Lunch with the Stationmaster

by Derek Hansen

  That evening the boys baked four potatoes in the embers of their fire, ate one each while they were hot and kept one to eat cold for breakfast. That night, with the breeze blowing from the south-east, they heard for the first time the far off rumble of artillery. That the Russians had begun another offensive to push over the Carpathian Mountains and up into the heartlands of Hungary on the very night they’d made their decision to head east seemed like an omen. The spring had long gone from their legs but the sounds of battle were music to their weary souls. Salvation was no longer a faint hope but had acquired the substance of reality. Salvation, safety, survival was within earshot, within walking distance, within reach. They hiked all through the night, slept through the day, baked four more potatoes and hiked again.

  The boys felt relatively safe as they skirted around the town of Arad, convinced that, with the might of the Russians poised to roll over the Carpathians, the Germans had too much on their plate to concern themselves with a few displaced Jews. They were right about the Germans but failed to consider the Arrow Cross.

  The Hungarian fascists struck just after dawn when the boys had settled down after a long night’s hike. Cautious as always, they had dossed down on a wooded slope not far from a small village. They intended to spy on the outlying buildings during the course of the afternoon to choose the farm which could best replenish their food stocks with the least risk. When the gunfire erupted, their first thought was that the Russians had broken through. Their excitement overcame their weariness and they raced through the woods to a point which overlooked the village.

  They expected to see tanks, Cossacks or a ring of troops surrounding the village, but there was nothing that would explain the volleys of gunfire. Whoever was shooting was inside the village.

  ‘It’s not the Russians,’ said Tibor.

  ‘Then who?’ asked Milos.

  Tiny figures suddenly broke free of the village and raced across open fields towards the woods that sheltered the boys. There were families clutching children and running in a group. Others, male and female, simply ran to save themselves. Behind them came men in country hats and short, tight, fur-collared jackets. They stopped to fire their rifles and the tiny figures running ahead of them crumpled and lay still.

  ‘Arrow Cross,’ said Tibor.

  ‘But the Russians are so close!’

  ‘Tell them,’ said Tibor. ‘Come on. If even one of those Jews makes it into the woods, those bastards will follow.’

  The boys turned and ran back to the hollow which had been their hiding place. Behind them another sound joined the pandemonium.

  ‘Oh shit,’ said Milos. ‘Dogs.’

  They grabbed their meagre possessions and ran.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Milos.

  ‘To the stream.’

  The stream took them back the way they’d come and towards the road the Arrow Cross had driven in on. There were open fields to cross before they could regain the shelter of more trees. But Milos didn’t complain. He was just glad Tibor had a plan. At that point, any plan would do. As they ran downhill Milos felt his legs getting away from him, forced by gravity and his momentum to run faster than they were capable of. His muscles, weakened by lack of food and the exertions of the night, could no longer check his speed and he fought to remain upright. But it was a task beyond him.

  Milos pitched forward as he overstrode, slammed into the ground, bounced and cartwheeled down the slope. He grabbed at clumps of grass, dug in his heels and fingers, dug in his knees, and desperately scratched and clawed his way to a halt. His head hurt and his right knee burned as though on fire. He lay still trying to regain his breath before remembering that delay, any delay, was a luxury neither of them could afford. He pulled himself up into a sitting position. Way ahead of him Tibor had reached the base of the hill and was sprinting towards a sparse grove of poplars. The poplars weren’t their destination but the thicket beyond where a stream wound back into the foothills.

  ‘Tibor!’ he cried, but in his winded state his voice lacked force. ‘Tibor! Wait!’

  Even in full voice, Milos doubted he could have made himself heard. He dragged himself to his feet and almost collapsed. His right knee refused to support his weight. In despair, he shaded his eyes from the morning sun with his hand, and caught a fleeting glimpse of Tibor disappearing into the poplars. When he brought his hand down he noticed it was smeared with blood.

  Gunshots. Dogs.

  Milos spun around and scanned the tree line behind him. Nothing. Not yet. He pulled his shirt off as fast as he could and bound it tightly around his right knee so that it couldn’t bend. His sack! Where was the sack he’d been carrying with the last of their food? Back up the hill about six metres. He groaned and dragged himself uphill, grabbed the bag and started back down. He hopped and dragged, hopped and dragged, each hop threatening to generate more forward momentum than he could control.

  More gunshots. The baying of the dogs rose in pitch. Milos gritted his teeth and ran. The pain in his knee made him want to cry out, shrieked at him to give in. But giving in meant death and Milos had fought too hard and too long to lose everything so close to salvation. He reached the poplars, dragged himself into their cover. At least now there was a screen between him and any pursuers. But the relief he felt was shattered as he reached the other side. There was no Tibor. He looked at the distance he had to cover to the next stand of trees and his heart sank. Suddenly he felt angry towards his brother, angry and bitter. Why hadn’t Tibor waited for him? Why had he abandoned him? All the way down the slope he’d imagined Tibor waiting for him on the other side of the poplars, waiting to throw an arm around him and help him down to the thicket.

  He spotted the dried remnant of a broken branch and grabbed it. It was thick but was it still strong enough? Milos decided to find out. Using it as a prop he set off for the thicket, distributing the load between his injured knee and the stick. It helped.

  More gunfire. And a scream. And dogs going mad.

  Milos ran for his life, praying that if he was spotted, a bullet would get to him before the dogs. He could taste salt and realised he was crying. Crying from pain, from frustration, from the fear that it was all going to end so needlessly. Suddenly he was in the thicket. Despite everything, he’d made it into the thicket without being spotted. He cried out as hands reached out and grabbed him.

  ‘What the hell happened to you?’ said Tibor angrily. ‘Quick, climb onto my back. Hang on to both bags.’

  Tibor staggered down to the stream, plunged in up to his knees and with grim determination began wading upstream. Milos lay hard against his brother’s back, concentrating with all his will on performing the one task Tibor had left him. Hang on. On to the bags, on to him. Milos tried closing his eyes but dizziness forced them open again. He listened for gunfire, for shouts that said they’d been spotted, for the baying of dogs that had latched on to another quarry, but every sound seemed to merge together with Tibor’s laboured breathing and the splash of his pumping legs. His head started spinning and the sounds became peripheral to the thumping in his ears.

  ‘Milos.’ Tibor had stopped midstream. ‘Whatever happens, just lie still.’

  Tibor twisted and swung Milos off his back and into the cold water. The cold snapped Milos to his senses.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘The bank’s undercut. We can’t outrun them. We have to hide here in the water beneath the bank.’

  Tibor pushed Milos under the bank and lay on top of him so that only Milos’s head was above water. He stuffed their two sacks under Milos’s head for support. Grass and weeds overhung the bank and there was a small bush dipping precariously over the water. It wasn’t much of a screen but Tibor hoped it would be enough to shield them from anyone searching from the opposite bank.

  Milos lay still, trusting his brother, letting the cold water numb his aching knee and soothe his brow. Soothe his brow! He had visions of the water washing away the blood on his head and flowing downst
ream in a telltale pink trail.

  ‘Blood. Head,’ he murmured.

  ‘Shhh!’ said Tibor fiercely.

  Then Milos heard them. The quiet, determined voices of hunters, their soft footfalls, the panting of their dogs. They were above them. Standing on the bank above them. Time stopped. Milos closed his eyes. Holy Mary, Mother of God …

  They lay there for seconds which seemed like minutes, minutes which seemed like hours, not daring to blink, not daring to breathe. Milos began shivering and quickly the shakes became uncontrollable. He pictured his shivering radiating ripples out across the stream.

  ‘I think we’ve had enough swimming for one day,’ said Tibor softly.

  He eased his head out from beneath the bank and took a quick look around. Encouraged, he quartered each bank and methodically checked foreground, middleground and background. He saw nothing and heard nothing. Their hunters had moved on.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  Tibor helped Milos out from under the bank, threw his arm around him and half-carried, half-dragged him across the stream. He helped him up the bank and over the brow of the ridge and looked for a hiding place where the sun’s rays could penetrate and put some warmth back into their bodies. They heard more gunfire but it was distant now. Tibor couldn’t help wondering at the mentality of these Arrow Crossmen and their need to kill the last remaining Jews before the Russians arrived. He found a sunny glade and collapsed into it, both of them lying still, cold and exhausted.

  ‘I thought the blood from my head would give us away,’ said Milos eventually. ‘It was just like that time we sheltered from the gendarmes in the doorway. Remember? I was worried our footprints would lead the gendarmes to us.’

  ‘I remember,’ said Tibor. ‘You still haven’t learned anything, little brother, have you?’

  The Arrow Cross killed hundreds of Jews in and around the towns of Csermo, Arad and Lugos before retreating away from the advancing Soviets.

  Tibor and Milos spent the day drying out their clothes and sleeping. As soon as it was dark, Tibor left Milos nursing his injured leg and crept down the slope to an outlying farmhouse. Jews had run from this farmhouse and been gunned down before they’d gone one hundred metres. Dogs barked, but their barking didn’t worry Tibor. They were not hunting dogs but farm dogs, still spooked and jumpy from the events of the day. Tibor was cautious but didn’t expect any trouble. Sooner or later the Gentiles of the village would help themselves to whatever had belonged to their Jewish neighbours but, for the moment, Tibor thought they’d be as jumpy as their dogs and hesitant to venture anywhere.

  He went straight to the vegetable garden and took all he could find: a few small turnips and parsnips. It wasn’t nearly enough. He pushed open the back door. Nobody stored potatoes in outdoor bins any more; if the family had stored potatoes they’d have to be somewhere inside. Tibor had no matches so felt around the fireplace and its cast iron stove for a tin or box that might contain some. He found a tin that rattled, opened it and found three matches inside. He struck one and used it to find a candle and light its wick. The candle revealed a room as sad and depressing as any Tibor had ever seen. A cradle, no more than a wooden box on rockers fashioned from the arms of a wooden chair, sat on the floor by the fireplace. Whoever had grabbed the baby had also grabbed its bedding in their haste. There was a table and three chairs, but six bowls upon the table. Tibor closed his eyes and recalled the desperate flight from the farmhouse. Grandparents, parents, child. Three generations wiped out. A pot of weak, thin soup sat on the stove. A few framed family photographs hung on otherwise bare walls, and tattered books shared two shelves with crockery, an iron kettle and an exhausted teddy bear. Grimly, Tibor began opening cupboards and soon found the family’s food store. Eight potatoes, three small turnips and an onion. Maybe somewhere else there were vegetables which had been sliced and dried but in his heart Tibor felt he’d uncovered the family’s wealth.

  Eight potatoes, three turnips, some parsnips and an onion. That plus two small potatoes and a few withered carrots they’d saved had to see them through until they met up with the Russians. Tibor tied the vegetable sack to his waist, lifted the pot off the stove and carried it to the doorway where he snuffed out the candle and slipped it and the two remaining matches into his pocket. The soup was weak and watery but Tibor couldn’t let it go to waste.

  Their narrow escape from the Arrow Cross made them even more cautious. They rested that night and the following day to give Milos’s knee a chance to heal, and to see if the Arrow Cross returned. They didn’t. Nevertheless the boys kept away from roads and farmhouses, staying high in the hills where the going was hard but the trees and cover were thickest. The sounds of battle were now constant, like the distant rumblings of a faraway storm. By night they saw flashes and the reflected glow of unseen fires in the clouds.

  They climbed for seven nights, picking their way among rocks as the vegetation thinned and the spine of the mountains pushed up through the sparse soil. Their plan was simple. To get as close to the front as was safe, hole up and let the battle pass over them, after which they could declare themselves to their liberators. On the eighth day, low clouds and driving rain forced them to find shelter.

  They followed shallow trails made by goats, sheep, shepherds or brigands, perhaps a combination of all four. The mountainside had become so steep and rocky that they had little choice. But Tibor had another reason for deciding to stick to the trails. If there was shelter to be found, he argued, someone or something would have found it and the trails would eventually lead them to it. Tibor was proved right when they found a sheltered cavern by the side of the trail. Animal droppings and ashes from cooking fires testified to prior occupation but Tibor overrode Milos’s concerns.

  ‘Of course people sheltered here before us and they’ll shelter here after we’re gone,’ he said. ‘Right now it shelters us.’

  ‘What if someone else comes?’ said Milos.

  ‘Who?’ said Tibor. ‘Who else would be mad enough to be so high in the mountains with the Russians on the charge? Us and people with the same reason to be here as us. If there are any Jews hereabouts, they’re welcome to join us.’

  ‘What about patrols?’

  ‘How many have you seen? And why would they patrol up in the clouds where they can’t see anything anyway?’

  Tibor seemed happy enough so Milos let it go. But he wasn’t satisfied. For nearly four months they’d avoided people and avoided hiding in obvious places. He watched as Tibor pulled a cooked potato and a small raw turnip from his pocket and ate them, taking a bite from one and then the other. Milos followed suit. The brothers lapsed into a routine established over months. Food first then sleep, each of them taking turns.

  When the rain eased they could hear the boom of artillery and the explosion of shells. Sometimes they thought they could hear the grinding of trucks from the pass below, but whether they were climbing or descending in low gear the boys couldn’t tell. Soon they’d have to decide whether to press on or stay put and let the battle pass by. If pushed, their food could last them another two days, but what if the Russians got held up? Or worse, driven back? Hunger would probably decide their course for them.

  Tibor stretched out on the floor of the cave and pulled his coat tightly around him. It was mid-September and too early for snow, but the rain had brought a chill and a warning that snow was not far off. Milos silently accepted that he would have to take first watch. But what was there to watch when the clouds cut visibility to five metres, less when the rain pelted down? Milos leaned against the cave wall, made sure he was a little uncomfortable so he wouldn’t fall asleep. He wished they had a match left and something to build a fire. Memories of earlier days and nights of sleeping out filled his mind. His father always made sure they had matches, and finding kindling and fuel for their fire was always the first priority when they made camp. They had meat and dried vegetables and paprika to make their soup with. Salt and pepper. Sweet coffee to finish and blankets to wrap a
round their tired bodies. He remembered Gabriella’s look of horror the first time she slept out with them when she realised she had to sleep on the ground.

  Gabriella.

  He hadn’t thought of her for so long. Where was she, he wondered? Would he ever find her again? He leaned his head against the wall and let the memories flood back. The three of them, lying on grass, heads together, bodies radiating out like equally spaced spokes of a wheel, gazing up at a clear blue sky, with no reason to believe that they wouldn’t live for ever. The little patch of lawn at the rear of Tokaj Street had been soft beneath them and their little bellies had been filled with Aunt Katy’s cooking. Sunday lunch at Tokaj Street, a lifetime ago. He knew Gabriella had favoured Tibor then and had tried not to show it, but he wasn’t cast from iron and he’d been hurt. When he’d put on his growth spurt and begun to assert himself he’d honestly believed things were beginning to swing in his favour. All of which made Tibor’s declaration of his intention to marry Gabriella all the harder to bear. But Tibor was the hero, the strong one, the leader; they were qualities which impressed Gabriella and areas in which Milos could never compete. His way was softer, the way of understanding and compassion, sensitivity and attentiveness. Tibor was the rock, but he was the patient water that wore the rock away. Milos smiled inwardly at the metaphor. Maybe things would be different when Gabriella returned. Maybe she’d come home weary of war and heroics and simply want someone who understood her, protected her and loved her absolutely. The prospect was so enticing, so far removed from his situation that, despite the cold and discomfort, he began to smile. But his smile froze in the making when he heard the click of a rifle bolt being drawn.

  There were seven of them, saturated, unshaven and filthy. They seemed as surprised to see the boys as the boys were to see them. But they were armed and the boys were not and their surprise was transitory. They stared at the boys, assessing their strengths, checking for weapons. They relaxed once they realised the boys were in no position to cause them trouble. One of them spoke in Romanian.