The Last Green Valley

by Mark Sullivan

  “Hello!” she shouted, and pounded on the door. “Is anybody here?”

  She heard nothing and didn’t know what to do. All she had was the address. Esther didn’t even know the forger’s name. Will began to squawk and cry.

  Adeline admitted defeat and walked away from the warehouse door while teasing the boy’s mouth with her knuckle. “Shhhh,” she said. “Mama’s going to . . .”

  She heard a creak behind her. A woman said, “Patience is not one of your virtues, is it?”

  Adeline turned around, seeing a much older woman, holding on to her hip as if in pain and peering at her.

  “Who are you looking for?” she asked.

  As Esther had told her to, Adeline replied, “Ilse Koch.”

  “Ahh, you’re lucky. Ilse Koch only just arrived.”

  Adeline followed the older woman into a musty, hot, dimly lit building that smelled of grain chaff and up a set of rickety wooden stairs into a loft where an old man wearing a jeweler’s loupe was crouched over a drafting table. The woman went to a cabinet and retrieved an envelope that she opened. She looked at the picture and then Adeline.

  “That’s a problem,” she said.

  “I’m picking them up for Ilse Koch.”

  The man lifted his head and loupe. “That cannot happen. She must come herself. We told her that.”

  “I know but—”

  “No buts,” he said. “If you are caught with papers that do not belong to you, they will ask questions, and if they ask questions, they could find us.”

  “They won’t find her papers,” Adeline said. “I will wait until my baby has pooped, then put the documents under his back and between these two scarfs. If I need to, I’ll speak to the sentries in German, get them to talk about their sweethearts back home.”

  And that was exactly what she tried to do. Except going back west across the bridge toward her flat in Golta, she encountered Romanian sentries, who barely spoke Russian and zero German. It was near noon and brutally hot again, but they started to give her a hard time about going back and forth over the bridge in a single day. Then the breeze shifted, and the stench of Will’s foul diapers reached their nostrils.

  The baby was crying again when she arrived at the apartment door fifteen minutes later. She knocked twice softly. A few moments later, the door opened, and she slipped inside.

  Esther closed the door behind her. Walt, who’d been playing on the floor, made a disgusted face. “Will stinks!”

  “Thank God he does,” Adeline said, reaching into the overlap between the two scarves that held Will, retrieving the forged papers and handing them to Esther.

  She held them to her breast and started crying. “Thank you, Adeline. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You’ve given me . . . you’ve given me a future, a life.”

  “I hate that you even need those papers to have a life,” Adeline said. “And I need to clean this little guy right now.”

  When she was finished and Will was falling asleep in the cradle and Walt was already napping, Esther began gathering her things.

  “You don’t need to leave just yet,” Adeline said.

  “It’s better that I’m gone before your husband returns.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “To where I have some things stored outside the city. And then I don’t know. I’m going to leave that up to a power greater than me to decide. But I’ve heard about Argentina. Or Palestine. I’d like to end up somewhere like that eventually.”

  Adeline did not know either of those places but wished Esther good luck and hugged her at the door.

  “May God protect you,” she said.

  “And you,” Esther said. “There are no words.”

  Adeline put her hand over her heart, opened the apartment door, and Ilse Koch was gone from their lives.

  Mid-April 1944

  Central Romania

  Near the back of the Long Trek, the Martels rolled slowly westward.

  Behind them, the German and Romanian armies were successfully fighting off the Soviets in their initial attempt to invade Romania from the north. Nevertheless, at the town of Onesti, the SS turned the caravan southwest toward Targu Secuiesc.

  They had left the rolling grass hills of far-eastern Romania behind them by that point and now climbed into leafless hardwood forests below mountain peaks capped with snow. The weather was wildly unsettled. Rain. Sleet. Hail. Snow. Mud was a constant hazard.

  And since there were so few mature men on the trek, Emil felt obliged to stop and help any family of women and small children stuck in the mire or having suffered an accident. If they were in the mud over their axles, he would have them unload their wagon and then unharness Thor and Oden and tie them to the empty wagons’ horses to yank them free, all the while supporting the rear end by himself so the wheels and axles would not break under the torque. The sight of people digging graves for the newly dead had become commonplace. Every time Emil saw somebody being buried, he looked away as they passed.

  They were negotiating a series of steep switchbacks in the route near the town of Oituz where the mud was thin, more like grease, when they came upon a newly overturned wagon and a weeping woman from Kiev, her three children, and her now-dead father, who’d been thrown in the crash and hit his head on a rock.

  “Stop, Emil,” Adeline said. “We need to help that poor woman.”

  He sighed but reined the horses to a halt. He tied Oden and Thor to a tree just starting to throw green buds and detached them from the wagon while Adeline, Walt, and Will went to comfort the woman and her children.

  When Emil was done, he started down the hill to detach the woman’s horses from the wreck. Before he did, he inspected her wagon and was happy to see that, aside from damage to the wooden siding and material of the bonnet, her transportation was largely sound.

  “Emil,” Adeline said, coming up behind him, “she wants you to bury her father.”

  He wanted to close his eyes, wanted to say, Anything but that. Instead, Emil remembered that a man can only rely on himself in times of challenge, and he steeled himself.

  “Can you get the spade strapped to the side of our wagon for me?” Emil said at last. “I have to tend to her horses first.”

  By the time he’d unhitched the horses from the overturned wagon, Adeline was back with the shovel. Emil did not look at the dead grandfather as he walked beyond the overturned wagon and the women and children. He selected a suitable spot and started to dig, telling himself, It’s a hole in the ground. That’s all it is.

  The soil was looser than he would have thought, but ten shovelfuls deep, he hit roots and rock. It would have taken him a good two hours to dig the hole had not Walt come over, dragging an old, heavy German mattock tool, with a steel pick on one side and a cutting hoe on the other.

  “The lady said it was her father’s,” Walt said.

  “That will help,” Emil said, and switched to the mattock, picking at the rocks and chopping at the roots.

  An hour later, the hole was deep enough to keep the body from being smelled and unearthed by animals. Adeline and the woman wrapped her father in a blanket. Luckily, the man had been old and did not weigh much. Emil was able to hoist him up on his shoulder and bring him to the grave without assistance.

  It’s just weight up there. Nothing more than a sack of grain.

  He got two ropes under the body. Adeline had one end of one rope, and the woman had the other. On the other side of the grave, Emil held the other ends of both ropes. Together, they lowered the body into the hole. When the corpse came to rest, he told Adeline and the woman to let go their ends of the ropes, and he reeled them in.

  He felt sick and started back toward his wagon.

  “Emil,” Adeline said, “we have to say a prayer.”

  “You go ahead,” he said. “It’ll be dark soon, and I want to get their wagon up on the road before then. I’ll bury him when you’re done. My condolences for the loss of your father, ma’am.”

  He di
dn’t have to look at Adeline to tell she was not happy with him, but he walked off toward their wagon anyway. As he lashed the two ropes to the side of the crashed wagon, he could hear his wife leading the woman and the children in prayer.

  “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” Adeline said, and the rest joined in. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven . . .”

  Emil forced himself to stop listening at that point and ran the other ends of the ropes up the hill to his horses. Once he’d tied them to their harness, he waited until another wagon passed and then eased the team forward. With creaks and groans, the overturned wagon came upright on the other side of the ditch. Scouting ahead on the route, he found a low spot in the ditch walls that would allow a wagon to cross. He attached the woman’s horses to the wagon and then led them up and across the ditch before tying them up on the other side of the road.

  He walked back and saw Adeline walking toward him in disapproval. “That was rude and insensitive, walking away like that.”

  “No, Adeline, it was practical. I dug the hole. I paid my respects. I got her wagon back on the road, and now I’m going to bury her father. By the time I’m done, we will be near sundown and looking for a camping spot. And thank you for helping her.”

  Adeline swallowed, but then nodded. “I don’t give you enough credit, Emil. I’m sorry I said anything.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Days passed and became weeks that all melted into another and another as the Martel clan continued to slowly tack its way through Romania, southwest to Brasov to skirt more mountainous terrain and then northwest on a steep and winding route toward and through the town of Sighisoara. The ground war had faded behind them for the moment, though Soviet bombers were a frequent threat as they tried to destroy the Romanian bridges and exit routes available to the Germans.

  Spring had fought winter and won by the time they reached central Romania. In the valleys, the leaves were out, lime-colored and shimmering on warm breezes. And the snowpack in the Carpathian Mountains to the south was in full retreat. High and low and on both sides of the route, wildflowers bloomed in disarrayed carpets of scarlet, canary, and violet. They filled the air with sweet, intoxicating scents that could trick the mind into believing there was no such thing as war, no such thing as hatred between men or countries or religions.

  They came over a rise south of Targu Mures to find a beautiful new vista breaking before them, a verdant dale with gentle, forested slopes and lush meadows of wildflowers and grass.

  “Is this the beautiful green valley, Mama?” Will asked.

  “Not yet,” Adeline said, “but it is beautiful.”

  “Oh,” Will said, sounding discouraged.

  Adeline tousled his hair and said, “This is the beautiful green valley where you get to live today, Will. So be happy and thankful for it.”

  Glancing at his younger son and seeing him break into a grin, Emil smiled and felt good inside for a change. For more than two weeks, he had seen neither Major Haussmann nor Nikolas. As the roads westward became choked with retreating traffic, the SS had been diverting different parts of the caravan, sending them on multiple routes west. The two men could be gone from his life forever. And good riddance.

  After another week of hard travel, they were passing through the city of Cluj-Napoca, and Emil was starting to feel hopeful that at long last their luck had changed for the better. In Cluj, the trek was divided yet again, with some refugees directed north to the train station in the city of Dej and others westward. On a hot afternoon, some six days after that division, the Martels entered Oradea, a city in chaos.

  Oradea bordered Hungary. Even though Germany, Hungary, and Romania remained Axis partners in the last days of April 1944, there was intense competition for train and road space. When they arrived, a full Wehrmacht division had just come off the most recent train and was trying to move east. Foot soldiers, lorries, and artillery clogged the medieval streets of the city, which had been heavily bombed recently.

  The Martels and the rest of the trek inched forward and through the knots of traffic until, hours later, they reached a small plaza in front of the rail station, which was choked with wagons and horses and many Black Sea Germans who looked distraught. Several of the women were hugging their horses and crying, and Emil could not figure out why. A loudspeaker blared.

  Emil recognized the voice and felt sickened. He did not have to see Major Haussmann to know it was him.

  “You will proceed by train from here to Budapest, where you will find shelter until your next train north to Silesia,” Haussmann said. “Your wagons cannot come on this train. It does not have enough flatbed room. Your horses cannot come, either. The Wehrmacht is taking them as payment for your safety. You will be allowed on the train with what you can pull or push or carry by yourselves and no more. Repeat: whatever you can carry or pull or push by yourselves and no more. You have two hours to gather your necessaries and board the train.”

  Not hearing Adeline’s complaints and worries, Emil stared at his horses, already feeling the loss of their calming, dependable presence. He loved horses, especially that pair; how much heart they had. Images of their efforts rippled through his mind, none stronger than when Thor and Oden had galloped for him through the tank battle that first day of the trek, fearless, courageous, as if they had been veteran warhorses familiar with the roar of cannons and the destruction of explosions.

  “Emil!” Adeline said sharply.

  He frowned and looked over to see tears dripping down his wife’s face.

  “What do we bring?” she asked. “How much can we carry? What did we bring all this so far for, anyway?” She flung herself into his arms and sobbed. “They want us down to nothing, Emil, people with no pasts!”

  Emil held his wife as she trembled and shook, feeling as helpless as she did.

  “No, Mama,” Walt said, rubbing her back. “We can take more than we can carry. We can use the little wagon. Remember?”

  “It holds a lot,” Will said.

  Up to that point, Emil had regretted taking the little wagon with them. He’d had to unlash it from the big wagon’s back wall every night and then relash it in place every morning before they set off. Now? The toy he’d built for the boys’ Christmas present was the most useful thing they had left.

  Even so, being Emil, he decided to modify it before they set off. Up front, he left the wooden handle in place but used his saw to cut pieces out of the side of the bigger wagon and removed its corner brackets, which he used to fashion into a push bar at the rear of the little wagon.

  He removed the oilskin bonnet from the big wagon and cut a rectangular piece out of it, using the piece to wrap his tools, which went in the forward bottom of the little wagon. Adeline set aside a skillet, a deep pan for boiling water, two bread tins, two large bowls, four small bowls, five spoons, and all six of her kitchen knives.

  Emil cut off two more sections of the bonnet and wrapped the cutlery in one and the cooking utensils in the other. Those went on top of the tools. Food and dry goods, along with bedding and the few extra clothes they owned, went on top and forward in the little wagon.

  He gave the rear space to Adeline’s mother and sister. When they were done putting their things in, he laid several coils of rope on top, and then tied down the rest of the oiled canvas as a cover. On one side, he hung the large water bag they’d been using since Friedenstal. He tied the well pail beside the water bag while Adeline rummaged around in the back of the big wagon, looting as a sailor might a sinking ship. Emil had stopped searching for treasures. He already considered what was left in the bigger wagon cast to the wind, open game for wolves and vultures.

  That’s how it always was and always will be, he thought a little bitterly. We come in with nothing, and we go out with nothing.

  Adeline brought out an envelope that held their wedding picture and a few other photos. He smiled when she showed him.

  “We were so young,” he said.r />
  “Weren’t we? And innocent.”

  “And look at us,” Emil said. “Still in love.”

  Adeline gazed at him with watery eyes and nodded.

  German soldiers appeared. One of them started to untie his horses’ leads.

  “Whoa,” Emil said. “Hold on a second.”

  The soldier glared at him. Emil ignored him, went around to the front of the animals and lowered his head between them, feeling their warm breath on his ears and how good it was to be near them, such magical creatures.

  “Thank you, both,” he whispered. “You saved us. We will never forget you.”

  “Raus!” the soldier barked in annoyance. Hurry up!

  “Okay, okay,” Emil said, and stood back.

  The soldier took the leads. Emil patted Thor on the shoulder. Walt, Will, and Adeline stroked Oden’s flanks as the pair began to walk after the soldier. Too quickly, the horses, the big wagon, and the rest of their belongings were gone.

  The Martels all stood there in the daze of yet another catastrophic loss.

  Emil made peace with it first. “Adeline and Malia are on the push bar. I am pulling the handle. I want Will on the left side of the cart and Walt on the right. Oma Lydia follows. Get in position!”

  Emil looked over at his father, who had brought along a small cart that was used in their farmyard. Johann was at the push bar with Karoline and Rese pulling on the handle.

  They moved slowly toward the waiting train and the crowd trying to find refuge on it. Others had small carts or wagons like themselves. The less fortunate had crafted packs from their wagon covers and staggered forward under impossibly heavy loads. Too many went to the train with nothing but the ragged clothes on their backs.

  Emil led them away from those in the crowd fighting to be in the freight cars closest to the engine. They went instead to the far rear of the train. The last car’s doors were slid back, and it was fairly empty yet. They used ropes and brute strength to hoist the loaded carts into the hold, which smelled of straw and unbathed humans. Then they lashed the two carts together and to the wooden wall in the rear corner of the boxcar.