Chapter two

Violette got up from the mattress on which she lay until late afternoon, hunger began to bother her, and she came out of the hut. It was quiet outside; two women were washing clothes in a bucket, in the middle of the clearing stood a big metal pot above burning twigs, one of the men was lying on a bunk with his eyes closed, the boys' voices were heard in the distance, and she assumed there was another hidden compound nearby. She approached the two women. "Why do you live in the woods? What are you hiding from?" One of the women started talking, but her friend gave her an angry look, and she faded out.

"Boris is coming soon; ask him what you want to know."

"You have some food to give me? I'm hungry."

"Soon, everyone will come to eat; you can join us."

Violette went back to the hut and lay down as she felt dizzy. "I must have lost a lot of blood," she thought.

After a while, she heard some voices approaching and realized that the whole group was back in the camp; she got up and went out to them. Very carefully she came to the young man who found her, she smiled at him and won a shy smile. Now that she has passed the "credibility test" of the group leader and received approval to stay with them for another day, the atmosphere around her had calmed down, as she was not a threat anymore.

"How long have you been hiding in the woods?" She asked him while they walked away from the rest.

"I do not know, I have lost my sense of time, but a lot of time, many months, maybe even a year," he replied.

"What do you feed on?"

"Some of us go hunting, we learned how to catch different animals with the help of traps, the women pick mushrooms and roots, we have a goat that came from nowhere, rainwater is not lacking, and we feel pretty safe here."

"And you have no connection with the outside world?"

"We have, but I cannot talk about it" he sounded almost apologetic.

"And escapees like me did not cross your place till now?"

"There were, some Jews, who fled on the way to the camps, jumped from transporting trains."

"And where did they go?" She asked, hoping very much that by asking this, she would know where to go next.

"They did not go on," he replied, and a small smile appeared.

Violette tried to smile not to betray herself, but her face contorted and turned pale.

"What happened? What are you scared of? "You did not expect us to share our little food with rats that have sucked our blood for generations."

Violette did not answer him; she suddenly began to fear her life lest they should suspect her. She decided she had to leave the place in the dark of night when everyone was asleep.

"Come eat, Christina," the young man called to her.

After eating from the soup rich in chunks of meat and legumes collected in the forest, they all began to disperse. Most of them left for the other part, which was probably a short distance from the clearing where she was. The boy, the girl, and two other men entered the hut. The young man stayed outside and cleaned the area. "Let's get it right; the pigs ate and left without the clean-up. "She began to collect the leftovers that were thrown on the ground around the empty pot.

When they finished cleaning, they sat on a wooden bunk. The sky was clear, and the moon illuminated the forest.

"Before the war, we lived in a small village near Maluszyn, a tiny village, with a total of five hundred people. On Sundays, the Jews would show up in the village square, ugly bearded people wearing black hats; they would come with a horse harnessed to a cart, set up a stand, and sell booze of their own production to the locals. After leaving with the money, the men were left behind, rolling in their vomit. When their wives tried to drag them to their homes, they would hit their women and children. We called them bloodsuckers, and if we are talking about blood, during their Passover, they would kidnap a child from nearby villages to make matzah for their holiday; everyone knew that."

Violette was silent; she heard these stories for the first time in her life. In the society she frequented, nobody ever talked about occurrences like this. She could not believe that there was truth in it. So now she was determined to be silent so, she nodded understandingly.

"I come from the city, so I did not come across it, but I heard about these acts."

"These are not rumors, these are testimonies, and everything is true, even the priest in the village mentioned that the Jews had humiliated the Holy Jesus and drank his blood."

Violette suddenly got up. "I'm tired, I'm leaving tomorrow, and I have a long way to go," she said.

"I'll talk to Jacek tomorrow; I'll try to convince him to let you stay with us," he said.

She smiled at him, "great, thank you," and walked away towards the hut.

For several hours now, Violette has been lying on the mattress in the hut while some of the place's occupants were sleeping next to her. She has concluded that they will eliminate her for fear of betraying them as soon as she wants to leave the site. She realized she had to run away in the dark of the night when everyone was asleep.

She looked around; no sound was heard outside the snores merging with the noise of the crickets and frogs.

She got up and began to walk towards the bushes when she suddenly heard a murmur, "Where are you going?" It was the young boy's voice. He was lying on a bunk outside the cabin.

"I need to pee," she replied in a whisper.

"Beware of snakes, do not go deep into the forest."

She went in behind the bushes where he couldn't see her; she was afraid he would follow her. It took her a few minutes of questioning whether to run deep into the forest and escape or wait for another opportunity. When she saw the guy get up, she went out from behind the bushes and walked towards the hut.

"Are you keeping us from predators?" She tried to give her voice a light-hearted air of jokes.

"Yes, of human predators," he replied.

"Now that I know you're on guard, I will sleep better."

She went into the hut and lay down on the mattress.

"Mammy, I hope you are fine, and you have arrived in New York healthy; I am sure the moment will arrive, when we unite again, I love you very much" She finished writing the imaginary letter and fell into a deep sleep.

When she opened her eyes, it was still dark; she got up and proceeded carefully to a point from where she could look out without the young man noticed her. He lay on the bunk with his head covered with a blanket. "This is my last chance to escape," the thought went through her mind.

Walking hunched over and in slow steps, she began to move towards him, she passed him and continued towards the bushes, suddenly she heard a murmur behind her, turned around and saw that he was still lying in his place. The distance of the twenty paces went on forever; when she reached the bushes, she sat down and looked back; everything was calm, except for the crickets and frogs croaking in a monotonous chorus, she heard no other voices. Violette began to walk into the depth of the forest in the opposite direction from which she had come; she assumed the walking distance was two to three days at most. She now felt strong and ready to walk at a faster pace.

She walked with the full moon shining through her for about two hours, dawn began to rise, and she increased her pace. From time to time, she would stop and listen to the sounds of the forest. "If I had not visited the church with my aunt Gertrude, who knows if I would have survived," the thought went through her mind.

After several consecutive hours of walking, she stopped to rest. Now she knew she had gone far into the depths of the forest and realized that the chances of finding her were low.

As she had learned to identify them, she had collected some mushrooms that grew under the trees and ate them. Afterward, she decided to continue on her way as long as it was still light.

Towards evening Violette was looking for a hiding place to spend the night. From time to time, it rained slightly, which did not stop her from moving forward. Her arm bothered her mostly when the branches scratched her injury, but the treatment she had received seemed to prevent the infection. Darkness fell on the forest abruptly, and suddenly everything seemed so alienating and frightening. She took shelter under a large tree that protected her from getting wet. She licked large, wet leaves, which she collected from the ground. While trying to fall asleep, she heard thunder and saw flashes of lightning coming from afar, but the rain stopped entirely to her relief.

Her stomach rumbled, and hunger bothered her, but she was afraid to look for mushrooms lest in the dark she would not recognize them and eat poisonous ones.

At first light, she began to look for something to eat; she found one extra-large mushroom and chewed it with great appetite; after a deep search under the guise of leaves and twigs, she found roots, not sure if they were edible. Suddenly she heard the hum of a swarm of bees. She looked up and noticed a vast honeycomb hanging from a branch of a tree. She chased the bees away with a branch and struck the honeycomb until a decent piece of it detached and fell to the ground; she snatched it and quickly ran away from the nervous bees that began to gather above her in a threatening manner. As she walked a long way, she sat down and poured the liquid honey down her throat.

After a few hours of hard walking up a steep hill, when she reached its top, the sight of a wooded valley and a stream running through the green hills unfolded before her eyes. Along the creek, she noticed a group of wooden houses where smoke billowed from their chimneys; she decided to reach them.