How Huge the Night

chapter 4





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Death came for Father in the night.

That was how she thought of it—could not help thinking of it—that something had come and taken him. She hadn’t known. He’d been the same as ever when she went to bed. But this morning—She could feel the stillness of his body even from the doorway, even in the dark, and her throat tightened. She tried to keep her hand from shaking as she laid it on his heart to feel for the pulse; his flesh was cold, and for a moment, raw terror touched her.

Death has come, the stranger. Death, the thief.

But as the words rose in her mind, she was already turning away from him and into action. There was only one way to love him now. Promise you’ll do everything I said.

I want you to leave the instant I die. Take my eiderdown. Unlock the drawer. Take the tickets and the money, put my will and the first letter on the kitchen table. Mail the second letter. Uncle Yakov will get it within the day and come. He’ll bury me. Let the dead bury the dead. But you—get out of Austria while you still can. Go to the station, and get on that train.

She had the eiderdown off him and rolled up and the papers out of the drawer, and she was down the stairs before she had time to think, to tell her mind in so many words what had happened. Then she was shaking Gustav, whispering. “Gustav. Gustav. It’s time.”

She couldn’t go up to him again. She knew she should go up with Gustav, kiss Father on the forehead, say goodbye; but she could not. If she let herself do that—if she let herself cry—no. She had to do everything he’d said. Check through the packs, put in the money, the tickets, the letter; put the will on the table with her books and her mother’s painting—the only thing she had from her … Please give these things to Heide Müller at my school, and tell her to keep them for me. Do not worry about us. God will take care of us. She hadn’t written that to please Uncle Yakov. It was true.

“There is no God, most likely,” Father had told her once, when he was healthy and strong. “And if there is—” He’d stopped, his eyes very sad, and hadn’t finished the sentence, even when she asked. But she couldn’t believe like him, she couldn’t help it. Somehow there just had to be a God. Especially now. Especially—she turned sharply from the letter, to the window; no sign of dawn in the sky. Oh Gustav, come down. She began to check through the packs again.

He came down. His eyes were huge in the darkness, looking at her. She held out his pack to him, and he took it. “Are you ready?”

He nodded.

They crept down the stairs and through the dark clutter of the workshop to the back door; Nina unlocked it, and stopped, her heart beating fast. They would walk out this door into the world. Alone. Only God to protect them. “Hear, O Israel,” she heard herself murmur, and stopped. She felt Gustav’s hand seeking hers, and took it and held it tight; and he joined in. “Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God”—they whispered the Sh’ma into the stillness—“the Lord is one.” Hear, O God. Hear us, help us, oh help.

Together they slipped out the door into the dark.