The Forest of Vanishing Stars(70)

“Shall we go now?” he asked Yona, his tone almost jaunty, as if he’d entirely forgotten that there were eight hostages nearby.

Yona glanced back once more at Sister Maria Andrzeja, but the nun’s eyes were closed, her lips moving, and somehow, Yona knew the nun was praying for her, which was wrong, undeserved.

“Come on, then,” Jüttner said with a sharp edge of impatience, and before Yona could reply, his hand was on her arm and he was leading her away.

“Yes, good day, German daughter,” the other officer said as they passed, and Yona could hear the sarcasm lacing his words, the annoyance. Jüttner nodded at the other officer, who nodded back, and then pulled Yona with him out into the sunshine outside the church.



* * *



“Can’t you order their release?” Yona asked as she and Jüttner walked home from the church.

“It isn’t that simple.” He didn’t look at her.

She thought of what Sister Maria Andrzeja had said. “Because you would have to execute a hundred townspeople if you released them,” she said flatly.

He nodded slowly. “It was the nuns themselves who came to us with this bargain. You are trying to save people who do not want to be saved.”

“We all want to be saved.”

He glanced at her. “Some must sacrifice for the greater good.”

Yona swallowed the lump in her throat. “So you intend to kill them after all?”

“I know this matters to you. But I don’t know what to do.” He looked down at her as they turned a corner. The circles beneath his eyes were pronounced, his forehead creased with fatigue. “You must understand that I am merely a cog in a wheel, Inge.”

“But you’re in charge here. Surely you can do something. Surely you can—”

“Enough!” His voice was low, but she could hear the fury in his tone, the frustration. “You know nothing about it. You think I want to be living in a godforsaken Polish town on the edge of nowhere? You think I wouldn’t prefer to be in Berlin? No, Inge, I am here for a reason, and I can’t let myself become distracted. If I let myself forget, I will fail. And that is not an option. We have work that needs to be done, and soon, but first the villages must be controlled. And that means people must know the consequences of undermining us.”

“Why are you here?” Yona asked as they turned another corner. They were near Jüttner’s home now, but at the end of the long avenue, the forest loomed in the distance. As Jüttner looked directly at it now, and then quickly away, as if he hadn’t meant to let his eyes travel there, Yona understood in a sharp instant of clarity. They were here for the Russian partisans—and the Jews—hidden in the trees. Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. “The woods,” she managed to say.

His expression hardened. “There are people out there making trouble for us, blowing up our railway lines, killing our men. And what are they? Russian deserters and Jews who ran like cowards from their fate. They don’t deserve to live.”

Yona felt her blood run cold as ice, and she shivered. “Who are you to decide that?”

He stopped walking and whirled to face her. His eyes traveled over her, peeling back layers like those of an onion. “That’s where you were before you came here, isn’t it? With one of those groups?”

Yona didn’t say anything, and after a moment, he grabbed her arm and squeezed so tightly that she yelped in pain and surprise.

“Jews or Russians?” he hissed. When she still didn’t answer, he shook her, hard, and she could feel his eyes burning into her. “Jews or Russians?”

Still she stayed silent, and after a few more seconds, he dropped her arm with a sneer of disgust. “Jews, I’m guessing. The Russians use their whores up and discard them.”

She bit her lip so hard she could taste blood.

“Well, you’re here now.” He was trying to console himself. “Perhaps you had no choice when you were all alone, but now you are with me. And certainly you know that the Jews are lazy and conniving. They’re a drain on all of us. If you feel sympathy for them, you have been conned.”

“No, you have.” She finally found her voice. “You’ve been brainwashed, and you’re too foolish to see it.”

His face turned red, and his whole body seemed to stiffen. “How dare you.” His voice was flat, emotionless, but she could feel the anger rolling from him in waves as he grabbed her arm and began walking again, pulling her with him. She stumbled a bit, but he didn’t slow his pace; he merely tightened his grip. They were silent as they turned onto his street and as he nodded at the soldier outside his house. Neither of them spoke again until they were both inside, the door closed behind them.

“You will never speak to me that way again,” he said, his tone lower now, deadly.

“When?” she asked softly, ignoring his words, though they made her feel as if she’d been plunged into the Neman River in the dead of winter. “When are you coming for them?” In her mind’s eye, she could see Ruth and her three small children, Oscher with his limp, Chaim’s young sons. She could see all of them, one by one. But the face that lingered was that of Zus. Stay, Yona, he had said, his eyes boring into hers as he touched her face. Please. We need you.

“You aren’t thinking of going back?” Jüttner’s eyebrows were raised so high that they nearly disappeared into his hairline. He sputtered a laugh of mocking disbelief. “No, no one would be that foolish.”