The True Story of Hansel and Gretel (32 page)

“Drink with me tonight, Telek.” Feliks shoveled slowly but steadily. His brother was ash, and he wanted to get drunk. If he’d known the Nazis killed simpletons, he could have hidden him.

“I’m too tired. I need to rest. When will they pull out, Feliks?”

“When the trucks come from deeper in the forest, from Bialowieza. Soon.”

Telek kept shoveling. He knew that he would have to wait until tomorrow night to take the baby back. Tonight he would tell Magda to go into the forest by dawn. The old woman moved slowly, but if he told her to go at dawn, they’d be hidden and safe by noon. The smoke blew in his face, and he knew that he breathed in the ashes of the dead. He kept shoveling and didn’t raise his head until the ditch was filled.

“I will take the children and hide tomorrow, Telek.” Magda coughed and held on to the table so she wouldn’t fall. The grippe had come suddenly. Telek stared at her for a few minutes. Her cheeks were red with fever. Magda couldn’t survive long in the forest with the grippe.

“I’ll have to kill the soldier and the German woman. There will be revenge on the village.” Magda nodded. There was nothing else to be done now, and then it was best to hide until the Germans retreated and the main force of the Russians had passed over them. By the time Telek killed the woman and the guard tomorrow night, Magda would be hidden with Hansel and Gretel in the hidey-hole.

Back in the village, Telek stripped naked in the darkness of night and washed with pails of water and lye soap that burned his skin, expunging the stink of death before he touched Nelka.

Hansel had listened, eavesdropping outside the hut, breathing through his mouth so he wouldn’t make any noise. Telek would get killed, and maybe Nelka would get killed too. He shoved his fist in his mouth so he wouldn’t cry out. Someone had to do something for Nelka and Telek. Someone had to help them.

Night came later now. It was still the same cold and chill as it grew dark, but the earth had the smell of mud during the day and the water from melted snow flowed over the land and filled the rivers until it was as if the whole earth wept. The curfew in the village was tighter. Everyone lay quietly in their houses and waited for what was coming.

Father Piotr thought about going to the church and praying. He wanted to kneel down and ask forgiveness for all his sins, but it seemed hypocritical. He picked up the poker from the fire and shifted it in his hand. Then he laid it down in its usual place and sighed. He went to the curtain in front of the kitchen and pulled it back.

There were three knives. The carving knife was worn so thin it might break. The second knife was small, for paring vegetables. The third knife was his newest, a gift from the butcher when he said his confession before Christmas. Father Piotr put the knife in the pocket of his coat and slipped a small jar of homemade vodka in his other pocket. He looked at the clock, and impulsively took it off the hook where it hung. The Russians would steal it. They liked clocks. He threw it on the floor and stamped it to trash with his boot. Then he went out, closing the door carefully.

“I should have waited another hour,” he muttered, but he was afraid to wait. He might fall asleep. He might be too tired. He might lose his nerve.

The woods were so dark that Hansel fell into the ditch twice when he wandered off the road. It had been hard keeping awake until Magda finally fell into a deep sleep, her breath rasping like she was breathing underwater. Her face was flushed, and Hansel knew she was sick.

If he was caught on the street after curfew, the soldiers would shoot him. Hansel shook his head. He could slip behind the houses. The shadows were dark, and he didn’t care if he got caught. He had to tell Father Piotr. Father Piotr was Magda’s brother. He was the priest. Priests were supposed to help people. Hansel ran faster toward the silent village.

Hansel stood at the bottom of the steps. He was panting, but he gasped it out. “You have to help them. Help them. They’re going to die, Nelka, Telek—”

Father Piotr raised his arm like he would strike the child. “Go home. Go back to Magda. Tell her to go into the woods. Run. Don’t let the sentry on the road see you. Get back to the hut and take Magda and Gretel to the secret place in the forest. Take them now. Run!”

Something in his eyes made Hansel turn and race back toward the forest. He slipped behind a house and then suddenly stopped. He couldn’t bear not seeing what was going to happen. Hansel turned back and crept from house to house in the dark of a moonless night.

Father Piotr didn’t see the small shape of the boy come up behind him. He walked down the street, not bothering to stay in the shadows himself. The soldiers knew that he visited the sick at night. He moved, lurching, almost as if he were drunk. He was glad the dogs had been shot. If the dogs had barked at him as he walked down the street, he might have lost his nerve.

Hansel followed Father Piotr and nearly called out, but now it all seemed very scary and serious. The boy followed, creeping, his mouth dry, watching for the sentries.

The house where the Brown Sister slept was near the far end of the village. It had a wooden porch that lay in shadows, and Father Piotr saw the soldier. He had been there since eight when the guard began for the night. At dawn he would be relieved.

Father Piotr smiled at the young soldier who didn’t stand when he saw it was the priest.

“You’re breaking the curfew, old man,” he said in bad Polish.

The soldier had only been shaving a few years. He was the boy whose arm was injured at the Russian front. The arm had healed, and he picked up enough Polish to be useful, so the Major kept him.

“Jolanta’s child is dying. Please let me go on,” Father Piotr whispered.

“No one is allowed on the street. Major’s orders. She’ll have to die without you.”

The priest sank down on the step as if exhausted. Thank God the boy spoke so quietly.

“Let an old man rest, my son.” He fumbled in his pocket and brought out the jar. “A sip of this will give me strength to get home.” He offered the jar to the boy.

“Against the rules to drink on guard duty.” The boy smiled, took the jar, and drank deeply. As the jar tipped up, Father Piotr took out the knife and hid it beside his knee.

Hansel, lying flat in the shadow of a house, saw the flash of metal. His legs began to shake, but he couldn’t stop watching.

When the sentry tipped the jar a second time, Father Piotr reached up with a stabbing slash, the full weight of his shoulder turned into the blow, and cut the pale throat that curved outward slightly and bobbed with the swallowing. The soldier made a bubbling noise, and the jar fell onto the mud beside the steps. That was the only noise except for the splash of blood on the wood.

Father Piotr held the boy so he wouldn’t fall while his blood pumped out, his hand over the young man’s mouth to hush the gurgling. The priest was soaked with the hot liquid, and the stench was all around them. The soldier was limp, the blood seeped slowly, and Father Piotr still held him.

I have to move, he thought, but he stayed very still with the boy in his arms, feeling the blood soak into his coat and wet his skin. He forgot to say a prayer over the dead body.

After what seemed to Hansel a long time, the priest stood and, as quietly as he could, let the soldier’s body bump down a step so he could be propped against the post that held the handrail at the bottom. If anyone saw the guard from down the street, he might think the boy was asleep.

Father Piotr climbed the stairs. The house had not been repaired before the Brown Sister moved in, and the policeman who had lived there before the Germans killed him never had a strong bolt. No one would rob the police.

If they put on a new bolt, she’ll scream before I can get in, the priest thought, but his shoulder crashing against the door ripped the bolt off at the screws where the wood was rotten. He was inside.

The woman struggled out of the dress she had been taking off, and that gave Father Piotr the second he needed. As she flung off the brown cloth, her arms up in the air, mouth open in surprise, he stepped to her and slashed at her throat.