out. “So maybe you’re wrong about me being family. Maybe I don’t belong after all. Maybe I’m just fooling myself.”

He accepted this in silence for a moment. When they reached the larder, she pulled the door open, and he held it for her as she ducked inside. He followed, and when her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realized he was staring at her. “You are our family,” he said when he caught her eye. “What matters is what’s in your heart, I think, and that’s so much more complex and personal than simply how you worship God. There’s a farmer I know, Christian as they come, wears a big cross around his neck, has a brother who’s a priest. And when the Germans came, he sheltered twenty Jews in his barn, and another five in his basement, without thinking twice. He helped because help was needed, and he couldn’t turn his back on his fellow man. He was family.”

“Besa,” Yona murmured. “What a good man.”

“And a dead man, I’m afraid. The Germans found the Jews. Killed them all, and then murdered him without a thought.”

Yona could see his eyes shining in the darkness now. “That’s terrible, Zus. I’m so sorry.”

“I am, too.” He hesitated. “Every time a good soul dies, I think the world gets a little darker.”

Yona thought of Chana, of her innocent eyes, of the bullet hole in her head, of the rough laughter she’d heard through the trees. “Then it is very dark now indeed.”

Zus nodded. “Yes. But there is light, too. In the times of greatest darkness, the light always shines through, because there are people who stand up to do brave, decent things. What I am trying to say, Yona, is that in moments like this, it doesn’t matter what you were born to be. It matters what you choose to become.”

Yona held his gaze for a long time. She didn’t know what to say. Had she chosen anything at all, in fact, or had her life been dictated by the choices of other people? Was everything she was a product of Jerusza’s decision to steal her on a warm Berlin night more than two decades earlier?

Still, though, Zus’s steady gaze, his confident assurance, brought her unexpected comfort, and she nodded, the lump in her throat suddenly making it too difficult to talk.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN




As the winter wore on, the new group fell slowly into the old group’s rhythm, and by the time the first buds of spring had begun to appear, they were an inseparable family. The time spent in close quarters had been undeniably difficult—the two large zemliankas were crowded, airless, packed too tightly with people. But the additional mouths to feed were outweighed by the hunting instincts of the new group—Zus and Chaim, in particular, had a sixth sense about finding and trapping animals that even Yona hadn’t been able to procure, and in the dead of winter, thrice the group had feasts of stringy, hearty red deer meat, followed by two days of watery venison stew. It was enough to see them all through the winter alive.

The arrival of the newcomers had changed the spirit of Pessia and Leah, too, and seeing the little girls merrier, giggling at the things said by Chaim’s boys, was like a tonic for the others. When the children’s hearts were lighter, the nights were lit by laughter and contented sighs rather than quiet sobs and muted nightmares.