Excerpt from DAVID AND THE COLONEL (A true story following a character in my best-selling children's novel "Jacob's Rescue", Random House))

David ran down a rain-swollen street. Solders came closer and closer behind him. They raised their rifles.  Bullets flew past his head.  All of a sudden he sank up to his ankles in mud.  Steel-helmeted men with grim skeleton faces charged down on him.

Ten-year old David woke screaming from the nightmare.  His older brother Jacob jumped out of bed.

“The dream again?” he asked.

David nodded his head and looked around.  He sat up in a clean bed in a large room.  Boys in other beds began to wake and dress.

“We’re not in Warsaw anymore.  The war’s over.  We’re safe,” Jacob said. 

David looked out the window of the dormitory where they lived in Berlin, Germany.

It was 1945 and David and his older brother, Jacob, survived the war just as Alex and Mela Roslan promised they would.

The Roslans, a Catholic family, rescued the Jewish brothers and kept them safe from harm for almost five years while they moved from one place to another under the eyes of the Nazis in Warsaw, Poland. 

When the war ended they fled west with the Roslan’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Marishka.  Thousands of displaced persons entered Berlin searching for food, clothing and, if possible, a way to get to America, a place that seemed like paradise.

The United States, England, France and Russia won the Second World War and carved Berlin into four pieces with each nation controlling one sector.

The three children were placed in a special camp operated by the British for young people.  Alex and Mela Roslan went into to a camp for adults located several miles away.

The British military gave Marishka, Jacob and David permission to visit the Roslans one at a time.  David’s turn had come.  Clouds scudded over the sun and a heavy chill threatening snow fell on the city.

Jacob gave his little brother his jacket.  “You’ll need this to stay warm.”

“Keep this around your neck,” said Marishka handing David a scarf.

David brushed his blonde hair back revealing a jagged scar on his forehead.

When he was a small boy living at home in Warsaw before the Nazis invaded Poland, a large statue of an elephant crashed down on David gashing his head.  The deep scar never disappeared completely.

Marishka shoved a small paper bag into David’s pocket.  “I saved these chocolates for mama and poppa.” 

Jacob wagged a finger in his face.  “Don’t eat them up before you get there.”

“I’m not a baby,” David pushed away his finger.

“I bet there won’t be one piece of chocolate left by the time he gets off the train,” said Jacob

A British nurse swept through the doors at the far end of the dormitory.  Girls had their own quarters, but during the day they all played together after classes and on weekends.

“Time to go,” said the nurse.

She took David to the foot of the stairs that led up to the elevated train platform. Snow drifted slowly out of the gray skies.

 “You know the way, right?” asked the nurse.

David nodded.  He had taken this ride three times since arriving in Berlin in 1945.

A train rumbled overhead.  The nurse checked her watch.  “Your train’s due in a few minutes.  Get along.  Don’t want to be late.”

David walked up the iron stairs to the rail platform and waited.  A rickety train clicked down the tracks and came to a screeching halt. 

The doors of the railroad car opened and David stepped inside. He sat on an empty bench at the rear of the car. The train lurched forward and rumbled across the destroyed city.  It passed barren dirt fields that once had been parks blooming with flowers.  War-destroyed buildings jutted up like ancient skeletons created the jagged skyline of the city.

The warmth of Jacob’s coat and Marishka’s scarf along with the steady click-clack of train wheels against the tracks made him drowsy. He stretched out on the bench, pulled the jacket collar around his neck and closed his eyes.

 In the camp for adults Alex and Mela Roslan shared a small, cramped room. Mela made curtains from scraps she recovered.  Flowers created out of tissue paper and wire sat in discarded bottles.

They ate their meals in a common dining room along with hundreds of other displaced persons.  On weekends when they expected one of the children, they carried food back to their room where Mela prepared a tiny feast.

Only twenty minutes remained before their little boy would arrive.  Alex pushed open the window slightly.  Frigid air blew into the room.

“Close it,” ordered Mela.  “You’ll catch your death of cold.”

“Snow,” said Alex doing as he was told.  “I hope David dressed warmly.”  He reached over to take a piece of bread.

Mela slapped his wrist.  “That’s for David.  Don’t touch!”

David.  Alex remembered when David’s uncle brought the little boy to their small apartment in Warsaw.  He was five years old, but looked even younger with skinny legs and arms and a mop of curly blonde hair.

It didn’t take him long to fit in.  Alex and Mela told their neighbors he was their nephew Genyek from the country Because he was so fair, everyone believed them.

 Jacob had dark hair and eyes and looked nothing like the Roslan children.  Whenever strangers came to the Roslan apartment he hid in a kitchen cupboard.  When Nazis searched their small apartment for Jewish children, they ignored David because they thought he was Polish.

Minutes ticked by while Alex and Mela listened for the familiar rumble of the elevated train that would bring David to them.

The terrible smell of the pigsty where a farmer hid David burned his nose.

     Slime covered his clothes and caked his hair until it was hard to tell where David stopped and the mud began. Grunting pigs rooted for food in the mud. They pushed their wet snouts against his back and legs. His head pressed hard against the fence.

The train stopped with a shudder banging David’s head against the wood slats of the seat back.  He sat up and stared out the window. Nothing looked familiar. 

He ran onto the station platform searching for a familiar sign.  On the other side of the platform a train prepared to pull out in the opposite direction.  He squeezed through the doors and threw himself down on a seat hoping he could recognize his stop.

Snow continued to fall as the train rumbled along the elevated tracks.  Gray clouds billowed over the city. The car grew cold, too cold for the jacket and scarf David wore.  He shivered and held on to himself trying to keep warm.

The train squealed to a stop and David ran to the door.  A Russian officer barged in frightening David who sat down once more.  Even though Russian soldiers had rescued Jacob and David back in Poland he did not trust anyone in uniform.

David remembered peeking out from behind Mela as German soldiers wrecked the Roslan apartment when they searched for Jacob.  They slashed furniture with bayonets and smashed holes in walls while Jacob remained curled up under the kitchen cupboard.  They never found his brother. 

The train paused at another stop and Russian soldiers came on board.  They joked with one another until the officer glared at them and they quieted down.  No one noticed the little boy huddled in the back of the car.

David pushed his hands into his jacket pocket and felt the small package of chocolates Marishka had given him for Alex and Mela.  They wouldn’t mind if he had one bite.  He popped a piece in his mouth and let it slowly melt.

The soldiers got off the train leaving only David and the officer in the railroad car.   At the next stop, the lieutentant left the train.  Afraid of being alone once more, David bolted onto the platform.  He followed the officer down the stairs to the icy street below.

David wanted to ask the Russian how to get back to the children’s camp or how he could find Alex and Mela. His short legs could not keep up with the officer who strode along the dark avenue until he disappeared in the gloom.

Snow floated out of the sky and day turned to night.  Everything became very quiet.  His heart thumped inside his chest like the wheels of the train.  David hated himself for falling asleep.  His brother sometimes teased him and called him “stupid.”  Now he proved he was dumb. 

David kept close to the walls of buildings trying to ward off the chill wind howling through the abandoned streets.  His fingers ached with cold and his nose hurt from the freezing air. 

He took the last piece of candy out of his pocket and sucked the sweet chocolate bringing back memories of the time Alex and Mela found treats for him and Jacob and Marishka during the worst of times. The taste vanished quickly.

Ahead a dull light flickered on the white snow.  He hurried toward it.  David peered through a partially broken window into a small beer hall.  Inside, Russian soldiers flirted with German girls.  They drank beer and nibbled on sausages while a bright blaze crackled in a fireplace.

David pushed open the door and slipped in.  Warm air wrapped around him bringing life back to his hands and feet.

Everyone quieted down when a soldier pulled a small balalaika from his pack.

“My dreams call me to familiar places

That I knew when I was small.

See the house and garden wall

And all the old familiar faces.

Longing and forgotten tunes

And the thin string of the balalaika...”

It was a song David remembered Mela singing to him before he went to bed.  He sniffled when he thought about Mela tucking him in the crowded cot he shared with his brother.

The singer halted in the middle of his song.  “Look what we have here.  My singing’s so bad it made him cry!”

“Hey, little man, what’s the trouble?” asked one of the soldiers.

“I think he’s hungry,” said another.

Two of the men picked up David and sat him at the bar.  They piled sausages and bread and pretzels in front of him.

He stared at the food.  The camp had potatoes, soup, rubbery chicken and some beets and cabbage.

“Go on, eat,” ordered the singer.

David picked up a slice of sausage and bit into it.  Except for the chocolate, it was the first food he had since boarding the train. 

“So what’s your name, little man?” asked a soldier.

“My name is Ivan,” David murmured hoping that if they thought he was Russian, the soldiers might keep feeding him.

 “A Russian kid.  How in the world did you get here?  Where are your mother and father?”

“My mother died a long time ago.  I don’t know where my father went,” David answered honestly.  His mother had died when he was born.  His father had left Warsaw when the Germans invaded in 1939.

The singer threw his overcoat around David’s shoulders.  “We can’t leave you wandering around on a night like this.”  He turned to the others.  “We’ll take him to the barracks and give him a place to sleep.  We can decide what to do with him tomorrow.”

He lifted David in his arms and carried him outside to an army truck.

The driver tousled David’s hair.  “It sounds like you had a rough time, but we’ll get all this straightened out.”

They drove up to a long brick building inside the Russian camp. Their barracks had rows of cots lining the walls.  A black stove hissed and boiled in the center of the room warming up the large room. 

 One of the soldiers pointed to an empty bed. “You’ll sleep here, Ivan.”

David crawled under the covers and tried to close his eyes.  Every time he did, he saw Alex and Mela waiting expectantly in their apartment.  What would they think when he didn’t show up?

He was afraid to tell the Russian soldiers who he was and at the same time, David knew he had to do something.  With his belly full of food and heat rising from the iron stove, his eyes closed and he fell into a restless sleep.

His eyes sprang open.  A tall man in a heavy gray overcoat shook David by the shoulders.  He blinked his eyes.  The man wore a cap with gold braid.  Gold insignia glistened on his shoulders.

“Wake up, little Ivan,” he said in Russian.

For a moment, David didn’t know to whom he was talking.  Then he remembered the name he used the night before.

“I’m hungry,” David replied in Russian.

“Then let’s get some food in you.”  He took David by the hand and turned to the other troopers.  “Good work, men.  I’ll make sure this little Russian boy gets home.”

A few minutes later, he sat at the officer’s desk devouring a plate of eggs, meat, bread and a big glass of milk.

The tall man took off his coat.  Underneath he wore a gray uniform with red stripes down the side of his pants.  Gold braid covered his shoulders and medals stretched across his chest.

“My name is Colonel Kozlovsky, Pavel Kozlovsky.  So tell me about your mother and father.  The men in the barracks said you have no one.”

David nodded his head, afraid to say too much.

“This war hurt so many people,” said the officer.  “Children especially.  I’ll do what I can for you.”

After David finished eating, Kozlovsky drove him in his car out of the camp onto the Unter den Linden a broad boulevard that had been one of the most beautiful streets in Berlin.  Now it lay in ruins.  Here and there, a building still stood untouched by bombs.  Kozlovsky’s car stopped in front of one of the buildings.

 “Come along, Ivan.  This is where I live.”

He stared up at the gray granite apartment.  “I thought you lived in the camp.”

“Sometimes being an officer has advantages,” Kozlovsky smiled.

The colonel’s housekeeper, Frau Helga, met them at the door.  Her eyes widened when she saw David peeping out from behind her employer.

The apartment was large with high ceilings and a beautiful crystal chandelier that miraculously survived all the bombing.

 “Ivan will have the spare bedroom, Frau Helga.” 

The housekeeper led him to another room.  David saw a picture of a woman with a sad smile sitting on the mantle of a marble fireplace.

“Who is this?” David asked.

The colonel picked up the picture and looked at it for a moment.  “This is my wife.  She lives in Moscow.  Do you know where it is?”

“Yes.  I’ve seen maps.  I can read.”

“A very smart boy.” Kozlovsky smiled.

“How many children do you have?”

The smile disappeared and the colonel sat in a chair.  “I have none, Ivan.  You see my wife and I can’t have children.”

Koslovsky pulled David closer to him.  “We always wanted a son. What would you think of going back to Moscow with me?  I leave in a few days.  You would have your own room.  Plenty of food to eat.  Toys you can play with.”

Shivering, David pressed his lips together terrified that if he told the truth the colonel might punish him.

Kozolovsky patted him on the head.  “No need to answer.  Besides, I have to contact my wife.  First things first.  We have to get you some decent clothes.”

 

“I’m telling you my David disappeared.  He never showed up,” Alex reported to the young British lieutenant at camp headquarters.

The officer looked as though he had not slept in days.  Papers and files piled high on his desk.

“We can’t stop everything just to find one little boy, Mr. Roslan.  With all of you people trotting into Berlin every day, we have only enough time to get the paperwork done.  You’ll have to wait your turn.”

“Wait my turn?” Alex’s face turned red.  “We’re talking about a ten year-old boy, not someone who can watch out for himself.  He’s been under my care for five years.”

The lieutenant picked up a rubber stamp and began pounding it on papers in front of him.  “We’ll make a note of it and see what we can do.”

 

The army tailor stared at Col. Kozlovsky and then at David.  “You want what?”

“Are you deaf, man?  I want you to make him a uniform just like mine.  Every button, every seam – all the same,” ordered the colonel.

“And what about the medals?” asked the tailor with a smirk.

“Leave them off until he earns them,” he winked at David.  “Make sure he gets a pair of nice leather boots.”

“I don’t think we have them in his size,” said the tailor.

“Then have the bootmaker make them,” snapped Kozlovsky.  “I want them by the end of the day.”

The tailor shrugged his shoulders.  “By the end of the day,” he repeated with a sigh.  “Who’s paying for all this?”

“You’ll get your money when I get paid,” said the colonel.

“Then it looks as if no one’s getting any money,” snorted the tailor.