In the Land of Armadillos (15 page)

Life had made him that way, his neighbors told each other. A farmer and the son of a farmer, the Lord had seen fit to redeem him from a harsh, unsparing upbringing with the love of a vivacious young girl named Lidia.

After a brief courtship, they were married. They set up house in a low thatched cottage, three kilometers from the market town of Włodawa. That spring, purple wildflowers sprouted from the dirt between the furrows. Gray clouds sprinkled rain over the trembling, heart-shaped green leaves while Pavel built a cradle and Lidia sorted eggs on the porch, her belly growing bigger and rounder with each passing week. They named the baby Kazimir, after the patron saint of all children.

For a year or two, they were happy. Pavel plowed and planted, Lidia raised chickens. The baby thrived, the fields produced. In 1925 the killing flu that had made its presence felt during the Great War writhed one last time before disappearing forever. It took Lidia and Kazimir with it. Shortly after this, the farmer's face closed in on itself, assuming the look it would bear for the rest of his life: cold, hard, with eyes like slits and the mouth no more than a lipless slash, all in muted tones of browns and gray. The less kind among his neighbors suggested that he resembled a potato.

The Depression seemed to bring with it disastrous weather on a biblical scale. Drought stalked the land, followed by the vast unimaginable destructive power of floods. The winding, lyrical Bug overflowed its banks and spread like a five-fingered hand of God over the land, scouring away farmsteads and livestock, obliterating crops. People starved. In church, where the impoverished pious gathered to seek explanation, the priest placed the blame squarely on Communists and Jewish bankers.

Pavel's neighbor to the north was a farmer by the name of Jasinski. When Pavel griped, as he regularly did, that Jewish speculators had started this war, that they had started the last one, and that furthermore, they drank the blood of little Christian children in their religious ceremonies, Jasinski would point out yet again that two of the most trusted merchants in the county, Mirsky the miller and Soroka the saddlemaker, were both Jewish.

While Pavel scowled, Jasinski would bring up an incident that had occurred two years earlier. In June of 1941, tanks and trucks had rumbled through Włodawa en route to the Soviet Union. The soldiers of both armies showed no respect for Pavel's potato fields. They fought there, they died there, they dug up his seedlings and ate them, they lit fires and burned his vines and hid in the heavy yellow smoke. Artillery from both sides pounded what was left into muddy pits.

As luck would have it, his ancient wagon harness chose that particular moment in history to dissolve into dust. The trip to Soroka's shop was a waste of time. The craftsman shook his head, saying he could do the repair, but the reins and bridle were rotted through. Could he fix them? Yes, but he would feel like he was stealing the farmer's money. Better to spend his hard-earned zlotys on a whole new harness.

Pavel made some lame excuse and plodded slowly back to the farm. There would be no money for luxuries like that this year, even if they were necessities.

To his utter and lasting astonishment, Soroka showed up the following day with a brand-new suit of leather—reins, bridles, straps, and horse collars—coiled in the back of his wagon. Shamefacedly, Pavel was forced to admit that he couldn't afford it. The saddlemaker shrugged and told him to pay him back whenever he could.

“Does that sound like a man who drinks the blood of children at his holiday gatherings?” Jasinski asked, shifting his smelly cigarette to the other side of his mouth.

Pavel glowered at him. So what, a Jew was a Jew. They were all cut from the same cloth, greedy, scheming Christ killers, just waiting for the opportunity to cheat an honest Pole out of his money. Anyone who thought differently was either stupid or naive.

*  *  *

It was like a bad joke, the young man standing in his house, bleeding onto his floor.

At midnight, two men had knocked on his door, rousing him from his bed. Occasionally, he would receive a surreptitious visitor from the AK, the Polish Home Army, asking for food or a place to sleep, and he liked to do what he could to help.

But these men were no Poles. Clearly, they were Jewish partizans based in the nearby forest. The leader was tall and spare, with a handsome hawklike profile, straight black hair drawing back like a crow's wings from a broad, high forehead. Rising from his body were the smells of pine and outdoor living, doing battle with the stink of the smoking oil lamp in the air of the low, cramped hut. He was also armed to the teeth, a modern Russian Mosin-Nagant rifle slung over his shoulder and a rusted World War I–era pistol stuck in a belt around his waist. Even more impressive, he was attired in a Russian army greatcoat. As he stood in the entryway of Pavel's hut, blood dripped slowly from the bottom of the magnificent coat, forming a small pool on the hard-packed dirt floor.

“The Deutschen ambushed our camp,” the young man explained, though Pavel hadn't asked. “A lot of our people were killed. They knew we were there. Someone tipped them off.” His breathing was labored. Whether it was from his injury or his emotions was unclear. He put his hand to his side and swayed, shutting his eyes for a moment.

“You're wounded,” Pavel said. “Good.” He spat venomously on the floor. “I hope you die. I hope you
all
die. Poland will be better off without you bloodsuckers.”

The young man's eyes were sick with pain, but they could still flame with passion. Pavel found himself staring down the barrel of a German Luger, almost certainly recovered from a dead Wehrmacht soldier. The farmer cowered back in confusion. It had never occurred to him that he might die at the hands of a Jew.

His companion caught his arm, a slight, worried-looking man. “Yosha,” he said.

Despite the cold, sweat had broken out on the young man's forehead. “This is why we're here, you prick,” he said. “We know you ratted us out to the Germans. Usually, we kill people like you. But today's your lucky day. We're going to give you a chance to redeem yourself.”

The partizan moved aside to reveal the little girl hidden behind the skirts of his coat. She was dressed in an elegant navy blue jacket with a velvet collar and a double row of gold buttons. On her head was a matching blue velvet cap that tied under her chin. But for the tumble of red-gold curls that stamped her unquestionably as a Jew, she could have been on her way to church in Warsaw.

“This is Reina. She'll be staying with you for a while.”

Pavel couldn't believe what he was hearing. “Were you hit in the head? Anyone can see she's a Jew.”

With difficulty, the wounded man got down on one knee and unbuttoned the little girl's jacket. When he lifted up her shirt, Pavel averted his gaze. “Look over here, you bastard,” the partizan said between gritted teeth. “You need to know about this.”

Under a bandage made from knotted rags was a circular red-rimmed wound. A bullet had passed through the white flesh of the little girl's left flank and out the other side. Despite himself, Pavel caught his breath. What kind of a soldier would shoot a little girl?

“It doesn't seem to have penetrated any organs,” said the partizan. He sounded exhausted. “But it needs to be kept clean, and she needs to rest. Since you're the biggest anti-Semite in the county, no one will suspect you're hiding Jews. We'll come back for her after we set up a new camp. Shouldn't be long. A month or two.”

At this, the little girl burst into tears and threw her arms around his legs. Gently, he disentangled himself, speaking to her in the Jews' secret language, stroking her hair. Drip, drip, drip, his blood fell steadily from the hem of his coat onto the floor.

“Is she yours?”

“My sister,” he said. “Maybe you knew our father. Soroka the saddlemaker.”

A feeling of coldness stole over the farmer's heart, taking him by surprise. “Why can't she stay with him? Isn't he in Adampol, with the rest of Reinhart's Jews?”

The young man bowed his head.

“There is no more Adampol,” said the second partizan grimly. “Haven't you heard? Three hundred and fifty people, shot behind the stables.”

Pavel was taken aback. Reinhart had a reputation for being a good man, even if he was a German, even if he was a Jew lover.

The wounded partizan, the one called Yosha, was crying, tears glistening on his hawk's face. “I should have gotten them out.”

“Stop blaming yourself,” the other man said. “We thought they were safe with Reinhart. Besides. Your father is a smart man. For all you know, he's hiding somewhere.”

“Then why was she wandering around the forest by herself?” Yosha cried in despair.

This exchange seemed to take the last of his strength. His head drooped, and the hand he rested on the little girl's neck seemed to be holding on to her for support.

“We'd better be going,” said the second partizan. “Someone might have seen the light.”

“What will I tell people?” said Pavel desperately. “When the Germans find out, they'll kill us both.”

“Say that she's your cousin from Drohobych. Her parents sent her to the country to keep her safe from the Communists.”

“I don't have any family in Drohobych.”

“You do now.”

“Yosha,” said his friend, gentle but insistent.

“One more thing,” said the young man hurriedly. “She doesn't speak Polish. It'll be easier if you just tell people that she's mute.”

Pavel threw up his hands in panicked disbelief. This was really too much. But the young man ignored his distress, instead stooping down to give the girl a soft kiss on top of her head. Then he folded his arms around her in a tight embrace.

Her chubby fingers worked off his cap and tunneled through the waves of his hair. The partizan's eyes squeezed shut, his doomed, dramatic face contracting in expressions of pain and grief; then he straightened up and limped out the door, favoring his left side.

Pavel followed them as far as the gate. “You'll be dead by morning,” the farmer jeered at his retreating back. “What's to prevent me from handing her over to the Gestapo the minute you leave?”

The partizan wheeled around, locked the farmer in his feverish, fanatical gaze. “Only this. If anything happens to this little girl—and I mean
anything,
accident, wild animals, act of God—my friend Arno here—Arno the Hammer, by the way—will find you, wherever you are, and burn down your house. With you in it.”

Seething with hatred, Pavel watched them leave, killing them a hundred different ways inside his mind, until their forms were liquidated by the black and starless night. He wanted to slam the door, scream curses and insults, but he didn't dare. He closed the gate with an angry click. As he climbed the steps to the hut, his rage mounted in leaps and bounds, looking for an acceptable outlet.

The dog. Where was the dog?

Cezar was the biggest, blackest, meanest, ugliest, smelliest dog in the district, with a blunt, boxy snout and demented red eyes. He had rough scraggly hair like a wild boar and the rabid temperament of a mother bear protecting her cubs. Twice he had snapped at Reinhart when the commandant came to inspect the farm. Pitiless executioner of innumerable cats, mice, rabbits, and weasels, just last week he had killed a fluffy white companion dog as its horrified master looked on, picking it up by the scruff of the neck and giving it a vicious shake. Where had he been during this furtive night visit? Wasn't this the very reason that a man kept a dog? Pavel picked up his walking stick, slapped the thick end of it into his palm. He would beat some sense into the animal's skull, teach him a lesson. At the very least, it would make him feel better. He opened the door, whistling.

There was Cezar, stretched out in front of the fire, his ears pricked up at attention, long pink tongue lolling blissfully from between jagged teeth. The little girl's arms were clasped around his thick woolly neck, her bright head resting on his matted black fur.

*  *  *

Pavel would have liked to keep her in the barn, but he was afraid of what the partizans would do if they found out. So he made her a bed near the stove, a crate of straw covered with a burlap sack and a horse blanket. When he had finished, he crouched over her small body, intending to move her. To his great astonishment, Cezar curled his black lips, emitting a low, threatening sound from somewhere deep in his chest. He was about to club the dog when a random thought popped like a soap bubble in his brain
. She must be starving.

“Hungry?” he grunted at the girl. “You want to eat?” He made gestures with his hands and mouth, a charade of feeding himself.

But she only stared at him, her eyes round and liquid and dark, like a baby calf's. Pavel had never liked brown eyes; he found them opaque, inscrutable. He went to the cupboard, took out a heel of bread, a hard-cooked egg, a bone with a little meat left on it that he was saving for the dog, and set them before her.

Five little white fingers crept forward like inchworms, snatched the bread as though she thought someone would steal it from her. She ate the egg, too, wolfing it down so quickly, he thought with some alarm that she might choke.

The bone, however, she pushed away as if it would burn her. This enraged him further. Meat was a luxury, he'd earned it by the sweat of his labor, what was she thinking, rejecting his offering? And then it came back to him, he must have heard it somewhere—in church? the schoolyard?—Jews didn't eat pigs.

“Not good enough for you?” he barked ferociously. “Fine. Starve.”

She flinched at the violence in his voice, looking up at him through eyes that were fathomless but for a glimmer of raw fear, which he found he rather liked. He seized the plate and stomped outside, scraped it loudly into the pig's trough.

How dare they do this to me,
he thought bitterly as the sow grunted happily, crunching on her treat.
Me, who hates Jews more than anyone, who gives their fighters away to the Germans even though they're part of the resistance.
His self-pity swelled, made him feel righteous in his anger.