The Night of the Burning Read Online Free

wrote and told them that he and Uncle Pinchas are twins. If two brothers are twins, the army only takes one.”
    Relief filled me. I felt so light I could float. Papa was not going away, Papa was not going away. I slipped between Mama’s dress and her apron, wound her apron tightly around me, and shivered with delight.
    Later, as I drifted off to sleep, I wondered why I had never known before that Papa and Uncle Pinchas were twins. It’s a good thing they are, I thought drowsily. Poor, poor Aunt Friedka.

FROM PINSK TO WARSAW
    1921
    “I’m going with the nice man.”
    I stared at Nechama in shock. I had never heard my little sister state anything so strongly, never seen her so independent. We were standing in the hallway of the orphanage in Pinsk, the day after the man from Africa had arrived. In such a short time, she had latched on to his terrifying proposal.
    “I’m going to Africa,” Nechama repeated, her small fists clenched.
    Then she moved closer and stared at me with her big, appealing eyes. “Please come with me, Devorahleh. I want you to come, too.”
    “And if I don’t?” I asked, with real curiosity.
    Nechama didn’t hesitate for a moment. “I’m going,” she repeated again, and then once more. “I’m going with that man to that new place.”
    My heart lurched. I sat down on a little bench nearby and tried to think. There was a long silence.
    It wasn’t as if I myself didn’t feel drawn to Isaac Ochberg. He was warm and strong and gentle. But couldn’t he see that going to Africa meant my old life was over? Once we sailed across the huge seas, we’d never come back, that was certain.
    And where were we going? To a place where we knew no one and nothing, not even the language. I thought about the excited, frightened whispers I had heard coming from two older boys the previous night.
    “… lions and tigers,” Shlayma said.
    “Oh no,” Itzik corrected him proudly. “The man told me there are no tigers in Africa.”
    “Well, lions and elephants, then,” Shlayma conceded. “And what about cannibals? We might be eaten by cannibals.”
    There was a stunned silence.
    “Or sold as slaves,” Itzik offered.
    “Or drowned at sea,” Shlayma said, not to be outdone.
    “I’m not scared,” said a small boy’s voice, and they turned to stare at little Yankel. “I’m going to drink the milk an’ honey and get strong,” he announced.
    They looked at him in puzzlement, until Itzik let out a shriek of laughter. “He heard the man say Africa is a land of milk and honey like Palestine. What are you expecting, Yankel, rivers of warm milk?”
    “And honey dripping from the trees?” Shlayma chimedin mockingly.
    They laughed wildly, their fears making them hysterical. Then Yankel burst out crying. “I want my milk an’ honey. I want. Don’t laugh. Stop laughing.”
    Eventually Mr. Bobrow heard the uproar and swooped in to comfort Yankel and order everyone to sleep.
    After the other children had begun to snore, I slipped out of bed to stand alone at the window. I said the Shema, as usual, and my thank you to Aunt Friedka, as usual, and then it was time to talk. “Mama, I’m scared. I’m scared, Papa. I’m scared of—of—lions and cannibals and—Africa. If we go to Africa, how will we ever get home? I want to go home. But Panya Truda told us there was no one left. We can’t live alone at home—among those people who—We have no place left in Poland. What’s going to happen to us now, Papa? Mama?”
    Outside, I could see an old man picking his way through the rubble in the street. He was looking for something in the moonlight, perhaps something from the past, from before everything collapsed, but he wasn’t finding it.
    Now, sitting on my little bench and facing Nechama’s determination, I was being forced to decide: Europe or Africa? My little sister continued to stand, sturdily, very still, in front of me.
    She looks like a stranger, I thought. What has happened to her since we left