Chapter 4
1945
He ate kielbasa, bread and cheese in the shade of a large tree. He’d been lucky. The farmer had been as generous as he could but he didn’t know if he’d find another. He’d been told he wouldn’t be welcome here anymore and to keep walking west; always west. He wasn’t going to disagree; recent experiences had confirmed the facts. He took a mouthful of water from the battered canteen he’d found at the roadside and filled from the well at the farmhouse.
‘Save the rest of the food for tomorrow and make the best of any fruit I can find along the way,’ he thought. For now, he had to keep going. No more time to waste.
He hadn’t been expecting a hero’s welcome but his return had been marked by avoidance and suspicion, sometimes even hostility. He didn’t know why he’d gone back to the old house, the one they’d left that morning so long ago. He’d nothing to retrieve. He just felt an urge to see it one more time.
Kowalska Street had fared well, considering. His knock on the door of number eleven went unanswered, the windows all shuttered up. He wiped the sweat from his brow.
‘Try the back,’ he thought and started to walk away; he had to be careful, he knew someone would have laid claim to it in their absence.
He threw a glance back over his shoulder and caught the old man staring at him from the protection of the door frame.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to disturb you,” he called.
“Then why did you?” came the almost growled reply.
He walked back to the doorway. “I used to live here. Before they took us all away.”
“But not anymore! You don’t live here anymore! It’s mine now!” Suddenly his face lightened. “Where did you hide it? Tell me where you hid it. I’ll share some of it with you.” He beckoned him in and shuffled down a hall littered with plaster and brickwork and into the rear room that was in a similar state of devastation. Floorboards were tossed in a corner; the stairs almost non-existent. Plasterwork hung from the ceiling, the rooms above visible through it.
“It’s what you’ve come back for, isn’t it?” The old man was excited; his eyes sparkled then suddenly went cold. “Where is it? Where is it? Tell me, for pity’s sake!” He snatched up the hammer and knife lying on the squalid table amongst the dust, stale food and vodka.
A swift kick knocked the table over, sending him backwards across the floor.
Through the hall, stumbling over the debris, he made it to the street where he calmed himself into a brisk walk. At the corner, he looked back. The old man stood in the dirt. “Fuck you! Fuck you, Jew!” he shouted as the hammer sailed through the air, landing harmlessly in the dust of the road. “Fuck you!”
He left, knowing there would never be anything here for him ever again.
****
The late afternoon sun streamed through the canopy, shafts of light dappling the forest floor. Somewhere ahead of him, Shmuel Hochberg could hear voices and laughter.
Yesterday, he’d eaten the last of the food the farmer had given him and now hunger, and curiosity, got the better of him. Carefully, almost silently, he made his way forward. He knew he had to be cautious.
In the middle of a clearing, two trucks and a group of peasants enjoyed the sun. Women in their headscarves, men wiping their brows then replacing their caps. A uniform, Militia or Police, he wasn’t sure. They had been digging but were now drinking from bottles taken out of crates at their feet, their long-handled shovels leaning casually against the vehicles or lying carelessly on the grass.
They hadn’t seen him. He was too far away and in the dark shade of the trees, almost invisible. He slowly lowered himself to the floor, pressed to the ground, and watched.
After a few more swigs from a bottle, one of the men walked towards him. His stomach churned as he pushed himself further into the shadows. He quickly quelled the urge to run, lying still as he peered over the pine needles, his mouth fast against the soil.
The man had stopped and began to urinate. Suddenly they were shouting. He turned and waved dismissively at them as they threw their shovels into the backs of the trucks and jumped in after them. Engines coughed into life and the man ran back, issuing curses as they circled round before dragging him in amidst howls of laughter and more profanities. Slowly, they trundled away across the field towards a break in the trees and the track that would take them home. On the earth behind them, they left the crops they’d harvested but no longer needed.
He didn’t move. He knew better. In the obscurity of the pines, on the soft needles, he closed his eyes. He was hungry but it was best to wait. Patience.
When he woke, the sun had fallen below the tree tops. It was much cooler now. He listened intently. Nothing. Not even birdsong. The clearing remained as they had left it.
Getting to his feet, he skirted the tree line until he reached the part closest to the harvest left behind. He wasn’t sure but it could be brukiew, Swedish turnips. If so, it was a decent meal. He scurried across the open ground.
What he found disappointed him. It wasn’t brukiew at all. Littered across the floor, alongside what he now realised was a trench, were human skulls. They’d been very discerning; the adults would be the ones with the gold teeth.
In a pointless act of self-torture, he stared into the pit, a journey to the edge of hell he had no desire or need to make but felt he must, in order to be their witness. Tears silently trickled down his cheeks. He wiped his sleeve across his face, turned and hurried back to the sanctuary of the forest that had betrayed them.