Death in Twilight (35 page)

Aaron didn’t tell the people who helped him much of his own story. Instead he told them about the dissolution of the ghetto. Of the starving children who had been shot by monsters in front of their own parents. Of the children who had watched their parents die.

The people he told nodded and said they understood, and that there had been atrocities in every town the Nazis had passed through.

No, they didn’t understand, but Aaron thought it was better for them that way. He wasn’t sure he could truly convey what he’d seen, felt, or heard, anyway.

During his months-long walk he heard about the final uprising in Miasto. It was a pale thing compared to what would later take place in Warsaw’s ghetto, but Aaron hoped that the few rusty guns he’d scrounged over the months had seen service.

He felt guilty that he hadn’t been there to fight. He could have found ammunition for the little gun he’d taken from the rabbi who thought he was the messiah. Even if he’d failed to do that, a broken bottle or a brick would kill someone just as well. If he’d taken out one German soldier, it would have left one fewer to kill Jews.

But in the end, Aaron hadn’t wanted to stay or fight. He knew that any victory the uprising could achieve would be pyrrhic, without a guarantee history would even hear of it.

And, somewhat to his surprise, he wanted to live.

So, he had slipped into his old room in the district on the day the rabbi died, gathered what little he had, and left the ghetto the way he’d come in. The basement corridors were only slightly darker than the night outside; the books in the central hall were just as burnt as when he’d left them.

No one bothered him as he walked up the stairs and onto the streets of the Aryan side. He was too numb to look furtive, so maybe the guards thought he belonged there. Maybe they were just looking the other way.

Aaron knew there would be other times and places to fight. He knew there was armed resistance scattered throughout Poland. If he found it, he would join. If he didn’t, he thought he might join the Soviets, though he wasn’t sure they were the lesser of any evils.

But that was a decision he could make later.

Ahead, Aaron saw the outline of the little house he’d come too far to find. At this distance there was no way to see the little sign that he knew was still above the door: Gradno.

Closer to the cottage, the dirt road turned to mud. With each step it became harder to pull his feet from the muck he’d created, until he couldn’t move at all.

In an instant, he became convinced that he would drown in the bodies and the blood and the terror. Drown in what he had done and what he’d been unable to do. Be swallowed up by he people he’d lost and those who he hadn’t saved. Die just as those he’d killed.

The moment passed, though not forever.

Aaron looked down and saw the dirt under his boots was now strewn with pebbles and dry. He began to walk again, toward the little cottage and, he hoped, Yelena.

About the author

 
J
ason Fields is a writer and journalist. He has worked for publications including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Associated Press.

His mother, Susan, was born to a Jewish family in Belgium in 1940, just as the Nazi’s were invading the country. She, along with her parents, fled across Europe, eventually catching a ship for the United States.

Jason grew up with stories of the family’s flight, and of the world and people that were left behind. This book is an attempt to honor them.

Jason lives with his wife and son in New York City, where he was born.