How Huge the Night

chapter 18





Stones





The wagons were stopping, but it was before mid morning. The children were excited, jumping up and down and looking out the windows, calling out “Sondrio! Sondrio!” They saw a stream and a little wood, and a town in the distance. It was lovely.

Marita stepped out of the wagon and looked around with an air of great pleasure and set to work. Before five minutes were gone, she’d laid a fire, strung a clothesline between two trees, and was sorting through an enormous pile of laundry. Niko had enough Italian now to understand her when she called to them: “Gustav! Niko! Go into town for me, would you, and tell me what you see?”

“Yes, Marita,” called Niko. “What … uh … do we see?”

“If the people are friendly. The children like this campsite. I hope that we can stay. Here, take some bread. Be back by noon. Go!”

They took the path to town slowly. The sun was shining, and the air was light, almost warm; the wheat fields were furred with pale green shoots against the dark earth. They were walking a road together with the sun on their shoulders, neither cold nor hungry nor afraid. They walked, saying nothing. Happy. They sat on the edge of the road and ate, and then went on.

They came to a country lane between farmhouses. Children squatted on the dusty ground playing with apricot stones. A bright-eyed boy, a kid with an apricot stone in his hand, looked up at the strangers, pointed, and yelled.

And then threw the stone.

It hit Niko on the arm and stung like a bee, and she stared at the boy. Bright black eyes full of anger and scorn—the children were all shouting, another stone hit her. “Let’s get out of here,” muttered Gustav, and Niko turned, swung her crutches out and ran. An apricot pit bit the back of her neck. You got her, she thought bitterly. Happy, Friedrich? You’ve got apprentices.

Children. Boys. Even Friedrich. Evil boys become evil men. Why do you let them?

“Even here,” she said bitterly.

“They got no idea we’re Jewish, Niko. Don’t you know that word? Zingaros?”

She looked up sharply. She hadn’t caught it. “Gypsies?” she said. “Gustav—Marita—go back and warn them, run!”

“I’m not leaving you, Ni— Niko—”

“Then keep up!” She swung her crutches and began to run, fast. And she could run—Friedrich hadn’t taken that from her—she could run in the dark, crashing through the woods, evil behind her, always, always there … As she turned the last corner, out of breath, a sharp stitch in her side, she saw that she was too late.

The clothesline was broken, a pair of pants still hanging from it; underneath, a white shirt trampled in the dirt. Cook fires smoldering, a black pot lying on its side. Where the wagons had been, deep wheel-ruts in the mud. She could see it—the women ripping laundry off the lines, snatching up their children, the men whipping the wild-eyed horses into a gallop, pulling out just in time ahead of— What? Who? Had they come with guns? Oh Marita.

Marita standing at the wagon’s window, grief in her eyes, looking back at the town. Where she had lost two children. And they had lost her.

And everything. This time. They had nothing but the clothes on their backs; not even food.

It was so quiet here.

Marita’s voice singing in Romany, shouting orders to her children— never again. She mustn’t let Gustav see her cry.

“Nina. It’ll be okay. Look, there’s some soup in this pot that didn’t all spill—there’s pants, and a shirt, and I bet there’s a blanket or two if we look around, and it’s almost spring, Nina—”

“Niko,” she said harshly, and covered her mouth with her hand. She sank down on the ground, shaking her head, her throat tight with tears.

“Niko,” whispered Gustav. “We can make it, Niko.” He knelt by her, looking into her face. “We can do it again, like in the mountains. I’ll work at farms, and if I can’t find work, we’ll steal milk and eggs, and God will forgive us because we’re hungry. And then we’ll find a town—I’ll find another house like in Trento. We’ll make it. We’ll make a life for ourselves, Niko.”

She looked at him, and saw that he believed it.