The Upside of Hunger

by Roxi Harms

  The wagons turned off the road. As they bumped along through the field, Adam realized why it wasn't planted. The holes they were driving through and around were foxholes and craters from explosives. A bit further, a faint odour of death wafted through the air. Adam tried to breathe through his mouth.

  The wagons stopped beside a stand of trees a kilometre or more from the road, and the men in Red Cross uniforms climbed down with their dogs. The guards joined them for a hushed conversation, then one of the guards walked back and addressed the prisoners.

  "We have orders to clean up the bodies from these fields to prevent sickness," he barked. "The dogs will help find them. Each body goes into a box. Grab a shovel and get to work."

  Adam shuddered, thinking back to the previous winter. The medics had tried to get the bodies back to the camp to be hauled away, but when the Russians were coming fast, they couldn't get them all. As the war had progressed, the commander had sometimes ordered them to dig mass graves. They'd scraped as far down as they could and then covered the bodies with as much mud and rocks as possible before they had to move on or get back to fighting. But sometimes there wasn't even time to do that. At least it had been winter then. Now, in the heat of summer, the stench of rot hung over the entire area.

  As the dogs sniffed the ground eagerly, the Red Cross workers explained how to dig around the area the dog indicated, disturbing the corpse as little as possible. They would be checking each body for identification tags, and then taking them away for burial. Any weapons or personal effects were to be gathered up as well.

  Within a minute or two, the dog nearest Adam began to bark excitedly at a spot on the ground. Adam and his assigned partner began tentatively removing shovelfuls of damp earth from the area, while the others followed the other dog. Sure enough, after only a few shovelfuls of dirt had been removed, a ragged edge of cloth appeared. Adam stopped and stared down at it. A uniform. There was someone under the ground right here in front of him. Someone who'd been alive last year, but now would never see his family again. The other prisoner had stopped digging at the same time. Adam looked up and their eyes met for a moment. Swallowing hard, he refocused on the shovel and the ground in front of him and began to scrape away the earth along the edge of the uniform. A pant leg by the look of it. A few minutes later, they had exposed the long-dead soldier. His head lay at an unnatural angle above his sunken torso, eye sockets filled with decay staring up at a sharp angle off to the side. The soft flesh of his cheeks had rotted away, revealing his white jawbone and teeth below the matted hair that stuck out from under his helmet. The Red Cross worker squatted down and pulled back the collar of the uniform. The dog tag was there. He backed away while the prisoners brought a box alongside the body. Pulling on edges of pant legs and other bits of the soldier's uniform and pushing gingerly with their shovels, they slid the decomposed corpse onto a sheet of canvas and then lifted it into the box. Adam picked up a boot that had come off and placed it in the remains. Scraping around in the hole left by the body, he unearthed a gas mask.

  Box after box, they repeated the gruesome task. Many of the bodies were relatively complete, killed by gunfire. Other spots that the dogs led them to revealed the aftermath of a grenade blast, limbs, torsos, and other fragments of soldiers lying where they'd landed. Finally, as the sun neared the horizon, the guards ordered them back into the wagon. Adam slumped to a seat inside the wagon and closed his eyes, drifting in and out of sleep as the wagon lurched back through the field and onto the road.

  The next day passed much the same.

  As they rode through another field on the third morning, Adam stared off into the distance towards the sunrise. Elek was out there somewhere.

  "Get moving!" the guard yelled at them as they climbed off the wagon and stretched their aching bodies. "Work this direction along the ridge. Our information says the fighting started here and continued across the plateau." The sound of a gurgling creek drifted up to them from somewhere over the ridge.

  Mid-morning one of the dogs started barking from somewhere over the bank by the creek. Adam had just finished shovelling some personal effects into a box beside their erstwhile owner, while his partner started on the next spot. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve as he watched the guard stride to the ridge and look down at the dog.

  "We got one down there by the look of it," he called back to the group. He sounded annoyed. "Come here," he barked, seeing Adam idle. "Move it!"

  As Adam jogged over to him, the guard turned and headed down the slope towards the barking, beckoning Adam to follow. Reaching the edge of the ridge, Adam glanced down the hill in front of him and across the creek. Corn. Almost ready to harvest, as far as the eye could see.

  Halfway down the hill, the dog came into view, barking excitedly between the creek bank and a small stand of trees. The guard stopped walking and looked back up the hill over his shoulder. Adam looked in the same direction. They couldn't see the wagon or the rest of the crew from here.

  "Get down there and dig," the guard said after a moment, waving his rifle down the hill.

  Adam strode down to the dog and waved it back. Giving the spot a tentative scrape he couldn't see anything on the surface. Backing up a foot or two from where the dog had been focused, he positioned the shovel and stepped on it to push it gently into the ground.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Adam saw the guard turn and head back up the hill. Slowly he lifted the shovelful of mud and emptied it off to the side, his attention trained on his peripheral vision where the guard was disappearing out of sight. Was fate handing him another chance? His breath quickened. He placed the shovel again, pushed down again, emptied another shovelful of mud off to the side. The dog was moving away, nose skimming the dirt as she crisscrossed her way a bit further along the creek and then headed up the bank at an angle. Adam kept the shovel moving slowly as his mind raced. How long would the guard be out of sight? Looking furtively around, Adam considered the options. He could hide in the stand of trees that started a couple hundred metres downstream. Or maybe across the creek. Yes, across the creek! His scent would be lost in the water. Otherwise the dogs would find him right away. The corn on the other side of the creek was tall. Taller than him. How long had the guard been out of sight? Another shovelful, then another, then another. Movement at the top of the hill. The guard was coming back to check on him. Don't look up. Adam swallowed. His mouth was so dry. Keep shovelling. Look focused on finding what the dog had smelled. The guard stood, watching. Place the shovel, push it into the ground, lift the mud and dump it. Bend down as if something has been uncovered, stand up, place the shovel, push it in, lift the shovelful out. The guard turned away. He was walking away. He was gone!

  Dropping the shovel, Adam dashed into the creek. Quick, quick, quick! His boots slipped here and there on the big rocks that lined the creek bottom, and the knee-deep water felt like molasses. He headed towards the opposite bank at a downstream angle. He needed to come out as far away from where he went in as possible. A little further. A few more feet. Okay, far enough, no more time. Stumbling onto the opposite bank, Adam glanced back over his shoulder. No movement on the hill. Diving into the cornfield, Adam ran blindly forward down the row in front of him. His arms flailed wildly, knocking the leaning corn stalks out of his path, waiting for the sound of shots to ring out behind him. Sharp leaves slashed at his face. Further, further, further. Try not to move the corn so much, he thought suddenly. What if they could see it moving from up the hill on the other side. Concentrating on his legs, he pumped them as fast as he could, keeping arms at his sides, and his head down.

  Run! ... Run! ... Run!

  The blood roared in his ears. His legs began to slow. The strength he'd regained from a few days of stew wasn't enough. But he had to keep going. He concentrated. Keep running. One leg in front of the other. Faltering, he stumbled, then regained his feet and ran on. The corn ended, and he ran across a narrow wagon track and a small open field. Reaching the next corn c
rop on the opposite side of the open field, he leapt in and kept running, terror trumping the burn of his legs and the sweat in his eyes. Looking up, he saw the end of the row ahead. He'd reached the edge of another field.

  Stopping just before the edge, he stood for a second, gasping for air, still hidden in the corn. Desperately, he tried to quiet his ragged breathing so he could hear the sounds around him. Turning in circles, he peered wildly into the sea of corn. The communists with their rifles and dogs couldn't be far behind, but he didn't detect any movement. Turning nervously back towards the edge of the corn, he crept forward and peered out, looking quickly from side to side. A small road. In the distance to the right he could see houses. He swallowed. What next? Where could he hide? He had to keep moving. Deciding to stay behind the cover of the corn, he turned to the right and ran in parallel with the road towards the houses. At the corner of the field, he stopped and studied the houses. The road was empty. Stepping out from the corn, he jumped over the dry ditch onto the road and walked quickly towards the village. What if communists lived here, he wondered, glancing from side to side as he strode between the first few houses. Which house? Which house? Someone was going to see a stranger walking through town and report him. Fixing his gaze on a small house ahead, he made a beeline for the front door. Heart pounding, he knocked rapidly half a dozen times, paused for a split second and rapped again. Hurry up! Open the door!

  As he raised his hand to bang again, the door opened a few inches. A wrinkled face topped with a few wisps of white hair peered up at him.

  "What do you want?" the face croaked.

  "I need your help," Adam said urgently in Hungarian, looking over his shoulder and then back at the face in the crack of the door. "I've run away from the communist police in Komarom. They were going to shoot us. Please. I don't know if they are still chasing me, or if I've lost them, but I need a place to hide. Please!"

  After an eternity, the door opened. The old man stepped aside to let Adam into the tiny kitchen and shut the door quickly behind him. A thin, elderly woman stood with her back to the kitchen counter, twisting her apron in her hands, her eyes wide and her lips pressed together.

  "Who are you and why are you running from the police? We will report you." The man raised his chin and gave Adam a challenging look.

  Adam looked from the man to his wife and back again. Surely they wouldn't. Oh my God, had he made another mistake? He closed his eyes for a moment, and wished there was a God to pray to. Taking a deep breath, he started to explain as rapidly as he could.

  "My name is Adam Baumann. I am from a small village near the Romanian border called Elek. I was fighting in the war and now I can't go home to my mom and dad because of the communists. I walked from Bavaria to Vienna because they are going to deport my family and I need to get there before they do that and then the police stopped the train in Komarom and took us to the prison and they shot some of us. And they kept some of us and we've been doing forced labour to dig bodies from the fields. And I ran away just now when the guard wasn't looking. I ran across the creek into the cornfield. . . " He stopped talking, his throat too tight for any more words to get out.

  The old man and his wife looked at each other. Then the man spoke decisively.

  "I can hide him in the hay stacks across the creek."

  "Okay, I'll fix some food," his wife responded.

  "Be quick. If they find him here, we'll have hell to pay."

  The old woman turned to the counter, pulled the cloth from a loaf of bread it was covering and started to saw slices from it. Smearing something onto one of the slices, she handed it to Adam.

  "Here, eat this and I'll wrap up a couple more." She watched for a moment as he bit into the bread covered with bacon fat, chewed a couple of times, then took another bite before even swallowing the first. Her eyes brimming with tears, the old woman turned back to the counter and smeared bacon fat on the other slices.

  "We lost two grandsons in the war," her husband said quietly. "They were too young to be fighting, like you. We would have wanted someone to help them." Grabbing the small bundle his wife handed him, he quickly opened the door and checked the street. "Okay, follow me."

  A couple of chickens scattered off the path as they rounded the house and headed towards a gate at the back of the yard. Through the gate, they hurried along a path into the trees. Adam's eyes darted around as they jogged along. The trees had begun to shed their leaves and didn't provide good cover. The path was leading them down a hill towards the sound of water. It dawned on Adam that this was probably the same creek he'd run through earlier. An hour ago? Longer? Judging by the lengthening shadows it had been longer.

  Ahead of him the old man was wrestling a raft into the water. The creek was deeper here, and a bit wider, but moving slowly. Just as the raft began to float, the man clambered on and picked up an oar that had been laying on it. Wading into the water, Adam jumped on, giving a final push as the man started to paddle. A few minutes later, they jumped off and dragged the raft up onto the other shore.

  "Up here," said the man, heading up the hill along a well-worn path through the brush and low bushes. The fenced hay field at the top had been cut recently, and the hand-tied bales were stacked under a roof at the side of a small barn a little way inside the fence.

  As they climbed through the fence rails and headed towards the haystack, the man explained. "I work for the farmer who owns this land, and I keep a cow of my own and a couple of goats over here. His animals are in a bigger field down the road. Me or the wife come over most days to feed and check on things. Let's rearrange this stack of hay with a space in the middle where you can stay."

  When they'd finished, Adam had a tiny den inside the stack, big enough to sit up and lie down in a curled up position. He could crawl out to go to the bathroom.

  "But other than that, you stay in here all day. Stay completely out of sight," the man ordered Adam in a kind voice. "I'll come back tomorrow and bring some food. And maybe a blanket." The man paused, looking earnestly at Adam. "Promise me you will stay inside the haystack and out of sight."

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Over the next couple of weeks, the old man came almost every day with food, water, and news about the search for escapees. In the first few days, a wagon carrying half a dozen armed communist police had come through the village a number of times, questioning people in the street and forcing their way into houses to search for "dangerous escaped prisoners." But since then, the man and his wife hadn't heard anything more.

  Adam ate heartily. He was sure food must be in short supply here, the same as everywhere else, but somehow the man always managed to bring a good meal. Bread, a vegetable or two, some days a couple of boiled eggs, or even a bit of cheese or meat. It was peaceful in the field, and when it seemed the police had stopped looking for him, Adam began to sleep well at night. He often slept through the afternoon as well and, day by day, he began to feel stronger.

  In the third week, Adam peeked out as he heard the old farmer coming across the field. The man had a bundle under his arm.

  "Hi," said Adam, pushing aside the bale that covered the entrance to his den, and smiling happily at the man as he crawled out into the sunshine and stood up.

  "Hello," the man said cheerily, handing Adam the bundle. "Good news. Got some of my grandsons' clothes here for you. A real good shirt and pants, and a coat, and I brought a pair of boots too. Almost new. They belonged to my younger grandson. He only wore them a few times. You should have new boots to go home in after what you've been through to get there."

  Adam looked at the man, humbled. He swallowed hard so he could speak.

  "That's very kind of you. I don't know how I can ever repay this kindness."

  "No need to repay anything. It's good to put this stuff to use. The boys' things have been just sitting there since they left. Even when we knew they weren't coming back, nobody wanted to let it go. But we all talked about it, my son and his wife, and my wife, and we all want to give i
t to you. And the best part is that we think it's safe enough now for you to leave and head home. I'm going to get the wagon ready early tomorrow. And then I'll bring the raft over and get you. I'll take you to the train station."

  After the old man left, Adam sat down on a bale of hay and untied the bundle. At the sight of the boots, he grinned. Brown leather, and a thick sole! And they laced up past his ankles. He'd never had boots this nice. He slipped on the socks that were stuffed inside the boots and pulled the boots onto his feet. Perfect fit! Next, he inspected the clothes. He put the new shirt to his face and inhaled. . . clean. . . and soft. He closed his eyes and savoured the smell and the feel for a moment. The clothes that the woman had given him at the farm in Bavaria almost three months ago were filthy. Stripping them off, he pulled on the pants and shirt. Looking down at his new clothes, he grinned. They hung on his frame, but he didn't care. He was going home tomorrow!

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  Autumn 1945

  Adam turned up the collar of his new coat and sank down in his seat as the rhythm of the train wheels began to slow. They were approaching Budapest. The tickets that the man had bought him were in his pocket, the one for Budapest, which he'd already used, and the one from Budapest to Kétegyháza. Although he would never set eyes on the old farmer or his wife again, or find any trace of them when he searched years later, their immeasurable kindness was present in a corner of Adam's mind for decades after that day.

  As the train eased into the Budapest station, Adam's eyes darted back and forth looking for police. His mouth paper dry, he stood and filed out the door with the crowd. Outside the train, he walked nervously into the station, looking around desperately for something that would tell him where to board the next train. His stomach felt watery.