Deep in the blackest of nights on the Germany/Switzerland border, two small forms crept through the bushes of a dense forest. One of them, a tiny figure of about three feet tall, could be heard faintly whimpering, hugging his dark, threadbare coat tighter around him as his sister, a girl of about five feet and an agile frame, brushed off a flake of snow that drifted onto her face, hugging her brother close.
"Nedělejte si starosti, Yankel," she whispered to him as they crouched behind a tall fir, "Budete pocházejí. Vím, že budete pocházejí a jsou nás dostanete z tohoto místa." (1)
The little boy wouldn't be consoled. "Kde je matky a otce?" he asked piteously in Czech. His sister hesitated for a bit, her blue eyes troubled, and then she hugged her brother close, whispering, "Sh, sh… To bude v pořádku…"
The two children sat down on a dark stump, waiting for someone.
Just then, the whole stump quaked, as though trying to throw them off. Yankel gave a little scream before his frightened sister clapped a hand over his mouth.
"Y'mind?" asked the stump. Wide-eyed, the two children jumped to their feet and scurried back aways, unable to believe what had just happened. Then something even more incredible happened – the top of the stump lifted off its rotting perch to reveal a tall, slender man beneath it, clad in black. The kids backed away further into the surrounding brush, speechless as the guy climbed out to allow another character up – a second man in black, only this time his short and stocky frame completed the entire Abbot and Costello effect.
Brushing off some fungi powder from his hands, the tall one looked at the two kids speculatively, his keen blue eyes searching them over with one quick sweep. "You the two little 'uns we're s'posed to be pickin' up?" he asked. His distinct cockney accent made it hard for the girl to translate, at first.
"Ano," she nodded an affirmative, "I em Rivke, and dhis is my brudder Yankel. You are from Stalag 13?"
Corporal Newkirk nodded an affirmative. "Yeah, come on," he instructed, jerking a thumb over his shoulder toward the hollow stump, "Let's get ya outta th'cold."
They'd received the call from "Mama Bear" no more or less than twelve hours ago. Colonel Hogan, the ranking POW officer, had answered the call after Kinch, the local, dark-skinned radio monitor, had picked it up.
"Mama Bear, this is Goldilocks, come in." Robert Hogan was a tall, dark-haired man with the typical GI traits about him – a firm jaw, small, darting black eyes; the usual. He couldn't be called unhandsome, and his shabby leather jacket and cap only added to the charm. His foxishly keen mind was a whole other thing all together.
"Good to hear," said the man at the other end of the line, "We've got a couple of packages for you to pick up, two small ones."
Hogan scowled in surprise. "Small" packages typically meant children or any other kind of progeny. There had to be some confusion; Stalag 13 was a halfway house for escaping prisoners of war, not a childcare center. "Uh, you mind repeating that, Mama Bear?"
"Two small packages are headed your way and will be arriving at around 0320 hours. Do you copy?"
What the…?
"Yeah, we copy, Mama Bear," Hogan replied, giving Kinch a significant look. Kinch just shrugged back, not sure he understood it either. "Are there any details on this delivery I should know about?"
"Do not, repeat, do not let them be discovered. These are sensitive packages – handle with care. Mama Bear out."
Inside Barracks Two, a group of men, all soldiers who had been captured by the Nazis and assigned to a stalag, or POW camp, were hanging around a wooden table in the center of the large rectangular room that served as both kitchen, bedroom and board room for most of them. Some were sipping warm coffee out of tin mugs. Others were either sitting around the table or standing by the stove that served as the central source of heat in the otherwise very chilly establishment.
Two sergeants, a thin-faced blonde named Andrew Carter and a tall, dark man, "Kinch" Kinchloe, were sitting at the end of the small table playing checkers. Naturally, Carter was winning. Truth be told, playing Checkers and blowing things up were really the only things the tech soldier was really good at. However, he still was an invaluable part of the team that made up the Stalag 13 Underground Base.
Finally, the bunk bed nearest the two men rose up to reveal a folding wooden ladder underneath which connected to a tunnel they'd dug two years ago. Jumping to their feet, Carter and Kinch hurried over to greet their friends and the expected new arrivals, Checkers game completely forgotten.
"Hi, guys!" Carter beamed as Newkirk's grease-blackened face appeared first, "You're right on time! Did you find them?"
"They was sittin' right on top of us," Newkirk replied, stepping off the ladder into the barracks. Turning back toward the ladder, he bent down and hoisted a little, dark-haired boy out of the tunnel, setting him down onto the top bunk before returning an eye to the second escapee. Offering her a hand, Newkirk led up a lovely yet cold-looking woman of about nineteen, with long dark hair plaited firmly down her back and large, expressive brown eyes, hardened by the losses she'd suffered growing up in a Jewish shtetl among an anti-Semitic nation. Nodding courteously to Corporal Newkirk, she glanced down at the small Frenchman who was following her up into the open.
"Hey!" Carter grinned with a friendly air. The woman gave him a polite smile, and then turned her attention to the little boy on the bed above the tunnel entrance. He was kicking his feet, as all eight-year-olds tended to do, against the bedstead, a brave little boy in a brand new world. The first two kicks activated the closing device, and LeBeau gave a small shout and dove onto the barracks floor just in time. Carter and Kinch laughed out loud at the Corporal's misfortune, and even the woman's mouth twitched into a smile as she sent the shorter man an apologetic look.
Rattling off in something that sounded like Polish or Russian, the woman ordered the boy to get down. The latter just giggled and pointed at Newkirk, obviously blaming him for his ascended perch. The woman gave him an exasperated glare and warned him something, probably telling him not to fall off, and then turned to the surrounding men.
"I em Rivke Yomtov, and thet on the bunk is my brother, Yankel." Her accent, though not perfect, was improving with use. "I em sorry for the accident, LeBeau."
"No problem, mademoiselle," LeBeau replied, nursing his bruised ankle, which had been whacked by the folding ladder. Rivke noticed, and offered to take a look at it.
"I em good with injuries," she explained, "In my shtetl, I helped heal the victims of mobs and pogroms."
LeBeau smiled and nodded, eager for an excuse to get closer to the lady. "Merci, mademoiselle," he thanked her, and, slipping off his boot and sock, he let her look at the throbbing ankle as they sat on the bunk beside the tunnel entrance.
"Hmm…" Rivke said, looking it over with the skeptical look of an expert, "It looks as though the bone were merely bruised. It will hurt like a sword for a few days, but eventually it should heal up on its own. Simply," she smiled wryly, "You hev a fifty-percent chance of living."
LeBeau laughed appreciatively and replaced the sock and shoe. Standing from the bed, Rivke looked inquisitively at the two men, and the third coming from a separate room, wearing a brown leather jacket and an American uniform cap.
"Oh, sorry," said Newkirk, realizing her curiosity, "These are Sergeants Carter and Kinchloe. Carter's our resident pyromaniac, and Kinch operates the radio."
"And I'm Colonel Hogan," announced the third individual, catching the attention of the other three men and the two visitors, "Ranking POW officer. Welcome to Stalag 13, Ms. Yomtov." The handsome officer offered his hand, and, with a small waver of hesitation, Rivke accepted it and the two shook hands.
"Jsou Americká?" (3) Yankel asked suddenly, his eyes bright. He had heard a lot about the Americans – They sounded so cool, flying through the bomb-ridden skies in their B22's, defeating the evil Nazis who threatened to crush him and everything he'd ever known. Hogan glanced up, smiling at the boy, then looked to his sister for a translation.
Rivke looked almost embarrassed for her brother. "My brother, Yankel… he, eh, asks if you are American?" she explained.
"How do I tell him yes?"
"Ano."
Turning his attention back to the little imp on the top bunk, Hogan approached him and said, "Ano, Yankel."
Yankel squirmed on the mattress in excitement at meeting one of his heroes. Never mind that Carter was American too – he was blonde and looked too much like a goy. "Jsi to úžasné!" the Jewish boy cheered, and Hogan hoisted him off the high-standing bed and set him down safely on the floor.
Now on the floor, Yankel proceeded to explore the confines of his temporary new home. Looking with wonder at the stove, which his own family had been too poor to obtain, the child experimented with how hot it was within different perimeters of the stove. It was hottest near the center, he soon discovered, and put his singed fingers into his mouth to cool off as he continued to explore. Naturally, Rivke chided him for being such a kibitznik, whatever that was, and pretty soon the boy was impertinently ignoring her, much to his big sister's frustration.
Watching the two siblings, Newkirk was reminded of his own sister back home, and how, before the war, they had always argued about this, that, and the other, and eventually they had installed an intense security system just to keep the other out of each other's rooms. A smile crossed his face, and then the call for lights-out came bull-dozing through the scene, and the two Jewish kids were hidden and the rest of the occupants went to bed.
It was about midnight when Rivke Yomtov awoke, her mind full of terrible memories of the day the Nazis had invaded the only home she had ever known, the only place she'd ever thought she'd feel safe, and destroyed it, herding her people like cattle as the terrified Jews tried to run out of danger. That day had been intended to be the best day of her life – the day she married her childhood friend, Nachman Ringel, but the goyim had ruined it for her. Now she was homeless, her little brother the only family she knew she had left. There was no way she could return to those peaceful, happy days of simple, day-to-day life in the shtetl. The Nazis had seen to that.
Her mind crowded, Rivke checked to make sure that Yankel was asleep and then got up from her pallet on the tunnel's packed-dirt floor, putting on her coat and heading toward the exit into the woods. She needed some fresh air, and the dirt drifting through the tunnel air was not going to be good for either her or Yankel's over-all health. However, Yankel was a resilient boy, and he was already asleep, so Rivke didn't wake him.
Sitting outside on the stump, Rivke remained still as an owl standing sentry, her dark eyes never wavering from the ground. She wanted to forget about the stalag she and her brother were hiding in. She wanted to forget about the murderers who patrolled its gaze. Oi gevols, she wanted to forget the entire war!
Yes… It was all well and good to want to forget. Forget the screams of the children as the nightmare their parents had talked about when they thought their progeny weren't listening stormed upon them en-mass. Forget about the look of shock frozen on her beloved Nachman's dark, handsome face, an ugly wound in the side of his face, blood seeping through his beautiful dark hair onto the dirt beneath the chuppah. Forget the plaintive prayers the Rebbe, Chazzan and elders wailed as they experienced the forces of darkness firsthand.
She could possibly forget… but she could never, ever forgive.
Unlike one would expect, no tears fell from her cheeks. Her look was not one of anguish, nostalgia or sadness. It was one of cold anger and perhaps some hatred at the monsters that had done this to her people. As she stared at the ground, her vehemence shot out toward the ground, and, if it had been a physical object, would have zapped a small cockroach that was scampering among the leaves toward the stalag.
Finally, as the birds began to resume their song at around two o'clock, Rivke finished her prayer, stood up and crawled back down into the stump, having poured out all her anger into a heart-felt complaint to the Creator Himself.
`*'~
RIVKE: Don't worry, Yankel. They'll come. I know they'll come, and they'll get us out of here.
YANKEL: Where's Mom and Dad?
RIVKE: It's going to be okay.
Kibitznik = Busybody, somebody who kibitzes.
YANKEL: You're an American?
HOGAN: Yes, Yankel.
YANKEL: You're awesome!