Hunger Journeys

by Maggie De Vries

  “She is not worried about kissing the enemy,” Albert said.

  “No,” Lena said. “What could she be thinking?”

  “Maybe she just wants a bit of joy in a hard day, a bit of fun.”

  “That kind of fun costs a lot,” Lena said, but her eyes locked with Albert’s, and her mind snapped back to Sofie’s lips on his. What had that felt like? she wondered, holding her wrist up to her mouth, feeling her own warm pulse with her lips and catching the faint scent of roses.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “I will help you find the people you are seeking,” Albert said later on, as the day wound down and soldiers began to douse their fires and slip away into the cars.

  Lena knew they had passed through cities: Amersfoort, Apeldoorn, Deventer. All were between Utrecht and Almelo, and all were on the route straight east to Germany. The train travelled only at night and trundled slowly through country and city alike, stopping only to fix damage to the track. By morning they would reach Almelo, and there the train would stop.

  “You have to stay with the train,” Lena said.

  “We will spend two days in Almelo. Maybe more. We will take on cattle and other supplies that will travel east with us.”

  “Oh,” Lena said, thinking of the people starving in the west while good Dutch food moved east.

  Albert must have been thinking too, for he said nothing more.

  Their fire had burned down to ash. Albert poured the remains of his tea over the ashes and poked at them with a stick. Lena rose to her feet and waited. She looked to where Sofie and Uli twined around each other on their blanket, but she could see little more than shadows. Albert looked too and gave a small smile.

  What if she went and got a blanket of her own and invited Albert with her into the dark? He would not hesitate, she knew. The notion warmed her more than tea or fire could. She thought back to Albert’s coat around her body. It was a towering sin to imagine Albert’s body in place of that coat. Yet she did. She was, right that second. She imagined his hands on her bare skin. The imagining was almost past bearing, as if her skin would rise up in response.

  Albert’s hand on her arm made her jump and let out a small scream. His touch prickled all the way up her arms, all over her body.

  “Lost in your thoughts?” he said, smiling.

  She shook her head fiercely and forced herself to smile back.

  Together they walked to the car. Lena was silent as Albert boosted her up and followed her inside. She cleared a path to the back, then turned and spoke again at last, bringing the topic back to their imminent arrival in Almelo. “Well, we will be all right on our own. We can find the way.”

  “I would like to help you,” Albert said, the muscles in his neck tightening under his collar.

  Lena knelt and began arranging her blankets for sleep. She reached out a pair of fingers and touched the snowdrops where they lay on top of her bag, wilted but shining white in the dark. How wonderful it would be to accept Albert’s help. She gritted her teeth. If it weren’t for this—she pushed the word damned out of her mind—terrible war …

  “I know, Albert. You are kind,” Lena said, gazing up at him over her shoulder. “I … I need to sleep.”

  His hand came out of the dark and brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. She remained still while he stood for a moment, waiting until he turned and left the car. At last, Lena pulled the blankets around herself, curled up in the straw and gradually drifted off.

  It was cold in the straw. Lena spun up out of a light sleep, shivering. She turned and twisted, shoving straw and a blanket under her legs and her back. She had ended up right on the icy floor. She thought for a moment about her warm bed, with Margriet’s warm length—or Bep’s short one—next to her. Her teeth clanked together involuntarily.

  The straw near the door rustled. She sat up.

  “Lena. Are you there?” It was Albert. What was he doing in the car? Was he coming to her? If he did, what would she do? Lena felt a rush of excitement blended with dread. Behind her, she heard more rustling and a small moan.

  “Sofie?” she whispered. “Sofie?”

  “It’s all right, Lena.” That was Albert, closer now.

  She heard Uli’s voice, a murmur. And Sofie’s giggle.

  A hand touched her shoulder and she started. “Ah, here you are,” Albert’s voice said. “Are you all right? I brought you an extra blanket.”

  Lena widened her eyes into the pitch black, but she saw nothing. A bundle of thick, rough wool was thrust into her hands. She gulped but held her silence.

  “I won’t go far,” he said. “I want to keep an eye …”

  Even though she didn’t want to think about it, Lena knew what he meant, who he meant. He wanted to make sure that Uli didn’t … that he didn’t … For a moment, Lena let herself imagine what Sofie was doing with that man, then she pushed the thought away. It was not possible they would be together like that. Not all night! Not right next to her!

  She jumped as Albert’s hand touched her arm, alarmed at the heat it sent right through her.

  “There you are!” he said again. “I’ll be nearby. You sleep now.”

  And despite the proximity of Sofie’s and Uli’s entwined bodies, despite her own desire for the man watching over her from so near, Lena eventually did sleep. She awoke several times more in the darkness, but the train was creeping along again, with all its familiar sound and motion, and it lulled her back to sleep, wrapped in the extra blanket. She heard no more moans or giggles. No guns shot at them that night. Aside from the cold, nothing disturbed her slumber, not even dreams—which she had feared—until the train rattled and banged to a stop, long, long before it should.

  The train had stopped many times during its two-night journey. Men rode on the front of it, checking for damage to the rails. By the fires the previous afternoon, Uli had gone on and on about the Dutch Resistance and what a mess they made of the tracks. He hadn’t been blaming them exactly, but he hadn’t been honouring them either. Lena had had to bite her tongue to keep from blurting out, “Well, you are the enemy, aren’t you? And your trains are filled with our food.”

  This time, though, they were so close. And this time, the damage was very bad, as Albert and Uli reported when they returned from investigating. It would take the rest of the night to mend, and they could not travel by day.

  A part of Lena felt elated at the offer of another day with the train, another day before they had to face whatever awaited them in Almelo, another day with Albert. The two men went off to help with the daunting task of mending the rails, and Sofie and Lena curled up together, bundled against the cold. As they lay there—whispering one minute, silent the next—Sofie’s breathing deepened and lengthened into sleep, and Lena found herself reliving each moment she and Albert had spent together. She held her wrist to her nose and inhaled, only the faintest hint of roses now. She imagined herself a German wallpaperer’s wife. It did not feel like so dreadful a fate: a nice little house in a small town; children—two girls, she thought, and a boy …

  Someone was grabbing her, shaking her. “What?” Lena shouted. “Leave me alone!” She rose to her knees and fought free of the hands that held her arms.

  “Hey! Watch it!” Sofie shouted right back. “It’s just me, you idiot. You’re sleeping the day away. And you’re going to miss breakfast.”

  Lena had to apologize after that, and listen to a good bit of teasing. What dream had she been so keen on that she would fight to stay asleep?

  Albert and Uli smiled as they passed out cups of something hot, along with old bread and hunks of cheese. The four were gathered around a small fire, just as they had been the night before, though the countryside had changed. The fields of stubble were gone, and the landscape was more heavily treed and not nearly so flat.

  Lena sipped her watery drink and gazed at the others. Clearly they were happy about the delay. The tracks were mended already; the train would leave again as soon as night fell. She watched Albert as he
talked and laughed with Uli and Sofie. She looked at his face, the bones that structured his rounded and stubbled jaw, his broad forehead. She wanted to reach out and smooth his unruly hair back behind his ears. He looked at her and she snatched her eyes away, cheeks burning.

  It was a long day.

  “Will you walk with me again?” Albert said, the moment she put down her empty cup. “A stroll in the forest?”

  Sofie and Uli were already gone, only they knew where. Lena had the feeling that if she walked with Albert, if she went with him anywhere, there would be no resisting him. “No,” she said. “No, I want to be alone.”

  Hurt wrinkled his brow, and he lowered his eyes to the ground.

  “I’m sorry, Albert,” she said. “I’m not like Sofie. I can’t.”

  He looked up, brow cleared, hope shining from his eyes. “I’m not asking you to be like Sofie,” he said. “Just walk with me.”

  “No,” she said again. “I can’t.”

  “All right,” he said at last, and walked away.

  Lena sat hunched over by the fire, shivering. She lowered her head to her knees, smelling smoke and listening to the voices of the men gathered around their own nearby fires, the squeak of their boots in the snow. She heard birds too, and tree branches brushing each other in the wind.

  Eventually, an idea came to her. Salvation of a sort. In the bottom of her small suitcase, the first act of her packing, were two tattered paperbacks. It was quick work fetching them both, though first she had to ask a soldier for a boost up. She had to move the tiny flowers to get into her bag, so she placed them, thoroughly wilted now, between the pages of one of the books. She wrapped a blanket around herself and jumped back down onto the snow.

  Lena climbed the bank back up to the fires and made for a large tree at the edge of the wood. Looking back, she saw Albert standing two cars away, watching her. She hunkered down and swept away the snow at the foot of the tree, clearing a spot for herself. There, she would wait. She would wait and read.

  She knew both books by heart, and it was a good thing, because few words found purchase that day. She turned the pages regularly and resisted too many visits to the flowers pressed in the back. And in this way, the hours passed. Sofie brought her food at one point, but Lena barely spoke to her, though she did eat the food—wolfed it down, in fact. Lena was conscious of morning turning to afternoon, of the shadows lengthening. It may be that she dozed at one point later on, because she didn’t see Albert approach.

  He knelt beside her and held out his hand. “Come,” he said. “We will eat and then we will go.”

  Blinking, she allowed him to grasp her hand in his. He rose and pulled her gently to her feet. But he did not lead her toward the train. Instead, he stood over her, his body shielding her from others’ view. With his free hand he held her chin softly, so softly, and tilted her face upward. She saw him bend toward her, and instinct made her close her eyes and soften her lips.

  It was the briefest of kisses, just his lips against hers—against her upper lip, really—a gentle pressure, which she returned, her own lips kissing his lower one. And then it was done. The warmth receded. She opened her eyes, and he was smiling down at her.

  “You kissed me back,” he said.

  And Lena could not deny it. She nodded, smiling.

  The gathering together, the warmth of another fire, the food, the talk—all of it happened in a blur for Lena. Albert sat close to her, but he didn’t try to put his arm around her. He hardly spoke through the meal.

  As soon as they were done eating, Sofie and Uli disappeared into the car. Apparently they weren’t going to be bothered with the great outdoors this evening. Lena watched them go and then met Albert’s eyes.

  “I know,” he said under his breath. “You’re not going to do that. But the train is going to leave soon, and we have to get inside.” He rose and got to work putting out the fire.

  Lena got up and gathered her blanket and her books. She let Albert boost her into the car, ignoring Sofie and Uli’s rustlings. Perhaps a goodnight kiss would be all right, she thought. Just one. Just one on her last night.

  At the back of the car, she knelt to put the books into her bag. If she was going to kiss him, she had to make sure it stopped there. Gathering her inner strength, she leaned her forehead against the wall for a moment and let her weight fall back onto her haunches. She was about to turn back to Albert when her gaze fell on a patch of wood right at eye level. Even in the dim light, she could see that something was written there. She bent closer.

  Letters and numbers were carved into the wood. Lena reached out and touched them with her fingers. They spelled out a name: Rachel. And a life: June 12–Sept 17, 1943. RIP.

  Something let go inside Lena as what she was seeing sank in. Nausea swept up her throat. The trains had been used for a terrible purpose. She knew that, or at least she had heard. But on this journey, she had not given it a moment’s thought. Not for one second had it occurred to her that what was for her an adventure was for thousands of others a death march, that this very car might have held such passengers. Now she knew. Right here, where she knelt contemplating a kiss, a baby had died. And her mother had scratched her short life into the wall.

  “Lena,” Albert said from behind her, “what are you doing?”

  She turned, fierce all of sudden, protective of a dead baby she had never met. “Look,” she said. “Look at that.”

  Albert knelt beside her and looked. He looked for a long, long time.

  “I’m sorry,” he breathed. If his mouth had not been next to her ear, she would not have heard. His next words were even quieter. “I worked on those trains.” He paused. “This train.”

  She thought she must have heard wrong. Or she tried to think so.

  For many moments, both of them stayed where they were and said nothing. Then Lena pushed into the straw beside her and emerged holding the three snowdrops that Albert had given her, flattened by their hours between pages. She did not look at him as she placed them on the floor beneath Rachel’s epitaph.

  The man and the girl knelt side by side some more. He put his hand on her arm at one point, but she drew back. He took his hand away.

  The light faded entirely. At last, Albert spoke. “I must tell you a story,” he said. “I have no right to, but I think I must.”

  Lena remained as she was, head bowed.

  “I had to force people into the cars,” he said.

  Lena flinched.

  “No, I’m not going to tell … I’m not …” He paused. “And one time, a man stopped in front of me. Others flowed around him, but he stopped. He was old. He wore a grey wool cap, and he was clean-shaven. His skin hung loose on his face. He was too close to me for the rifle butt to be of any use. I would have had to use my hands or my voice to get him moving. I did neither. I couldn’t. I found myself staring straight into his eyes.

  “‘What you are doing is wrong,’ the man said. ‘You are a person. I am too. And so are they.’ He gestured with his arm, all around to the hundreds of men, women and children already on the train and still on the ground. ‘Every one.’ And he touched my arm. Then he turned away and disappeared into the car. I never saw him after that.

  “And that was the last train.”

  Silence.

  In her imagination, Lena stood next to Albert, a crowd in front of them, a crowd of desperate people, and in the midst of that crowd, she saw Sarah. Sarah was looking right at her, reaching for her. And Lena did nothing, nothing at all.

  She started, eyes wide open in the dark. Albert was finished, she realized. His story was over. She had heard it, and she would think about it. Right now, though, the man next to her had turned into the enemy. And she was her own enemy too.

  “Please, Albert, leave me,” she said. She still didn’t look at him. She did not want to see his face, even its pale shape in the dark, nor did she want to feel the tears on her own. Once he was gone, she reached down and felt along the ground until she found the tin
y flowers. She pulled them toward her, stood, bent over and positioned them carefully. Then she spent long moments grinding them under her heel.

  Sometime later, the train creaked and groaned and roared into motion. Later still, Sofie giggled and Lena started back into herself. She listened to whispers, words she could not hear, rustling in the straw. Had Uli also sent people to their deaths?

  Almost bodily, Lena shoved Albert’s story out of her mind and the feelings it stirred in her out of her heart. She had practical things to think about now.

  She and Sofie could not arrive in this unknown town seeking the assistance of strangers with two German soldiers as escorts. It was easy to predict their reception. And what she had seen and heard meant she could no longer have anything to do with Albert anyway. These men had done bad things. They were part of something evil.

  Now Albert’s sweet words to her, his lips pressed against hers, seemed more sinister than romantic. She had received her first kiss from a murderer. Received it and thrilled to it. No, Albert could not be part of her future. And she could not be part of his.

  Sofie’s voice rose, loud and desperate in the quiet. “I will miss you so, Uli,” she cried. “How long will you stay, do you think?”

  “Just two days,” Uli said. “But we must make the most of them!”

  Sofie had had no trouble at all with her German accent or vocabulary since she met Uli. The language flowed from her as if it were her birthright. Lena’s bruised heart sank. “Sofie, you can’t see each other in Almelo,” she said in Dutch, sending her voice crashing through the car, breaking into their conversation. “What will your relatives think? You know what they’ll say. ‘Lover of Germans,’ they’ll call you. ‘Mof lover.’ They’ll run us out of town.”