Page 11 - LEIBY

Chapter 2 11

chandelier to the glossy wooden floor, added, “The house is
being confiscated for the use of the police.”

Leiby sighed. He had known all along that there was no chance
that they would be able to live in the house for long. He knew
that they should have dirtied and damaged the pristine walls
and perhaps broken some of the mahogany floorboards and
generally given the house a more neglected appearance, and
then, maybe, it would not have stirred Stefan’s jealousy.

Stefan waited a little longer to supervise the packing up of all
Leiby’s family’s meager possessions. Leiby bundled everything
into some large blankets and tied up their corners, while Stefan
strutted around the house as if it was already his own. It did not
even enter his mind to apologize to Leiby for evicting him from
his house, though he knew Leiby well from his days under his
command in the forest.

Stefan had been a fugitive, escaped from a prisoner-of-war
camp. He was a Ukrainian and the raging anti-Semitism
that had flowed in his blood for generations had reached new
levels in the prison camp. Whenever Leiby had returned from
military operations with the troop, he had made certain to walk
a few steps behind everyone else, so that Stefan or any other
like-minded hostile partisan could not “accidentally” shoot him
in the back…

Leiby cast back in his mind to the first time he had met Stefan.
He had arrived at the forest and was wandering about trying to
find a partisan group who he could join, but they were all well-
hidden and there was not a living soul in sight. After having
walked around for hours, two armed men suddenly appeared
from out of nowhere, right in front of him, and pointed their
guns straight at his head.

“Spy, stop!” Stefan, one of the men, roared menacingly. He burst
into wild laughter at the sight of Leiby’s terrified face, ordered
him to remove his watch, take off his boots, and to turn around,
his back to the tree. Leiby was positive that his end had come.

“I have a secret that I can tell only to your commander,” he