The Train to Orvieto

by Novelli, Rebecca J. ;

  The commander stood up. “Who are you?” he shouted. “Do the authorities know what you’re doing? That you’re a smuggler?”

  “I believe you understood the terms of our meeting and that you just agreed to them,” Losine said evenly. “I’m not a smuggler. I deal in gems and have a license to do so.”

  The officer strode across the small office, then turned back to face Losine. “I can arrest you.”

  “For what?” He knows about the warrant, Losine thought.

  The officer picked up a pen and tapped on his hand as he listed the reasons. “For making unauthorized inquiries, for spying, for smuggling, for being a Jew. For whatever I want.” He took a form from his desk drawer and wrote Losine’s name at the top.

  “In that case, what shall I tell the authorities about your Swiss bank account and your stolen jewelry?”

  The officer fell back in his chair. “What do you mean?”

  “We both know it’s forbidden to send cash and valuables out of the country. You’ve taken this jewelry from deportees. Their possessions are by law the property of the German government. You know that and so do I. As a dealer who is known to the authorities, I am allowed to carry such items out of the country. Or do I misunderstand our purpose?”

  The commander put his pen down. He tore the form into pieces and dropped it in the wastebasket. “What is your interest in these people and their jewelry?” he said quietly.

  “I am simply inquiring as to their whereabouts. You asked me to store this jewelry and you told me it belongs—or belonged—to others. Does it perhaps belong to the Bernsteins?”

  “I don’t know where they are.” The commander turned toward the only window in the room. “The jewelry is mine. It belongs to me.”

  Losine took a folder out of his briefcase. “Would more information help you identify them?” On the desk he spread out pictures of his wife, son, and parents-in-law; a list of their names and birthdates; the Bernsteins’ address in Munich. “Perhaps you could look at these.” The commander glanced at the pictures and the list, then busied himself putting the jewelry back in the pouch.

  “Do you recognize them?” Losine asked. After a long silence, the commander turned and looked at the pictures. He nodded, sweeping his hand over them.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know where they are?”

  “I said they were deported.”

  “When?”

  “They were taken from this neighborhood. It was several years ago.” “You don’t remember when?” The commander didn’t answer. “Although taking cash and jewelry out of the country is illegal, I’ve prepared your accounts according to the instructions you gave your intermediary,” Losine continued. “Are you dissatisfied with our agreement or my services?”

  The commander’s body sagged. He turned back to Losine, his face empty. “Very well. It was 1937, and they’re dead.”

  Losine forced himself to hear the information without understanding its meaning. He would think about the meaning later. For now, he would proceed mechanically, without emotion. “Where and how did they die?”

  The commander looked down at his desk and then away. “At Dachau. The child immediately of typhus; his mother shortly after they arrived, also of typhus. Her mother soon after that, her father a bit later.” He moved the papers on his desk from one side to the other, one by one.

  “You’re certain?” Losine thought the commander looked upset by the question, as though his skill or competence were at issue.

  “I signed the deportation papers myself. I always conduct a very careful investigation to confirm that the decision to deport is correct. I look for evidence. I assess the written records—bank accounts, investments, background. I was a records clerk before the war. I know my work. Much better than most, if I may say so.” He seemed to expand with pride. “Few of our local officers have the persistence to follow up the way I do. I am the only one that I know of who takes pictures and personally follows up on each deportee.” He seemed to expect praise, a satisfactory review, perhaps a commendation.

  “I would appreciate seeing your records,” Losine said, maintaining a tone of calm indifference.

  “I’ll need permission from the highest level.”

  Losine gestured toward the files on the desk. “Is that necessary, considering your authority?”

  The commander smiled. “You make a good point. Involving others is an unnecessary burden and would take too much time.” He left the room and returned a few minutes later with several envelopes. He placed them on his desk next to the jewelry on the blotter. “This matter is to be kept strictly between us. Is that clear?”

  “Yes. May I?”

  The commander nodded. Losine picked up one of the brown envelopes, each of which was stamped in red ink with the word “CLOSED.” One by one, Losine opened them. In the first envelope he found Greta’s picture, saw her eyes wide and fearful as she sat naked on a stool in an empty room, her arms covering her breasts, her legs crossed. He knew at once what had happened.

  The commander pointed to Greta’s picture. “That one resisted me until I told her that her behavior was bad for the child.”

  Though he didn’t want to know, Losine forced himself to ask. “And then?” By that time—1937–he had known better than to let Greta and Paul visit her parents. Why did I agree?

  “I only wanted to look at her. You understand?” the commander was saying. “She didn’t want me to look, but she changed her mind after I told her what would happen to the child if she didn’t. Mothers are all alike. They do just what you ask if it’s for their child.” The commander looked away again.

  “I don’t understand,” Losine said. Had he not known in advance what could happen? Wasn’t he then responsible for Greta’s death and Paul’s? He would know everything, absolutely everything, that had happened to Greta, to Paul, to her parents.

  “I always keep the mothers in a separate room. They have to let me look before I let them go back to the children. It doesn’t take long,” the commander said. He seemed unable to stop himself from talking. “It isn’t so bad, really, despite what you may think. They just take off their clothes and I look. Sometimes I touch the pretty ones.” He pointed to Greta’s picture. “She was a pretty one, that one.” He looked at Losine. “It’s nothing, really.”

  Losine allowed himself to understand. The commander’s words spread over him like an illness. Wasn’t letting Greta and Paul go the same as wishing this to happen? The same as allowing it to happen? Inviting it?

  Losine opened the second envelope and took out the picture of Paul. The boy’s gaze was direct, unknowing. In that moment, Losine felt his culpability to be total, his responsibility as complete as if he had personally arranged Paul’s fate. The other envelopes contained photographs of his father- and mother-in-law, both expressionless. He saw their signatures on their arrest papers. He read each paper as further evidence of his own failure. That Greta had insisted on going to Munich, begged to go, did not exonerate him. He had known more than she did, intuited the danger, and then discounted it. Such a small thing, a visit to her parents. She would be able to persuade them to leave if only she could see them, she had told him. It meant so much to her, to all of them.

  “Like you, I am very thorough,” the commander continued. “Most officers don’t take pictures at arrests.” Losine tried to compose himself, clasped his hands behind his back so that he would not reach for the commander, grab him, snap his neck like a Sunday chicken’s.

  “And after you looked and touched and took pictures?” Losine adopted the tone of a doctor who inquires about a malady, seeks its etiology, calculates the extent of its progress, tests its hold over the patient.

  “I sent them away, as I’m obliged to do. I am not a cold man, you understand,” The commander seemed to plead his case

  “Not cold. No.”

  “I remember them when I look at their pictures. I think of them. I don’t just forget them. Sometimes I even dream about them.” D
oes the memory of an inhuman act absolve one of the act itself? Losine wondered. If so, then he and the commander would be blameless. Impossible!

  “And then?”

  The commander looked surprised. He leaned toward Losine and spoke with sudden guilelessness. “I’ve never told anyone this. If I look at the pictures, then when I go home, I am a better man to Hedda, and she cares for me again. Tell me, is that so wrong?”

  Losine’s mind stalled like a flooded carburetor. “Wrong?”

  The commander seemed to hear the question as a rebuke. He held up his hand. “Wait. You don’t understand.” Losine waited, silent, hearing the confession. “I don’t rape them or do bad things to them like the others do. It’s against my principles.” The commander pointed to Greta’s picture. “This one cursed me. But she made up for it. She wanted to see her child so she had to make up for it.”

  “Make up for it?”

  The commander glanced at Losine. “For her bad language, of course. I don’t allow bad manners.” Losine nodded. “I made her touch me. There.” The commander pointed to his crotch with a distant smile. “Afterwards, I was stronger than I have ever been with Hedda.”

  Losine willed his hands to put the rest of the jewelry back in the pouch. He forced himself to speak as if he had merely inquired about his laundry order or the directions to a nearby town. “You say they’re dead. Are there remains?” A proper burial might permit him a final act of contrition and consolation. The commander shrugged and patted the papers on his desk.

  “These are the remains.”

  “Just these papers?” There was a knock at the door. The commander nodded and went to answer it.

  “Excuse me, sir,” the assistant said. She whispered something to the commander. Losine put the bag of jewelry into his briefcase, closed the latch, and locked it with his key. The commander went into the outer office, shutting the door behind him. Losine opened the briefcase again and scooped the papers from the desk into the case. The commander was still talking. Losine heard him say, “Arrest warrant?” He put some blank papers in the envelopes, closed them, and laid them back on the desk. When the commander returned, Losine was ready to leave.

  “My clients will be pleased with the information. Thank you for your time.” The commander blocked his way.

  “Just a moment. We’re not finished.”

  “I don’t understand.” Will I leave this post alive? Losine wondered.

  “Give me a receipt for my jewelry or I will arrest you.” Certain that the commander would regret his confidences and discover the missing papers, Losine rushed for the door.

  “I’ve left it on your desk,” he said. Near the outside door, the man Losine had seen earlier stood smoking a cigarette, seemingly indifferent to his surroundings. Losine went out, hurried toward the train station. Seconds later he noticed that the man had followed him and was maintaining a constant distance between them. Losine detoured and doubled back, stopped at a bar, waited at the counter. The man took a table on the sidewalk outside. Losine waited a few minutes, asked for the klosett loudly enough to be overheard, and slipped out the rear door.

  He was almost inside the station when the man appeared again behind him. Losine looked at his watch as if he were late for an appointment, then rushed into the station and plunged into the crowd on the platform. A group of officers stood talking next to his train; he hesitated, avoided movement. His pursuer approached the officers and pointed in the direction of the train. Losine watched them, waited for an opportunity. Fortunately, a disturbance on the platform distracted the group just as the conductor blew his whistle. Losine leaped onto the bottom step of the train, grabbed the handrail, and tossed his briefcase ahead of him into the vestibule.

  The last thing he heard was the shriek of a whistle, shouts, and then a loud sound, like an explosion. His left leg buckled under him. Using all of his strength, he pulled himself up the steps and into the train. A burning sensation ran up his leg and into his hip. On the floor, a rivulet of blood formed next to his foot. He felt the back of his pants leg with his left hand, found a wet place near his knee, saw the blood on his hand. He twisted to look at the back of his knee. The black cloth of his pants obscured the bleeding. I must not be found in this condition. Taking the briefcase, Losine dragged himself into lavatory and locked the door. His heart fluttered and his vision narrowed. He heard shouts outside. He held onto the basin, lowering his head to stay conscious.

  He briefly considered jumping out the window as soon as the train cleared the city limits and then taking his chances. He opened the window. Bars. The train gathered speed. He saw his blood on the floor. He threw his overcoat in the corner and lowered his pants twisting around to see the back of his leg. The wound was in his thigh, just above his knee. A bandage. I must make a bandage. Despite the pain, he folded his damp handkerchief over and over into a pad. Then he pulled the cloth towel from the wall holder and tore a strip from it. He applied the pad to the wound and wrapped the strip of towel around his leg, tying it tightly. Using the newspaper in his briefcase, he wiped the blood from his shoes and the floor as best he could and dropped the paper through the toilet, saw it fall onto the tracks beneath the speeding train.

  Losine removed the pouch of jewelry from his briefcase and retrieved the brooch. He tore open the lining of his jacket and pinned the brooch to the inside seam. Then, he put the pouch in a secret pocket in the side seam of his overcoat. If the police found the jewels, he would claim they were his. He crossed each item off the inventory list and noted “returned to owner” in the space next to it before putting the list back into his briefcase. He took out the papers on his family, held them over the toilet, and lit a match to them, letting the ashes fall through to the tracks below. The lavatory filled with smoke. With shaking hands he lit a cigarette and smoked it quickly then put the butt on the edge of the sink. His vision swirled. He opened the spigot and threw cold water on his face, put on his overcoat, and opened the door of the lavatory. He looked in both directions before stepping into the vestibule.

  The clatter of the train and shriek of metal wheels on metal rails filled his ears. Black spots flickered before his eyes and his vision narrowed. As soon as he could focus his eyes, he looked through the window in the door that led to the compartments. Several uniformed officers at the far end of the car advanced along the aisle speaking to the occupants of each compartment. As he watched them come toward him, his eyes went in and out of focus. He braced himself against the wall sweating and shivering, he bent forward, waited for the vertiginous sensation to pass. His head cleared slightly.

  He took the briefcase under his arm and edged to the exit door. He set the briefcase down next to him. With great effort he opened the window. It took all of his remaining strength to lift the briefcase and throw it out the window. He watched it tumble down a hillside, waited until the train rounded a curve, then turned away. He refused to faint, but was unable to prevent himself from vomiting. Avoiding the mess he had made, he drew his collar higher around his neck and looked through the window to the compartments. The officers were already next to the vestibule. The door to the vestibule opened behind him; a man and a woman passed by.

  “Drunk!” the man said to his companion.

  Losine held on, made his way to the next car, gripped railings, braced himself against the walls. At last, in a compartment at the far end of the car, he saw a priest sitting alone. Was he really a priest? It was too late to care. He pressed against the door and nearly fell into the compartment. He collapsed into a seat. His vision spun. “I’ve been shot, father. They’re trying to find me. In the name of God, help me.”

  The priest stood up. He opened his satchel, removed a flask, and unscrewed the lid. “Drink!” he said. He pulled another cassock from the satchel. “Lift your arms.” He lowered the cassock over Losine’s head and placed Losine’s arms in the sleeves, covering him completely. He returned the flask to the satchel and closed it. “You are asleep, no matter what happens.” Losine clo
sed his eyes. The compartment doors slid open abruptly. “Good afternoon, officers,” the priest said amiably. Losine remained motionless, his eyes closed.

  “There is an injured man on the train. A Jew here illegally. He came this way,” one officer said.

  “He’s wanted for theft and smuggling,” said the other. “We have a warrant for his arrest.”

  “Officers, as you can see, we’re not injured, but my fellow priest is quite unwell.” The priest lowered his voice to a whisper. “He has an infectious delirium. Perhaps fatal. For your own safety, I beg you to leave.”

  “Yes, Father.” Losine heard the rustle of clothing and movement. The officers moved out of the compartment and summoned the conductor. “Quarantine this compartment.” When the officers had gone, the priest shook Losine’s shoulder. “I am Father Enrico,” Losine heard him say. “Quickly, tell me what happened. Before they discover us.” Losine lost consciousness. He awoke much later in a makeshift hospital somewhere in the countryside, a doctor at his bedside.

  “You’re lucky. You’ll keep your leg, but I’m afraid you’re going to limp for the rest of your life.” The doctor smiled at him. “A small thing, really, in such a despicable time, don’t you agree?”

  2

  The waiter returned with a menu, but Losine let it sit unopened on the table. His immediate preoccupation in Orvieto that afternoon was neither the worsening weather nor his impending visit with Father Enrico, but, rather, the unprecedented risk to his business that he had assumed the previous day in Milano. He had received a special delivery letter regarding his recent negotiations to buy an exceptional number of fine uncut gems at well below market prices. He planned to sell shares in the gemstones and return a profit to the investors after selling the stones, taking a percentage of the profits as well as before- and after-sale commissions for himself. It was a speculative, but legitimate, opportunity to spread his own financial risk and gain a handsome return, the prospect of which, he had to admit now, had caused him to overlook the inherent riskiness of a transaction involving untested and unknown parties.