Page 109 - LEIBY

Chapter 14 109

from behind surprised him. He whirled around and saw a
skeletal-looking man, his eyes bulging from their sockets and
his frame shrunken and withered, stepping gingerly around the
graves.

“No, I’m looking for my friend’s grave.”

“The young people who were strong enough to get to the train
station did not have the merit of being buried in a Jewish
cemetery.”

“But my friend was a soldier, he died in the battle to liberate
Warsaw.”

The man sighed wearily. “Fallen soldiers were buried hastily
in the place where they fell, and just a small sign was set up
by their graves by which to identify the hapless soldier buried
there. And if there happened to be a Magen David on the sign,
the Poles toppled it straight away and demolished the grave
too… Pah, despicable people that they are – the Jewish soldiers
fought with them side-by-side to liberate their country, and
that’s how they repay them.”

A deathly silence reigned in the cemetery. The only sound to be
heard was the wind rustling through the branches of the trees,
and the man, a labor camp survivor, shivered. Leiby leaned,
exhausted, on a tall tree trunk, its leaves gently brushing the
cap that he wore. Suddenly they heard the sound of footsteps
– someone else had come to visit the cemetery too, and after a
moment they could see him, just a short distance away. He was
a tall man, dressed in dark riding breeches and matching high
boots.

“Alexander!” Leiby called, recognizing the finely dressed man as
his former fellow partisan in the Bielski unit.

The man froze in his tracks, and looked all around, searching
for the source of the voice.

“Alexander, what are you doing here?” Leiby asked. “It’s me,
Leiby.”

“Who are you?” Alexander asked coldly, pretending not to