The Last Green Valley, Mark Sullivan [most read books in the world of all time .txt] 📗

almost four, Will almost two. Emil had gone with the wagon and horses to get supplies for the roof and windows in Dubossary, the town that now lay ahead of them. Emil had planned to be gone a day and a half, two at most, but he’d been absent more than three, only to return to their bed before dawn on the fourth morning.

Adeline remembered her husband’s face in the lantern light. At first, he had appeared tired, and then aged, and then lost as he climbed into bed.

“Where have you been?” she’d asked. “I was worried sick.”

“I was held by the Germans for a day and a half.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know why anyone does anything anymore.”

Adeline had wanted to question him further, but he’d gazed at her with bloodshot eyes and said, “I don’t want to talk about it. Ever. I want to sleep. I need to sleep if I’m to get the roof on before the snow flies.”

Emil had rolled over then. She’d stared at his back a long time before blowing out the lantern. In the dim light, she recalled someone saying that the eyes are the windows to the soul and thought of her husband’s a few moments before.

Wounded, she’d thought. Scarred.

Then she’d heard him crying for the second time in their marriage.

Fifty feet from his wife and sons, Emil moved in a dark trance as he harnessed the horses for their second day on the road.

Dubossary? I haven’t been there since . . . How is it possible they’re taking us this way instead of more to the south?

And yet here he was, before he left Ukraine forever, preparing to face a town he wished he’d never seen. At some level, however, it felt just, deserved. That thought and tortured others spun relentlessly in his head as he finished with the horses.

Wagons in the caravan were already moving out. Dawn was upon them.

“What’s bothering you?” Adeline asked as she finished loading the back of the wagon.

“What?”

“You’re walking around like the weight of the world is on your shoulders.”

Emil adored his wife, but her comment angered him. He felt it flare inside. Before he could let it out, though, he caught himself and gestured at the horses’ flanks.

“I’m just worrying about them. I don’t want an infection. Without them, we’re in trouble.”

She studied him a moment before nodding. “We’ll watch them closely.”

A few minutes later, with Adeline beside him and the boys sitting on the folded oilskin tarp behind the bench, Emil held the reins and gently clucked up Thor and Oden. The wagon began to roll and bump again.

Adeline stood up on the bench and looked over the bonnet, watching Emil’s parents’ wagon roll in behind them, and her mother’s wagon after. Johann had the reins with Karoline beside him looking like she was preparing for another storm. Behind her, Rese lay on her back beneath blankets.

Lydia had finally relented and let Malia have the reins of their wagon. Her older sister was sitting with her back ramrod straight and her head swiveling, a massive grin on her face. Adeline broke into a smile. Malia, as far as she was concerned, was one of the best parts of her life. Red Army cannons may have been firing to the north, but she was getting such a warm, good feeling from watching her sister drive that she did not care.

Can happiness be that easy? Finding little joys in the worst moments? Isn’t that what Mrs. Kantor used to say?

Before Adeline met Emil, she had worked as a cook and maid for an older widow named Yudit Kantor, who’d been kind to her and taught her a lot about life. Thinking of Mrs. Kantor, Adeline decided that, for today, happiness was that easy, and she took a mental picture of Malia in all her glory that she prayed she would remember forever.

Later that morning, progress snarled due to more wagons and more retreating ethnic Volksdeutsche joining the trek from the north. The Martels inched down a slick, snow-and-mud-covered, winding dirt road that descended to an intersection where a German officer stood on the hood of a truck, directing traffic.

The closer they got, the more details of the man Emil could make out: stocky and bull-necked with a close-cropped head beneath a distinctive black cap and a long dark-gray coat that flapped open to the wind. Emil wanted to deny the sudden unease that swept through him, wanted to deny that the officer was who he appeared to be. But the way he stood, the way he moved.

It can’t be, Emil thought, tasting acid at the back of his throat.

A solid hundred meters before his wagon came under the German officer’s direct attention, the man’s mannerisms and voice conspired to convince Emil otherwise.

It’s him, SS Hauptsturmführer Haussmann.

Fear burned in his gut before exploding into terror. It’s him! Haussmann. How is this possible?

For a moment, Emil felt paralyzed. Then he wanted to turn his horses and wagon around and flee the Soviets via another route under the protection of different Nazis. He’d heard of people going northwest toward Poland. But there were too many carts and vehicles around him to try to leave.

“What’s wrong, Emil?” Adeline asked.

He didn’t hear her at first, then looked at her. “What?”

“It’s cold, and you’re sweating like you were out plowing. The sweat’s freezing in your beard.”

“I don’t know,” he said, feeling more panicked.

Then he thought, My beard! My winter hair!

The last time he’d been face-to-face with the Nazi SS captain standing on the hood of the truck ahead of him was two and a half years before, near the end of summer 1941 in the town of Dubossary, less than ten kilometers from this very spot. That first time, Emil had been working day and night to erect the walls of their new home. He had cut his hair and beard completely off to deal with the toil and heat.

Haussmann won’t know