The Forest of Vanishing Stars(62)
“That is why I am going to church. I will ask God to help provide.”
He shook his head, his gaze sliding away. “God is not there this morning, madam, I assure you. Go home if you know what’s good for you.”
Her heart skipped in her chest. “Has something happened?” She thought of the nuns’ conversation the night before, the hundred innocent townspeople, Mother Bernardyna’s intention to argue their case with the Germans.
Anguish flashed across his face, replaced quickly by anger. “Please, just take my advice and go home to your child, all right?”
She forced herself to relax. “Yes, sir,” she said, and he nodded, apparently satisfied that he had properly put her in her place. “Thank you.” She hurried past him, relieved that he’d let her go without asking for her papers. She had the ones Sister Maria Andrzeja had hastily insisted she take, but she suspected they would fool only someone less intelligent.
“Wait!” he bellowed behind her, and she froze. Had he realized, after all, that she’d been lying?
She turned slowly, forcing innocence across her face.
He strode toward her, and she stood stock-still, holding her breath. He studied her face once more, as if trying to decide something. Then, hastily, he withdrew a small object from his pocket and handed it to her. “Here. For your daughter.”
She took it, and he was already walking away, back to his post, before she realized what it was. It was a small bar of chocolate, German lettering on the wrapper. For him, it must have been a piece of home, and yet he’d given it to her, concerned for a starving four-year-old. Her heart squeezed. It was a shred of decency in a world gone mad. “Thank you!” she called out, but he didn’t turn. He merely raised his right hand in acknowledgment, and after a second’s pause, she, too, went on her way.
The road to the church was silent, unnaturally so. This time of morning, people should have been bustling about. As she drew closer, she could hear raised voices and the murmurs of a crowd, could feel a ripple of terror in the air the way one might feel a coming storm. She wanted to break into a run, but it would look suspicious, and so instead she walked as quickly as her legs would take her until she rounded the corner, bringing the square in front of the church into view. Immediately, she had to clap her hand over her mouth to stop from screaming.
The square teemed with townspeople, at least two hundred of them, jammed elbow to elbow, some of them whispering, some crying. On either side of the crowd, Germans with rifles kept watch. Ahead of them, on the steps of the church, stood the nuns, all eight of them, with Sister Maria Andrzeja on one end and Mother Bernardyna on the other. They were standing in a row, all of them watching in silence as the body of a young priest swung lifeless from a lopsided, rudimentary gallows that had evidently been constructed from several broken church pews. Yona felt her stomach lurch, tasted bile in her throat. What had happened in the short time she’d been gone?
“This,” a stout German officer was bellowing to the crowd in heavily accented Belorussian, “is what happens when you choose to fight us! You brought this on yourselves! Do you understand? The blood of this priest is on your hands!”
Yona stood frozen, staring at Sister Maria Andrzeja’s face. The nun’s eyes looked straight ahead, and her jaw was set, her chin thrust upward, defiant, angry. How had the sisters wound up in this position? Yona had to do something, but what?
She took a steadying breath and began to move quietly forward through the throng, which parted easily, for no one wanted to be visible today; they were all jostling to hide behind one another. In a minute, she found herself at the front of the crowd, which was filled almost entirely with young women, small children hidden behind them. Their courage made Yona draw a deep breath; they had all placed their bodies here deliberately to protect the youngsters behind them. They didn’t understand that their flesh and bones would offer no shield against a volley of bullets.
“This priest!” the German officer was saying as he paced, his face flushed with anger. “He is dead because of all of you. A week ago, there was an attack on a German soldier, and the assailant got away. Yesterday, we arrested a hundred citizens of this village, with the intention of making them pay for the crime, as an example to all of you. But this priest stepped forward this morning and offered his life for theirs. So, too, did these eight nuns.”
Yona gasped aloud, the sound absorbed by the anguished murmur of the crowd. Suddenly, she understood. The nuns had been planning this all along; when Mother Bernardyna had mentioned last night the bargain she’d hoped to strike, this had been it. This morning, Sister Maria Andrzeja had given Yona her papers because she knew she wouldn’t need them any longer. “No,” she murmured.
“We accepted their bargain,” the German continued, shouting at the crowd. “All of you must be punished today, so that the lesson sticks, which is why you’re gathered here to watch. You’re like children, all of you, and this is the only way children can learn. Maybe today, you will understand.”
Yona tried to catch Sister Maria Andrzeja’s eye, but the nun continued to stare resolutely ahead. Yona was so focused on staring at the nun that it took her a few seconds to realize that there were eyes on her, too. She turned to see the German officer she’d encountered yesterday, the one who had seemed so perplexed by her eyes, standing off to the side in a cluster of other officers. He was watching her, a strange look on his face, and as their gazes locked, he murmured something to the officer next to him, a tall man with graying dark hair, whose back was turned to the crowd.