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One day, the voice said, her past will return—and it will alter the course of many lives, perhaps even taking hers. The only safe place is the forest.
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“Burning books?” Yona blinked at him a few times. “But why would anyone do such a thing?” “I suppose they don’t believe people should be able to read books they don’t agree with, written by people they don’t agree with.”
“But maybe great risk is the only way to a better life,” Yona said. “Isn’t that what you’ve told me about our existence?
“We are all interconnected, Yona. You know that by now. Once fates intertwine, they are forever linked. Lives are circles spinning across the world, and when they’re meant to intersect again, they do. There’s nothing we can do to stop it.”
Humans had a responsibility to do more than just protect themselves. In the face of evil, they were compelled to save each other. It was the only way mankind could survive.
Aleksander shook his head in astonishment. “Yona, you’re a gift from God.” “No.” She looked away. “I am just trying to do what is right.”
“But maybe it shouldn’t be. Perhaps they need only know whether you are kind, decent, capable, well-intentioned. It is within your own heart that you find God. And we all walk our own path toward him. Don’t we?”
But how can I—how can anyone—protect them from a world that hates them because of what’s in their blood, because of what’s in their hearts?”
If they convince themselves that we are not even worthy of the air we breathe, then it’s easier to get rid of us, isn’t it?”
“No. We all came from comfortable lives in the villages outside the forest. We were tailors and bookkeepers, shop owners and students. None of us could have imagined a day that our homes would be gone, and we’d be running for our lives into the depths of a forest we don’t know at all.”
‘If I let you take the gun,’ he said, ‘you must promise me that you will survive and tell stories of the things you have seen. That you won’t let your family’s deaths go unavenged.’
The Germans, they don’t just wipe out our people. They wipe out our future.
When we find happiness, especially where we didn’t expect to, we must hold it close with all our might, don’t you think?”
It was the first time in her life she had cared for someone enough to worry about such a loss; she had always known that Jerusza would take care of herself. But now she understood that love left one vulnerable. It was a feeling she didn’t like.
“They stole everything, Yona. Everything. How can that ever be forgiven? How can I carry anything but hate in my heart for the people who hate me, who hate my people enough to murder us all?”
Maybe we can’t rid ourselves of the things that torture us. Perhaps all we can do is move through them the best we can.”
The existing group was no more entitled to survival than the newcomers. Weren’t they all obligated to help each other?
People should always help others in need; there was no other way for the human race to survive.
“What would you have done without me? You are an intellectual, Aleksander. A bookkeeper. You said it yourself; you don’t know these woods. Would you have known what foods could be stored for winter? How to hunt or fish when the animals became scarcer? How to hide? How to stay warm in the winter? How to build safe homes in the earth?” She hated to bring it up, but the fact was, he’d only survived because she had offered help, besa. Now it was his turn to do the same.
“What matters is what’s in your heart, I think, and that’s so much more complex and personal than simply how you worship God. There’s a farmer I know, Christian as they come, wears a big cross around his neck, has a brother who’s a priest. And when the Germans came, he sheltered twenty Jews in his barn, and another five in his basement, without thinking twice. He helped because help was needed, and he couldn’t turn his back on his fellow man. He was family.”
“Every time a good soul dies, I think the world gets a little darker.”
In the times of greatest darkness, the light always shines through, because there are people who stand up to do brave, decent things. What I am trying to say, Yona, is that in moments like this, it doesn’t matter what you were born to be. It matters what you choose to become.”
It’s the cracks in us that make us who we are, and you… you are stronger than anyone I have ever met, I think.
“I am a dove, Zus.” She held up her wrist, which was throbbing with purpose now, warning her. “And doves are meant to fly.”
“Some of those soldiers probably believe themselves to be good Christians. But shooting an innocent family… How could anyone believe that God approves of that? I’ve been searching my soul about it, and I’m no closer to an answer than I was the day they arrived.”
Was faith futile in times like these? Where was God in all of this, in this world where people starved to death or perished at the hands of cruel and heartless men? Where was God when neighbors turned against each other?
“You can only do your part. You can do your best to strike a match in the darkness, to light the way.
“Thank you for bringing her here. But you cannot save everyone all by yourself. Trust me to do my part.”
Lives are circles spinning across the world, and when they’re meant to intersect again, they do
“But they have no right to survival, Inge,” he said after a long pause. “Who are you to decide such a thing?” she demanded.
“I realize you think I’m cruel. But I hope that once you get to know me again, you will realize that I am only doing what I need to.” To Yona’s surprise, the words brought some comfort, for she, too, had things she needed to do, things that would hurt him. “I know you believe that.”
He cleared his throat. “You have nothing to apologize for. You were a victim, as was I.” He paused to take another bite, and for a moment, though the space between them was filled with sadness and regret, there was a sliver of understanding there, too, a bridge connecting them at long last.
“It’s Yona,” she said softly. “My name is Yona now.” Marya scowled. “You think you can escape who you were born to be? None of us can. Can’t you see that?”
The universe is always in balance, she said. Summer and winter. Day and night. Sustenance and poison. Good and evil. To know the light, you must also know the darkness.
It’s the cracks in us that make us who we are, Zus had said, and perhaps he’d been right. When a linden tree broke, it often grew back, stronger and more beautiful in its damaged places. What if the same was true for man?
“It has been many months since we’ve fully seen the stars,” he said, and the group murmured their assent. “You can hardly make them out above the trees. They disappear deep in the forest, don’t they?” “So do we, if we’re lucky,” Moshe said, and a few of the others laughed. “Yes,” Leon said, tapping his chest, where once upon a time, the star of David had marked him as a lesser citizen, as a target for elimination. But the forest knew no difference when it came to race, religion, or gender; it smiled and frowned upon all of them in equal measure, sometimes providing protection, sometimes peril.
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“I have never known what it felt like to have a home. And though we move often—” “Home is not a place, but the people you choose to love,” he said, finishing the thought she hadn’t quite known how to put into words.
“I’m broken, too. But sometimes it’s the jagged edges that allow us to fit together. Sometimes it’s the breaks that make us strong.”
“Because it is no longer enough to simply survive. How long are we supposed to go on like this? Our bodies may be enduring, but what about our souls? What about our pride? What about the things that make us who we are beyond our flesh and bone?”
“We all come into this world with our fate unwritten, Yona. Your identity isn’t determined by your birth. All that matters is what we make ourselves into, what we choose to do with our lives. You are no more a Nazi than I am a creature from outer space who flies among the stars.”
The only thing that remained was the only thing that mattered: love—the kind that could be found in the darkness when all pretenses had disappeared, the kind born of pain and despair and hope, the kind that was a shelter in the storm.
