The Yellow Bird Sings Read online

  Chapter 11

  When Róża hears the soldiers taking shots at the birds, she thinks of Natan. Where did they shoot him? In the back, when he was already on his knees?

  Four days in a row, soldiers had rounded up the young, able-bodied Jews of Gracja for labor duty. The men had returned each night filthy and exhausted, but Natan had felt sure that their usefulness, their hard work, was saving them. Saving all of them.

  On the fifth day only half of the men returned. Oskar, their neighbor, shook so hard he could barely speak despite Róża’s frantic pleas for information.

  “You must tell me, Oskar. Where is he? Is he all right?”

  “They made us dig trenches.”

  “But where is Natan? Is he still there? Are they housing some of the men closer? He is strong. Maybe they think it’s good to get an early start tomorrow?”

  “Róża—”

  “I know, not so strong, but hardworking, dogged. Yes?”

  “Róża, you have to listen to me.”

  “Why didn’t he tell me to pack a bag? I could have sent him with clean clothes.”

  “They forced us to dig trenches.”

  “He told me, it was very hard work. Such deep trenches.”

  “They had all of us line up in front of them.”

  “Why they need such deep trenches, who knows, but—”

  “Róża, they shot more than half of us. After we’d dug all day. I don’t know why I’m here. It’s not right that I am here, when Natan—” Oskar buried his face in his hands.

  Róża stepped back, stunned.

  * * *

  She ran, legs quaking beneath her, home, where they lived together with her parents. Her father ushered Shira away; her mother held her as she railed and sobbed and eventually tucked her into bed. Róża blinked at the pale papered walls, the bedspread with yellow sunflowers, the wood-carved elephants, trunks entwined upon the bureau. This room—the room she shared with Natan—was unrecognizable to her. The world ceased to make sense.

  Two days later the soldiers swept through their building and took her parents. In the shadowy darkness of the closet, clutched tight to Shira, inhaling the floury scent at the collar of her mother’s camel-hair coat, she could feel Shira’s eyes fixed on her, bringing to mind her own mother’s face. Róża signaled to Shira to be silent and held back her own sobs as she heard the pounding of boots on the stairs, her parents’ shrieks echoing in the wall. Her fingers encircled the metal frosting tip, buried deep in the pocket of her mother’s coat.

  Afterward, alive because an altercation down the hall had distracted the soldiers from an all-out search, Róża comprehended one single fact: They could not stay here.

  She waited only for soldiers to vacate the street and for the cover of night. She satcheled photographs, coins and jewels, Natan’s watch and compass and fur hat. She took Shira—yellow bird conjured from the same senselessness, cupped in her hands—and ran.

  * * *

  Róża watches Shira now, curled in her shadowy hiding spot, one cheek pressed against the music paper, tracing the illustration on her book’s cloth cover—a lion posed regally on a high rock—outlining it with her pointing finger. Before the worst began happening in Gracja, Róża downplayed the denigrations: the yellow stars, the marks on the doors of Jewish businesses, including her mother and Aunt Syl’s bakery. Róża only ever wanted Shira to feel pride in herself. Perhaps this is why she doesn’t tell her outright the reason they have to hide, why they are hunted. She’s not sure Shira would even understand if she tried to tell her.

  The fall air nips. Dull light presses through the cracks.

  At the bakery they would be preparing for the High Holidays, overrun with orders for honey cakes and apple cakes and babkas. Mrs. Blum would be asking, as she did every week, if the sponge cake was moist. Róża thinks of her friends and extended family, Aunt Syl and Uncle Jakob, Natan’s young nieces and cousins.

  Are any of them still alive to usher in a New Year?

  Is there a synagogue still standing?

  She turns her head toward the wall and listens for the birds who return to perch, slantwise, on the branches outside the barn.

  Chapter 12

  Winter 1942

  Their breaths come out in frosted puffs. Even beneath piles of hay, the tips of Shira’s ears sting with cold and her fingers and toes grow numb. When she begins to tremble, her skin clammy, Róża lies on top of her to keep her warm. Henryk sneaks in a wool blanket, a child’s hat, and some gloves.

  Shira nestles her covered head low against her pillow, a sack filled with peas. Through a crack in the wall, she looks at the ice-encased tree branches, longing for the cold to stop, for the sound of the birds to come back.

  Her mother hums a bit of The Snow Maiden—an opera she’s explained is about how winter must die for spring to come. But spring seems so far off.

  “Mama, what about Brahms’s Scherzo? You said you’d teach me.”

  * * *

  Róża misses a beat as she remembers how Natan rehearsed Brahms’s Scherzo with Władysław, a most talented pianist and friend. They worked it over measure by measure as other friends meandered in and out of the music room, dunking slices of her mother’s mandelbrot into glasses of tea. Róża shuts her eyes and presses her cheek to her shoulder, striking the same deep-angled pose Natan struck, the whole left side of his face nuzzled against his violin as he played. In this way she recalls the stormy cascade at the beginning of the piece, the lyrical movement in the middle. She hums it for Shira once again.

  Shira remains subdued even as Róża describes the bouncy bow strokes, the quick-tied notes. Is she lethargic from hunger? A broken spirit? Gauntness sucks at her once-round cheeks. Their food pail is at its most meager: a few turnips, a watery potato soup. According to the nicks in the rafter, today marks their one hundred and sixty-eighth day. Shira’s quiet listlessness brings forth in Róża a collision of gratitude and despair.

  “Shira”—Róża’s voice strains to be cheery—“why don’t we look together at the atlas?”

  Only the slimmest shaft of winter’s hard-edged light cuts into the barn. Róża thinks, At least this weather may keep the Germans at bay. She fumbles with gloved hands to turn the pages, one by one, as they look first at continents, then at countries. That the topography is colored—mountain ranges in pale brown, forests in green, oceans in sea blue—pleases Róża immensely.

  “Do you see Vienna, there in northeastern Austria? It has the most wonderful concert hall, the Musikverein.”

  “Have you ever been to it?”

  “No.”

  “Has Grandpa?”

  “No—”

  Róża is just about to promise Shira, to say that she’ll take her there, and maybe even to Milan, to the famous opera house in Italy. But Henryk’s firm slam of the farmhouse door drives Róża to swallow her words, to motion Shira to hide.

  Chapter 13

  Late night. Róża hopes that Shira has turned away, buried herself beneath the hay with her eyes closed as Róża has told her, so many times, to do. Henryk’s boots crunch along the walkway at the far side of the barn. Róża pulls hastily at the tangles in her hair and swallows hard, trying to clear her breath.

  When Henryk ascends the ladder, he pulls a wrapped-up potato from his pocket, and for several minutes he is all patience, stretching out on his side, leaning on one bent elbow, watching Róża as she takes a bite of it and stows the rest for Shira. He smells of animals and wood smoke, and his dark eyes train on her, horselike. He produces another gift: an extra pair of socks. Róża nods her gratitude and Henryk reaches out gently to touch her hair.

  He takes his time unbuttoning her shirt, untying the rope around her waist, shimmying her pants over her narrow hips and buttocks. He does not touch her, not yet. He props himself beside her and looks at her for a long while. As his eyes move over her, Róża turns her face toward the wall, jaw clenched. Shivering.

  Henryk puts a finger to her cheek and r
otates her face back toward him. His eyes, full of intensity, lock on hers. Róża feels an involuntary flap in her belly, a pulsing heat below. She finds it uncomfortable but also exhilarating to be looked at like this, to be seen, after so much hiding.

  Henryk takes Róża quickly then. She wants to be numb to him—she holds still, moving neither with him nor against him, Shira just a few feet away.

  When it’s over she ventures, “The next days are a fertile time.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, it’s risky. You don’t always pull out quickly and—”

  “You’re telling me what’s risky?” His breath is hot at her neck. His hard slap stings her cheek.

  * * *

  When he is gone, down the ladder two rungs at a time and out of the barn, Róża turns her head to look at Shira. Her eyes are closed and she is breathing evenly, asleep. Slowly, soundlessly, Róża pads down the ladder and squeezes through a small opening in the barn door. The air is frigid and snow covers the ground, but she needs this moment outside.

  There are no lights on in the house. Róża wonders, Is Krystyna asleep or awake? Could she be relieved that I take Henryk’s attentions? Her thoughts circle continuously around the two of them, trying to make sense of their relationship. Henryk has his ulterior motives, but Krystyna is truly pious, Róża thinks—and generous. She should be grateful for the eggs she gives Shira to eat.

  Róża steps around the side of the barn, pulls down her pants, and squats to pee. It burns where she’s been chafed. She takes a handful of snow and wipes between her legs, a cold, wet salve, before pulling her pants back on. She cradles her bruised elbows, roughed up by the floorboards, and returns to the barn. She scales the ladder and, still stinging, retreats into the hay.

  She wants Natan so desperately in this moment. His lips blanketing her in kisses, causing her to quiver with desire like a taut string. They might have shared the same pulse, the same knocking heartbeat, their love as raw and intense as, now, her heartache.

  Róża lifts Shira on top of her, needing the feel of her girl’s body upon hers. Shira’s hair has slipped out of its braid and feathers against Róża’s face. Róża inhales deeply, wishing to dispel the smell of wet, smoky wool Henryk has left on her. For a fleeting moment, Róża imagines that Shira is the mother and she is the child. She folds her palm over Shira’s outstretched hand and holds on tight.

  * * *

  It is late afternoon when Shira searches the hay, frantic. She bats at her eyes to keep tears from welling up.

  “What are you looking for, Shira?” her mother whispers.

  “Mama, I can’t find my bird—I think he’s at the Wiśniewskis’!”

  Shira doesn’t tell her mother that her bird prefers being outside, where it’s fresh and light and there are treats to eat. Still, Shira was firm that he needed to stay in the barn, hidden—no chirping or even stretching his wings—but he slipped out when Shira went with Krystyna, and now he’s stalling his return.

  Shira’s stuffed belly is in rebellion again, full of regret. She didn’t bring any food back for her mother. She had stinky diarrhea in the straw basin, causing a terrible smell in the loft; and now she fears her bird will never come back to her. She paces the loft, forgetting to be silent and still.

  “Come, now. He’ll find his way back.” Róża covers the basin with hay to mask the smell until Henryk can move it out to the animal pen.

  “No, he won’t and it’s all my fault!” Tears stream down Shira’s cheeks. She drops to the loft floor and begins pounding on the boards.

  Her mother grabs hold of Shira, pins her arms against her chest. “Nie! Quiet this instant.”

  The notes in her mother’s voice are cold and harsh. Shira struggles against the hold.

  In this moment, she doesn’t care that it isn’t completely dark, that it isn’t safe for her mother outside. At nightfall, her mother is going to shunt her off to the far wall, and Shira will have to shut her eyes and plug her ears even when it sounds like Henryk is hurting her mother. She can’t do that without her bird!

  She begs in an urgent whisper, “Will you go get him? He can’t spend the night in the farmhouse.”

  “Shh. Stop your silliness.”

  “Please, Mama!”

  Her mother makes a frustrated huffing sound, but she descends the ladder. She disappears beneath the loft, then reappears with one hand cupped and hoists herself single-handed back up.

  How could she get him so quickly?

  Shira inspects the bird, suspicious that it is another one, not hers. But she sees that it is hers, by the tiny white spot on his beak and by the single feather that is always ruffled, refusing to tuck in. Shira holds him to her chest. His heart beats fast like marching boots, like gunshots. When she tries to pat him, he ducks and flaps as if to say he won’t be so easily soothed.

  Shira turns her back to her mother as she cuddles her bird close, murmuring, “I need you with me always.”

  * * *

  Something in the way Shira turns away, cooing to her bird, sends Róża into a spinning rage. In the face of all that Róża does—she gives Shira most of every meal (this, despite the eggs Krystyna gives to Shira and never to her!); she encourages Shira’s musical interest even when it reminds her painfully of Natan; she soothes her with lullabies, invents elaborate stories to entertain her and pass the time—yet still Shira pushes the limits, wishing for walks with Krystyna and fussing over her bird, risking the safety of both of them, all of them. Is she so nervy now as to be modeling “motherly care”?

  Her chest draws tight, full of fury. But after an hour sitting in the stale, shadowy blackness—nowhere to go—inhaling the dank smells and watching Shira clutch the empty air, her anger gutters and guilt floods in.

  They’ve lost every real thing except each other. Must her girl fear losing even what is imaginary?

  * * *

  When Shira wakes the next morning, she finds her mother propped against the loft’s far wall where thin shafts of sunlight stripe the barn. Her mother has the hook and yarn Krystyna gave them and she looks to be crocheting something very small, her fingers up close to her face and her eyes squinting.

  “What are you making?” Shira whispers.

  “You’ll have to wait and see.”

  Relieved to hear a playful tone in her mother’s voice, Shira covers her eyes with her hands. Her legs wriggle and she shifts side to side with anticipation.

  At her last birthday party, a picnic by the Narew River, Shira covered her eyes while her grandmother brought out the cake. Everything seemed to smell better with her eyes covered: the sweetness of the frosting, the match’s flame, the waxiness of the candles. Shira opened her eyes when she heard her mother’s cello sound out the first deep notes of the birthday song, and she couldn’t believe what she saw: the cake had three tiers, like a fairy castle. It had delicate loops of white piping, with five pink candles for her and twenty-five white candles for her mother—because they were born twenty years (and two days) apart. Some of Shira’s friends thought Shira should have her own party, but she loved sharing it with her mama. As soon as one year’s party was over, they’d set to planning the next.

  “There, now you can look,” her mother says, yarn still laced between her fingers.

  Shira leans in to see the tiniest hat (her mother must have sized it to fit her fingertip) and a thin scarf, just three stitches wide and ten stitches long. She looks at her mother, unsure.

  “They are for your bird.”

  “Oh, thank you, Mama.”

  Her mother isn’t mad at her for yesterday! Shira takes the tiny clothes in her hands. Carefully, she drapes the scarf around the bird’s nape and places the hat on top of its crested head.

  Her mother crochets other articles of clothing: bird earmuffs (two of the tiniest granny circles connected by a strand) and a beak cover. “Because it’s gotten so cold.”

  Shira loves it when her mother is silly.

  “And he
re’s something elegant for him to wear to the symphony,” her mother says as she hands Shira a little cape.

  “Mama? On the night of the concert, will we have a fancy dinner?” Shira remembers the night when, with her father’s help, she accompanied her mother in a “grand concert duet” and afterward they ate a delicious roast—but she doesn’t say this.

  “Yes, Shirke, and we’ll set pretty flowers at the table.”

  “Daisies?”

  “And bright red poppies too.”

  The skin on the underside of her mother’s arms is mottled bluish pink, a pattern that makes Shira think of the wallpaper in her grandmother’s dressing closet.

  “The girl and her mother should grow poppies in their silent garden,” Shira suggests.

  “Perhaps their enchanted bird will carry seeds over from the field so that they can. We’ll have to wait and see.”

  Shira nestles with her mother, fingering the tiny bird clothes.

  In each square of the quilt covering her bed in Gracja, six dainty red flowers fan out from a single stem, their leaves bowed beneath like a lyre, and two birds stand face-to-face, so close that one need not even chirp for the other to know her song.

  Chapter 14

  Róża paces the barn, biting down on her tongue to keep from moaning. She’d asked Henryk for the wild carrot seed as a precaution because, in addition to her stopped menses, she’d felt tender in her breasts. Now she is bleeding and the pain is excruciating. She peers out a wall crack, gauging the brightness of the night’s moon.

  “Mama?”

  “I’m all right. I … just have … a bellyache.”

  Róża leans one way; another. She tries to sit, but the cramping in her womb wrenches her back to standing. She has stuffed her pants with a spare piece of cloth. It is soaked through.