In 1936, George Kocela sends his two-year-old son Paul and his pregnant wife, Maria back to Czechoslovakia where he and Margaret were born, George in Klokochov, Maria in Meglisov. Maria was already a naturalized citizen when she and George met and married in Brooklyn, but George never bothered to become naturalized. Though Maria is reluctant to leave him, George insists she and the boy and the coming child can live much cheaper with his large family in Klokochov. This will enable him to save even more money towards realizing his dream of some day returning home, the richest man in the village. He orders her to begin building a fine home with the money he sends back with her as soon as possible. He insists the house have a tile roof with "George Kocela" spelled out in different-colored tiles that can be seen for ten kilometers.

So the devoted Maria eager to please him begins building almost at once, right after her baby, Margaret is born. The years go rapidly by, during which the hard-working Maria finishes the house, does field work for neighbors and fends off the unwelcome advances of George's brothers, while, despite her protests, George, bewitched by the "good money" he is earning, lingers in Brooklyn.

These years are magical for Paul. Although he and his little sister are different from the other village children - having their mother's family's red hair and being Americans - he has an idyllic childhood in the beautiful village at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains. He finds surrogate fathers in the village carpenter, in the brilliant son of the widowed innkeeper and in an older boy, Janos who saves him and his little sister from bullies. For his fifth birthday, Paul's mother gives him a German Shepherd pup, Hadaay which she traded a day's work for.

Still his father doesn't come to Klokochov. But the Germans - riding motorcycles and flying airplanes - come. Soon they are billeted throughout the village. They set up their communication station in the granary of Paul's house. The old people who remember the last war hate the Germans, but Paul can't help liking genial Corporal Fritz who is billeted at his house and takes time to show friendship to Paul and his sister.

Soon, the borders are closed. Paul's father can't return even if he wanted to. All communication from the outside world stops, too, including the letters with money from George. Undaunted, Maria continues working, now often walking many miles to earn the means to feed her children. Paul starts school and catechism. His friend, Janos teaches him to ring the Angelus on the church bells. Pleased with Paul's quick skill, he extracts a promise from Paul that he will ring Janos' Funeral Angelus when the time comes. Paul, certain that will be many years away, laughingly promises.

As the war progresses, Paul becomes aware that Janos's father is head of the local Partisans, the underground resistance army that sabotages the Germans any way it can and that Janos and his brothers are all members. The Germans "discover" an illegal gun in the barn of the one Jewish family in Klokochov and haul the entire family away, never to be heard of again. When the Partisans ambush a German supply train, the Germans select ten men - heads of families - from each of Klokochov and two other nearby villages to be executed in reprisal. Every man, woman and child in the village must watch as the ten men are machine-gunned into the mass grave they've been forced to dig themselves.

That day, Paul and Janos ring the longest Angelus - one peal for each year of the deceased ones' lives - they have ever heard of.

The Partisans retaliate by taking any villager suspected of informing to the Germans against them from their homes at night and shooting them. Paul's family - the redheaded Americans - have never been considered true citizens of Klokochov. Now they fear not only the Germans but also the Partisans.

The war grinds on with the Germans commandeering most of the villagers' food. The people of Klokochov learn little of what is happening, only that the Germans are retreating out of Russia often taking the entire population of whole villages along with them as slave labor in German war factories. To escape this fate, with the help of the Partisans, the citizens of Klokochov, driving their livestock go to the mountains to wait out the German retreat.

But the barking of Hadaay threatens to betray the villagers's position. Janos's father orders Janos to shoot the dog. But Paul and the dog escape further into the mountains, where Paul spends a terrifying night in a makeshift shelter with Hadaay while wolves howl in the woods around them. In the morning, nearly frozen and light-headed with hunger, he has no alternative but to return to camp, despite his attempts to drive Hadaay away, with his dog trailing behind him. Janos is bound to carry out his orders and shoot the dog. All Paul's love for his friend now turns to bitter hatred.

As winter nears and the food runs out, life in the mountains becomes unbearable. The villagers have no recourse but to return to their homes for shelter. Predictably, they are soon captured and herded into a Germany-bound train without food, water or sanitary facilities. The train stops periodically at railway stations so the inevitable dead or dying can be thrown out. At one of these stops, while their guards are distracted by an arriving hospital train Maria grabs Paul and Margaret and escapes into the countryside. They make their way to her parents' village where they get food and clean clothing and shelter.

But soon, the retreating Germans are bombarding the village as the Russian front reaches it. The family takes shelter in Grandpa's root cellar and so survives. When the front has moved on Grandpa gives Maria a cow and some other supplies and Paul's uncle escorts them back to Klokochov.

The village was bombarded too and there isn't a house without damage. Even worse, the retreating Germans have buried landmines in the fields, which cause many deaths as the starving villagers - escaped from Germany in the growing chaos and returned to Klokochov - venture into the fields in hopes of finding an overlooked beet or carrot. The bodies of Russian soldiers also lie in the fields because of the danger of burying them. A group of six children - including Angelika, Paul's first love - is blown to bits by a hidden tank rocket.

Of the Kocela's animals, only Mitzi, a little barn cat has survived the war. When she begins stealing the cheese Maria makes from the cow's milk, she tells Paul as the man of the house he must kill the cat.

Ten-year-old Paul has seen too much death and in his horror at killing the poor cat, he botches the job. To his shame, a mutilated Mitzi flees to shift for herself in the fields. For the first time, Paul begins to have an inkling of what Janos went through when he had to kill Hadaay. He harangues himself that Janos was more of a man than he is. At least Hadaay had died quickly and mercifully.

Individual villagers continue to make their tortured ways back home. Janos's father returns to say that Janos was killed in the mountains in the final days of the Germans' retreat, but he was unable to retrieve the boy's body. Paul grieves for Janos, but despite his new awareness that Janos was only doing his duty to the entire village when he executed Hadaay, he can't bring himself to forgive his friend.

Winter sets in, the hardest in the old ones' memories. The villagers' suffering is intense, but at least the cold prevents the dead bodies from spreading contagion. By spring, they hope the Russians will be able to spare minesweeping details to clear the area of the murderous mines, enabling them to bury the dead.

At last spring clears the mountains enough for Janos's father to retrieve his son's body. He reaches the village with Janos and asks Paul to ring the Angelus. Paul is struggling with himself, wanting to say yes, but still too bitter when a Russian soldier comes screaming in jubilation into the village. The Germans have surrendered! The soldier scrambles up into the church tower to ring the bells. The bells erupt in a cacaphony as the inexperienced soldier starts them pealing.

Just then Paul sees Mitzi, missing since his bungled attempt to kill her, crossing the meadow to his house, a lone kitten at her heels. She pauses and looks at Paul, then leads her kitten into the barn.

Profoundly moved, Paul interprets the little cat's return - and her look of forgiveness - as a message to him. He climbs the steps to the bells and with quiet authority, takes the ropes from the exultant soldier. He stills the clangorous bells and then, with tears running down his cheeks, he plays the most beautiful Angelus Klokochov has ever heard.

Click here to download the full text of The Angelus. © Paul Kocela, 2005

The author can be reached at: PaulKocela @ aol.com.