The organ, at the hands of Edgar, boomed, toying with her spine. She loved the music. She loved it even more because it was played by her great friend. She loved the way it made her feel like a bird soaring over the Alps, the way it made her ache for Max. But she knew it was only an illusion, the wonderful magical way all art has of firing our emotions. The skill is, she told herself, not to make any decisions whilst in the grip of the trick, because when the music stops, when the book is closed, when you leave the theatre, you might not feel as passionately about your choices as you did when your body was awash with these vibrations of light and sound.
The service itself left her cold. She didn’t understand a word of it, read as it was throughout in Latin. She began to feel herself swoon. That damn incense! She was going to vomit if she didn’t get out in the fresh air at once. She squeezed Max’s hand in the hope it would signify that she wasn’t rushing away from the service per se, then headed for the door. The cool air outside put its chilly hand down her throat and turned her inside out – she vomited on the steps of the beautiful cathedral.
She was vomiting all right, but now it was on the floor of the NSV office as she leaned over the edge of the sofa on which she’d been sleeping. The secretary ran at her fecklessly with a waste paper bin and she heard Karl’s voice somewhere in the distance muttering, ‘Oh God, is this normal?’
Karl danced around Erika’s little puddle of vomit and apologised profusely to the NSV secretary who looked as if she wanted to suck her own face off with indignation. ‘But if we don’t catch this train…’ The sentence could not be finished because the consequences of not catching the train were too unbearable for Karl to even articulate let alone experience.
‘With the help of my trusty cigarettes the luggage is already safely on board,’ Karl said, trying to inject a little light-heartedness into his own tension, anything to gee Erika up. ‘But the train is about to leave. Will you be able to make it?’
Erika felt better for having been sick, but could have happily laid on the stinking couch for the rest of the morning. The sun was up now though and she took some solace from that as she hurried as fast as she could behind Karl. ‘I’ll make it,’ she smiled. She had to. For Karl more than herself. She couldn’t imagine how frustrated he would be if they missed this train.
‘Good,’ he said, ‘because there’s not another for fifteen hours’.
As they entered the station Erika felt another wave of nausea wash over her. She stopped and bowed her head, hands out in front for balance and protection from the crowds. The feeling soon passed and she raised her head to see Karl almost hopping about with the tension of it all.
Tick tick tick tick.
A whistle sounded. Karl beckoned to Erika with epileptic energy. She hurried after him to the platform where their train and their luggage were getting ready to leave them. The guard was at one end waving his flag at the driver, signalling him to go. There was a clunk as the engine took the strain on its chain of carriages. Karl grabbed Erika’s hand with his left and mounted the ledge outside the nearest compartment door as the train began to move.
‘Step up!’ he yelled at her.
The train continued gradually building momentum.
Erika put one foot on the ledge and found herself hopping along beside the train as Karl tried to haul her up. Karl had a firm grip on the compartment door with his good hand but Erika’s weight was the last straw for the camel’s back of his exhausted left wrist and he yelped.
The yelp told Erika she would end up on her back on the platform if she didn’t stop relying on Karl to rescue her. With her free hand she grabbed the compartment door too and ripped herself clear of Karl’s well-meaning molestations. She now had two hands to hold on with and she yanked herself up onto the ledge next to her father-in-law.
Karl and Erika looked at each other for a second, the fear on each other’s faces laced with delight at their success. Until Karl tried to open the door.
It was locked.
Or it seemed to be locked. Erika looked in through the window. The compartment was full of people and she came face to face with a mother breastfeeding her baby. A soldier was standing with his back to door holding it firmly shut, as he had been since they boarded to gallantly preserve the mother’s dignity. Erika couldn’t be sure whether his chivalry was so fierce towards the mother that he would keep two other passengers hanging on the outside of an accelerating train till the child was full, or whether he was just unaware of their presence. Karl knocked on the window. Erika even saw the mother’s lips move as she said something to the soldier. But he didn’t budge. The baby suckled on. Quickly, like everyone else in the country, hurrying up in case he missed out or the supplies dried up.
Karl shouted an expletive which, coming from him, would have made Erika laugh and blush had she not been clinging on for dear life to the outside of a train that was now moving out of the station at some speed.
‘Oi, boss!’ a voice came riding on the growing wind from behind Karl. It belonged to a young chap sticking his head out the door of the next compartment. ‘Come in this way.’
Karl looked at the chap. Looked back at Erika as if to say, ‘Shall we?’ Erika glowered back at Karl with more than a hint of sarcasm in her features that said, ‘No, I’m fine here thanks!’ And they quickly began to edge along the outside of the speeding train. Karl put one hand out to help Erika along but she slapped it away. If she had time to think at all she thought he wouldn’t consider it a rude gesture in the circumstances as they both needed two hands to clamp themselves to whatever railings and bars made themselves available to them on their precarious shuffle along to the next compartment. Memories of her climbing holidays in the Alps chugged through her muscles and she later found herself, ironically, praising God for some aspects of the Hitler Youth Movement, the parts that promoted physical fitness at least. For the first time in a few months she didn’t think about the fact that she was pregnant in so much as she didn’t feel the tiredness, the cramps, the sickness. She was being pumped full of adrenaline, the magical hormone that put everything else the body was going through on hold when it was in charge. And now it really was a time for adrenaline to be in charge. Karl had reached the next compartment and the young chap opened the door ready to receive them.
They will have to close that if we reach the tunnel before I’m in, Erika thought to herself.
Because indeed there was a tunnel up ahead and they were closing in on it fast. She saw Karl disappear into the carriage and then she did think about the physiognomy of her pregnancy, despite the adrenaline. She thought about how far she stuck out from the side of the train because of her belly and how that meant flattening herself against the side of it as they roared through the tunnel was not an option. She would be churned up between the bricks and the train if she wasn’t inside by then.
Tick tick tick tick.
‘Come on, Miss,’ the young chap beckoned frantically, just as Karl had done to her at the station entrance a few minutes before. She was sick of being beckoned at like a dog. She was sick of waddling like a duck. She inhaled her frustrations, like the steam engine consumed coal, turning them into kinetic energy to power herself along with her arms for the last few metres. Things suddenly got very dark as the bright blue winter sky was blocked out now by the looming tunnel. Her feet side stepped along the ledge as fast as possible, too fast for their own good and she slipped.
She felt herself fall.
‘How appropriate!’ Edgar sneered as they were ordered off the trucks and onto a cattle train.
Max would have laughed if it wasn’t so true. If he didn’t feel like an animal being herded about and shoved into a pen.
The train heaved itself out of the station with its sorry cargo and was soon rolling out of Germany and into Poland. The two lads who had marched ahead of him through Breslau were soon thick as thieves with another two in their wagon, one poking his head through the slats in the high window and reporting back to the others wha
t he could see of the rest of the train.
‘There’s guards hanging out of the front wagon on the right, so when the train bends to the left they disappear from view.’
‘Which means they can’t see us either, correct?’ said the lad who got the bacon days ago.
‘Correct,’ said his mate, ‘so the next time it bends to the left we can jump clear. You in?’ he said to the other two.
They nodded.
Max watched as other eyes in the wagon widened with fear and excitement at what was about to ensue. Some of them, he thought, looked like they wanted to be invited to jump too. Others were more circumspect, waiting to see if these four actually pulled off the escape before they bothered trying it for themselves. Others were petrified that they would botch it and attract the attention of the guards. Then who knows how many of them would pay the price?
The four stood under the window waiting. Everyone else sat on the floor waiting. Waiting for the next bend in the track. And eventually it came.
Everyone felt the train begin to lurch as it rounded the bend to the left. The four lads wobbled on their feet for a second then hoisted up bacon boy so he could kick out the wooden slats from across the window. They came away easily from this tired old train and in a heart pounding moment he was through and falling into Poland. The second was hoisted up and gone. And the third. The fourth was the tallest, which is why he elected himself to bring up the rear, but nevertheless he started to scramble at the wall of the wagon like a trapped cat as the train began to straighten and time ran out.
Tick tick tick tick.
Max thought he heard his five deutschmark watch filling the wagon with its irritating sound. He felt himself get up and catch the lad’s lace-less boot in his hand and push upwards for all he was worth. The lad disappeared through the window with the sound of his knees and shins peeling themselves against the wood.
And then he was gone.
Except for one boot which Max still held in his hand like a bizarre souvenir. More like incriminating evidence of his complicity in this breakout! But instead of tossing it away he stuffed it in his bag along with the letters, fast becoming aware of how valuable a commodity clothing would be.
The train eventually stopped. Stopped for hours. Way down the line, miles and miles from where the four lads had made their escape. They had done it. A silent celebration of sorts went on behind the men’s eyes for their daring comrades, which soon changed back to the more familiar fear as the sound of guards moving towards their wagon reached them through the broken window.
It was this window that told the guards something was amiss. They hauled open the heavy door and began counting the men inside, as they had in all the other wagons. Max closed his eyes. He thought he might give something away if they were open. Thought they might keep flicking towards his bag and alert the guards to the evidence of his aiding and abetting the fugitives. With his reasonable Russian skills, he heard the guards report the number to their commander who stood impatiently outside on the tracks. He heard the commander curse. He didn’t understand all he said, but got the gist:
‘… strict orders to arrive with the same number of prisoners as we started with.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So go and find four prisoners!’
‘But, sir, they may be a hundred miles away by now.’
‘I don’t care if they’re the same prisoners, I said just find me four more prisoners.’
And so the soldiers hurried off to the nearby village and within minutes had returned with four dumfounded Polish men whom they shoved into the cart.
‘There was nothing great about it,’ Papa had grumbled the day Max had announced his intention to join up, referring to the Great War, which he had blown his wrist to bits to avoid. Some would have called that cowardice. Max realised now it was the bravest thing he could have done. And he was starting to wish he’d done something similar. Was there anything great about this Second World War either? Apart from the sheer scale of the destruction? Allied soldiers bombing hospitals. Even the symbol of the Red Cross seemed to hold no respect any longer. And now Allied soldiers made prisoners of the Polish, the very people they were fighting against Hitler with, just to make up the numbers in a POW cattle train.
Max closed his eyes again. It felt so good to do so. To block out the expressions of distress and fear all around him. And he was tired. So tired. He fell asleep in seconds.
The train rumbled on.
For weeks.
It smelt worse in that wagon than it ever had when it transported cattle. More men died of their injuries or malnutrition and the four doctors – Max, Horst, Edgar and Lutz – could do nothing about it. It was all they could do to keep themselves alive. When the corpses were discovered by the guards they were thrown out into the fields and replaced by more terrified and confused civilians. It was spring now but the temperature kept dropping and the landscape became white again, like Breslau in the winter, but without the buildings, without the streets. Max would often stand to stretch his legs and to peek out at the world, and he marvelled at just how far the steppes stretched off into the distance and how hours later the scenery hadn’t changed – it had just got even colder, so they knew they were heading north. The thermometer on the wall of the cart read minus thirty degrees centigrade. They didn’t need a map to tell them they were in Siberia now. He wrapped himself tighter in his motorbike jacket and settled down to sort through more of the letters.
He found one for Horst from his parents back in Dortmund where both Max and Horst grew up. Horst read parts of the first page out loud and when he finished they rifled through the rest of the letters hoping to find more. They found the last page but there was a lot missing in the middle. Nevertheless Max loved hearing about the family’s farm life back in Dortmund as it was so full of references to places and people he knew so well too. They wrote about a wedding at the local church, the church where Horst got married to Eva and where he and Max became altar boys when they were nine years old.
‘Remember when we had to do funerals in the cemetery?’ Max chuckled. ‘And we had to pass by the priest’s garden to get there. And that big cherry tree in his garden hung over the path.’
‘Oh yeah.’ Horst’s eyes glazed with the memory. ‘And we used the crucifix we had to carry as a ladder to get up and nick the cherries.’
‘We’d fill our pockets and our mouths and then get a wallop from Father Bruno because we had bright red stains all over our white cassocks.’
Bright red stains on white. They had seen so many bright red stains on white over the past few years – white snow, or white sheets, or their white doctor’s coats – and they both tried hard not to let those recent memories contaminate this one from their youth. Max was so glad he and Horst had come all this way together. They had always been brothers in spirit but it was official now. It had been official since early ’43 when Max’s younger brother, Sepp, had been killed by a bullet to his lung immediately after arriving at the Eastern Front to fight. Like Papa, Sepp had been fiercely anti-Nazi. He had even been removed from school at the age of twelve for voicing his opinions so frankly. Papa had to send him to a private school in order for him to finish his education. Sepp loved to study, loved to play music, he was desperate to sit his exams, but the authorities said he was only allowed to if he joined up immediately after. He was eighteen. Had been at the front for a matter of days. And he was dead. Max had just arrived in Breslau. Horst was still in Freiburg and had written him a letter from there when he heard the news:
I know it is not the same, but would you be my adopted brother, brother?
Max had kept that letter always. It was as precious to him as his wedding ring.
‘Does anyone know a Ruth?’ Max announced holding up a badly singed scrap of pink notepaper.
‘Me! That’s for me!’ A private from the remains of the other unit who shared this wagon stood up among his crossed legged pals like a kid receiving a school prize.
Max tried
not to read too much of the letters he sorted through, tried to respect the privacy of the men, but sometimes it was the only way to find out who it was for, if the writer had a tendency to use the recipient’s name a lot in each paragraph, as in this letter which was clearly to a soldier named Tim:
wait until you come home although knowing all the time in my heart that I was untrue. When you went away and I told you that I loved you best, I really meant it Tim, but such a lot seems to have happened since then. I really thought that I had forgotten Charlie in my love for you and during the past nine months have been fighting against his love for me, wishing and longing for your return, but it is no use Tim I cannot help loving Charlie best. I suppose it is because he was first. At first I made up my mind to fight it down and be true to you and if you still wish to keep me to my promise under the circumstances I will do so.
Don’t take this too much to heart Tim. I am not worth it but don’t think me altogether heartless. I would not hurt you dear unless I could help it, but unfortunately we cannot control our own feelings. Will you believe me when I say that I am very sorry, for I am, more so than perhaps you think. Anyway, forgive me if you can, and I trust that you will still let us be friends, whatever happens. Have not had the courage to tell your Mother yet, perhaps you will do so. Write back as soon as you can to say you forgive me Tim, shall wait impatiently for your answer.
One word about Charlie before I finish. He would have
In this case Max couldn’t help himself. He could have stopped reading after the first paragraph of the only surviving page and been sure it was for someone called Tim, but he kept going until the scorched end. He put his head close to Horst’s and whispered, ‘Who’s this?’ tapping at the name on the paper rather than saying it out loud.
Fifteen Words Page 9
