Anna and the Swallow Man Read online

  It was nonsense—silliness—but the longer she spent in Reb Hirschl’s mind, the more Anna came to understand the earthy wisdom of such foolishness. If you’ve taken it upon yourself to schlep the heavy weight of the entire world along with you through the fields and forests of Poland, it won’t do to sing about it in anything but the lightest terms.

  They were in the process of devising a second verse together (what words they had yet to decide upon could always be rendered “schleps”) when, in the midst of a wide field of tall wheat at noon one day, Anna made her first contribution to the project. Until now Reb Hirschl had never failed to submit his new lyrics for Anna’s approval, and on occasion she might suggest a small improvement, but until the wheat field she had never brought forth anything of her own whole-cloth invention.

  “Schlep, schlep, left, right,” they sang, “through the day, into the night.”

  Here Reb Hirschl intended to belt forth several more place-holding “schleps,” but hearing Anna beside him, he pulled up short, and she sang her new couplet alone.

  If we don’t know where we’re bound,

  At least this way we won’t be found.

  Anna kept schlepping forward, but Reb Hirschl stopped in his tracks.

  “Anna,” he said. “That’s really good.”

  She stopped and looked back over her shoulder at him, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Don’t tease,” she said.

  “But I’m not,” said Reb Hirschl. “That was really good.”

  Anna stuck out her tongue and ran away.

  To the dismay of the Swallow Man, Anna and Reb Hirschl were growing closer and closer, like the two lips of a shoe being pulled in tight by the laces. Some nights, when he thought her asleep, Reb Hirschl would lay his square hand lightly atop Anna’s hair and say a little prayer for her. This periodic benediction was the only visible outcropping of what was a more silent tension developing in the space above Anna’s head—the prayer was a traditional, formulaic one, intended to be given by parents to children once a week. It was not lost on Reb Hirschl that, rather shamelessly, he did this in the presence of her daddy.

  Reb Hirschl had been traveling with Anna and the Swallow Man for some while when she finally began to notice the peculiarity of their travel pattern. In the past she and the Swallow Man had occasionally retraced their steps through the brush, backtracking in the case of an impassible obstacle or a missed opportunity, but ordinarily their routes would never double over themselves. Now, with Reb Hirschl in tow, their path seemed to be describing a loose, looping arc.

  Reb Hirschl didn’t appear to realize it, but Anna knew that this was not right. It felt idle, like treading water, and what was more, she was afraid that the Swallow Man would lose track of his endangered bird. Anna still kept her eyes open for it whenever she thought to, still desperate for a glimpse, but she had yet to see it.

  Anna resolved to find an opportunity to speak to the Swallow Man in private. She had wanted to make Reb Hirschl one of them, but if anything was happening, he was remaining the same and they were becoming more like him, and though she would not articulate the problem publicly, it seemed far too stark to continue ignoring it.

  In the end, though, the issue found its own resolution.

  —

  The Swallow Man knew of the habitual lightness of Anna’s slumber, and so when he spoke that night, it was gently and soft.

  “Are you finished?” he said.

  Reb Hirschl had just stepped out of his prayer posture, and his concerted devotion fell off of him easily, like dust.

  “Yes. I’m done. What, you want to learn some prayers? Usually you’re sleeping by the time I—”

  “Hirschl. We’re going to cross the German lines tomorrow.”

  “Ah.” This cut Reb Hirschl’s jollity short before it could even reach its full swing. “So. You’ve decided to stop walking in circles, then?”

  There was a silence, and then the Swallow Man said, “Yes.”

  “Well,” said Reb Hirschl. “That’s a blessing. Whole thing seemed strange to me, just walking around and around, but what do I know?”

  “The German lines are dangerous to cross under the best of circumstances,” said the Swallow Man, “and these, Hirschl…these are not the best of circumstances.”

  “Surely, that is true,” said Reb Hirschl sagely. “Surely, you are correct.”

  For a moment the Swallow Man did not speak, and all there was was the sound of the night’s insects and of the shifting forest. In the distance somewhere, in some far-off settlement, almost beyond the border of audibility, a dog was barking.

  “Normally,” said the Swallow Man, “if we were going to cross the lines, my daughter and I would pass through a regulated checkpoint, take as little risk and attract as little notice as possible.”

  Reb Hirschl seemed to take this information in, and then, inhaling sharply through his nose, he lit out in a new direction.

  “I’ve been wondering,” he said. “Tell me: What kind of a man never looks over his shoulder when he leads his child into the wilderness? And what kind of a man has food insufficient to feed a single person and still breaks it up into meticulously equal portions when one of the three hungry bellies is his child’s?”

  The Swallow Man didn’t answer.

  The stillness of the night was broken by a half-stifled chuckle. “I understand,” laughed Reb Hirschl, “you must get hungry. But shouldn’t you at least be shorting me a bit?”

  “Do you recall,” said the Swallow Man impassively, “what the condition of your joining us was?”

  Reb Hirschl frowned and nodded in good humor. “You told me I was honor-bound to ask you no questions, and I think you will recall that I said I would make no such promise. But don’t change the subject. I hesitate to ask, sir, but the man who behaves in this way—is he the kind of man who does not love his daughter?”

  Reb Hirschl let this question hang in the air for a moment before he plowed forward. “Well, I suppose this is possible, but then, would such a man suffer so patiently the small, troublesome noises of such a distasteful little fellow as myself only because his daughter has taken a liking to him?

  “No. I do not think so. This man, he is not a man who does not love his daughter. He, I think, he is a man who very much loves the young girl…whom he calls his daughter.”

  There was another, longer span of empty time now, but this one belonged to the Swallow Man. He remained utterly still, allowing Reb Hirschl’s ponderings to float lazily off into the sky. Only when they were completely gone did the Swallow Man speak again, as if the Jew’s digression had never even taken place. “It is difficult to pass through a German checkpoint unnoticed—”

  “When you travel,” said Reb Hirschl, “with einem Jude?”

  Their conversation had been a gravel pile of German and Yiddish, all intermingled, sliding in one direction and then another unpredictably, but Reb Hirschl picked out these two small, round, smooth words, like pebbles, specifically from the German and held them out to the Swallow Man in the palm of his flat, square hand.

  “Yes,” said the Swallow Man.

  It was so rare an occurrence, Reb Hirschl declining to speak, that it made a serious impression when it happened.

  “There is, of course,” said the Swallow Man finally, “another possibility. Not far from here there’s a gap in the lines. I’m not sure how long it will remain open—the Germans seem to be gathering with some speed—but if we move quickly, there’s a small chance we’ll be able to make our way through.”

  “Hm,” said Reb Hirschl.

  “That is our plan, as of now.”

  “Ah,” said Reb Hirschl.

  “Of course,” said the Swallow Man, “if we’re seen, we will certainly, all three of us, be shot. At the checkpoint, on the other hand—”

  “At the checkpoint, on the other hand, only I would certainly be shot.”

  The silence now was an uncertain thing, and for a good deal of time, it remained unclear to
whom it would fall to speak next.

  “I’m not sure how long you’ve been traveling,” said Reb Hirschl finally, “but up until recently I was in the Lubliner ghetto. I know who gets shot and why, and it’s me and for no particular reason.”

  “Yes,” said the Swallow Man.

  With a plink and a swish, Reb Hirschl took a drink of the liquor in his small glass bottle and said, “Here. Have some vodka. Would you like some vodka? We can drink together to my imminent demise.”

  “I want neither to drink nor to see you die, Hirschl,” said the Swallow Man. “I just thought you should know—”

  “I know. Oh, I know,” said Reb Hirschl, and then, “You sure you won’t have some vodka? It’s never failed me so far.”

  “That is because the first time it fails you is also the last. I won’t give my wits away when the world is like this.”

  Reb Hirschl chuckled. “Fair enough. You, you’re looking for the other side of this whole thing, this war, this world, call it what you will. Me, I’m not sure there is another side. And if this is the world now, well, I want it to have some vodka in it, and some singing. And some fools.”

  The vodka in the bottle swished and plinked a second time as Reb Hirschl wet his lips. When he spoke again, the tenor of his voice had shifted, and if before he had spoken with polish and sheen—well aware of the humor beneath his words—now he spoke with a dark, warm timbre, unguardedly, as if through his clarinet.

  “The girl,” he said. “She is very sweet, Mr. No Name. Incredibly good. And you’ve taught her very well how to survive. I must be honest and say that I am not entirely certain what I think of you, but I do not doubt that you are a good man, and if I think so, she is the reason.”

  The Swallow Man did not speak.

  “It’s funny—being around her, it almost makes me see you the way she does. That’s the difference between being a little girl and being a grown-up: she doesn’t realize that you have a name, that all of this that you do, it’s a protective layer, like she’s following around an empty suit of armor.”

  The Swallow Man was silent. When Reb Hirschl started in again, he had returned to his brassy tone.

  “You must be a very interesting man, whoever you are. I would love to hear your stories, you know? Really talk.”

  Reb Hirschl dismissed this fanciful notion with a wave of his broad, flat hand.

  “No, I know you’re not going to tell me anything, and maybe that’s better, maybe that’s what makes all of this work, this pretense, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to know. I must be honest, I have absolutely no idea who you are underneath there, who the tiny little fellow is, pulling all the strings in that giant puppet suit of armor. The only thing I know is that your Yiddish is far too good.

  “But listen. Me? I’m not afraid of being known. Let me tell you a story. Can I tell you a story?”

  Now Reb Hirschl breathed in slowly and long through his nose, and held the air for a moment before he spoke.

  “A few weeks ago I was in the Lubliner ghetto. We’re all there now, the Jews of Lublin, those of us who haven’t been moved or otherwise disposed of, and it’s squalid and filthy and horrific, and there’s not enough food, and Death walks around, daring you to look him in the eye. But! There are still people there, and where there are people, there are gatherings, even if they’re illegal. And where there are gatherings, there are sure to be two things: music and liquor.

  “This makes me a lucky man, and on two counts. The first: I love music, and I make it well, which means that I am unlikely to go uninvited to many gatherings. The second? I love liquor almost as well as I love music, and when one makes good music, one’s cup doesn’t stay empty very long.

  “I don’t even remember why I went outside. Perhaps I was taking a break, or taking a piss, or running an errand, or checking to see if the stars were still up in the sky, but when I walked out through the door, someone pressed this very bottle of vodka into my hand. It wasn’t the first time that evening, let me tell you, that my hand had held a bottle, and I stumbled out through that door with my clarinet in this hand and my vodka in this.

  “I don’t remember whose the gathering was, or if it had a particular purpose, or if it was simply meant to blow a big raspberry in the face of das Große Reich, but I remember where it was: I remember that if you turned your head to the left, walking out the front door, you could clearly see the Grodzka Gate. Well, I turned my head to the left, and do you believe it? There was no one there. Not a single guard or soldier. It was open. Simply open.

  “I’ve had a long time to think since then, in the time that you’ve spent not talking to me. I wonder if I would’ve gone if I had been sober. I think that I wouldn’t have. But I wasn’t sober. I was piss drunk, and that meant that I realized what I was doing was an invitation to Death only when the thing was half done already.

  “I was beneath the arch in the dark when I realized what I was doing. It was my drunkenness that had pushed me to start walking, but I wouldn’t be speaking truthfully if I said it hadn’t taken a conscious decision on my part for me to continue.

  “I said to myself, ‘Walk.’

  “So many things told me to go back:

  “ ‘You’ll be shot for sure!’

  “ ‘Walk,’ I said.

  “ ‘But the vodka isn’t yours. It’s not right to take it.’

  “ ‘Walk.’

  “ ‘You left your case and all your spare reeds in the apartment! How do you expect—’

  “ ‘Walk!’

  “And so I walked. And I left. And somehow I found myself going out from the ghetto, out from the city, and all the way out into the wilderness. Even when the sun rose and I realized that I had no food and no water and that my only reed had cracked, even then I kept walking. I always kept walking.

  “Now. Why do I tell you this story? Is it because I think you will understand from it my bravery, or my great self-determination? No. I don’t fool myself to think that I am so brave. I was drunk, and I know that men like you are surely braver, even sober, than I am, even drunk.

  “Do I maybe tell you this story to convince you that I can pass by Germans unnoticed? No. I am a fool, for certain, but not so great a fool as to think that one absurd stroke of luck may be relied upon for future planning. No, Reb No One, I tell you this story because I want you to understand that I am a man who walks where there is road, no matter where it leads, and where there is no road to be had, I walk through the bush.

  “Many men meet their deaths before the appointed time, and do you know why? They stop walking.

  “Me, I do not stop walking.

  “So, with gratitude for your hospitality—if it may be called that—and for the sharing of your food, I will say this: Whether you point me at a gap in the German lines or you point me at a regulated checkpoint, I will walk. Until I fall.”

  The Swallow Man was silent. Reb Hirschl took a swig of vodka, and when he spoke again, it was with an airy cheer that would’ve seemed contrary if it hadn’t been so fullhearted.

  “So! You have your girl who shouldn’t be alive. I have my clarinet that doesn’t play….What does she have?”

  —

  When Anna woke the next morning, Reb Hirschl was already done praying, and he smiled down at her as she rubbed her eyes open.

  “Good morning, yidele,” he said. “What shall we do today, hm?”

  At that moment they were near the ultimate eastern edge of what was called, at the time, the Government General of Poland—the far end of the Wolfish hold on Polish territory—and in order to pass across the German lines and make their way into the Bear’s holdings, it was necessary for them to cross the Bug River.

  The Swallow Man had chosen a crossing for them with trees close in on either bank. If they made it through the relatively calm water without being noticed, they wouldn’t have much ground to cover on the other side before they were out of sight again. In topographic terms the crossing was nearly ideal: the water flo
wing slowly if strongly, the river not as wide as in other places, and trees to provide cover on either bank.

  The only problem was the bridge.

  Downriver of their crossing there was a bridge of considerable tactical significance. On the western end of the bridge, the Germans had garrisoned a small detachment of infantry and light field artillery, and during their wanderings the three of them had discovered other groups of armor and infantry support gathered a ways back in the trees. On the Soviet side they could see evidence of perhaps a platoon of riflemen on guard, though there could well have been more.

  The plan was to cross as far upstream of the bridge as they could get before they came into the rocky, wider section of the river, where the water became choppy and frothed up. There was some discussion of venturing yet farther upstream and crossing where the current and undertow were a bit stronger—this would keep them out of view of the bridge—but this notion was ultimately rejected, for Anna’s sake. Should something happen to the Swallow Man and Reb Hirschl, she might still be able to make the opposite bank, where the water was calmer, but certainly not in the rapids. At the chosen crossing the distance from the bridge was not small, and it was judged sufficient for caution’s sake.

  No one was entirely sure of the depth of the river at this particular place, but it was decided that they should try, at least, to ford their way through. By now Anna was much taller than she’d been when first they left Kraków, but it was still doubtful that she’d be able to walk the whole way, and the Swallow Man promised to hold tightly to her hand. He was prepared to lift her, should it become necessary. Reb Hirschl offered to carry Anna on his shoulders the whole way, but she thought that this would attract undue attention, and the Swallow Man agreed, adding that it would make her an easy target should any particular soldier decide to begin shooting, and the suggestion was immediately dropped.

  It was resolved that they should make the crossing at dusk, when the sun had sunk beneath the horizon. The growing dark might help them to escape detection, and they might also still gain the benefit of some last dying daylight with which to navigate the forest when they reached the far bank.