And the Rat Laughed - By Nava Semel Page 0,55

witch who snatches babies and replaces them with the warped fruit of her own womb.

The farmers brought their candles to the church, for me to say a blessing. Then they set out in a procession towards their homes, carrying the flames and shielding them from the wind, since a flame that goes out is a bad omen. Tonight they will spread the sacred light throughout their homesteads. They will place the candle on the wall over the bed and will guard it for an entire year. It will be placed in the hands of the dying, to ease the agony of passing from this world.

Stash.

Only when the little girl speaks do I feel alive.

5 February 1944

Today I read to her from the Old Testament. I crawl along, hunching my back, waving a tail like a rat and recording the letters in the dirt to teach her to read and write. In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth. She imitates me. Suddenly, she stops, her legs in mid-air.

Tell me a different story.

She shakes her curls. I want to stroke them, but do not dare.

I mustn’t evoke any memory of the Stefan.

There is no other story. That is how it all began. In the beginning, our Father created...

She cuts me short.

Stash, promise me He isn’t a Jew.

I reply: He is what He is, and He has no name.

16 February 1944

Ash Wednesday

On the day marking the commencement of Lent, I sprinkle ashes on the heads of the congregants, and make the sign of a cross on their brows. My body performs the ritual perfectly, but my spirit wanders. Who is this strange man carrying out his duties so cordially? They know nothing of my true nature.

My inner self was aflame at the thought that they were branding their fellow humans. Abstaining from eating meat, yet devouring human flesh.

For a moment I imagined You, Father, covering Your body in the dirt.

When I turn the pages of my diary, I discover the passage of time outside, so different from the clock that the little girl and I share. With all the power that I possess, I will try to drive the timepiece of her memory off course.

22 February 1944

Day of St Peter’s Chair

What is a miracle? she asks.

Something unusual, that never happened before.

Who causes miracles?

God.

And who is God?

Our Father.

And where is He?

In Heaven.

Heaven – is that above us or below us?

I don’t know.

When does He make the miracle?

When He decides to intervene.

And if we become Father and Mother ourselves, will we be able to intervene?

I say nothing.

23 February 1944

And where are His father and mother?

I dig in.

You don’t know anything, Stash.

She is so disillusioned. She pushes me into the niche. I lie there. My ears are always attuned to echoes, so I will be able to detect the enemy.

29 February 1944

I hop.

I sniff.

My whiskers twitch.

My ears are upright.

I beat my hairless tail against the walls.

I am her human rat.

I pad our den with leaves – a warm cradle for our young. My teeth keep growing, which is why I must keep gnawing.

All this time I go on looking for escape routes, because our very lives depend on them.

7 March 1944

St Thomas Aquinas’ Day

When he was the age of the little girl, Thomas Aquinas asked his teacher: What is God? He too had been forcibly separated from his mother, and had been taken captive.

So what? Is this a way of telling me that there is nothing new under the sun?

19 March 1944

St Joseph’s Day

If those are the questions that children ask, what do their parents reply? I don’t know what the carpenter Joseph told the little boy that he adopted in Nazareth, when the child asked the meaning of a nasty word whispered behind his back. Maybe the boy shed his tears in secret. There is nothing in the Evangelists about the child’s hurt.

All winter she asked. Plainly, matter-of-factly. Where do we come from? What was here before us? What will there be here after we’re gone? And I did not have the answers.

We climb up the stairs to the belfry. I want to show her the world. First, she walled herself in. I devised ways of luring her out of the niche. As we climb up, her body starts to tremble. I recognize her fear of heights immediately. She is dizzy, and her body reaches out for something to lean on. When I hold out my arms, she turns her back and starts running down the stairs. I swear, Stash will not