Time in the wetlands is a stream of thick and humid darkness. We trudge through it half blind and sometimes ask, “Where are we? What have we done till now, and what lies in store?” My father and mother, having been suddenly revealed to me, no longer show themselves. Now and then I think that our life from now on will only intensify: the darkness will deepen, the rains will turn into a torrent, and movement from place to place will be more difficult. Sometimes I have the growing feeling that, all in all, we are marching toward inevitable defeat.
The formidable army deployed along the roads and mountain ridges will not let us alone. One of these days they will decide to surround us and simply crush us. Escaping to this place is an illusion; it’s self-deception. An empire that decides to destroy a people will destroy it. The empire is patient. It will let us squirm in this mud for another month, two months. Wetness and cold, not to mention disease, will put an end to us, and when the Germans arrive, they won’t find human beings, just human shadows. It’s too bad that we were seduced by Kamil’s fantasies. It would have been better to go with all the others and not prolong the agony. The ambushes and patrols are basically childish games. The moment the army decides to destroy us, we will have nowhere to run.
One can assume that such dark thoughts occur not only to me, but no one talks about them. Kamil will not let depression gain a foothold. That’s a luxury, he argues. Our fight must be unwavering and without weakness.
Do dark thoughts visit Kamil, too? He most likely secludes himself not only to read maps and plan routes of advance and escape but also to calm his agitation and suppress his sorrow. It sometimes seems that he is not merely our commander but carries each of us inside him as well, and his isolation in his tent is a communion with our secret suffering. More than once I’ve heard him say, “We are one soul, and we must protect it.”
I sometimes think that this tall man derives his inner strength from Grandma Tsirl; he visits her regularly and hears things from her that she heard from her forefathers. She is filled with teachings and sayings of the rabbis.
Salo says her existence is miraculous; not only doesn’t she eat properly, she also fasts. But she believes fiercely in this world and the next. The sight of a bright morning, a setting sun, rain pouring from the sky fill her with awe and make her as happy as a child. Kamil maintains that Grandma Tsirl should be visited at least once a day. She is the essence of the tribe.
Occasionally we forget who we are, what we were bequeathed by our ancestors, and what has happened to us in recent years. These ups and downs impair our minds, and we see nothing but darkness with no exit. Grandma Tsirl, by her very existence, is a fantastic guide. She has crossed the rivers of fire and her mind has remained whole.
Sometimes I feel that if I took part in heroic raids, dark thoughts would not afflict me. Daring action ignites the will to live, and you return to the base not merely as someone who performed his duty but as someone who defeated his fears and worries. Patrols and ambushes are inherently static. When you’re patrolling or waiting in ambush, you’re like a rodent rushing to find a hole to hide in, but when you go out on a raid, your very presence says death does not deter me. The body grows from moment to moment and attacks with redoubled force.
I disclosed some of my thoughts to Salo. He’s thirty-seven but looks older, perhaps because of his sloping right shoulder. He is always ready to listen and will always provide a pill or spoonful of medicine to alleviate pain. Salo feels that the main thing now is to persevere. A day without casualties is a blessing.
EVER SINCE Danzig’s squad brought the cartons of medicine, Salo has been of greater help. He doesn’t act like an ordinary medic or doctor but like a man who is driven by his dedication to other people. “Thank God we have not lost our humanity,” he always says. Once he told me, “It’s too bad we don’t know how to appreciate what we have. We were rescued from the talons of the beast and are able to help the weak. Why don’t we know how to accept what we have with joy?”
Hearing his words I was embarrassed by my thoughts; they suddenly seemed small and selfish, and I said to myself, I hope Kamil will assign me to the raiders so I can take part in brave actions that will train me to be devoted with heart and soul, like Salo.
“What we are doing,” Salo corrects me, “is not just marking time but making progress. We have to compare our situation here with the ghetto. In the ghetto we were subject to the malicious whims of the soldiers and police. Every week they would snatch children and grandparents and send them into the unknown. Here, a bit of our fate is in our own hands.”
Salo, too, is connected with each and every one of us, especially the weak and the elderly. In the ghetto they took his wife and two daughters. Since then, his life has been devoted to others. When he speaks of our lives and those who were taken away from us, you feel he has effaced his own self.
He has uprooted the word “I” from his vocabulary and uses only “you.” When he speaks to me, I feel he exists entirely for me, and everyone else feels the same way. Salo has rescued more than a few people from the jaws of death and returned them to life. He refuses the title of “resurrector” and insists that his knowledge of medicine is minuscule. He did study medicine for four years, but what he learned was incomplete, and there are areas of medicine of which he knows nothing. Everything he does, he says, is guesswork and improvisation.
That’s not the opinion of others. People trust him fully. Often after a fighter recuperates from his wounds, there’s a party for him and Salo, and despite his protests, people say that Salo does God’s work on earth.
So it is, day after day. Kamil has decided to train us to fight in built-up areas, because the day will soon come when we will have to raid the military camps set up along the main road and in the foothills. We have to establish principles of combat so that one day, when additional fighters join us, we will have a solid set of rules.
I spoke to Kamil and asked him to include me in the big raids. “I feel ready and strong,” I said.
Kamil looked at me and said, “Let me think about it.”
“I feel like the patrols and ambushes demoralize me.”
“Banish that feeling; a patrol is also an act of self-sacrifice. Everything we do in this land is self-sacrifice. Only in due course will we know what we have accomplished.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied. I didn’t know what else to say.
“You did nothing wrong, my boy; there’s no reason to apologize. I’ll think about your request.”