How Huge the Night

chapter 8





Night





He could move through the woods without sound. He was the only one who could help them.

They had to trust him because they had no choice. They had a hundred schillings but he said fifty would be enough.

He wanted to help them.

He was from Gailitz, three kilometers north of the border, and he had done this many times. He was tall, with a short brown beard like Father’s. When he’d seen them on the road, he said, he’d known they were in need. They should hide the bedroll in one of their packs. Anyone could tell at a glance what they were trying to do. They were lucky it had been him.

He knew where the gaps were.

He moved quietly through the woods, and they followed, Niko’s crutches rustling in the leaves. “Maybe I’ll have to carry you, kid,” said Herr. They called him Herr: Mister. Names weren’t safe in this business, he said.

“I’m not tired, Herr,” said Niko in her gruff boy’s voice.

He gave her a little smile. “You’re doing great, herzerl.”

The sky above the mountains flamed scarlet and rose with the evening; the peaks were black against it, the mountains huge and dark on either side as they walked west. Herr stopped, and they turned south off the path. Their way was up the mountain.

They walked. The pines were tall and dark. High above, the fiery sky was fading. Herr moved in front of them without sound, then Niko setting her crutches carefully among the pine needles, and Gustav behind her. Her good leg and her arms ached. They had walked for hours. “Wait for me here,” Herr whispered, and was gone in the trees ahead. They must be near the gap. Only one on this side, he said; on the Italian side there were three. The sun had set, and the shadows around them were full of tiny sounds: chirrings and rustlings, small things hiding, hoping to live till morning. She shivered.

“Clear,” said a quiet voice by her ear. She gasped. “Shhh,” said Herr. “We’ll need to be very quiet now. That’s hard with crutches. I’m going to have to carry you.”

He lifted her onto his back, her hands gripping his shoulders, his hands under her knees. Gustav took her crutches. They moved between tall, black shadows. It was full dark. She huddled against Herr’s back, trying not to shake. The dull, barely visible gleam of a chain-link fence came at her out of the dark; a swath of blackness running up and down it, a rip. Herr crouched, not letting go of her; cold edges of broken chain-link scraped her arm, and she bit her lip. Then nothing, open air. They were through.

They walked on through the woods, up the mountain, in the night.

No one spoke; no one stopped moving. The night sounds of the forest were around them, a vast world full of tiny, frightened life. The call of an owl overhead. Herr walked, his footsteps firm and quiet, his hands under her knees.

It came on her slowly as they walked through the dark.

It was just a feeling. Just a strange, strange feeling. The way his hands held her under her knees, moving a little. Just a feeling. That something was wrong.

But he didn’t know she was a girl. So how—that couldn’t be what she was feeling … He was helping them. He was—and he didn’t know—

He’d called her herzerl. She hadn’t even noticed. Why hadn’t she noticed? Because she was a girl. You didn’t call boys that. Not boys her age. And she hadn’t said anything, she hadn’t—

So did he know? Had that been a test? But if she was wrong—to think such a thing, when he was helping them—he’d be so angry; she’d be so ashamed … But her gut twisted inside of her, shouted down her mind. Something is wrong. Something is wrong.

Something was wrong.

Her bound chest was against his back. Could he feel it? Feel the difference? She leaned back from him, just a little, in the dark. It strained her back, but she stayed that way. She didn’t know how long they’d been walking, how long they would go on. Hours, in the night. Her back hurt. But if she rested herself against him—no. No, he was helping them. Wasn’t he? His hands, the way they felt. Strange. Wrong. As if they weren’t there just to hold her up. As if they were there to feel.

And they were alone with him. In the woods. In no-man’s-land.

She felt sick.

They walked through the dark, and she began to cry, soundlessly, knowing. Every step; every minute; a year of fear and sickness, at him, at her own stupidity, her helplessness, the dark. Yes we can, she’d said. Oh Father, no. No. They were going downward. How long had they been going down? What was going to happen? Father.

Herr stopped. The hands lowered her to the ground. She stood, shaking. They were in an open place. There was faint moonlight. Gustav handed her the crutches.

“We’re near the second fence,” Herr murmured. “The hole in this one is smaller. I’ll go check if it’s clear, and then I’ll take you through one at a time. The other must stay quiet and not follow. This crossing is very dangerous.” In the faint light, he gave her a little smile that chilled her.

And then quietly, in the dark, he was gone. He was gone, and she knew what he meant to do. They had no time to lose.

“Gustav,” she whispered. “We have to get away from him. Now.”

“What?”

“Gustav. He knows. He’s … he’s going to hurt me.” Gustav was staring at her, the moonlight glinting in his eyes. He didn’t move. “We have to hide.”

“Niko, did he … do anything?”

“Not— Gustav, you have to trust me, Gustav, I know it!”

“Nina—” Herr might be here, he might be right behind them, silent in the dark. He might have heard that. Nina. Silence and darkness, all around. Tiny rustlings underfoot, and overhead the owl’s quiet wings. She set her crutches down to take a step. The rustle was loud and clear.

She ran.

Swung her crutches out and ran, crashing through the bushes, branches slashing her face, running, running because she wasn’t going to just stand there and let him catch her, she wasn’t, she’d rather die—footsteps behind her, oh tell me it’s Gustav, Gustav—something caught her crutch and she went down, her arm hitting a heavy branch, her cheek scraping bark, painfully—and she was on the ground, in the deep dark under a pine, and Gustav threw himself down beside her. They froze.

Silence. Darkness. He was coming for them, so quietly they could not hear him. He was coming for them with a knife. Then they did hear him, quiet footfalls, branches rustling and cracking where he put out his hands. Groping in the dark. He stepped right past them. He couldn’t see them. They didn’t breathe. He moved in the dark, searching, for hours. Years.

Then he stopped. He stopped silent, somewhere down behind them, and spoke.

“You little brat,” he said. “They’ll catch you, you know. Thought you could fool Herr, did you baby? But they’ll catch you. Maybe they’ll have a little fun with you, instead of me. Yeah. Yeah. A little fun.” Gustav gripped her hand so hard it hurt.

Then soft footsteps. Going. Going back the way they’d come. Then silence.

Silence. And silence. And waiting, holding Gustav’s hand, don’t move Gustav, he’s coming back down, he’s trying to lure us out, don’t move. It was dark. Fear was everywhere. Herr was everywhere, in the dark. She could still feel his hands. Hours. Years. Gustav stood. Branches rustling around him.

Silence. All around them.

Now for the fence. Hear, O Israel. Hear—oh hear—

And they were off together, crashing through the trees, down the mountain, to the border—where they would catch them, they would catch them, because how could two teenagers get through a border alone? Guards in front of them and a criminal behind? Three holes, he’d said. Three holes on the Italian side.

The chain-link loomed at them out of the dark. Tight-woven and intact. Niko turned left along it, away from the place Herr had checked; and they went along the fence in the dark as quietly as they could. Whole, and tight, and dully gleaming. Except there—there at the bottom—a scribble of darkness jutting up into the grid. A tree trying to grow up under it, buckling the chain-link slowly upward. A little space of darkness. She went down on her belly and slid. Her jacket caught, she heard a rip, she pushed at the earth with her good leg, and she was through. Gustav slid her crutches under, then the pack, then he was under and through and she had her crutches and they were gone. Gone down the mountain faster than she had ever gone before, breaking branches, pine needles whipping at her face, the night air burning in her lungs. Far up ahead through the trees was a light—a house, no border-guard post, but a farmhouse and the sharp scent of wood smoke from the chimney and a lighted window. She stopped. Her knees started to buckle. Gustav took her hand.

They were through. She had done what her father had told her to do. She had gotten herself and her brother out of Austria.

She knelt and vomited into the bushes.