The Last Green Valley by Mark Sullivan (best manga ereader txt) 📕

Adeline looked unhappy and flicked her hand at the scorched bas-relief faces of demons on the crypts.

“I don’t like them,” she said, looked around, and then pointed down the colonnade toward one with a large angel on it. “I’ll feel better there.”

“I agree,” Malia said.

“Yes,” said Karoline.

Emil knew better than to argue with three women and pulled the little wagon over in front of the crypt with the statue of the winged angel. He gave the carving no more than a passing glance before getting back to work.

More families appeared while the Martels unpacked, and they, too, began making camp under the roofs of the colonnades. When their wagon was emptied, Emil left in search of firewood and water, with Walt and Will standing in the wagon as if it were a chariot. Against a steady stream of refugees from the train, he pushed the wagon and his boys back the way they’d come through the park and graveyard.

Near the front gate, the water truck had only just arrived. Emil was feeling happy that he’d get to fill his water bag before the line got too long, when out of the crowd of refugees came Nikolas. He didn’t seem to notice Emil at first. But then Nikolas did see them, and he ambled over and used his height to loom over Walt and Will, who eyed him suspiciously.

“Fine young German stock,” Nikolas said, and nodded to Emil with that oily smile. “You must be proud of your bloodlines. I know the major was.”

Emil hated the man. He knew in his gut that Nikolas was not only a stone-cold killer, he was a persecutor, someone who wallowed like a pig in another man’s pain. If Emil allowed it, Nikolas would continue to goad and poke him for weakness, and he would show him none. He knew there were times to fight and smarter times to wait. He said nothing.

Nikolas’s smile vanished. He tilted his head slightly and studied Emil.

“There’s something about you, Martel. Something that’s off.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because in the Selbstschutz, the militia, it was my job to care, to tell the Nazis the truth behind people who told so many lies. Like you, Martel.”

Emil had no idea what power if any Nikolas held over him, but it was better to be safe than sorry. “I’m here for water for my family,” Emil said. “Nothing more.”

Nikolas looked like he wanted to continue, but Emil pushed by him and got in line. When he looked back, the executioner was gone.

After filling the water bag full, Emil and the boys went looking for enough wood for a cook fire. Deeper into the cemetery, they found branches broken off trees during winter in a thicket near several SS soldiers who were standing around, having a smoke.

Gathering up the broken branches, Emil came near to them and overheard one soldier talking disdainfully. “Why are we guarding these ignorant peasants? These are the future of the Reich? You must be joking.”

“According to Reichsführer Himmler, I’m not joking,” said another soldier. “Or do you wish to tell the chief of the Gestapo that he is wrong about who is of pure Aryan blood and who is not? Their ancestors left Germany, kept mostly to themselves, and ran big farms and colonies in isolation for more than a century. Who else would have purer Aryan blood?”

Emil took a load of firewood to the wagon, helped the boys with their armfuls, and then returned to gather more.

The loud soldier was still talking. “At least these are almost the last of them. There will be fewer coming now. Good riddance, I say. Get the trains in here.”

“No trains to be had for at least a few days,” his friend said. “Himmler commandeered them for all the Yids outside Budapest. They’re starting at the Kistarcsa transit station. Those are the ones being taken north first.”

“Rats,” the loud one said, and spat. “Take them all, I say. Be rid of them for good.”

“Papa!” Walt called.

Emil picked up one last branch about the thickness of his wrist and walked back to his sons. He didn’t understand the exact meaning behind the words “being taken north,” but in light of their earlier conversation about the pure bloodlines, Emil got the gist and felt torn apart. The Nazis were still killing Jews, and he and his family were evidently supposed to replace them.

Emil and his sons returned to find the long mausoleum almost filled now with families making temporary homes against the crypts and among the statues of long-dead Hungarian royalty.

“I thought we would have the place to ourselves,” Emil said, pulling the little wagon and the boys up to their camp.

“We’re not so lucky,” Adeline said. “Look at the far end, other side.”

Emil acted as if he had not heard her as he turned to lift Will and then Walt from the wagon. But as he did, he got two good looks diagonally across the mausoleum courtyard, enough to know that Nikolas was camped there along with two of the men who’d been with him that night around the campfire back in Moldova.

He set Walt down and said, “Stack the wood near Opa. Make it a good stack.”

Armed with purpose, Walt reached into the wagon and left with an armful. Will did, too. When Emil looked across the courtyard again, Nikolas was leaning against a carved stone column, smiling over at him, his hand raised in a mocking Heil Hitler salute. Emil did not return the gesture and gave the man no outward reaction before helping Walt and Will with the last load of firewood.

But in his street-smart mind, he had seen that taunting salute as a direct threat to himself and to his family. Whatever the man’s relationship to the SS, Emil decided he could not avoid it any longer. It was time to protect his family, and the sooner the better.

He waited until it was almost dark, then excused himself and left their camping area, walked straight