Kugel

 

    I was ten when they took us. It happened in the middle of the day. We were sitting at the dinner table. Mama was baking a loaf of bread and Papa was making kugel, my favorite. I was reading a book. I don't remember the name of it. 

Papa had just finished the kugel when the door crashed open. Three men stormed in, armbands on the right shoulders. Two grabbed Mama and Papa, dragging them out of the house while they screamed. The third one went for me. I tried to run, but my short legs didn’t get me far. He snatched the back of my shirt and picked me up. He left the house and carried me to a waiting military truck. My parents were in the bed, their hands bound by rope. The man threw me in with my parents and the car took off. 

The road was very bumpy, and the truck bed was not comfortable. The truck bed was completely closed off, with fully tinted windows and hard ridged metal floor. I remembered wondering where we were going and what we had done to them. Up to this point, I had never seen them before in my life.

We reached a gate sometime later. The gate was surrounded by watchtowers and barbed wire, with armed men patrolling. I heard the man driving the truck talk to one of the armed guards in a strange language. Soon, the gate opened and the truck drove through.

The truck came to a halt in what looked like a small cabin. The men exited the truck and opened the truck bed door. Now, they were carrying rifles. We were ushered out of the truck, still bound, into the cabin. Mama’s and Papa’s ropes were finally untied. The men left the cabin and closed the door. Chains rattled outside, locking us in. 

Our new space was about a quarter of the size of our home. I can still remember the faint smell of rotten meat in that room. I remember wondering if we were about to involuntarily make the rotten meat smell fresher. 

As soon as the men closed the door, Mama and Papa rushed toward me, checking to see if I was hurt. I remember asking them what we were doing there, but they didn’t answer. In fact, they never answered in all that time, no matter how many times I asked. 

 

We were in that tiny cabin for two years. Or at least I think so. We didn’t have a clock or calendar, so it was hard to keep track of time. The men with the armbands gave us food and water every day at noon, but that was all we had to track the time. 

Thankfully I was allowed to go outside, but I didn’t go out for months at a time. I never could tell if the guards were afraid we would try to escape or were just too lazy to let us outside. There was a bathroom in the cabin, but the bath was a small faucet and a wooden box. I used to get at least two or three splinters every time I took a bath.

There was only one bed, which we all shared. Mold was plastered all around the ceilings and walls. 

There was one window in the back of the cabin.I often asked my parents why we didn’t try to escape through it. “They have guns, we don’t,” my dad always said. 

    From the window, I could see the barbed wire gate, with the guards patrolling around it 24/7. Past that, I could see the start of a forest, with trees poking out behind a road leading away from the camp.

News was scarce to get in the cabin, but I could pick up bits from loud guards outside the cabin. In the first half of our time there, I consistently heard them say things about how bad the war was going. Stories of what happened to their buddies, how some were never the same again. However, they never said who was winning the war. For all we knew, the war could be over in week or ten years.

The war had started right before we were captured, and I can still remember the heated conversations my parents had about moving. I heard the conversation from my bed through my home’s paper-thin walls. 

As the days passed, the loud guards spoke less and less. At one point I realized it was because they had been replaced by quieter guards. Maybe they’d been moved to the front lines, maybe they’d been shot themselves for talking too loudly around us. Regardless, I was getting less information. 

One day we began hearing shells and bombs in the distance.

I woke one morning to gunshots. While I could hear daily what was going on at the front lines by that point, I had never heard gunshots before. I woke Mama and Papa, and we huddled in front of the door, away from the window. I guess they thought the farther away from view, the better.

The gunshot sounds intensified. Suddenly one bullet smashed through a cabin window. The sound of the glass shattering briefly stopped us from being able to hear any incoming shots, as did being dragged by my dad away from the window. 

 The next sound I heard was the click of the chain being unlocked. Men with armbands stormed the room, grabbing Mama and Papa before me. This time, I knew not to resist. The men led us to the back of a military truck, tying up Mama and Papa before shutting the doors and driving away from the cabin. As we drove past the gate, I noticed that the lights on one of the guard towers were off. Looking up to a window, I noticed someone’s head and arm hanging out of it. Whoever he was, he was as still as a statue, and he seemed to be missing his hand. Mama covered my eyes but only after I’d noticed. What, she thought I wasn’t aware we were in a war? 

The military truck drove for only a few minutes before stopping. The sounds of gunfire and artillery were now louder. The men with armbands opened the doors and dragged us out of the truck into a dark forest, with enormous trees blocking any light above us. The men with armbands, all holding rifles, started to force us forward into the darkness, step by step. With each foot we took forward, the gunshot noises seemed closer. I found myself wondering why they didn’t give us blindfolds. I think it was because they wanted us to have to look at that forest, where fatal bullets could be shot from at any moment. 

At one point we passed another man lying on the ground. He also wasn’t moving at all, even as we walked by him. No one covered my eyes this time. 

I held onto both my parents as we walked. They couldn’t hold me since their hands were bound, but they kept looking towards me. We had developed enough of a code between us in the cabin for nonverbal communication, knowing that anything we were saying could be heard. 

We reached a clearing in the forest, and when we did, the men in armbands shoved us forward and onto our knees. 

The clearing was strangely quiet. Watching the forest on the other side of the clearing, I couldn’t see anyone there. I remember wondering where the fighting had gone. Then, a glint of silver flashed in the corner of my eye.  Suddenly, whizzes surrounded us. Bullets. I cried out and buried my head into Mama’s chest. It was too late for dignity. 

Behind me, I heard the thump of something hitting the dirt. It sounded too heavy to be anything but a human body, but any certainty was ill-advised. 

A voice began speaking behind me in a language I couldn’t understand nor recognize. Opening one eye, I saw one of the men in armbands speaking into a radio. He spoke quickly and softly, pressing his mouth close to the radio. He stopped talking. Twenty-six seconds later, the gunfire stopped.

The silence after the gunfire deafened me. My eardrums kept anticipating the sounds of war, but there was nothing there.  The silence almost seemed worse than the shooting. And I still didn’t know who was shooting at us. We didn’t even know what the war was about. 

Turning back to the clearing, I watched the forest at the far side. Men in green poked out of the trees. The trickle of men quickly increased to a cascade. They all held rifles like the men in armbands, but their helmets had a white star on the forehead. 

When I was younger, my toy soldiers had white stars on their foreheads too. They made a simple table turn into a battleground, and they gave me hours of entertainment when my parents weren’t around. Now, looking at the real soldiers, I couldn’t understand how I had ever liked toy soldiers in the first place.

They arranged themselves in a straight line, facing directly at me, their guns pointed straight. For some reason, the barrels were pointed at me. Shouldn’t they have been pointed at the armband men?

Still in my Mama’s arms, I noticed a skinny silver-haired man emerge from the back of the line of men. He was tall, with glasses that seemed too large for his head--he seemed important, especially as the men stepped aside to let him through. 

When he reached the end of the line of men, he didn’t stop to turn and face us. He began walking toward us, with his hands stretched out. Behind me, I heard Mama suck in a breath.

    With the soldiers no longer shooting at them, the armband men got back to their feet and tightened their grips on us. 

The cold metal of a gun touched the back of my head.

    Now, it was the armband men’s turn to speak up. 

    “We want passage out of the country and money for our troubles. If not, the captives will die.”

Prison was better than being bargaining chips. For what, a ticket and money for snacks? 

The general gestured to a soldier next to him, and they conferred for a moment. 

He turned to the armband men. 

“The general will only allow safe passage. There will be no compensation.”

    The armband men cursed. and shoved their guns deeper into my family’s skin. The general, now shaking his arms in alarm, gestured again to the soldier next to him and gave him brief instructions. 

    “The general has a new offer: total immunity in our home country,” he said.

Behind me, I heard the armband men laugh and clap their hands together. From what I gathered while in the cabin, the forces the armband men were fighting came from a clean and wealthy country, far more powerful than our own.

    The general saw their excitement and motioned to the translator beside him, speaking quietly. 

    “Walk the captives toward us, slowly,” the translator said.

The armed men immediately raised their guard. They yelled at us to get to our feet. Mama and Papa flanked me, trying to shield me from both sides. 

The armed men tried to push Mama and Papa into single file, but with the general and his force watching they couldn’t harm us without risking the trade.  Slowly, we marched forward, guns still jammed into our sides. Step by step, both the armband men and the general started to relax. Soon, we were within an arm’s throw of the general’s forces. Only a couple more yards until my family was finally free.

    

    A glint of a gun barrel caught my eye. On the right, a soldier stepped out from the trees. He was short and stocky, and even in the dark I could see the snarl on his face.  

A moment too late, I remembered what these men have in their hands. The gunshot echoed across the clearing. It whizzed past my head and landed inside one of the armband men. Then, all hell broke loose.

    As soon as the man fell to the ground, the rest of them grabbed my family, shoving us in front of them. They gripped us with one hand, and shot at the general’s forces with their other. All I could I see was smoke coming from the gun barrels. All I could hear were gunshots, both being fired and flying past our ears.

The general, running to take cover, lifted his arms above his head to signal a ceasefire, but none of his soldiers followed suit. They only saw us and the armband men. 

    Bodies had already begun to fall all around me. Despite all the noise, none of it came from the lives being ended left and right. Soon, only four armband men remained. Luckily, my Mama and Papa strayed to the edge of the fighting, trying to reach me. However, two of the remaining armband men caught up to them as they moved toward me.

I screamed as loud as I can, trying to warn them about the armband men headed their way, but it was too late. They grabbed Mama and Papa by their throats and dragged them away from the battle. Away from me.

    The general’s force, now finished taking out the rest of the armband men, begansurrounding the two left standing. With curses and yells, the armband men told the general’s force to stay back, which after yells from the translation soldier, they do. The general stepped to the front, trying to cool the situation.

It worked for ten seconds. A shot was fired and one of the general’s men fell.

    The general’s force sprayed bullets at the armband men. Gunshots filled the surrounding clearing. 

When the smoke of the rifles cleared, I looked around to try to see what was left, or if there would be any more shots. 

There lay four bodies on the ground. The two armband men, my Mama, and my Papa.

    Blood pooled under my parents’ bodies. Both their eyes were open. They seemed to be in the middle of a bad dream, eyes wide with fear and faces contorted in an invisible pain/

Throughout our whole time in captivity, I was always so sure it would end. We would survive and go back home, ready to finish that uneaten kugel. Seeing my parents in the dirt, their eyes drifting unseeing to the blue sky above, I knew this would never be.

    I walked toward my parents' bodies. When I reached them, I sank to my knees and shaked their limp forearms. I cried their names into the dirt. Mama! Papa! It didn’t work. The pool of blood started to stain my skin, but I barely noticed. Why wouldn’t Mama and Papa wake up?

    

    I called their names for hours. When warm hands grasped my waist to pull me up, the sun was starting to set above the tall trees. As the warm hands carried me away from Mama and Papa, I closed my eyes. I could still hear their voices in my head, telling me to stay close to them. How could I now? I didn’t have the energy to fight those strong hands carrying me away.

    A few minutes later, the hands dropped back onto the dirt. My eyes were so swollen I could barely see three feet in front of me. From what I could see, I was in a tent of some sort. A fire lamp was hanging to the side, illuminating the desk in front of me. A man sat there, with square rimmed glasses and white hair. The general.

    He got up from the desk and came around to my side. He put his hands on my shoulders and tried to squeeze them. I shook these hands off. 

    “My family,” I said. 

    He started to turn to his translator soldier, who I noticed was standing in the corner.

    “You killed them,” I said.

    The general seemed to understand this. He looked at the soldier, and then looked back at me. He took off his glasses and set them on the desk. He started forward again but I stopped him.

Struggling to my feet, I stared at him on shaky legs. I stared at him for so long I was sure he could read the blame in my eyes. The anger in my eyes. My family was gone, and it was all his fault. Opening my mouth, I lowered my head and spit on his shoes. 

Then, I turned away from him and sat down, collapsing onto my hands and knees. Then, I cried.