The corporal sobered and pointed at Emil’s chest. “All languages of the heart, Martel. Private Kumar said if you are dark in your heart, with too many bad thoughts circling in your mind, God also listens. When you suffer and curse your life, the Almighty listens closely. When you have no goodness in your heart or your prayers. No love. No calm. No desire to help others. No thankfulness for the miracle of your life. When you hold things like hatred or anger in your heart or envy or comparison, when life is all about how everything is unfair to me, me, me, the Divine understands those ancient languages of self-destruction, too. The thing is, the Universal Intelligence will help you even if your dreams come from a dark place, but the dreams will end up destroying you in the process. If you don’t believe me, think of Hitler or any other tyrant.”
Gheorghe returned his hand to his heart. “So live here, Martel. Love life like it is a miracle every day, every moment, and dream in a way that helps others, and the Divine will hear you and you will walk through battles untouched and have anything your heart desires.”
Emil didn’t know if he believed half of what the Romanian was telling him, but he said, “Even beehives?”
Corporal Gheorghe laughed and shook his spoon at Emil. “Yes, lots of beehives to make lots of honey because it is good for people. Makes them strong and live long.”
After they had eaten and taken the pony cart and the dead to the sheltered cove by the big field, Emil went to his bunk with the Romanian’s words still whirling and echoing in his head. It was a lot to take in, but when he began complaining to himself about the hardness of his bunk, the dankness of the room, the men still dying around him, and how much he missed Adeline and the boys, he stopped. What if God, or the Divine, or the Almighty One, or whatever you wanted to call it, was listening to the dark emotions he was feeling in his heart?
Instead, he tried to be grateful for the bunk and the dank room because he was not lying out in the snow; and to be thankful for the dying men around him because they reminded him that he was still alive, that he still had opportunities, that he was going to find a way to escape.
Emil imagined the coming thaw, the trailing storm that Corporal Gheorghe believed would come after the thaw, and the two of them bolting from the haunted burial grounds on pony-back, in the falling snow at dusk, avoiding dogs, getting to a train, and fleeing west. His heart warmed, and he felt excited at these dreams all the way down into sleep.
When he awoke the next morning to the sound of the triangle ringing, he tried to picture Adeline’s green valley: the mountains and their snowcapped crags surrounding a lush, emerald-colored basin where wheat grew like a weed and a crystal river flowed through, feeding it all. He saw himself with a fishing pole standing by that river and started the day with a smile.
Emil emerged from the basement in the darkness before dawn, February 4, 1946, and saw ten bodies frozen in the snow by the pony and the death cart. No other prisoners would volunteer for burial duty, so Emil and Corporal Gheorghe got behind the cart and pushed while the pony pulled it across the icy ruts and deep snow in the big field above that cove in the trees. There were so many dead to pray for now, Emil feared using up his prayers. And how was he supposed to feel good about this?
“I’m beginning to believe you are right about a lot of things, or Private Kumar was,” Emil said as they prepared to tip the bodies over. “I see clearly now that my prayers were answered that night in Dubossary because I felt calm about doing the right thing. God answered, and I did not have to kill those three kids.”
“That’s right.”
“But what about the Jews praying that night?”
“What do you mean?”
“The Jews were begging God for their lives, too. I heard them, and the Almighty did not answer. He didn’t answer the people who died in the death camps, either. What would your Private Kumar have said to that?”
The Romanian stared ahead for a long moment and then shook his head before releasing the latch and heaving his shoulders against the underside of the death cart. Emil threw himself into it as well, and with a thud, the ten frozen bodies fell into the snow.
Emil stood there, looking at the corporal when they lowered the bed of the cart and latched it. “Why didn’t God answer them? Why didn’t the Almighty answer the millions of Ukrainians who starved to death under Stalin?”
The Romanian looked pained as he said, “You are asking if I know the intent of the Universal Intelligence, and I do not. But maybe the millions in Ukraine died so people like you would run like a nomad when you got the chance to make a new life in the West. Maybe so many Jews died so the ones who survived would become the toughest, strongest people on the face of the earth, people who would help make sure there were no more death camps or starvation. Ever.”
As they headed back to the hospital site, Emil thought about those nomads and survivors, felt a pang in his heart, and understood that even if Corporal Gheorghe was right, even if the starved went west and prospered and the Jews who survived became the toughest people on the planet, they would all still be human, and they would all still have broken hearts over what was done to them and to their families.
For nearly
