For Such a Time (40 page)

 49 

The Jews would be ready on that day to avenge themselves on their enemies.

Esther 8:13

O
utside the train, cold gusts blew across the mountains as icy rain fell in sheets. With the doors to each boxcar open, men, women, and children took turns soaking up the elements. The air, clean and pure and free of the ghetto’s stench, served to heighten their feeling of expectation. Freedom was the seed that, once considered far beyond their reach, now blossomed into plausible reality.

Aric gazed out at them from the windowless opening in the engineer’s compartment, then looked toward the ramparts of an old fortress looming into view, a red-and-white Nazi flag with the black Hakenkreuz blazing across its front. A cluster of soldiers stood on the tracks, armed with submachine guns. Between them was a battery cannon. Just beyond the soldiers, two lorries had been parked across the tracks. He turned to Morty. “It seems they’ve anticipated our arrival. Is it ready to fire?”

Morty nodded, ran a hand along the length of the Panzerfaust. An animal-like expression touched his features as he offered the tank gun to Aric.

“Keep the train moving, but slow enough to anticipate a stop,”
Aric ordered the Pavlik brothers. “If I’m successful, our path will be clear to continue eastward. If not, or if I end up taking out track along with the lorries, then we’ll stand and fight.”

Karel gave him a nod, pulling gently at the brake.

Aric went to his beloved. No doubt she was still unhappy that he’d taken Joseph back to the first car. Her fingers clenched and unclenched the grip on the Walther he’d given her for her own protection.

“Sure you can fire that?” he asked again.

“It’s a lot like the flare pistol.” But her sober expression and wide eyes told him she was frightened.

“Here, draw back the slide like this, then press the trigger.” He took the pistol from her and demonstrated. “Leave the safety on until you’re ready to fire.” He returned the pistol to her. “Be careful.” Gently he pressed his mouth to hers, ignoring his gnawing fear. He looked at Morty. “Remember what I said.”

The old man glanced up from inspecting the submachine gun that Yaakov had just handed him. “It will be as you say, my son.”

“Godspeed, everyone.” Aric made for the door and, together with Morty and Yaakov, slipped out of the engineer’s compartment and up to the locomotive’s flat-top roof.

Once there, Aric knelt with the Panzerfaust balanced against his right shoulder. Sleet pounded their faces as Morty and Yaakov squatted on either side.

Without hesitating, Aric took aim at the lorries and fired. The impact threw him backward. If not for his two companions, he would have toppled over the side.

Both transport trucks exploded in a cloud of fire and smoke. Steel debris flew in every direction. One of the lorries’ huge tires hurled a hundred meters into the air, then landed to bounce into the nearby woods.

Running soldiers had dropped for cover when the Panzerfaust hit its target. Appearing dazed, they struggled to their feet and fumbled for their weapons.

“Take cover!” Aric yelled. He raced behind Morty and Yaakov down into the tender. Tossing the spent weapon over the side, he climbed back along the outside rails of the locomotive. He remained there as the train crossed the border. Thankfully, not much debris littered the tracks. “Go!” he shouted to the Pavlik brothers. Miko hurriedly shoveled coal into the firebox.

No one saw the missing track until it was too late.

Less than a kilometer beyond the explosion, dead space stretched for several meters. The locomotive pressed forward and then lurched as it left the tracks. Tender and cattle cars followed, drifting downward along a slope toward the dense trees.

The train might have stayed upright except for the mud. Ukrainian mud, soggy and clinging, sucked at the heavy wheels like quicksand. The locomotive pitched at a precarious angle, and one car after another followed in its wake. Panic erupted as people jumped, fell, or stumbled over one another trying to escape from being trapped inside.

———

Hadassah clutched at the rail support of the engine room’s inside door and listened to the terrified screams behind them. The huge iron box began to list like a sea-tossed ship.

“Hang on!” Karel Pavlik shouted, grabbing at a rung near the opposite door.

Hadassah waited, her heart racing with each passing second. One . . . two . . .

The mammoth beast finally groaned; metal plates stretched, twisting helpless against the impetus of its own weight. Like a grand horse having spent its last breath, the locomotive heaved onto its side, sliding down the hill another fifteen meters in the slick Ukrainian mud before it finally came to a stop.

Hadassah held on, swinging in the empty space like a human pendulum. Karel knelt down on the floor, now the opposite wall of the compartment, and reached for her. “Careful now.” He held her legs and eased her onto her feet. “Let’s get out of here. Miko . . . ?”

He turned to his brother and froze. Hadassah cried out when she saw Miko Pavlik lying at an unnatural angle against the floor. Eyes that once held kindness and laughter—life—now stared vacantly at them.

Karel Pavlik dropped to his knees beside his brother. A series of shots ricocheted off the locomotive. “We must go!” Hadassah urged. She retrieved the pistol from inside her jacket pocket, then tried to pull the engineer to his feet. He gave her a blank look. “He’s with God now, Karel,” she said. “Please, we have to get out of here!”

Fumbling for his pickaxe, Karel rose and followed her. Because the train rested at an angle, they were able to crawl underneath the side opening without having to risk being picked off by gunfire.

The rain had stopped, leaving only a sullen sky. Hadassah searched the throngs swarming across the muddy slope, hoping for a sign of Aric, Joseph, or Morty.

Nothing.

She peered toward the forest, dismayed to find the safety of trees still some distance away. Amidst the chaos, muffled cries rose to a fevered pitch from several overturned cars. Hadassah grabbed the front of Karel’s jacket. “You must get them out!”

The Czech engineer surfaced from his well of grief. Giving a low shout, he dashed with his pickaxe to the first overturned car. He hacked away at the sides, and when at last the breach was wide enough, he moved to the next car while those in the first finished breaking away timbers and streamed from their death pens like fleeing ants.

German soldiers marched toward them. Machine-gun fire rent the air. Hadassah watched as thousands of her people stumbled in the mud, screaming and shouting in their panic to flee.

“Take a stand!” she cried at them.

But they ignored her. Several fights broke out, violence borne of blind fear and desperation.

“Salvation!” she shouted louder.

To her amazement, the clamor quieted. Many paused to stare at her, some with accusing faces, others with a kind of dazed bewilderment.

“Freiheit!” Her voice rang out. “You must fight for it!”

Still, no one reacted. Then gunfire shattered the silence, and Hadassah watched, horrified, as a dozen people crumpled lifeless into the mud.

“This is your chance!” she pleaded. “There are so many of you”—she pointed to the approaching troops—“and only a handful of soldiers!”

“
Purim!
”

A voice roared from the depths of the crowd. As the throng began to part, Hadassah’s heart leaped at the sight of her uncle, knee-deep in mud and wielding a machine gun.

“Purim!” bellowed another from the outer fringes of the multitude.

“Purim!” cried a third, this time a woman’s voice.

Instantly, thousands mired in the boggy slope took up the cry, a single word passed between them like a mantra, a
shibboleth
that alone could ensure their victory.

Their chant rose to greater heights as the German soldiers attacked. But this time when the machine guns opened fire, the ghetto people of Theresienstadt retaliated—with sticks, rocks, bricks, anything they could forage from the cold, muddy earth.

Hadassah spied Joseph struggling to extricate himself from a cluster of people, mostly women, showering bricks at a German soldier a few feet away. She ran to him, screaming his name as the affronted soldier aimed his gun into the crowd.

Joseph jerked his head toward her.

The soldier hesitated.

Hadassah rammed back the slide on her pistol. Flipping off the safety, she took aim and pulled the trigger. It didn’t fire. Frantic, she kept squeezing at the pistol’s mechanism. Nothing
else mattered; she had to stop the smirking soldier from killing her little boy.

A single gunshot exploded from behind her. The soldier’s smile faded to a look of astonishment, and then his body fell in a heap to the ground.

Joseph picked up the soldier’s machine gun and ran toward her. He didn’t look at her; he was staring at someone directly behind her. Fresh terror seized her. She grasped the pistol like a bludgeon and whirled to meet her attacker—

“Aric!” Hadassah sobbed as she threw her arms around him. Joseph reached them and offered up the machine gun.

“Why didn’t you shoot?” Aric demanded as he hustled them away from the crowd of women.

“The trigger must be jammed.” She handed over the pistol for his inspection. “I should have realized it right away, but I was so afraid for Joseph.” She gazed lovingly at the boy. “You saved his life, Aric.”

“You saved mine.” He locked eyes with her a moment before he added, “Collect the children and take them into the shelter of trees. Stay low. You must work your way to the east. Lvov is only a few kilometers from here.” He handed her his Browning. “Take Joseph with you. I’ll join up with you shortly.”

“Be careful!”

His answer was to seize her mouth in a quick, fierce kiss. “God go with you, my love.” Then he strode into the violent fray that had gravitated down the slick slope for several meters.

Hadassah began gathering the children together. When she caught sight of Clara Brenner, she hailed her, and the pair of them along with Joseph soon had the youngsters moving toward the forest. Yaakov joined them, his machine gun poised for any sign of danger ahead. They made a slow trek around the fighting. The children stumbled every other step as their shoes caught and held in the quagmire of mud.

Having entrusted the two adults to lead the group, Hadassah
moved back among the children, righting those who fell and comforting the youngest, who whimpered from fear and the damp chill permeating their clothes.

Catching up the next toppling child, Hadassah realized she held the dark-haired little girl she’d met in the ghetto. The same child she’d carried to the train.

“Mama!”

The spindly arms squeezed her neck in a death grip. “It’s all right, sweetheart, I’ve got you.” Hadassah hoisted the little girl onto her hip before resuming her arduous trek beside the others. Every so often, she glanced back at the tumult, hoping to see the familiar faces of her uncle and Aric.

She was relieved when both finally sprinted forward to take up the rear of their party. Joseph moved back to trudge alongside her. “Are you all right?” she asked him.

The boy nodded, though his clumsy gait revealed his exhaustion. Only two days had passed since his brutal encounter with Hermann, and the train had afforded him little comfort. She reached to gently touch his cheek. “It’s not much farther, kaddishel
.
Then we can rest.”

He tipped his bruised face up to her. “When we reach the town, will we get to live there?”

“I think so.” Her breathing labored beneath the weight of the child in her arms as she slogged through the mud.

“I mean,” he said, staring at the ground, “when we get there . . . will you still be my mother?”

Hadassah paused to catch her breath. She shifted the little girl onto her other hip while a feeling of joy assuaged her fatigue. “I’ll be your mother, Joseph, wherever we live.”

His smile looked more like a sneer through battered lips. Hadassah caught his hand and they continued their trek. A silence passed between them before he asked, “Will he be my father?”

Hadassah shot him a glance. She hadn’t actually thought about the fact that once she and Aric married, they would all
be living together. Certainly Joseph’s relationship with Aric was just as important as her own. “Would you like that?” she asked.