Highlander - Donna Lettow [81]
Avram pulled a candle from his pack as they moved down the stairs and lit it. The flame burned brightly.
“Air’s breathable, at least,” MacLeod noted.
As they reached the main room of the shelter, the flickering light of the candle revealed a tragic tale. Thirty, maybe forty bodies, men and women, their bodies bloated and decomposing, lay dead on the dirt floor arranged as if sleeping. Only the horrifying grimaces etched in their faces bore witness to how slow and agonizing their deaths must have been, suffocated in the smoke that had poured in through their only source of air. Only as the building had cooled had the air through the ventilation shafts become breathable again, too late for those trapped in the bunker by the fire above.
Avram held the candle close to some of the ghoulish faces. Dr. Cohen, who had fought tirelessly throughout the war to save the sick and the dying, and in the end could not save himself. Mendik, the unit commander, and Jana, his wife of less than a year, locked together forever in one last embrace. Nahum, the cantor, whose voice would rise to God no more. Avram turned away as a light flared behind him.
In a jumble of tools and supplies that had been swept off a nearby shelf onto the floor, MacLeod had located more oil for the lantern that had once illuminated the malina. As Avram blew out his candle, MacLeod pointed out, “No weapons” The Nazis had indeed been through, stripped the bunker and its victims of weapons and whatever other valuables they took a fancy to, then left the bodies there to rot. “I’ll go topside and get the others.”
Avram looked at him in horror. “You don’t mean to leave them down here with all these bodies? You can’t be serious.”
MacLeod explained, “The Germans won’t look down here again. They’ll be safe here. The dead will protect them. I’ll try to prepare them for what they’re going to see, then bring them down.” He started up the stairs.
When MacLeod was gone, Avram turned back to the bodies of his friends. He knelt beside Mendik and Jana, entwined, and touched Mendik’s hand, stroked a lock of hair from Jana’s cheek. Softly. he began to sing over them. “El Male Rachamim, Thou who dwellest on high. Grant perfect rest beneath the sheltering wings of Thy presence, among the holy and pure who shine as the brightness of the firmament, onto the souls of these who have gone unto eternity.” A single tear drifted down Avram’s face. So much death he’d seen. So much. “May their repose be in Paradise. May the Master of Mercies enfold them under the cover of His wings forever, and may their souls be bound up in the bond of life eternal.” An eternal life denied to him. “May the Lord be their possession, and may their repose be peace.”
MacLeod returned, leading the others down the stairs, barely in time to hear the choked sob that broke Avram’s “Amen,” but by the time they’d made it to the bottom and into the room, Avram was all business once again. He handed his rifle and its remaining ammunition to Rubenstein, ignoring the shock registering on the fighter’s face as he took in the gruesome sight of the decomposing bodies. “You and Landau take the watch. We’ll be back as soon as we’ve met with Anielewicz and the others.” He quickly turned and started for the stairs. “C’mon, MacLeod. The dead can wait, but we can’t.”
Chapter Sixteen
Warsaw: May 8,1943
Their password was a stale one—it had been a couple of days since they’d last seen a courier from the Central Ghetto—but it gained them admission to the smugglers’ bunker beneath the apartment house at Mila 18 just before dawn. So far the building seemed miraculously untouched by flame or German shell. They were relieved to be off the streets before the German patrols returned in force.
Issachar met them at the bottom of the stairs as they entered. “Gentlemen!” he greeted them expansively, then put a beefy arm around MacLeod