Mother came back from that interview with her eyes snapping ominously. ‘Did you put Anna Semyonovna up to that? Do you think for one minute that I would miss that train – one I’ve been waiting for all these years? For your contest or anything else?’
‘No, I don’t expect that, Mama. But Anna Semyonovna thought she could find out from the police how long the transport would stay in Barnaul and that maybe I could stay behind and catch up with you there.’
‘Esther, you are mad! Completely mad! I wouldn’t leave you behind for one second, not one single second. We are going to leave this place on schedule! and together!’
On March 15, 1946, we boarded the cattle trains that were to take us back to Poland.
I said goodbye to Katiusha and to Zina and to Svetlana and to Shurik. I kept my tears back as we all promised to write to each other and to remain friends forever.
I said goodbye to the steppe – to the wind and the snow and the heat and the monotony. And to its space that had at first filled me with so much terror and later had quieted and soothed me. I said goodbye to the unique beauty of the steppe.
The cattle trains that carried us back to Poland had not improved with the years. But this time who cared? This time the cargo was so filled with joy – singing and laughing – that I forgot to be afraid of what was ahead.
Once again we travelled many weeks, making many stops. We never knew where the train would stop; but the names of cities like Barnaul and Novosibirsk had become familiar to us and it became a game to try to guess what the next stop would be.
And we never knew when the train would start, either.
We had stopped somewhere in the Urals to take on water. I longed for fresh air with a longing that had become an addiction from my life on the steppe. Mother was asleep, so I dared to jump down from the train for a minute, slipping under the bar that stretched across the open door. (Doors were left open now.)
It was so beautiful there in the Urals. I took great, deep breaths of this marvellous air and I also filled myself up with the beauty of this untouched, unspoiled place.
The whistle blew. The train started to move. And there I was, all alone, admiring the Ural Mountains. Not a soul in sight.
But someone else had been hungry for air and beauty. He was leaning out over the bar, admiring the view too. His name was Reiner. We had known him back in Rubtsovsk and Mother had done him a good turn now and then. No matter. He would have done what he did anyhow.
He jumped off the moving train, the train that was to take him back to freedom. Cursing me vigorously, he picked me up and threw me over the bar and back into our car. The train picked up speed as Reiner raced alongside it.
In the general commotion, Mother woke up. I wept terribly for what I had done. But Reiner’s father sat quietly, not weeping, not saying one word of reproach.
The hours went by and they were ghastly. There was no possibility of communicating with anyone – the cars were separated from each other – until the next stop, and who knew when that would be?
There was no singing or joy in that car now.
At the end of three hours – by far the longest in my life – we made another stop.
Racing down the platform came Reiner. He had just managed to grab hold of the little ladder at the end of the train and he had hoisted himself up onto a tiny platform back there. It had been an exceedingly cold ride.
I don’t know whether anyone forgave me or not; in any event, they went back to singing, louder than ever. I thought that Reiner’s father was the most noble man I had ever met.
I decided to make no more personal stops.
But we were told that we were going to stop in Moscow and that we would have an afternoon to visit the city. I was thrilled. Anna Semyonovna had talked about Moscow so much that I felt I would know my way blind to the Square, to the Kremlin, to the Museum, the Bolshoi Theatre, and her beloved university. As we steamed into the Moscow station, I was all dressed up in my sapogy and my fufaika, all set to be a well-dressed tourist.
Suddenly, the train lurched and the next thing I knew I had fallen against the belly stove which was in the middle of the car. Apparently, I broke the full weight of my fall with one hand. The burn was a severe one, the size of a large coin, and the seared and blackened flesh signified that it was a third-degree burn. Everyone became excited again, but there was nothing to do about it except wrap my hand in a handkerchief. I was in agony.
My tour of Moscow was indefinitely postponed.
When we crossed the border from Russia to Poland, everyone reacted differently to this – for us – historic moment. Some people burst into tears, some cheered loudly, some said prayers of thankfulness. Some said the Kaddish for those who had not come back.
And then we went back to singing until we stopped at the first Polish village. At this village, there were some Polish people who had learned nothing from the blood bath. When they heard that there were Jews in the cattle cars, they let out shrill catcalls, they screamed and they cursed and they hurled stones at the cars. ‘Who needs you?’ they screamed. ‘Go back to Siberia, you dirty Jews.’
We stopped singing. I remember someone in the car moaning, ‘Not again, dear God in heaven, not again.’
And I said, ‘Amen.’
I was frightened and I was bewildered. The Polish people whom I had idolized during the years of my exile, thinking that life among them had been the best that ever could have been, were screaming at us to go back. At that moment, I wished I were back there.
Our destination was Lodz. We took turns looking out of the four tiny windows and the first person who caught sight of the city and the devastation let out a cry of pain. When it was my turn to look, I too was appalled. The streets and the houses were filled with rubble.
But I was going to see Tata and I concentrated on shining my sapogy until I could almost see myself in them, and brushing every speck of dust – and some imaginary ones – from my fufaika.
The train stopped.
Everyone in the car was ready to leave and we waited for the officials to give us permission to do so.
I took one last look out of the car to see if Father had received our letters and had come to meet us. In those days, such meetings were minor miracles; more ordinarily, one lined up at Red Cross headquarters or at some other agency to meet a father or mother again. Sometimes it took months to find each other, sometimes years.
Suddenly I saw him.
He wore a well-cut dark blue coat and a navy Homburg. He looked so dear and yet so strange, like a figure out of the American films I had seen in Siberia.
‘Tata – Tata –’ I squeezed through the tiny window and waved.
‘Lalinka – lalinka –’
‘Oh, Tata – Tata –’ I laughed and I cried and I waved. ‘When are they going to let us out? Soon?’
Even from my perch, I could see the tears glistening in my father’s eyes.
The last two or three minutes of my exile seemed like an eternity.
Father had been looking around. ‘Here they come.’ He pointed to the officials who were sauntering towards our car.
We were cleared and I am afraid I bumped into many people leaving that car, making my way towards my father.
It took a long time before we stopped hugging and kissing each other, we four who were left of our family.
Father stood back and looked at us – Grandmother, Mother, and me.
He had to be told about my hand.
‘How thin you all are, how very thin.’ And then he turned to me. ‘And your clothes, lalinka – But don’t worry, the first thing we will do is get you some new ones.’
‘But Tata –’
I stopped. Only people out there wore sapogy and fufaikas. They would not be the height of fashion in Poland.
I clutched my father’s hand.
The years out there on the steppe had come to an end, our exile was over.
THE BEGINNING
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First published in the United States of America 1968
Published in Great Britain by Hamish Hamilton 1969
First published in Puffin Books 1990
This edition published 2016
Copyright © Esther Hautzig, 1968
The moral right of the author has been asserted
ISBN: 978-0-241-38405-3
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Penguin Random House Children’s
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The Endless Steppe Page 19
