What does he think this is, anyway—a mitzvah, some selfless act that’ll get him back in the legendary G-d’s good books? Sacrifice himself for Kotzeleh, to cover Chavah, so that when the Nazis kill him it’ll provide enough distraction for them both to bring his murderers down in turn?
So slow: Seconds passing like centuries, as Kotzeleh’s fingers find the knife, hilt-first. She quirks her mouth at Lev, signalling It’s all right, no more, you can stop now, NOW. Now, damn you. I said—
(stop)
She can see his lips moving even from here, though, as the Germans shift, thumbing their safeties; that familiar invocation of last resort, clear as the prominent nose on his too-Hebraic face. Hear, o Yisroel, the Lord our God, the Lord our God is one . . .
And: Not MY God, Rabbi, Kotzeleh thinks, grimly. Not by a long shot.
A flash of the future now, its resonance echoing back over years, sharp as a turned thumb in a still-green wound. Because this is when she might have saved him, that’s what she’ll always let herself believe—right here, this very moment, had things only gone differently. But it’s not like any of them will ever know, after all . . .
(Is it?)
One single moment: Here, then gone. Then Chavah slides her seeking palm across a hidden catch cunningly worked into the snaky tangle of demons crushed beneath St. Christopher’s feet and jolts back, hearing it click; kicks up a dirty wave as she does so, making the Germans jump in turn. And something comes ripping through the wall to meet her, five leprous-white fingers catching her fast by the scalp, pulling her back through the too-small hole it’s made—a scraping pop followed by a wrench, a crunch, by Chavah’s body slumping headless into the murk, as the Germans open fire.
Lev falls, instantly pierced at the wrist, the knee, with one eye shot out and his hair full of blood, so cheerfully bright red it seems dyed; Kotzeleh lunges to slit the nearest German’s throat as he does, some boy barely her own age wearing a uniform one size too small, then pivots to use his gun on the rest—white muzzle-fire blast and glare, hot whine of ricocheting bullets. Then dives deep, letting the shell-casings fall where they may, swimming through garbage to emerge at last, panting and dripping, by the chamber’s door. Spits liquid waste and stands there for a moment, trying not to see where Lev’s blood has already begun to surface . . .
Germans dead and dying, face-up or face-down; Kotzeleh watches them twitch, her joyless, skinned-back grin no more emotional than a dog’s. Yet none of them should be able to talk, at this point—which is just what makes it so very strange, if not maybe far more than that, to realize someone is saying something from behind her, his voice husk-dry but patient as a snake under glass.
(girl)
Huge figure turned sidelong to line up with the first fissure’s crack, dark on dark, like some Victorian silhouette portrait dressed in a rusty chain-mail gown, its eyes ravenous. Saint Xawery Martyr-maker in the livid flesh, crosses puffed raw on every visible surface like suppurating, Pope-blessed sores, watching her from that shadowed archway; Xawery, who must be kept safe and s
ecret for all souls’ sake, tipping Fat Chavah’s severed head to his mouth and drinking hot blood from the open ruin of her shattered throat.
Red drools from his chops, slops to his wrists, pooling, gouting. And where it falls, whether on stone or water . . . or Chavah’s abandoned hulk of flesh, for that matter . . .
(Oh no no no)
Those waxy flowers by his rotting boots? They must be lilies.
Girl, the Saint says, without really saying anything—that’s what Kotzeleh thinks he says, at least, seeing how he’s speaking Medieval Polish, unintelligible to her like Chaucer would be to any given Anglophile. But he improves so quickly it’s as though he’s plucking the right words from her brain, fingering through the folds, same as a common pickpocket. Taking what he wants and leaving the rest, making that his words clarify with only the smallest, most sibilant drag: Thus, and so—
“Girl,” he says again, this time out loud. “What iss your name?”
Through a dust-dry mouth: “Kotzeleh.”
“Kot-zssel-eh.”
It means little thorn.
“Little Hebrew thorn,” the monster says, gently, with a ruined smile. And Kotzeleh gasps, without meaning to, at the sound of him commenting so freely on what she’s only just thought. There’s a probing intelligence in those awful eyes, yet almost no sympathy; not as we understand the term, anyway.
Then: “Are you barren of God’s bounty, little Ssephardesss? Can you ssee your own sshadow at noon-time? Does nothing grow where you sstand?”
Scripture, one assumes. A subject she’s never excelled at.
“You kill well, Kotzsseleh-girl. For a peassant.”
“I know.”
“Of coursse you do.”
Of course.
She risks a glance at Chavah’s face, its burnt features gone slack and blood-loss pale; sees the Saint follow her eye-line, and begin to see a chance—the barest shadow of one, at least. That shattered section of wall the Germans came through, unguarded aside from their bodies. Guns floating stocks-up every few paces between her and potential escape, child’s play to reach with a sudden rush . . .
(not to mention how this thing doesn’t even know what a gun is, probably. For all he just saw her use one.)