The Forest of Vanishing Stars(58)
“Well. You should not be out so early,” he said, taking a step back, effectively releasing her. And then, as he studied her, something in his face changed. He took a step closer again, and her pulse began to race. Had she slipped up somehow? Still, she stared him down silently, refusing to drop her gaze, for to look away would be to signal fear. She had the feeling that this would be the kind of man who would only be encouraged by a whiff of it.
“Your eyes,” he murmured at last. “One blue, and one green…”
She blinked. It wasn’t what she had expected him to say, and the observation threw her for a few seconds. Her eyes were her greatest weakness, the one thing that kept her from blending in if someone got too close. She’d nearly forgotten; it had been a long time since anyone had made a point of mentioning them. “Yes, that’s correct,” she said after a moment.
When he still didn’t say anything, she finally looked reluctantly back up. He searched her eyes again. “It’s just that…” He stopped and shook his head. “Nothing. I’m being foolish. You are Polish, of course, yes? Or Belorussian or whatever you people are right now? Your borders change so often, I can’t keep track.”
Yona nodded.
“Of course you are,” he murmured, more to himself than to her. “Of course. Well, be on your way.” And then, abruptly, he turned and walked away from her. She didn’t linger, for she didn’t want him to change his mind. As she hurried away, his strange reaction spun in her mind.
She walked briskly to the church, head down, and let herself in through the same door in the back she’d slipped out of a few hours before. She went straight to the basement, where she found Sister Maria Andrzeja tending to Anka, whose eyes were still closed.
She turned as Yona entered, but her expression was guarded. “I thought you’d left us.”
“No.” Yona withdrew the hare, the mushrooms, and the fruit, along with the yarrow and herbs. “The girl needed medicine to fight her fever. And I thought you might be hungry.”
The nun stared at the hare for a long time before looking back up at Yona, her eyes wide. “You went to the forest?”
Yona nodded.
“That was foolish. They execute people who look as though they are sneaking around, you know. You might well have been caught.”
Yona didn’t mention that she almost had been. “You need food. I can see it on your face. You and the girl.”
The nun took a deep breath. “It is not just me. There are others, too. We are eight nuns altogether, and there’s a priest on the grounds as well.”
“Then I will return to the forest tonight and bring back more.”
“No. Absolutely not. It’s far too dangerous.” The nun hesitated, eyeing the hare again. “But tonight, we will eat together. Thank you, Yona. But please, do not risk this again.”
Yona bowed her head. How could she tell the nun that running to the forest hadn’t felt like a risk at all? It was the return to the church that had felt like a danger.
* * *
That evening, one of the nuns, a woman named Sister Maria Imelda, stayed with a sleeping Anka, while the others gathered around a narrow, splintered table in the small wooden house behind the church. A slender woman with sloping shoulders and graying hair who went by Sister Maria Teresa had prepared a rich hare and potato soup, and another nun, the youngest among them, a blond woman with big blue eyes and a tiny, delicate nose, had baked bread that, though it smelled like wood shavings, made Yona’s mouth water.
“A feast,” murmured Mother Bernardyna, the gray-haired, plump nun with the kind eyes who seemed to be in charge. “We are grateful, Yona. You have come from the Nalibocka Forest?”
Yona nodded, and the nuns around the table—six of them, including Sister Maria Andrzeja, who sat just beside her—all regarded her curiously. But there was no judgment in any of their gazes, and for the first time, Yona felt as if she was surrounded by people who saw her for what she was and accepted it. She had not expected that on the grounds of a Catholic church.
“And Sister Maria Andrzeja says that you are Jewish?” the older nun continued, her expression not changing.
Yona gave Sister Maria Andrzeja a look. “I am,” Yona said cautiously, and around the table, there were only nods of understanding, and a few smiles. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to bring danger to your doorstep by being here. I understand how things are. If you would prefer I leave…”
Sister Maria Teresa began to bring bowls of steaming soup to the table, setting one down in front of Yona first before serving the other nuns. “Dear, the danger is already at our door. And you are always welcome here.”
“We have helped many like you,” said the blond nun, though one of the older women hushed her.
“And yet the lives the Germans have taken far outweigh those we’ve saved,” Mother Bernardyna said softly, and the other nuns sobered. “We pray each day for an end to the terror, but the murders continue.” She looked around at each of the nuns, her gaze finally settling again on Yona as Sister Maria Teresa delivered the final bowls of soup and sat down herself.
Together, the nuns said grace in Latin, while Yona bowed her head and wondered if God could hear them. “Benedíc nos Dómine et haec Túa dóna quae de Túa largitáte súmus sumptúri. Per Chrístum Dóminum nóstrum. ámen.”