Mila 18 - Leon Uris

Tears welled up in Andrei’s eyes. “You would think that we would get used to our friends dying after a time. I loved Ervin. Lot of years together.” Andrei bit his lip, but the tears fell anyway. “Quiet, gentle little man. Believed in what he was doing without shouting, breast-beating. He just stayed in the cellar month in and month out, working on the archives. He never said why. He just did it because somebody had to. Ever see how swollen his hands were from the damp? Blind as a bat, but he stayed and kept working after they took Susan. He stayed and went about his business ... never raised his voice.”

The cot groaned as Simon sat beside Andrei. Simon picked the book up, opened it, and turned the pages, then pulled the candle on the table directly to him. “This was his last entry.” He read, “ ‘When will we fight? Or will we fight? Who among us will dare to fire that first shot against them? Who?’ ” He closed it and set it down. He hunched his massive frame forward and rubbed the knuckles of one hand against the palm of the other. “I don’t deserve to be the commander. I want you to take over.”

“No, Simon, no.”

“Don’t humor me, Andrei. I was the man who was planning to send our companies through the sewers to escape. You were the one who fired the shot—and I pointed my pistol at your heart to stop you.”

“Don’t you think I know how torn up you are to have to give an order that will turn us into a suicide force?” Andrei said.

“You don’t understand,” Simon snapped, standing up abruptly with his back to Andrei. “I aimed that pistol at your heart because I was afraid to go down on the street. I was afraid, and I’ll be afraid again.”

“You were afraid, but you went anyhow, and while I was in a blind rage you brought them to safety, because when the moment was needed you were calm and deliberate, as a good commander must be.” Andrei walked up behind him and put his hand on Simon’s shoulder. “I had a lot of time to think while we were up in the rafters. I found answers to many questions. I guess when one is close to his Maker many perplexing problems suddenly become amazingly clear and simple. Who fights what kind of war? The quiet courage it took to be a soldier like Ervin Rosenblum. Simon ... I ... I’m no damned good for anything but leading cavalry charges.”

“Perhaps,” Simon whispered, “if you stuck close by me to knock me flat on my back ...”

“I don’t think it will be necessary again.”

“There were too many mistakes today,” Simon said with a quick surge of excitement. “We have to have scouts in observation posts so that nothing can get into the ghetto before we can move our companies into battle position.”

Andrei nodded in agreement.

“And we have to teach them that the cardinal rule is to pick up enemy weapons and strip their uniforms. We missed on that today.”

Andrei nodded again and smiled slightly at the knowledge that Simon was again in full control and eager.

“I’m thinking. We should find a new bunker close to the central area for a command post.” Simon stopped abruptly, watching Andrei look at the volume of the journal and Ervin’s glasses. “Andrei, what made you go into the streets?”

“I don’t know. Just that this was the moment which could not pass. It wasn’t even seeing my sister. It was Alex. I couldn’t let them take Alexander Brandel to the Umschlagplatz.” Andrei picked up the book. “So damned much time has gone by, and Alex and I have barely talked to each other. I wish I knew how to apologize.”

“Why don’t you try?”

“What can I say for being a damned fool?”

“Come,” Simon said.

Andrei trailed him haltingly out of the cell and across the narrow passageway to the opposite cell. Simon pulled back the sack curtain. The three of them were there. Sylvia with her little boy on her lap. Moses Brandel at the age of four was disciplined to the silence of underground living; pale, scrawny from the lack of sun and air and nourishment. Alexander gazed emptily at the floor in much the same way as he had since the children were taken to the Umschlagplatz. Sylvia stood and put the boy down. She blocked Andrei’s way, but Simon nodded for her to leave the room. She looked from Andrei to Alex, then took the child and led him out.

Andrei hulked helplessly over the dejected man, groping for words. He knelt slowly beside Alex. Alex turned his face, recognized Andrei and hung his head.

“I ... uh ... wanted to give you this,” Andrei said, showing the book. “They ... uh ... were lucky enough to salvage it from Mila 19.”

Alex did not answer.

“I think that—well, with Ervin gone, you’ll want to take up the work again.”

Again, nothing.

“It’s very important that the archives be continued and—Look, I know something I didn’t know. What I mean to say is, it takes many kinds of men and many kinds of battles to fight a war.”

Andrei reached out and touched his shoulder, but Alex shrank away.

“Please look at me, Alex,” Andrei whispered. “You must hear what I’m saying. Alex, once I told you that the Brandel journal would never take the place of the Seventh Ulany Brigade, and you answered that truth is a weapon worth a thousand armies. I never understood that till now. It’s true, all of the divisions of the German army can’t defeat these words.”

Alex shook his head slowly.

“You ... you were right. You’ve won a great battle with this,” Andrei said.

The mouth in Alex’s bearded face fumbled to form words in a cracked, wavering voice. “I called my dearest friend a man who thirsts for personal revenge. I ... took the weapons from your hands. I am the vengeful man. Your way has always been the only way.”

“You’re wrong about that, Alex. My way hasn’t been the only way. I would have destroyed us all long ago. You see, only because of men like you and Simon has a moment like today been possible for men like me.”

“The children are gone ... Everyone is gone ... I have failed.”

Andrei clutched Alex’s arms hard and pleaded with fervor. “Listen to me!” he cried. “We’ve all done the best with what we’ve had. No man has ever fought a better fight than you! And it was the only fight. It was, I swear it.”

“Don’t patronize me, Andrei. It is I who should be on my knees to you.”

Andrei released his grip and stood up slowly, and his voice mellowed with softness. “All my life I have believed I walked in the darkness, battling windmills, crying for lost causes, living a life in dubious battle. My father gave me a country which hated me, and you have given your sons a ghetto and genocide. God only knows what kind of a world Wolf will hand to his sons. We enter this world in the middle of a war that is never won. It has always been this way—this endless war. No one of us ever really wins in his life. All you have the right to ask of life is to choose a battle in this war, make the best you can, and leave the field with honor.”

Alex mumbled, “Make your battle ... leave the field with honor.”

“You’ve fought your good fight. Now the war goes on. I must fight my way now.”

“Oh, Andrei, stop! What is there left but doom?”

“Left? We have a lot left. We can go out like men. ... “What though the field be lost? All is not lost—unconquerable will, the study of revenge, immortal hate ... The courage never to submit or yield.’ I never understood those lines till now. But I know—it is not a dubious battle.”

Alexander picked up the book, and his fingers caressed it lovingly. He opened it, glanced up at Andrei quickly, then thumbed hungrily through Ervin’s notes. He came to the last entry. “Who will fire the first shot?” Alex took out a pencil, and his hand wrote: