Survival


The former Yugoslavia is filled with natural phenomena known as “bezdans”,  which are gaping sinkholes in the ground where the earth just opened up as if to release its spirit up towards the skies. There are thousands of them all over the farms and outside the villages, and they were traditionally viewed as bad luck. If someone lost their hat to the wind while peering over the edge into the bottomless abyss, they would immediately cross themselves and ask God to bless them.

Over the years, these funnel-shaped bezdans filled in with trees, small shrubs and tall grass, peppered with exposed rocks where the earth lay naked.  At the bottom, although you couldn’t see that far down, there was always a body of water that had collected from the rains and the natural seepage of the land. Some of these sinkholes were only about six feet wide…others were gigantic.

During World War II, the bezdans became a graveyard for the victims of Hitler’s troops.

As they cut a path through Europe, the Nazis decimated the native population. They showed no mercy for men, women or children.  Any and all resisters were slated to die. Those who weren’t shot on the spot were brought to the edge of the closest bezdan where they were executed haphazardly and then  pushed over the side into the deep precipice. Not all of them were lucky enough to catch the first bullet.

Some of them fell straight down to the bottom, their screams diminishing as their bodies hurled faster and faster towards the water until the silence signaled their disappearance forever.  Some of the unluckier ones fell onto the branches of trees and shrubs, where they were impaled ,  helplessly waiting for the next round.

Some of them were able to break their falls by hanging on to tree limbs and then they quickly scrambled to hide themselves in the narrow crevices along the sides of the bezdan.  Some of these openings were only two feet high and the unfortunate souls who found themselves scrunched in these little caves had to witness what happened next.

The Nazis  would shoot another …and yet another… round of bullets into the gaping hole,indiscriminately killing more of the surviving victims. As if that weren’t enough, the Nazis  gathered up huge racks  from the fields…racks that the peasants had used for centuries to dry grass for cattle feed. They were wooden and sharpened at one end to sink deeply into the earth. They looked like crosses. These were hurled into the bezdan  where they caught speed and ripped into the bodies of the remaining victims.

It was a blood fest; a display of hatred, an emotion  only humans possess.

One day, a young woman of 17 was caught along with her neighbors…people she had grown up with, faces that were as familiar to her as her own.  As she was thrown screaming into the bezdan , she found herself miraculously wedged in between two heavily leafed branches of a sturdy tree so that her fall was cushioned. She was about forty feet into the hole and very close to the side.  Her eyes darted about in fear  and the panic beating in her young heart propelled her to grasp at straws. Panic stricken and with only the thought of survival raging in her mind, she scrambled into a crevice that seemed to open up right in front of her.   Once inside, curled into a fetal position, she allowed herself to take a couple of quiet breaths. Forcing herself not to sob loudly, she pinched her arm as hard as she could, focusing on the pain and not on the terror. She knew it wasn’t over. The Nazis were regrouping. She had heard the stories.

Then she heard the soft mewing of a little animal close by. Deathly afraid to move, she lay still, straining to hear the sound.  Was she delusional or was it the whimpering of a baby?  She had to look. As she slowly turned her face around so that she was facing towards the bottom of the canyon, there she saw an infant, about a month old, unharmed but crying softly, nestled in the arms of a shrub only a few feet beneath her. Its mother was long-gone, perhaps one of the lucky ones that had died in the very beginning.

The woman knew she had to grab the baby. If they were to die, they would die together. The baby couldn’t perish alone.

She moved slowly. She inched her right arm towards the infant…closer and closer…she couldn’t draw attention to movement. Oh God, how could she get to this child?  Her arm stretched and her fingers grew until the tips felt the top of the soiled blanket.  Too short. She shifted her body slightly to give her leverage. An extra inch.  Just enough to grab the blanket and slowly pull the bundle into her sanctuary. She managed to tuck the baby into her arms just before the shots rang out.  The drying racks came hurling down and the bloodcurdling screams and shrieks from dying neighbors filled the air. But the young woman and  child were still alive.

An eerie silence followed. It was deafening. Hours passed and not a sound but the soft whimpering of the infant.  Even that was not to be trusted. She had been holding her breath for so long she wasn’t sure she was still alive. But then as she strained her mind, she felt the infant’s soft hair under her chin. With quiet tears streaming down her stricken face, she knew they had survived the brutal assault.

Darkness settled in. She instinctively knew the Nazis were gone for awhile because she could hear the frogs and crickets begin crooning in the early spring evening.  It was bitterly cold there in the dark, in the wet earth but she didn’t care. They were still breathing, the two of them.  Her mind couldn’t begin to fathom the coming days. Just for tonight, they were safe.

She didn’t sleep. She thought of her young life, her dreams, her desires. She thought of the baby. Who did it belong to?  Was it a boy or a girl? She played games in her mind to discover who the mother was. Maria  or Dara? No, it must have been Sofia because wasn’t she the one with child not too long ago? Minutes stretched into eternity and slowly the blackness  lifted. Tthe glow of dawn crept into her little cave and illuminated her surroundings…and sharpen her senses.

Then she heard another sound. It was a voice coming from somewhere close to her, the sound of a man. He was praying.  Another survivor?  Impossible.  But yes, it was another human voice, the sound of prayer, impossible to ignore.

“Who’s there?” she softly breathed into the morning air.

Silence.

“Is someone there?” she quietly repeated, hoping beyond hope there was another soul with her in this God-forsaken cavern.

After what seemed like hours, a voice whispered, “Yes, I am here. It is Branko…who are you?”

Oh,God, Branko. He’s my father’s friend. I know him.

“Yes, yes, Branko. It’s me, Jelena,” she greeted him with joy tinged with sorrow.  “What are we to do?”

“Pray, Jelena. Just pray,” he sadly replied.

And they did. They prayed and they talked. And another day passed.  They couldn’t see each other but their voices kept then alive. They talked of people they knew, they talked about the war, they talked about the future. And another day passed.

By now, the baby was wailing loudly most of the time. It knew nothing of bravery or despair. It was thirsty and hungry. The drops of dew the woman had collected from the surrounding leaves weren't enough for either of them. She was desperately praying because without food or water, the baby would perish. They would perish.  The baby cried and another day passed. The stench of rotting flesh all around them was becoming unbearable.

On the fourth day, Branko asked “Do you believe in God?”

“Yes, yes I do, “the woman replied. “But where is God now? Why does He allow this?”  She started sobbing uncontrollably, weakened with fear, loss of hope and no food and water.  The Nazis’ bullets would have been a secret blessing, she thought.  At least they could have died as martyrs not like the beaten animals they were now: dirty, hungry and desperate.

“I am going to God,” said Branko. “There is only this way. I am going home. You must believe in heaven; it will save you.” 

Then she heard a rustling sound, like a body creeping through dry leaves and then nothing until a small plop at the end. In horror, she realized he had thrown himself into the abyss, perishing in the water below.

“Noooo,” she screamed out, her desperation echoing on the empty walls of the hole. No one was there to hear her. No one was there to take her out of her misery.No one was there to save her.  Now she was totally alone, just her and the baby.

Another day passed.  The baby had stopped crying but she knew it was still alive because she could feel its warm breath on her breast.  But the breath was feeble, like a whisper to her heart and she began to panic. If she lost the baby, she would be totally alone. And if she lost the baby, what was the point in living anyway? An innocent lost…no wisdom gained. Nothing made sense.

Her muscles strained to move. The cramps were excruciating. The hunger and the thirst were driving her mad.  Should she follow Branko?  It wasn’t suicide, but it wasn’t glory. It was nothing but death, still inconceivable to her.  But what to lose?  If she tried to escape but died anyway, what to lose?  If she plummeted to her death in the cold water below, what to lose?  The baby had no choice but she did. 

In her weakness, her mind became stronger.

On the sixth day, she moved out of her cave, gently cradling the baby in her numb arms. She slowly moved onto the same branch that had cradled her fall which seemed like centuries ago to her. Precariously perched on a tree branch that miraculously held, she wrapped the baby into her scarf and hung it from her neck, close to her heart. She waited for the tingling in her legs to subside.

She sat there for hours, listening for sounds. Waiting for bravery. Counting the moments. The tree branch held.

She noticed the tall weeds along the sides of the crevices, probably growing for eons, thickening and lengthening and growing towards the sun above.

Cautiously, she grabbed a weed and yanked.  It held. Right above it was a drying rack, the instrument of death, impaled deeply into the ground. While it had killed some of her neighbors, it now gave her  path to another meter, to the next shrub. Slowly she crawled, hand upon weeds and branches and racks, a maze to the top of the hole. Her sweat poured down her face, down upon the child. Her belabored breath swooshed in and out of her tortured lungs as she touched  the next blade of grass  and the next shrub  and upward she climbed.

The light was filtered and made shadows on her path. She stopped moments to catch her breath and then she passed on, one hand over the over, one hand touching the baby, one hand reaching towards the next weed. It still held, its roots engrained in the earth of her ancestors carrying her and the child onward, towards life…towards destiny.

Her strength about to fail, riddled with hunger and doubt, her fingers stretched out for the next blade of grass. She felt nothing. She saw nothing.  The darkness swooped upon her while the backside of her arms felt the edge.  Nowhere more to climb. Nothing more to reach. After hours of clawing the terrain and praying to all the saints, she had reached the top. The weeds disappeared and the land was level.

The fresh night  air twirled upon her senses and when she pulled herself over the edge onto the meadow,  she lay there and cried. She bellowed into the night while the owls watched.  The cave closed up in the darkness and the crickets began to sing their eternal song. The baby breathed weakly, and then pursed its mouth for milk.