Devastation Road

by Jason Hewitt

  He walked closer.

  ‘Irena,’ he said without thinking, and then corrected himself. ‘Anneliese, I mean. What are you doing? Are you all right?’

  She stared at him. She tried to speak, her mouth shaping a sound that would not come.

  He stepped closer and took hold of the wire.

  ‘What is it? What the hell’s wrong? And what are you doing through there anyway? Where’s the baby?’

  Then the realization dropped.

  ‘Oh my God,’ he said slowly. He saw it in her eyes, in her soil-covered hands and arms, in her shaking. ‘Jesus, no. Where’s the baby? Where’s the baby, Anneliese? Anneliese? Listen. Listen, look at me. Look at me, Anneliese. For God’s sake look at me! Where’s the baby?’

  Her eyes were red, her chest heaving. Behind him the sounds of the camp faded. He tried to keep his voice calm as he clung to the wire.

  ‘What have you done?’ But she wouldn’t answer. He shouted it again: ‘What have you done?’

  ‘He is gone,’ she said, her voice no more than a whisper.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I had to bury him.’

  ‘What? Oh, Jesus, no. No, Anneliese.’

  ‘No one wanted him,’ she said. ‘But it is all right now.’

  The girl was in a dream, sounding so distant even though she was right there. He flushed pale. He shook the fence so hard it rattled, and then shouted: ‘Where is he?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I buried him properly. I planted him like a seed.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. Where?’

  ‘In the field,’ she said. ‘You didn’t want him. Nobody wanted him.’

  But Owen wasn’t listening. He was already running. He flew along the perimeter, yelling: ‘Martha! Janek! Somebody! Help!’

  There were people looking at him.

  ‘Oh God! SOMEBODY HELP ME!’

  He reached the gates and pushed through them, then ran out across the road, beneath the hang of trees with their dappled light and shadows, then swerving off over the grass to the field, all dug up in earthy furrows. He ran across it, tripping and scrambling. She wouldn’t do it. She hadn’t. She couldn’t have done it.

  He thought he was going to be sick. In the middle of the field he stopped, turning again and again, hunting for any sign, but everywhere he looked the field’s surface looked the same. He saw Anneliese had reached the edge of the field.

  ‘Where is he?’ he shouted at her. ‘Where is he?’

  He fell to his knees. He started to dig, desperately clawing at the soil, doubled up and gasping, unable to breathe.

  He was dimly aware of voices and figures approaching, slowly at first and then breaking into a run, and his own frantic cries of ‘the baby, the baby’, as if the words alone might push the infant up and lift him from the earth.

  Anneliese was being dragged across the furrows, but she couldn’t tell them where the child was. They couldn’t even shake a voice from her.

  He didn’t know how many there were but they dug frantically with their hands, scrabbling at the earth, and all the time he kept thinking the field was falling away from him. It kept rising up and tilting so that clods of soil skittered away, the earth trying to tip him from it.

  Then a voice. A sudden rush of people hurriedly gathering into a circle. Guppy was there, and Hamilton too, nurses he’d seen from the hospital, and inmates drawn by the cries for help. They collected around a single spot, two or three on their knees, furiously digging and brushing the dirt away. He didn’t move. Nor Anneliese. She stood a short distance away, her arms limp at her sides and sobbing. They dug and dug until the murmurings of encouragement stopped and then something small and pale was slowly lifted, and a woman in a shawl had to quickly turn her head away.

  At 11.00 on Tuesday 15 May 1945, they buried him. No one knew exactly how old the child was, not even Anneliese. The engraving on the cross simply stated: An unnamed infant.

  There were mass graves in Camp 1 filled with the infected, but Little Man was buried among the trees at the spot where only hours before Owen had sat with Janek on an overturned oil drum. The small group huddled among the ferns, while the Jewish chaplain and then Hamilton spoke a few words. Throughout it all Anneliese’s gaze was lost in the distance. Martha stood beside her with her arms folded, seemingly unsure whether her face should be showing sympathy or rage. There was no sign of Janek and no time to find him.

  By 11.15 it was done. The Czech deportees were leaving at twelve; there were plenty of other things to be getting on with. One by one they dispersed, the chaplain back to his office, Guppy back to the estate car he was attempting to fix, Haynes and the handful of nurses back to their blocks and the tens of thousands of others who still needed their attention. Martha had last-minute paperwork to collect before the transport convoy arrived. She stepped towards Owen before she left and brushed his arm with her fingertips.

  ‘You’ll need to be back before twelve,’ was all that she said.

  He stood there alone, his eyes on the little cross that Guppy had hastily fashioned. He would dig another grave if he could. He would bury himself in it and let the earth gather itself around him. He would take comfort in its embrace.

  Turning, he then saw Anneliese just as she had appeared that first night, stepping out from the undergrowth with no child in her arms. This time, though, he could not meet her gaze. He pushed through the ferns right past her, not knowing or caring any more.

  She came crashing through the foliage after him as he headed towards the road. She was talking so fast. She kept grabbing at his arm, saying: ‘I had to. Don’t you see?’ And then: ‘Now I can come with you,’ she kept saying, over and over. ‘Take me. Take me with you. Take me with you. Please.’

  He could knock seven bells out of her; knock her into the ground. ‘For God’s sake, no!’

  ‘Why not?’ She tugged at him. ‘Please. Please,’ she said, ‘I beg you.’

  He stumbled over the grass, walking blindly out on to the road, his hands and arms as muddy as hers now. He could kill her with them. He could slap her right down.

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ she said. ‘You don’t have anyone either.’ She clung to him. ‘Just take me with you.’ He kept trying to pull her off but her hands were all over him, pulling at his neck and his face, trying to force him to look at her.

  He tried to wrench her away – ‘Get off!’ – but she wouldn’t let go. ‘I said get off!’ He took her by the shoulders and shook her as hard as he could so that she sobbed even harder, shouting: ‘What the hell have you done?’

  He shoved her away, and walked on, his blood roaring in his ears. He left her in the middle of the road, muddy and weeping.

  In the distance behind him, trucks were coming through the field.

  They barely slowed as he stood on the verge, a jeep and four trucks with open backs, their dark canvas sides buffeting in the wind. They rattled past, wheels rumbling and spitting up stones, before turning through the gates.

  He paced after them with such a filthy, brutal rage storming in his head. He should have taken the child from her. He should have taken him from her and not given him back. He could put her in the ground beside him. He could push her into the soil.

  The trucks disappeared around one of the blocks into the parade ground. People stood and stared at him, at his muddy hands and his face that could so easily crumple into tears.

  The four trucks were parked in a line, each with their back to the square. A handful of Czech soldiers milled around, smart in their uniforms, a couple of them smoking cigarettes before the drive to Celle. From there, Martha had said, the refugees would be put on a train to Prague, other Czechs joining them from the countless other DP camps scattered across Germany; each changed for ever, broken and rebuilt again, survivors who had somehow clawed on to life and – against the odds – had finally regained some of their dignity. He saw it around him now as they waited, clutching their few possessions, a man playing a harmonica, a child holding a naked d
oll, its hair cropped as short as the child’s.

  There was no sign of Janek. Nor Martha. Hamilton wandered about among them with a clipboard and list, trying, Owen thought, to evoke an air of orderliness, while Haynes was ushering the Czechs together, his arms open wide as if he were a goatherd readying himself in case one of them suddenly bolted from the group.

  Around the square others had appeared too: the French, the Poles, some Yugoslavs, all eager to wave the Czechs off, knowing that in the days and weeks that followed, it would be them piled into jeeps and trucks as the whole camp cleared out. Some of the women were hurriedly decorating the trucks with ivy vines and thin blossoming branches and sprigs of wilting wild flowers, festooning the vehicles with garlands like festival floats.

  ‘You’ve not seen your Czech boy then?’ It was Hamilton with his list.

  ‘No,’ said Owen. ‘Have you asked those two?’ He pointed out Otmar and Mikoláš.

  ‘They say they haven’t seen him.’

  How fast friendships were formed and forgotten, Owen thought. The two boys did not seem at all bothered that Janek wasn’t there. They sat in the dirt playing cards and slapping at each other’s hands. They would soon be up on their feet and pushing, as the tailgates of the trucks were lowered and there was a rush for seats.

  ‘Where’s Martha anyway?’

  ‘With this major,’ Hamilton said. ‘Some bloody high-ranker. It’s usually a bunch of lackeys. Half the time we have to organize the transportation ourselves, but this time they’ve actually sent somebody.’

  ‘Yes, Martha said,’ said Owen. The major had been asking for someone but Owen couldn’t now remember what it had been about.

  ‘Look, are you all right? You look as white as a sheet.’

  ‘Dicky stomach,’ he said. It was true. He felt incredibly faint, as if Anneliese had taken the life from him too and only the shell of him was left.

  Over Haynes’ shoulder he saw Janek appear from behind one of the blocks, his bag hauled over his shoulder, moving with a nonchalant air as if it made no odds whether he went home or not.

  ‘Oh, here he is,’ he said with relief.

  ‘Well, thank Christ for that,’ said Haynes.

  He slipped through the crowd to intercept him and Owen would have gone too but Hamilton was blocking his path and saying something.

  ‘And I hear you’re being ferried up to Hamburg. Someone’s landed you a cushy flight.’

  ‘Yes, something like that,’ remarked Owen. He could see Haynes and Janek talking. The boy was paler than ever. He nodded at something that Haynes said. With a hand at the boy’s back, Haynes then guided him over to join the other Czechs as a nervous anticipation started to fill the square.

  ‘If the major has Martha giving him a guided tour, we could be standing here for bloody hours,’ Hamilton grumbled. ‘And that’s not going to go down well. They want to be off and out, and you can’t blame them. We’ll have a bloody riot on our hands.’

  Haynes raised a hand to one of the Czech drivers and the soldiers dispersed to their trucks. As soon as the first tailgate was dropped the refugees were swarming, clinging on to friends and family, elbowing their way forward and fighting for seats. Bags got caught in the crush, and then the shouting began. Before long, as the trucks filled and the scramble for seats became more ferocious, the inevitable happened. There was a commotion as families, lovers and friends were split, hysteria starting to set in as if they didn’t believe the trucks were all going the same way.

  Hamilton tried to calm the situation before somebody got hurt. ‘There’s room for everyone!’ he shouted, but no one took any notice.

  The Czech soldiers pushed people back with their rifles as the first truck became full, and soon the tailgate was hoisted and bolts pulled across, a dozen or more pale but excitable faces cramped inside, and those who could extending an arm or hand to wave. At last they were going home.

  Janek stood motionless in the parade ground, the crowd feeding forwards around him as he stared dumbly at the trucks. Owen pushed through and took his arm.

  ‘What the hell are you playing at?’ he said. ‘Go on. Get in!’

  Janek shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Petr’s gone,’ said Owen. ‘Listen.’ He took the boy by his shoulders and forced Janek to look at him. ‘Look, listen to me, Janek. He’s gone. Left you. Do you understand? You have to go home.’

  The boy’s eyes were wide – hazel, he saw, in the sun – cheeks so pale and flecked with sparse stubble. He was so clearly still a boy.

  ‘You must have someone left,’ he said. ‘Some family.’

  The boy shook his head. ‘Only Petr.’

  Owen let out a heavy breath and looked up instead at the windows around them, some of them open where patients well enough to get out of their beds were leaning out. The tailgate of another truck was lifted, bolts pulled in place, and then the third. The last stragglers crushed around the final truck.

  ‘Listen,’ he said to Janek. ‘You can’t stay here. You have to go.’

  ‘I find Petr.’

  ‘Petr’s gone!’

  ‘Ne!’

  ‘Yes! For fuck’s sake, Janek, will you get in the bloody truck.’

  ‘He can ride with me,’ came a deep voice.

  Martha had emerged, bringing a large man with cropped silver hair with her. He was in a smart olive uniform, a single gold star on each shoulder, one arm held firmly behind his back. There was something familiar about him that Owen could not place.

  ‘The major was just telling me how a certain young Czech saved him,’ Martha said.

  ‘Plucked from the rubble of a collapsed building,’ the major said. ‘A bomb blast,’ he then added. ‘And with barely a scratch.’

  He took Owen in with a flash of recognition. ‘That is why I must absolutely insist that the boy travels in the jeep with me.’

  Martha said, ‘Shall we go then? I’m sure Major Nemecek is keen to be on his way.’

  The realization struck. Owen felt a cloud of heat quickly fill his head and prickling at his face.

  Nemecek took a step closer to the boy. ‘It would be an honour,’ he said. His smile widened. ‘I’ve been looking for you, Janek Sokol.’ He turned to the crowd. ‘And what a relief I must say to have finally found him.’

  He pulled out his arm from behind his back and held it out. ‘Nepodáš mi ruku?’ he said to Janek.

  Owen, his pulse quickening, glanced at Hamilton and Haynes and then at Martha. The major seemed to want Janek to shake his hand, but there was no hand to shake, just the arm and the end of the jacket sleeve, and within the dark hole the nub of something like the snout of a creature lurking in its burrow. He held it out, waiting for Janek. Martha gave a nervous laugh.

  ‘Go on. Nepodáš mi ruku?’ he slowly repeated.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Martha said to Janek. ‘He’s joking with you.’

  But when Nemecek spoke again, it was without the smile. ‘Podej mi ruku,’ he told Janek. He pulled his sleeve back a little to show the wound, angry and pink, the threads of stitches still in place where the hand had only recently been removed at the wrist.

  Dropping into a bucket, Owen thought. Taken off like dead wood, and falling in such a way that it hooked its fingers on to the rim as if it was trying to crawl its way out. Well, don’t just stand there. It was the voice of his father. Shake it!

  There was no more laughter, just a thick and awkward unease.

  ‘Podej mi ruku,’ Nemecek said again. Not an invitation but an order.

  Janek stared at the offered stump. Martha glanced at Haynes and Hamilton. Owen felt all eyes turn, the camp revolving on its axis, all the faces in the trucks on them, and then Nemecek suddenly laughed.

  ‘I am teasing,’ he said. ‘It is just an old war wound.’ He withdrew his arm and pulled the sleeve back down. ‘You must forgive me,’ he said, addressing the crowd. ‘The war has done strange things to my humour.’ He looked at them for acknowledgement, smiling. ‘I must insist
that he rides with me, though.’ He placed his remaining hand on Janek’s shoulder. Owen saw him grip it, Janek’s face flushing.

  The boy, Owen realized, had become strangely docile since Nemecek had arrived, as if he had been deflated by the realization that Petr was really gone. He watched Janek let the major steer him by the shoulder around to the side of the jeep, and then the major opened the door and motioned him in.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, directing the comment squarely at Owen. ‘He is in good hands.’ He laughed.

  He got in beside Janek and slammed the door, laying his arm over the back of the seat behind the boy as his driver took his place in front. Around them the trucks had started their engines, the onlookers pulling back to give them space to reverse out and then edge forward through the gates. There was calling and waving as they threw flowers over the trucks, then a sudden swell of noise as people started playing accordions and trumpets.

  Across the yard, Owen spied Anneliese watching from the other side of the fence, her fingers at the wire. He felt his stomach turn. From inside the jeep Janek’s eyes were locked on Owen’s. He looked terrified.

  ‘I don’t think he should go,’ said Owen.

  ‘Don’t be insane,’ said Martha. ‘He’ll be fine. He’s going home.’

  ‘Yes, he’ll be fine,’ said Hamilton.

  ‘No, you don’t understand. We need to stop them. Hey!’ he shouted, but his voice was lost in the surge of noise as the trucks pulled out through the gate, the crowd making way to let them through and then starting to close again, shouting and waving and singing.

  Owen tried to push through as Nemecek’s driver edged the jeep forward, hooting his horn to clear the path.

  ‘No, wait!’ Owen shouted. ‘Wait. Martha! Haynes! For God’s sake, stop them!’ His voice was lost in the cacophony of cheers and excitable flurry of flag-waving.

  The jeep pulled out and Owen squeezed through, freeing himself from the crowds at the gate, and started to run after it. His eyes locked on the jeep as it accelerated away down the road, and on the two figures seated in the back, the distance rapidly expanding between them.

  The line of trucks grew smaller, the jeep kicking up clouds of dust from behind, and the sound of them became fainter and fainter. Owen slowed to a halt. He watched them go, disappearing, and then his heart stopped as Nemecek’s jeep abruptly turned, swinging left away from the line of trucks, heading out instead across the field and towards the woods beyond.