Lunch with the Stationmaster

by Derek Hansen

  Istvan turned and walked off into the night.

  With the money snug in his pocket he forgot about his pain. Yet he’d seen the bundle of notes in the manager’s wallet and knew he could have asked for more. That was something to bear in mind when he faced his next target. There were three more names on his list and another dossier to begin. He’d already made up his mind who to pursue next. This time his observations would be more circumspect and his dossier more precise. But the result! Istvan jiggled the coins in his pocket as though they were trophies. The result would be the same.

  Gancio interrupted Milos by bringing coffees and grappa.

  ‘What’s this?’ said Milos.

  ‘I anticipated the end of this chapter in your story and signalled to Gancio,’ said Ramon. ‘It is a long time since we finished our lunch, a long time to wait for coffee. I assumed you would pause here for a break.’

  ‘You assumed wrongly,’ snapped Milos. ‘It is not yet time.’

  ‘I apologise,’ said Ramon.

  ‘This session is not complete. There is more to tell. Another five or ten minutes. All you had to do was be patient.’

  ‘I’m most sorry, my friend.’

  ‘I accept your apology but you have upset the balance of my storytelling.’ Milos hunched over his coffee and stirred it angrily.

  ‘Normally we put sugar in before we do that,’ said Neil.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Dawn came but brought no relief from the suffering and no further progress. Jozsef was standing with his forehead resting against the planking as the sky brightened and features of the landscape slowly became discernible. The top of Mount Nagy-Milic was shrouded in cloud but there didn’t appear to be any rain. Somewhere on the other side of the mountain there was a shallow cave where his sons had hidden vegetables and winter clothing. It occurred to him that his boys might be there, holed up, warm and dry. Perhaps they even had a view east and could see the train. The thought cheered him, even though in his heart he knew it was the faintest of hopes. The train was slow but it had made much faster progress than the boys could on foot.

  The box car was quieter than it had been all night; people had finally succumbed to exhaustion. Their weariness came as a blessing without which sleep was impossible. Sobbing, snoring, squabbling, praying, moaning, talking, cursing, defecating. These things had been constants until people had simply become too worn out or, in their utter hopelessness, had embraced defeat and retreated within themselves. The clouds that hid the summit of Nagy-Milic gave him hope for a cooler day and a lessening of the craving for liquids. During the night an argument had broken out when a woman was caught scooping water from their one bucket into a cup to give her children a drink. Jozsef had been called upon to adjudicate.

  ‘You have forfeited your share tomorrow,’ Jozsef had told her. ‘However you may have some of mine.’

  ‘Ours too,’ Elizabeth had cut in.

  The young mother had begun to cry, possibly out of gratitude but more probably from shame.

  ‘Let her have her share,’ said a woman somewhere in the half-light. ‘A mother will always help her children. Besides, what does it matter now?’

  In the end nobody had either the strength or the will to continue the debate and the matter ended. What worried Jozsef most was the increase in the number of people suffering from diarrhoea. They’d had no food and as yet shared no water yet somehow the contagion was spreading. Perhaps it was a legacy from their temporary incarceration in the warehouses prior to boarding. Of more concern was the fact that Katica and Elizabeth had both begun to complain of cramping pains in their bellies. He couldn’t imagine how they must feel, to be sick and fevered on top of the deprivations. Shortly he would have to distribute everyone’s ration of water. How could he do that except by a common drinking cup? How could he prevent the diarrhoea spreading?

  At seven o’clock, once he’d surrendered his place against the wall and resumed his seat, he gave the order to distribute the drinking water. Someone provided a cup and a woman provided a spoon she had brought so she could feed her child. Jozsef guessed the bucket would contain five litres of water when full, but it had never been more than three-quarters filled and some water had splashed out during the stops and starts. The spoon became the subject of a debate between Jozsef and the people around him before they reached agreement that it probably held ten millilitres of water.

  ‘Give everyone one hundred mils,’ said Jozsef. ‘Measure it once and make a mark on the cup so everyone gets an equal share.’

  Jozsef’s decision was met with an angry swell of dissent. Others could also do the mathematics and eight hundred and ten mils from a possible four litres seemed unreasonable.

  ‘We have come just forty kilometres in twenty hours,’ said Jozsef. ‘Who knows when this train will get under way again. Who knows how long it will be before we reach our destination. We must err on the side of caution.’

  Once again there was a murmur of discontent.

  ‘However, provided our train gets under way, there will be another distribution at five o’clock this evening.’

  Jozsef accepted the silence that followed as agreement. What more could he expect? Another one hundred mils wasn’t a lot to look forward to but it was something, and Jozsef realised that he could help people cope if he always told them when the next drink would be.

  Five more agonising hours passed before he heard their German guards shouting to one another, heard the forward guard’s whistle reprised from the rear and the unmistakeable sound of a train creaking back into life. This development was greeted with sighs of relief and even weak cheering. Jozsef shook his head in wonder. Yes, the train was moving again but each revolution of the wheels took them further from their homes and everything they’d known. From their jobs, their hopes, their aspirations and from the lives they’d built for themselves. Each revolution also took them closer to death.

  To Jozsef’s surprise, the train passed first through Kassa and then Presov without stopping. It was as though the rails had been cleared of traffic overnight and through the morning to make way for them. By late afternoon they were in the part of Poland the Germans had claimed as the General Territory and by evening had cleared the junction at Tarnow. Whatever their destiny was to be, it was fast approaching. As a railwayman Jozsef had made it his business to find the location of the town of Oswiecim. He realised they were not far from Krakow and that Oswiecim was not far west of Krakow. He also knew the German name for the town and the rumours attached to it.

  Jozsef had promised to look after Katica, Elizabeth and Gabriella but, like Milos, was denied the opportunity. He could do little more than pay lip service to his promise. He wiped Katica’s brow when her fever began to rage and helped Gabriella carry her to the lavatory bucket whenever the pains in her stomach became intolerable. Gabriella shielded her mother with her skirt in these moments of indignity, but humiliation had become the norm and the least of her problems. Nobody noticed any more. Nobody cared any more. As the evening progressed, Elizabeth’s suffering began to parallel her mother’s.

  For a while people had managed to put aside their fears as they struggled to cope in the overcrowded carriage. But now the steady, relentless progress of the train forced them to confront them. For most, their experiences in the detention centres prior to boarding and in the box car had thoroughly exorcised any faint hopes of compassion or mercy. The nature of their enemy had been made plain to them. Yet some people still clung to the faint hope that there was truth in the words on the side of their box car. Perhaps they were being taken to be resettled in work camps. Those with family contracted into family groups, fearful but supportive, believing that as long as they stayed together they could cope. This was their only remaining strength. Children clung to parents, wives to husbands, husbands to wives, brothers to sisters. They pooled their strength to face up to whatever lay ahead of them. And it was now that Jozsef really missed his sons. He stood guard over the three women he’d promised to
protect and did so conscientiously. But though he cared for them and helped them he was not one of them. If anything, sickness had drawn the Horvath women closer together and, consequently, further from him. He understood, but it didn’t help lessen his feeling of aloneness.

  What chance would he have in a work camp? The hiking he’d done with the boys had improved his fitness but he couldn’t begin to compare himself with the boys in the box car, the boys and young men the age of his sons. And there were the manual workers, older men with arms like the trunks of fruit trees, powerful shoulders and chests. If anyone was to survive, he believed they would be the ones. What of the women? Maybe there were factories in the work camps for women. Maybe there’d be work for him there too. Or maybe the work camps were a myth and their destination was to be their final destination.

  He glanced around him but the darkness yielded little. Yet he knew. Minds were travelling down the same path as his. The box car had never been quieter. Jozsef became aware of the weight on his right-hand shoulder. Someone was always leaning against him and it had ceased to trouble him, but this wasn’t just someone, it was the closest thing to family he now possessed. He stroked Gabriella’s hair but got no response. The girl who one day would have married one of his sons, probably Tibor, and become his daughter-in-law had finally given in to the effort of nursing her mother and sister. Soon he would have to help Katica or Elizabeth to the lavatory bucket and he wondered how he could slip away without waking her.

  He sensed the train slowing and tried to find a gap in the slats opposite, but people were standing in front of them. He tried to check his watch but could not read it no matter how close he held it to his face.

  ‘What do you see?’ he called softly to anyone against the box car sides who cared to look and answer.

  ‘Signal lights,’ said a voice eventually. ‘Outlines of buildings. And more tracks.’

  ‘Krakow or Oswiecim?’ said Jozsef.

  The train continued to slow until it was clear that it intended to stop.

  ‘What do you see now?’ he whispered.

  ‘Platforms. Railway platforms. And German guards. Guards and dogs.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Prisoners. Prisoners with buckets.’

  ‘Can you see any signs, any station signs?’

  ‘No. Yes! Krakow.’

  The train ground to a halt with a shriek and clanging of metals. Jozsef felt Gabriella stir and gently stroked her hair. He heard banging and wrenching and the sliding of doors. Harsh German commands and dogs barking. The door to the box car slid open and two guards stood silhouetted against the weak station lights, guns at the ready, shouting at them in German.

  ‘Buckets. They want the buckets,’ someone translated.

  ‘Pass down the buckets,’ said Jozsef. He glanced at his watch. Five minutes to midnight. ‘If you can scoop out any of the water on the way, do so.’

  Prisoners appeared at the open doorway to exchange the buckets for fresh ones, one refilled with water. Nobody inside the box car expressed relief or joy at the exchange. They were far too preoccupied with the menace of the weapons pointed at them, the snarling dogs and the malice on the face of the soldiers. Already Jozsef could hear doors being nailed shut once again but in among the clamouring he also heard names being called and piercing cries of despair that sent a ripple of fear through the box car.

  ‘Elizabeth Horvath! Gabriella Horvath!’ A German officer with a clipboard stood in the doorway.

  What? Alongside Jozsef Gabriella started suddenly as if woken from a bad dream.

  ‘Elizabeth Horvath! Gabriella Horvath! Schnell! Schnell!’

  ‘Quick! Get to your feet.’ Jozsef pushed sideways to make room. ‘I’ll bring Elizabeth.’

  ‘No!’ said Gabriella.

  ‘Yes!’ said Jozsef. ‘This could be your chance!’

  ‘No!’ She tried to get away from him but Jozsef grabbed her, stood and forced her to her feet. He felt around for her bag before realising Gabriella had strung it diagonally across her shoulders.

  ‘Here!’ shouted Jozsef. ‘Gabriella Horvath!’

  People leaned and rolled out of their way.

  ‘Mama!’ screamed Gabriella. ‘Mama!’

  ‘Here,’ said Jozsef. Two grim-faced guards glared up at him. He kissed Gabriella and smiled encouragingly. ‘Gabriella Horvath. Here she is.’

  One of the guards grabbed Gabriella and pulled her off the train, catching her as she fell. Gabriella began screaming.

  ‘Elizabeth Horvath! Schnell!’

  ‘I’ll get her.’ Jozsef pushed his way back into the box car and grabbed hold of Elizabeth’s arm.

  ‘No! No!’ said Elizabeth desperately. ‘I have to go to the lavatory.’

  ‘There’s no time! Don’t you see? Now come!’

  He pulled her to her feet, roughly, desperately, as though sensing he was in a mad race against time. Up and down the train, doors were being hammered shut. Any second he expected to hear the whistle that would tell him he was too late, that he’d failed, that whatever chance was on offer had been denied her.

  Elizabeth was crying but he ignored her and dragged her to the door. Auschwitz was Auschwitz and could anywhere else be worse? This was Elizabeth’s chance. He was determined to make sure she took it.

  ‘See! See!’ he cried triumphantly. Sweat poured off his face and he gasped for breath. ‘Elizabeth Horvath. You want Elizabeth Horvath. Here I have Elizabeth Horvath …’

  Just as the officer reached up to pull her off the train, Elizabeth’s legs buckled, her bowels failed her and she defecated wetly.

  ‘Ahhh! Jew bitch!’ shouted the officer and recoiled. He withdrew his hand, turned angrily to the soldiers around him and barked orders.

  ‘No!’ cried Jozsef. ‘Wait! Wait! She must join her sister!’

  But the door closed.

  Jozsef barely had time to catch a glimpse of Gabriella standing on the platform between two soldiers, eyes and mouth wide open in disbelief and horror. Alone. Abandoned. Cut off from her mother and sister, stranded in a nightmare from which there appeared no prospect of awakening.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Tibor and Milos became thieves. For three months they crept around the north-east and Northern Transylvania, referred from one sympathetic railwayman to another, chasing rumoured gypsy partisan groups and, most enticing of all, partisans who were allegedly Jewish. They met others like themselves, also on the run, and exchanged rumours, but contact with partisans proved elusive to the point where Tibor and Milos gave up. They might as well have been chasing ghosts, spectral figures such as they themselves were fast becoming.

  Through July and into August there had been easy pickings as orchards of apples and apricots ripened, but harvesting soon accounted for the supply. What windfall fruit remained quickly deteriorated and became inedible. Fruit had filled their bellies but it had fallen far short of fuelling their bodies. Their skin tightened over their eyebrows and cheeks, their eyes receded into hollows. Bones not muscles now defined their shoulders and chests and the hunger in their bellies never left them. They lived like foxes, wary and cunning, holed up by day and on the prowl by night.

  They stole from people with little left worth stealing, peasant farmers whose crops were plundered with impunity by soldiers and gendarmes. They stole to live, raiding vegetable gardens often beneath the windowsills of cottages and under the noses of their owners. They were careful never to steal too much from the one yard and mindful of covering their tracks. They stole carrots and turnips by plucking them carefully from the ground, cutting off and replanting the tops so the morning would reveal no evidence of their visit. When they dug up potatoes they set the plant back into the soil it had come from with some potatoes still attached to the roots. They stole cucumbers and, on a few occasions, beat the farmer to his cows and fled into the night with their milk. But every raid risked discovery and the penalty was not capture but the sudden explosion of a rifle and the finality of a bullet.
/>   The boys craved protein and fats but weren’t alone in that. Sometimes they found mushrooms in the forest but were denied the mushrooms in the fields: others with more entitlement also wanted them and the boys could not take the risk of venturing out onto open ground in daylight or even in the weak light of dawn. Occasionally they were lucky and raided chicken coops for eggs. But passing soldiers also craved fat and had taken so many chickens to throw in their soup that hens and eggs were scarce. For the soldiers a fowl was one meal, but for the peasants who relied upon the eggs it was the loss of many. The boys, at least, understood that.

  Early in September, having failed to link up with partisans, the boys were forced to make a decision. One option was to circle back through the north-east province with the intention of heading north to Satoraljaujhely and Mount Nagy-Milic where their winter clothes and vegetables were stashed. This offered the comfort of re-establishing contact with their friends in the railway, people who would shelter them for a night or two, let them sleep without fear, let them wash themselves and their clothes and share their humble meals. Often they were strangers who had never heard of their father and who owed them nothing other than a vague obligation to assist fellow railwaymen. But, tempting as the prospect was, both boys realised it would be a journey filled with peril.

  With the collaborationist government in power, Arrow Crossmen were no longer constrained by gendarmes or the Germans. With the full blessing of the government, they now ran rampant across the countryside baying for the blood of Jews. The alternative was to head east once more and try to make contact with the Russian forces, now less than three weeks away on the other side of the Carpathian Mountains. The Russians were an unknown quantity but they weren’t torturing and shooting Jews for pleasure.

  The boys were weary of dodging gendarmes, Germans, Arrow Crossmen and angry peasant farmers and decided to head east. If both they and the Russians made good progress, Tibor figured that in two weeks they could put themselves beyond the reach of those who wanted to kill them. This was the determining factor.