Devastation Road

by Jason Hewitt

  At a junction, an argument ensued. Janek kept pointing down the road, jabbing at the air with his finger while the baby in his arms screamed. He kept saying ‘No’ and ‘This way’ and ‘Na západ’ – which Owen took to mean ‘west’ – growing more and more angry and insistent. That was where the camps were. That was where Petr would be.

  But Owen thought they were better off turning north.

  ‘Up towards Berlin,’ he said. He pulled the map from his pocket to show him, the pieces scattering on the ground so that he had to scrabble around, picking them up before the wind took them. Besides, this road looked wider, he told Janek. They had a better chance of finding help on a major route; they had a child to consider now. He didn’t see the point in scrambling through more bloody fields.

  But the boy was already walking, taking the baby with him.

  ‘Janek,’ he called, but the boy ignored him.

  Fine, he thought. Let him go. This would be where they parted then. He’d had enough of Janek anyway. Let the boy see how he got on looking after the child on his own.

  He headed off in his own direction, the first drops of rain falling cold and heavy on his face. He would be fine on his own, with only himself to worry about. He had the map after all, and it wouldn’t be so hard to find some food.

  In the distance shots sounded, their cracks echoing out across the fields.

  He stopped and turned, hesitant. The boy was barely visible, almost gone now. With the small bundle held in his arms. Janek didn’t seem intent on stopping.

  Owen stood for a moment.

  Bloody hell.

  ‘Janek!’ he called after him.

  The rain was getting harder.

  The buildings of the hamlet were nothing but charred and collapsed carcasses: wooden rafters, pillars and posts poking out like blackened bones. The rain had only just dowsed the flames but the fires had been so intense that the heat lifting from them remained hot against their faces. Above, where the wood was still white hot with veins of orange running through it, the air shimmered. Despite the pouring rain, thick smoke lifted, billowing up in sudden whirls that turned and separated; ashen leaves from scorched trees floated about like moths, crumpling and burning in the air.

  A woman stood, mutely gathering her three small children to her hips, while soldiers with bulky-looking guns, backpacks and canisters poked around. Two covered trucks were parked nearby. The men took no notice of Janek and Owen as they walked through, strangely lured as if into a dream.

  Up ahead there came a calamitous roar as a roof strained and thundered in, and then the crash of another ceiling giving way beneath it. The dust rose up into a mist and then was dampened again by the rain.

  Owen clutched the baby hard to him. ‘We can’t shelter here.’

  Janek seemed to agree, then pointed and nodded at the soldiers among the rubble. They were the same men who had been at the burnt-out farmhouse, in the same two trucks.

  Owen remembered and it surprised him. How many days ago had that been? Was his memory finally starting to hold firm?

  The dust was settling around the house whose roof had fallen in. Half of the front had collapsed in a pile of wooden debris but Janek still entered through the doorway, which had lost its walls on either side and now stood like an empty and blackened picture frame.

  Owen pulled the wriggling infant closer as he followed, careful where he placed his feet. The rain fell in streaming rivulets down through the timbers.

  ‘Janek,’ he called. ‘It’s not safe.’

  ‘Tu pistoli,’ Janek said, beckoning with his fingers.

  Owen hadn’t meant that but he handed him the gun anyway, and then Janek was pushing through another doorway, Owen stumbling after him.

  Here the roof had completely fallen through, and Owen stopped and looked up at the rain firing down like pellets through the broken stanchions. In his arms the baby whimpered.

  ‘I know,’ he said, trying to calm him. ‘We’re going to get you somewhere dry.’

  When the voice came from among the carnage, it was breathless and wheezing.

  ‘Bitte . . . Bitte . . . Helfen Sie mir.’

  Instantly Janek had tucked the pistol into his belt and was climbing over the wood, pulling bits of it aside and hauling planks about as quickly as he could.

  The voice came again, desperate.

  ‘Can you see him?’ said Owen.

  Janek struggled and heaved a timber away, his feet slipping, and pulled aside the blackened door of a wardrobe, then stopped. He stood staring into the wreckage.

  ‘Bitte,’ came the voice within it, male and deep, but rasping and fighting to catch its breath.

  ‘What is it?’ said Owen. He took a couple of steps closer, the rain still streaming down through the broken shell of the building.

  He heard the voice again.

  ‘Janek. Janku, jsi to ty?’

  Then in a slick movement that took Owen by surprise, Janek had drawn the pistol and cocked it at the man half buried under the debris.

  It was only when Owen had clambered closer, the baby still held in the papoose, that he saw with a flash of recognition that it was the silver-haired soldier from the burnt-out house across the border. He was wearing the same uniform, and lay trapped beneath a beam, the hunk of timber so heavy across his chest that his breath was short and restricted.

  ‘Kdo je to?’ he said, his eyes darting across to Owen.

  ‘On je Angličan,’ said Janek.

  ‘Angličan?’ the man said with heavy breath. His face was red and the tendons in his thick neck straining. He was clearly in some pain. ‘English?’ he said to Owen.

  ‘Do you two know each other?’

  The man smiled weakly.

  Janek pointed the pistol more purposefully.

  ‘Please tell your friend to turn his gun away,’ the man said, his accent thick but his English good. ‘I am not going to hurt him.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Owen. ‘Janek, please.’

  But Janek did not move.

  ‘Janek,’ said the man, gasping for air, the weight of timber slowly crushing him. ‘Prosím, prosím pomoz mi.’

  ‘For pity’s sake,’ said Owen. ‘We have to help him.’ He wanted to pull the boy away, but he couldn’t with the baby strapped to his front and teetering on the broken timbers made slippery in the rain.

  The man had got his arms beneath the beam and was trying uselessly to lift it. Owen could hear other rafters above them shifting, straining against the unexpected movement.

  ‘Janek, come on!’ he shouted. ‘It’s going to collapse. We need to get this man out.’

  ‘Please,’ the man begged. ‘Janku, proboha, prosím!’

  He managed to free an arm and reached out a dusty hand.

  ‘Ne,’ Janek said. ‘To je za Bohumíra.’

  The man then raised his hand to protect his face – a stop, no, wait – but the blast echoed through the ruins and the man screamed out, his hand suddenly bloody.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Owen. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  There were voices outside, then shouts.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, come on!’

  Then the two of them were scrambling through the rubble, the baby held to Owen’s chest as they pushed through the charred remains of the doorway and out into the rain. They sprinted across the field, towards a line of trees, a bank and a river. He could hear a lone soldier chasing them and shouting, ‘Halt! Halt, oder ich schieße!’

  The trapped man was still shrieking as a shot whistled past, and another, and they heard the clang of a bullet hitting metal.

  Owen and Janek ran.

  They let the river take them, the slow current like invisible hands pulling the boat downstream. Around them the rain hissed, hundreds of thousands of droplets spearing the water and splashing up again, every one a heartbeat. There were no oars and they were left to the river’s will; only occasionally would one of them lean over the side and paddle a little with a ha
nd to stop the boat from beaching or getting caught up among the overhanging branches. Otherwise they glided, hopelessly adrift.

  The boat was flimsy and the water rose up to just beneath the gunwale. Owen held the baby, keeping him as dry as he could within his open jacket. The infant’s arms and legs squirmed, and his face screwed up and puckered but no tears came. Owen wore the mushroom cap Janek had given him and the towel requisitioned from the farmer’s widow wrapped around his shoulders. The rain stuck his trousers and jacket to him and gradually filled the boat until there was water seeping in through the bottom of his shoes as well.

  They did not talk, Owen facing forward, while Janek sat opposite him, his back to the oncoming river, shaking uncontrollably. He would not look at Owen. He stared into the water as it passed beneath them, furiously alive with rain.

  They were out of control, Owen thought. This boy was out of control. Brothers, Janek had said. But in Owen’s mind, whatever bound them together was starting to feel more like a knot tightening around his neck.

  The house was tucked away behind the trees, but even as they stole past in the boat, they had seen that the ruins were empty. They walked around it, warily at first, as the rain pattered down. It had peaked gables and a brown slate roof, and all the windows were without glass, some without even frames. As they came around the side through the thick grass and birch saplings that pressed against the walls, they found stone steps that led up to a missing door, and inside a landslide of rubble where part of the back wall had completely fallen in. Through the paneless windows, branches reached in like stretching arms, and where the roof had collapsed, grass had taken root along the top of the walls as well as nettles that were lined in regimental rows.

  There were two rooms downstairs but only one still with a ceiling. The cement rendering was falling away, exhibiting the brickwork beneath that looked pink and sore, as if the rendering had been protecting it like a scab. Against the two window frames, cobwebs hung in drooling rags.

  ‘We ought to make a fire,’ said Owen. ‘For the child.’ He pointed at the grate.

  The floor was strewn with concrete dust and crushed bricks, bits of wood and loose nails. By the crumbling stone hearth there were animal bones and a rusty fork, and a man’s muddy unlaced shoe.

  Janek kicked at a scorched water canister, mumbling something to himself.

  ‘Well, at least it’s dry,’ offered Owen.

  In the adjoining room, where the ceiling was in tatters and there were bars at the window, Janek had found an old bathtub and cleared out the rubble. Now he lay in it beneath the one bit of roof that was still intact, the baby’s papoose like a hood pulled deep over his eyes and his bag placed as a lumpy pillow behind his head. His arms and legs dangled like spider legs over the side.

  Sitting by the fire, Owen gave the child the last of the milk, though he vomited it up almost immediately and then started to wail. When Owen undid the baby’s clothing, the one nappy they had was soiled through. He hesitantly took it off as the baby’s little face strained puce, then jerked his head back at the sour stench. He had never seen diarrhoea so yellow. The skin around the baby’s bottom and sides was a fiery pink and there was a rash developing across his cheeks that felt like sandpaper.

  ‘No wonder you’re making a fuss.’ He cleaned him up as best he could. ‘I’m sorry, Little Man,’ he said. ‘I know, I know. I should never have picked you up. But we couldn’t leave you, could we, eh? No. And you can kick and scream all you like, Little Man, but I’m going to see you right. I promise. I’m going to see you right.’

  The fire crackled, casting a flickering light across the floor and strange shadows that reached up the brickwork and spread thin-limbed across the ceiling. Clean and warm the baby slept, but his breathing became so light that Owen had to keep checking that he was still alive.

  Janek huddled, brooding in the corner. There was no water left, no bread, no tins, just half a packet of biscuits that had got so soggy in the downpour not even Janek would touch them. He poked nonchalantly around with a stick, and then scratched the familiar curling wings of a ‘V’ into the dirt and then the smaller ‘v’ beneath it and marked a box around them both.

  ‘What is that?’ said Owen. ‘You keep drawing it.’

  Silent, Janek rubbed it out. He glanced at Owen over his shoulder. Then, with an evident change of mind, he sat himself down again and, pressing the stick hard and flat in the dirt, he swept out a space. With careful precision he drew the two ‘V’s in the dust.

  He pointed at the larger one with his stick. ‘To jsou křídla,’ he said. ‘Křídla.’ He flapped his arms like wings.

  ‘Ah,’ said Owen. He looked more closely. ‘Oh. And this one.’ He pointed at the smaller ‘v’ beneath it. ‘That must be a head. Yes?’

  ‘Ano, yes.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Owen, ‘I see. It’s a bird.’

  ‘Ano,’ said Janek. He nodded. ‘Bird. Yes. How you say . . .?’ He thought hard, his mouth trying to shape words that he couldn’t find. He tried coaxing the words out with his hands, and then huffed. ‘I not know. Er . . . bird, yes? We say sokol. It is sokol. Yes?’

  Owen nodded. He wasn’t sure. It looked like a bird of prey.

  Janek then drew the box around it. He put the stick down and motioned with his hands, shaping cubes and squares, then shaking his fists and murmuring words in Czech that Owen didn’t understand.

  ‘Box?’ Owen guessed. ‘Cage? Trap?’

  ‘Cage. Yes, ano.’ The boy smiled now, pleased with their progress. He pointed at the bird again. ‘Československo, ano? People.’ He signalled at the cage.

  ‘You’re saying the bird is the people?’ Owen said. ‘In a cage, yes?’

  ‘Cage. Yes,’ said the boy. ‘But . . . mm.’ He thought about it. ‘One day.’ He rubbed out the box and fluttered his hand through the air.

  ‘Oh,’ said Owen. He nodded. He understood now.

  ‘One day. Nebudou tady Němci. No Deutsch,’ the boy said. ‘No Rusové. No bolševici. No komunisté. Jenom Češi. Only Czech. Yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Owen. ‘You’ll be free.’

  The boy gave Owen a grin.

  ‘And this man today, then?’ asked Owen. ‘Who was that?’

  The boy’s smile fell and his face tightened.

  ‘I not understand,’ he said. But Owen was certain that he did. He stared at the bird scrawled in the dust.

  ‘He was the same man though, wasn’t he?’ said Owen. ‘The man we saw at the farmhouse. Do you remember? You know who I mean, don’t you?’

  ‘He is Nemecek,’ said Janek.

  ‘Is that his name?’

  ‘He is traitor,’ he said. He gazed into the fire. ‘Like Kateřina.’

  Then he scuffed out the bird with his hand and walked out of the room.

  What if she was gone – this wife, this lover, this girlfriend, this missing part? What if she had not forgotten him but had given up on him? How long had she been waiting? He wondered if he had written her letters; if she had written to him, and what she might have said; what private things they might have laughed at, what shared secrets, the codes of lovers trailing back and forth between them in little more than the flow of ink. He wondered at what point she might decide that he was dead; whether, in fact, she had decided already and had put her pen down for the last time, her last words to him already parcelled in an envelope, sealed with a kiss.

  He watched Janek dozing, flinching occasionally as if his mind were balanced on the brink of sleep while his body kept trying to yank him back. Plenty old enough for girls himself, Owen thought. He wondered whether the boy had broken hearts like Max had, or perhaps beneath all that Czech bravado he was shy and still unsure of himself – all his mistakes yet to be made.

  He shuffled closer to the fire. He sat in nothing but his undergarments while his clothes dried on a makeshift teepee of branches that he’d gathered from outside.

  The jacket and the trousers and the shirt still bothered him; he couldn’t
fathom how he had ended up with them. At least the jacket fit, though both of the shoulders were strangely ripped at the same point, broken cotton threads hanging where something had hastily been removed. There were similar holes and threads around the cuffs. He wondered if there had been an insignia; if it was a pilot’s jacket, perhaps.

  He slipped the shoes back on and poked at the fire, then unhooked the shirt from the branch and turned the sleeves inside out to dry the other side. He did the same with the trousers, and the jacket. Only then did he see something attached to it – a dead leaf clinging to the lining – but when he shook the jacket out, the leaf was still there.

  Not a leaf, he saw as he looked more closely, but a square scrap of grey material the same colour as the lining and lightly tacked to the inside pocket with a fine red thread. He picked at it with the tip of a finger, puzzled. Some of the threads holding it in place were broken and frayed and grubby. The inside of the jacket didn’t look ripped; yet the cotton square was stitched there as if it were a patch sewn on and snipped from dead grey skin.

  He sat beneath the window and listened to the rain dripping through the house, holding the baby so that his head touched Owen’s chin and he could feel and smell his warmth. The infant was fighting hard to stay awake but the weight of sleep kept pulling him under. Perhaps when Owen fell asleep too this nightmare would fall away and he would wake to find himself somewhere else. In a bed somewhere. A house. A house, he decided, with red geraniums in pots on each of the steps that led down from the door to the small yard and the door in the fence that opened on to the street. He would sit on one of the steps and roll a cigarette, smoking it before he let himself in. A moment with the geraniums and nothing but his thoughts. He would sit and smoke and think and plan, and collect up the fallen petals and hold them, an offering for her, red and curled in the palm of his hand.

  It was still dark when he jerked awake with a strange sensation of being watched. The fire had burnt itself out and the night was thick at the windows. At least twice he had been aware of the baby waking and each time the boy had picked him up and taken him out. Owen had heard crying outside. Now the baby was no more than a curled heap of clothing on the floor, while Janek lay on his side, pressed into the wall, his hands kept warm between his thighs and his leg twitching.