How Huge the Night

chapter 32





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Gustav had never been so afraid.

My sister is dying.

She was cold when he touched her. Heavy and cold. She lay on Lorenzo’s blanket, not moving, looking up at the bare flickering bulb. When she wasn’t cold, she was far too hot, feverish, talking strange things like she had in Trento when he went to the Gypsies. There were no Gypsies here. Only the soup-kitchen people, who let him wash bowls for a cup of milk a day. He gave it to Niko, but she said she wasn’t hungry. It took him an hour every day to make her drink it, make her eat her share of soup. She said she wasn’t hungry. He could see her bones.

“Niko. Eat.”

“Gustav, I’m telling you the truth. I can’t eat. I’m not hungry at all. It’s like … like I’ve gone on past hunger. Left it behind me. It’s just gone.”

“Niko. No.” No. He tried to force the spoon into her mouth. Soup spilled down her chin. Something broke in his chest—his hand jerked, and he flung the spoon hard against the wall. He wanted to strike her.

She just lay there. Not looking at him. Slowly, she closed her eyes.





She felt so still. So heavy and still. She didn’t feel hunger. She didn’t feel anything except the stillness. The letting go. She wished Gustav would eat the soup. Drink the milk. She understood her father now. His fierce desire for her and Gustav to get out, to live. It’s only Gustav now, Father. He’ll live for you. He’s a fighter, Father. I was a fighter. But I’m done.

She didn’t really think there would be anything, after. She didn’t really think there was a God. Death the thief, she had thought once, but it didn’t seem that way anymore. There would be darkness; it wouldn’t hurt. If you didn’t exist, you couldn’t hurt.

And if there is, her father had said. And if there is anything after—will I see you, Father? What will you say? For having sent your daughter to her death for a dream of safety? What will I say to you, for having lied to your son and led him into danger. Father. Father.

“Gustav. I have to tell you something.”

He was kneeling over her. “Niko? How do you feel?”

“Gustav. I lied to you.”

“You feel too hot, Niko …”

“I lied to you. Before the border. When we couldn’t find the rabbi. I said Father’d told me what to do if the rabbi was gone. He didn’t tell me a thing, Gustav. I’m sorry.”

Gustav’s face went still. “Nina. Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I’m going to die.”

His eyes were wide. “Nina. No.”

“I’m not getting better. I’m getting worse. Gustav, I’m so sorry—I don’t know how you’ll find a way to bury me, here.” She stopped. A boy with a suitcase was standing by the entrance to the toilets, looking at her.

“Niko!” Gustav’s eyes were fierce. “Don’t you dare think like that, don’t you—”

“Sh, Gustav. There’s someone listening. He might think we’re German too.”

The boy was gone. Gustav’s head was in his hands. Above her, the light of the bare bulb flickered and dimmed, and she watched it; the last light she would ever see. She heard with a detached ear the shallowness of her breathing. Not long now. Days.





Voices woke her. Gustav, a strange voice speaking Yiddish. The boy with the suitcase, sitting on the floor beside Gustav. Talking.

“My train leaves in the morning—at eight. I could spend the night here with you. Will your brother be able to make it onto the train?” What was he talking about?

“Niko,” said Gustav. “This is Samuel Rozengard from Grenoble. We have a plan.”





He had heard them talk about her dying. He had thought about it for an hour, and come back.

He was on his way to boarding school in a little town in the hills. He would sleep here with them tonight instead of in a hotel and use the money to buy them tickets. To this town, where there was food. Tickets out of here.

He reached into his shoulder bag, and brought out something round, blotched in gold and red. It took her a moment to recognize it. A peach.

“We have a tree in our backyard. This one is for you.”

She stared at it. Its unbelievable color. In this dim place, it glowed like summer, like the sun. He put it in her hand. It was round, and heavy as life.

She couldn’t. He wanted her to live, stand up, get on a train. She couldn’t even face crawling to the toilets. He didn’t understand how tired she was. The time comes, Gustav. It comes. When you can’t load all that hope and fear onto your back again, and keep walking. When you have to put it down. She would never love a boy, she would never read a book again, or sit at a table and eat. She had accepted it. She sat leaning against the wall where Gustav had propped her, looking at the peach cradled in her hand, and did not move.

“Niko. Eat.” Samuel was gone. Gustav was looking at her.

“I can’t do it. I can’t do any of it. Gustav, it’s too late for me, I’ll die on the way—Gustav, you should keep the tickets, wait a few days, you can go on your own …” She pulled feebly away from the anger that swept out from his eyes like a blow. He spoke in a low and furious voice.

“You are getting on that train if I have to drag you.”

“We should never have left home. Father was— Gustav … Gustav, Uncle Yakov was right …”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Gustav hissed. “We left. We’re here. We’re alive. We are—both—still—alive. Now you eat that peach or I will hit you.”

“Gustav.”

“So help me I will.”

He wouldn’t. She knew he wouldn’t. He was beginning to cry. His eyes red, his mouth open, twisted, a wail without sound. She was doing this to him. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t. To turn around like that in an instant—and live …

“Gustav, just give me time. I need … a little time. I need to sleep …”

His red eyes held her, hard. He was afraid she would die in the night. She slid down against the wall to the ground and lay on the blanket, exhausted. The room was getting dark. The last thing she saw was the peach. He had put it by her head.





The smell of it woke her in the night.

She opened her eyes, and it was there, filling her vision: one perfect peach, its deep red blush glowing like a jewel against the grimy floor beyond. It smelled like life. Her stomach cramped with a hunger she had forgotten.

Beyond the peach lay Gustav’s sleeping face, his mouth open, slack with weariness. He was tired too. And here she was asking him to go on alone.

She’d just take a little bite.

Sweet. So sweet. She had forgotten, she had never known, that such sweetness existed; sweet as sunlight on grass, as a morning when you wake into the light knowing all is well. Sweet as everything she had lost.

She licked her fingers. Took another bite. Another. Her teeth met in the tender flesh, the richness of life in her mouth. She swallowed, and tears sprang to her eyes.

Words rose in her mind, words she had heard Uncle Yakov say at Shabbat dinners with the family: Blessed art thou, O God, who brings forth bread from the earth. And peaches, O God. Blessed art thou, O God, who brings forth peaches from the earth, who lets us lick the juice of life from our fingers in the hour before we die.