by Kelly Rimmer
I’d lost track of the stops and starts of the truck’s journey, so I was startled when it came to a stop, and then I heard footsteps in the tray and cartons shifting around, but no conversation. Saul and I both tensed as the steps came near to us, neither one of us relaxing even as Jakub called quietly, “Are you two okay in there? We are at the Don River, but we have to hurry—I am running late to the command center to deliver the last of the supplies.”
He helped us out onto unsteady feet, then lifted us both onto the ground because our limbs were too stiff to climb down. Finally, Jakub passed us the suitcase, and then he started shifting boxes around. It took me a moment to realize that he was trying to get the crate we’d traveled in out from behind the load of supplies.
“What are you doing?” I gasped.
He glanced at me, confused.
“I need to dispose of the crate and make the last delivery.”
“Dispose of the crate?”
“I can’t take it into the command center with me,” he explained quietly. “If someone tries to unload it, they’ll soon realize it’s not what it looks like. I’d be done for.”
“But you used it once before. With the other courier.”
“The front was much closer to home back then and a resistance unit hid the crate for me until I made the return journey. We’re well into what used to be Soviet territory here—I just don’t know anyone to hide it for me.”
“But...there are so many who need your help. So many who—”
“I’m not much good to them dead, am I?” Jakub interrupted me, but not unkindly. “I built it once, I can build it again. You best be making your way to the river. I don’t know what time your boat is coming. Do you have some food left?”
“Some,” I whispered, but I was reluctant to drop the issue of the crate so quickly. “Maybe you could leave it here—”
“Take these,” Jakub said, and he tossed me a handful of carrots. I didn’t catch them—instead, they scattered around my feet, and I scrambled to collect them. “Try to convince your friend to eat some too. He looks like he’s going to need the sustenance if you two are going to walk soon.”
“But...”
Jakub nodded toward the woods.
“You ready for this?” he asked me quietly. “Things are still going to be tough from here, you know.”
We both looked to Saul, who had slumped against a tree. It was dawn again—we’d been inside the crate for an entire day—and my companion looked no more lucid after the long stint inside the truck. He was slight, but so was I—there was simply no way I could physically carry him if he stopped walking, nor would I leave him behind. I’d made Tomasz a promise and I intended to fulfil it.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
Jakub’s gaze was sympathetic.
“Get moving, girl. And good luck.” Jakub waved toward Saul, who raised his hand in return.
“Thank you,” I whispered numbly. I picked up the suitcase and walked stiffly across to Saul. Behind me, I heard the sound of the crate crashing to the ground, and then the splintering crashes as Jakub destroyed it. Tears filled my eyes, but I couldn’t let myself look back. Instead, I slid my hand into Saul’s arm, and led him into the tree line, then helped him to sit on the ground. He slumped forward, elbow on his knee, palm over his eyes.
I hastily threw away the jam jars containing our waste, and then withdrew the last of our biscuits and dried bread, and what little water we had left.
“You need to eat again,” I murmured.
Saul opened his eyes. It was as if he’d emerged from a deep, god-awful sleep and was, at last, conscious again.
“Alina,” he said suddenly.
“Yes?” I said, startled by the unexpected speech.
He inclined his head toward me, and he said softly, “Thank you.”
* * *
I’d feared the river crossing would be an ordeal, but we simply boarded a little boat with a gruff old farmer and were rowed across to the other side—no drama, no tension, no struggle. We were some miles to the west of the front, so while we could hear shelling in the distance, it was certainly no threat to us. If anything, the crossing was a moment of pleasant peace after the most stressful twenty-four hours of my life. When the boat stopped at the other side, the farmer nodded toward the riverbank. He didn’t speak Polish, and neither Saul nor I knew his language, but we murmured our thanks anyway then moved to climb out of the boat. This seemed to inspire an almost violent reaction in the farmer, who blocked our way with an oar and started pointing to the suitcase.
“I think he wants money,” Saul whispered.
I reached deep under my clothes, fumbled with the bag and withdrew some coins, then offered my palm to the farmer, who scooped them all up with a frown and grunted at us. I had no idea how much I’d given him—nor how much I had left—but he was no longer waving the oar at us, so we were free to go.
I helped Saul down onto the riverbank, and then I stepped down myself. As my feet hit Soviet soil, I stopped and drew a deep breath into my lungs. If Tomasz were with me, I’d have grabbed him right then and I’d have kissed him full on the lips. Then I’d have told him all of the thoughts as they raced through my head—how much sweeter the air tasted here, how amazing it was to be alive and to have made it this far, how much closer we were to the life we’d dreamed about. Instead, though, I had Saul—who ambled up to the top of the bank, then glanced back at me questioningly. All I could do was make a note of my thoughts. I promised myself that one day I’d tell Tomasz every single thing about that moment. Until then, I had to carry on.
“Come on, Saul,” I murmured, as I climbed up the riverbank to stand beside him. “We’re not there yet, but we’re much closer than we were.”
“How many miles?” he asked me.
“I don’t even know,” I admitted. “But I know it’s to the east, and it’s not far.” I offered him my arm. Saul leaned on me just for a moment, then he seemed to lift himself to his full height, and he shook himself.
“Enough,” he murmured. “It is time to carry on.”
And after that, he walked all the way to the township. We had to stop a few times so he could rest, but he made it the whole way without much help at all.
* * *
We had to wait a full day for the train that would take us toward Buzuluk, and there was nowhere for us to go in the meantime, so we slept on the platform—Saul and I crammed ourselves into a tiny alcove near some bathrooms and we protected the suitcase and our meager food with our bodies while we slept. Despite the hordes of hungry Polish souls around us waiting for the same train, despite the concrete behind us and the cool breeze that never really stopped all night, I actually slept so well that when I woke the next morning I thought the entire trip had been a dream.
I left Saul to find a bathroom, and while I was gone happened upon a local woman who was selling dried bread to the refugees. I handed over more coins—again no concept of how much or how little I’d given her—and when I returned to Saul I was carrying not one but two entire loaves hidden beneath my coat. I was worried for a while that I’d purchased too much and it would go to waste—but in the end, that bread likely saved our lives.
The train was a walk in the park for me after the darkness of the truck, despite the fact that Saul and I were sharing a cattle car with several dozen strangers in various states of health and cleanliness. There wasn’t even enough room for all of us to sit at the same time, so by silent agreement, we passengers took it in turns, standing on our exhausted feet for hours at a time to free up some space for others to rest.
I thought I’d had it tough during the war—but these people had clearly suffered in ways I couldn’t even imagine. The woman next to me—sitting all but on top of me—was covered in weeping sores and I could see the lice crawling through the matted lengths of her hair. Every now and again she’d start sobbi
ng, and then just as abruptly, she’d stop and close her eyes and lean limply into me, as if she’d passed out. The man traveling with her was every bit as thin as Saul, but his skin had taken on a luminescent yellow tinge. There were children on the train who were too traumatized to even cry—they’d just sit in silence—and some of them were even traveling alone. There was no toilet—so people were relieving themselves through a hole in the floor of the train, and I realized some of the sick people couldn’t wait their turn when a suspiciously rank slurry started to roll around the floor.
I had the suitcase with me, and I nursed it most of the time—too afraid to spoil the food by setting it on the floor and having it contaminated with the waste. I was also too scared to open it inside the train in case we were overwhelmed by the hungry crowd. Instead, I’d crack the lid a little, push one hand inside awkwardly, and rummage around inside. By doing this, I sneaked small chunks of bread to Saul when I thought no one was looking. I’d eat myself by pretending to scratch my nose with my cast-wrapped right hand, and sliding my left hand and the food beneath it to my mouth. Within a day of leaving the station, Saul and I had seen enough to know that if we dared to sleep at the same time, someone would steal the suitcase. After that, we slept in short shifts—if you could call it sleep, given the almost-impossible physical discomfort we were both in.
But as god-awful as all of that was, for me it was still preferable to the cavity of the truck—the cool breezes and light that crept in through the cracks on the cattle car walls made all the difference. Those hints of daylight were actually glimpses of something even more precious—I could see freedom through the cracks of the wall of that cattle cart, as ever so slowly, it dawned upon me that I was actually out of occupied Poland. Although I was a long way from safe and a long way from settled, I was finally free from the Nazis.
As that realization started to solidify, a heaviness lifted from my chest. It was the dawning of something I’d been missing for years by that stage; the expectation that I was going to survive. As that train ambled forward, I became quite sure that everything was going to be just fine—because if Saul and I could make it that far, then of course Tomasz would. If all that we had left in the world was each other at the end of this journey, that was more than enough for me to look forward to.
To most of the people trapped within that train carriage full of sickness and death and stench, the moment surely would have been a low point in their lives—but to me, I felt like I’d stumbled upon the very beginning of the future I’d dreamed about.
* * *
The journey to Buzuluk took two full weeks. The train stopped periodically, but there was rarely food available, and when there was, those poor starved creatures we were traveling with would descend on it like animals. Saul and I managed to make the loaves of bread last for the entire journey—only on the last day did we entirely run out of food. We were lucky. Several people from our cart died, and on those infrequent stops, the train attendants simply dumped their bodies in fields by the side of the tracks.
When the attendant walked past and rolled the doors open and announced that we were at Buzuluk, Saul and I turned to one another and shared a delighted, surprised smile—as if to say, We’re alive. Can you believe it? He’d grown stronger over the journey, rather than weaker like most of our traveling companions, and as we stepped off the platform at Buzuluk, Saul actually led the way. He was devastated, of course, but becoming strong enough to put one foot in front of the other and move under his own steam.
We stopped in Buzuluk and visited some stores before we made the walk to the camp. Our clothes were disgusting, so we replaced them with the cheapest and warmest we could find. All that I kept was my coat, and I told Saul this was because “it wasn’t too smelly,” but the truth was, Mama’s ring was still in the hem. We bought still more dried bread and some biscuits. We were hopeful that once we arrived at the camp, we’d be fed real food, but we couldn’t be sure so we wanted to be prepared.
“Well,” he said quietly, as we followed the last stragglers from the crowd on the train toward the army camp. “What do you think is ahead of us next?”
“Hopefully,” I said, “a nice bed with a blanket. Somewhere to lie down and actually stretch out. And food—oh, hot food. Imagine that!”
We laughed together, optimistic about the camp we expected to be welcomed into. It was only when the crowd’s progress began to slow, and then stopped altogether that we realized there was a problem. Soon, soldiers began walking along the line, talking to people, and we saw most of the people ahead of us in the line turning back to walk toward the station, cursing and shaking their heads.
“What is it?” Saul asked the soldier, as he neared us.
“The camp is full,” he said. “The Soviets say we only need 30,000 soldiers—we have over 70,000 people already. There’s nothing here for you. You will have to return to where you came from.”
“But we need to wait at this camp. We are meeting British soldiers here when they bring a shipment of uniforms. We can’t go back.”
Frankly, the suggestion that anyone return to that train was ludicrous—it was pointing people to their deaths, plain and simple. Aside from the exposure to disease, no one who was lucky enough to have food for the journey would have had enough to survive the return. The soldier shrugged at us and moved to walk on.
“No,” I said flatly, and I reached out to take hold of the soldier’s arm. “I mean it. We are meeting the British here—we will not go back.”
“Alina...” Saul said very quietly, and he touched my arm to console me.
“I have not come this far to be turned away now,” I whispered fiercely to Saul. “And neither have you.”
The soldier looked me up and down—the irritation in his gaze giving way to something I liked even less. The sudden flare of interest in his eyes reminded me of how sick I’d felt standing exposed in the strawberry patch that day, right at the start of the war. This time, though, the soldier leering at me was standing right beside me and my hand was on his arm. I dropped my hand hastily and stepped back toward Saul a little, as if he could protect me.
“I could perhaps be persuaded to make an exception for a lovely girl like you,” the soldier said, leaning down until his face was very close to mine, and I could smell coffee on his breath. I battled hard against the urge to show my revulsion or lean away, and I went weak at the knees with relief when he stood to his full height, until he added firmly, “But just for you. Not your boyfriend.”
“No!” I exclaimed, shaking my head frantically. “He has to come with me. He has to.” The line around us had all but dissolved—even those who were intending to stay and hope for the best had shuffled away from me—scared, no doubt, that the guard was about to shoot me. All that I knew was that my future lay beyond the camp. I had to get inside, and I had promised Tomasz so I had to take Saul with me. I started to beg. “He’s a doctor. I’m sure you could use doctors in the camp if it’s full, especially if the people inside are as sick as everyone here seems to be.”
“We have doctors,” he said, then he tilted his chin at me. “What else do you have, beautiful?”
“Food?”
“Try again.”
I was getting a pretty clear idea what the soldier might want from me, and it was making me physically ill—my empty stomach threatening to try to empty itself even more. We’d used most of our rubles by then, so all I really had to offer the soldier was some coins, and I’d figured out they weren’t actually worth very much. I had to think of something, because I wasn’t going anywhere but through those gates.
“I have some coins,” I offered, and I rummaged around in my pocket and withdrew what was left.
“Please,” he scoffed. “Don’t insult me. That’s crumbs.”
“Gold,” I said heavily. I sighed, then said it again. “I have gold.”
“Gold?” he said incredulously, and beside
me, I saw Saul raise his eyebrows. I fumbled in the bottom of my coat for the lump, then raised the hem. The soldier continued to stare at me blankly, so I reached for his hand and held it against the lump. “See? It’s a ring. Solid gold. If you lend me your pocketknife, I’ll give it to you. Surely that’s enough to encourage you to let my friend come in with me.”
“Let me cut it,” the soldier said abruptly, and then the next thing I knew, he’d taken a knife from his pocket and had sliced the length of the seam. The ring fell out into my waiting hands, and I was trembling as I offered it to him. The soldier snatched it up into his hand and hid it quickly in his pocket. “Do you have Polish identity papers? No one gets in without them, you know. I can’t do anything about that.”
“We do,” I said. “Both of us.”
“Real ones?”
“Of course,” I said, as if he’d offended me. Then I held my breath, but it escaped as a hiccup when he turned to walk away from us.