About the Silence of Trees

An Excerpt from The Silence of Trees
From Chapter 1: The Lovers

The train to the camps was filled only with women, but the one I remember most was an old Ukrainian they called Baba Lena, who sat across from me eating a loaf of bread that she had pulled out from under her skirt. From a crack in the wood behind me, moonlight slipped into the car to light up Baba Lena’s face. She cradled the bread, rested her hands on her knees, her legs drawn close to her chest, her shoulders hunched over, and eyes staring only at her polished black boots. Man’s boots. Soldier’s boots.

She ate without a breath, without offering to share, even as the young mother beside her cradled her starving baby and whimpered. Baba Lena took no notice of the other skeletal shadows, the growling bellies, the smell of urine and vomit, the cries of the young children. She sat eating the small loaf for hours, taking the tiniest bites and chewing each one many, many times. Never lifting her head above the bread. Never lifting her eyes. Sometimes in between bites, I saw the saliva between her lips catch the light and glisten like a web.

When only crumbs were left hidden in her palms, I watched her tongue, cat-like, dart out and lift the smallest specks into her mouth. And after they too were gone, she licked her palms over and over and over, in between each finger, sucking on each fingertip. Then she licked her lips and lifted her head up and back against the wall of the train car.

“I have lived long enough to be selfish,” she said to no one. To everyone.

The young mother beside her cursed her and wept. I tried to see her baby, who had stopped crying a short time earlier, but the darkness kept her hidden. When a bump bent the moonlight in her direction, I saw that the child’s eyes were open, staring but not blinking. The mother continued to cry and to coo.

I turned back to Baba Lena who was staring at me from beneath large white eyebrows that stood out against her dark skin. She smiled. Once again licking her lips, she asked aloud.

“You think I’m a witch, a Baba Yaga, for eating while babies die of hunger?”
Baba Lena scratched at the babushka that covered her head and answered herself, “No.”

She stopped and closed her eyes. After some time, she fell asleep, her lips open to release a series a gurgles and rasps. Another large bump woke her, and as she shook her head, she continued,

“When you are old, you deserve to eat and sleep. You earn this with age, you earn this with all your deaths.”

As she spoke, Baba Lena bobbed her head back and forth with the rhythm of her words. She continued,

“You are young, all of you. Death is still new, still fresh. I have died hundreds of times. With my parents, my brothers, my sisters, my husband, my sons, their sons. I died in the first big war, when my brothers never came home. I died when they took away our land. I died when soldiers stole our cows, our pigs, our barley. I died when they shot my granddaughter for trying to pick up a single grain of wheat in the dirt. They hung her on a fence post as a warning.

I died when we had nothing left but the cats. I died when the dead filled the streets with stink. I died when no one was left alive in the village except for me and my son, who was blind.

So I fed him the only meat there was. The only food the Russians left for us. This was before the second war. My son did not know what he ate. I choked down the flesh I cooked. Not my own, but my neighbor’s. There was nothing else left. Then some people came and told us it was over. Stalin had enough. They asked how we survived. I lied.

I have died hundreds of times. I died when this war took my last son. Yesterday, soldiers took him from the Slovak village. Then they raped me, again and again. An old baba is still a woman, they said. So again I died.

This bread I ate, they spat on and threw at me when they were finished.”

She began to laugh over and over again. I closed my eyes and tried to think of something else, but she kept cackling. I covered my ears, and even that did not stop the laughter. Eventually she fell back asleep.

I sat bundled in Stephan’s overcoat, my arms wrapped around my stomach, trying to still the rumbling of my belly. Why had I refused Jan’s wife’s bread? Reaching into the tiny secret pocket in my skirt, I pulled out my good luck stone. I placed it in my mouth, trying to remember not to bite down and break my teeth.

The black stone felt cool and smooth on my tongue and tasted of the spring water from where it came. I could taste the sweat from my own hands, having held the stone for hours and hours. It was all I had left from home. The Russian soldiers ripped the crucifix from my neck after they tore open my blouse.

When the young mother began to eye me suspiciously, I slipped the stone from my mouth and replaced it in its hiding place. I could not fight her for it.

I became aware of a quiet shuffling sound. Rustling, like fall winds caught in an evergreen tree. I looked to my right, where another young Ukrainian girl sat. Blond curls lay flat against her face, her cheeks round in contrast with her thin body. She sat with her eyes closed, head leaning against the train wall. Her clothes were dirty and ripped like many of the women on the train, but she wore a pair of dainty black gloves. The rustling came from her hands, which she kept rubbing together over and over again. A sound that became soothing, and when it stopped, I noticed she had fallen asleep.

Soon she began to cry out softly, mumbling,

“No, Juliek...Papa...come with us...not without you...”

Baba Lena opened her eyes and glared at the sleeping girl, who continued to whimper quietly.

“Jewess.” Baba Lena sputtered out. Then louder, “Jewess!” She pointed and stared. Around the girl, people began to pull away, until only Baba Lena and I remained sitting near her. The others sat even closer together, smashed to one side of the car, to stay away from the sleeping girl. Under her breath Baba Lena began to chant, “dirty Jewess dirty Jewess dirty Jewess...” over and over and over again.

A Polish woman at the opposite side of the car shouted out, “Shut up, old woman. They will take us all away.” Baba Lena stopped but continued to glare.

I looked over at the girl, who was finally awake and staring out at the other women. “I am Ukrainian,” she whispered. Still the others stayed away from her.

Then she looked at me, eyes pleading, “I am Ukrainian.” She couldn’t have been much older than Halya, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old.

Not knowing how to respond, I nodded.

Baba Lena laughed, a long loud laugh that shook her old body.

Suddenly something in the girl snapped. I recognized the look in her eye, and the hairs on my neck rose, a shiver on my shoulders. Her eyebrows gathered together, thick wrinkles formed on the bridge of her nose. Her lips curled and pulled back to show perfectly straight, white teeth that she gritted tightly together. She stared straight at the old woman.

"You are not the only one to face death." She said slowly, each word heavy in her mouth. Then she brought her lips together and spat in Baba Lena's direction. Baba Lena just smiled.