The True Story of Hansel and Gretel (13 page)

Everyone was smiling. There was the chance that this would leave a few of them dead. The
pepecha
s gave them the edge they needed.

The night was moonless and dark, like they had all fallen down the throat of a wolf. Finally, two whistles sounded faintly from behind the farmhouse. The
pepecha
s were trained on the front door and men waited at the back of the house.

“Now, woman. Scream. Shout for help. They’ll open up for a female.”

“Oh, my God! Help! Help! Help me, Pan Dlugosz!” she shouted, using the polite address.

The lights in the house went out so the man would not be silhouetted, and the door opened. He came onto the veranda carrying a shotgun.

She smiled. Hearing the voice of a woman, he came out unprepared to shoot.

She screamed again, and he moved forward. Two other men came behind him.

There was a muffled shout from the stone barn as some farmhand was knocked in the head. It alerted the farmer, and he had turned to leap inside when the
pepecha
s began to fire.

The Mechanik’s mind leapt with love for the machines. The sound filled his head, and he listened to the steady rhythm of it. It was true, they were steady—dependable—deadly.

The man with the shotgun fell and both the other men made it to the door but fell in the doorway. They could hear shouting from behind the house.

The Stepmother was running now, behind Lydka, the thump of boards under her feet and then stepping on the body of the dead farmer and almost falling inside.

A hallway with boots lined up. Rooms to each side. No one in the parlor. Probably not used much now. No one in the dining room. A movement under the table caught her eye. She dragged the cloth off and bent down, her pistol ready to kill.

“It’s a woman. Maybe his wife. Tell the others.”

The child killer. The woman with no pity. The one who was more clever than her husband and let the Nazis stay in the barn while she lured in partisans for hot bowls of soup. The woman who watched while partisans were tortured and then had to dig their own graves. The woman whose hot soup led to the deaths of seven children tracked to earth with their parents in the forest.

“Tell them I have her.”

The only debate was about the farmworkers. Five of them. A skinny, sad lot. You could see that the largesse of this place hadn’t extended to them.

“We had to work for him,” one of them sobbed. Falling to his knees he blubbered, “It wasn’t our doing. We had to work for him or they’d kill our children. Don’t shoot us.”

The Russian and the Lithuanian whispered for a moment. Having witnesses wasn’t a bad thing. They’d tell every peasant in the district that the partisans were as dangerous as the Nazis. It would mean more cooperation. More food.

“We’ll let you live, but you have to work.”

“Anything. We thank you.”

“God hold your soul in his hand, Master.”

“Bless you—”

“Shut up!” The Russian was getting restless. They had to get out. “Take them and get to work,” he told Gregor and Lydka. “Fire everything but the house for the moment, but take what you can. We leave nothing but scorched earth for the Nazis. Not a blade of hay. Not a potato.”

The house was ransacked and the clothes and food were packed in bags. The wooden barn was in flames, all the winter fodder on fire, a square candle of burning flame against the sky. They had to move faster. The flames blinded them to anyone coming out of the darkness. The sound was deafening when the men ran past the barn. The wind caught the fire and it created a sucking chimney that roared and occasionally exploded when a can of gasoline ignited.

The Lithuanian who led the other group had business to do. The woman was dragged upstairs and stripped. They spit on her and slapped her and she screamed.

“Bitch.”

“Collaborating cunt.”

“Nazi.”

“Shkopy.”

She howled and begged, but in her eyes the Mechanik could see that she knew it was over.

The Lithuanian began. “Elwira Dlugosz, I accuse you of collaborating with the enemies of your people, your church, and your country. I accuse you of causing the death of patriots.”

He leaned toward the naked woman and smiled. “I accuse you of enjoying these things and bragging about them later. What do you have to say to this?”

She stood dazed from the slaps, her mouth bleeding. She knew it was hopeless.

“Throw her out,” the Lithuanian said.

The Mechanik knew it had to be done. The collaborators caused too much death. But he turned and let the others do it. It had been their comrades who died.

He went down the stairs and outside, looking for his wife. The air was red now and thick with the smell of burning hay. He heard a thump and looked back at the house. Her body had been hanged and thrown outside the upstairs window. It hung kicking and flapping, her breasts and the fat on her thighs rippling until she was dead.

The house was already on fire, and the red light spread all around the hanging body, from the upstairs behind the window, and then all the downstairs sprang into flame.

“Beautiful, huh?” a Pole from the other group shouted over the sound of the fire, pausing to stare. “Like when you look in a woman’s iron and see the lump of red coal.”

The Mechanik nodded. It was beautiful. The whole house holding its shape but red and moving and alive inside. He watched for a minute and then turned away.

Everything was on fire now, and screams were coming from the stone barn. The loft had been fired, and the top was catching. The stored hay caught easily and would burn the roof off.

The screaming came from the partisans in the other group. Two of them were holding a man, and at first the Mechanik thought it was another farmworker, but it was one of their group.

He looked like a Jew, dark curly hair, something about his eyes. He was struggling silently.

“No, no. Let it go,” they were shouting at him, but he broke loose and ran to the barn doors.

Throwing up the bolt, he opened them and plunged into the heavy smoke.

Horses. Neighing in panic. The thud of hooves against boards as they tried to break down their stalls. It was the last pride of the farmer.

“Don’t,” the Mechanik said, grabbing his wife’s arm.

She shook her head. She wouldn’t risk her life for the horses. The top would cave in at any second, but nevertheless—she cried out to think of the hot rafters falling on the backs of the horses. She had loved horses once.

Two horses came jostling and bolting out the door. The Jew had opened the stalls and was driving them out.

“They won’t drive easy,” she whispered. “Fire makes them crazy. They could kill him if he gets in the stalls to drive them. If there’s a stallion, he’ll die.”

The Mechanik kept his hand on her with an iron grip. She mustn’t try to help with this.

“Did you find food?” he asked, hoping to distract her, but she didn’t answer and watched the flames now engulfing the roof of the barn. How many minutes did the man have?

Three more horses bolted out. The partisans were busy now. They chased the horses and caught those they could.

“The pillows,” a man screamed. “Tie them on for saddles, brothers.”

Another horse came out and then a stallion too wild with terror to get near. It galloped off toward the woods.

The man, staggering and coughing was at the door of the barn. Everyone cheered. He raised his head and grinned.

“Always in love with the damned horses,” the Lithuanian shouted.

They could hear the terrified neighs, like women screaming, from the horses in the barn who were too crazy to run. He hadn’t been able to drive them all out.

The Jew opened his mouth to shout back when from behind him came a horse with a chest like a wagon front. Before anyone could drag the Jew away, the roof began to fall in with tearing sounds, the wind catching the flames and making a roaring as a blizzard of sparks flew around them. The heat made everyone turn and run, and the last screams of the horses were cut off.

“He was already dead,” the Mechanik said. “The horse killed him. He felt nothing.”

“He got most of the horses out.” She didn’t look behind her. She hoped the Jew knew that he had saved the horses. If you had to be killed, she thought, it wasn’t such a bad thing to be killed by a horse. It was a death unspoiled by any ideas at all.

She settled the weight on her back and lowered her head, letting the rhythm of walking take her over. They had a long way to go before they would be safe.

The Drawing

“
W
here did he hear about it?” Pawel asked.

There was silence. It didn’t matter. The partisans, illegal radios, gossip. Who cared? The five men sat, the room lit dimly by the fire which they did not stir up.

“Hush.” They strained forward and listened to the footsteps of the Major pass by.

“He can’t sit by his warm stove like a normal man.” Czeslaw was the oldest. He had seen too much of men like the Major.

“He left his friends to die in Russia. He can’t rest.” Bialy spit into the fire.

“At least he has friends left.” Feliks had lost his brother, shot with the first executions.

“Katyn Forest,” said Bialy, the name reminding him that the Major was one of the beasts who wanted to kill all the Poles. “Russians or Germans. Who gives a damn who did it?”

They all knew the story. Fifteen thousand Polish officers massacred after an honorable surrender. Lying in the forests of Katyn.

There was a soft knock on the door, and Telek slipped in and sat at the edge of the room. He was cold, but he didn’t move close to the warmth.

The men waited. It was no use rushing Telek. He had always been different. His mother a suicide and his father running away. The boy sneaking out into the woods instead of going to school. Carrying water and selling berries and firewood for his living. They waited.

And Telek began slowly. “He is an SS Oberführer. He has no battle ribbons. Not a real soldier. He’s been in the other villages between here and Bialystok. He and the woman are sorting them. They’ve gone to Bialowieza, but they’ll be back.”

“Sorting who?” Andrzej was impatient. He didn’t want to be on the street after curfew.

“The children. He and the woman examine the children and sort them.”

“Sort them how? Why would they want children?” Feliks was beginning to sweat.

“The children strip and are measured all over—head, body, legs, hips. They measure the width of the pelvis in the girls and the penis size in the boys.”

“Degenerates.” Czeslaw clenched his fists.

“Then they photograph them from all angles.”

“Dirty pictures? Much good it will do them.” Bialy turned and spit in the fireplace again.

“Go on, damn it. Finish it, Telek.”

“They’re looking for children who are blond and blue-eyed. They don’t want thick lips, or ears that stick out, or cheekbones that are prominent. They don’t want sloping shoulders. They don’t want any flaws or scars or broken bones or birthmarks. The mothers are told it’s a medical examination. They’re told that sometimes the children need special treatment, but it’s always the healthy, blond, blue-eyed ones that need it.”

“And then?” Pawel thought of his three children. All blond. All perfect. A great feeling of coldness had entered the room, but no one got up to stir the fire or add another log.

“The mothers are given cards. A red card for a child who is physically perfect and blond, a white card for a child who is too Slavic or marked in any way.”

“Enough.” Feliks the chess player stood so suddenly that his chair tipped over with a bang. “Christ. Enough. They’re sending the women away. Probably for their whorehouses or to be worked to death. But what do the devils want with the children? Babies aren’t any good for work.”

“I don’t know.” Telek sat in silence, his face reddened by the fire-light. “We don’t know what they’re going to do with them. They send them into Germany.”

The room was silent. No one could think very clearly for a few minutes.

“Be rational. They came here. The SS and the woman,” Feliks began.

The men nodded.

“And they didn’t do anything. Just drank with the Major and terrorized three women.”

The men nodded again.

“So maybe there’s nothing they want here. We’re a small village.”

Telek sighed. “They’re coming back soon. After Bialowieza.”

“There are children who are scarred, whose ears stick out.”

“Children who look Slavic.”

“We must do it ourselves first.” Telek spoke almost in a whisper. “We must examine every child in the village and see which would be selected and which rejected.”

“And then?”

It crept into their minds but no one dared to say it.

Andrzej finally groaned and stood up. He walked to the fire. He threw a log on, and sparks flew out onto the hearth. The room was brighter, and he turned and faced the others.

“We’ll have to make sure that there are no perfect children in our village.” He felt guilty saying it. His own were dark-haired, and the boy’s ears stuck out. They were safe. He thanked God for Basha’s brunette coloring.

“Why not just hide them?” Pawel was nearly in tears. “We could go into the woods.”

Straightening his leg, Andrzej sighed. “And then you have to stay in the forest with tiny children for the rest of the winter.”

There was silence. Everyone knew it was impossible. No child could live in the woods and survive the winter. You might as well hand them over to the Nazis.

“And who of us,” Czeslaw asked, “will make sure they’re imperfect?”

“Each man could care for his own children,” Telek said.

“No.” Pawel shook his head. “If someone has to hurt the children, it should be one person doing it. Then it would be—” He paused. “It would be on one soul only. It’s too unnatural for a father to injure his child. No man should have to do it.”