“Didn’t he die? Blown up in the first attack?”

The corporal nodded sadly. “Because he believed he was going to die. He told me before it happened, and so it was. Private Kumar knew all this wisdom from his grandfather in India, and yet he died because he could not believe in a dream of a life beyond the battle. He died because in his heart he believed in the dream of his death. I know it is strange and disturbing to think this way. But I know it is true. I dreamed of a life as a beekeeper and believed that in my heart even before the mortar bomb hit me. It was why I was able to walk through the battle. It is why I will survive Poltava, return home, and become a beekeeper.”

“Because you still hold that dream in your heart where it can’t be taken from you?”

He smiled and started stirring again, saying, “Now Martel begins to understand.”

The other man building concrete blocks returned, and they fell into a silence. Corporal Gheorghe seemed perfectly content as he worked. But Emil struggled with the Romanian’s way of thinking the rest of the day. A small part of him wanted to believe it. The bigger part of him was deeply skeptical.

Later, as they were gathering scrap lumber for the cooks at the mess hall, he said, “So explain to me how this works. Did Private Kumar believe God was behind all this?”

“Not God in the way we were taught,” he said, waving a piece of wood around at the falling snow. “This is the Divine. Everything is the Divine, the Almighty One, the Universal Intelligence. You, me, everything.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Corporal Gheorghe frowned but then put his hand on his chest, shut his eyes, and rocked his head back so the snowflakes hit his face. A moment later, he opened his eyes, lowered his chin, and gazed in a warm and calming way that made Emil feel strangely connected to him.

Gheorghe said, “Private Kumar believed that everything in life was, when it came right down to it, one thing, a supremely intelligent, universal force he called the Divine or the Universal Intelligence, or the Almighty One. I am part of the Divine. You are part of it, too. Everything is part of this life force you can call God, if it is easier to think that way. You are part of God, and God is a part of you. It’s why the Divine understands your thoughts, dreams, and emotions, Martel. The Almighty is in you, and you are in it.”

Emil chewed on that as they carried armloads of scrap lumber to the mess hall. After they’d given the wood to the cooks, gotten their pay, and sat down with their meal, Emil said, “You didn’t say ‘prayers.’”

The Romanian paused his soup spoon in midair, looked at Emil, puzzled. “Prayers?”

“You said God hears our thoughts, dreams, and emotions, but you didn’t say prayers.”

“Oh,” he said, and put a spoonful of soup to his mouth. “According to Private Kumar, the Divine hears and understands prayers and thoughts, but they are not God’s primary languages.”

“Okay,” Emil said. “What are the primary languages of God?”

Corporal Gheorghe smiled, put his hand on his chest, and said, “Whatever emotions you carry in your heart, Martel, especially love. God listens loud and clear if you feel love. The Almighty also knows if you are feeling good. The Universal Intelligence responds when you are happy or courageous or even if you are just calm. It understands when you are grateful for the miracle of your existence and rushes to help you when you have a dream that helps other people. The Divine hears all the languages of the heart and beauty.”

The corporal sobered and pointed at Emil’s chest. “All languages of the heart, Martel. Private Kumar said if you are dark in your heart, with too many bad thoughts circling in your mind, God also listens. When you suffer and curse your life, the Almighty listens closely. When you have no goodness in your heart or your prayers. No love. No calm. No desire to help others. No thankfulness for the miracle of your life. When you hold things like hatred or anger in your heart or envy or comparison, when life is all about how everything is unfair to me, me, me, the Divine understands those ancient languages of self-destruction, too. The thing is, the Universal Intelligence will help you even if your dreams come from a dark place, but the dreams will end up destroying you in the process. If you don’t believe me, think of Hitler or any other tyrant.”

Gheorghe returned his hand to his heart. “So live here, Martel. Love life like it is a miracle every day, every moment, and dream in a way that helps others, and the Divine will hear you and you will walk through battles untouched and have anything your heart desires.”

Emil didn’t know if he believed half of what the Romanian was telling him, but he said, “Even beehives?”

Corporal Gheorghe laughed and shook his spoon at Emil. “Yes, lots of beehives to make lots of honey because it is good for people. Makes them strong and live long.”

After they had eaten and taken the pony cart and the dead to the sheltered cove by the big field, Emil went to his bunk with the Romanian’s words still whirling and echoing in his head. It was a lot to take in, but when he began complaining to himself about the hardness of his bunk, the dankness of the room, the men still dying around him, and how much he missed Adeline and the boys, he stopped. What if God, or the Divine, or the Almighty One, or whatever you wanted to call it, was listening to the dark emotions he was feeling in his heart?

Instead, he tried to be grateful for the bunk and the dank room because he was not lying out in the snow; and to be thankful for the dying men around him because they reminded him that he was still alive, that he still had opportunities, that he was going to find a way to escape.

Emil imagined the coming thaw, the trailing storm that Corporal Gheorghe believed would come after the thaw, and the two of them bolting from the haunted burial grounds on pony-back, in the falling snow at dusk, avoiding dogs, getting to a train, and fleeing west. His heart warmed, and he felt excited at these dreams all the way down into sleep.

When he awoke the next morning to the sound of the triangle ringing, he tried to picture Adeline’s green valley: the mountains and their snowcapped crags surrounding a lush, emerald-colored basin where wheat grew like a weed and a crystal river flowed through, feeding it all. He saw himself with a fishing pole standing by that river and started the day with a smile.

Emil emerged from the basement in the darkness before dawn, February 4, 1946, and saw ten bodies frozen in the snow by the pony and the death cart. No other prisoners would volunteer for burial duty, so Emil and Corporal Gheorghe got behind the cart and pushed while the pony pulled it across the icy ruts and deep snow in the big field above that cove in the trees. There were so many dead to pray for now, Emil feared using up his prayers. And how was he supposed to feel good about this?

“I’m beginning to believe you are right about a lot of things, or Private Kumar was,” Emil said as they prepared to tip the bodies over. “I see clearly now that my prayers were answered that night in Dubossary because I felt calm about doing the right thing. God answered, and I did not have to kill those three kids.”

“That’s right.”

“But what about the Jews praying that night?”

“What do you mean?”

“The Jews were begging God for their lives, too. I heard them, and the Almighty did not answer. He didn’t answer the people who died in the death camps, either. What would your Private Kumar have said to that?”

The Romanian stared ahead for a long moment and then shook his head before releasing the latch and heaving his shoulders against the underside of the death cart. Emil threw himself into it as well, and with a thud, the ten frozen bodies fell into the snow.

Emil stood there, looking at the corporal when they lowered the bed of the cart and latched it. “Why didn’t God answer them? Why didn’t the Almighty answer the millions of Ukrainians who starved to death under Stalin?”

The Romanian looked pained as he said, “You are asking if I know the intent of the Universal Intelligence, and I do not. But maybe the millions in Ukraine died so people like you would run like a nomad when you got the chance to make a new life in the West. Maybe so many Jews died so the ones who survived would become the toughest, strongest people on the face of the earth, people who would help make sure there were no more death camps or starvation. Ever.”

As they headed back to the hospital site, Emil thought about those nomads and survivors, felt a pang in his heart, and understood that even if Corporal Gheorghe was right, even if the starved went west and prospered and the Jews who survived became the toughest people on the planet, they would all still be human, and they would all still have broken hearts over what was done to them and to their families.