There were few people on the streets, and no sign of the German military. Nir pressed the accelerator and sped through the dusty border town, nearly hitting a dog at one point and splashing a peasant woman when he hit a muddy puddle. Yatom looked back. The rest of the column was still in good order behind him but very stretched out. Just as it appeared they were reaching the edge of Wlodawa, near a small intersection, Yatom saw German signals party stringing wire off to the right side of the road. There were not more than a dozen men in the unit, along with a single truck.A couple Germans looked up as the column roared past. Yatom waved, and one of the Germans gave a half-hearted wave back, before a sergeant yelled at him to get hack to work. The column drove through Wlodawa without further incident.
Once they reached open country beyond the town Yatom had Nir slow down. According to the map, the high road ran north along the old border for about thirty additional kilometers, before turning northwest, about a third of the way to the target. Yatom decided to drive the road north as far as they could until nightfall, at which point they would pull off for a rest and to map the final approach to Treblinka.
Perchensky sat in the passenger seat of the truck directly behind Yatom’s command car. Mike Bolander was at the wheel while Shapira sprawled in the back with the Negev gunner Roi, the trussed and sullen Mueller, and most of the unit’s supplies. She had said little since arriving at Sobibor, shunted to the side while the men fought argued and fought again. She’d been overcome with shock and disgust with what they discovered in the camp, and what they had left behind. Perchensky was a smart and methodical woman unused to uncertainty. To her own surprise the entire episode had thrust her into an unaccustomed bout of disorientation and confusion. Afraid to show weakness, she shut herself up and off. With more than enough to do, and their macho dismissiveness, the other Israelis had not even noticed. Despite her better judgment, she felt a bit of sympathy for the German Mueller, who seemed to be as confused and ignored as she was.
The ride through the springtime Polish countryside had refreshed her a little. Although she recognized their extreme danger intellectually, she had enjoyed the trip through the strange country, and especially sitting next to the tough American—born Bolander. He was so much not Feldhandler. Like all the commandos Bolander was fit and physically confident. But he, like Shapira, lacked much of the macho bravado of the native Israelis, and was only too happy to chat with her about matters that she guessed were not designed to lead to fucking.
She grew more comfortable as the Polish towns and villages sped past, with little or no sign of Germans. When they came upon the German signals unit, she had the good sense to duck down—not that a pretty dark haired Polish girl in a German supply truck would have raised too much suspicion. The Germans were conquerors after all, and the Poles were at their disposal. The names of the villages were outlandish, and yet she knew that this was the land of her recent ancestors. Szostaki? Kodern? Were these places that Perchenskys had lived—or lived now, in this new timeline—ifindeed that is what Feldhandler had created? Like the other Israelis—excepting Bolander and Shapira—she was surprised how empty such fine land could be. Valuable land that would support endless farms and greenhouses was mostly empty steppe or forest.
Finally they came upon another substantial town called Terepol. Shapira’s radio squawked and he pushed his way into the cabin between Perchensky and Bolander. Shapira looked tired—he’d dozed off and was orienting himself. She could hear Yatom over the radio, sounding displeased that the lieutenant was groggy. Shapira had slept little over the past two days, but neither had any of the commandos. They were expected to operate like that.
Shapira pulled out his compass and turned to Bolander. “We are going through this big town just like the last one. Stay on the gas.”
Bolander nodded. There were no Germans visible in the town, but the streets were a busier than in Wlodawa. Perchansky ducked into her seat. The column sped through, Bolander struggling to keep up with Nir in the lead car. Near the end of Terepol the road turned sharply to the left and continued on in a westerly direction, away from the border. Shapira didn’t have a map and looked concerned.
“Commander, is this where you want to go!” he radioed to Yatom.
“Affirmative” came the reply. “The road will go west for a few clicks then veer to the northwest. Just keep up.”
“Everything okay” Perchansky asked as they roared out of the town.
“Just peachy” said Shapira in English, with a smile. He was about to translate but she brushed back her hair and said in English “I understand.” Bolander turned to her with a boyish smile as the three of them shared a rare relaxed moment.
“Feeling better?” It was Shapira, back in Hebrew. “What?” she said, surprised by the question, and unwilling to admit she had been out of sorts.
“Never mind” said the lieutenant, afraid he’d somehow insulted her. “You just seemed very tired.”
“So did you” she said with an air of finality. Bolander kept his eyes on the road.
The column sped on through a few small villages until at a flea-bit place called Konstanynow the road turned sharply to the northwest. They pushed on as the sun set and by 2100 they approached the largest town yet, a place with the tongue-twisting name of Siemiatycze. Rather than chance another run through a built up area, Yatom led the column off on a country road due west. After two kilometers he pulled his vehicle off the path into a copse of trees.
Gratefully, Bolander followed and tucked the truck neatly under a large elm. Night was falling and Perchensky guessed that Treblinka would have to wait another for another day. As she watched the weary Israelis alight from their vehicles, followed by the scarecrow Jewish soldiers from Sobibor and the death train, she wondered how many people would die at that place before they got there.
The commandos didn’t have time to ruminate. They hurried to set up a safe bivouac in the trees, cutting branches with which they festooned the exposed parts of the vehicles to hide them from air observation. Perchensky noticed that Feldhandler did not join in. He had tucked himself under a linden tree and was attemting to read a thick paperback book under a red-tinted flashlight beam. She’d spent a fair bit of time with him since their arrival, but they had spoken little, saying only what needed to be said. Her anger and disgust had grown over the past day as she considered her situation and stewed over Feldhandler’s duplicity and selfishness. She realized as well, that her former attraction to him, and what she had assumed to be his to her, only made things worse. But she owed it to herself and to the rest of the Israelis to confront him and at least probe his intentions. And she sensed that she was the only person among them that could do it.
Perchensky stepped out of the shadows, took a deep breath and walked to the linden tree. Feldhandler closed his book giving her a glimpse of its title” The Holocaust” by Leni Yahil. A famous book, though she had never read it. Feldhandler looked up at her as he used to, an odd mixture of expectancy with a trace of boredom.
“Trying to figure out what to do next?” she said mockingly, nodding toward the frayed paperback. He ignored her.
“According to German folklore” said Feldhandler patting the trunk of tree “the linden is the tree of lovers.”
Perchansky felt herself flush. Then her fury rose, like the bile burning her throat. “You wait until now to make sweet talk with me?”