How Huge the Night

chapter 6





Gone





Nina had never been beautiful. A square, sturdy girl with long, frizzy, wavy hair down her back; the sort of girl who looked right in knee socks and a school skirt. Right; not beautiful. Even before what they all called the accident. Before the twisted leg.

Now, looking in the mirror in the tiny train bathroom, she was glad of that.

She made a believable boy, she thought. She ran her hands through her short, fuzzy cap of hair. With her chest bound, her square shoulders looked stocky, vaguely muscular. Like a sturdy boy who hadn’t lost all his puppy fat, an overgrown twelve-year-old. Gustav’s big younger brother. Great.

“Say hi to Niko,” she whispered to the mirror. “Hi, Niko.”

They were almost there. Villach, by the Italian border. She’d found a map, in the envelope with the tickets, showing the way to the synagogue. Not far from the station. The rabbi’s name. He’ll help you. I wrote him. He’s helped a lot of people across.

They would have had to cross illegally, anyway. They had no visas. They had no right. Their papers wouldn’t have helped with the big letters JEW on them. You’ll be safer in Italy. But Nina, if you ever have the chance—if there’s a way—get to France.

Niko heard the hiss of the brakes, felt the train begin to slow. She left the bathroom. Houses were going past the window, streets and alleys, people on bicycles, and behind them the mountains, huge and green. They would cross them. Somehow. The rabbi would know how.

Italiener Strasse, the papers said. Father had marked it on the map.

Italiener Strasse ran south from the station. The air was cold and bright. Father’s eiderdown swung behind her, a tight-wrapped bedroll hanging under her pack. South on Italiener Strasse, left at the traffic circle. Five doors down on the right, the synagogue would be painted white; there would be a sign. They should ask for Rabbi Hirsch and say they were youth volunteers to clean the synagogue. That was the password.

The synagogue was not painted white. It was painted green. Big splashes of sickly colored paint thrown at the door. Windows boarded up, and on the boards things scrawled in black. Pigs. Bloodsuckers. You Have Your Reward.

Niko and Gustav looked at each other. A strange feeling spread through Niko’s stomach.

“We have to knock,” said Gustav. “Don’t we?”

“Of course,” said Niko. “Looks like they need us. To clean.” Her mouth was completely dry. She was trying to hear the words in her head, the instructions. Come on, Father. If you can’t find the Rabbi—if you can’t find the Rabbi—

He’d never said that. He had never said anything like that.

She raised her hand and knocked. Silence. She knocked again. The silence grew longer, louder, huge; the silence was a pit, and she was looking down it. Father. Father …

A man was passing by. She had to do it. “Excuse me,” she said in the deepest voice she could. “Do you know where is Rabbi Hirsch?”

The man gave her and Gustav a long look. “I do know. And you’d be well advised to stay away from him. Hirsch has been arrested. I presume you two don’t have any interest in his—activities.”

Niko’s head was spinning. She opened her mouth. Gustav had come up behind her, and she heard his laugh, sudden; a nasty laugh like she’d never heard from him. “Nothing like that,” he said in a hard voice. “He owed our father money. Guess it’s too late now.”

“Yes,” said the man. “I think it is.”





“You were great, Gustav.”

“Nina.” He didn’t sound great. “What are we gonna do?”

“It’s Niko. Please, Gustav. You’ve got to call me Niko.”

“What are we gonna do? Did he tell you anything to do? If—y’know?”

No. This is it, Gustav. We’re on our own. She swallowed. “Yeah,” she said. “He told me some stuff.”

“What’d he tell you?”

“We’ve got to cross on our own.”

“How d’we do it?”

“He said there’s a fence.” He had said that. He’d said, Hirsch knows where the gaps are. “There’re gaps. Places you can get through. After that, you climb through the mountains. Hills. There’s another fence on the other side, and you have to find a way through again. There are lots of ways through. People do it all the time. That’s what he said.”

“Okay. Okay.” His eyes were wide, his lips pressed together, considering. “Are there guards or anything?”

“Yeah. Along the fences. We have to be really, really careful. We have to stay off the road and cross at night.”

He nodded slowly. She could see just a spark of light returning to his eyes. “You think we can do it, Nina? Niko, I mean. Niko.” He was looking at her, waiting for the word.

“Yes,” she said without looking at him. “Yes. We can.”