The Yellow Bird Sings Read online

  Róża remembers how, on their journey out of Gracja, Shira hummed and tapped and asked endless questions and called for her tata. For better or worse, Chana makes no sound at all. Róża fears Chana is close to starving, rawboned and torpid. Even when they manage to find food—as when Róża found chanterelles to boil into a soup—Chana barely eats.

  Burdened with keeping them both alive, Róża flares with frustration, then regret. She knows that Chana is privately cataloging her own missteps: how she drowned out Miri’s grief with her anger; how she allowed her partisan dreams to push them to the periphery of the woods. Her actions conceived at the time as protective; in truth they were protective of herself.

  Róża understands this form of torture.

  * * *

  A cold rain streaks the white sky. Zosia quavers in front of the classroom’s open window. She lowers her bruised, shaking hand to the sill. Her bird perches on her forefinger.

  “I’m going to miss you terribly, but you must fly as quickly as you can to the barn and tell Mama I need her. She’ll follow you, I know she will. Watch out for soldiers, and others too. Find the safest route and lead her back to me, please!”

  The bird hops from Zosia’s finger to the open window casement, then flies off. Zosia watches until the streak of yellow disappears into the white.

  A worry sets in, that her mother won’t recognize his tremulous two-note call. She must pray that he will regain his eighteen-note song along the way. She walks to the chapel and drops into a pew, her throbbing hands cupped in her lap.

  Chapter 33

  Pan Skrzypczak arrives for Zosia’s next lesson but Zosia refuses to take her hands from her pockets.

  “Begin at once with your tuning. I expect you to be prepared and ready when I arrive here.”

  She digs her hands deeper, clenching the fabric of her dress.

  Pan Skrzypczak pauses in his own tuning and looks at Zosia more closely. “What’s the matter? I’ve never seen you not want to play.”

  Zosia blinks back tears. How can he—her beloved teacher—not understand? “I do want to play. I always want to—”

  “Well then?”

  Slowly she brings out her hands, splotched purple and swollen around the knuckles, for him to see.

  “Oh—”

  Zosia fears he is going to ask her what happened, but he doesn’t. He just takes a long breath and exhales.

  “How about I play for you today? It will be good for you to hear the Baal Shem played in its entirety.”

  Zosia nods, flooding with relief.

  “You can sit in this chair, I don’t think Mother Agnieszka will mind. But first, have I ever told you about the time, as a boy, I nearly broke a finger playing ball and this just before a recital?”

  Chapter 34

  Winter 1944

  Chana looks to be glazed over, but her legs still move beneath her. The day is colder than any Róża has known, and barren, deserted even of birds. Every bit of exposed skin bites: the tip of her nose, the area around her eyes, the top of her left wrist where her glove and coat sleeve gap. There is no fresh snow. Without cover, their boots leave prints. Róża focuses on varying her steps as she leads Chana toward the center of the forest, hoping to find something to forage.

  When a man steps out from behind a tree, rifle in hand, Róża jerks back, nearly slipping. She reaches into her pocket, fingers searching for the cyanide pill, but then she sees that he is not a German. That’s clear from his ragged coat, his ravaged boots.

  “Wait,” the man commands, and steps closer, staring at Chana.

  Róża pushes Chana behind her in a vain effort at protection.

  But Chana stares back, brow furrowed, squinting as if to narrow her vision to a single point.

  “Hershel?” she rasps in a near-silent whisper.

  Róża whips her head around.

  The man stares even more concertedly, still unable to place her.

  “It’s me, Chana. From Warsaw.” Chana’s cracked voice comes from a different lifetime. For the first time in weeks, her eyes clear and her body shivers as if only now it feels the cold.

  Róża looks back and forth between them.

  Something registers in the man’s eyes. “Chana. I can’t believe this,” he is saying.

  The unlikelihood of their meeting, but also, Róża thinks, Chana’s radically altered appearance.

  “The last I saw you, you were training for a chess tournament,” Chana says.

  “And now I am a patrol guard.”

  “A patrol guard?” Róża asks. She’s wondering, Is he part of an army unit?

  “Our camp is just down there.” He points with his rifle, and now, several log structures come into view.

  * * *

  They stare dumbstruck at the scene around them as Hershel escorts them to a fire to get warm. At one end, there are dugouts built into the ground, their roofs packed with dirt and branches. Inside are wooden bunks topped with straw. Beyond the dugouts, lean-to spaces form a row. In one, there is a working tailor; in another, a shoemaker. Beyond these, there is a leather workshop with saddles, stolen from villagers, stacked in its corners, and a metal shop. Róża gapes. People walk about with guns slung across their backs. The camp is protected and even somewhat informed: A news scout, using a rejiggered radio, hears of Allied bombings in Berlin and spreads the report.

  Róża had struggled terribly getting Chana to part from Miri’s burial site, and for the past months, as Chana nearly gave up in grief, she alone bore the major tasks of their survival: gathering wood, clipping roots, digging burrows. Now she looks upon this miniature “village” replete with shelters, a bake house, a medical clinic. This place where, together, many share the burden of survival.

  Part partisan camp, part family camp, frail men and women shuffle amid young, able-bodied soldiers. There is a liveliness here Róża hasn’t seen in years, and she inhales, practically gulps it. She squeezes Chana’s hand. Hadn’t Miri heard there was such a place? She had suggested they come, the first day they’d met.

  Chana, also enlivened, has explained to Róża that Hershel was in the class ahead of her in school, that he was a chess champion.

  Hershel, who had stepped away, returns with two hunks of bread, a shy smile on his face. “I have to get back to my post. I brought this for you to eat. Not too fast, or it won’t stay down.” His eyes fix on Chana. “I will find you when my shift is over.”

  A hammering sound draws their attention toward the metal shop. The air reeks of sulfur. Gun parts and bullets lie scattered everywhere: supplies for resistance fighters. Róża turns to see if Chana has noticed the heap of weapons, but another sight—some activity across the square—stops her.

  Children. They flock out of the schoolhouse, arms outstretched, and gather in their mothers’ skirts. The mothers, a congregation in wait, kneel down and absorb their small sons and daughters, snuggling them and raising them up, even as they balance other, littler children in their arms.

  Róża loses her own balance.

  “Róża?”

  She feels Chana’s tug on her hand, hears the call of her name. But she can’t turn away.

  Here are mothers, in the woods, in winter, who did not part from their children. They kept them with them, and together they survived. It had been possible—

  * * *

  The sun fades quickly and crowds of people cluster around the campfire. Everywhere Róża looks, she notices little girls. Skin the color of apricots, hands sticky with pine sap. One calls out, “Mama!”

  Chana is speaking to someone who points out the sleeping bunks and the cook’s quarters. Róża interrupts.

  “I don’t want to stay here. Chana, I can’t—”

  “Róża. Please.” Life glimmers in Chana’s eyes for the first time since Miri died.

  Róża curls into herself and sobs.

  * * *

  Chana learns of a bath basin where there is heated kettle water, real soap, and several combs, even tightly groo
ved ones to help remove lice. She leads Róża there. Róża yields to the warm water washing over her exhausted, battered body and sits, compliant, as Chana combs through her hair section by section, the tines running over her scalp, close at the nape of her neck, and down her back.

  “This comb is probably the camp’s most valuable possession.”

  Róża looks at it and floods with regret as she thinks of the lice that infested Shira’s hair despite the constant braiding; the spiking fever that nearly claimed her life. Róża couldn’t keep her safe or near.

  “Let’s wrap you dry and get you to bed.”

  * * *

  Róża drops into the underground bunk she is directed to and sleeps. She doesn’t leave the dugout for two days straight. Chana, assigned to be the cook’s assistant, brings her food and tries to coax her outside.

  “Please, we don’t have to live in hiding here.”

  There is a glow in Chana’s face, visible even in the dim light given off by saturated strips of smoldering pine bark. Róża closes her eyes. She is certain she saw a girl Shira’s age in the camp, running, playing chase. Her longing pierces as it did when she first left the barn.

  When Róża wakes next, hours later, she is unsure whether it is day or night. The dank underground space feels close and tight around her now. She gets up and moves through the shadows, her hands feeling for the earthen walls, her feet venturing short, tentative steps until she grips the ladder rail. She shoves aside the branches overhead and pulls herself out from the darkness.

  She shivers in the bracing air. It is night, yet the sky is lighter than the underground, and she has to blink several times before her sight adjusts. Camp flames strut. Music, spirited and soulful, floats into the night: the sound of fiddles, flutes, and a dulcimer. It reminds Róża of the music she and Natan played; Shira padding into the parlor, her hair still damp from bath time, settling into a grandparent’s lap to listen.

  She picks her way along the path, slick and patchy, to find that the people circling the fire are adults. The children put to bed, thank God.

  Men and women cluster, speaking in low tones. Young couples snuggle close, no words at all. Sharing a bottle between them, four Soviet partisans huddle with fighters to discuss an upcoming mission, then break for their camp, west of here.

  Róża does not want to camp with these families. She wants to warm up by the fire and find Chana to discuss leaving; her aim hasn’t changed. She still must reach the forest border near Celestyn so that she can be ready, as soon as it’s safe, to reclaim Shira.

  Chana isn’t around the fire. Róża thinks to seek her out at Hershel’s post, or else return to her bunk until morning when they can start off fresh. But a man she saw earlier in the metal shop strides toward her. His eyes peek out, amber, from beneath tufts of shaggy, unkempt hair. He is nearly a head taller than her.

  “Tell me your name.”

  His directness startles her. She pulls her coat tightly around her. “Róża.”

  “Różyczka!”

  At hearing him say her name in the diminutive—her childhood name—Róża looks up, and a smile crosses her face before any thought can stifle it. “And yours?”

  “Aron.”

  Aron tells Róża that he studied mechanical engineering. When the war broke out, he came to the forest to fight. He repairs weapons between missions.

  “Missions for what?” Despite a desire to retreat, she is drawn by a brightness in him that scruff and grime can’t dim. She thinks of her own appearance. Before the war, she was considered a beauty, with her dark blue eyes set against her curled hair, her fine-boned features and willowy form. Now she is gaunt and pale, dressed in her ragged clothes despite finally being clean. If Aron notices her shirt, rent in mourning, he doesn’t mention it.

  “For our survival. Food—and warfare,” he answers.

  An organizer within the camp strides over, interrupting. “I need to know what work you will do here.”

  “Róża, meet Sonia,” Aron says. “Sonia, Róża.”

  “I’m not sure we will stay.”

  “Not stay?” This is Aron.

  “Everyone works,” Sonia insists.

  “Yes, well. I used to help in my mother’s bakery. But—”

  “Can you sew?”

  “Yes.”

  “Excellent. Go see Shmuel, the tailor, first thing in the morning; he’s in charge of that.”

  Aron nods as if it’s settled. Róża thinks back to the first time she met Natan, the day he came to her father’s workshop for a violin repair. He poked his head into the parlor where Róża was playing her cello and asked, almost reverently, if she’d like to work on duets with him.

  “I should return to my bunk,” Róża says.

  * * *

  In the morning, Róża finds Shmuel hunched over an actual pedal-pump sewing machine. The camp is filled with such unlikely objects. Tree saws. Blacksmith tools. A woodstove. All stolen, Róża guesses, and lugged to the camp. The foot pedal needs greasing; it gives off the smell of burnt hair with each push.

  “I’m Róża. Sonia sent me to help you with sewing this morning.”

  “Good, I can use the help. There is a mission in a few days’ time, and the fighters need their belts to actually hold bullets.”

  Róża settles herself at a small table and gets to work, reinforcing the stitches on the belts, as many as she can, paying careful attention so that not a single bullet will slip out. After a time, Róża loses herself in the rhythm—Shmuel’s press of the pedal, the yank and tug of thread through fabric—and her mind goes to the outfits she crocheted for Shira’s make-believe bird and the all-too-real letters she stitched into her blanket seam.

  When Shmuel looks up from his work, he frowns to see Róża shiver. “I have an extra jacket in that bin over there if you’re cold.”

  “It’s not that. But thank you.”

  Across the square, Róża sees a mother bounce her child, hold her close.

  * * *

  At mealtime, Róża stands in a long line for soup. People around her grouse that it’s beets and potatoes once again. Róża tastes it, creamy and thick, before leaving the line. She cannot believe how good it is.

  “What’s in this?” Róża asks. Its richness causes her to shudder with pleasure.

  “Milk.” The young woman who ladles the soup looks prideful.

  “Milk!” Róża can’t think of the last time she had milk! She can think only of the burnt roots and mushrooms that she and Chana have eaten for the last several months.

  “Two days ago,” the woman continues, “Itzhak returned from the countryside with a pail of milk. Liquid gold, kept on ice. We’ve taken to guarding it.”

  There are potatoes, too, and salt.

  Róża looks around and wonders whether the upcoming mission is for food or warfare. A man named Alter paces the camp’s perimeter, gripping a wooden gun—a carving, not a real weapon to grant him a place among the fighters—and mumbles to himself. She spots Chana seated beside Hershel, talking and eating. Róża occupies a solitary rock. She eats quietly, greedily, turned away from the gathering families.

  Later in the day, Aron steps into the sewing shop and stands before Róża.

  “I’ve been looking for you! Do you want to take a little walk? Shmuele, can you spare her for a bit?” Before either can answer, he says, “Good, we’ll leave in a few minutes. I’ll come for you.”

  Shmuel smiles at Róża and resumes his work. “Clever, that one. Devised a mechanical chair for his father when sores ravaged his feet and legs. Apparently the chair even operated on the cobbles of the Białystok ghetto, until German soldiers made a game of shooting at it.”

  Róża thinks that Aron is as pushy as he is clever. She’d prefer to keep busy with a useful job rather than walk with him.

  But then Aron returns carrying a pair of well-sized boots with rubber soles. To feel soft padding at the base of her heels and in the cup of her toes, no chafing, no biting soreness along the
tops of her feet, Róża could cry.

  “Won’t you come?”

  Aron leads the way through a stand of birches and down a hill, making no effort to conceal his tracks. Close up, he smells of bullets and jerky. After a few minutes, they arrive at a stream. Aron motions to a thick toppled tree, a bench to sit on while watching the water wend through the snow—a scene of quiet, saving beauty. As Róża settles, Aron reaches into his satchel to reveal a pear.

  “Oh! Where did you get it?”

  Aron just smiles and hands it to her. She takes a bite—grainy, sweet, and full of light.

  “It’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

  They sit on the tree trunk and pass the pear back and forth, Aron taking smaller and smaller nibbles so as to ensure that Róża has the last bite.

  * * *

  When they get back to the camp, Róża senses excitement in the air.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Soon it will be Shabbas.”

  Shabbas. Róża had long ago lost track of the days of the week. She marked the passing of time first by nicks in the barn rafter, then by knots on a string. The last time Róża observed Shabbas, her parents and Natan were alive. Shira had watched wide-eyed as her grandmother, with closed eyes, summoned the flames.

  Róża doesn’t speak of it to Aron. She can’t speak of what came before.

  “Thank you for the walk. I enjoyed it.”

  “Me too, Różyczka.”

  At sunset a loaf of challah materializes, as does a pair of candles in tarnished candlesticks. Little girls walk past with baskets of bite-size bread slices piled aloft. As she speaks out the prayers Róża aches for her family, to have them standing by her side. They are in a better place. They aren’t suffering. The anguish will get easier. She utters the ancient holy words and she tells herself these things, trying to believe them.