Adam and Thomas

Chapter 22

Afterward the nights were quiet, and for a while it seemed there were no more fugitives. The bread and cheese nourished them and Miro. Between one rainstorm and another they would come down from the nest and sneak in to milk the cow.

Adam said, “God only knows how much Mina has been risking for our sake.”

Thomas answered, “I’ve also been thinking about that.”

“Are we worthy of her risk?” asked Adam.

“We’ll do our best to be worthy,” said Thomas with emotion.

“We underestimated her when she was with us in school,” said Adam.

“The conclusion: You mustn’t look down on people. Not on anyone,” said Thomas.

“And you have to repeat the words of Brother Peter, the religion teacher: ‘Every man bears a message in his heart,’” said Adam.

Again at night they heard the stumbling steps of someone fleeing and the running of his pursuers. From the treetop they saw the struggle between the weak and the strong, and their hearts were full of dread.

Adam said, “We can’t stand idly by. We have to help the fugitives.”

Thomas didn’t ignore Adam’s words. When he saw a man fleeing, carrying a baby in his arms, he stuck his head out of the nest and called out loudly, “Don’t be afraid, and don’t lose hope. The Red Army is on its way to us. In a little while, a day or two.”

The escaping man didn’t stop to see who was encouraging him but kept on running, out of breath, but the armed pursuers raised their heads. They heard Thomas’s shouts and shot at the nest.

“We have to get out of here,” said Adam.

“Sorry,” said Thomas. “I couldn’t control myself.”

“No matter. A word of encouragement is sometimes like a bandage.”

“Thanks,” said Thomas.

The thought flashed through Adam’s mind: Thomas minds his manners, even when he is tense. In the last darkness, they folded their blankets and the sheepskin coat, closed their backpacks, climbed down from the tree, and blazed a trail into the thick forest. In an hour they saw a tree with a round top. They immediately gathered twigs and branches, Adam climbed up, and Thomas handed him what they had collected. Now they were deep in the forest, far from the paths, and Thomas wondered whether they had gotten too far from the cow and calf and from the tree where Mina placed the food.

Adam said, “I know the forest and everything in it.”