by A. D. Winch
Slowly, he walked down the carriage aisle, carefully reading the numbers on each of the separate compartments until he found the numbers 93, 95, 97 and 99. He opened the glass panelled door and walked in. Inside were four brown bunks. Blue woollen blankets, white sheets and small pillows were laid out neatly on each one. There were two bunks at knee height and two more at head height. Alexander was sat on a bottom bunk and looking out of the window; his eyes busily scanning the platform from left to right. Andrea was also sat on the bottom bunk but right beside the door.
“We cannot possibly be sleeping here!” Eric announced indignantly.
“Why not?” asked Andrea. “It is more than appropriate for our needs.”
“It is no bigger than my toilet. I could reach across the gangway and touch the person in the bunk opposite.”
“Then I suggest you do not reach out and touch the person opposite. If it is not something you want to do then there is no reason to do it,” replied Andrea. “You will sleep on the top bunk, above me.”
Eric was left standing in the gangway, unsure of what to say or do next. He looked at Alexander for assistance. Alexander only put out his hand and requested that his bandana be returned. Eric removed it, thrust it into Alexander’s hand and climbed up to his bunk on the thin metal ladder. Behind his bunk was a space big enough for suitcases. He threw his skateboard into it, making sure it made as much noise as possible.
Ursula entered two minutes later. Eric sat up, banged his head on the carriage ceiling and lay back down again with an angry huff.
“This is great!” said Ursula, obviously excited, and placed her skateboard under a bed. Without prompting, she sprang up to her bunk and lay down opposite Eric. “This is great, isn’t it Eric? I’ve never slept on a train before.”
There was no reaction from Eric except for a dismissive snort.
On the platform, the last few remaining passengers jumped on board, and the guard blew his whistle. Alexander sat back from the window, and his shoulders dropped as he relaxed. Andrea locked the door. Slowly the train chugged out of the station on its overnight journey to Amsterdam.
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Chapter 15 – Out of the Frying Pan
The loud alarm did not surprise Agent Hoover this time. However, he was surprised when he saw where Eric Meyer was. He had seen the boy at the same time as the software. Immediately all the screens changed from showing street views of Paris to views of Prague.
“Got ya,” he said to the screen as he watched Eric jump in the air on his skateboard and grab hold of a taxi’s bumper after landing.
By the time the train pulled out of Vršovice station, Agent Angel was beside him.
“I would bet my bottom dollar that where there is a White King we will find a Black Queen,” said Agent Angel.
He placed his large hands on Agent Hoover’s shoulders and squeezed. They watched intently as Eric got off the train. They lost him as he went down the staircase but found him again when he re-emerged a few minutes later in a bandana and boarded another train.
“What kind of headgear is he wearing?” Agent Angel asked Agent Hoover.
“Geez, I don’t know,” replied Agent Hoover, “but one thing’s for certain - it sure ain’t no crown.”
Agent Angel laughed, “I’m starting to like you, Hoover. Keep up the good work. Don’t lose them again.”
Agent Angel squeezed Agents Hoover’s shoulders until his fingers rested under Hoover’s shoulder blades.
“I think we may have found the girl Ursula as well, Sir,” Hoover said as he squirmed under Agent Angel’s grip.
Agent Angel pinched Hoover’s collar bone, “We don’t use their names Hoover. If we use their names, we personalise the issue. If we personalise the issue, we let emotion and sentiment in. If we let emotion and sentiment in we get distracted from our mission, and if that happens, we fail. Now try again.”
Agent Hoover explained quickly, “At the first station there was a kid wearing a bright pink hat with a skateboard like White King’s. At the main station, she got onto the same carriage as White King. So I guess she could be Black Queen.”
“Good thinking, Hoover,” said Agent Angel, relaxing his grip. “Replay the footage and see who else gets on that carriage. And find out anything and everything else you can about that train.”
He pointed at the train that was now being tracked by satellites orbiting the planet.
As it left the station Agent Hoover found out that it was the Inter-City Phoenix to Amsterdam Centraal Station, stopping in Berlin at twenty-nine minutes past midnight, Cologne at six fourteen and Amsterdam at nine fifty-nine.
“Experience tells me that people only get on night trains if they are going a long way, so I doubt they’ll be getting off before Cologne. So, I want three of Team Jupiter to board there. They have one hour to get out of Paris and on their plane to our air force base in Ramstein, Germany. The other three will go directly to Amsterdam. Team Omega will stay in Paris. There must be accomplices there, let’s see if we can smoke’em out. I think we might clear up here. We’ll get their accomplices in Paris; their accomplices on the train and also we’ll be able to render both White King and Black Queen. Keep on it, I’m going to celebrate with a Cuban cigar!”
Agent Angel left, and Agent Hoover got to work straight away. Behind him, he could hear a rasping breathing, and it was getting faster and faster.
Even though it was before eight o’clock in the evening Alexander, Andrea, Eric and Ursula were all on their bunks. Ursula lay on her front with her chin propped on her hands, gazing out of the window. Eric shut his eyes and tried to contain his anger. He had expected first class but instead he got a squashed little cabin. His thoughts turned to his previous life and a fear that he may never enjoy his riches again. Alexander worked on further theories that could possibly help Eric and Ursula. He scribbled them down in his red notebook while regularly checking the dog-eared brown one he had brought with him. Andrea just sat on her bunk next to the door. She was petite enough to fit under Eric’s bunk without bending her neck.
The train had picked up speed and was quickly passing through the Czech countryside beside the Elbe river. It was dark, but the lights from the train lit up the autumnal trees and granite cliffs. Ursula watched them and thought of the climb she had endured with Eric while fleeing the OSS on Mount Vesuvius. She remembered the threats the agent had made and his tenacity in trying to catch two children. It worried her that the OSS would not give up, and she missed her Mémé and Granddad.
“Andrea, can I please phone my grandparents now?” she asked, looking down at her over bunk’s edge.
Andrea handed her a pay-as-you-go phone she had bought that day.
Ursula dialled the numbers she had known by heart since she was three years old. For the next half an hour, she had a cheerful conversation with her grandparents. She told them what had been happening to her and they likewise. Ursula was worried that the OSS and French gendarmes had been trying to find Eric and herself. She immediately told Andrea who told her not to worry as she was no longer in France. The call made Ursula feel better and also reassured her grandparents. Mémé, in particular, had been worried sick according to her Granddad.
Eric was so close to Ursula that he heard every word being spoken. Just before the call was over he heard Mémé say, “Give our love to everyone, especially Eric.”
Ursula duly conveyed the message. Her voice was joyful and speaking with her grandparents had clearly made her happier, as if the last few weeks had not happened at all.
Eric huffed and turned away so that he faced the couchette’s brown plastic wall. For all their faults, he would have dearly loved to speak to his parents. He would have welcomed hearing his father speak English, with his ridiculous mistakes and his inability to say ‘w.' Or hear his mother call him ‘Erica’ and tell him about her day in the world of fashion houses as if he was really interested.
His anger slowly faded to sadness, and Eri
c began to feel very, very alone. He had no one to turn to. Andrea looked after him, but it was her job. Even though she was always there for him, she never had, and never would, provide the warmth that the Benjamins gave Ursula. Alexander had somehow become part of this circle, but he had only known him for a few months. Eric didn’t like him and strongly suspected he was hiding something from them all. And lastly there was Ursula, but she was just a girl with no wealth. A tear rolled down Eric’s cheek, then another, and another, and another. Silently, Eric cried himself to sleep.
In the bunk below Eric, Alexander had dropped his notebook on the floor and moved to sit opposite Andrea.
“The more I think about it, the more theories I find. The more theories I discard and the more theories I need to test,” he said scratching his stubble. “My concern is that we’ll end up throwing so many ideas into the pot, or to be more precise throwing different possible ‘cures’ at the children, that we won’t know what actually works and what doesn’t. The problem is that I am like a dog with a bone. I can’t switch off.”
“Thank you for telling me,” replied Andrea.
“But I think I’m missing something. If I could only ask my mother, pick her brains. I know she could help.”
“This is impossible, so why are you even considering it?”
“It’s a figure of speech, you know that. I’ve been through her diary so many times that I feel I know it by heart, but I just feel I may be missing something.”
Andrea bent down and slid the rucksack out from under her bunk. She unclipped the top and carefully took out a thick, grey-covered book. Andrea handed it to Alexander.
“You have the diary of your mother for the last seven years of her life. This is not the only one. Your mother was a secret person. There are many parts of her life you do not know, but she did keep a record of them. This will help you understand her better.”
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Chapter 16 – Professor Larsen’s Diary
Alexander held the diary as carefully as if it is was a new-born baby. Since his mother’s premature death, anything that connected him to her had become very precious. He held the diary to his face and breathed in. It smelt faintly of cigarettes, but he had no memory of his mother ever smoking. Without rushing he pulled it away from his nose and opened it.
Inside the front cover, in his mother’s tiny script she had written, ‘Property of Professor Ingrid Larsen.’ The paper inside had yellowed with age around the edges and as he flicked through he saw that every page was full. He returned to the front page.
Lines crisscrossed over the sentences, trying to cover up what had been written, but the words were still just visible. The first entry was not dated, but Alexander began to read.
I have become aware of information that I should never have. I knew it wasn’t dead but they wouldn’t listen to me. They thought I was just another dumb blonde. Now my mind is filled with hundreds of lives lived, hundreds of memories, hundreds of thoughts, hundreds of ideas. They are not mine. They are not my husband’s. They are not my friend’s. They are not human. They should never have been placed in my head. So much that I thought was impossible I can now make possible. All that was improbable I now know is probable. I have the knowledge. I have the understanding and I have the skills to do it. What am I to do? What am I going to do? What am I going to…
The last ‘do’ had been scribbled out so much that the paper was torn but it wasn’t hard to guess. He lay back on his bunk and thought about what he had read. Was his mother sane when she wrote it? He had always accepted as fact everything she had ever told him but this confused him greatly. It read like the wild and outlandish ramblings of a crazy woman. Not like his mother at all. His mother was calm and logical. If she did become stressed she would quote poetry; she wouldn’t write like this.
Alexander stopped himself biting his nails just before his fingers reached his mouth. He put his hand back on the book and carefully considered again what he had read. If his mother had been pleased or just content with what she had written, she would not have drawn lines over the page in a vain attempt to cover the words. On the other hand, if the words had been so painful to her on a later date why had she not torn the page out of the diary? Alexander chose not to make any judgment about his mother’s sanity. Instead, he turned the page and read on.
25th December 1966
My love, the voices in my head have now gone. The thoughts are there but I regained control. It’s Christmas Day and I have my own room in a comfortable but plain, big house. I have treated myself to a grey shawl and a knee-length black coat. I imagine that they are Christmas presents from you but all I really want is your arms around me.
I am still on enemy soil but feel safer in my current location. I need to emphasise that I feel safer but I do not feel safe nor do I feel relaxed. Trying to leave America, to leave you, is proving to be the most stressful experience of my life so far. It is also the saddest. I have left you behind Johan but I must not dwell on this. Instead, I will write to you daily in here. Even if you never read my words, this will be our time. I must confine our love to this book or I will end up being crushed under the weight of a broken heart. All I will say is that I miss you, more than I ever feared, even if I try to keep you out of my thoughts for most of the day. You were always there for me, always supported me. Over the last weeks, I have missed this more than anything. I will love you until the day I die.
I left the base at Roswell without incident. My plan to destroy your underground laboratory I believe was a success but only after leaving the gates of the base was I able to breathe. I am sorry for destroying your work but you are blinded by your passion and cannot see where it will lead.
Once in town, I made my way quickly to the bus station; past the hotel where we spent or wedding night and the cinema which we visited regularly. The streets were hot and dry even though it was the end of the day. All the time I walked I kept looking over my shoulder. Despite there being few people on the sidewalk, I was convinced someone was following me. My paranoia grew when I arrived at the bus station. A large number of soldiers were on leave from the base. They were waiting and jostling while sipping alcohol from bottles covered in paper bags. Fortunately none recognised me and apart from a few innocent approaches I was mercifully left in peace.
The greyhound bus arrived within the hour and I boarded with most of the soldiers. As I took my seat, alone, my only feeling was one of emotional exhaustion. I was still scared that I was being followed and still fearful that one of the soldiers sat behind me would stop the bus and drag me back to the base. Despite my worries, the moment the bus left the city limits I fell fast asleep. I slept all the way to Amarillo, at which point the soldiers noisily getting off the bus woke me. I too disembarked and found a hotel for the night. I needed to rest and, perhaps more importantly, I needed to dye my hair. In my bag, I had been carrying black hair dye and once I had secured my room I said goodbye, at least for all the while I am in America, to my blonde hair. You wouldn’t like my new hair colour, even if we were Schwarzkopfs together.
Also in my bag was a map of the USA. I wanted to get to Canada for no other reason than it had a border with America and was further away from Roswell than Mexico. From there I hoped to secure passage back to Europe. I doubted very much that I could do the same from the States and I didn’t dare risk going to an airport in America. If I had to show my passport, I am sure I would have been arrested on the spot.
On the map, I found the border and decided I would head to Buffalo, New York State. From there, I was sure I could cross the river to Canada without being checked, possibly with the tourists visiting Niagra Falls.
My journey to Buffalo had its moments but I will not bore you with them right now. I refused to talk to anyone except to buy a ticket or to answer a question, and when I did talk I tried to disguise my voice. All I wanted to do was get as far away from Roswell as possible and then out of the country. It took me six days to arrive in
Buffalo. On the way, I passed through Memphis, Nashville and Cleveland. I saw them, and many more places from the bus window or a hotel window, if I had to wait for a transfer on the following day. This was not a sight-seeing trip unless you find highways and freeways of interest which I do not. Maybe one day we can do this journey together and stop on the way.
When I finally arrived in Buffalo, I was tired of travelling and finances were running low. The city was much larger than Roswell, over half a million people I was to find out later, and the weather was pleasant. It was a contrast to the unrelenting heat in Roswell. In many ways, I welcomed the change. A bigger city meant more opportunities to remain anonymous and in some ways it reminded me of home.
Even so, as I walked through the streets, I knew that I wasn’t home. I couldn’t turn a corner and see you there. This thought grew in my head and the thoughts of what I had done accompanied it. Before I knew it, I was physically shaking. I leant against a lamppost and tried to steady myself but without any luck. A kindly lady walked up to me, took my hand and led me into a diner.
She sat me down, put a strong coffee in one of my hands and a cigarette in the other. After I had stopped trembling she spoke and asked me if I was in the family way? I could hardly deny it. I’m sorry I never told you Johan, I truly am.
Her name was Betty and she told me she was part of the First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo. I don’t know if it was her smile or the warmth of the diner or the coffee and cigarette, but I poured my heart out and all my fears to this lady who had offered me such kindness. My story was a lie but my fears were very real. I told her that you were dead that I was pregnant and had been kicked out of our rented home. I explained that I had little money but I was trying to return to my own country. A detail that I did not elaborate on.
