Page 59 - LEIBY

Chapter 6 59

so much? It had been so much more difficult for him to take
care of her in the ghetto, with its abysmal conditions, than it
had been for the farmer to take care of her in the village. Had
she really forgotten everything?

“Don’t take it so hard, Yosef,” Leiby tried to comfort him. “She’s
just a child, and if she loves the farmer so much, she obviously
must have looked after her very well, and loved her too. When
she gets accustomed to living among Jews, she’ll begin once
again to love her people, her martyred parents, and you. And
when she gets older, she’ll surely appreciate everything you did
for her. Children forget quickly, and now she’s so small – the
year that she spent on the farm is like an eternity for her!”

The car drove on, alongside streets, on a roundabout route, until
they arrived at the outskirts of Lida. Birds had begun to chirp,
and the dark night sky was beginning to light up. The soldiers
stopped at the entrance to the small house in Lida, and Yosef
lifted up his sleeping sister gently and lovingly and brought
her into the house. He laid her down carefully on his bed and
looked at her.

This was his sister Mirushka, and she was so different from
his memories of her in the ghetto. Her narrow, pale face had
rounded out, her hair had grown longer, but her confident blue
eyes had remained just the same. Yosef fingered the necklace
that she wore and pulled out the rolled-up piece of paper. He
recalled the poignant, heartrending moment in the ghetto,
when Mama sat beside the small candle and wrote the note,
then inserted it inside the necklace pendant. Mama’s tears
had stained the note and he tried to reassure her. “Don’t cry,
Mama,” Yosef pleaded. “I’ll bring Mirushka back home again.”
But Mama could not be calmed. She sensed that the end was
near, and despair engulfed her in a suffocating grip.

Baruch Hashem, he had succeeded in fulfilling his promise.
Mirushka was back among Jews, he was together with her, but
Mama had gone and there was no one left who could celebrate
with him wholeheartedly at Mirushka’s return. The crushing
pain that would never totally disappear overwhelmed him.Yosef