Free The County of Birches by Judith Kalman

take in the cold air, and watch clouds of breath affirm that they were alive. But because it was Yom Kippur, the boots marched into the forest bearing them like husks.
    The discontent, unvoiced, was nonetheless pronounced. Day after day their company of Jews had felled timber to meet a daily quota. The military officer had come out once or twice to keep up a semblance of command, but regularly he was more than content to leave the company’s direction to Weisz. Far from the front, and performing menial back-up services, their company had received only tertiary attention from the authorities. All Rosh Hashanah day they had wielded their axes. And if János Weisz had called just a fifteen-minute break for them to respectfully say a few prayers, there would have been none to know the difference. When his men looked at János Weisz, they did not see his military training. That meant nothing to them. What they saw was an apostate Jew, and he affected them with horror.
    At noon of the holiest day of the year, János Weisz gave the order to stop. The axes ceased swinging. The men looked up. No one pulled bread from his pack. János Weisz barked, “Quota met! Company, dismissed!” The men stood irresolutely, unsure of what was meant by the command. Clearly they had not achieved the day’s requirement. “Dismissed!” János Weisz shouted again.
    Gábor summoned his two younger brothers. Arms around each other, they turned to face east to the Holy Land, as did each member of the company. Then, not daring to murmur their prayers aloud, they began to sway to an ingrained measure. Some had hats; others tore leaves from the trees to cover their heads, not to appear bareheaded before the Lord.
    Outside, under the sun and among the trees, they celebrated the Holy One, praised be He. Gábor said later that the sun’s rays had poured over them. In all his life, he never had—and never would again—feel so tangibly the presence of God. As a boy in the synagogue of his paternal grandfather he had not felt so near to the Deity. Nagyapa Weisz with his prophet’s face and passion had awed the boy with the force of his faith. Yet here in the woods, in the open air, Gábor felt the Creator in His element. Gábor felt loved by God.
    â€œWhat do you mean, Apu?” I asked, hearing this story for the third or fourth time. “What do you mean, ‘loved by God’? How did He love you different from the others? Why you, Apu, why did God love you and not János Weisz or Bandi-bácsi or Miklós-bácsi, or your wife Miri- néni or your baby Clárika?”
    â€œI don’t say God loved only me, where do you get that?” he answered testily. “I say that I felt at that moment that indeed God loved me. He loved us all to pour His glory over us. To let us worship Him so purely out in the open amid His creations. He could only love us to create for us such a wonderful moment. Terror and sorrow and loss transformed into the glory of God. He must have loved us to create for us such a moment. And I felt He loved me. That He was there with me, beside me, warming me with the breath of His love.”
    While the company of Jews prayed, János Weisz struck his axe. Throughout the afternoon, he maintained a steady rhythm. That is how the sergeant found them. From a distance, a single axe stroke did not sound thin. But as the sergeant neared it would have become evident that not everyone could be working. Even so, he was taken by surprise at the sight awaiting him when he came through the trees. Men scattered in the woods, swaying silently, lost in their own private worlds like inmates in an asylum for lunatics. One madman swinging an axe. A company of mindless mutes, facing east, swaying on its heels.
    The sergeant was a thick-armed peasant. Having neither money nor education nor aristocratic name, he would never have reached the rank of officer in normal times. Some officers