The Night of the Burning Read Online Free Page A

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    I had never followed Nechama before; I had alwaysled. But if I wasn’t sure about Africa, I was sure about something else. Mama would have said it, Papa would have said it, and I knew it in my heart: Wherever Nechama went, there went I.
    Then came a long journey from Pinsk on a slow, dirty train to Warsaw, the biggest city in Poland. There were twelve orphans in our group: Nechama and I and four others from the orphanage in Pinsk—Itzik, Shlayma, Nechama’s friend Malke, and little Yankel—plus six children, all girls, from an orphanage in Brest. None of us had ever been on a train before. The countryside moved across my eyes and disappeared. When I leaned forward to see where we had come from, I bumped my head on the smeared glass.
    The train seats were worn through in places, and I kept trying to push away a metal spring that was poking through the old leather into my leg. Nechama was squashed beside me in the crowded compartment. “Isn’t it wonderful that our own Mr. Bobrow is coming with us to South Africa?” I whispered to her.
    “I asked him to,” she murmured sleepily over the clacking of the wheels, her head rocking with the train’s movement.
    “Silly,” I retorted. “He’s not coming because you invited him. He wouldn’t leave his work at the orphanage for that. He’s coming because Mr. Ochberg is gathering two hundred children in Warsaw to take to South Africa,and he needs Mr. Bobrow’s help taking care of us all.”
    “Two hundred,” Nechama repeated, opening her eyes with interest for a minute. “Do you think there will be girls my age?”
    I didn’t bother to answer her question. Why did Nechama need more friends? Wasn’t I enough for her?
    But I did feel much better knowing that Mr. Bobrow would be with us all the way from the orphanage in Pinsk to the orphanage in South Africa. He was the person who had lifted us from the wooden cart when we arrived in Pinsk and led us to our iron cots. He was the one who had written down my name and Nechama’s and those of our parents and our old village. He knew that much of my past. I turned to him, but he was talking with Isaac Ochberg.
    “Right now it’s Laya and Pesha I’m worrying about,” Mr. Ochberg was saying. “I don’t know how their eyes became so red and swollen so quickly, but it looks very contagious. If a health inspector gets on the train to check for diseases, he’s sure to suspect trachoma. We’ll be thrown off the train at the next station.”
    Instantly I was wide awake. Pressing my face against the glass, I began scanning each station platform carefully. And not very long after, I caught sight of a man wearing official-looking epaulets and a cap with a faded gold ribbon. There were many men in uniform in Poland, but this one hailed the train guard with a mixture of familiarity and authority before he swung himself up onto the train.
    I turned to Mr. Ochberg, who was reading somepapers. “I think there’s an inspector,” I whispered. “He boarded the car behind us.”
    Mr. Ochberg and Mr. Bobrow glanced at each other.
    “It could be,” said Mr. Bobrow, pushing up his spectacles with an agitated gesture. “I’d better move Pesha and Laya forward. I’ll take a few little ones to make us less conspicuous. Children, some of you must come with me quickly. Laya, carry baby Gittel. You, Pesha, take Yankel. Nechama, Faygele, and Braindel, follow me closely.”
    Nechama stood up obediently, and without hesitating I jumped up and stood next to her.
    “Not you, Devorah,” Isaac Ochberg began. “You stay here and—”
    I turned to him, begging him with my eyes.
    “Go ahead,” he said gently. “You may go with your sister. Braindel, you stay here instead.”
    Braindel hurried back to her friend Rosha, looking relieved.
    “Quickly, into the corridor,” Mr. Bobrow urged.
    We stood there swaying uncertainly for a moment, and then we heard a loud voice in the open doorway of the compartment right behind ours.
    “…