The Yellow Bird Sings - Jennifer Rosner Page 0,4

for her bird to sing to them. Upon hearing the jaunty tune, the moles don their hats, reach for their rucksacks, and scurry off, heads bobbing to the music—and the garden is safe. Shira asks: “What do the moles carry in their rucksacks?” Róża answers: “Their eyeglasses!” Shira’s own eyes grow wide with delighted wonder. Then Róża whisper-sings the lullaby, folds her hands over Shira’s hands, and tucks her in with her blanket—all before Henryk scales the ladder.

They are not kicked out of the barn the day after or the day after that. Róża carves shallow nicks in the barn rafter with a rock to keep track of each day. She likes the weight of the rock in her hand, the give of the soft wood beneath. In the accumulation of marks she feels the triumph of survival, tempered always by fear.

Chapter 4

As Róża marks the rafter, another day’s end, Shira whispers her persistent questions: “Why must we hide? Why must we stay silent?” Róża fixes Shira with her eyes, wishing she had answers that would still her.

“Some giants don’t like flowers, and because they believe the music in our voices helps the flowers grow, we must never let the giants hear our songs.”

“Is it all right for a bird to sing?”

“Yes, so long as we stay silent.”

Róża turns back to the rafter, thinking of Henryk’s visit the previous night. He moved inside her slowly, almost gently. She couldn’t help noting his differences from Natan: the very heft of him, how his chest has less hair, how his smell holds the earth’s tang in it. Even as she kept herself entirely still—looking on as if from a different body, a different place—her eyes wandered from the wall to his face, his sloping gray eyes—

The sharp point of the rock, clenched in Róża’s fist, bites at her flesh. She swallows a yelp and sets the rock down in the corner. She calculates back, trying to figure out which nick Shabbas fell on, unobserved.

Maybe the merchant’s wife lives by herself in the tall house? Unlike Henryk, who is exempt because of an eye nerve problem that keeps him from clearing his vision quickly in smoke, the husband has likely been conscripted.

Counting the nicks, Róża sees it is their eleventh day in the barn.

Chapter 5

Shira and her mother don’t speak during the day, the nineteenth day, when sunlight streams through cracks in the wallboards, dappling patches of their skin a luminous white. Even Henryk’s treat of an extra baked potato can elicit no words of thanks. Only her mother’s flat smile as she watches Shira soundlessly devouring it.

In the silence, other sounds are pronounced. Inside the barn, the rustle, thump, and nibbling of rabbits. Outside, the morning calls of the wrens and the rose finch. The whispering leaves. The slap and crunch of Henryk’s boots. And late, late at night, when Shira is to stay especially still, the high creak and shift of the barn door. The scrape of the ladder against the floorboards. The distinctive groan of each rung, then the hushed tones of Henryk, up in the loft with her mother.

Henryk carries outdoor smells with him to the loft. Sometimes there are leafy bits from his boots. He mumbles words that Shira cannot hear. Her mother gives Shira the card fold of photographs to hold, enclosed in her blanket, as she nods and mumbles back to him. When Henryk is there, Shira must lie apart from her mother, turned away and confused by the commotion.

Some evenings, Shira hears soldiers walking along the road. If they have been drinking, they sing about kissing pretty girls, songs that Shira secretly enjoys. Otherwise, sharp footfalls and talk.

When it is too dangerous even for whispers, Shira and her mother gesture. A simple finger near the ear means I hear someone, but more particular signs denote Henryk (the tug of a beard), his wife, Krystyna (the tying of apron strings), and the three Wiśniewski boys (oldest to youngest, a hand upon a child’s head at high, middle, and low heights). A neighbor (palms facing, held near). Soldiers (fists clenched at the chest, as if around a gun). A stranger, they don’t know who (eyebrows raised). Taps on different body parts show hunger, thirst, pain, a full bladder. A hand on a clump of hair, Do you want a braid? It passes a bit of time. A brush of the fingers over closing eyelids, Try to rest now. Shira watches her mother’s lips shape prayers in Hebrew