We Go Forward

by Alison Evans

  After looking up where we need to go, we discover it's the street across the main road. We check in with an Australian guy who doesn't recognise our accents, or pretends not to, and we're given our keycards. I lug my bag into the elevator and Christie squishes in to fit her backpack in, but we make it in one trip. The elevator smells like burnt popcorn and wine.

  As we open the door to the hostel room, I breathe a sigh in relief. It's empty. We haven't showered in days. The sheets on the beds are so fresh. I get the bottom bunk, and Christie gets the top, because I think she prefers it. There are six other beds in the room, but it looks like only two of them are currently being used by other people.

  "You have first shower," I tell Christie. "I know you're dying."

  "Fuck, thank you," she says and dumps all her shit on the floor in front of our beds. She grabs her towel, thongs, a change of clothes, and toiletries and dashes into the bathroom without further ado. The door locks. It's nice to have our own bathroom, too, one that we only have to share with the people in our dorm.

  I lie down on my bed and am determined not to nap until I'm showered. I grab the map we got at the front desk of Munich and have a look. There are tours to Dachau, to a nearby castle, city tours, underground tours, pub crawls.

  Dachau. That was a concentration camp, I know. Maybe I could stomach it. It seems important to.

  @roslyn: christie's singing in the showr, omg

  @roslyn: what a dork, bless!!!!!!

  @roslyn: hopefully the constant tweeting will mean i don't fall asleep because I canT

  I concentrate on my breathing: in, hold, out, in, hold, out. I know nothing about Munich and I don't know what to expect, but we're here for ten days. I knew Berlin would be amazing and vibrant, alive, and pulsing under my feet. Prague was like a sleeping labyrinth, and with a couple of wrong steps and I'd be under the layers of roads, under the skin of the city, and into the sweeping veins. But I don't know anything about Munich. It could be anything.

  The bathroom door unlocks. Christie emerges, her hair wet and her skin pink and glowing.

  "That was literally the best shower I have ever had. All showers will pale in comparison to this. Go. Bask in the glory, my child."

  As I get my stuff, Christie piles everything back into her bag and takes it up to her mattress. As she makes her bed, I make my way into the bathroom. It's tiny and so clean. There's a little water on the floor from Christie and the mirror is all fogged up, rubbed away from where she looked into it. I strip and put on my thongs. I can't wait until I can have a shower with bare feet and not worry about fungal diseases; that's gonna be rad.

  The shower takes a little while to warm up, but once it does, I step under the stream and the pressure is perfect. And I can adjust it, which makes me feel like some kind of queen. I keep the pressure as it is and make the water as hot as I can stand it.

  I close my eyes and feel the water rushing frantically over my body, finding every last piece of cold before warming me up completely. I place my fingers on my belly and press against the softness. Still flesh, not water. Still a person.

  I spread the shampoo on my hair, threading my fingers through. I miss the way Vee would sometimes wash my hair over the bath because she knew I loved having my hair washed. It was always the best part of going to the hairdresser, I told her, when they washed your hair.

  Didn't expect to think of Vee again today, and it's like a twist in my stomach; she's got a hold of my spine and she yanks it down. I'd cry out, but it gives her too much power. I wait it out and breathe, breathe, water droplets go into my mouth, but I am water now, so it doesn't matter so much when they find their way between my teeth, stopping short of my windpipe.

  I wash her from my bones with each movement of the soap against my skin. I haven't shaved in a long time, because I just couldn't be bothered over here, and it's weird having armpit hair. I haven't had any of significant length since I was thirteen and it started to grow, before I started to shave everything from my body. I tug at it and it's longer than I thought, a few centimetres. I don't hate it, and this surprises me.

  Eventually, I know I have to leave the warm cocoon of water. I step out into the misty bathroom and pat myself down with a towel, brush my teeth for good measure. When I get out into the room, Christie is asleep on her bunk.

  I put all my things and her entire backpack in the locker under my bed and lock it up. I keep the key on a necklace because otherwise I'd lose it, and I stash my phone under my pillow before crawling in between the sheets. They're so soft against my water-warm skin, and I sink into the pillow, into the mattress. I form puddles and all I am is moisture and I drift off with the tidal pull.

  Chapter Twelve

  Christie

  At breakfast, there's a scraggly boy whose hair is either messy from sleep or very particularly styled. Judging by the way he's clutching the mug of black coffee and the bags under his eyes, though, he's probably just woken up. He blinks slowly, takes a bite of his toast, and closes his eyes as he rubs them. I think he might be Vietnamese.

  I pay my two euros to the staff for my breakfast and pause in front of the table. There is a lot of bread, a lot of sliced meats, and a shitload of cheeses. It's the usual hostel breakfast, and I've had them so much that I'm not even sick of them anymore. This is just what breakfast is now. How bleak.

  The toaster takes forever, but I manage to get six pieces done before someone else needs the thing. I grab everything else I need and sit down opposite the tired boy. Roslyn's still waking up and I'd like a distraction.

  "Morning," I say.

  He blinks a couple of times at me and I wonder if he speaks English. So many people in Europe speak it, and it's probably rude of me to assume. Maybe he's German and he's sick of tourists not learning German and annoying him at breakfast.

  "Hey," he replies. English. As in, from England.

  "Rough sleep?" I ask as I start to spread the cream cheese all over my toast. I've been eating as much as possible in these hostel breakfasts so then I don't have to buy a whole meal for lunch. It's an art, really.

  He nods, takes another drink of the coffee. "Rode the train from Paris through the night and now my brain's melting out my ears."

  "Christ. How long'd that take?"

  "Maybe eleven hours? We changed trains at Mannheim." He shrugs. "You're Australian, yeah? Oh, damn. If you're from New Zealand, that's a huge insult, isn't it? Sorry."

  I laugh. "I'm Australian, yes."

  "Oh, good." He sighs. "Made that mistake at the last hostel."

  "I guess I would be insulted, too, if I was from New Zealand. I mean, Australia's great and that, except it's also the worst place."

  "Worst?"

  "Oh y'know, just all the deep racism. The terrible government that blatantly hates poor people and locks refugees up in what are basically concentration camps. Rampant misogyny, all that." I drink more coffee. It's definitely the worst coffee I've had in a long time, and I shovel in some sugar.

  "Heavy conversations so early in the morning." He laughs.

  "I'm Christie, by the way."

  "Forrest."

  Another boy walks over with his plate of breakfast, the contents of which is mainly cheese. He sits down heavily and, although I didn't think it was possible, looks even more tired than Forrest. Less tired in an endearing way and more in a I am possibly going to kill you way.

  "Morning," the new boy says in the sweetest voice I've ever heard. "I'm Jase, and I am ready to destroy this pile of cheese, if you'll excuse me."

  Jase begins stuffing his face and it's amazing that he can fit so much in there.

  "You been travelling long?" I ask them.

  "About four weeks," Forrest says. "We started in Italy, then went to Spain. Jase speaks Italian, so that was handy. Could've got by without it, I think; we had no Spanish in Spain."

  I'm telling him about living so far away from Australia when Roslyn appears at the table with the same mountain of food as me, though by now, mine is ha
lf eaten.

  "I'd love to go to Berlin," Forrest says once introductions are done. "Maybe we'll go there next." He nudges Jase.

  Jase nods his head. He's got a hand resting on his stomach: too much cheese. "Hey, what's the time? Dachau's soon."

  "We got ten minutes," Forrest says after glancing at the time. "Have you heard about the tour?"

  I know there are a few tours that leave from the hostel, but I've yet to have a proper look. "Barely. How much is it?"

  "Ten euros or something."

  Dachau was a concentration camp, I know that much. For my two years in Europe, I've yet to go to anything like that. I don't know that I can handle it. I can handle a lot of things, even when I think I can't, and I haven't been broken beyond repair yet.

  "You wanna go?" Roslyn asks.

  I think she wants to go. Maybe wants is the wrong word.

  "All right."

  *~*~*

  When we get there, I know the tour guide is talking in English, but I can't turn his voice into words I can understand. It's freezing and grey and there's a light drizzle that gets in between my collar and my neck.

  We walk through the gates, under the space where the Arbeit macht frei sign once was. Work will set you free. It's been stolen and the space yawns out as I try not to think how many people were marched in under those haunted words.

  The camp is bare and there aren't that many other people here. It's so grey. There's a memorial, plain and free of adornment. The whole camp is like that. Heavy reminders of things that can't happen again, but still do.

  We can't watch the documentary that plays halfway through the tour; Roslyn leaves halfway through, but I stay and listen to the words. I can't look at the screen. This was the first concentration camp opened by the Nazis.

  Its opening was announced in the papers. It was advertised as a rehabilitation centre. It was supposed to be clean. Its existence wasn't hidden.

  People are so good at hating each other.

  There are gardens outside the buildings that were once the crematorium and the gas chambers. It's the middle of winter, which means half the trees are bare, but the pines are a strong, deep green. Roslyn, Forrest, and Jase go inside. I stay outside and stand next to the tour guide, silent. I wonder if he's been inside, but I don't ask. This is a daily tour and I want to ask if he does it every day or if someone else takes over.

  I can't imagine coming here more than once in my life, let alone more than once a week. But then, humans can get used to a lot of things. He'd remember the first time, maybe the second. Then they'd start to blur together. Indistinguishable.

  Roslyn's face when she comes out of the gas chamber building is empty. I take her hand and our freezing fingers are the only connection between us the whole way home, because there aren't any words for these things sometimes.

  Munich is the shell city, the tour guide is telling the group sitting opposite us. The buildings were all bombed, and everything was rebuilt after the war. A city of ghosts.

  *~*~*

  The museum is like any other one I've been to, really. So fucking sick of museums, but they're cheap and take up the day. Distractions are good. They're all in old buildings that are beautiful, and they're quiet places. Sometimes they can be the best things. Forrest and Jase have tagged along and I like them, but right now I can't deal with myself, let alone other people.

  We learn all about the Roman Empire and there's a gladiator's helmet to try on. It's surprisingly heavy and I don't know how anyone would have fought under that. We take photos of ourselves, and it's wrong somehow, but I don't know how it's wrong. Trivialising these people who fought each other and died in the sand for the entertainment, and now we're laughing at their helmets. That's probably how it's wrong.

  Jase picks up a prop sword and pretends to stab Forrest. Forrest sticks his finger up at Jase and they're laughing, their voices echoing through the huge hall the museum's in. I think it used to be a church or something. It's Munich; everything's a fucking church.

  "Hey," Roslyn says as she puts down the helmet, voice low enough that Forrest and Jase don't notice. "You all right?"

  I'm just in a mood where I hate everyone and everything, it's fine. "Yeah. Tired."

  "You don't need to lie to me."

  "It's easier."

  I don't want to have this discussion with her, especially not when these two random guys we met are present.

  "Well, if you wanna talk about it."

  I nod and we continue walking. We've developed our own separate ways of walking through the galleries; we don't walk together. Mostly we're on our own and I like that. I like how close she is, but also that she knows I need to be alone.

  There's something wrong with me. I need people, but I desperately always want to be alone.

  We get lunch at the Vietnamese place opposite the hostel. It's not really Vietnamese but a mish-mash of different Asian foods. Forrest complains because all he wants is proper pho like his mum makes.

  "It's not even that hard, for god's sake," he complains.

  They're discussing the intricacies of The Lord of the Rings while I stare into my flavourless ramen. The words are buzz. I let my eyes unfocus and try not to think of anything. I want to do something else, but I don't know what. Under my skin there's only itchiness.

  When we get back to the hostel, Roslyn wants to be social and I'm a grumpy shit. I go upstairs while she plays pool with Forrest and Jase. She's great at pool and I'm pretty shitty at it. The boys are nice. I wouldn't mind knowing them better, but I can't, not right now.

  As I climb the stairs, I hope to fuck that no one's in our room. There was a girl who only spoke Spanish in there this morning. She seemed nice enough, but I don't have the energy to make an effort.

  The room is empty and the girl's bags are gone. I get my headphones out from under my pillow and plug them in. I turn up my music too loud and lie there, staring at the ceiling. The top bunk's almost like a little nest.

  I lie there for hours and a weight starts in my chest, pushing down on my lungs, my heart. Breathing is hard, but I keep drawing in those breaths, sucking them in and keeping my eyes shut tight. It's getting colder and the heater should really be on, but why move when I could just stay here forever and ever and never move again?

  If I'm still enough, I can feel my heartbeat in my fingers, my ears, my thighs. I am alive and that is enough.

  Later, hours later, when my iPod's battery has died and I'm shivering from how cold it is, Roslyn stumbles into the room, leaves the door open, and faceplants onto her mattress.

  "Roslyn?" I say, peering over the edge of my bed. "Close the door."

  She giggles, rolls onto her back, and waves at me. "Nah." She starts pulling off her shoes, but she's having trouble with the laces.

  "Roslyn," I say, sharper.

  "Calm down," she says. She can't remember how her goddamn fingers work; she still hasn't got off one shoe.

  "Hell," I sigh and pull out my headphones. I climb down and close the damn door myself, turn on the light and the heater, and sit on her bed. "Let me do your shoes."

  "I'm fine, I'm fine." Her fingers are scrabbling uselessly against the laces.

  "Roslyn. You are too drunk to do anything except sleep. Let me do them."

  She sighs, then sticks a foot at me. She's tangled her shoelaces, I don't even know how.

  "You were sad at the museum," she says as the first shoe comes off. "You wanna talk about it now?"

  "I wasn't sad." It's not sadness.

  "Yeah, you were. You never want to talk about it."

  I take off her socks next. "Do you want to wear pyjamas?"

  She shrugs.

  "Fuck's sake, Roslyn."

  "Sorry." She sits up, swaying. "I won pool. Did it for Straya. Feeling veeeery patriotic and I'm a little disgusted with myself."

  "I know what you mean." Australian patriotism and racism are definitely closely linked. Odds are any Australian flying the flag is a huge racist. "But well done."


  "Did you have fun up here?"

  "Not really."

  She laughs and scooches over so she's sitting next to me and puts her forehead on my shoulder. "You should play pool next time."

  "Wouldn't help."

  She hugs me now, thin arms surprisingly strong. "Might," she mumbles, playing with my hair.

  I sniff. "Roslyn, you have spew in your hair."

  "Oh." She sighs. "I did do a lot of vomiting. Forrest tried to hold my hair back, but then me vomiting made him vomit and then Jase was just laughing at us. There was so much."

  I groan. "You should have a shower."

  It's not just a little bit of spew in her hair—it's an astounding amount of spew. I don't know how I didn't smell it as soon as she walked in the door.

  "Come on." I stand up and pull her to her feet. "We need to at least wash your hair and brush your teeth."

  "I'm so tired, Christie," she says, hugging me again. "I just wanna go to sleep."

  "Not yet," I tell her firmly. "You're gonna wake up in the morning and hate yourself."

  She waves a hand as she stands on her own feet, out of the hug. "So what? So does everyone. Why they all left, anyway."

  I frown.

  "That's the thing about you," she says, blinking as she sways on her feet. "You think you're the only one."

  "The only one what?"

  "The only one who is sad." She hiccups, reaches for her towel that's hanging on the railing of my bed.

  I don't know what to say to that. I know now when she says sad, she doesn't mean just sad.

  She leads me to the bathroom, and I'm glad that we have our own in this room. It was a little extra per night, but definitely worth it. Sometimes you just don't want to share a bathroom with twenty other people, no matter how often it's cleaned.

  I put the towel around her shoulders.

  "You think your sadness is the deepest," she says, voice slightly muffled as the blood flushes to her face as she bends over. "I can't stop missing people."