She and Egon were riding up through the meadow toward the crest of the hill. A breeze ruffled the grass through which they were riding. “So, Gypsy girl,” Egon said. “You ride a lot. Was it a caravan horse you rode?”
“My family didn’t have a caravan. We lived in a flat in Vienna.”
“No kidding?”
“No kidding. But maybe we shouldn’t talk.”
“Why not? They are getting pan shots. We are supposed to look like we are chatting — not just chatting, in love.” He leaned over toward her as if to kiss her cheek. A wave of something garlicky radiated from him.
“Look, let’s just ride and pretend we’re talking.” She would have loved to tell him he stank, but instead she was trying to concentrate on this amazing possibility of escape. Sarentino, she knew, was down the slope and to the right. It was the closest village. But it would be such an obvious place to go first. She had no idea of the geography of the region and what else was around. In the distance to the south and east, however, she could see a band of trees. A forest. Through the forest and then what? She tried to picture the map of Italy. Maybe she could ride this horse all the way down the boot of Italy to the coast and then across the sea to Greece. The Germans hadn’t gotten to Greece yet. They had tried six months or so before, but the Greeks had pushed them back.
Lilo was suddenly back in the classroom at the Franz Joseph School on Hartigasse in Vienna. Frau Hoffritz was pulling down the map of Europe. She could, in her mind’s eye, see the heel of the boot of Italy sticking down into the Adriatic Sea — just a hop, skip, and a jump to Greece. They had learned about ancient Greece, not just the gods and goddesses, not simply the mythology, but Greece as the cradle of democracy — that is what Frau Hoffritz called it. It seemed impossible that fifteen months ago, Lilo had been sitting in Frau Hoffritz’s class. She taught them about the playwright Aeschylus, the philosophers Aristotle and Socrates, the historian Herodotus, the scientist Archimedes.
Frau Hoffritz said that not only was Greece the cradle of democracy but that the Greeks invented the idea of human freedoms. “‘Be convinced,’” Frau Hoffritz said quoting the Greek historian Thucydides, “‘that to be happy means to be free, and that to be free means to be brave.’” I am bound for Athens! Lilo dug her heels into the flanks of the horse. To be free! What a noble thing!
“Hey, Gypsy girl, you ride too fast!” Lilo had given the horse his head and was streaking across the crest of the hill. In the distance she could see a deep-green valley and the sky pouring into it, offering up a cup of blue. She looked back and saw Egon waving for her to slow down. The camera truck below was honking. She had ridden out of the frame! Yes, out of the frame! She could discard her body like a piece of clothing but not her freedom. I am happy. I am free. I am brave even if I must die, but . . .
She suddenly reined in the horse. She could not go on. The thought tore into her with all the force of that nine-millimeter bullet from the Luger. And like the Luger, it had aligned itself perfectly with its target. The memory of her mother in Krün. Instantly Lilo knew that she was bound to this place, this earth, for as long as her mother lived. As long as she had a breath in her body, Lilo could not leave. She could not ride to Athens. She could not slip from her body as Eduard had, or the wolf. She had to go back. She slowed to a walk and turned the horse back. He had broken a sweat and was panting. Lilo felt nothing. Nothing at all.
That night in her tent, she tried not to think of Athens, or Pericles, of Frau Hoffritz, who might be in a camp herself. She was Jewish. It was too sad to think of all that. Oddly enough the only comforting thoughts she had were of the dead — Eduard and the wolf. And so Lilo dreamed of the things left behind. It was a confusing dream, for sometimes she felt as if she were really awake. A soft rain began to fall during the night. Her tent leaked, and the rain fell on her face. She felt the water, so she told herself she could not be dreaming — or could she? She saw something beside her. It was a woman’s figure, lying quietly, her chest rising and falling. I know you, she thought. Or did she hear her own voice saying it out loud? The figure looked so familiar. “Do I know you?” She laughed softly. “You know me, don’t you?” she asked the woman.
But already the figure was beginning to fade. “Don’t go . . . don’t go.” The glow pulsed a bit. “I’m tired, a bit tired,” Lilo said. And the figure slipped away into the darkness. And yet where she had lain, the bedding was rumpled and warm as if the body were still there.
The filming had wound down at Sarentino within a week after Lilo had experienced her strange waking dream, and they had headed back to Krün for some final scenes. All she could think about the entire way back was her mother. With each passing mile, she became more agitated. Django sat quietly beside her with his arm around her. Every once in a while, he would squeeze her shoulder.
However, as soon as the bus turned into the farm and pulled up in front of the barn, Lilo knew. She was gone. Her mother was gone. It was as if there was a hole in the air. She didn’t even need to go into the barn. She knew it before she even reached the door of the barn. And as if to confirm what she knew, Johan’s eyes would not meet hers. She was rooted to the ground, to the mud in the barnyard. Chickens clucked around her. One pecked at her big toe, which stuck out of her falling-apart shoes. She was aware of a small figure shooing the chickens away.
Then Django came up.
“What’s wrong with you?” He stuck his head forward in a movement that bore an uncanny likeness to the chicken that had just been pecking at her toe. But then she saw a soft terror fill his eyes. “Lilo . . . Lilo.” There was a hot desperation as he whispered her name.
“She promised, Django. She promised.”
“What? Who promised?”
“Tante Leni! Promised she would not send Mama away.”
“But . . . but . . . uh . . . she might be here. We only just arrived.” He took her hand as if to lead her to the barn, but he couldn’t hide that he knew she was right. And the queer thing was that she suddenly felt terrible for Django. She didn’t understand why. But she did. She felt almost as bad for Django as she did for herself. She realized in that instant that despite his bravado, his swagger, his bluster, beneath all that, there was a naïveté, or possibly — the thought suddenly struck her — he was not naive at all, but it was his caring for her that made him desperate to believe. She wanted him to believe that they could both walk into that barn and find her mother there, or, if not there, by the fence playing with the kitten that the little girl Liesel would bring over to her.
They entered the barn hand in hand. Was this how Hansel and Gretel looked going into the woods? But this was the very reverse of that story, an inversion. The mother had never cast them out. They were coming to seek her. The shadows of the barn wrapped around them. There were others who had stayed in Krün and did not go to Sarentino, but they would not look at Lilo nor meet her gaze. Django started to walk over to one, an old woman named Valya. Lilo reached out and stopped him. “Don’t. Don’t ask her.” Django shrugged. “I thought I should tell her about Eduard. That’s all.”
Lilo realized that he was just saying this. He wanted to know what had happened to Bluma Friwald. But Lilo knew what had happened. Leni sent her east, maybe to Auschwitz — it was open for business now — or maybe to Lackenbach. And what did it matter? She knew that her mother had been sent away, and she felt certain that she was already dead. That had been the meaning of her waking dream when the figure appeared by her bed. But she said none of this to Django. “Let it go.” That was all Lilo said. He didn’t argue.
She craved darkness. She wanted to go to sleep and sleep forever. But tonight was June 22, Midsummer Night. The longest day of the year. And the light dragged on, holding the dark at bay. She lay curled in the old hay-bale apartment by the wall with the crack in the boards. Outside, there was a burst of raucous whoops.
“What is it? What is it?” Rosa appeared. “I’m frightened,” she gasped. In that moment, Lilo realized that she was
done being frightened. There was nothing to be frightened of anymore. Django dashed in, his eyes bright with excitement. This was the old Django, she thought. Django the operator, Django the gatherer — beg your pardon, the runner of information, of intelligence.
“The action on the eastern front has started. Hitler has invaded Russia. He crossed the Niemen River. He’s on his way to Moscow!” So why are we supposed to cheer? Lilo wondered. Apparently the people on the farm were delirious. “Everybody’s celebrating. They brought in kegs of beer. It — it’s like Oktoberfest in June! I think I can organize some, for us.”
“Really?” Rosa asked. “And maybe some food, too?”
“I’ll see what I can do about it.” Django winked.
Lilo felt relieved. Not for the Germans, not for Hitler. Relieved for Django. He seemed back to his old self. Perhaps happy was not the right word, she thought. Thankful was better. But still she had no desire to join any celebration. The emptiness in the corner of the barn she and her mother had shared was palpable, like a pocket in the air, a nothingness filled with the shadows of everything. She burrowed down in the hay. Not a trace of the scent of her mother. She recalled again the peculiar dream she had before leaving Sarentino. It was a dream, but the figure had seemed so real and the blankets had still held her form, or so Lilo had imagined. Those boundaries between the waking world and the one of dreams had begun to blur, just like those between the world of the movie set and that of reality. But Lilo began to believe that dreams possibly had more substance than the props and facades of a movie set.
She heard the revelry outside. She was the only one left in the barn. The doors had been left open. Apparently they were allowing the film slaves to mingle in the barnyard with the farmer’s family and neighbors.
“You should come out, Lilo.” It was Rosa, who bent over and shook her shoulder. “They have set up a picnic table with food and beer. It’s . . . it’s . . .” Her voice dwindled away, and she gave her shoulder a gentle pat.
Lilo said nothing and just pretended to sleep.
The darkness seemed never to come. The daylight clung. The noise increased. She was grateful that Django did not come and try to rouse her. He would never say it was fun, not to her. He knew, or rather knew Lilo as no one else did in this place, no one else on earth who was still alive. For she was certain that the people who had really known her were all dead. Her mother, her father, Uncle Andreas. She knew it. However, she realized that it was a great comfort to understand that someone still knew her so well. But how well did Django really know her? Her eyes opened wide. Does he know that I would leave? Is this not the perfect time to leave, to escape under the cover of daylight when everyone is celebrating? Who would know if she left? Her mother was gone, her father was gone, and perhaps her heart had contracted so now there was only herself left to worry about. This would be her only luxury. Herself! Don’t think of Django. This is as safe as it will ever be!
Immediately she got up and climbed the ladder to the hayloft where Unku once slept. It gave her a good vantage point so she could observe the scene and figure out just how she would slip away.
All the people were thronged around the table, and at each end, a keg of beer had been set up. It was an odd scene with the extras in their ragged clothes mingling with the farmer’s family, neighbors, the farmworkers, and, of course, the guards in their nice clothes. And yet, it could have been any typical midsummer, or Sommerwende celebration. Just outside the barnyard there was a clear path to the wood piled up and strewn with flowers and herbs for the traditional midsummer bonfire. She could see that children from the village of Krün were already practicing jumping over the unlit fire. She scanned the faces for Liesel. She should be over there with the other children, she thought. But she didn’t see her, at least not at first. Then Lilo spotted her — a small, hunched figure almost indistinguishable against the dark trunk of the tree. What was she doing there? Why was she staring — just staring — at the barn?
Then Liesel jerked. She sees me! The child pointed to something near the tree where she stood. But she was not simply pointing; she was beckoning. It was as if she said the words out loud: “Come here! Come here and never go back.”
Run, run, run as fast as you can.
You’ll never catch me — I’m the gingerbread man.
I ran from the baker and from his wife, too.
You’ll never catch me, not any of you.
Lilo streaked around the fringes of the forest near the clearing where the bonfire was to be lit. At the base of a towering spruce tree was a perfect pair of shoes. Liesel must have stolen them from the children who had set their shoes aside before wading in the creek and practicing their leaps on this hot summer night. But Liesel had vanished.
She wasn’t sure how long she ran the first night, because the sun never set. There was no way to mark the passage of time. She passed on the outskirts of many villages and in every one, people were celebrating Midsummer’s Night and were drunk on visions of Hitler invading Russia. She even caught the shreds of song — the tune of the old favorite “Watch on the Rhine.” People were now singing about the river Niemen, which would have to be crossed on the march to Moscow.
A call roars like thunderbolt,
like clashing swords and splashing waves:
To the Niemen, the Niemen, to Moscow.
The people never noticed her. They were too drunk, too carefree, too enthralled with the chimera of victory on the eastern front. And she was rapt with her own dream of freedom. It was not a dream, however. She was free. The thud of every footfall confirmed her liberation. If her feet had been bells, they would have chimed her freedom.
Once again she had the strange experience of being outside her own body. Running, seeing it stretch out before her. But she kept up. She was not sure how. But when she looked down, her feet were a blur. Even blurred, however, there was a moment when she looked down and saw that her shoes were not the ragtag scraps that she had worn for the better part of a year. Moreover, she was wearing socks — sturdy brown socks.
Then piece by piece it came back to her as she ran. First there was the image of Liesel shooing the chickens away from her dirt-encrusted toes that stuck out from the threadbare shoes when she had returned from Sarentino to Krün. Then the shoes that Liesel with her huge devouring eyes had nodded toward when she had caught sight of Lilo framed in the loft opening of the barn. She was stunned at the little girl’s bravery, but she did not pause to even wonder why Liesel had done this, or what it would mean for her if she had been caught. She only ran. It was as if every drop of blood her heart pumped had been distilled to serve this sleek mindless running machine. She was not aware of hunger, of fatigue, of sore muscles. If she had thoughts, they flew from her head as swiftly as the ground passed beneath her feet.
Eventually she did begin to take short rests, always far from any village. But even for these brief respites, her mind seemed bereft of any thoughts except running. Running and keeping out of sight. Life became very simple, a beautiful simplicity, and she felt she could go on forever. If she had been a book or a diary, these first few days would have been blank pages — utterly empty.
Gradually, however, she began to realize that there was another vacancy as blank as the “pages” of her mind. The countryside, the villages, were unusually empty. The gardens that she sometimes stole from in the middle of the night were stripped. Tomatoes had been picked before they ripened, cabbages harvested before they had had a chance to grow to a normal size. Beets had been dug up when they were still the size of grapes, and carrots when they were no bigger than a baby’s finger. It finally dawned on her. The villages were empty because all of the men had gone to fight on the eastern front and they had taken what food they could, since an army could not travel on an empty stomach. New crops were being planted where the old ones had hardly had time to mature. But there were no men or young boys to hoe, sow, or plow. That work was now done by women and girls and young children from what seemed like ghost
villages.
She began stealing clothes from clotheslines for warmth during the nights, or what passed for night on these long, light days. Still she did not want to weigh herself down. It was all she could do to resist snatching a quilt for a covering, but she knew she should not sleep in the long twilight of these summer nights but keep running, because that was when the others slept and there would be far less activity. She became quite creative when it came to stealing food. Slyer than a fox, she managed to steal into chicken houses just before dawn to wrest an egg or sometimes two from a nest. She learned to eat them raw and soon grew used to the odd taste.
One morning just before dawn, she had slipped into a chicken house and was just reaching for an egg when a young boy, not more than six years old, appeared. He gasped and was about to shriek.
“Don’t!” she hissed, and jumped on him. Her own strength surprised her. She held her hand over his mouth. His pale gray eyes were pried open in terror.
“I am a spy. Do you understand? For the Reich. I am on a secret mission. If you breathe a word to anyone and are discovered, the Gestapo will come. Your mama will be taken away. Your father might die because you betrayed a state secret. Do you have a brother?” He nodded. “He is in the Wehrmacht, right?” He nodded again. “You are the little man of the house.” A light sparkled in his eyes. She had hit a chord. She guessed he had been told this, as all the males in his family had left the farm to fight. “This is your chance to serve. To be a hero. Now, promise me. Not a word.”
He nodded eagerly. Slowly she took her hand from his mouth. He did not scream. He started to speak.