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  "I know what it's like," she said. "My parents are dead, too. That's why I was sent to my aunt and uncle in the village. They send their children to school in town and I have to watch the cows. And at night they make me serve supper and wash the dishes, and their daughter sticks out her tongue at me. They don't even take me to church on Sunday. I have to pasture the cows then, too. Do you go to church?"

  "No."

  "Everyone except me has a bed to sleep in," Marisza went on.

  "Where do you sleep?" Srulik asked.

  "In the barn."

  "I sleep in the sheep shed. When it's cold, I cuddle up with the sheep."

  "My aunt and uncle don't have sheep. Just cows, pigs, and chickens. Come on, I'll teach you how to catch little birds and cook them."

  "I know how to cook them," Srulik said. "I had a friend in the forest who hunted them with a slingshot."

  "What happened to him?"

  Srulik shrugged. "He's gone."

  Marisza undid her braids and plucked two long hairs from them. Laying them on the ground, she tied a small loop at the end of them. Then she made a slipknot by passing them through the loop.

  "See? You put a hair in the grass and tie the other end to a stem. Then you scatter crumbs. The birds are so dumb that they step into the loop. It tightens when they try to get away. You don't believe me? When we were little my big brother caught lots of birds like that—starlings, larks, finches, sparrows, birds I can't even name."

  "With hair from your braid?"

  She laughed.

  "I didn't have a braid then, stupid. How old are you?"

  "I guess nine."

  "I'm twelve," Marisza said proudly. "My brother used hair from the tail of our horse."

  "Where's your brother now?"

  "With my parents in Heaven. Now look and I'll show you. You know why I'm nice to you? Because you're an orphan like me."

  Srulik walked beside her. The dogs followed them. She laid the hairs in the grass, looped one end, tied the other to a stem, and scattered crumbs.

  "That's all there is to it," she said. "You can go back to your cows."

  Before long little birds came along to peck at the crumbs. One couldn't fly away. Marisza ran to it with Srulik on her heels. By the time he reached her, she was holding the bird in her hand. She opened the slipknot, freed it, and pocketed both hairs. "Get it?" she asked.

  Srulik got it. But where was he to get such long hairs? His farm had no horse.

  "Can you lend me a few hairs?" he asked.

  "Sure. But we can hunt together."

  They spent half the next day hunting birds. After they had caught enough of them, Marisza gathered wood and kindling for a fire. Srulik was surprised to see she had no matches.

  "I'll give you some," he said.

  "I have some," she told him. "But I'm going to show you a trick."

  She took a round piece of glass and beamed a ray of light with it on a dry leaf. Soon there was smoke. Then a little flame appeared. Marisza added some dry pine needles and the flame flared up.

  "How did you do that?" Srulik marveled.

  "It's the magnifying glass that does it, not me."

  "Let me try."

  "First let's cook the birds."

  She gave him a knife and he cut the birds' heads off and cleaned them. Marisza coated them with mud. Then she laid them in the coals and they sat down to wait.

  "Once I was with my brother in the forest and we found a knapsack," she told Srulik. "There were books in it and three pieces of glass like this. The books had pictures of butterflies and bugs. They must have belonged to a nature teacher. We didn't know what the glass was for. My father taught us things you can do with it. Making a fire is just one."

  Marisza showed Srulik how the glass made everything bigger: his fingertips, the grass, even a small ant.

  "Let me have it for a second."

  It was a wonder to him. He tried lighting a dry leaf like Marisza but couldn't do it.

  "Not like that. You have to focus the light in a little point."

  "What will you swap for it?"

  "What do you have?"

  He took out his butterfly pin. Marisza examined it and pinned it on her dress. She handed it back.

  "Nope."

  "But I didn't tell you yet. It shines in the dark. If you put it in the sun during the day, it gives back the sunlight during the night."

  "I'll take it home with me and see. If you're right, I'll swap."

  They took the cooked birds from the fire, rolled them in the grass, broke the clay, removed the little morsels, and sat down to eat. Srulik took out his water bottle. Marisza drank without touching it with her lips. When it was his turn, she said, "That's no way to drink. If you're sharing with someone, you don't let your lips touch. Don't you know that?"

  He didn't. She showed him how to do it. The meat and bread were a royal feast.

  "It's a lot of work," Marisza said. "But we don't have anything better to do and I love baked birds."

  "Me too," said Srulik.

  "I wish I could hunt grouse like the boys," Marisza said.

  "How do they hunt them?"

  "With slingshots."

  "Are they bigger?"

  "Sure. They're even bigger than a pigeon. I'll show you in the morning."

  "Can't you catch them with a hair?"

  "No. Not even with a horsehair. They're too strong."

  The next day she gave him the magnifying glass. "Your butterfly really shines at night," she said.

  She also brought him a big piece of sausage. "I stole it," she told him. "I'll split it with you if you'll play a game with me."

  Srulik agreed. "What's the game?"

  "Let's eat first."

  After they ate, Marisza led him to the footpath that ran between the meadow and the wheat field. They sat on the hard earth and she taught him to play jacks with stones. She was awfully good at it.

  "It's a girls' game," she said. "But what do you care?"

  Srulik tried flipping the stones in the air and catching them like Marisza. It was hard.

  "It takes time," she said. "If we play every day, you'll get better."

  A sudden breeze billowed her dress.

  "You're peeking!" she said. "That's dirty."

  "No, I wasn't. I couldn't help seeing."

  "You wouldn't have seen anything if I was rich."

  "Why not?"

  "Because then I'd wear panties. Now you'll have to take down your pants for me."

  Srulik agreed. Marisza examined him and said, "Yours is different from the other boys'."

  Srulik was frightened. He had forgotten that he mustn't take off his pants.

  "Don't tell anyone," he said.

  "I won't," Marisza promised.

  Some days she didn't want to hunt. She just wanted to lie in the sun. She would give Srulik some hairs and let him hunt by himself while she kept an eye on his cows and sheep. He caught some birds, made a fire, and cooked them.

  One day something strange happened to the fat cow. Although its udders had been swelling, Pani Nowek had said it wouldn't give milk until it calved. He wasn't sure what "calving" was. But now something was dropping from it. He was afraid that something was the matter and ran shouting to Marisza. She came to have a look and calmed him.

  "She's just calving, you dope. Can't you see?"

  Srulik couldn't believe his eyes when suddenly two little feet appeared. Marisza told him to grab hold of one of them. She seized the other and they began to pull. The cow bleated and panted. A mouth and muzzle appeared, and a minute later there was a head with eyes and ears. Srulik was flabbergasted. When the head was free, they gave a last pull and the baby calf popped out like a cork.

  "What do I do now?" Srulik asked worriedly. "How do I get her home?"

  "It's not a her, it's a him," Marisza said. "Don't worry. He'll walk by himself."

  The other two cows came to have a look. One tried licking the calf, but the mother chased it away. Soon the ca
lf struggled to its feet. It found its mother's teats and began to suck.

  Srulik couldn't take his eyes off it. He had never seen anything so exciting.

  "You never saw an animal give birth? Not even a dog or cat?"

  "No. I once saw a baby goat in Blonie, but I didn't see it being born."

  "You want to know something?"

  Srulik looked at her curiously.

  "You and I were born the same way."

  He burst out laughing. "That's crazy."

  "I'm telling you. That's why boys are made like you and girls like me."

  He could see she was serious. '

  "Do you know how babies get into their mothers' stomachs?"

  She told him.

  "You really are crazy," he said.

  "Didn't you ever see a dog mount a bitch? Or a billy goat do it with a goat? When Pani Nowak takes her cow to the stud bull, you'll believe me."

  "I know all that," Srulik said. "I saw dogs do it in Blonie. But people aren't dogs or cows."

  Marisza shrugged. "You'll understand when you're older. At first I didn't want to believe it either."

  ***

  Every Sunday, Pani Nowek put on her best clothes and went to church. Sometimes, on her way out, she looked at Srulik as if wondering whether to take him too. But Sunday followed Sunday and she never did. Sometimes neighbors dropped by after church. Although Srulik tried to hide when they came, they sometimes spied him in the yard.

  "I got him from my brother," the woman explained. "He's an orphan. His name is Jurek."

  Some of the visitors smiled at him. One, an old woman, gave him nasty looks. Once he heard her ask Pani Nowek, "Barbara, why don't you bring him to church? Maybe he needs to be baptized."

  "I'll talk to the priest," Pani Nowek said.

  The conversation worried Srulik.

  Something else worried him, too. And it was annoying. He had an itch that kept spreading. He didn't know if it was from dirt or lice. At first it was only on his hands. When he looked at his fingers, he saw what seemed like little white designs beneath the skin. Pani Nowek told him he had chiggers. It came, she said, from a tiny worm that burrowed into you.

  "There's a salve for it," she said. "I'll ask the neighbors."

  There wasn't enough time for her to get it, though.

  One evening Srulik came back from the pasture and brought the cows to the barn for milking. Suddenly the dogs barked wildly and ran toward the road. A vehicle was approaching.

  "The Germans are coming to confiscate livestock," Pani Nowek said angrily. "Run and hide in the storeroom. I'll shut the dogs up. Otherwise they'll shoot them."

  Srulik ran to the storeroom and Pani Nowek grabbed the dogs and dragged them into the house. An army truck drove into the yard with two German soldiers. They produced a list and took a sheep from the shed. Srulik watched through a crack in the wooden door. It was his favorite sheep. A soldier lifted it onto the truck while the other headed with the woman for the barn. Srulik heard him ask, "Where's the Jewish boy?"

  "I don't have any Jewish boy."

  "In the village they say you do," the soldier said.

  Srulik waited for them to enter the barn. Then he slipped from the storeroom, scaled the picket fence, and ran along the path leading past the potato field to the forest.

  Just then, the second soldier stepped out of the barn with a cow on a rope. The cow gave the rope a yank and broke loose. The German cursed and ran after it. As he did, he spied Srulik. At first, he began to chase him. But seeing that the boy had too much of a head start, he ran back toward the truck, shouting to the first soldier to start driving toward him. The two of them set out in hot pursuit. But Srulik was nowhere in sight.

  He wasn't in the forest yet. Hearing the truck, he knew he had no time to reach it. He left the path, threw himself down in the potato field, and crawled among the plants.

  The truck sped down the path and passed his hiding place. It reached some fallow ground between the field and the forest and stopped. A German jumped down, strode into the field, and began to search. He walked slowly, checking each row of potatoes. The driver switched off the engine and climbed onto the back of the truck to get a better view.

  Srulik kept crawling toward the forest. He could see the branches of the trees without having to raise his head. He would get as close as he could and make a dash for them. He tried to move carefully, without touching the plants, thankful for every breeze that stirred them all at once. Something was blocking his way. He raised his head a bit and saw a man staring at him. The man was lying on the ground too. His hair was matted and wild and his lined, ashen face was covered with a growth of beard. Srulik realized he was a Jew like himself. He kept crawling until he was close enough to whisper:

  "Get out of here! The Germans are after me."

  The man didn't answer. His eyes widened in astonishment. He held out his arms and whispered back:

  "Srulik..."

  "Papa?"

  Only now did he realize it was his father.

  "I thought you and Mama had been killed," his father whispered.

  "No."

  "Where is she?"

  "I don't know."

  They could hear the two Germans shouting to each other. One voice was far away. The other was closer.

  "Srulik, there's no time. I want you to remember what I'm going to tell you. You have to stay alive. You have to! Get someone to teach you how to act like a Christian, how to cross yourself and how to pray. Find a farmer you can stay with until the war ends. Always go to the poor people. They're more willing to help. And never swim in the river with other boys."

  "I know that."

  The German on the truck shouted to the German in the field. The German in the field was getting closer.

  "We have no time," his father said. "If they come after you with dogs, find water or a swamp to cross. That throws them off the trail. And the most important thing, Srulik," he said, talking fast, "is to forget your name. Wipe it from your memory."

  "I already have a Polish name," Srulik whispered. "It's Jurek."

  "Good. From now on your name is Jurek Staniak. You remember Pani Staniak from the grocery in Blonie?"

  "Yes, Papa."

  "What's your name?"

  "Jurek Staniak."

  "But even if you forget everything—even if you forget me and Mama—never forget that you're a Jew."

  "I won't, Papa."

  His father stopped to think if he had left anything out. He said, "Always run to the forest. The Germans stay out of it because they're afraid of the partisans."

  He listened to the footsteps of the approaching soldier. Then he pulled Srulik toward him, grasped his head with both hands, and kissed him while groaning like a wounded animal.

  "Srulik, I'm going to run. The Germans will chase me. Count to ten slowly. Slowly, don't forget! Then run to the forest."

  "All right, Papa."

  His father jumped up and started to run. How much he had changed! The powerful man who could once lift a heavy sack of flour was now a shadow of himself. The two Germans let out a shout. Srulik forced himself to count, even though he wanted to run too. He counted slowly, as in a game of hide-and-seek. He reached ten, coiled himself, and sprang to his feet. From the corner of his eye he saw the two Germans chasing his father in the direction of the village. As fast as he could he ran the other way, toward the forest. Two shots rang out. Then another. He didn't turn to look. He ran until he was in the forest.

  That night he couldn't fall asleep. Stretched out on the broad branch of a tree with his eyes shut, he kept seeing the potato field and his father. Now he saw every detail of his father's face. It had changed back again into the old face that he knew. He could concentrate on his father's words without having to hear the shouts of the Germans. You have to stay alive, Srulik. Get someone to teach you how to act like a Christian. Learn how to cross yourself. Always go to the poor people. Yes, Papa. Water throws the dogs off your trail. Forget your old name. You're J
urek Staniak. But even if you forget me and Mama, never forget that you're a Jew. One two three four five six seven eight nine ten.

  He fell asleep before hearing the shots, but they echoed in his dreams all night long. He kept running and running without looking back, the real face of his father in front of him.

  7. She's Going to Cook Me

  Autumn came. The forest had a new look. The tree leaves turned yellow and began to fall. It grew harder to find berries to eat. He could still climb the trees for walnuts, but their shells were hard and had to be cracked with a stone. There were more and more mushrooms. He didn't recognize most of them and ate only the ones he knew from Blonie. The nice days were fewer. He was wet most of the time. Sometimes, as dusk approached, he slipped from the forest to steal food from a village. But the farmers, perhaps because of the approaching winter, now kept nearly everything under lock and key. Often, when he woke in the morning, the puddles of rainwater had a thin layer of ice. It was hard to pull the last carrots and radishes in the vegetable gardens from the frozen earth. The tomatoes and cucumbers were long gone. He was hungry and freezing.

  Skirting a village one day, he saw an elderly farmer chopping wood, his jacket hanging on a fence post. After a while, the farmer put down his ax and entered his house. Srulik grabbed the jacket and ran. It was made of thick wool and had a lining. He shortened the sleeves with his piece of glass, found some rope, picked it apart, and tied the pieces of sleeve to his feet with the strands.

  Sometimes he tried making a fire with Marisza's magnifying glass. It rarely worked. Either the sun didn't stay out long enough, or else it was too wet.

  One night it began to snow. It was still snowing in the morning. Shivering from the cold, Srulik left the forest and went to look for work. It snowed all day. He plodded through the snow for hours until toward evening he reached a village half buried beneath a white blanket. A cold wind was blowing. There wasn't a soul in sight, not even a dog. Snow covered the houses, the thatch roofs, the bare treetops, the empty wagons in the farmyards, the wells and the fences. Narrow paths had been cleared by the doors of the houses. Srulik walked in the tracks of footprints that ran through the village. A pale light shone in some windows. He entered a farmyard, went to the hayloft, and fell asleep bundled in his jacket. His sleep was fitful. Now and then he awoke, shivering and feverish. He dreamed that he and his mother were in the clutches of the Gestapo. A stranger was pretending to be his father. He awoke in a fright. I'm sick, he thought. Always go to the poor people, Srulik, they're more willing to help. Yes, Papa.