There was a long silence, and then Luc finally spoke again in a whisper. “Did I ever tell you Claire and I were expecting another child when I was arrested?” he asked.
He never had. “Really?”
“I wonder if it was a boy or a girl,” Luc said so softly that Jacob could barely hear him.
Then he closed his eyes.
– – –
Abby Cohen sat chained in a cell, all alone, no other prisoners in sight.
They had not tortured her yet. Not physically, at least. They had not yet beaten her or cut off her fingers or gouged out her eyes.
They had, of course, shot a friend of hers in the head right in front of her. They had put her in isolation, unable to walk, unable to move about, unable to see or converse with anyone. They had taken away Jacob’s journal before she had had the chance to read his poems, let alone remember them or recite them.
Maybe Von Strassen knew her better than anyone else. Cutting off her contact with people was like cutting off her supply of oxygen. She wasn’t suffering physically, but she was dying all the same. And for what? How much longer could it possibly take for the Gestapo to determine that she was lying? Then what was going to happen? Were they going to kill her, or were they going to make the suffering last forever?
She tried not to think about what Von Strassen and Hoess had done to Max. It was too much to bear. She tried instead to think of Jacob and Luc. Would she ever see them again? Would they really come back for her, for all of them?
That was too much to hope for, she decided. She recalibrated her thoughts, narrowed her focus a bit. Were Jacob and Luc free? Were they safe? If so, where were they now? How were they doing? Had they opened their gifts?
She would have given anything to see their faces.
94
As evening fell, Jacob went out into the woods to relieve himself.
When he had finished and was returning to the shack, he came back up the dirt trail, walked around a bend, and stopped dead in his tracks and gasped.
Standing on the trail ahead of him, not ten yards away, was a young boy.
“Who are you?” the boy asked, as startled as Jacob was.
It took Jacob a few seconds to recover. He stared at the boy, who was wearing muddy trousers, work boots, and a red flannel shirt over a gray T-shirt. He had a knapsack slung over his back and was carrying a fishing pole in one hand and a tackle box in the other. He wasn’t carrying a rifle, thank goodness, but Jacob knew instantly the boy wasn’t out in the wilderness alone.
“What are you doing here?” he replied, trying to give his voice a tone of authority that might scare the boy off.
“Just walking with my papa,” the boy said.
“Where is he?” Jacob demanded.
“I’m sure he’ll be along in a few minutes, mister, so please don’t do anything to hurt me.”
Jacob thought for a moment, and then, without saying another word, he began running. He ran right past the boy, no doubt giving him a terrible fright, and back to the cabin.
That was it. They’d been blown. They couldn’t stay there another minute. A man with a rifle and no doubt a whole lot of ammunition was on his way.
Jacob burst into the shack. He grabbed the backpack, tossed everything they had into it, and put it on. Then he reached down, lifted Luc over his back, and began running down the trail, away from the boy and his father, toward the town with the house he had robbed.
Suddenly a gunshot rang out in the night. Then another. Jacob could feel the bullets whizzing by his head, but he didn’t look back. He just kept running down the path, over rocks, around trees, careful not to get entangled in roots or branches.
Unfortunately, Luc was bigger and heavier than he’d realized, and the extra weight slowed Jacob down considerably. Indeed, the man was about six feet tall and had to weigh at least one hundred and thirty pounds, though he had, no doubt, been much heavier before being shipped to Auschwitz.
After less than twenty minutes, Jacob had to stop and take a break. He checked the trail behind them. No one. He set Luc down on the ground and fought to catch his breath.
So far there was no sign of the father or the boy. But that was the question haunting him. Did they know who he was, and if so, were they coming after him?
– – –
Von Strassen was back in his office at Auschwitz when he got the call.
It was from an SS officer in Żywiec, a city of close to thirty thousand. The officer told Von Strassen that the local police had just received a report of a father and son stumbling across two men who appeared to be fugitives hiding out in an old hunting cabin in the hills not far from the town of Cisiec. “The witnesses say one of them was carrying the other over his back,” the SS officer reported. “They weren’t sure if the man was wounded or just ill. But it was clear they were disreputable and up to no good. The father fired several shots at the men but missed.”
“Why didn’t he pursue them?” Von Strassen demanded.
“The man’s son is only thirteen,” the officer said. “To protect the boy, the father thought it wiser to retreat and call the police.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Several hours.”
“Why am I only finding out about it now?” Von Strassen pressed.
“I just learned of it myself no more than ten minutes ago,” the officer said. “It took the two quite some time to hike back to civilization and longer still to find a phone. Once I got the news, I tracked you down immediately. What do you want us to do?”
“I want a full lockdown of the entire area for twenty-five kilometers in every direction,” Von Strassen ordered. “Total military curfew. No one leaves their houses until we say they do. Mobilize every policeman and every soldier in the region. Put up roadblocks every two kilometers. All cars must get off the roads. Official vehicles only. Every car still on the road must be pulled over and searched thoroughly. Every house will be searched, door to door. Search every store, every shop, every barn, every petrol station, all of it. Get search planes in the air. Get the word to the radio stations. Have newscasters give out descriptions of Weisz and Leclerc. Put out the word that they are murderers, wanted for killing two little girls in a farmhouse near Oświęcim. Tell people these two are armed and dangerous, but we want them alive. I want radio updates posted every fifteen minutes. My men and I will be there soon.”
“Yes, sir,” the SS officer said. “We’ll get right on it.”
“You had better,” Von Strassen warned. “You have six hours. If these two are not caught by then, I will hold you personally responsible.”
– – –
Jacob knew exactly where he was taking Luc and why.
He had only one option, and there was no point agonizing over it. If it worked, they might be safe. If not, they’d be dead by sunup.
Jacob thought it would take about two hours to get there, but it took nearly four. He stopped to rest. He stopped to gulp down water. But panting and exhausted, he finally reached the ridge overlooking the tiny community and lay Luc down under a grove of trees.
“Okay, we’re almost there,” Jacob said. “Now listen, Luc. Remember that home I told you about—the one where I got the food?”
Luc nodded.
Jacob hadn’t told his Christian friend that he had stolen the food. But that was the least of his worries just now.
“Well, they have a car they keep in their barn,” Jacob whispered, not lying yet but about to. “I’m going to ask them to help us. They took pity on us before. I’m hoping they’ll take pity on us now. Hopefully they can drive us close to the border and drop us off. Then I’ll carry you across, and we’ll make our way to Žilina. How’s that sound?”
Luc nodded groggily, and Jacob knew he was really out of it. The plan, after all, would have been a terrible one if it were true. The problem was, the real plan wasn’t much better.
“So you just wait here, and I’ll be back for you soon,” Jacob said.
“
When?” Luc asked.
“As soon as the coast is clear and the family agrees to help us,” Jacob replied. “Then I’ll come back for you and get you in that car. Before you know it, you’ll be with your grandfather in Washington. So you just rest here, and I won’t be long. I promise.”
No sooner had he said it than Jacob wanted to take that last sentence back. How could he promise that he would be back quickly? What if he were shot or captured? There was a very real possibility he wouldn’t be back at all.
95
As the sun began to rise, Jacob heard two planes fly low overhead.
He quickly hid in some bushes and waited for the planes to pass. They were flying unusually low, and he couldn’t help but wonder once again if these were search planes. He no longer had the cover of darkness, just when he needed it most. But there was nothing he could do about it. If he was going to move at all, now was the time.
Jacob dashed down the hill, zigzagging through the trees. When he got to the bottom, he saw no signs of anyone walking about the property. He did, however, see smoke rising from the chimney. Someone was home, and they likely were beginning to cook breakfast. The problem was that the kitchen looked out into the backyard and a grassy field that stretched beyond it. Yet there was no way to get to the barn other than through the field. Jacob considered crawling on his hands and knees, but the grass wasn’t really tall enough to hide him. The only option, he decided, was to run for it. But first he had to pray.
“Dear God, uh, I don’t really know if you’re there,” he said with his eyes closed and his head bowed. “But if you’re real, please help me now—not for my sake, but to help my friend Luc. Okay, that’s—that’s all.”
Feeling somewhat ridiculous, he opened his eyes again and scanned in both directions for any signs of people. Seeing none, Jacob broke into a mad dash across the field. Nine seconds later, he was hiding behind the barn, panting hard, trying to catch his breath, and waiting to hear sounds of anyone stirring or the cocking of a rifle.
After two or three minutes, hearing nothing and knowing there was no time to spare, he crept along the side of the barn farthest from the house and peeked through the dusty, smudgy window, just as he had done the first time he had come.
His instincts had been right. Not only was the family home, but they’d parked their car in the barn. Actually, it was a pickup. Now Jacob prayed they had left the keys in the ignition.
He carefully opened the side door of the barn and slipped inside. Then he headed straight to the cab of the pickup and opened the driver’s-side door. But when he looked inside, he found no keys. He looked on the seat and under the floor mat but found nothing. He went around to the other side and opened the passenger door and looked all around, then opened the glove compartment but found no keys there either.
That was when he heard the pump action of a shotgun.
Jacob’s heart sank, and fear began to envelop him like a thick, dark cloud.
“Hold it, right there!” ordered the voice behind him. “Put your hands where I can see them. Do it!”
What choice did he have? If he tried to flee, he’d be shot dead. That was fine, as far as he was concerned. There was no way he was going back to Auschwitz. But he couldn’t leave Luc alone to die in the elements. So he raised his hands over his head, and when the man told him to turn around slowly, that’s exactly what he did.
Now he was staring into a double-barreled shotgun. The Polish farmer who was holding it looked to be in his mid- to late sixties. He had a firm jaw and a weathered face, and what was left of his hair was all gray now. But it was the look in the man’s eyes that struck Jacob most. The man looked as scared as Jacob was. His eyes were darting back and forth even as he kept the gun aimed straight for Jacob’s head.
What’s more, his terrified wife, a plump little lady with gray hair tied up in a bun, was standing not far behind him.
“Where’s the other one?” the man demanded.
Jacob was startled. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t toy with me, son. The man on the radio said there are two of you. Now where’s the other one?”
The man on the radio? What in the world was he talking about?
“You’ve got three seconds, boy. If you don’t tell me where he is, I’m going to blow your head off and then hunt him down too. So talk.”
Jacob was dumbfounded by this sudden turn of events. But the calculation was obvious—talk or die. So he talked. In fact, he found himself pleading for mercy. He explained that his friend was dying and that he had left him lying under a grove of trees on the side of the mountain.
“What’s wrong with him?” the man asked, his skepticism palpable.
Jacob wanted to lie but couldn’t. He told the couple exactly what was wrong with Luc and how he was trying to save his life. He confessed to entering their house the other night and taking some of their food, and he didn’t simply confess but apologized profusely and begged their forgiveness.
And then, before he fully realized what he was doing, he told the couple about their escape from Auschwitz. He didn’t say he was Jewish, and he didn’t describe the place as a death camp. He simply said he and Luc had been persecuted by the Nazis and thrown into a prison camp for crimes they didn’t commit. He even told them of his friends in the Polish underground and how they helped each other escape, hoping to appeal to some shred of nationalism in the couple.
Jacob couldn’t believe what was coming out of his mouth. Not because it wasn’t true but because it was. Other than Luc and the boy in the woods, Jacob had not spoken to anyone outside of Auschwitz-Birkenau since Brussels. And now, in a moment of sheer madness, he had just confessed to a whole series of capital crimes, the most serious of which was escaping from a Nazi prison.
“The radio says you two are murderers,” the wife said, more of an indictment than a question.
“Murderers?” Jacob said, a fresh wave of fear washing over him. “Who did they say we killed?”
“Two little girls.”
Jacob gasped. “It’s not true,” he said. “Never would we do such a thing.”
The man’s hands were trembling so much Jacob was afraid he might accidentally pull the trigger at any moment.
“How do I know you’d never do such a thing?” the man asked. “You’ve just confessed to being in prison, escaping from prison, helping others escape from prison, breaking into our house, and stealing our food. You don’t sound like a good person. Not to me.”
“What he wants to know is, are you a God-fearing man? Were your folks God-fearing people?” the wife asked bluntly.
Jacob’s stomach tightened. He didn’t know what to say. He definitely didn’t want to lie. Not to a question like that. Not just because it would be too easy to expose it as a lie—after all, he knew next to nothing about Christianity but what he had learned from Luc and read in the Gospels over the last few days. But he also felt a deep sense of conviction that it would be wrong to mislead this couple. He had told them the truth thus far. Why stop now?
“Speak up,” the man demanded. “Are you a Christian or aren’t you?”
Jacob paused. “No, sir,” he said.
The man looked surprised. “You’re not?”
“No, sir.”
“Then what are you?”
Jacob took a deep breath. “I’m a Jew.”
It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. The couple’s eyes went wide, and both of them, independent of each other, literally took a step backward. It was suddenly clear to Jacob that they had never met a Jew before—had probably never even seen one. And they knew what the penalty was for harboring a Jewish fugitive.
“Where’s your yellow star?” the wife asked, visibly trying to regain her composure.
“When I escaped, I refused to wear one again,” Jacob said, trying to imagine what his fate would be now that he was cornered. “I didn’t want to be arrested or sent back to Auschwitz.”
Jacob closed his eyes and winced, b
racing for the shot that would take his life.
The barn was quiet again.
Unlike Luc, Jacob was terrified of dying. He had no idea what would greet him on the other side. He had no idea whether he was going to heaven or to hell, and he suddenly realized he didn’t want to find out. Not here. Not now. And the longer he waited for the man to fire, the more fearful he became. But nothing happened, and Jacob slowly opened his eyes.
To Jacob’s shock, the man lowered the shotgun. His wife came to his side. They didn’t look like they were going to kill him anymore. They were not smiling. But something in their bearing had changed. They seemed more peaceful and more trusting than they had just moments before.
“We believe you, son,” the man said at long last.
“You do?” Jacob asked.
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
“Why?”
“Well, the way I figure it, no one in his right mind would tell a man pointing a loaded shotgun at his face that he’s a Jew unless that was God’s honest truth. And if that’s true, I figure it’s all true.”
“It is all true.”
“I’m sure it is, son. What a terrible ordeal you and your friend have been through. What do you say we go get him and bring him to the house and see if we can’t take care of him—or at least make him comfortable?”
Jacob didn’t know what to say. He was in shock. So he just nodded.
“What about the military curfew?” the wife asked.
“Who’s going to see us?” her husband replied. “We’ll be there and back before anyone is the wiser. But we better get going. By the way, my name is Jedrick, and this is my wife, Brygita.”
They reached out their hands and shook his warmly.
96
Cisiec was a sleepy little town.
It was nondescript, without major industries or attractions, home to only about three thousand people. It was located just south of the city of Żywiec, which had about ten times the population. But Cisiec had just become the center of one of the most extensive manhunts in the region’s history.