The Yellow Bird Sings Page 5

  “Are you hurt, Mama?”

  Worry shows in the contours of Shira’s face.

  The quickest flash of a wish—that Shira was gone, not needing comfort, not witnessing her like this—shuttles through Róża before she works her features into a reassuring expression and faces her girl.

  “I need fresh air. It’s late and I need you to stay very quiet. Still as a mouse beneath the hay—you hear me?”

  “Yes, Mamusia.”

  “I don’t want you to move. And no calling out. Please.” With a sharp intake of breath, Róża propels one foot, then the other, down the ladder and out the door.

  * * *

  In the snow, Róża bleeds red black upon the white ground, in clumps and clots. As many times as she bears down, more slips out; it smells like rust and metal and rot. She grows dizzy and hot despite the frigid air. She reaches for a handful of clean snow to pat on her forehead and the back of her neck.

  Róża knows she needs to get this out of her, get herself back inside. But beyond the pain, she wonders, How far along? and, Was it a girl or a boy? She trains her eyes on the far-off trees as her legs quake beneath her. With every cramping gush, she feels a deep sorrow mingled with relief.

  When the bleeding subsides, Róża lets herself sit, bare bottomed, drained out, blinking up at the stars. One minute. Two. Fleeting moments in which to wonder, would they have been better off back in Gracja? The remaining Jews lived in a ghetto now, Henryk told her. If her uncle Jakob was still there, he’d have clout, and her aunt Syl, so long as she could get hold of the ingredients, would make bread for them to eat. One thing’s for certain: Róża wouldn’t be miscarrying, alone outside in the dead of winter. But then she thinks of what the soldiers did to Natan in the work fields, how they came for her parents; their thumps and shrieks sounding through the closet door—

  Róża shivers as flecks of snow drift off the barn roof. In the moonlight, the frosted fields are a rolling silvery sheet. Róża hoists herself up and fastens her pants after tucking another not-so-clean cloth between her legs.

  She has to hide the blood before it can be discovered. Best would be to bury it away from the sight of humans and the smell of animals, but the ground is frozen and anyway she hasn’t the time to dig a hole. If only she had bled into a bucket, she could have figured out a way to hide it inside the barn.

  She staggers to the barn now and notices one of the small rabbits in the corner. In a quick singular motion, she swipes it up and holds it tight under her arm, feeling the rapid beat of its frantic, trapped heart. She reaches with her free arm for the trowel, pegged up on the wall. She fears Shira will start up with questions, but mercifully Shira is silent, still beneath the hay. Róża steps back outside and brings the trowel blade down upon the rabbit in a single terrible whack. The rabbit slumps, lifeless. Róża uses the blade to tear it apart the way a wolf might. At any other time, she would have regretted the waste of meat. Now the rangy smell, raw and rusty, makes her gag. Shaking, she places the torn-up rabbit on the heap of her own blood. In a vain last measure, she hacks at the ground, once, twice, hoping to loosen a bit of earth for cover, but there is no give. She mouths a prayer as she wipes her hands in the snow to clean off the blood—the rabbit’s, her own—and weaves her way back into the barn, up to the loft, to Shira.

  * * *

  The following day, through a crack at the far edge of the loft, Róża sees Jurek poke at the mangled rabbit with a stick. At the sight of it, a frozen rusted mass, Róża heaves bile into the hay. Sweat breaks at her brow. Her womb seizes anew. Yet she focuses her eyes outside. Jurek is holding the rabbit aloft now, calling out for his father.

  Henryk is there in an instant.

  “If there is a fox coming around, we’ll need to reinforce the coops,” Jurek says, inspecting the carcass. “But it doesn’t make sense that a fox would leave this meat. What else might have killed it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think Mama would want to put it in her soup?”

  Henryk’s “No” comes out edged with panic.

  If Krystyna inspects the scene, so close to the barn, she’ll know. When Henryk speaks again, his voice is composed. “We can’t know how long it’s been dead. It may be unsafe to eat.”

  Jurek lets the rabbit drop and turns his stick to the clumps of reddened, viscid snow. “There’s more blood here than could have come from one rabbit.”

  Shira, who has been slouched against the wall weaving hay into squares, sits upright at Jurek’s mention of the word “rabbit” and begins scanning the loft and lower barn. Róża puts a finger to her sour lips.

  “We’ve had so little meat, I really think Mama will want—”

  “What she will want is for you to finish mucking out the coop. Now. I’m going to bury this so it doesn’t attract other animals.” Henryk retrieves a shovel from the barn without a glance loftward and starts hacking at the frozen earth.

  * * *

  When Henryk mounts the loft that night, Róża huddles in the corner, knees to chest, as if there were something still inside her she might be able to protect.

  “Krystyna will notice that a rabbit is missing. They’re to be our food.”

  “I’ll say it escaped. I didn’t know what else to do—”

  Henryk touches Róża’s leg. She shudders. “Don’t touch me now. Please—”

  His eyes darken. He slaps the floor with his hand and bounds out of the barn, leaving Shira jolted awake and Róża cowering.

  Chapter 15

  Spring 1942

  Shira ignores her mother’s frown and scurries down the ladder to greet Krystyna, who has entered the barn with a food pail. Shira is eager to eat, but she’s even more excited to talk to Krystyna.

  “I—I saw Łukasz take his first steps—I saw through the crack!”

  “Shh!” her mother hisses from the loft.

  Shira funnels her voice into a whisper. “I saw him. He walked.”

  “Yes! He’s sleeping now, after his big morning,” Krystyna says.

  “Five whole paces!”

  “Was it five?” Krystyna smiles, charmed.

  “Yes—five! The grass cushioned his fall.”

  * * *

  Róża says they are not family, but Shira feels they are. Even if Shira has to hide away when Henryk comes to the loft. Even if the boys don’t actually know she’s there. From her perch, she has learned that Piotr’s favorite game is zośka and that Jurek hates mucking out the chicken coop more than any other chore. She has overheard both boys complaining about the lack of food; the menacing soldiers; how the other kids look down on their father for not fighting in the war.

  Shira senses when the boys feel afraid, though the adults’ fear is worse: lodged in their faces and bodies, trapped in the sounds beneath their words. Outside, when a neighbor stops by for a chat, when Krystyna excuses herself to tend to the boys and Henryk to the animals, when at night her mother asks Henryk for the latest news, Shira hears it shuttling between their whispers. She knows it from before, from when they still lived in Gracja; her parents tried with their instruments to play over it, to play through it, yet it clung to their notes anyway.

  Confined within the barn, her mother invents ever more elaborate stories: To keep silence in the enchanted garden, the little girl fashions handkerchiefs out of daisy petals to muffle the princess’s sneezes. She tricks the giants (whose thundering footsteps keep the flowers from blooming) by flipping the soles of their shoes so that they walk away from the garden rather than toward it. And with the help of her mother and her yellow bird, the little girl plants a secret strawberry patch, hidden among the sunflowers, so they’ll have delicious treats that even raiders won’t be able to find when they come to pillage.

  Shira asks if there are any cats in the garden. The last time Krystyna took Shira out, the tabby whooshed its tail against Shira’s legs, then flopped to the ground in front of her. She thought he wanted a pat, but when she knelt down and extended her hand, he
tried to scratch her.

  “No, there are no cats in the garden.”

  “Good, because they might not be nice to birds.”

  “The garden is safe for birds and for quiet girls.”

  Her mother reads to her from their one borrowed book, over and over, as Shira wants. By now Shira can sight-read small, common words—“the” and “it” and “who”—and the names of the characters “Stas” and “Nell.” And her mother has permitted Shira to use five whole sheets of paper for music lines rather than for letters and numbers. She makes plans for when they will leave the barn, hums bits of Brahms’s Scherzo and the nightly lullaby, whispers even when her body hurts, which Shira knows from the way her mother’s mouth pouches, as if stuffed with an imaginary sponge, her teeth barely touching down. The words pile up so as to chase away pain, to topple fear, to prove that they, alone, are family enough.

  Yet Shira still longs for her tata, her grandparents, her friends, her home. She stares at the photographs, lingering longest on the picture of herself, fancy in her ankle-length dress—a night they were all together. She nestles her bird and awaits Krystyna’s visits. She stays glued to the crack in the wall, listening for the boys’ conversations, watching as Łukasz toddles forward and reaches for Jurek’s and Piotr’s open hands.

  Chapter 16

  Rumors swirl of denunciations and shootings and a burned-down barn the next village over. Henryk digs a hole in the barn floor that he conceals with a hay bale, so Róża and Shira can move to a different hiding space without leaving the barn. He spreads the surplus dirt on the barn floor and carries the rest in buckets out to the fields.

  Later, up in the loft, Henryk caresses Róża’s cheek before he undresses her. He’s been gentler since the miscarriage, since that one time she’d asked not to be touched.

  Still, Róża’s voice shakes as she asks, “You’ll pull out quickly?” She can’t get pregnant again.

  “Yes.”

  Róża continues to lie mostly still while Henryk is with her. Yet, the way her body responds to him changes. She tells herself that it is involuntary when her nipples knot, when she goes slick. Their bodies know each other now.

  She wants to remember her time with Natan, their courtship, their first tender kisses. But if she’s honest, he’s gone blurry in her mind. It is the hunger, she’s sure of it, and the unrelenting stress. Even with her eyes closed to reality, it is Henryk’s form that closes in. He does things to her that he mustn’t do to Krystyna—things Natan would never have dreamed of—and her body responds.

  Róża tells herself: She and Shira are alive because of this. She tells herself: Even if Shira has to lie just a few strides away, her ears buzzing with the press of sex, Róża is doing what she needs to do. She tells herself: She is keeping them safe.

  * * *

  Shira’s mother is always ordering her to be still and silent, but then Henryk mounts the loft ladder, and he moves around and makes terrible noises. Her mother doesn’t say anything, and she forbids Shira even from turning her head or opening her eyes. She just has to lie there, frightened, listening to Henryk’s bumping and gasping and what sounds like strangled screaming.

  It is hot beneath the hay, and Shira labors to breathe. She wishes her tata were here to make it stop. On her own, there’s nothing to do but to wait. Drown out the sounds with the music she hears in her head, dark and foreboding.

  When Henryk finally climbs down the ladder and leaves the barn, Shira steals a look at her mother, staring up at the ceiling, panting. It’s the only time Shira can’t read her mother’s face.

  Chapter 17

  As the weather warms, the barn sweats. The hay, dry and sweet scented in winter, grows dank in the loft. Moisture gathers in the rafters and the wallboards expand. The cracks shrink to reveal less of the farmhouse, less of the road.

  Still, the sound of the boys floats up to the loft; Shira can hear Jurek and Piotr bicker as they pound a rickety fence post back into position.

  Shira’s mother grows cross when the boys are about. She hunches against the wall, her arms folded across her chest, wishing to block out their voices. But Shira hangs on their conversations.

  They used to complain about having to go to school, but now that it’s been closed, Piotr wants it to reopen.

  “Maybe farm life is fine for you,” Piotr says.

  “I like it all right.” Jurek’s words come out in the rhythm of his hammer swings.

  “Well, I want to train to become a doctor.”

  “You’ll have to go to school forever. It’s not worth it.”

  “It is worth it. And it’s not right that I can’t have the chance—”

  Shira licks the remnants of Krystyna’s cauliflower soup, then puts the pail aside. Her bird ruffles his wings, hops across her crossed legs, and pecks at her shoes.

  “Shh,” she whispers. “I told you, you have to stay still and silent. You have to hide.”

  The bird’s eyes are full of questions, so she continues: “Birds like you are not allowed to be out, not allowed to fly.”

  Shira knows he doesn’t understand. She wishes she had better answers. Even the girl in the enchanted garden doesn’t really know what’s happened to her tata or the rest of her family, or why others can make sounds but she needs to be silent and hide. Sometimes her mother mutters about being different, about having pride in who she is, but it doesn’t make any sense!

  Outside, a stork burrows into its nest atop the neighbor’s potato ziemianka.

  “You are different. I don’t know how, exactly; you just are. Stay down, I said. Shh!”

  * * *

  In the loft late at night, Henryk’s hands tremble and his spooked eyes dart as he describes what he’s heard: The burned-down barn belonged to a farmer who was seen giving food to a family of Jews crossing into the woods. German soldiers strung him to the crossbeam before lighting the fire.

  Róża looks away.

  For a week, only Henryk enters the barn. Instead of pails containing Krystyna’s soups or stews, he ferries large wooden boxes with stray potatoes and a water canteen rattling beneath farm tools. Róża wonders if Krystyna is lobbying for them to leave; if Henryk is the one now petitioning for them to stay.

  Just once in the course of the week Henryk reaches for Róża. She reaches back.

  Chapter 18

  Summer 1942

  When Shira begins coughing, all Róża can focus on is the sound of it, who might hear: The boys? A neighbor on the way to the tavern? A soldier? God help us.

  She props Shira up and holds her close, more to muffle than to soothe her, and she nearly smothers her when Henryk or Krystyna comes into the barn.

  The coughing persists. Róża tries, gently and not so gently, to shush her. She needs it to stop.

  “Hush, Shira. Please.”

  By nightfall, the third night, the coughing stops. Róża says a prayer of thanks. But soon she realizes Shira’s condition is worse. Her cheeks glow red; she shudders with chills yet radiates heat. Come morning, her eyes are glassy and she is lethargic.

  Why hadn’t she realized how sick Shira was? Róża moves the damp hair off her face, hoists her into her lap. If it’s typhus, they’ll die together.

  Henryk places water just inside the barn door and glances up. Róża sees in his expression that he knows Shira has something bad.

  “I fear it’s pneumonia.” She doesn’t dare mention her other fear. If Henryk and Krystyna thought Shira had typhus, they’d expel them at once.

  “We don’t have any medicine.”

  “Could you possibly bring me water to bathe her with and some cups?”

  “Cups?”

  “Small glass cups. And matches. Also, a bit of alcohol, and cotton.”

  “Róża—”

  “I can’t think what else to do. She struggles to breathe.”

  Róża’s aunt once described the process to her: setting a flame inside a glass cup creates an air vacuum, and the cup suctions to the skin. This loos
ens things, makes breathing easier.

  At nightfall, Henryk comes in with a box of supplies. Several rags drape over one side.

  “In case she yells.” He says this in a whisper. Shira doesn’t hear, or else she is too dazed to care. She looks to be staring through the wall.

  “Will you stay and help me?” Róża asks.

  “To make sure you don’t burn the barn down?”

  “For that, you have the Germans.”

  * * *

  The glasses clink as Henryk pulls them from the box. Shira doesn’t turn.

  “Shira?” Róża fears she is slipping by the minute. Can she even hear?

  To Henryk she says, “There can’t be any alcohol left in the cup or else it will burn her. The glass itself will be hot, so—”

  “Róża, I don’t think this is safe.”

  “Pneumonia is not safe. A high fever is not safe.”

  She pulls at Shira’s shoulders, attempting to turn her over. “I need you to lie on your stomach, Shira. That’s it, face turned to the side. Now, we’re just going to cover your mouth to keep you from making a noise.”

  Shira accepts the gag, and the raising of her dress, without a fuss. Her compliance nearly breaks Róża.

  “We are going to stick cups to your back. They’re going to make you feel better.”

  Henryk quickly pins blankets to the loft walls to keep the match light’s flare from showing outside the barn. Then, with a gloved hand, he grips one of the glasses. He pours a splash of vodka and swivels it, attempting to coat the inside of the glass. Róża clamps hold of a cotton ball with a wrench, lights it on fire, then swirls it in the glass. The alcohol flames. Before they can do anything, figure out how to place the cup on Shira’s back, it shatters.

  Róża struggles to breathe now, her resolve in bits.