The Forest of Vanishing Stars(71)

She refused to react. “When?” she repeated.

He flexed his jaw, and then, he smiled slightly. “Two weeks from today.”

“Please, don’t.” She hated that her voice shook, that it sounded so desperate. “Please stop it.” He didn’t say anything, and after a few seconds, she added, “Please, Father. Papa.”

It hurt her to call him that, but she could see the reaction it elicited. He flinched as if she’d hit him, and she knew the word had made a difference. He sighed, and at last he met her gaze. “It has nothing to do with me, Inge. The woods are full of Russian partisans who wish to destroy us. They are our first target. There is also a man named Bielski in the woods. A Jew, a swine from Stankiewicze. He has taken hundreds of Jews into the Nalibocka, and they work to damage the German train lines, the German transports. You see why we have no choice? Why we must strike back? There’s another group of Jews, too, under a man named Zorin, and they do the same. These are not innocents, Yona. They are fighting against us. This is war.”

“They are only trying to survive,” she protested, ashamed of the flicker of selfish hope that went through her when she realized he was targeting the larger groups, groups whose location she didn’t know.

“But they have no right to survival, Inge,” he said after a long pause.

“Who are you to decide such a thing?” she demanded.

Before he could say another word, she was running for the stairs, desperate to put distance between them. Her mind was spinning. She had to warn Zus, Aleksander, and the others that the Germans were coming. She had to find a way to get to the Zorin and Bielski groups, too, to tell them to be ready. But how could she leave the nuns? They would be executed the moment she left. How could she put one life above another? Who was she to choose?

She refused to join Jüttner for dinner that night, and she cried herself to sleep, safe in a warm room granted by the enemy, as an inevitable darkness moved in across the night sky, inching closer and closer to everyone she cared about, blotting out the stars.





CHAPTER TWENTY




Jüttner refused to take Yona to the church the next morning, but when he returned that evening, just as twilight was settling over the town, his first words to her were a promise that the nuns were still safe.

“I spoke with your Sister Maria Andrzeja myself today,” he said stiffly. “She asked me to tell you she’s praying for you.”

Yona couldn’t imagine the two of them having a conversation, and she wondered what had prompted Jüttner to speak to the nun himself. “Thank you.” It was hard to force the words out, to express gratitude for anything at all.

He sat down in the parlor and gestured for her to do the same. She settled across from him, her stomach swimming. He sounded lighter today, more cheerful. It made her uneasy. “I’ve come up with a solution, I think.” He was beaming at her proudly when she finally dared look at him.

“A solution?”

“The nuns will be taken to the woods. There will be guns fired, eight shots. And then they will be taken in a truck to another part of Poland, far from here. They will be ordered not to return, or they’ll be shot on sight. No one in town would need to know that a punishment has not been handed down.”

Yona stared at him. “You would spare them?”

“On two conditions. When I leave for the forest the week after next, you will return to my home in Berlin, where you belong. I have already arranged transport for you.” He waited for her to reply, but when she didn’t, he went on. “The second condition is that you will tell me where the Jews are hiding. You will direct me to the Bielski camp.”

“I have never seen that group,” she answered honestly.

“Don’t lie to me, Inge. I am trying to help you.”

“It’s not a lie.”

“Then who were you with? The Zorin group?” His voice was rising.

“No. I was alone.” Was it really a lie? After all, even when she’d been with the group, she’d been on the outside looking in, no matter what she told herself. “But there’s a group in the western part of the Nalibocka, just south of the big road that crosses the river. I saw them.”

It was a part of the forest where she was almost certain no one was hiding, for she had traversed it just the week before, and there had been no signs of human life. It wouldn’t have been a logical spot to hide, either; the trees were younger, thinner there; there were fewer animals to snare, fewer streams to fish, fewer places to hide. But certainly Jüttner knew none of that.

Still, he narrowed his eyes at her after a moment. “You’re lying.”

“I’m trying to save the nuns,” she hissed. “We are making a deal, right?” She took a deep breath and channeled Jerusza, inventing details to sell her story. “You think I feel good about betraying people who haven’t done anything wrong? But there are at least thirty people hiding there, in tents made of marsh grass. At least some of them are armed; I could hear them hunting deer when I passed by.”

After a few long seconds, his expression cleared. “Good. I’m glad you’re seeing things my way. You’ve done the right thing.”

“Have I?”

He frowned. “I understand that this, what lies between you and me, is very fragile right now. I am trying, Inge. I will keep your nuns safe.”