More shovels appeared, and after one earsplitting bark, they all had shovels in their hands and had begun to dig. Methodically, standing next to Zalman at the edge of the crowd, Jacob worked the soil, lifted the blade. Hit, fill, lift, pour, hit again. Out of the corner of his eye, he counted them, saw the black heavy pistols lying dormant at their sides. Hit, fill, lift, pour. Only a couple of the soldiers were standing now, poised, looking up into the sky as the grayness of an early dusk seeped into the atmosphere. Hit. Fill. Lift. Pour.
Three of their captors had removed their caps and were seated against an emaciated tree. Other soldiers were engaged in spirited conversation, maybe over their last encounter with a young fr?ulein at a brothel, all punctuated by raucous laughter. Closer to where he and Zalman worked, Jacob made out the blond hair of one of the soldiers who had captured them earlier. Next to him sat the older one, his protruding belly straining against the buttons of his still-clean gray shirt. Both men, caps covering their eyes, were dozing next to a naked shrub, their chins pressed against their chests. Jacob startled as his vision came to rest a few feet away on the face that had already carved itself into his memory forever. The white complexion, the arched eyebrows, the platinum blond hair, the almost angelic face. He was raising a flask to his lips, guzzling, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. Yet his eyes gazed straight ahead, and for less than a moment, Jacob felt them meet his own. Hit. Fill. Lift. Pour.
“Psst, psst!”
His skin jumped, and he almost prematurely dropped the heavy shovel. Jacob turned his head slightly toward the boy, who was mouthing his name.
“Jacob, what do you think has happened to the Frau?”
Jacob shook his head, glanced back at the arched eyebrows. He could see as the soldier placed the empty flask on the ground that his thirst was not yet quenched.
“Jacob!” he was whispering, more urgently now. “What do you think will happen to us?” Arched eyebrows was looking away, toward his sleeping companions, the naked shrub. He casually flicked a speck of dirt from his collar. There were only perhaps eight of the soldiers in all.
“Zalman,” he said, trying to keep his voice even, “soon I will put this shovel down, very gently. And you must do the same.”
The boy was gazing at him directly now, eyes wide, and Jacob could make out beads of sweat beneath the dirty-blond hair covering his forehead.
Hit. Fill. Lift. Pour. Arched eyebrows moving now, toward his companions, calling out.
“Zalman, what was it your father told you to do because you were so good at it?”
The boy bit down on the bottom of his lip before answering.
“Run. He told me to run.”
They placed their shovels on the ground and, beneath the first rays of moonlight, made for the forest.
PART II
BRICKS AND MORTAR
TWO
Jacob, 1952
Jacob sat at the counter of the coffee shop, sipping a cup of black coffee as he perused the sports section. He followed the Yankees in print and on the radio and had developed a keen desire to see Mickey Mantle hit one out of the park. But he had to remain content for now with voice and paper. He had neither the money nor the time to attend a real live, in-person game. He lifted the cuff of his sleeve and looked at his watch. It was a gift given to him by his uncle, American citizen Uncle Abe, when Jacob got off the ship less than a year earlier. Jacob had no more than an hour to go before he would walk the six blocks to Thirty-Third and Fifth for his class.
He hadn’t been much of a student as a young boy, never having the patience for formal studies or rigid numbers, but after the first week, he’d actually started looking forward to English language classes every Tuesday and Thursday night. The exhaustion that seeped into his bones after eight hours of work bottling seltzer was absent on those days as he anticipated sitting in the classroom, taking notes from a blackboard into his own composition notebook. It helped that Jacob was an eager student. His hand was always among the first raised. When he was called upon to read first his rudimentary sentences, then paragraphs, and ultimately composition, he recited with a robust voice that reflected the confidence he felt after his hours of study and practice. The other twenty students, some from Poland like himself, a few from Austria, France, Holland, and even a couple from Japan, all listened, smiles on their faces, eyes shining with admiration. A few of the slow ones surely harbored a secret envy. But how could he help himself? Languages had always come easily to him. Besides, although he never cared for the assigned propaganda he had to read back home, he was eager to try books by American authors he had long heard about, like Mark Twain or John Steinbeck.