“Papa, do they hurt the elephants to get the ivory? How do they survive without their tusks?” Galina looked up from an open box filled with family memorabilia.
“No, dochenka, they harvest the tusks after the elephants die, or if they break them fighting with other males.”
Galina nodded but thought, How can you be sure? “Can you fit these pictures into your box? There’s your wedding photo, and Maksim, and you and me and Mama. And this—I really love these views.” She handed him some photographs and a packet of souvenir postcards: Yalta, the Gem of the Black Sea.
They repacked their remaining things, making sure the identifying tags were clearly visible, then carried everything to the open area on the platform designated for luggage. The soldier on duty tossed their cases and baskets onto the growing pile, and shooed them away. “Your train leaves in an hour. Be ready,” he growled.
Ready? Ready for what? Filip wondered. He was tired of this nomadic existence, his movements dictated by people who had not the slightest knowledge or interest in who he was or what he wanted, what he was capable of. He was ready to begin his own life, but when?
About midafternoon, the train pulled in. There were dark clouds in a sky the color of ashes. It snowed a little. Soldiers and civilians spilled out of dented passenger cars; the civilians formed into a mute line, waiting to have their papers checked and stamped. More soldiers appeared to unload the cargo wagons. The refugees watched them load large wooden crates marked with stenciled numerical codes onto waiting trucks and military vehicles. It all happened quickly, the men moving with grace and precision in virtual silence, like a latter-day ballet in combat boots.
“What do you think is inside?” Galina leaned heavily against Filip, tucking her hand under his arm. “Could it be food?” Last night’s feast now seemed a distant memory. As if responding to her question, the baby tumbled inside her in a vigorous somersault. She bit her lip to keep from crying out.
“If so, it’s not for us,” he replied casually, not looking at her. “More likely ammunition or medical supplies or wine for the officers’ table.” He glanced at her then. “You look pale. Do you want to sit down?”
“I want a cup of tea, with sugar.” She sighed.
Filip grunted at the impossibility of satisfying her yearning; she may as well have asked for claret with strawberries. But Ilya heard. He moved off quietly and soon returned, his hand covering a thick porcelain mug to keep the contents warm. “Drink it quickly, dorogaya, my dear. I left a deposit for the cup.” There was no sugar, but the weak brew was colored with a little milk, which tempered its bitterness, and she gratefully swallowed it.
A junior officer appeared, spoke a few words to the now idle soldiers, then turned to the mass of refugees. “You will now board the train,” he commanded. “All of you.” People looked at one another in confusion: My ticket is for Frankfurt . . . Hamburg . . . Berlin—how can one train go in all directions at once? “There has been a change of plan. Forget your tickets. You will all go to Plattling. Now schnell, hurry. Everyone on board. One parcel per person.”
The soldiers moved to surround them, herding the throng past the passenger cars behind the steaming locomotive, toward the line of cargo wagons at the back of the train. “Not without Papa!” Galina shouted. She rose on her toes, craning her neck to find Ilya, who had gone to reclaim his deposit for the empty cup. “Mama, help me; we have to wait for him!” She clutched at Ksenia with one hand and held on to Filip with the other; together they formed a hard knot, struggling to hold their ground against the crowd surging and shoving all around.
“Not without Papa,” she repeated, speaking directly into the face of a young soldier with short blond hair and a smooth chin. Their eyes locked. He was almost a schoolboy, surely still in his teens; she saw innocence there, and met it with her obstinate passion. The boy moved on, pressing the side of his rifle against a group of people bunched to their left.
By the time Ilya returned, most of the wagons were filled. The remaining crowd pressed toward the last one, a real passenger car, third class, with windows, benches along the walls, and doors at either end that opened out to a narrow railed platform. “No one sits! Children can stand on the benches. Schnell, schnell, everyone inside.” The soldiers prodded at the backs of the heaving crowd, their shouts fueling the general panic.
Filip pushed forward using his suitcase as a wedge to maneuver through the crowd; the others followed closely in his wake. “You! That suitcase is too large. Give it to me.” But Filip was already at the train, shoving the bag through the open window, where cooperative hands received it and passed it into the interior. “Russische Idioten,” the guard mumbled. “I’ll be glad when you’re all gone.” Filip did not hear. He was working his way to the door, pulling Galina by the hand. Her scarf came loose, fluttered briefly above their heads, and fell to the ground, but he would not let her stoop to pick it up.
“It’s the last car,” he said urgently. “Stay with me, all of you.” And then they were inside.
People tried to arrange themselves as best they could, but there were too many. Children wailed. Windows were quickly closed against the evening cold, and just as quickly reopened to let in some air. Packed one against the other, clutching their belongings, everyone grew quiet.
Still the train did not move. On the platform, the last of the refugees stood in a loose crowd. There was no more room, all the cars were packed beyond capacity. What would happen to them?
Then shouts: “All you men over here. Put your luggage down.” The group of twenty or so men and boys disappeared around the side of the station. The women, left behind, stood in stunned silence, holding children by the hand. What now? What new indignity?
It was getting dark. Light snow was coating the heaped luggage with a sheen that glowed dimly in the pools of pale yellow light from the evenly spaced lampposts. Inside the wagon, it grew increasingly close, the air stale with unwashed skin and clothing, people pressed in so tightly that some slept, with no fear of falling down, their bundles and cases held firmly between their feet. “I can’t breathe.” Galina’s face was drained of all color, her temples beaded with sweat. “Please . . .” She took large, yawning breaths. Her body trembled with a numbing fatigue. Unexpected tears trickled down her cheeks. Spots of light danced and flickered before her eyes.
“She needs air. Get her to the door, Filip,” Ksenia instructed. “Nice people, please, let her through.” Bit by bit, one tiny shuffling step at a time, Filip guided his wife toward the door at the back of the car. Some resisted, but most people tried to push even closer together in a slow undulation that gradually propelled the young couple to the edge of the throng.
Filip yanked at the door handle. I could get shot for this. The thought flitted across his mind, followed by another: I could get shot for anything. On the third try, with the effort of several hands, the door opened a crack.
Galina leaned her head against the door frame and let the air revive her, feeling the weakness ebb with every bracing gust. “Look,” she said, peering through the crack to the outside.
Around a curve, the men and boys were returning, pushing a dusty-looking boxcar before them, its wheels creaking and grinding on the frigid tracks. Others had spotted the approaching wagon through the windows, giving rise to a chorus of speculation. “They really want us out of here.” “We’re already hours late.” “You know the Germans and their schedules; lateness is a deadly sin.”
A guard watched a few of the men hook the boxcar onto the end of the train. “This hitch is rusty,” Galina heard one man say. “Molchi,” another growled. “Keep your mouth shut, or we’ll be blamed for that, too.”
Filip edged closer to the door, his voice a hoarse whisper. “What’s the delay? We’ve been on this train for hours.”
“Allied bombing to the west, I heard. Some track destroyed, fewer trains coming in. But they really want us gone. That’s why we get to ride in this antique.” The man outside inclined his head toward the
now waiting boxcar.
“Must be why we’re headed south, to Plattling,” Filip mused. “Out of easy bomber range. The planes can’t get there and back without refueling, maybe.”
The boxcar filled up quickly, the last of the day’s transport crammed into its windowless depths within minutes. Behind the mountain of luggage, new crowds of refugees were beginning to gather and mill about. Exactly like us, Filip observed. How many among them ready for a new life, now that returning to the old one was no longer possible? How many impatient to lead or even follow, using their abilities to transform a changing world, to heal the wounds inflicted by this endless war? How many artists, builders, writers, visionaries, scientists, who could have begun to make their contribution here, in this city, now, instead of being shunted to yet another place, guessing at a precarious future, their longing for stability once again postponed? His longing, his impatience to do something, to make a mark.
Instead, here they were on this train, again going who knows where to suffer whatever fresh travails were sure to be waiting there. The only certainty was the imminent birth of his and Galina’s child, a thought that filled him with equal parts curiosity, bewilderment, and despair.
At least the train was moving now, after a long, deep tremor that rippled from car to car along its entire length, clouds of steam hissing in the night air, pluming backward as the engine pulled the train out of Dresden station.
The station clock read 10:10, Filip noted as they rolled by. He pulled the door open wider, stepped out onto the car’s narrow platform, turning to help Galina follow. She leaned into the railing, holding on with one hand while pushing the hair out of her eyes with the other. “I wish I hadn’t lost my scarf. Who knows when I’ll get another.”
“We’ll find you a scarf. Germany is full of scarves.”
“Just make sure it’s blue, or has blue in it.” She smiled.
But Filip was not smiling. He stared, open-mouthed, at the dark cloud-filled sky. “Hush,” he said, as if any noise they could make would matter. “Bombers.” He grasped her arm firmly and pulled her back against the wagon.
Then she heard the engines, and those inside the wagon heard, too, shouting in useless fearful commotion. Whatever happened, there was nowhere to go. The airplanes descended in a sweeping arc and began raining green flares onto the city, followed by the white flash of incendiary bombs, which burst everywhere into seething balls of blinding flame.
“Filip, the station! The railroad station is on fire! Bozhe moi, my God! All those people!” Galina screamed, her eyes wild with the horror of it.
“Hold on to the railing,” Filip yelled in her ear. “I’ll try to get us back inside the car.” He tugged at the door with frantic urgency, but the crush of bodies against it was too great. It would not budge.
Absurdly, with an incongruity born of panic, his mind conjured an image of the chocolate bonbon rolling on Musa’s tablecloth. I should have eaten it. It was a random, unbidden thought, baffling in its stupidity. He moved his head from side to side, as if to shake the nonsense out and return to the madness of reality.
The train picked up velocity, leaning into the incline leading out of the city as the next wave of bombers appeared in the west. With a sickening piercing metallic groan, the rusty hitch holding the boxcar onto the end of the train gave way. “Ai, ai, no, no!” Galina sobbed, letting go of the railing, reaching out as if to pull the loose car back with her own hands. From behind, Filip grasped her by the shoulders and held her tight against himself, while the train sped swaying into the night and the boxcar packed with desperate people rolled back into the flaming station, their screams rising like a lurid operatic chorus between the circling planes discharging their cargo of death and the infernal scene below.
“The animals . . . the zoo,” Galina whispered. “Who will unchain the elephants?”
8
NO ONE SPOKE about Dresden. Not one person mentioned the things they had lost, though each still clearly saw the mountain of luggage consumed by flames, and pictured the ashes of their belongings fanning out over the ruined city, everything only so recently held to be precious or necessary to life now rendered frivolous, the remnants buried like ancient artifacts under the rubble of the train station.
Who could imagine the mayhem, people incinerated in their beds, or running, hair and clothing ablaze, while buildings crumbled like broken toys, the insatiable inferno engulfing everything in a wall of flame, sucking the air out of cellars, leaving those who sheltered there to die of suffocation? From the train now headed for undisclosed reasons to Plattling, they saw other fires along the way, burning in the distance, each a marker of death and destruction.
Dawn came slowly, a thin pearly light penetrating the edges of the eastern sky. Filip and Galina, now back inside the wagon with the others, watched the night lift away; a cold, mirthless sun pierced the shifting clouds. Villages half-concealed in swirls of soot and smoke flashed by the windows. People moved in the landscape as if under water, their gestures and poses arrested in gruesome tableaux by the motion of the train: several children huddled under a leafless tree near a farmhouse reduced to its doorframe and chimney, a bull, hindquarters crushed and bleeding, lowing in useless rage. Now and then, a house went by intact, as if protected by an unseen hand in a random act of mercy.
The morning of the third day, the train stopped within view of a demolished farmhouse. The refugees were, for the most part, alive. In the crush of bodies packed into the wagons, the dead could not fall down; their numbers would not be known until the doors were opened and people began to descend to the ground. Ahead, near the front of the train, rows of men were being marched forward to clear what looked like an obstruction on the tracks.
Filip was the last left on board. Squatting to tie his shoelace, he heard two guards from the other cars join the one standing at the steps. “How many dead?” one asked, his tone expressionless, as if inquiring about the weather.
“Three. No, four.”
“Six in mine. I have the cattle car. One of them a boy, maybe ten years old. My son’s age.”
“Old enough to throw a grenade. Don’t get soft, Corporal.”
“What’s their status? Any new orders?” The corporal stamped his feet. “Damn, it’s cold.”
“No orders. They’re not DPs yet, just refugees with no camp assignment. The war’s not over; we’re still in charge. They’ll want to keep the men separate, under closer guard so they don’t join the Reds. But it’s not our problem. We only have to get them to Plattling.” Filip heard the officer pull on his cigarette, inhaled with longing the aromatic smoke drifting through the open door.
So that’s it, he thought. DPs. Displaced persons. That’s who we are now, or nearly. But under whose protection? Eavesdropping would get him killed, whether they knew he understood or not.
“Have them bring all the dead over here,” the officer said, and the group moved off.
Filip waited to be sure, then stretched his muscles and slipped off the train just as a half dozen men were being deployed, under guard, to find anything suitable for a latrine. They came back with animal feeding troughs, bits of straw sticking out of the cracks between the weathered boards.
“Ja,” the ranking officer nodded. “This will do. Good enough. We have no time to dig trenches.” Although time, it seemed to everyone, was one thing of which they had more than enough.
“What’s that? Pig troughs? Perfect,” another added.
“Now,” the commander resumed. “Men here, women over there. Do your business, and be quick.”
No one moved. As soon as their feet hit the ground, they had all stooped to scoop handfuls of snow, shoving it in their mouths to slake the thirst more unbearable than hunger. Some had used snow to wash their faces, smearing the grime and soot over parched yellow skin, wiping away the frost with their coat sleeves. Now, they stood shivering, exchanging puzzled, bewildered glances. Even in the worst of the labor camps, there had been real latrines, however primiti
ve. This was too degrading to believe.
“What? You think I can’t smell you? You couldn’t wait. Now get to it, like the animals you are.”
Slowly, the people moved toward the troughs, the men standing shoulder to shoulder, pissing like schoolboys, urine oozing through the cracks, staining the snow in bright patches that steamed briefly, then rapidly froze.
The women shielded each other with their coats and skirts, taking turns a few at a time until the officer shouted, “Faster! Schnell! We can’t be here all day.”
Ksenia spoke up then, mixing Russian words with her poor German. She faced the officer squarely. “We are not animals. We are women. Look, the ones who are finished can cover the others. Soon all will be done.”
“What do you think this is? Intermission at the Bolshoi Ballet?” He shoved her in the shoulder with the butt of his pistol. She staggered but did not fall. “Who told you you could talk to me?”
Ilya came to stand next to his wife. “Are we prisoners, then? We came to Dresden on our own. We paid for our tickets with our own money.”
“Your own money. Ha! Look, grandpa, as long as you wear this”—he poked a gloved finger, hard, at what remained of the OST patch on Ilya’s lapel, a fraying shadow outlined with a few loose threads—“you are guests in my country, and you will do what I say.” He waved an arm at the pile of corpses near the tracks. “You see those? It would cost me nothing—nothing—to add you and your Frau to their number.” He pushed them together so their heads lined up, one behind the other. “One bullet.”
Galina saw her parents’ hands grope instinctively for one another and clasp each other behind the folds of their coats. A tremor rippled across her father’s face; her mother stood pale, stony-faced, revealing nothing. Galina broke away from the milling crowd, brushed off Filip’s restraining hand. “No!” she screamed. “Mama, Papa! No!”
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