Mila 18 - Leon Uris [233]
“This was a decision of your elders, Rabbi Solomon and Alex.”
Andrei walked to the boy slowly and put his hand on his shoulder. Stephan twisted away from him abruptly. “You lied to me, Uncle Andrei! I’ll get back to Warsaw myself!”
“I overestimated you, Stephan. I thought you were a good soldier. I guess you’re still a little boy.”
“I am a good soldier! I am as good as any runner in the ghetto!”
Andrei shrugged. “Not really. A good soldier knows how to obey orders even though they may not please him.”
“It is not a soldier’s assignment to hide in the woods like a coward.”
The boy was too clever to fool with games of words. Andrei had no alternative but to give him the hard facts in all their naked cruelty. Perhaps he should have done so earlier.
“Are you man enough to hear the truth? Can you take it, Stephan?”
“I can take it,” the boy answered firmly.
“Your momma is going to die. There is no way out for her.”
“No!”
“Truth, Stephan. Momma is going to die. She cannot leave those children and she cannot get them out. She is trapped and she is doomed.”
“Momma will live!”
“Only if you survive and preserve her memory.”
“I’ll go back and die with Momma!”
“I said are you man enough to hear the truth? I have not finished.”
Stephan’s eyes burned with an anger that told his uncle he had the courage to see it through. Andrei pointed for him to sit down on the sofa.
“Your sister and Wolf and I are in an impossible situation. The odds on reaching a star are better than the odds on any of us coming through. Do you think I lied to you when I told you I have a mission? It is the job of your mother and your sister and me to die for the honor of our family. It is your job to live for our honor. I say this with all my soul, Stephan. It is you who has the more difficult mission. You must go from this battle to fight your way into Palestine, and you will have to fight again for your freedom.”
Stephan looked up at his uncle, who was pleading for a sign of affection. The boy bit his lip hard to hold back the tears, but his eyes still showed anger.
“Stephan, one of us must get through this to show who we were and what we stood for. It is a big, big job, son! Only the best soldier can do it. You must live for ten thousand children killed in Treblinka and a thousand destroyed writers and rabbis and doctors. It’s a hell of a big mission.”
Stephan flung his arms around his uncle’s waist and buried his head on Andrei’s chest, and Andrei patted his head. “I’ll try,” Stephan wept.
Andrei comforted him and knelt beside him and held his tear-stained cheeks in his hands and winked. “You won’t let me down, Stephan ... I know it.”
Andrei removed the large gold ring which had been given to him as a member of the Polish Olympic team. “To seal the bargain,” he said.
Stephan looked at it in disbelief and tried to slip it on a finger. It was even too large for his thumb.
“Well now, don’t worry about that. Once you get at that woodcutter’s cottage and get fresh air and food and exercise, that damned ring will be too small for you. See if I’m not right.”
Stephan tried to smother his tears, but he could not. He wept convulsively. “I’ll try ... I’ll try ...”
“Come on now, let’s get you undressed. It’s been a long trip for any soldier.”
Stephan submitted as his uncle unbuttoned his shirt and trousers and lifted him in his arms and carried him to the sofa. He clutched the ring in his fist and buried his head in the pillow.
“Now there are parts of the orders which you will understand as a good soldier whose duty it is to survive. You’ve got to learn all this Hail Mary business, but it’s not so bad as you may think. You know Gabriela has been doing it all her life and she is a fine woman. We Jews have had to pray like that before—during the Inquisition, to fool the Spaniards—”
Andrei stopped short. The pillow was wet with the boy’s tears.
“Tell me about Batory.”
“Batory! Hah! Now there’s a horse for you. The blackest, fiercest animal in all of Poland. Only a few weeks ago I took him to England for the Grand National