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Authors: Aharon Appelfeld
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blueberries, and alongside the trunk of a tree, a strawberry patch. I even found a pear tree. If not for the cold at night, I would have slept more. At that time, I still didn’t have a clear notion of death. I’d already seen many dead people in the ghetto and in the camp, and I knew that a dead person doesn’t get back up on his feet and is eventually put in a pit. Yet I still didn’t grasp death as an end. I continued to expect my parents to come and collect me. This expectation, this tense waiting, stayed with me throughout the war, and it would return to overcome me whenever despair sunk its talons into me.
How many days was I in the forest? Perhaps till it started to rain. Living among the trees, I began to get colder as the days passed. There was no place to hide, and the wetness penetrated my flimsy clothes. Fortunately, I had been wearing little laced boots that my mother had bought me some days before the German invasion, but they had also begun to take on water and become heavy. So I had no choice but to try to find refuge in one of the peasant homes that were scattered over the ridge of the hill next to the forest. As it turned out, they were a considerable distance away. After a long walk, I stood before a hut whose roof was covered with a thick layer of straw. When I drew near the gate, some dogs sprang at me, and I only just managed to run away from them.
On rainy days, peasants don’t leave their huts. I stood in the rain, and I knew that it wouldn’t be long before I fell into one of the muddy ditches and disappeared. The thought that I might never see my parents again made my knees buckle, and I fell down upon them.
As despair gripped my body, I saw a low house on a neighboring hillside, and I immediately noticed that there were no dogs around it. I knocked on the door and waited in great fear. After a few moments, the door opened and a young woman stood in the doorway.
“What do you want, child?”
“I want to work,” I said.
She looked me up and down.
“Come in.”
She looked like a peasant woman, yet somehow different. She was wearing a green blouse with shell buttons. I spoke Ukrainian, which was the mother tongue of our maid, Victoria. I had loved her and her language. It didn’t surprise me that this woman reminded me of Victoria, even though there was no physical resemblance between them.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Instinct whispered to me not to reveal the truth, so I told her that I had been born in a place called Lutshintz, that my parents had been killed in an air raid, and that since then I had been wandering around. She stared at me, and for a moment it seemed as though she was about to grab my coat and slap my face. I was surprised that she didn’t.
“You’re not a thief?” she asked, with a penetrating look.
“No,” I said.
And so I came to stay with her. I did not know who she was or what my work would be. It was raining heavily, and I was just happy to be surrounded by walls, near a hearth that radiated warmth. The windows were small and were covered with bright peasant drapes. On the walls were many pictures cut out of magazines.
By the following day, I had already swept the house, washed the dishes, and peeled potatoes and beets. From then on, I would rise early and work till late at night.
Once a week I’d go to the village store to buy sugar, salt, sausage, and vodka for her. The walk from the hut to the store took an hour and a half. The path was green and filled with tall trees, and cattle grazed there.
Only two years before, I had had parents. Now my existence was no more than what I saw before me. Sometimes I managed to steal some moments for myself, and I would go and sit on the bank of a brook. From there my previous life seemed so far away, it was as if it had never been. Only at night, in my sleep, would I be next to my mother and father, in the yard or on the street. Awakening in the morning was a blow, like a slap in the
How many days was I in the forest? Perhaps till it started to rain. Living among the trees, I began to get colder as the days passed. There was no place to hide, and the wetness penetrated my flimsy clothes. Fortunately, I had been wearing little laced boots that my mother had bought me some days before the German invasion, but they had also begun to take on water and become heavy. So I had no choice but to try to find refuge in one of the peasant homes that were scattered over the ridge of the hill next to the forest. As it turned out, they were a considerable distance away. After a long walk, I stood before a hut whose roof was covered with a thick layer of straw. When I drew near the gate, some dogs sprang at me, and I only just managed to run away from them.
On rainy days, peasants don’t leave their huts. I stood in the rain, and I knew that it wouldn’t be long before I fell into one of the muddy ditches and disappeared. The thought that I might never see my parents again made my knees buckle, and I fell down upon them.
As despair gripped my body, I saw a low house on a neighboring hillside, and I immediately noticed that there were no dogs around it. I knocked on the door and waited in great fear. After a few moments, the door opened and a young woman stood in the doorway.
“What do you want, child?”
“I want to work,” I said.
She looked me up and down.
“Come in.”
She looked like a peasant woman, yet somehow different. She was wearing a green blouse with shell buttons. I spoke Ukrainian, which was the mother tongue of our maid, Victoria. I had loved her and her language. It didn’t surprise me that this woman reminded me of Victoria, even though there was no physical resemblance between them.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Instinct whispered to me not to reveal the truth, so I told her that I had been born in a place called Lutshintz, that my parents had been killed in an air raid, and that since then I had been wandering around. She stared at me, and for a moment it seemed as though she was about to grab my coat and slap my face. I was surprised that she didn’t.
“You’re not a thief?” she asked, with a penetrating look.
“No,” I said.
And so I came to stay with her. I did not know who she was or what my work would be. It was raining heavily, and I was just happy to be surrounded by walls, near a hearth that radiated warmth. The windows were small and were covered with bright peasant drapes. On the walls were many pictures cut out of magazines.
By the following day, I had already swept the house, washed the dishes, and peeled potatoes and beets. From then on, I would rise early and work till late at night.
Once a week I’d go to the village store to buy sugar, salt, sausage, and vodka for her. The walk from the hut to the store took an hour and a half. The path was green and filled with tall trees, and cattle grazed there.
Only two years before, I had had parents. Now my existence was no more than what I saw before me. Sometimes I managed to steal some moments for myself, and I would go and sit on the bank of a brook. From there my previous life seemed so far away, it was as if it had never been. Only at night, in my sleep, would I be next to my mother and father, in the yard or on the street. Awakening in the morning was a blow, like a slap in the
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