Mila 18 - Leon Uris [206]
“No, Simon, no.”
“Don’t humor me, Andrei. I was the man who was planning to send our companies through the sewers to escape. You were the one who fired the shot—and I pointed my pistol at your heart to stop you.”
“Don’t you think I know how torn up you are to have to give an order that will turn us into a suicide force?” Andrei said.
“You don’t understand,” Simon snapped, standing up abruptly with his back to Andrei. “I aimed that pistol at your heart because I was afraid to go down on the street. I was afraid, and I’ll be afraid again.”
“You were afraid, but you went anyhow, and while I was in a blind rage you brought them to safety, because when the moment was needed you were calm and deliberate, as a good commander must be.” Andrei walked up behind him and put his hand on Simon’s shoulder. “I had a lot of time to think while we were up in the rafters. I found answers to many questions. I guess when one is close to his Maker many perplexing problems suddenly become amazingly clear and simple. Who fights what kind of war? The quiet courage it took to be a soldier like Ervin Rosenblum. Simon ... I ... I’m no damned good for anything but leading cavalry charges.”
“Perhaps,” Simon whispered, “if you stuck close by me to knock me flat on my back ...”
“I don’t think it will be necessary again.”
“There were too many mistakes today,” Simon said with a quick surge of excitement. “We have to have scouts in observation posts so that nothing can get into the ghetto before we can move our companies into battle position.”
Andrei nodded in agreement.
“And we have to teach them that the cardinal rule is to pick up enemy weapons and strip their uniforms. We missed on that today.”
Andrei nodded again and smiled slightly at the knowledge that Simon was again in full control and eager.
“I’m thinking. We should find a new bunker close to the central area for a command post.” Simon stopped abruptly, watching Andrei look at the volume of the journal and Ervin’s glasses. “Andrei, what made you go into the streets?”
“I don’t know. Just that this was the moment which could not pass. It wasn’t even seeing my sister. It was Alex. I couldn’t let them take Alexander Brandel to the Umschlagplatz.” Andrei picked up the book. “So damned much time has gone by, and Alex and I have barely talked to each other. I wish I knew how to apologize.”
“Why don’t you try?”
“What can I say for being a damned fool?”
“Come,” Simon said.
Andrei trailed him haltingly out of the cell and across the narrow passageway to the opposite cell. Simon pulled back the sack curtain. The three of them were there. Sylvia with her little boy on her lap. Moses Brandel at the age of four was disciplined to the silence of underground living; pale, scrawny from the lack of sun and air and nourishment. Alexander gazed emptily at the floor in much the same way as he had since the children were taken to the Umschlagplatz. Sylvia stood and put the boy down. She blocked Andrei’s way, but Simon nodded for her to leave the room. She looked from Andrei to Alex, then took the child and led him out.
Andrei hulked helplessly over the dejected man, groping for words. He knelt slowly beside Alex. Alex turned his face, recognized Andrei and hung his head.
“I ... uh ... wanted to give you this,” Andrei said, showing the book. “They ... uh ... were lucky enough to salvage it from Mila 19.”
Alex did not answer.
“I think that—well, with Ervin gone, you’ll want to take up the work again.”
Again, nothing.
“It’s very important that the archives be continued and—Look, I know something I didn’t know. What I mean to say is, it takes many kinds of men and many kinds of battles to fight a war.”
Andrei reached out and touched his shoulder, but Alex shrank away.
“Please look at me, Alex,” Andrei whispered. “You must hear what I’m saying. Alex, once I told you that the Brandel journal would never take the place of the Seventh Ulany Brigade, and you answered that truth is a weapon worth a thousand armies. I never understood that till now.