The Last Green Valley Page 6

  For a fleeting moment, he remembered the commandment “Thou shall not steal,” then dismissed it. This was different. He was doing it to survive. And he knew for a fact that others had done much worse to survive the Horror. He’d heard of children disappearing all over Ukraine. He’d heard of people eating their young.

  All Emil was doing was stealing from someone who had too much.

  He went to the alley that ran behind the man’s house and others on that side of the street, meaning to look at the back of the home, close to the kitchen. If there was a kitchen, there would be a pantry or a larder. There would be food there he could steal.

  Emil entered the alley at dusk, no longer thinking about how hungry he was or how tired he was. His heart raced as he anticipated figuring out how best to break into the kitchen after the man and his family and servants had gone to sleep. When would that be? Four, five hours?

  He’d be smart, though. He’d wait five hours and then check the doors and the windows. Surely one of them would be left unlocked in the spring after a long, cold winter. If he had to, he’d break a pane on a basement window. He’d get inside and—

  Ahead of Emil, well down the alley in back of the party leader’s house, the gate opened. A woman wearing an apron brought out a garbage can, set it by the gate with others, and then returned inside.

  At once all thoughts of burglary left him. The scraps of a man who ate well could not compare to the contents of the man’s pantry, but at twenty-one, Emil had already been so badly beaten down by history and circumstance that he was past begging for better fortune.

  After waiting a few anxious moments for the cook to return inside and giving in to fantasies of pork gristle or an old ham rind or a soup bone he could gnaw and crack for marrow, Emil stole toward the garbage can, so focused on the object of his desire that he did not see the other man emerge from the alley’s deeper shadows, moving fast toward that same desire.

  Finally, they saw each other and stopped ten feet apart, the garbage can midway between them and to their left. It was getting dark now, but Emil knew he faced a much taller and bigger man. The height was undeniable, but the illusion of bulk could have been the long coat the shadow wore and his wild hair and unkempt beard.

  His whisper came raspy, menacing in Russian. “That’s my can, friend. My alley, too. Take another step, and I will kill you.”

  Emil stood his ground, studied the man’s silhouette closely, and said, “If I don’t take a step, I’ll die.”

  In his years fending for himself and especially since Stalin had ordered the Holodomor, Emil had witnessed many bare-knuckle fights and even crowd brawls over food. And he’d had to defend and fight for himself more times than he could count. From every fight he’d been in or watched, he had learned lessons and had come to recognize that where you hit a man was far more important than how hard you hit him. The ones who survived and thrived in food brawls knew where to strike a man to break him down, not to merely hurt him, but to injure him badly enough and painfully enough that he was out of the fight, at least for that day.

  No matter their size or shape, Emil had noticed that the toughest men completely lost their humanity once they decided to fight, completely lost their basic compassion for fellow human beings. They seemed to turn calm, cold, animal, able to shut out everything except thoughts of crashing into one of those critical targets on the human body that will take a man to his knees or leave him sprawled and unconscious; with a weapon, preferably, but if not, then with the heels of the hands, or the outer forearm, or the shins leading, because these bones were unlikely to break easily. Emil had also noticed that once these fighters had decided on their weapon and target, they rushed to get close to their opponent, attacked immediately, trying to smash into the one and only spot as they threw their entire weight through the other man.

  It’s how a David can beat a Goliath. Emil stopped thinking of the man opposite him as a human. He became a shadow, the shadow man. Raising his body erect, Emil lifted his arms and rushed the shadow man, trying to make it appear as if he were going high and for the head.

  Emil caught the shadow rising and, with his left forearm locked before him, went low at the last second, exploding forward off the balls of his feet, feeling his elbow and forearm smash into the bigger man’s torso near the bottom left of his rib cage. He swore he heard ribs break along with the grunt the man made as the air was blown from his lungs. Emil felt his own shoulder wrenched as he crashed through the shadow man and sprawled facedown on the snowy ground beyond him.

  Hearing moans and gasps of pain, Emil got to his feet, the calm gone, the adrenaline pumping now, allowing him to ignore the fire in his now-useless left shoulder, and to see the shadow man on the ground in the snow near the garbage can, arched to his left side and writhing, unable to think about anything but pain because his lower ribs were broken and his liver had been bruised.

  Emil had seen another man deliver a similar blow in a food riot in November and had never forgotten it. And the shadow man had said he’d kill Emil if he went for the garbage can.

  Stepping by the writhing form, Emil used his good right arm to pick up the can by its handle, and then walked away before his humanity and concern could return. He felt he owed the man nothing.

  Several blocks later, in another alley, behind another house, the snow began to taper off. Emil took shelter in an empty woodshed that caught a slat of light from a window. He pried off the lid from the can and meant to set it down quietly. But the stench of rancid animal fat hit him, and he dropped it with a clang, fighting not to gag as he stayed frozen for a full minute before forcing himself to tilt the can into that slat of light and look inside. Whatever pork gristle, ham rind, or soup bone there might have been was now coated in rancid grease.

  In another time, in another place, Emil might have thought about returning to the alley where he’d left the shadow man and going through with his burglary plan. But that weaselly voice inside his head stopped him, asked, How badly do you want to survive?

  It took only a moment for Emil to shift his entire perspective in life, to harden top to bottom before he made this silent reply: I will do anything to survive.

  He steeled himself, then began plucking items from the can and licking the rancid grease off them. He would be nauseated and sick soon, but he did not care. If he could keep enough of the fat down, he’d have enough strength to go to the creek bottoms in the morning.

  Chapter Six

  Late March 1944

  East of Dubossary, Transnistria

  Adeline awoke in the dark to the sound of cannon fire. Not far. Eight, maybe ten kilometers to the northeast, close enough to throw orange flashes in the lower sky. Horses began to whinny and to nicker as shouts went up in the darkness. A vehicle approached. A voice came, amplified and crackling.

  “Raus! Everyone up! The bridges at Dubossary are clear of eastward traffic! The trek leaves within the hour!”

  Adeline scrambled to get her sleepy boys ready and fed and their bedding stowed. More cannons fired. She felt sick to her stomach. They had to move, but they couldn’t go anywhere until Emil had the horses in their traces.

  As she set out cold bread and water for the boys’ breakfast, she looked over at her husband and saw him moving in the lantern light, head and shoulders slumped as they’d been too often lately. After yesterday, after leading them to safety, he should have been walking around with his shoulders back and his chin up. She longed to see Emil like that, bright-eyed and ready for anything, the way he’d been when she first met him in 1934.

  Life had been hard for him in the decade since, for the both of them. But when had he begun to change? When had he started doubting everything?

  Adeline’s memory flickered to a February night in 1935 when money had floated out of the darkness to her. She had been outside their apartment building in the bitter cold, racked with pain, and empty of tears. Through an open window above and behind her, and for the first time since she’d known him, she had
heard Emil choking and sobbing in despair.

  We both doubted God that night. How could we not have?

  But, Adeline decided, that night wasn’t when he changed into the man working with his head down among the horses. That night wasn’t when her husband had seemed to lose faith in anything but himself and his own backbreaking will to work.

  Adeline thought about it some more. And then she suspected she knew, seeing herself light a lantern not long after their return to Friedenstal, in September 1941. They were living in Karoline and Johann’s house while Emil built their home at the other end of town. Walt was almost four, Will almost two. Emil had gone with the wagon and horses to get supplies for the roof and windows in Dubossary, the town that now lay ahead of them. Emil had planned to be gone a day and a half, two at most, but he’d been absent more than three, only to return to their bed before dawn on the fourth morning.

  Adeline remembered her husband’s face in the lantern light. At first, he had appeared tired, and then aged, and then lost as he climbed into bed.

  “Where have you been?” she’d asked. “I was worried sick.”

  “I was held by the Germans for a day and a half.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know why anyone does anything anymore.”

  Adeline had wanted to question him further, but he’d gazed at her with bloodshot eyes and said, “I don’t want to talk about it. Ever. I want to sleep. I need to sleep if I’m to get the roof on before the snow flies.”

  Emil had rolled over then. She’d stared at his back a long time before blowing out the lantern. In the dim light, she recalled someone saying that the eyes are the windows to the soul and thought of her husband’s a few moments before.

  Wounded, she’d thought. Scarred.

  Then she’d heard him crying for the second time in their marriage.

  Fifty feet from his wife and sons, Emil moved in a dark trance as he harnessed the horses for their second day on the road.

  Dubossary? I haven’t been there since . . . How is it possible they’re taking us this way instead of more to the south?

  And yet here he was, before he left Ukraine forever, preparing to face a town he wished he’d never seen. At some level, however, it felt just, deserved. That thought and tortured others spun relentlessly in his head as he finished with the horses.

  Wagons in the caravan were already moving out. Dawn was upon them.

  “What’s bothering you?” Adeline asked as she finished loading the back of the wagon.

  “What?”

  “You’re walking around like the weight of the world is on your shoulders.”

  Emil adored his wife, but her comment angered him. He felt it flare inside. Before he could let it out, though, he caught himself and gestured at the horses’ flanks.

  “I’m just worrying about them. I don’t want an infection. Without them, we’re in trouble.”

  She studied him a moment before nodding. “We’ll watch them closely.”

  A few minutes later, with Adeline beside him and the boys sitting on the folded oilskin tarp behind the bench, Emil held the reins and gently clucked up Thor and Oden. The wagon began to roll and bump again.

  Adeline stood up on the bench and looked over the bonnet, watching Emil’s parents’ wagon roll in behind them, and her mother’s wagon after. Johann had the reins with Karoline beside him looking like she was preparing for another storm. Behind her, Rese lay on her back beneath blankets.

  Lydia had finally relented and let Malia have the reins of their wagon. Her older sister was sitting with her back ramrod straight and her head swiveling, a massive grin on her face. Adeline broke into a smile. Malia, as far as she was concerned, was one of the best parts of her life. Red Army cannons may have been firing to the north, but she was getting such a warm, good feeling from watching her sister drive that she did not care.

  Can happiness be that easy? Finding little joys in the worst moments? Isn’t that what Mrs. Kantor used to say?

  Before Adeline met Emil, she had worked as a cook and maid for an older widow named Yudit Kantor, who’d been kind to her and taught her a lot about life. Thinking of Mrs. Kantor, Adeline decided that, for today, happiness was that easy, and she took a mental picture of Malia in all her glory that she prayed she would remember forever.

  Later that morning, progress snarled due to more wagons and more retreating ethnic Volksdeutsche joining the trek from the north. The Martels inched down a slick, snow-and-mud-covered, winding dirt road that descended to an intersection where a German officer stood on the hood of a truck, directing traffic.

  The closer they got, the more details of the man Emil could make out: stocky and bull-necked with a close-cropped head beneath a distinctive black cap and a long dark-gray coat that flapped open to the wind. Emil wanted to deny the sudden unease that swept through him, wanted to deny that the officer was who he appeared to be. But the way he stood, the way he moved.

  It can’t be, Emil thought, tasting acid at the back of his throat.

  A solid hundred meters before his wagon came under the German officer’s direct attention, the man’s mannerisms and voice conspired to convince Emil otherwise.

  It’s him, SS Hauptsturmführer Haussmann.

  Fear burned in his gut before exploding into terror. It’s him! Haussmann. How is this possible?

  For a moment, Emil felt paralyzed. Then he wanted to turn his horses and wagon around and flee the Soviets via another route under the protection of different Nazis. He’d heard of people going northwest toward Poland. But there were too many carts and vehicles around him to try to leave.

  “What’s wrong, Emil?” Adeline asked.

  He didn’t hear her at first, then looked at her. “What?”

  “It’s cold, and you’re sweating like you were out plowing. The sweat’s freezing in your beard.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, feeling more panicked.

  Then he thought, My beard! My winter hair!

  The last time he’d been face-to-face with the Nazi SS captain standing on the hood of the truck ahead of him was two and a half years before, near the end of summer 1941 in the town of Dubossary, less than ten kilometers from this very spot. That first time, Emil had been working day and night to erect the walls of their new home. He had cut his hair and beard completely off to deal with the toil and heat.

  Haussmann won’t know me. I’m a different man now.

  “Emil,” Adeline said again.

  “I don’t know why I’m sweating, dear,” he said, trying to smile as he wiped the sweat from his face and adjusted his wool cap low enough to put his eyes in shadow and yet high enough not to provoke the SS officer’s ruthless attention.

  When it came time, Emil turned his face slightly toward Captain Haussmann, his eyes darting from the man’s too-familiar face to the death-head emblem on his cap and the collar badge that indicated he’d been promoted to Sturmbannführer, a major now.

  Sturmbannführer Haussmann snapped his arm to his right. Despite his self-assurances, Emil’s heart was slamming in his chest as he waved once, and then guided his horses past the bumper of the SS major’s truck.

  Only when he was sure they were out of Haussmann’s sight did Emil allow himself to breathe deeply and to admit he felt weak and dizzy.

  “Take the reins,” he choked.

  Adeline grabbed them. “What’s the matter?”

  “Gonna be sick,” he croaked, and vomited over the side.

  “Awww,” Will said behind him as he retched.

  “I hate that,” Walt said.

  When he was done, Emil had Adeline keep the reins and sat in misery beside her. The closer they got to Dubossary, the more he kept telling himself he could get past the ravine, through the town, into Moldova, and westward without thinking about what had happened to him there. But that was Haussmann back there. There was no doubting it. He would remember that man’s face forever. In his mind, he heard people crying and saw Haussmann, en
raged, shouting in his face.

  What are the chances of Haussmann being here? Why am I being tortured like this?

  It had been two and a half years since the trauma of that night in mid-September 1941. But Emil felt the impact as if it were yesterday, the hollow aloneness he’d suffered after witnessing what one man could do to another, and seeing his own weaknesses revealed as starkly as they could be, in the form of a fist shaking at the sky.

  In the last few kilometers before they reached the town, Emil refused to look north toward the ravine. He kept his head focused on the wagon in front of him. But some of his inner turmoil must have been showing, because Adeline rubbed his back and said, “How are you feeling?”

  He glanced at her, praying she wasn’t seeing the tears he felt about to well.

  “Better,” he said hoarsely, and looked away. “Just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  Emil hesitated, swallowed, forced a smile. “That valley of yours.”

  Adeline had hoped he’d open up about Dubossary, but she smiled at his answer.

  “It’s your valley, too.”

  “And mine,” Walt said from behind them.

  “I’m going, too,” Will said.

  “We all are going,” Adeline said.

  “I think there will be lots of fish in the river,” Will said.

  “Lots of them,” she said. “Everywhere you look, fish to catch and eat. Right, Papa? Hasn’t that always been your dream? To sit by a river and catch fat fish to fry?”

  Despite believing that would never happen, Emil managed to laugh. “Just me and a fishing pole, sitting on the riverbank. Not a chore to do. Now that would be something!”

  “What about you, Mama?” Walt asked. “What do you dream of having there?”

  She thought about that. “A vegetable garden. A flower garden. A root cellar. And chickens for fresh eggs. And . . . well, no. You can’t ask for everything in life.”