When he saw the boys, he raised his head and cried out, “Who are you? How did you get here?”
“My name is Adam, and my friend’s name is Thomas. We’ve been hiding out in the forest.”
“I’m wounded, dear children. Thank you for your willingness to help me.”
“If we see the wound, we can bandage it. We have iodine, too,” Adam said softly.
“Good angels. I can’t believe my eyes.”
“We also have a thermos bottle with clean water. We can wash the wound. Then we’ll disinfect it with iodine.”
Without hesitation they rolled up his sleeve and immediately saw the wound. Adam wiped off the blood and washed the wound. Thomas spread iodine on it. The stinging was severe, and the man bit his lips in pain.
They sat around him, together with Miro.
“Who are you?” the man asked again.
Adam stated their names.
“I know your parents, Adam. I own a furniture store, and I buy your father’s handiwork. Your father is a wonderful craftsman.”
“Did you see our mothers, perhaps?” Thomas asked.
“The commotion in the railroad station was huge. It was the last transport. My parents urged me to flee, and I left them to their fate. I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Was that long ago?”
“Quite a few days have already passed. Since then they’ve been running after me. Children, go back to your hiding place. I’ll go look for somewhere to hide. You can already hear the booming of cannons in the distance. The Red Army is approaching. Hold on!”
Still they managed to persuade him to eat some corn pie and drink some water. Finally they left him and went away.
Thomas didn’t stop dreaming. “In my dream I saw Dad coming back from the war. I said to him right away, ‘Dad, forgive me for not reading the books I took with me, and I didn’t solve the arithmetic problems.’ Dad looked at me and said, ‘Don’t be sorry. Right after the war, studies will resume, and we’ll do everything we can to make up for what you missed.’ Strange, I said to myself. Dad is still concerned with my studies, even though he got thin and can barely stand up. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘It wasn’t your fault, son.’ He uttered those words and disappeared. A strange dream, right, Adam?”
“I also dream sometimes,” said Adam. “But I forget my dreams.”
“You’re lucky. I dream almost every night. Mom says that the dreams are trying to guide us, to show us what to do. They are our conscience.”
“I don’t know what to say to you,” said Adam. That was a sentence Adam repeated every time Thomas raised a complicated issue. By now Thomas knew Adam’s ways, but he kept asking questions and raising difficulties.
Thomas’s questions sometimes amused Adam. Once Adam said to him, “Next time choose a friend who can answer all your questions.”
As they were making their way to the cow and calf, an old peasant appeared as though he had sprung from the earth, and he alarmed them. The peasant also seemed surprised, and he asked, “Who are you?”
Adam took heart and answered him. “My name is Adam, and my friend’s name is Thomas.”
“Are you Jewish children?” asked the peasant.
“Yes,” said Adam, taking two steps backward.
“And you’re not afraid?”
“A little,” Adam admitted.
“In a little while the Red Army will come, and you can go home. You can already hear the cannons.”
“When will that be?” Adam asked.
“Very soon,” said the peasant, taking a piece of brown cake from his coat pocket and offering it to Adam.
“Thanks, grandfather.”
“You don’t have to thank me, but God. Children, hide well. The Germans are in every corner. Don’t leave your hiding place. I’ll leave a bit of food at the foot of this tree now and then. When the day of victory arrives, come and visit me.”
“What’s your name, Grandfather?”
“My name is Sergei.”
They cleared out and climbed the tree. Miro couldn’t repress his joy. He hopped from foot to foot, hoping to get a piece of cake. It was a delicious honey cake, and they finished it immediately. The water they sipped from the thermos bottle was tastier than ever.
Chapter 24
From then on the rain didn’t stop. It was accompanied by thunder and lightning, as well as hail, which struck the cloak very hard. Without Miro and his body heat, they would have been frozen.
“Who’s that old man we met, Sergei?” Adam asked. “Do you mean to say he was sent to us?” asked Thomas.
“I don’t know whether he was sent to us. I’m glad he appeared.”
“My dad says, ‘A person should do what he must do.’ If only I knew exactly what I’m supposed to do,” said Thomas.
“We do what we can,” said Adam.
“I’m not reading the books I brought with me, and I’m not solving arithmetic problems. I hardly even write in my journal.”
“Don’t worry, Thomas. When the war is over, you’ll catch up on everything.”
“It’s a shame to waste time,” said Thomas.
“But you saw a lot. You were hungry a lot. You were afraid and you overcame your fear. That’s also learning, isn’t it?”
The rain fell without stopping, and they didn’t climb down from the tree. They lay down tensely. Adam talked to Miro and asked him how he was feeling. Miro murmured and whined in little yips. From time to time he would jump down from the tree and look around in the forest.
Miro was a brave guard. Once, back home, he gripped a thief ’s arm and wouldn’t let go. The thief was desperate and shouted, “Help!” If it hadn’t been for Adam’s father, who released the thief ’s arm from Miro’s teeth, he might not have survived. After he was released, the thief didn’t move, as though he were hypnotized. “Go away and don’t come back,” Adam’s father scolded him, and then he did pick up his feet and run away.
During a letup, they climbed down to see whether Mina had left them anything. To their surprise they found a packet wrapped in canvas near the tree where they had met the peasant.
They quickly carried it up to the nest, and to their astonishment they found a big piece of corn pie, a hunk of cheese, and a packet of pickled cucumbers.
“Is everything that happens to us coincidental?” Adam wondered.
“Do you have a better word than that?” Thomas answered.
“We met marvelous people who saved us. Is that all a coincidence?”
“Why say they were sent to us? Why not say they’re doing it of their own free will?”
“I don’t know what to say to you,” said Adam.
They had a meal and shared it with Miro. Everything was delicious, especially the pickles. The canvas wasn’t big, but it covered them.
“We haven’t seen Mina for a while,” said Thomas.
“Peasants don’t go out to the fields or pastures in the rain. But sometimes it seems to me that they’re hurting her. I hope I’m wrong,” said Adam.
“Where did you get that impression?”
“It’s hard to explain,” said Adam.
That day Thomas wrote in his journaclass="underline"
Dear Mother and Father,
Adam and I are still hiding out in the forest. The rain doesn’t stop, but don’t worry. We’re curled up in our nest. We have a sheepskin cloak, the blankets we brought from home, and a piece of canvas to shield us. I think about you all the time, I see you in dreams, and when I’m awake, and I hope you’re well. I have a feeling that the war is ending, and we’ll come home. My friend Adam is a perfect friend. We live from day to day and wonders keep astonishing us. An old peasant we met by chance left us a whole corn pie. Adam says we must say blessings. Adam’s a nature boy, but at the same time he has a sense of the marvelous. I’ve learned a lot from him. Now I also know how to run in a crouch and climb trees. Sometimes it seems to me that my outward appearance has changed a lot since we parted. I hope that I’ve stayed the same Thomas you used to know. You’re in my thoughts every day. I’m waiting with yearning for the end of the war and for the moment I can come down from the tree, straight to you.