Adam chuckled. “I’ve never heard a child say ‘the way one person talks to his fellow.’”
“My parents say ‘the way one person talks to his fellow.’ Is that incorrect?” Thomas asked.
They ate breakfast and for dessert they ate some of the cherries they had set aside for a long day full of sun.
“Isn’t it strange that we’re living in the forest without parents and without friends? What harm did we do? I have the feeling that it’s a punishment. It’s not clear to me who’s punishing us, or for what.” Thomas spoke quickly, without stopping between the words.
“We’re Jews,” said Adam, as though it were self-evident.
“What harm did the Jews do to deserve punishment?” Thomas didn’t let up.
“People don’t like Jews.”
“Are we different from other people?” Thomas was puzzled.
“Apparently.”
“I don’t see any difference between Jews and non-Jews,” Thomas insisted.
Adam got impatient, and he said, “The Jews have always suffered.”
“Why?”
“It’s a riddle,” said Adam, surprising Thomas.
“There have to be reasons.” Thomas spoke like his father, the teacher.
“We won’t solve that problem today.” Adam also spoke like his father. “Let’s take a look around the forest. I know it well. Sitting for too long gives you bad thoughts.”
“Shouldn’t I think?” Thomas jumped up.
“You don’t have to think all the time.”
“My father wouldn’t agree with that,” said Thomas.
While they were walking around, wonders appeared before their eyes. First they met a lilac bush in full bloom with its violet flowers. Adam walked up to the bush, picked a small branch, and put it to his nose. “A marvelous smell, like the bush we have in our garden.”
“I thought that lilacs only grew in gardens,” Thomas commented.
“Lilacs grow in well-lit places in the forest,” said Adam, glad to have remembered his mother’s words.
Thomas turned his face toward him. Again he was surprised by Adam’s capability.
Not far from the lilacs a wild rose bush grew.
“The forest isn’t monotonous,” said Thomas in a grown-up way.
They went in deeper and saw more wonders. Suddenly Thomas was frightened and said, “I think something happened to Mom. There’s a reason why she didn’t come on time. Can we go back to our tree now? Is it far?”
“It’s not far. We’ll be next to it in ten minutes,” Adam reassured him.
So it was. In a few minutes they were standing next to their tree, and Thomas was relieved.
Chapter 12
But the night was not quiet. First they heard the footsteps of someone fleeing, then shots echoed. Adam and Thomas lay tensely in the nest and listened.
After midnight there was silence, but Adam and Thomas didn’t stick their heads out of the nest. They kept listening, and Adam said, “We’ll have to find ourselves a more secure hideout. Deeper in the forest the foliage is thicker.”
“I feel bad about our nest,” said Thomas.
“The nest we’ll build will be better.”
“When will we move out?”
“Before sunrise. But first let’s eat something. My sandwich is very good.”
“Mine, too. Too bad it’s our last sandwich. We weren’t provident.”
“Being provident wouldn’t have helped us. In a couple of days we’d have finished the last sandwich.”
“You’re right,” Thomas agreed.
They sat for a while, silent and listening intently. Finally Adam said, “Let’s go down,” and he quickly slid down the tree. Thomas threw down the two backpacks and the blankets, and Adam helped Thomas come down the tree.
After an hour of pushing through the thick underbrush, they stopped and stood next to a tree whose top was like the one where they had built their nest.
“Hooray, Adam. This is a splendid tree,” said Thomas as he took off his backpack.
“Once I went by this tree with Mom and Dad. Even then it made an impression on me. I didn’t imagine that it would be our new nest,” said Adam.
Without delay they started breaking off branches and twigs and collecting them. Adam climbed up to the treetop, and Thomas handed him the branches and twigs they had gathered. They found that the new treetop was thicker and wider than the other one. Adam, who was experienced in nest building by now, did it quickly this time.
Thomas asked, “More branches?”
“A few more.”
Then they took the backpacks up. Thomas climbed up and got scratched.
“Don’t worry, Thomas. I have a bandage and iodine in my backpack.”
The wound was bleeding, but Thomas didn’t complain.
“You did everything like an experienced forester,” Adam said as he bandaged Thomas’s arm. “Now you’ll have a scar, and it will show that you climbed tall trees.”
The first lights shone on the treetops, but Adam and Thomas were in no hurry to go down. They surveyed the forest and listened to the noises.
“How’s your wound, Thomas?”
“It hurts, but it’s not too bad.”
They crouched and kept looking and listening. There were still some candies in Thomas’s backpack. They sucked them and quieted their hunger. Around noontime, when their hunger increased, they slid down the tree and started searching.
They didn’t find any water, but they did find a berry patch and started picking right away. The berries were small and particularly tasty.
They sat at the foot of a tree and looked around. Suddenly Adam knelt down, put his ear to the ground, and called out loud, “I hear the murmuring of water.”
They made a trail and stopped to listen from time to time. In a little while they found a flowing stream.
Thus another day passed. Thomas was less worried. They both were busy improving the nest and finding raspberries and blueberries, and going back to the cherry tree. They even found an apple tree. The apples were sour, but they weren’t tasteless.
But hunger didn’t stop plaguing them. They yearned for bread and soup, for all the foods their mothers made. Adam, who usually didn’t dream, dreamed that his mother was standing in the kitchen and making a sandwich for him. “I was so hungry that I grabbed the sandwich from Mom’s hands. Suddenly I was ashamed and begged her pardon. Mom wasn’t angry. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, ‘No wonder you’re hungry.’ I bit into the sandwich and ate it with an appetite. In my dream I ate a whole sandwich, but now I’m hungry,” Adam said, laughing.
Thomas was so hungry he was dreaming while awake. He muttered and put his hand over his eyes as if he was dazzled.
“What do you see, Thomas?” Adam asked.
“I see Mom carrying a big tray of food in a pot.”
“Is she coming close to you?”
“She comes close and moves away and makes me dizzy.”
“I’d suggest that you take your hands away from your eyes.”
“I’ll fall down.”
“Let’s eat some cherries.”
“I’m afraid. The cherries will give me diarrhea.”
“So come and drink some water. Water never does any harm.”
Thomas took his hands away from his eyes and said, “Sorry, Adam. Hunger is deceiving me, and I have a stomachache.”
“Thomas, don’t worry. We’ll do whatever is possible and even the impossible, and we’ll produce bread from the earth,” said Adam, and for a moment he managed to make Thomas laugh.
The nights were cold, and two sweaters and coats didn’t keep them warm enough. In Adam’s opinion they had no alternative but to go deeper into the forest. “That’s the only place where we’ll be able to light a campfire and get warm,” he said.