The Forest of Vanishing Stars(74)
The kind nun’s eyes were open and empty, her lips just slightly parted. Yona could imagine her whispering to God, quickly saying her final words, even as the other gunshots rang out. Or had Sister Maria Andrzeja been the first to die?
“I’m so sorry,” Yona whispered, but there was no forgiveness in the nun’s lined face, no absolution in her eyes. She wasn’t here anymore; her soul had already flown. The dove on Yona’s wrist throbbed as Yona bent quickly to kiss the nun’s cold forehead. With the palm of her hand, she gently closed Sister Maria Andrzeja’s eyes and stood frozen for a few seconds. Then she straightened and put her hand over her mouth again as she looked at the seven other nuns, forever silent now. She backed away and said a quiet prayer in the darkness, then she slipped out the way she’d come and gulped the fresh air outside. She could still hear Jüttner’s raised, angry voice coming from the church’s front steps, and she knew this hadn’t been what he’d wanted.
He had tried to stop the execution, but perhaps the end had always been inevitable. Yona had been fooling herself in believing she could make any difference.
But she could still help the group in the woods.
Jüttner had said that the plans to enter the forest were already well underway, but what if it wasn’t too late to do something? Whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world. She could still hear the quote from the Talmud in Sister Maria Andrzeja’s soft, gentle voice. As she turned and walked quickly away, trying her hardest to look casual and nonchalant instead of like a sobbing mess, Jüttner’s voice faded behind her, and she moved away from the past forever.
She knew she would never see him again.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, Yona reentered Jüttner’s house through the back door, changed into her own dress and sturdy boots, and grabbed what she could from the dead girl’s closet: two pairs of shoes, a dozen socks, two sweaters, and a beautiful red wool coat that was impractically bright for the forest but would provide much-needed protection against the freezing winter. She went back out the way she came, and, wiping away tears that wouldn’t stop, she strode quickly along the road leading to the farmhouse near the forest’s edge, the one with the red window frames and the eagle with the clipped wing. She had to make sure Anka was safe before she left the town forever. It would bring her peace to know that amid the madness at least one life had been saved, that one of Sister Maria Andrzeja’s last acts could be her legacy.
“Halt!” A voice rang out from the side of the road, and a German soldier stepped into her path, a few crumbs hanging from the corners of his narrow lips. He’d been eating as she approached, a clear dereliction of his duty, and his startlement upon seeing her was obvious. It took her only a second to register that it was the same German she’d encountered on her way back into town three days earlier, and he seemed to realize the same thing a few beats later. “Ah, it’s you,” he said in his smooth Belorussian. “You’re after more milk for your daughter?”
She mustered an embarrassed smile, which served to hide her relief. He hadn’t been there in the square that day when she announced herself to Jüttner; he didn’t know that she was anything but a simple villager. “She is very hungry, sir.” She bowed her head and added, “Thank you for the chocolate.”
When she looked back up at him, his pale blue eyes were deep wells of despair. “It is not something to be mentioned. I wish I had more to give you.”
She glanced at the remnant of his hunk of bread, lying by the side of the road, half eaten. He followed her eyes and then met her gaze, guilt with an edge of annoyance etched in the creases of his face. “I’m hungry, too, you see.”
He looked perfectly well-fed, and though she appreciated his kindness with the chocolate, she saw it now for what it was: a way for him to sleep at night, to pretend to himself he’d made a difference. “I’m sorry to ask again, sir,” she said, coating her words with honey so he wouldn’t hear the venom or the sadness. “But might I pass? I just need to feed my child.”
He frowned down at her. “You have money this time? For the milk?”
She hesitated. “A bit.”
He licked his lips, catching the crumbs. For a moment, she thought he was going to demand that she produce the cash, which of course she couldn’t do, because there was none. Instead, he merely nodded and stepped aside. “I’ll see you when you come back this way.”
She nodded. “I might be a while. You see, I don’t have much, and I will need to bargain with the farmers.”
He nodded and raised his eyebrows, his mouth twisting into a knowing smirk. He looked her up and down, appraising her, no doubt wondering what else she might have to trade. She hated him for the implication.
“I see,” he said, now openly leering at her.
She forced a blank smile. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“I’ll be waiting.” His step was jauntier now as he turned his back on her and returned to his bread.
She walked for a half hour, just to make sure she wasn’t being followed, before finally approaching the white farmhouse with the red shutters, silent on the far edge of town. There was a dog in the yard, skin and bones, which was probably the only reason he hadn’t yet been killed for meat. He lifted his head as Yona approached, his eyes watery and baleful. She pulled her gaze away and knocked lightly on the front door.