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

under the Germans than it had been under the Russians. Was that true? She was ethnic German and spoke both Russian and German, but felt no ties to either country, and certainly not to Stalin or to Hitler.

“Mama?” Walt said. “It’s too hot. I’m thirsty.”

“We’re almost home. We’ll get water there.”

“Can you carry me?”

“What will I do with Will?”

“Oh,” he said, looking downcast.

“Adeline? Is that you?” said a woman in a tremulous voice behind them.

Adeline, not recognizing the voice, looked over her shoulder and saw a desperate, frightened woman in her late thirties wearing a scarf over her head and peasant clothes. At first, she didn’t recognize her. But then the woman shifted her head a bit, and Adeline did know her.

“Mrs. Kantor’s friend,” Adeline said, smiling. “Esther.” It had been nearly eight years.

“Shhhh, I go by Ilse now,” Esther said, glanced around and then smiled at Walt and the baby. “Both your boys?”

Adeline thought it odd she’d changed her name but grinned. “Yes.”

“A blessing for you. Mrs. Kantor told me about your first child. I’m so sorry.”

Adeline felt a pang of sorrow. Five years now and she had come to believe the pain of losing Waldemar would be something she’d carry always. She hugged Walt to her side. “These are my precious gifts instead. How are you?”

Esther leaned forward, put her trembling fingers on the back of Adeline’s hand, and in a whisper on the verge of weeping, said, “The Nazis are shooting Jews in Bogopol, just across the river, and I . . . I need your help. Oh God, please, I have no one else to turn to.”

In the pitch dark of the culvert almost three years later, with the bombs falling less frequently now, Will shivered in her arms and tore her from her memory. “I’m so cold, Mama.”

Adeline called, “Emil?”

He called back, “The bombing is still going on, but it seems aimed somewhere else. I think we can get out. Lydia? Malia? Follow me.”

“Thank God,” Lydia said. “I hate being in these things.”

Adeline heard them start down the culvert. “Will, get off me and walk toward Oma.”

“In the water?” he said, his teeth chattering.

“Yes. Now.”

Will climbed off her. She twisted around on one knee and then stood up into a crouch, the back of her head against the roof of the culvert.

“We’re out,” her sister called.

“Go on, Will,” Adeline said. “Mama’s right behind you. Walt, follow me.”

A few moments later, they emerged from the culvert. They’d been inside thirty minutes. A new dawn was coming.

As Emil had sensed, the bombardment had not stopped but moved to the east toward the hillsides where the German troops were encamped, far enough away that her family seemed safe for the moment. Adeline grabbed up Will, who was shivering violently.

“Straight to the wagon,” she said, and with Walt started up the bank.

They’d no sooner gotten to the top and taken a few steps toward the wagon than she heard the whistles and whoomphs of artillery again, as if the Soviets were sending explosives in sweeps along the German front, with different ranges east and west. Another round could be coming their way any moment.

Adeline broke into a sprint to the wagon.

“Climb in!” she said to Will, lifting him. “Get in the back. Take off all your clothes.”

“No, Mama,” he said. “I’m cold.”

“Get in and take your clothes off!” she shouted. “I’m getting blankets!”

Adeline dropped to her knees. She heard planes now followed by more whistles and more blasts closer still to the south. The ground moved.

Walt screamed, “Mama!”

She grabbed the bedding, dragged it out, saw her older son pointing to the east where a wall of fire raged.

“I see it,” she said, trying not to panic. “Get in.”

Walt clambered up onto the bench and took the bedding from her and threw it in under the bonnet. She got up beside him, only to feel the wagon lurch again.

Up until then, she had not seen Emil working the horses into their harnesses. She helped Will and Walt strip off the rest of their wet clothes and wrapped both boys in the blankets.

Will was bluish and still shivering. Another artillery round exploded closer than before.

“We have to go!” Adeline screamed at Emil. “They’re shelling south to north. They’re coming at us!”

Emil jumped up on the bench and grabbed the reins.

“Hold on!” he shouted, and then slapped the flanks of Thor and Oden. The big horses coiled and drove forward, hurling Adeline off balance. She fell to her side on pots and pans that bruised her ribs.

She groaned, looked up and out the back of the wagon, seeing Emil’s father lashing at his horses with Karoline and Rese behind him under the bonnet, on their knees, holding on to the bench and terrified. Behind them, Malia was driving their mother’s wagon, screaming at the top of her lungs and whipping the reins on her ponies’ flanks.

Mud flew. They skidded as the wheels floated in the grease. The wagon whipped violently one way and then another. Adeline was sure they were going to jackknife off the route. But Emil and their trusted horses countered the motion and fought through the wet ground on the far side of the creek bed before climbing onto more-stable ground. Artillery shells began to strike back where they’d been encamped, throwing shattered red and orange flames through the dawn.

Thor and Oden picked up their pace. They put distance between themselves and the barrage, five hundred meters and then a thousand. But other refugees in other wagons were on the move as well, streaming out of the woods to either side of the road ahead, and their speed slowed.

Will and Walt pulled the blankets over their heads and fell asleep. Adeline climbed onto the bench beside Emil. They glanced at each other and smiled. She reached out her hand. He took it and squeezed it.

“I’m glad you’re so good with bombs falling around you,” he said.

She broke into a grin. “You’re not bad yourself.”

An hour later, they crossed a