The Forest of Vanishing Stars(90)

Rosalia looked away, and when she looked back, there were tears in her eyes. Yona had never seen the other woman cry. “Everyone. Including my husband and our two sons.”

“I’m so sorry,” Yona said, reaching for Rosalia’s hands, but Rosalia pulled away. “I—I never knew you were a mother.”

“It is in the past.” Her voice was clipped, but Yona could hear it trembling, and she understood in an instant that there had always been far more to Rosalia than she knew.

“How old were they? Your boys?”

Rosalia took a deep breath. “Two and four. Their whole lives were in front of them. And now I am the only one still here. It is no longer enough to merely get by, Yona. This has to end, all of it. I’m tired of running. I’m tired of hiding. I want to salvage a life from the ruins. I want to honor my children.”

“You will honor them by surviving,” Yona said.

“Perhaps,” Rosalia said. “But I must also make them proud.” And then, before Yona could say another word, Rosalia turned and walked away, deeper into the forest.



* * *



Two days later, Zus and Chaim had assembled a team; Leonid Gulnik would come along, as would Bernard, Rosalia, six of the newcomers, and Yona. Israel and Wenzel would be in charge of guarding the camp while they were gone. Sulia had begged to join them, but Zus and Chaim had decided against it; they needed to be able to trust everyone on their mission, and none of them believed she would put the group’s safety ahead of her own. She had huffed off angrily after her request was denied, but now, though she was still shooting Zus and Yona dirty looks, she seemed to have accepted the decision and was flirting with Harry Feinschreiber, who looked bewildered to be on the receiving end of her attention.

They would leave the next morning before dawn, bringing with them all but one of the machine guns and all but two of the rifles; they would need as many weapons as possible to take on the fully armed Germans, but of course they couldn’t leave the camp undefended. They had carefully laid out their plan—shoot out the tires of an approaching German transport; then, in the melee, rush forward from all directions and shoot as many of the soldiers as possible before the Germans returned fire. It would be dangerous, and they’d likely be outnumbered, so the element of surprise would be everything. And then, most important, they would have to disappear as quickly as they’d come, melting into the forest without a trace, for certainly the Germans would come looking for them.

Yona had just laid her head down in her small hut, in hopes of quieting her mind and getting at least a few hours of sleep, when there was a rustling just outside, then the sound of someone clearing his throat. “Yona?” It was Zus, and Yona immediately went to greet him.

The rest of the group was all tucked away, the fire from dinner extinguished, the night quiet. The moon was a mere sliver, and the sky was dark, so he was barely more than a shadow in the blackness. “Is everything all right, Zus?” she asked.

“May I come in?”

She nodded and moved aside. When she lit a candle in the darkness, light flooded the small space, and she had to stop herself from reaching out and touching his face. She waited in silence for him to speak.

“Yona, I’m frightened,” he said at last, his low, deep voice reminding her of a distant rumble of thunder, soothing and dangerous at the same time. He took a step closer. They were inches apart, as close as they’d been the night he’d kissed her. “What if we are making a mistake? I couldn’t live with myself if I let something happen to Chaim.” He hesitated and then looked into her eyes. “Or to you.”

She blinked a few times, trying to escape the power of his gaze. “Chaim makes his own decision, as do I. You are not responsible for either of us, Zus.”

“But he is my brother. I love him, and I don’t want to lose him. And you are…” He trailed off. “You are you. You are…” He didn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence, but she could hear it in the tremble of his voice now, see it in the pain reflected in his eyes. “What you said about broken pieces, Yona, I—I know you’re right. I am trying to find my way back to life, you see. It’s just taking me longer than I expected.”

She wanted to lean forward and kiss him. But she held herself back, because she had never explained the fact that perhaps she was irredeemable from the start by the very act of her birth. So she took a deep breath and gestured for him to sit down beside her. They settled on her reed bed, and he searched her face.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I’ve been thinking about what Rosalia said,” she began softly. “There’s something I should tell you.”

He touched her cheek. “There’s no need.”

“But there is.” She took a deep breath. “When I was gone this summer, I met my father.”

He blinked a few times. “Your father? I thought you were raised by an old woman. That you didn’t know your parents.”

“I was with them until my second birthday. Sometimes at night I could see their faces in my mind, frozen there, like a piece of my past I couldn’t touch but would always remember.”

He looked puzzled, but he nodded, encouraging her to go on.

“That’s why I recognized my father, I think, though I never expected it. He was always there, just beyond my reach.” She dared a glance at Zus and then hung her head in shame. “He’s a German officer, Zus. He’s the one who told me the Germans were coming to the woods.”