Free The Night of the Burning by Linda Press Wulf Page A

were pushing through thick mist. Mama couldn’t push. She never stood up straight again, it seemed to me. She didn’t even prepare food for meals. Aunt Friedka moved into our house and took care of all of us.
    Neighbors and friends came to visit each day for shiva, the traditional week of mourning. “We wish you long life,” they murmured. “Long life, wish you long life.”
    Mama didn’t seem to hear. She sat in a low chair or on the floor. The visitors’ little children played outside with Nechama. Gradually the children’s chatter and laughter began to penetrate the dim house.
    “Nechama! Shhhh!” I ordered furiously from the front doorstep. “Be quiet! How can you play when Papa is dead?”
    There was silence for a moment, and then Nechama burst into loud tears. I felt torn. I was glad that Nechama realized she had done wrong, but I hated to see the little face twisted in sobs. Hurrying to my sister, I hugged and kissed her and dried her face with my apron. Then I settled the small children under an old cherry tree and told them all to play very quietly.
    But when I went back inside, Mama was staring downward and didn’t seem to be aware of the commotion. A neighbor began to apologize for her children’s part in the games, but Aunt Friedka cut her short. “They’re still young,” she said. “It would be better for Devorah to be out there with them.”
    How could she say such a thing? Of course it would be nice to run with the girls again, to be chased by the boys and shriek with laughter, but the time for such childishness was over. I sat down low next to Mama.
    Exactly seven days after Papa was buried, visitors stopped coming. And so did the little gifts of food they had brought—two potatoes from one neighbor, a few strawberries and a bowl of milk from another. Aunt Friedka went out to barter for food every morning. She gave Nechama and me the biggest portions, but we felt hungry all the time. So did Aunt Friedka. Only Mama never complained.
    Life went on somehow for a few months. Then came news of a pogrom in a Jewish shtetl to the west. Aunt Friedka whispered about it to our neighbors when she thought I wasn’t listening. “I heard some Cossacks rode inand got all the Poles from the surrounding villages filled up with liquor. Strange bedfellows, Cossacks and Poles, but they get on well when it comes to killing Jews. Aagh, may the typhoid find its way to them!”
    But the typhoid took a wrong turn. Mama woke up one morning burning with fever.
    “Water,” she cried. “My lips are parched, bring me water.”
    Aunt Friedka sprang up and examined Mama. I rushed to her, too. I could see small pink spots covering Mama’s thin back and chest.
    “Water, Devorah. Quickly!” Aunt Friedka ordered.
    I sped to the well and pumped as fast as I could, then stumbled back with the bucket, water spilling over my bare feet.
    “I’m coming, Mama. Water’s coming,” I said, panting. That was the first of many trips. Mama drank and drank, clutching the cup with shaking fingers, but the thirst couldn’t be satisfied. Nechama was sent to a neighbor to keep her away from the fever, and Aunt Friedka tried to send me, too.
    “No!” I declared. “I’m almost eleven; I’m old enough to look after my mama. I won’t go.”
    “All right.” Aunt Friedka gave up, turning back to Mama’s bed. “I can use all the help I can get.”
    In the end she really did need me, because the barber said he could not come to help; he was busy.
    “Busy!” Aunt Friedka exploded. “That lying coward.Why doesn’t he come straight out and say he’s too scared to come near the typhoid.”
    Typhoid. It was the name of the terrible fever everyone feared. They said it could kill all the people in an entire village.
    Aunt Friedka continued muttering. “Oh, he can take our money and treat us when we have the toothache or the gout, but when it’s something he could catch, he’s busy, is he? Devorah, build up the wood in that