The Forest of Vanishing Stars(57)

Long before dawn, she rose and made her way in silence down the ladder to the church’s vestibule, then down to the basement, where the girl was hidden. Sister Maria Andrzeja was there with her, fast asleep in a chair beside the child’s small cot. The little girl was asleep, too, her chest rising and falling steadily, and Yona could see that some of the color had returned to her cheeks. If they could stave off infection, she might well pull through. But then what? Where would the poor child go?

Yona laid a hand on Anka’s forehead and was heartened to find it warm but not hot. She was a fighter, even if she didn’t know it yet. But she would need more to survive, the kind of care that Jerusza had taught Yona, and the nun had mentioned that the sisterhood’s supplies of medicinal herbs were running low.

Yona slipped out before Sister Maria Andrzeja awoke, making her way out of the church and into the still, predawn morning. The nun would likely have told her it wasn’t safe to venture into the forest, but she didn’t know that Yona could move with the wind and disappear into the trees. She didn’t know that without the forest, Yona couldn’t breathe.

The setting moon was still bright and full, lighting her way, though the horizon hadn’t yet begun to pale. Not a single light burned in the village; not a candle flickered. In the stillness, it felt deserted, otherworldly. In the forest, even if you couldn’t see them, you could always hear the animals moving, burrowing, settling, awakening. Here, though, it was as if the whole town were holding its breath, waiting.

As she made her way toward the town’s edge, which blurred with the forest, she saw two German soldiers at a distance, smoking on a street corner, the tips of their cigarettes tiny sparks in the darkness. She hugged the shadows, moving in silence, and just before she reached the comfort of the trees, she spotted a dozen more young soldiers in a cluster, all of them wearing swastikas on red bands around their arms. She drew closer, but they didn’t notice her. She, however, could hear them talking in low, somber tones. She strained to hear what they were saying, but they were moving away, and she dared not follow. A chill ran through her as she finally moved into the trees and saw hundreds of bullet casings on the ground, and a huge swath of freshly turned dirt several yards away. It took her a few seconds to realize it could only be a mass grave, and she choked on the bile that rose suddenly in her throat. She could almost hear the spirits reaching out to her, begging her for help. Her heart thudding, she turned, her eyes blurred with tears, and ran for the woods.

In the next hour, as dawn arrived reluctantly, she gathered yarrow, linden flowers, burdock, and Saint-John’s-wort, greeted the awakening birds like old friends, picked ripe berries and fat porcinis to eat, and, with her knife and a bit of quiet stillness, killed a fat hare to make a rich soup for the nun and the child. She had seen it in their faces; both were starving. The little girl, in particular, would not survive without sustenance. She tucked the supplies into the deep pockets of her dress.

By the time she slipped back into town, the streets were beginning to awaken, but she was accustomed to being invisible. She hugged the shadows, keeping her head down. She was nobody, nothing, a nondescript woman from the village out on her morning errands.

“Sie!” A harsh German bark cut through the quiet morning, and she was careful not to react too quickly. Perhaps he wasn’t addressing her. “Halt!” he added.

Slowly, she raised her gaze, keeping her expression neutral, her eyes level and calm. “Dobraj ranicy,” she said calmly. The German staring at her from a few feet away was older, at least in his forties or early fifties, and his uniform was different from the ones she had seen on the younger men—an officer, she guessed. Carefully, she added with deference, “Guten morgen.” She spoke the German words slowly, uncertainly, as if she had just learned them.

“What are you doing?” he asked in uncertain Belorussian, his emphasis landing on incorrect syllables, his pronunciation all wrong. She guessed, from the way he retrieved the phrase so handily, that he’d been here for a while, but that he didn’t have the intelligence or depth to have truly grasped the new language.

“Coming from my mother’s house.” She was glad she had hidden the things she’d brought from the forest in the folds of her dress, for how would she explain them?

“So early?”

“I sleep there sometimes when she is afraid. And lately, you see, she is afraid all the time.”

The German studied her. She stared back, refusing to blink. Finally, he lowered his gaze, and when he looked at her again, his eyes were cold, steely. “And your mother? Where exactly does she live?”

“Gesia Street,” she answered calmly. She had taken note of a street name just on the edge of town in case she needed it. “In the small house with the blue shutters. She painted them herself when I was small, after my father died. She tends the roses in the garden each day, but they haven’t bloomed yet this year. Every night, she falls to her knees and asks God when he will send the flowers.”

She continued to stare at him as he attempted to translate her long string of Belorussian words. Jerusza had taught her that she should never deceive people if she could help it, but that if ever she was cornered, staying calm and spinning a story with useless details was the best way to sell a tale. Someone trying to avoid the truth would naturally speak less, not more. Season the story with meaningless facts and it immediately became more palatable. The fact that the officer was struggling with the language simply made the trick that much more effective.