⚠️ Chapter Warning: This chapter may contain references to World War II and some events that followed. The author does not intend to be sensationalist or to generate morbidity. Everything here is fiction. Reader discretion is advised.🫠 Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who continues to read my chapters. I apologize if some translations contain errors; I strive to correct them and always welcome criticism. I use translation tools, and for cost reasons, I cannot always review everything perfectly. I promise to keep improving and greatly appreciate your understanding.
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May 2, 1945
In the Vermont forest, Jack is present.
Lav, eli… he thought. I completely understand that he's going to be late, but he didn't tell me the reason for his trip either. He always explained his reasons, but this is the first time he hasn't.
Suddenly, an angel appeared and said, "Young Jack."
Jack got scared and replied, "Akh, lav, eli… I remember you. You were… there that day, right? Well, at least now I know I'm not crazy… unless loneliness is making me hallucinate."
The angel said, "You are not hallucinating. I have come to deliver your message."
Jack stood up and asked, "Okay… One question. Is your face normal? You have a ton of eyes. I feel a little scared and curious."
The angel said, "The message is this: Kamei-san is going to take a shortcut directly to Vermont. He will reach the confined camp in two months. You need to prepare for the new saint who is coming… the saint of nature. An eight-year-old girl named Dánae Anastasia Valcliev Kirov."
Jack was stunned. "Another saint? Are there more… more saints? Are there more… like me?"
The angel replied, "You will need to gather provisions. Large provisions. Multiply the sheep and cows, prepare food rations, and set up new camps. Because not only will she come, but also a young Jewish boy named Nuriel Alessandro Graziani Szymański and a woman named Adelaida Marie Shimidtweber Hartmann."
Jack reflected and said, "So, there will be more like me… in this place?"
At that moment, Jack knelt and, euphoric, said, "I don't know if I should be happy or furious… Because that means the stupid Galton will torture them like he did to me. At least I have an idea… I must build… somewhere else…"
The cherub interrupted, "No. Follow the instructions, please. The cabin is built for Galton and Kamei-san. You must build the new cabin next to Galton's, so they can differentiate it and have their own house. Do not place it anywhere else. Please obey."
Jack, a little discouraged but also happy, said, "Alright."
He finally sighed, feeling that he would no longer be alone. "At least I won't feel so lonely… If more people are coming, then what I have to do is…"
With that enthusiasm, he got to work. But deep down, he felt he had to hide everything he felt.
By this time, a lot had already happened. Germany was in chaos. It was April 30, 1945. Even though they were far from the tensions, peasants, listening to the radio, deduced that the arrival of the Red Army in Berlin meant things had gone very badly. Galton and Nuriel were still recovering.
Thanks to his immortality and special traits, Galton recovered in four weeks. However, Nuriel needed more time: he suffered from early-stage tuberculosis, anemia, and malnutrition. When he fell to the ground in Buchenwald, he had slightly fractured his knee, being far too weak.
Adelaida was taking care of Nuriel. However, in those last four weeks, she hadn't told him anything. Nuriel was the one to break the tension with a stronger voice:
"Adelaida…"
"What do you want?" she asked.
"Don't act tough… I hear you crying every night," Nuriel said.
"That's none of your business," she replied.
"If you help me… then I… could let you help me."
"Help me? Look at the state you're in. How could you help me like this? You can't even stand."
"I know you probably feel lonely. I feel alone too. Sometimes I wake up at night… my hands won't stop shaking…"
"Yes, it's a hassle giving you injections… Dr. Schreiner told me to hold your arm, but because of how you move, I have to hold it with both arms… And with what I inject… huh?"
"Adelaida, I want to thank you," Nuriel said. "I've met many German women, many horrible ones, but I must admit that you are the most beautiful German woman I have ever met."
"I'm not interested in you, you know that, right?" she replied.
"I'm not talking about that, Adelaida… You could have abandoned us on the road… escaped to Berlin… You could have looked for your sisters."
"All my family died… What Galton said is true," Adelaida said.
Nuriel was stunned.
A few moments later, Adelaida continued, "Days ago, I was crying because I wanted to see my sisters again… I thought about escaping to Berlin with a soldier. If I had asked, maybe he could have taken me, but the cherub accompanying Galton appeared and told me that my sister Christa… died… She was hit during a military intervention. She stayed in the shelter for several days trying to find me through a Luftschutzhelfer."
"When I asked what happened to Constanz and my mother, the cherub told me that the day Berlin was bombed, the structure fell on Constanz… it also hit my mother. That's why I thought they escaped, but in truth, they were crushed."
"If I'm honest with you, Nuriel… I've never liked my mother's family. They hate us. That's why I didn't want to go to my aunt's house."
"The angel told me not to leave here," Adelaida continued. "The places will become very dangerous, and not even my German ethnicity will save me from what's coming."
"I don't know what's happening in Berlin, or at the border… But I could hear the radio: Germany lost… I lost… Nuriel… I'm like you… I no longer have a mother… or a father… or sisters."
Adelaida broke down. She had been suppressing this information alone, not knowing how to process it.
"The angel told me something else," she said. "Contrary to what you think, you will recover very quickly. The angels intervened for you in the concentration camps where you were. They told me they moved people's hearts… so that you would survive… If not for that, you would have died… That's what they told me… I don't know much about the camps, but from how you got there, I can't imagine what they are like."
"I think we both should leave the topic as it is," Nuriel replied.
"Talking with Galton, who needed another sedative, I heard what was happening in the camps… I had no idea; I thought they were just relocating people out of the country. I never imagined such atrocities were happening…"
Adelaida broke down again."I didn't think… Everyone said that… Jews were enemies of Germany… but then I thought… what would happen if… my dad… my mom… or… my sisters… were taken to a place like that…"Holding Nuriel's hand gently, she said, "Nuriel, I don't intend… to carry the sins… of my people… nor do I intend to be pretentious… I… I… ask for your forgiveness… Forgive me, Nuriel… I'm so sorry… please… understand that I didn't know… don't hate me, please."
Nuriel responded, "I can't hate you… For some reason… I can't feel anger toward anyone… I just feel tired."
The old man listened behind the door, thinking, "I knew those camps were horrible, but I never imagined such atrocities… God have mercy on us."
Adelaida hugged Nuriel. "I'm sorry, Nuriel, please forgive me… forgive me… forgive me…"
Nuriel also cried, saying, "I wasn't wrong about you, Adelaida. This… this is the first genuine hug I've had in so long."
There was silence, but this time it was a good kind of silence.
"Adelaida…""Yes," she replied."How long did the angel say it would take for me to heal?" he asked."You will heal… in eight months," she answered."I don't think I can endure eight months here… Well, actually I can, but… knowing that man called Galton… scares me… I've never seen anyone like him, never seen anyone… break the ground… with his hands… or kill a man with his fists."
Adelaida responded, "The truth is, I'm scared too. Since he kidnapped me from Berlin, I've been frightened… maybe I feel some empathy for him, but he still terrifies me. From what I understand, the angel is protecting us from Galton as well. I heard this time he won't be able to harm us or pass judgment on us."
"We can't escape, right?" Nuriel asked."I already tried," Adelaida replied. "Three times before reaching Buchenwald, and believe me, I don't even know how I made it."
The old man went to Galton's room, stretching his legs after a couple of weeks, and said, "I can't believe it, old man. I thank you. Those bullets hurt, but now less so. Very well, after this, I'll take Nuriel and pay you everything. But you'll have to wait, maybe a week or two, while I get gold for you."
The old man crossed his arms. "I don't want gold.""Are you serious?" he asked."We can't stay here," Galton said. "The place is going to get crowded, it will be dangerous. Something tells me something could happen that puts us in danger.""The boy needs rest. In any case, you will go alone.""I'm sorry, old man. I'm taking the boy and the girl.""If you take the boy from this house, you will be responsible for his death… He is not well… He has to stay in bed. Why don't you go with the friend I told you about?""Your friend is German. Don't you know Germany will be crushed… I went out at dawn to check the perimeter, in case of an emergency, and I saw everything happening in the distance. We will be surrounded; the Russians could arrive at any moment. And frankly, I don't want another bullet wound.""If you don't want another wound, then let it be… The Red Army may hate us, but they will understand it was the military who did this. The people are not to blame.""Forgive me, old man. You are a doctor, you think about the well-being of people, that's normal. However, I am a warrior, I have lived two thousand years. In all the wars I have seen, armies never forgive the people. They consider them guilty like the military. And because they are weak, they cause massacres, leave orphans, violate women and children, desecrate the sacred… and enjoy it. I thank you for everything, but if you are smart, you could come with us… You could help Nuriel.""I would stay here, Galton. I don't intend to leave. This is my home. My wife died here and here I will die," the old man replied."Very well. It was a pleasure to meet you."
At that moment, while he was dressing, there was a knock at the door."Im Namen des Raijes: öffnen zi di Tür!!" shouted the soldiers.
Galton immediately realized it was not a neighbor; a soldier forcefully slammed the door. He took a run and went to Adelaida and Nuriel's room."We have to go."
At that instant, SS soldiers burst into the old man's house. They had heard from a neighbor that there were Jews in that place and were checking all the rooms. They were armed. When they reached the room where Nuriel was, they found no one.
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Kamei-san had been moving since March 25 across the Black Sea. It was now May 2, 1945.It took him nine days to cross. The journey was exhausting: two-meter waves, and one of them almost sank the makeshift raft.Upon reaching Romania, he passed through Galatz and Marosvásárhely, until he arrived at Temesvár. From there, he crossed into Serbia, reaching Neusatz, and continued his march through Bosnia, passing Tuzla and Zenica, finally exiting through Makarska. From the coast, he headed north to reach the port of Pola in Croatia, from where he planned to cross to Italy… (Names in their 1945 context: Galatz = Galați; Marosvásárhely = Târgu Mureș; Temesvár = Timișoara; Neusatz = Novi Sad; Pola = Pula).It took 17 days to traverse all that terrain. He moved through combat zones, avoiding the Soviet army by taking unoccupied areas. He took a Karabiner 98k rifle with two cartridges from a soldier's corpse to protect Dánae and a block of gold he had as a resource when leaving Vermont. He cut a piece to buy a fishing boat to cross the Adriatic Sea; however, they reached a mined area.
Kamei-san said, "This can't be. If I had known these things were here… Frankly… I didn't expect this. Thank heaven the waters are calm, because if they were rough… or if the wind carried us elsewhere… we'd explode into a thousand pieces."
Dánae replied, "It was scary, wasn't it?"
Kamei-san said, "Yes."
They both laughed.
"No way, you got scared," she said.
"I know, I got really scared, forgive me."
Context: As soon as they left the port, they saw a mine floating on the water. Kamei-san didn't know what it was because he had traveled by land before and hadn't taken maritime routes. When he saw a seagull land on it, just a few meters from the fishing boat, they got scared by the explosion—a naval mine. Kamei-san admitted it left him temporarily deaf, but he found it funny: it was the first time he had been scared alongside Dánae.
After a few minutes, the fog still hadn't cleared. Kamei-san watched and said to Dánae, "Down, duck."
Dánae crouched, scared, not knowing what was happening.
Then an Italian patrol appeared. They were already near the port of Chioggia. The Italians asked, "Identify yourself! Who are you?"
Kamei-san said, "Oh, no…"
He whispered to Dánae in Russian, "Listen, we'll have to improvise."
Dánae asked, "Improvise?"
Kamei-san replied, "Yes, don't worry, just go along with me, understand?"
Dánae responded, "Okay… though I don't know what you're talking about."
Kamei-san spoke in Italian, "Grazie a Dio, finalmente ci avete trovato!" —he exclaimed, almost panting— "Scusate, mi sono perso. Ero qui con…" —he looked at Dánae hesitantly— "con un mio parente, e ci siamo smarriti. Volevamo andare a Chioggia, ma la corrente ci ha trascinati via. Grazie a Dio, a Gesù Cristo, a San Pietro, alla Vergine Maria… e, naturalmente, a Sant'Antonio, che aiuta sempre chi ha perso la strada. Potreste… aiutarci ad arrivare a Chioggia?"
What he said was…"Thank God, you finally found us!" Kamei exclaimed, almost panting. "Excuse me, I'm lost. I've been here with…" —he looked at Dánae with doubt— "with a relative of mine, and we got lost. We wanted to go to Chioggia, but the current carried us away. Thank God, to Jesus Christ, to Saint Peter, to the Virgin Mary… and, of course, to Saint Anthony, who always helps those who have lost their way.Could you… help us get to Chioggia?"
Yes… that's what he said…
The soldiers said they had never seen a man like him; he looked foreign, wearing rags where a shirt should be, with a rifle, a backpack, and a girl—he might be a spy.
They aimed at Kamei-san, and he said in Italian:"This weapon I stole, okay? I wanted to play with it and have fun with the baby, but if it's dangerous for you, I will gladly give it up, along with everything else. But please, don't aim at the girl."
Dánae said, "What are you saying? I don't understand what you're talking about."
Kamei-san also spoke to Dánae in Russian:"Listen, I'm trying to negotiate with them, do you understand? I'm trying to ease the situation so they let us pass."
"If we get out of this, Dánae, then we'll be able to go to the port of Chioggia (Venice) without problems," Kamei-san said. "Once in Italy, I don't think the war will be so active, so I won't need my rifle or dagger. The only things I worry about are the gold block and the snake venom, but as long as we have food and towels, everything… will be fine. The people in Italy are very kind… the majority are like family, very affectionate. They are like you, the Russians in Stalingrad."
Dánae was scared but decided to stay crouched on the boat.
Kamei-san spoke again in Italian to the soldiers:"Per favore, voglio arrivare alla costa. Dobbiamo attraversare."—He looked at Dánae—"Mia figlia ed io dobbiamo andare al porto, per favore, aiutateci."
What he said:"Please, I want to reach the coast. We need to cross" —he looked at Dánae— "My daughter and I have to go to the port, please help us!"
Dánae listened carefully, but the words sounded strange; frowning, she tried to understand.
"Mia figlia…" Kamei said, pointing at her.
She thought in Russian: «моя семья» (moya sem'ya = my family), or maybe «девочка» (devochka = girl). She hesitated: was he saying she was his family… or that he was going to hand her over as a "girl"?
Then she heard: —Porto…
In Russian it sounded like «порт» (port = port), but in her mind she confused it with «пороть» (porot' = whip/tear). She felt fear: did they want to take her to a port or hurt her?
And when he said: —Costa…
She associated it with «кость» (kost' = bone). Suddenly, she imagined bones on the sand, like those she had seen after a bombing.
Dánae thought:"He wants to leave me."
Dánae let out a cry that moved the soldiers:"Wait a moment, are you going to hand me over? Is that it, right?"
Kamei-san said, "No, that's not true."
Dánae slapped him and cried:"What did I do?! I obeyed everything you told me. Fine, I accept about my parents… but… why are you going to leave me? Why are you going to leave me? They aren't… why can't I stay with you?"
Kamei-san said, "No, Dánae, you're not understanding."
Dánae clung to Kamei-san, moving the boat violently, almost triggering a mine:"Пожалуйста, не оставляй меня… не оставляй, ладненько?.. Я буду хорошенькая, обещаю… я больше не буду просить у тебя шоколадик… и халвочку… никогда… я буду себя хорошо вести…"
What Dánae said:"Pleaase, don't leave me… don't leave me, okay?.. I'll be good, I promise… I won't ask you for chocolates… or halvah… ever… I'll behave…"
The soldiers lowered their weapons seeing the scene.
"Is that her father?" one said. "I'm not sure, but now that I see him, he doesn't look like a spy, maybe he's an idiot."
The higher-ranking soldier said to Kamei-san:"If you hand over your weapons and tell us why you're here, we'll interrogate you and then accompany you to the port. Will you follow protocol?"
Kamei-san replied, "Yes, but please, leave me the food, okay? This girl needs to eat."
Dánae looked at him:"I knew you were going to hand me over… what did I do? What did I do, broom head!, rat braids!, sesame eyes!, otter face!"