The Huntress

The Huntress claims that neither cowardice nor bravery exist, “only nature. If you’re the hunter, you stalk and if you’re the prey, you run” (470). She is aware that before the end of the war, she was the hunter, capturing Jews and prisoners of war and killing them in what she considered acts of “mercy” before they could reach worse deaths at concentration camps (470). However, after the war, she became the prey because “the victors decided I was a monster” (470).

Although the Huntress successfully manages to pass herself off as a fragile war widow and lands herself a husband and a comfortable living, she never loses the sensation of being pursued. She confesses that “every day I’m afraid and every night I dream” (470). By day, she is afraid that Jordan and Daniel are suspicious of her; by night, she dreams of the rusalka she encountered on the night she killed Sebastian. She kills Daniel when he asks questions about Kolb and catches him “looking at me, in bed when he thought I was asleep” (473). Here, the position of being scrutinized while she is in the helpless, unconscious guise of sleep, makes the Huntress feel like the hunted.