How white they were! Whiter than birches! How thin! Nisel had never seen a naked adult. Some of the Jewesses, some of the Jews, kept their hands in front of their bodies. But the rest were exposed. It was a shock to the boy to see the black sexual hair, especially the women’s, growing so far up their bellies. He looked at their faces, at the half-open mouths, the half-open eyes. Then the back door of the bus swung open and the thirty-odd Jews from the Suburb climbed inside.

Nothing happened, except that the door was shut. The Blond Ones stood in various places, with their arms crossed or with their fingers in their belts. Finally, the mechanic slid off the fender, clapped his hands together, evidently to warm them, and turned the crank. The motor started. The bus body shook. It rattled. One half the engine cover slammed down, and the raised part clattered against itself. Nisel thought the bus would drive up the ravine, to transport the Jews to a different spur of the railway. But it did not move from the spot.

Then the boy noticed two things: first, that the front wheels were missing; and then, through the grime on the windshield, that there was no driver inside. This was not like a fairy tale—the tracks like snails’ trails; the white, mushroomy boulders; the moon like an owl in a tree. It was like dreaming. A coach without wheels, with no one to drive it: yet the engine roared, the body shook and swayed, for all the world as if it were speeding along on a journey. Minutes went by, one like another. A black bird, as large as a crow, flew from Nisel’s hilltop and floated downward. It perched, like a black knot, on top of Madame Dickstein’s white bundle. The motor ran for another quarter hour. The bird filled Nisel with dread because of its tameness. It was like a person’s pet.

When the Jews came out of the bus, all of them—Palfinger, Adolf Fiebig, the others—were dead. But to Lipiczany they were simply sleeping. Who would wake first? he wondered. He, himself? Or they? A team of matched horses came from the direction of the mill, hitched to a rubber-wheeled cart. It was they who pulled the Ghettoites to the ravine. The clothing, the luggage, the shoes—that remained behind.

And the pile grew larger as each new batch of Jews—always in groups of thirty—added its share. Nisel almost always saw a person he knew: Pincus Lining, the maker of glass lambs and glass storks; Naymark, the trombonist, who had run away rather than serve on the Judenrat; the well-known Rabbi, Martini.

In one such group, in his flat cap, was young Julius Szypper. Nisel could hardly believe it. A member of the Edmund Trilling Brigade! It had to be a dream! But Szypper took off his cap, his coat, his shirt and his pants. He tied together his shoes. The boy on the hill felt a surge of anger, of envy. Why didn’t the resistance fighters wait for him? Why did Szypper have to smuggle himself aboard the train? Because they didn’t trust him, Nisel, to return! He knew, too, that somewhere nearby the partisan had hidden his gun. He thought that at any moment his comrade would lead a revolt. What actually happened was that Szypper climbed into the bus; the bus shuddered and shook; and then Szypper, with all the others, was brought out again. Even then Lipiczany was certain the boy would escape. Where was his gun? His gasoline bombs? His secret plan? He waited for the Red hero to wake from his slumber.