I Am Forbidden Read Free Page B

drooped. Sweat drew his beard and sidecurls to a point. The arms, thighs, shins were slashed—it was impossible to see; it was impossible not to see, where the legs met, the split flesh where blood spurted through crusted blood.
    Three men in the Arrow Cross uniform kept guard, their black boots stomping the mess of crimson sawdust.
    In the recess where they hid, Anghel and the little girl heard the moan: “Wasser.…”
    The girl dashed to the village pipe, cupped her hands.
    Anghel pulled her back, held her face against his chest.
    “Tatta …” the girl stammered as water dripped through her fingers.
    After the last militiaman had disappeared inside the tavern, the two children crossed the square. The girl brought her cupped hands to her father’s lips. “Tatta …”
    The folded figure moaned, licked water from her fingers. Blood came out of the man’s mouth, and words: “
Mi-la
, your name now is
Mila
. Go to Zalman Stern.…”
    Another gush of blood and words: “With my own, see to it, see that Gershon Heller is buried with his own.”
    “I will,” the boy whispered and his hand pressed the girl’smouth to his chest, to his shirt of coarse linen, so her whimper would not be heard.
    The tavern door opened. Anghel pulled the girl past the bullwhip and the wound. He led her to his hollow in the bluff where they heard Florina call across the fields.
    “Anghel! Anghel!” And again, “Anghel! Anghel!”
    When all the lights in the village had gone dark, the two children returned to the market square. The body had been untied from the post; it lay across the tray of a wheelbarrow. The boy took hold of the shafts and pulled. Behind, leaning against the barrow’s rim, the little girl pushed.
    Under the poplars at the bottom of the sloping meadow, the boy loosened the earth with his shovel. The little girl scooped the soil with her bare hands. Together they pulled and pushed the body in the shallow grave. The boy heaped earth over the body; the little girl helped. When they were done, the boy said, “Later, I’ll see that he is buried in the Jewish cemetery.”
    The girl nodded. Then: “Tatta said if anything happens I must go to Zalman Stern in Nagyszeben. The train will say Sibiu but it’s the same as Nagyszeben. If I can’t get on the train I must run from the border. Tatta said I must run right away.”
    “I’ll help you get on. Don’t be afraid, all the trains go slow around the bend. I’ll jump on over there. You’ll wait here. When I come by, grab my hand. Don’t be afraid. I’ll pull you up fast. Just look at my hand. If the conductor comes by, sayyou lost your ticket. No, say your parents are in the next car. Say it in Hungarian and don’t speak the Jew language. You’ll know when to get off when the conductor calls, ‘Sibiu!’ ”
    The boy brushed the dirt off her coat. He tied the ribbon in her hair.
    “Mila,” she said, pointing to her chest.
    “Anghel,” he said, pointing to his chest.
    “Where is your mother?” Mila asked.
    “Florina—”
    “Your mother, where is she?”
    “Mama is dead. Tatta is dead. Pearela is dead.”
    “
Shayfeleh
.…” Mila’s hand stroked Anghel’s cheek, and he remembered that it meant little lamb.

Sibiu, Southern Transylvania
    T HE S TERN children were not to open the front door, so when four-year-old Atara heard the knock, she ran to her mother in the kitchen.
    A little girl was standing in the doorway, her coat torn, a dirty ribbon in her hair.
    Hannah squinted at the child. “Mila Heller? The daughter of Gershon and Rachel?” Hannah took the little girl in her arms. “Zalman! Come quickly!”
    The little girl collapsed.
    Hannah would tell so many times the story of Mila’s knock—blessed be the Lord who kept watch over the little girl, how else did a child so young find the right train, how did she find her way from the train station to their home? Hannah would tell so many times how she washed the soil out of Mila’s hair, how she