At first we called him “boy,” but one of the fighters happened to call him Milio, and now that’s what everyone calls him. I think the name fits him. Milio doesn’t ask questions; his eyes say, I have no words to tell you what I see and hear; don’t ask me. But the comrades ignore his mute request, though they can see that questions pain him.
Once, one of the fighters got down on his knees and innocently asked, “How do you feel, Milio?” Milio hunched his shoulders and covered his eyes with both hands. For a moment it seemed like he would burst into tears. We were wrong. He pursed his lips.
Most of the day he sits in his tent. Now and then he gets up and goes outside. He’s a strange, mute little creature, incapable of clear expression, whose every tiny gesture makes us happy. In truth, he does nothing but merely watches.
When we aren’t training or going on an ambush, Danzig carries Milio close to his chest in a big farmer’s kerchief. Danzig is our giant. He is about six feet six inches tall, and who knows how wide his shoulders are. Sometimes Danzig tries to make Milio laugh, but Milio is cautious and wary of trusting people.
What happened to him, how he lost his parents and landed outside the ghetto walls is hard to know. Danzig believes we need to be patient. He senses that Milio will eventually reveal his secrets, but we mustn’t pressure him.
In the evening we sit around him. If he would cry or express unhappiness, his existence would be more comprehensible. His serene silence is a riddle that grows day by day. Not long ago we still expected that one morning he would surprise us by speaking a word. The days have gone by, and Milio’s muteness endures in his every pore.
One day he suddenly fell ill with typhus. For two weeks he burned with fever. Danzig did not budge from the tent where he lay, and we were all on alert.
After his fever went down, Milio opened his eyes and looked at us. It was hard to know if he recognized us or if he was searching for his lost parents. Danzig spoke to him and said, “Thank God, the fever went down, and now you’ll feel much better.”
From day to day Milio’s face brightened. Danzig was as happy as a child and fed him semolina porridge. Most of the day Milio was curled up, sleeping. The sleep was good for him. After about two weeks of sleep, he got up and looked around with a fresh gaze, and we knew that he was a perceptive child.
Danzig feels that Milio has a different sort of understanding.
“How can you tell?” asked one of the fighters.
“It’s hard to explain.”
Milio sometimes seems like a creature who has survived by miraculous means. The miracle was so powerful that it muted the few sounds he’d been able to make.
Danzig believes that Milio is hiding a secret. It’s hard to argue with a giant like Danzig.
We love Milio’s sleep. A fine, milky mist hovers over his sleep, meaning he is still tied to his mother.
When Milio wakes up, Danzig declares “Milio is awake,” as if the miracle had returned and was revealed anew. Danzig himself has changed since he adopted Milio. The silent wonder of the child is reflected in his face and makes him a man who glows with an inner light.
* * *
—
WE’VE BEEN TOGETHER only a few months, but it sometimes seems as though we’ve been wandering for years on this uncharted land with an unknown future. Kamil does not instill false hope. Indeed, he increasingly demands exact compliance with his orders, but he goes easy on the weaker people. At times it appears that the purpose of our lives now is to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
5
Our daily schedule begins with exercise and running. Breakfast at seven. Tsila, our cook, prepares the meals with the help of older people who are not fighters. The morning menu: semolina or corn porridge, a slice of bread with jam, coffee or tea. Our menu is modest yet filling.
At eight o’clock we go out to train. Kamil insists on a neat appearance and clean weapons. It wasn’t easy to get the first rifles. We now have ten rifles, twelve pistols, and grenades. These weapons are insufficient for directly confronting hostile patrols, so we lie in ambush and sometimes manage to surprise them. A while ago we surprised a patrol. Two of them were killed, and the rest ran away, leaving behind six rifles and many cartridges. Our arsenal thus grew all at once, and in honor of the victory and the booty, we celebrated that night.
Once or sometimes twice a week we raid the houses of farmers. Truth be told, this is not pleasant work. In the summer we would raid fields and orchards and bring fruits and vegetables to the base. But in this season the fields are barren and gray. There is nothing to be found. With no alternative, we raid houses, plunder the food and clothing, and look forward to days when more fighters will join us and we can raid military camps.
Meanwhile, our shared lives, the drills and the raids, have forged us into a unit. If not for Kamil, who insists on sharp performance, our days would slip into blind routine. Kamil is not religious in the common meaning of the word but an enthusiast in every sense: sometimes it’s a plant or flower that inspires him, sometimes a word. When Kamil reads from the Book of Psalms, it gives you goose bumps. His orders are simple and clear, but at times he utters a rhythmic sentence that seems transmitted from the distant past.
Kamil wanted to organize evenings of study, but it’s hard to do so without texts. For years books were our mainstay, and suddenly we were cut off from them. It was odd how we got accustomed, in so short a time, to living without them. Sometimes, mostly in late afternoon, I imagine that I have a book in my hands. I look around and remember that at this hour I would hold a book and read. I read Crime and Punishment before it was assigned for school. Its sentences swept me away like rushing waters. Now we lived without books and notebooks, pencils and pens, as if stripped of our insides. If not for one small volume of psalms, brought by one fighter, we would have no physical claim on a world we lived in yesterday.
Books, books, where are they? As if they never were, I sometimes hear, not a lone voice but a collective moan arising from within. Books, in truth, are what separate our lives then from our lives now. One of the fighters, a sensitive young man, delivered his opinion with subtle, tight-lipped irony: “We have returned to nature. In two or three months we’ll be like cavemen. We won’t talk; we’ll howl, laugh, and bark, and maybe that’s better.”
Kamil heard this and reacted immediately. “We have not come here for that. We will maintain our humanity even here, and we will not let evil deface us. The study evenings will take place at first without texts, but don’t worry; we will find books somehow.”
6
Kamil had prophesied without knowing it. Loaded with supplies on the way back to the base after a tough raid, we saw at a crossroads a Jewish home that had been broken into. When we went inside, a great surprise awaited us. The house was bare of any furniture, any dish or bedsheet, but in two alcoves, arranged on shelves, were many books. Kamil immediately ordered us each to take at least ten books. And so we lucked upon a Hebrew Bible, a Bible in the poet Yehoash’s Yiddish translation, and another one in Luther’s German translation, an elegant Hebrew prayer book, a very old High Holiday mahzor, and many other rare books. The books were damp and mildewed but complete.