The Children's War

by Stroyar, J. N.

  Zosia fingered her pendant. “Herr Hauptmann, I think that the investigation has run into a cul-de-sac. You are clearly an excellent interrogator and no real criminal could have withstood your efforts; therefore, I think we should assume that the boy really is innocent. Certainly he would not dare to deceive an investigator of your caliber for this length of time. So, perhaps the best option at this point would be to release the prisoner into my custody. I will personally guarantee that he will be kept under close guard. Then, he can be picked up whenever there is new evidence or whenever the investigation is to be continued. I’m sure mein Herr has our home address. We will be there, at your convenience.”

  The captain stared at her silently for a moment. His lips twitched, he glanced nervously back toward the room and his prize.

  “And I will be sure to mention your wonderful professionalism to my uncle when I am back in Berlin,” Zosia added winningly.

  The captain sighed heavily. “Fine. I’ll release him into your custody.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Zosia crooned in reply. “I am in your debt.” Later that day the captain would nearly choke upon learning that Herr Móller’s wife was a nobody. He decided the best course of action to cover his humiliation was to never mention the incident and never pursue the matter further.

  30

  AFTER THE POLICE had left, Zosia got Peter some water to drink, and then tenderly she washed his face. They said little, still aware of their surroundings. When the major returned, he suggested that they be provided with a car and driver to take them back to their home, but Zosia insisted that that would be far too much trouble. No, a ride to the train station and a military pass to get them intercity tickets without the usual delays would suffice.

  A car and driver were provided for their trip into Hamburg. Zosia sat in the back of the car, Peter in front, with the driver. He rode unconstrained—even the military did not follow the rules about transit with the same zealousness as Karl. They rode in complete silence through a cold, driving rain. Peter’s thoughts returned to the interrogation. He had not allowed himself to analyze his feelings at the time, but now, he found himself wondering at his reactions.

  Always before when he had been in a dangerous situation, his entire being had been intent on survival. This time, though, his thoughts about what might happen to himself had been almost marginal. Instead he had found himself thinking about Zosia. He had wanted her to leave with Tadek, or instead of Tadek. He had been desperate to get her out of danger—enough so that he had wanted to provoke them, had even considered confessing to the alleged crime,just so they would take him away and leave her alone. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be with her, for he did. And it wasn’t that he no longer cared about his own life; it just suddenly was not as important as knowing that Zosia was safe. He had never felt so strongly about anyone—not even Allie. How could that be? The intensity of his feelings terrified him.

  The car pulled up to the station, and he jumped out to open the door for Zosia. As she wrapped her coat more tightly around herself, he removed the bags from the back. They headed into the station without exchanging a word. The pass provided by the major allowed Zosia to requisition a one-way ticket to Berlin for travel that day. Peter waited with the luggage near the door as Zosia went into the ticket office with their documentation. When she returned, they passed through the gates and out onto the platform. It was cold out under the great roof of the station, and the next train to Berlin was not leaving for nearly an hour, so aside from a few patrols pacing back and forth, they were nearly alone. They stood a discreet distance apart, Zosia staring off into space so that he was only in her peripheral vision, Peter standing with an attitude of attentive deference, staring downward at the luggage as though guarding it.

  He spoke softly, without looking up. “I want to thank you for what you did back there. You risked your life to save mine. I won’t forget that.”

  “I’m sorry about all that,” Zosia replied equally quietly. “I’m really, really sorry.”

  “All’s well that ends well,” he replied without conviction.

  “How do you feel?”

  “A bit stunned still; it’s sure to hurt more later.” After a moment he added, “I must look like hell.” He was suddenly aware he did not want her to be embarrassed to be seen with him. “Do I look all right?” he asked rather sadly.

  She looked around to make sure nobody was near, then smiled at his battered face. “You look . . . you look fine.” She blinked back some tears, then repeated unconvincingly, “You look just fine.” She looked back out across the tracks into space, took a deep, unsteady breath of the cold air, then without turning to face him said, “They didn’t give me a ticket for you—just this pass with my name and travel information on it. It looks more like a baggage claim than a ticket.”

  “You could say that.”

  “But where do you sit?”

  He found he could keep his eyes off her no longer. He looked around to be sure that they were essentially unobserved, then he looked directly at her beautiful form. She still faced the track, and all he could see of her face was the curve of her cheeks and the edges of her eyelashes. “If I’m lucky, they’ll have a boxcar with wood benches where I can go; the apprentices and indentured servants have first priority and we get the leftover seats. Everybody calls it the cattle car. If there isn’t one, I just get to stand around in the aisles and try to stay out of everyone else’s way. If the train is crowded, the best place to be, in that case, is between thecarriages—it’s cold and uncomfortable, so nobody wants to be there and they usually leave us alone.”

  “Us?”

  “Yeah, there’s always a few other Zwangi on the train. It’s a great place to pick up jokes and gossip.” He noticed she was shivering slightly. She was wearing a wool coat with a fur-trimmed collar and had a silk scarf underneath, but still the damp air carried a bitter chill. He wanted to put his arm around her to warm her, even though, with his thin jacket, he himself was cold.

  After a few minutes passed in silence, he asked, “Your ticket only goes to Berlin—what do we do then?”

  “I don’t know. We didn’t plan on this, you know.” She paused and pulled out a silver cigarette case. He came over to light the cigarette and had a chance then to look into her eyes. She smiled warmly at him. “We could, of course, return to the pension. Or maybe Frau Móller will be able to bully the ticketing office there into issuing a priority ticket on to Neu Sandez. We’ll figure out something.”

  “Which station are we arriving at?”

  “Friedrichstrasse.”

  “Ah, that’s near Karl’s office.”

  “Were you ever there? The Ministry, I mean.”

  “Yes. A couple of times.” He decided he did not want to think about that other life anymore. He changed the subject. “I didn’t know you smoked.” Naturally, smoking was forbidden inside the bunker—the ventilation system would not have been able to cope. Outside, in the forest, it was the custom not to smoke because the guards were forbidden to do so for security reasons—they could be detected miles away by the smell, and conversely they could use the smell of approaching Reich soldiers to detect them well in advance of any sight or sound of them. This simple and efficient detection system was slowly being superseded by more advanced technologies, but the custom was still observed.

  “Yeah, well, as you know, none of us really have the option back at camp.” Irritatingly, Zosia had turned back away from him, so he could not read her expression. “I only smoke when it’s appropriate to my character, and I think Frau Móller has had a difficult enough morning that right now she would light a cigarette.” She blew some smoke into the air, stared at it absently.

  He looked down the platform. People were beginning to gather: they should probably not talk anymore.

  Zosia seemed to come to the same conclusion. Without looking at him she said, “Check the board and see where we should be standing for my carriage. It’s”—she consulted her ticket�
��“sixty-one oh two.” Her voice had assumed an imperative tone, and although he understood she was reassuming her role, he nevertheless felt a chill. He responded appropriately and then walked over to the large board that displayed the carriage numbers and how they would line up on the platform.

  * * *

  The train arrived at the station fifteen minutes late, and the anxious passengers boarded hastily. Peter helped Zosia on board and then returned to wait with the luggage until the last of the Germans had boarded; after them the few Nichtdeutsch boarded, followed by the apprentices and indentured servants with their baggage. Then, and only then, did he and the several other Zwangsarbeiter climb the steps with their loads of luggage. As was usual, the conductors chided them for taking too long and blew the whistle to shut the doors before the last of them had stepped completely inside.

  He carried the luggage to Zosia’s compartment and loaded it on the overhead racks. He casually reorganized the bags of the other passengers to make room for Zosia’s. He knew they would not object—given his presence, she was obviously their social superior. The other passengers in the compartment stared at him with a long-practiced mixture of contempt and envy but indeed did not object as he carelessly shoved their bags together. They had been obliged to carry and store their own luggage and resented that. They were also annoyed that arriving in the compartment first had not sufficed to reserve them extra luggage space. Their only revenge was to let him see how superior they felt to him—even if they were somewhat in awe of his mistress. She, obviously, had to be someone rather important.

  Peter smiled to himself—he had seen exactly the same reaction hundreds of times before when he had gone shopping or traveled with Frau or Herr Vogel. They had always reveled in other people’s reactions, whereas Zosia seemed somewhat embarrassed by the vignette and stared determinedly out the window.

  When he had finished, he had to draw her attention. “Frau Móller?”

  She looked up at him, perplexed.

  “Is there anything I can get for you?”

  “Uh, no. No.”

  “In that case, gnädige Frau, I’ll find a space. I’ll be back in a bit to see if you need anything.”

  It turned out there was no place on the train for him to sit. He was in no mood to talk to anyone, so he meandered the aisles, looking for a comfortable, unoccupied spot. Between the last passenger carriage and the baggage car, he found it. Wind whistled through the gaping holes and the metal ramp swayed wildly to and fro with each bump and curve on the poorly maintained tracks. The frigid isolation suited his mood, and he huddled against the flexible sides and peered through a crack in the fabric at the passing countryside, carefully trying to ignore how much his face hurt, trying hard not to reach up and touch the damage.

  He checked on Zosia several times throughout the journey. Her carriage companions changed—the seats were now unoccupied except for two old ladies who sat demurely opposite her. He suppressed a sigh as he looked at the comfortable empty seat next to Zosia. He was tired and he ached from all his injuries. He would have loved to sit next to her, place his head on her shoulder, and fallinto a deep, peaceful sleep, but that was impossible. They had only one train ticket, and even if he could discreetly change into different clothes, he had no identification papers and no ticket to match. Zosia caught his glance at the empty seat and gave him a commiserating look.

  He returned to his isolated post. He had had a bad feeling about this mission, about his role in it, from the beginning. He was not superstitious, nor did he believe that he had unusual intuition, but it was hard to shake the feeling that he had known things were going to go badly. Not only that, but they still were not home safe, and the nagging fear that had plagued him throughout the mission had not left him. He wondered idly what else could possibly go wrong as he stared at the beginnings of the Berlin suburbs. They were still far from the center, but the housing estates already stretched endlessly as the city of 12 million sprawled like a concrete cancer into the surrounding countryside.

  As he checked one last time on Zosia, the train made a final stop in the suburbs before heading into the city center. It was a popular stop—the last in a residential region and also a connecting station for journeys continuing east. Consequently, there were fewer people now, and he could relax in the warmth without being in anybody’s way. He paced the aisle of Zosia’s carriage and finally settled on a position near the door, leaning against the window opposite an empty compartment not far from hers. The anonymous gray housing estates of huge concrete towers had given way to smaller buildings of brick and plaster and then to small houses on little plots. Eventually apartment buildings reappeared, and then the landscape gave way to the commercial and urban center of Berlin. The train slowed so as not to make too much noise or jar the foundations of the buildings as it began to rumble past vast government ministries of marble and sculpted concrete. Their immense faÁades dwarfed the pedestrians outside their walls, reducing them to tiny cogs of the state. He rested his face against the cool glass to try to relieve the pounding headache he had endured since his interrogation. He wondered about the lives of the people he saw through the glass. What did God see in their lives? In their fates? Was there such a thing? And if so, was he fated to always return to subjugation? The thought struck him as irrational, inspired by pain and fatigue, yet he could not drive it from his mind.

  “Hey, boy!”

  The interruption caused him to jump. It was a male voice and his blood ran cold at its sound. He knew the voice, he knew what he would see when he turned to face the speaker.

  “So, you’ve changed nationality, eh? That’s an interesting development— maybe we’ll investigate that. But still I see you know your place in the world.” Karl grinned at him, inhaled from his cigarette, and blew a stream of smoke into his face. Peter noted the gun pointed at his stomach, raised his eyes to look into Karl’s. He kept his face a questioning blank even though he knew there was no hope that Karl would think he had made a mistake. Not enough time had passed and they knew each other far too well.

  Karl poked him with the gun. “What are you doing here?”

  Peter wondered if he could grab it away from him, but then what? The carriage was not empty, and they had already caught the attention of some of the people loitering at the far end of the aisle near the other door. They looked on, mildly interested, apparently unable to hear the words being said, almost certainly unaware of the low-held gun.

  Using his left hand—the cigarette perched between his fingers—Karl reached over and grabbed Peter’s arm. He twisted it around and read the numbers to himself. “What’s going on here?” he snarled, confused and suspicious. “Answer me, you bastard!”

  The cigarette was beginning to burn Peter’s skin, and he pulled his arm away as he said, “I’m sorry, mein Herr, I don’t understand what the problem is.”

  “Drop the phony accent, that ploy is useless! I know who you are, just like you know me.”

  Peter returned Karl’s accusing stare with one of complete confusion. He could not believe that of all trains, Karl would have to be on this one. Such coincidences don’t happen, he kept thinking uselessly. He struggled to organize a plan, but his disbelief interfered with his ability to reason, and a souldestroying fear nearly paralyzed him. Was there such a thing as fate? Was this his fate?

  “You belong to me! Did you think you could steal my property? Did you think you could take what was rightfully mine? Did you think you could get away with it? Did you?” Karl poked him with the gun again. “Answer me!” he grated, forcefully swinging the gun up and into Peter’s chin.

  Peter fell backward, landing heavily in a sitting position. He sat on the floor staring up at Karl, stunned. The passengers at the far end of the aisle were giving their full attention to the interchange now, although they clearly could not hear the dialogue.

  “Now I’ve got you, you swine. And you know what I’m going to do to you, don’t you?”

  Peter knew. He also knew that h
e would not be taken alive. Not this time. Never again.

  Karl could barely contain his elation at having cornered his errant slave. I found him! he gloated. The whole damn security service can’t locate him, and I stumble across him on a train! He dropped his cigarette on the floor, ground it out with his foot, and contemplated his prisoner for a moment, savoring his victory. Then he collected a mouthful of saliva and spat at him.

  Peter carefully wiped the spit from his face. Karl could restrain himself no longer and launched into a tirade concerning how he had been wronged and how, in revenge, he was going to destroy Peter piece by piece. Peter remained on the floor, out of reach, as Karl hissed that he would break every bone in his miserable body, that he would burn every bit of flesh inch by inch from his bones, that he would use starvation and beatings and electric shocks to elicit informationfrom him. “That’s right, boy, I’m going to interrogate you. Personally! I’m going to enjoy every minute of tearing you to pieces. You’ll drink my piss, you’ll eat my shit, and then I’m going to listen to you beg to die. It’s the least you deserve after what you’ve done, and it will be music to my ears.”

  “Mein Herr! I’m not who you think I am!”

  “I know what I’ll do . . .” Karl seemed to change his mind about killing his prisoner. His exhilaration was such that his mind was awash with conflicting scenarios for revenge. “You’ll come back with me, but this time we’ll make sure you stay put.” He licked his lips, his eyes widening as he envisioned how he would make Peter pay for the humiliation that had been inflicted on him: his car, his gun, his papers, his slave—all gone, all in one night! Oh, he’d show all those who had implied his household lacked discipline! “First, we’ll see to your legs: you won’t run away again, you won’t even walk,” he planned out loud, oblivious to Peter’s slowly climbing to his feet. “You’ll hobble, and every painful step will remind you of your crime! Then castration—that will bring you down a notch, won’t it?” Karl grunted in appreciation at his own imaginary pun. “And your rations, yes, yes, I’ll make sure you learn discipline. I’ll show those—”