The Search

by Maureen Myant

  It’s empty apart from several long wooden tables, each maybe twelve feet long with benches on either side. They jostle each other to get a space. Jan manages to sit at the same table as his sisters. With a pang, he realizes Lena has been crying. Her face is blotchy in the way it always is when she’s been weeping. Although he’s several feet away, he can see her eyes are swollen. Maria cuddles her, but Lena doesn’t respond. He stares at them, helpless.

  The two people at the top of each table rise in turn and go to a hatch where they pick up some plates. One is set down in front of Jan. It has two slices of dark bread on it, and something that might be butter. He looks round for cutlery, but sees that the other children, the ones who were here before them and presumably know what to do, are wiping the bread over the butter before stuffing it into their mouths. One of them, a tall blond boy who looks older than the rest, moves his hand towards Jan’s plate, but Jan sees it coming and grabs his bread. The boy retreats, a grimace sliding across his face. Careful to watch all sides and ready to protect what he and his sisters have, Jan eats the bread. It is dry and hard. He wouldn’t be surprised if they’d put wood scrapings in the flour; he’s heard of such things. Nonetheless, even though it’s tasteless, it is food – and he’s hungry, starving, so he eats every scrap. As soon as he’s finished he realizes how foolish he’s been; he has no idea when they’ll next be fed.

  When they have all finished, they are sent back up to their room to make their beds, and then to the kitchen where they have to wash the dishes they used for breakfast. All the time, the women who are supervising speak to them in German. Jan understands nothing. He follows the rest of the children keeping out of the way of the women. A couple of times he tries to find out if anyone else knows what’s going on, but they’re all as ignorant as him. When the other children, the ones who are not from his village, hear him speak, they shake their heads and glance at the women. Jan isn’t sure, but he thinks they’re warning him. A terrible thought comes to him: his mother too might be dead, shot like his father and the men of the village. It’s unbearable, he has to know, and without thinking he shouts out as loud as he can, “Where are our mothers?”

  One of the women turns and looks at him. She strides over to him and grips his shoulder, leaning forwards to speak. The strange-sounding words roll out in a furious stream, tumbling into incoherence. Jan makes out one word said over and over again: “Deutsch”. He knows this means German, but he doesn’t understand the rest. Her voice rises, and she shakes him in time to her words. Gradually he distinguishes the separate sounds as they are spat in his face. “Du musst nur Deutsch sprechen.” Still he doesn’t understand. At last she stops and walks away, leaving him bewildered and frightened. He’s shaking, doesn’t dare look at the others in the room, but instead carries on with his cleaning duties, too terrified to speak, dusting the one spot over and over in a frenzy of rage and fear.

  The morning passes in a haze of chores. He had never thought there could be so much to do: floors to be washed, potatoes to be scrubbed and peeled, clothes to be wrung out. By the end of the morning his hands are red and creased from being wet all the time, and he knows he has bruises on his back where the women keep hitting him. They beat him for so many things: a cloth not wrung out properly, a potato peeled too thickly, water slopped on the floor. He gave up counting after the twentieth slap. They hit all the children, especially the boys, at the least excuse. One boy, who is tiny, maybe only four or five years old, begins to cry, huge tears rolling down his face. Jan wishes he could comfort him – he is so small, like his own little sister, and he cannot bear to think of her crying in this way, but he is too scared to do anything, and so he stands by and watches. The women seem pleased to have got a reaction, one of them smiles showing large yellow teeth, and Jan vows that no matter how hard they hit him, he will not cry.

  In the afternoon, after a lunch of salty cabbage and potato soup, they are lined up and taken to another smaller building, a house, about two kilometres away. They are forced to run, which after all they’ve done this morning, exhausts them. When they arrive at huge iron gates, they have a chance to rest while the women struggle to open it. For a few precious seconds they stand gasping for breath, hoping for something to drink for the day is hotter than ever, and the salty soup has left them with a pernicious thirst.

  The gates are opened, and they pour through. The house looks more welcoming than the factory they have just left. It stands alone surrounded by a large garden, which is unkempt, but still bears traces of once having been cared for. There is a small orchard of apricot trees and, though they are not yet ripe, several of the children grab what they can as they pass, stuffing the fibrous fruits into their mouths. Jan manages to pocket three, and he thinks he will save them for later, give one to each of his sisters. He looks round for them, but they are at the back of the line. Lena is limping, he notices, and he hopes she’ll be all right.

  The women stop them in front of a large wooden door. Black paint is flaking off round the edges showing greying wood beneath. The windows are filthy, Jan spots a cobweb stretching across the top of one of them; they can’t have been washed for years. Two of the women move through the line, ordering the children to one side or another. After ten minutes they are sorted to the women’s satisfaction: two long lines, boys and girls. The younger children are at the front. Lena is one of the smallest. She stands near the start of the queue, wearing clothes that are too big for her. The dress she is wearing almost reaches the ground. As the girls move into the house, she lifts the dress to stop herself tripping over it, and Jan catches sight of something beneath, flapping. He peers, trying to make it out, then smiles. It’s her precious nightdress. She must have managed to get hold of it and decided to keep it safe by wearing it under her day clothes. She’s a smart kid for only four years old. The girls vanish into the dark interior of the house leaving the boys outside in the afternoon heat.

  Hours pass. Jan is giddy with hunger. He has eaten his apricot, nibbling at the hard flesh, which catches in his teeth. Now and again, he fingers the two remaining in his pocket; Maria and Lena will never know if he eats them or not, they might even have some of their own. He’ll give it another hour, he decides, and then he’ll eat another one.

  The scuffed door creaks open, and a tall, distinguished man beckons to them to come in. The women push them forwards into the house. It is dark inside, and blissfully cool. Jan squeezes his eyes open and shut to try to get used to the dark. Within a few seconds he can see quite well. They are in a huge hall. There is no carpet on the floor, and the wooden floorboards are scuffed and dusty. In front of them is a massive staircase, big enough for a castle. It sweeps straight up from the middle of the hall and branches off to both sides. The man marches the boys upstairs, telling them to keep away from the balustrade; several posts are missing, and they could fall through. He takes them off to the right and makes them stand in a corridor. The boys are upright and don’t dare to stir. Two of the women guards are with them still, and to begin with they lash out at any movement. But eventually they get bored and start to chat to one another, only striking out very occasionally. While their backs are turned, Jan cranes his neck, but sees no sign of the girls. There is a room at the end of the corridor. Its door is open, and Jan sees several people there – a woman and some men, talking and laughing. After a few minutes the woman comes out and indicates to the boy at the front of the queue to come in. The door of the room shuts behind him. Several minutes pass. In the trees outside a bird is singing, and the smell of cut grass is in the air. It feels like home and, despite himself, Jan relaxes. The bruises on his back don’t hurt so much now, and he is no longer hungry. He leans against the wall for support, but one of the women spots him, and at once he is slapped across the head. It is a hard slap, he’d swear they had it in for him since he’d shouted out the question about their mothers that morning. He narrows his eyes and stands up straight. It’ll take more than a slap to get at him.

  One by one th
e boys go into the room. Jan waits for them to return, to try to guess from their faces what to expect, but no one reappears. This is worrying. Jan senses the fear of the boys who remain; they are so frightened they don’t look at each other. The line gets smaller until at last, it is his turn.

  The room is spacious and bright with large windows framed by green velvet curtains. On one wall there is a picture of a man in uniform. He looks ugly, frightening. Jan recognizes him. His father used to talk to him about this man, and say how evil he was. The man’s eyes seem to look right through him, and the sensation makes Jan shiver. He looks down at the ground so he can’t see the portrait.

  There are four people in the room. One man lifts his head as Jan enters; he has a white coat on, like a doctor. Thank God. Doctors are good people; they help you. Sometimes they hurt you, but only to make you better, like when his arm was broken and he had to get plaster on it. The doctor speaks in Czech – not very good Czech, difficult to understand, but at least it is familiar. But when he tells Jan to get undressed, Jan’s fears return.

  “All clothes off,” he says as Jan removes only his shorts and shirt.

  Reluctantly, Jan removes his underpants. They’re soiled, for there was nothing to clean himself with in the toilet, and he’s frightened he will be beaten for being dirty. He folds them carefully, so only the clean side can be seen, and stands in front of the adults, hands in front of his private parts. The woman has a tape measure and tells him to stand against the wall so she can take his height. She writes it down on a piece of paper along with other measurements she takes: round his waist, his chest, the size of his ears, his nose, the length of his legs, the width of his feet. The measuring goes on for what seems like hours. Then she asks him questions. At first he doesn’t answer. It’s so long since he has spoken that his mouth is dry and, in any case, her accent is thick, difficult to understand. She speaks more slowly, and he picks up what she is saying. The questions are easy: what colour is grass, what should you do if a boy hits you, why should you not touch an oven. Jan answers them, for a brief moment feeling proud that he knows so much, then, remembering he is with the enemy, in a much more surly way.

  They make him sit in a chair and listen to his chest with a cold stethoscope, look at his teeth with a tiny mirror, examine his ears with an instrument he has never seen before. They weigh him, make him hop, jump, squat. The male doctor even holds his testicles and makes him cough. Jan does so, his face scarlet with embarrassment.

  At last they finish with him. The doctor gives him back his clothes, and Jan gets back into them in record speed. He hated being naked in front of their curious eyes. Three doors lead out of the room. One goes back into the hall where they waited for so long. The one that they tell Jan to go through takes him into a room where there are several other boys. Not as many as there should be, though, not nearly as many. There were perhaps fifty boys from their village, and yet in this room there are only half a dozen. The others must have been sent through the remaining door. Jan feels cold when he tries to think what this might mean.

  All the boys here are younger than him. He knows them all by sight, and knows some of their older brothers well. One of them comes over now, tries to look tough, but his voice is cracked and his eyes too bright.

  “Hey, Jan,” he says, “I think maybe they’re going to send us home.”

  “You’re soft in the head if you think that,” says Jan, and is sorry when the boy turns quickly away. Not so quick that Jan doesn’t see a tear slide down his cheek. What a stupid thing to say. The kid can only be about seven years old. He should be able to hope they’re going home.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he calls to him. “I think I heard one of them say…”

  He tails off as the boy turns round. The hope is naked in his face; he is so vulnerable that Jan cannot continue. He mumbles incoherently, not meeting the boy’s eyes. Before the boy can say any more, there is a diversion as one of the others draws their attention to what’s going on outside.

  Two trucks have drawn up and parked on the lawn. They are monstrous in the small garden. Large, painted an indeterminate blue-green colour. Jan thinks they are the ones that brought them there the night before, but he cannot be sure. A soldier runs out of the house and opens the doors to both trucks. Jan thinks they are going to spill over with more children, but no, they are empty. A moment later a large group of children are led into the courtyard. They are all from their village. The seven boys in the room press their noses against the window to watch. Jan sees Maria and draws in his breath. He can’t bear this. He had thought they would be kept together. He bangs on the window, willing her to look up, but her head remains down. The slope of her shoulders tells him that she is crying. “Maria!” he shouts, “Maria, where are you going?”

  She seems to have heard him. Maria turns round and looks up at the window, moves as if to try to reach him, but a woman grabs her and shoves her towards the truck. Maria stumbles and hits her shin on the edge of one of the doors. Jan strikes the window once more, but this time Maria doesn’t look back, and within seconds the truck has devoured her. The remaining children are lined up in twos and pushed into the truck. Jan scours the crowd. He can’t see Lena anywhere. He can only hope that she is still here in the house somewhere.

  As the truck draws out of the courtyard, its tyres churning up the muddy grass, Jan wonders if he will ever see any of his family again. He digs his fingernails into the palms of his hands to stop these horrible thoughts, but they persist. When he can no longer see the truck, he leaves his place at the window and goes to a corner of the room where he lies down and curls himself into a ball in a hopeless attempt to comfort himself. Karl, the smallest of the boys, comes over to him and reaches out to touch his arm, but Jan cannot be consoled and he shrugs the child away.

  Later that day they are moved to yet another building, not far from where they have been. It too is a large old house with grass surrounding it. It could almost be a family home, except for a huge fence all round which makes it feel like a prison. A nun comes to the door to let them in. Her face is like every other face they’ve seen in Lodz: hard, unsmiling. Jan doesn’t like nuns. He knows they’re supposed to be holy, but in his experience they can be as cruel as anyone he’s ever met. This one reminds him of Sister Maria Josef, who was his teacher in kindergarten. She’d hit you on the knuckles if your writing wasn’t neat enough. The poor logic of this always upset Jan. He used to cry to his mother about it – how am I supposed to write better if my hand hurts?

  When they get inside and see the other nuns scurrying around, it becomes clear this must be a convent. The nuns are almost all elderly, though there are a few who are young. One of them, who is wearing a white habit, guides the children upstairs to their rooms. The boys and girls are kept apart; it’s several hours, just before suppertime, before Jan discovers that his little sister has not been taken away with the others. He spots her, with a small number of other girls, and breaks free from the group of boys that have been sent to help prepare vegetables. He manages to reach her and hug her before he is grabbed from behind and sent to the boys’ room without any supper. He doesn’t care, he is happy just to know she’s here with him.

  ‌4

  A month later, they are on the move again. They are woken up very early one morning and told to get dressed. One of the younger nuns whispers to Jan, “You are going to Germany, to a children’s home.”

  Jan shivers at the thought, Germany. Every move takes him and Lena further away from his home in Czechoslovakia, further from his mother and Maria.

  “Where in Germany?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know. A letter came yesterday.”

  Jan is used to travel by now, he knows to keep close to Lena so they won’t be separated, and knows it’s best to get a seat near the window so that they can get some fresh air. He saves some food from breakfast for the journey, and tells Lena to do the same. If it’s anything like their other journeys it will be some time before anyone
thinks to give them food.

  A chance to escape; there’s only two women to look after twenty-one children. They’ve allowed him and Janusz to go alone to the toilet, unaware that the train was about to stop. Janusz comes out of the toilet as soon as the train comes to a halt and puts his head out of the window to have a good look round. When he spots the station name he hugs Jan.

  “Let’s go, now! I know this place; it’s not far from where my parents live. We can walk there in a few hours.”

  Jan pushes him away and shakes his head. “I can’t. You know I can’t. I have to look after Lena.”

  “You could… “ Janusz’s voice tails off. He knows Jan will not be persuaded. “Can you cover for me? Give me some time to get a head start?”

  “Of course, I’ll say you’ve got the runs.” Jan remembers the sweet Janusz gave him the first day they met, and he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the bread he has saved from breakfast. It could be days before Janusz gets anything to eat again. “Here, take this.”

  Janusz smiles. “No, keep it. Tonight I’ll be with my family. You’ll need it more.” He peers out of the window. A guard is about to blow his whistle. “Look, the train’s about to move. I’m going to wait till it gets going, so that even if they spot me it’ll be too late to do anything about it.” He turns the handle of the door, his whole body tense. The train lurches forwards. Janusz opens the door. “This is it, Jan. Wish me luck.” He jumps out onto the platform. Jan grabs the door and shuts it before the train can get up speed. He leans out of the window and gazes at Janusz, who is running as if the hounds of hell are after him. “Good luck,” he whispers.

  “What are you doing?” It is Magda, one of the women guards, frowning down at him. Jan’s heart thumps.