Umberto removed a blade of grass he was chewing, stood, and stretched out his hand to Father.
“It is very nice meeting you, sir.”
“I’ll expect you back in the barrack in a short while, Asya,” Papa said as he turned to walk inside.
“Yes, Papa.”
“Thank you so much for the song.” I smiled as I got to my feet and turned to walk away.
“Here, Asya,” Umberto said, smiling, “your ball slippers. You’ll need them for a few more days.”
His outstretched hand held my ugly, grotesque shoes, newspaper protruding from both, and I felt ashamed as I took them. Then he held up his own shoes, holes in both soles, and held together with ugly string, newspaper protruding from them as well.
“We’ll make the best dressed couple at the ball,” he said, as both of us began to laugh, the laughter mingling with the sound of the water running in the “brook.”
That night the lights surrounding the concentration camp were not turned on. All of the prisoners had apparently been loaded into the freight cars, and ss guards and their dogs patrolled up and down the dead, silent track. In our barrack nobody read Chekov or recited Pushkin’s poetry. Everyone whispered about the rumors of the possible surrender of German troops and the general situation on different fronts. The Allies were rumored to be very close to us, and the Soviet army was said to be approaching Berlin. I didn’t listen to the discussions. I wasn’t at all interested. All I could think of was Umberto, his singing, the brook, the birds.
Will I ever see him again? I wondered.
I remembered how often Father had sung “Torna Piccina” to me when I was small. Now I hoped he would never sing that particular song again. It would be Umberto’s and my song from now on. Slowly, the whispering stopped; the oil lamp was turned way down, an occasional cough yielded to soft snoring, shifting in the straw, then finally silence.
Everyone must have fallen asleep, I thought, as I began to feel sleepy, too. But what was that? I lifted my head to listen. Is it a mandolin, or am I dreaming? Yes, it is. It must be coming from the Italian barracks. No, I thought, it sounds much closer than that. Torna Piccina. Oh, no, it’s him. It’s Umberto. Torna Piccina means “Come back, little one.” Does he want me to come out? Of course not. How can I? It’s dark. It’s nighttime, and Mother and Father are right here. What would Mother think? A “lady” would never come out.
I slowly crept to the window and knelt by the opening. Yes, there he was. I could only make out a silhouette in the moonlight. “Torna Piccina mia, come back, my little one.” I wanted to jump out of that window, rush to Umberto, and never to see the camp, my parents, my ugly shoes, the rotten soup and dark bread, never again to hear the frightening roar of bombers overhead. Suddenly, inexplicably, I was almost happy that Belgrade was behind me! In that moment I knew that I would marry an Italian. No one else would do. How stupid of me, I thought. I’ll never see him again. He said something was about to happen. Whatever that “something” was, I would never see him again.
A couple more songs followed, and as my eyes filled with tears I could no longer make out the dark silhouette in the moonlight. The mandolin died away along with the singing. The night became still once more. I quietly crept back to my straw bed, covering my face with the blanket, trying to preserve the vision of Umberto and to protect the lingering sound of his voice, wishing I had gone out to sit beside him.
The next morning, April 19, before sunrise a loud explosion awakened everyone and was followed quickly by a series of explosions. The eastern sky was just beginning to lighten. It must have been about 5:00 a.m. Everyone in the barrack jumped to their feet, dressing as hurriedly as possible. Everyone wondered if the camp had been bombed or if we were under an attack of some kind. As soon as I dressed, I rushed outside to see huge billows of smoke by the railroad tracks. All the freight cars were ablaze and in ruins. There were no guards or dogs in sight. Another and yet another explosion followed as I watched.
“Dear God. They have blown up all those prisoners,” someone said with a gasp. I heard a scream from somewhere. I’m not sure if it came from our group.
“What is happening?” someone asked. The Bentin office was empty. “Where are the Germans going?”
The road leading into town was alive with military vehicles. The forced laborers stood around the camp in a daze. Nobody knew what was happening. People ran to the kitchen and storeroom carrying foodstuffs out, and the small office that Herr Mueller had occupied was on fire. Some men rushed and tried to put the fire out. Another building caught fire, and some of the men formed a bucket line and brought it under control.
Just then the commandant of the camps drove up to the building with a man I believe was the chief engineer from the tunnel. The commandant used the loudspeaker system to announce that an “unfortunate accident” had taken place at the railroad track and that again there would be no work assignments for the day.
“Please,” his announcement continued, “everyone is to remain in their barracks while the accident is dealt with. Anyone seen outside the barracks will be shot.”
That was a sufficiently clear command to get our attention. Everyone immediately returned to the barracks. A larger than usual flight of Allied bombers passed overhead just a few minutes later, buzzing lower and louder than before, and the flights continued at regular intervals.
It was April 19, and everyone knew that the following day was Hitler’s birthday. Everyone expected that the news reports from the OKW and Goebbels’s speech about new victories would be broadcast over the camp loudspeakers today or tomorrow. Throughout the years of the occupation, if one listened to the radio, “new victories” were always announced for Hitler’s birthday. New country, new territory, countless lives sacrificed to the ego of a madman. And here in the camp, the loudspeaker system frequently broadcast OKW announcements, German advances, or victories—real or imagined.
Tension continued to mount in the camp. German personnel were seen in the office, but the ss guards were conspicuously absent. The laborers stayed in or by their designated barracks, expecting the guards to return at any moment. No food was served throughout the day. Some of the vegetables Father and I had brought the day before were still left and were boiled, but few people ate.
As the afternoon wore on into evening, the sound of artillery could be heard drawing closer, and fiery blasts lit the hills. Allied air flights continued almost without interruption. The freight cars were still smoldering, sending a terrible odor throughout the April air.
Nobody in the barrack slept. German military vehicles kept moving all through the night. At about 2 or 3 a.m. on April 20, the camp loudspeaker system announced that all barracks should prepare for possible relocation. Everyone began to gather their few remaining belongings together. The blankets were neatly folded and the oil lamp was turned out to comply with a complete blackout order. “Does that mean that we are going to be bombed?” someone asked. No one knew the answer, of course, but there was no sound of planes. Harsh German voices, military commands, and vehicles were heard constantly from the road.
At about 8 a.m., a single Allied plane flew over dropping leaflets. They looked like tiny dots against the sky as they began to glide toward the ground. We ran, reaching into the air, trying to catch them. They were printed in German and demanded German surrender, stating that Allied troops were just on the other side of the hills surrounding the town and would enter Blankenburg that afternoon. The leaflets issued an ultimatum: all firing was to cease. If even one antiaircraft shell was fired at Allied planes after noon, the area would be leveled before the troops marched in.
“So it’s really happening,” someone said. “The Germans are losing. The information from the concentration camp prisoners was correct.” But no one answered. We looked at each other, realizing that for those prisoners it was all over. Their charred bodies were lying somewhere amidst the tracks and mangled freight cars in the field.
Remaining German personnel and guard
s were frantically burning papers and documents. Their trucks were packed and ready to retreat, but there was clearly no planned relocation of the forced laborers.
Suddenly I heard Mother’s voice, as calm and self-assured as I remembered her before the war. “I simply can’t believe that it is all over. It’s just too sudden. I’m going into town to listen to the radio.”
They were the first words I had heard her speak normally in weeks, and she sounded perfectly sensible.
“It’s insanity to go into town now,” Father tried to reason with her. “Max and Olga may not even be there.”
“Well, I’m going. Besides, they’re Germans now. I will probably be safer with them than here in the camp. Who knows what the guards might do before they leave? They could decide to kill us all. I’m just as safe there as here.”
Father knew it was useless to try to argue with Mother when she sounded so in control and had made up her mind about something. “If you must go, fine,” he said with resignation, “but if you aren’t back before noon, I shall have to go looking for you. So please try to be back by then.”
“Papa,” I asked, “are you going to just let her go?”
“What can I do?” he said with a shrug. “She is so stubborn. Besides, she speaks German like a native. She’ll get by fine, I’m sure.”
“Try to listen to Goebbels’s speech. Find out what’s going on,” someone ventured.
“Well,” Father said, “if you have to go, go now. God only knows what will happen after the noon deadline. I pray that the German antiaircraft guns won’t fire after noon. Go on, go on,” Father kept repeating as he helped Mother to get her things together. As soon as he helped her into her coat, she began to walk briskly toward the road into town, still crowded with German military vehicles.
Just over the hills, black smoke could be seen rising everywhere, the artillery sounding only a mile or two away. Allied bombers were buzzing high in the sky, too high for the German flack to be effective. The bombers usually flew over Blankenburg toward Magdeburg, but today they just circled. A few flack bursts could be seen and heard, leaving only a round puff of smoke against the blue sky. The planes were staying out of range.
Father grew more upset and nervous with each passing moment, now saying he wished he had used force to restrain Mother from going into town. Everyone’s head was turned toward the sky, trying to figure out what the bombers were going to do. Our forced labor camp had been emptied of German personnel—no guards, no engineers, no soldiers. It looked as though the entire German army had assembled on the road heading into town.
Suddenly the bombers disappeared, the buzzing sound of aircraft ceased, and there was an eerie silence. Only the sound of motors, brakes, and shouts in German were heard from the road. In a few minutes more, the artillery in the distance grew quiet. The antiaircraft flack guns were silent, and even the military vehicles on the road stopped moving. Everything stood still, as if the world were holding its breath. The breeze could be heard whispering, swaying the young buds on the trees. Even the birds grew quiet as an awesome silence filled the atmosphere. Church bells rang from the town, the only time in the camp I remember hearing them ring the hour: one . . . two . . . three . . . twelve. Noon! Some of the people in the barrack were on their knees, praying, holding the crumpled leaflets in their hands.
The low hum and drone of bombers began then, growing slowly louder. I looked up to see them flying much lower this time, as everyone held their breath. Then the sound of explosions filled the air as the antiaircraft flack guns opened up from positions in the hills around the town. Within seconds, bombs began dropping like hail on the hills, trying to blow up the gun installations. One plane was hit and was falling, whining, twisting, and turning in the air trailing black smoke. Then a loud explosion. I saw parachutes, then another bomber began to fall, more flack, more bombs. Artillery shells were whistling just above our heads. The whole world around us became a crazy holocaust all at once.
Several bombs hit the military convoy on the road, and now the vehicles began to move again, pushing damaged vehicles to the side. Tanks appeared from nowhere, cutting across the fields. I had no idea whether they were Germans or Allies. A lot of the vehicles on the road stood still then, and German soldiers began running, many tearing their uniforms off as they ran in every direction, while others ran along the road now littered with equipment and bodies. Several of the forced laborers picked up rifles and other weapons dropped by Germans and began shooting at the fleeing soldiers.
The air was filled with smoke and human cries and the roar of tanks. The laborers were almost hysterical, and screams of pain from wounded soldiers mingled with shouts of happiness and joy from prisoners whose freedom had finally arrived. Many of us ran to enter the tunnel, hoping the thick walls of the munitions factory would withstand the bombs. Then the planes disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.
As we ventured outside the relative safety of the tunnel, we saw that the entire forced labor camp was engulfed in flames, every single barrack ablaze. I ran toward our barrack, hoping to save something—blankets, pots, something—but it was too late. We now had only what was on our backs: torn, dirty clothes and the tin cup and spoon we always carried in our pockets. The jealously guarded suitcases were now lost. We would learn later that the Italian prisoners had rioted and set the entire camp on fire during the general hysteria. I lost track of time and was surprised to notice that it was growing dark. The sky was red, flames all around me, and in the near distance I could see fires lighting up the sky above the town.
Somehow I became separated from Father and the rest of the Russians in the chaos of running to the barrack. I decided to walk closer to the road because of the burning camp buildings around me. I was afraid the flaming structures would collapse on top of me. The roadway was dark, but from the light of the fires I could see it littered with equipment and bodies. A huge tank suddenly loomed in front of me, smoldering, looking like a monstrous fortress against the flames and the red sky.
Seeing bodies around me, I began to worry about Father. Was he alive? I began calling “Papa, Papa,” and running back toward the tunnel. Someone stopped me to say that it would be very dangerous to go into the tunnel again because of the danger of explosion from stored ammunition. So I stood there, in the middle of the road, alone, crying and calling to my father. The artillery was still blasting everywhere, and it seemed so useless to call. Nobody could hear above the whistling shells.
Planes appeared again, but this time they were flying so low that I could see the silhouette of the pilot against the crimson sky. They were fighter planes that seemed to fire at everything that moved on the ground below them. I found myself sitting on the ground, stunned with sheer terror. The shrieking of the engines of the fighter planes, the shrill whistle of bullets flying all around me, the boom of the heavy guns on tanks that were now moving from all directions again, the human screams—it all sounded so unreal. I stood up to look around.
It was as though I were a spectator at a horror show, not feeling a part of it all. It was a nightmare with all the demons unleashed at the same time. I felt a shiver go through my entire body. I felt an inexplicable excitement running through every nerve in my body like an electric current! Was it all real? I wondered, just as a strong wind knocked me to the ground. But how strange, because there is no wind. As I laid there on the ground, I realized that the wind had been caused by a fighter plane that flew almost over my head, machine guns blazing.
I began to crawl off the road toward a ditch to escape another plane I could see diving toward me. As I rolled into the ditch I stopped, not daring to move any further, as I felt something warm beneath me. I touched my dress and felt that it was warm and sticky. Had I been hit? Was it my blood? I moved my hands about slowly in the darkness and felt hair, coarse hair—a horse’s mane. I continued feeling with the other hand—a human form. A soldier. Was he dead? I heard a faint moan, wondered if my body weight was hurting the man or the horse, and sl
owly rolled to the side, away from whatever I was on top of. I was lying on my back, my blood-soaked dress sticking to my body. Suddenly, foolishly, I wondered what Mother’s reaction would be if she saw me at that moment.
I was lying on my back, looking upward, and I saw the moon appearing behind the smoke and the hideous red glare of the fires around me. Fighter planes crossed the moon resembling monstrous birds of prey searching for something to attack. The air smelled foul. I could see a few stars where a gentle breeze pushed the smoke clouds aside.
I wondered if the stars cared what was happening here below. I remembered Aunt ’Lyena telling me once, a lifetime ago, that the universe was held in God’s hand. Well, He had certainly let it slip tonight, I thought. Tonight was definitely Judgment Day. I wondered if Mother had had a chance to listen to the news and if Goebbels knew what was happening. Or was he reassuring the Fuehrer of new victories for his birthday today, April 20, 1945?
I heard a soft moan next to me. I had forgotten that I was lying between a blood-soaked horse and a dead or dying man. If it’s a German soldier, I thought, “Good! Let him die!” I slowly turned toward the sound. My eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, and I clearly saw a German soldier and put my hand on his forehead. Oh, how stupid this all is, I thought. How can I wish him dead? He too has someone, somewhere, waiting for him. He too has plans, hopes, dreams. His eyes were closed, and his lips moved slightly as he tried to say something. I bent closer, placing my ear next to his lips, but only a deep sigh reached my ear, a very gentle breath against my ear lobe, then silence.
I guess he’s dead, and I don’t even know his name. He died next to me, and I don’t even know his name. But what does it matter? I drew back and noticed that his eyes were now open. I brought my face close to his and made a terribly silly face at him, to reassure myself that he was really dead, and then gently pulled his eyelids closed.
The blood on my dress, all over me, was beginning to dry, and my dress was a crusty, stiff mess. I crawled, inched myself out of the ditch, and began to make my way back to the tunnel, desperate to find living people. As I drew close to the tunnel, it seemed that people were everywhere. I heard someone call out to Father, telling him that I was here, but that I was badly wounded. As I approached the tunnel entrance, Father rushed toward me, his eyes filled with unspeakable terror.
Ancient Furies Page 36
