by Roxi Harms
"He's run away twice and didn't tell us he was going. He's 18 now. Almost a man. Do you really think we can stop him? At least this time he told us, so we'll know where he's gone when he disappears." Her voice cracked. "Do we want him to go with our blessing or without?"
"Fine," his dad said, standing up from the bed. "Do whatever the hell you want." He strode over to the sink and stared out the window for a few moments, then turned and walked out the front door, slamming it shut behind him.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
Adam's stomach twisted in knots as he got off the train at the last stop and walked out onto the road with the handful of other passengers. A border policeman was watching them. This was the end of the line in the American zone. The communists had torn up the section of the rail line that connected the two zones and built a fence of sorts the length of the border.
It had taken him several hours to get here from Laudenbach. In another hour or so he would have the cover of darkness. He patted the pocket where his papers were, listening for the comforting crinkle, then lifted his collar around his neck and headed south along the little road. Based on the map in his other pocket, Bittstadt was about sixty kilometres east of the border and a little south.
He kept his head down and kept walking as he heard a wagon approaching behind him. He hadn't been walking long. Did the police patrol with wagons? He quickly rehearsed his story. His uncle had a farm south of here, and they hadn't seen him in a few months, since before Christmas, so his mom had sent Adam to check on him.
"Hello, there," a friendly voice called. Adam looked up.
"It'll be dark soon," the farmer said from the driver's seat. "I'm going a few more kilometres if you'd like a ride."
Adam thought for a split second. He looked harmless. And some local intelligence wouldn't hurt. "That's kind of you," he said as he climbed up beside the farmer.
"Where you headed?" the farmer asked as he flicked the reins to start the horses moving again.
When Adam had explained about visiting his uncle, the farmer studied him for a moment and then gave him some advice. "Best to be careful in these parts. The police are suspicious of everybody. The ones on this side aren't too bad. Lock you up and question you, but I've heard they're mostly reasonable to deal with. It's the Russians and communist Germans patrolling the other side you really have to watch for. They'll shoot you just for being near the fence. We've been farming this land for generations. Hard to believe how things are now."
Adam was glad for the early winter nightfall as he lay behind a bush a little later in what was left of the early March snow. If this warm spell kept up, there wouldn't be much snow left in a few days. Already the low-lying parts of the fields and the pathways were bare.
After hearing the farmer's first bit of advice, he'd decided to tell him the truth so he could ask some detailed questions to help him plan his crossing. The farmer had explained what he knew about how they patrolled the fence, and they'd discussed where he'd find the best cover for hiding. The barbed-wire fence, about twenty metres in front of him, was easy to make out in the light of the three quarter moon. The farmer didn't think the police on the west side of the fence guarded this area at all, and so far, Adam hadn't seen anything that looked like a patrol on this side. But the guard on the other side paced back and forth at regular intervals, a rifle slung over his back. If he had a flashlight of any kind, he wasn't using it.
Adam counted the seconds and calculated the minutes that it took the guard to return each time he walked north and south. He re-counted several times and concluded that it took the guard longer to return each time he walked to the south. Counting silently until he thought the guard would be at his further point south, Adam jumped up and ran towards where the gap underneath the bottom wire was the biggest. Throwing himself onto the ground, he pushed the wire up and wriggled under it through the slushy mud. He was clear. Scrambling to his feet, he ran for the cover of the low bushes on the other side and continued into the woods.
Wet snow began to fall softly. There should be a road a few kilometres ahead, based on the map and the farmer's recollection. He would need a ride if he hoped to get to Bittstadt and find the farm that night. And if he didn't get one he'd follow the road until he found a barn with some animals he could sleep near for some heat.
The snow was falling more heavily now, making it hard to see where he was running. Slowing to a walk, he focused on keeping to a straight path in what he hoped was the right direction. Before long he heard the sound of an engine somewhere up ahead and began to run again. Slowing as he neared the edge of the trees, he could see headlights in the distance to the north. He crouched down and waited, squinting into the blinding glare of the driving snow in the headlights as the truck got closer. Peering as it pulled alongside his hiding spot, he couldn't see any symbols or anything that looked military or communist. Just a beat up old truck. Taking a deep breath, Adam stood up and ran alongside the truck, waving for the driver to stop. The truck halted and the window opened a crack.
"What do you want?" yelled a gruff voice through the darkness. He was German!
"I'm trying to get to my relatives' farm and was hoping for a ride."
After a few moments of silence, the truck driver responded. "Okay, get in."
It was a bit warmer in the cab, and after shaking the snow off his hat and mitts, and putting them on the floor by his feet, Adam rubbed his hands together over the weak flow of warm air blowing out of the dash.
The driver was hauling a load of coal to a town about a hundred kilometres east. He asked where Adam was headed. When Adam hesitated, he understood.
"I'm not going to turn you in to the Russians if that's what you're afraid of," said the driver.
"I'm just over from the west for a few days," Adam said warily. "I have my papers."
"Don't worry, son. There's hardly any German communists, other than maybe a few with cushy office jobs in the city. We're captive over on this side of the fence. Not allowed to leave. If we try, chances are we'll get shot. And unless the whole family can run like hell, you'd have to leave them behind if you wanted any chance of getting across the fence. So we're captives of the goddammed Russians. Nobody's ever got enough to eat, no matter how much you produce. They take everything we grow. Only difference between this and being a prisoner of war is that we can see our families and sleep in our own beds. And that's worth everything."
The driver knew the area, and as they continued to talk, he was pretty sure he knew where the farm was.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
Adam crept closer and peered out from behind a shed. This must be the place. It matched how the driver had described it. They'd have finished supper some time ago. It had stopped snowing and what had fallen was melting quickly. He didn't see any movement in the yard. Opening his packsack, he stripped off his wet, muddy clothes and replaced them with his good shirt and trousers. Putting on a good coat and cap he'd borrowed from Petra's father, he shoved the bag under the shed, pulled a pencil and notepad out of his pocket and crept back out onto the road so he could walk in through the gate.
His heart threatening to burst out of his chest, Adam pulled himself up to his tallest and knocked on the front door of the house. It opened a second later.
"Good evening, ma'am," he said to the woman holding the door, touching his fingers to his cap. "I'm sorry to bother you. I'm Adam Schmitt from the office that handles the placement of workers by the Soviet Administration. We're getting caught up on our paperwork. Do you have a . . .," he paused and looked down at his notepad, "Theresa Baumann living here?"
"Yes, we do." The woman's eyes were wide as she looked up at him.
Her husband appeared behind her in the doorway. "Is there something I can help you with?" he asked.
"I need to ask Miss Baumann a few questions to update our records. Where might I find her?"
"I believe she's still out in the barn. With the warm weather, the runoff barrels have overflowed, and we've had a bit o
f a flood. She was going to go out and clean up some of the water," the husband explained. "Would you like me to show you the way?"
"No, no, that won't be necessary. I assume that's the barn there. I'll just head over there and speak with Miss Baumann. It shouldn't take long. Thank you for your help. Good evening." Touching his cap again, Adam dipped his head at the couple and turned towards the barn, his heart racing. Resi was really here.
He heard the door shut behind him and forced himself not to run across the yard to the barn. Pulling open the barn door, he walked inside and shut it softly behind him.
A figure in gumboots and brown quilted Russian army pants and jacket was scooping water out of the manger on the opposite wall by the light of an oil lantern. Her back was to Adam. Moving a bit closer, he cleared his throat. Turning, she let out a little yelp of surprise.
"Good evening," she said, her eyes fearful as she took in his nice clothing.
He cleared his throat again and tried to swallow the lump in his throat. She'd always been small, but she looked even tinier than he remembered.
"Good evening," he said in his deepest voice. Raising his notebook, he began to question her.
"Are you Theresa Baumann?"
"Yes."
"Where are you from?"
"Elek, Hungary."
Adam made a note in his notepad. "And would you like to go home and see your family?"
Theresa's eyes welled up. "Yes, of course. Very much. But I think that the Germans have been deported out of Hungary, so I don't know where they are."
"How long have you been working here?"
"A little over a year. Since January 1946."
He made another note.
"And you live here as well?"
"Yes."
"Can you tell me a bit about your work here please?" Adam continued, keeping his eyes on his notepad. It was getting difficult to keep his face straight.
"I feed the animals and do the milking, collect the eggs, shovel out the stalls, mix the feed, that type of thing."
Despite his effort, Adam's face began to curve into a smile. Suddenly, Theresa's mouth dropped open, but no sound came out immediately.
"Adam? Oh my Lord!" The bucket clattered to the ground as Theresa's hands flew up to cover her mouth. "Adam, is it you?"
No longer trying to hold back his joy, Adam laughed out loud. "You better believe it," he said as Theresa flew across the barn and flung her arms around him. "It's good to see you, Resi." He picked her up off her feet for a moment.
"Oh, Adam," she sobbed into his shoulder. "I didn't know if you were alive." A few moments later, she pulled away. "Look at how tall you are! You've grown a head taller, or more. And I can't believe you fooled me like that." She swatted at him, smiling through her tears. "That was mean."
"It was great," he replied, laughing. "You should have seen the look on your face. And anyway, you should know your own brother. But before we talk more, what are the people in the house like? They know I'm here and if there's any chance they will call the police or turn us in, we should make a run for it now. I know the way back across the border."
"Uh uh, we'd be shot trying to cross the border. And, the people here are wonderful. I was so sick at the labour camp. I was sure I was going to die. But God was looking after me when they sent me to work here. They're kind and generous. Let's go into the house. I want to introduce you!"
Adam couldn't stop grinning as his sister linked her arm through his and led him to the house.
CHAPTER EIGHTY
"May God keep you safe, my children," the farmer's wife said, hugging Theresa for the umpteenth time outside of the Arnstadt train station, her cheeks wet with tears. After several days of talking to various locals and planning their route back to the fence, Theresa had hesitantly agreed to the crossing.
But when the train pulled in, Adam's heart fell. It was so packed, people struggled to avoid being jostled out the door when it opened. There were only two trains a day and if they missed that one, they wouldn't make it to the fence in time to cross that night. Taking a deep breath, he hoisted Theresa into the air, and handed her onto the shoulders of a group of young men jammed together just inside the door.
"Would you mind holding my sister," he said to the guys, with a grin, as he wedged onto the train and pulled the door shut. "Thank God she's small. I'm so sorry, but we really need to be on this train." The guys grinned back good-naturedly.
At a tiny station about 15 kilometres before the border, they disembarked and walked north, the snow falling lightly around them, until they found the village where they planned to wait out the evening in a dank little pub that one of the neighbours in Bittstadt had recalled. The light snow had turned into heavy flurries, and they watched out the window with dread as it accumulated deeper and deeper every hour.
At twilight, they set out, trudging further north along the snow-filled road. If anyone asked, they had agreed to say they were on their way home to their farm a few kilometres north. A couple of kilometres out of the little village, when they were confident no one was following them, they turned off the road. The middle of the night would be the safest time to cross the fence. If the maps they'd studied were right, they had about ten kilometres or so to walk to the place people had said was poorly guarded at night. And with the snow now past Theresa's knees, going would be slow.
Turning to his sister, Adam explained one more idea he'd had to help keep them safe.
"Resi, we're going to make it look like only one person, a tall man, walked across these fields. That way, if they're looking for the two of us, or for a woman, they might not follow these tracks. So I'm going to go first and take large steps. You step in my footprints okay?"
Every few steps, Adam stopped to listen and to see how Theresa was doing. He watched as she strained to stretch her short legs into the deep holes he had left. Within minutes, their pants were soaked through and caked with icy snow, but Adam was warm from the exertion.
They'd been labouring through the drifts for a couple of hours when he turned to his sister and motioned for her to be still. The snow had finally stopped, and the moon was peeking out between the clouds.
"Shhhhhh," he said softly. There were faint voices ahead in the distance and to the left. The plan was to cross at least a kilometre north of the last guard tower that was manned at night. Turning north, they continued for what they judged would be far enough, then resumed their westward trek towards the border. When they could just make out the fence ahead, they squatted in the snow, huddled close together, to watch and wait. His mom's words were running through Adam's mind. He couldn't get his sister shot after all she'd been through.
They shivered as the warmth from their trek dissipated. Adam opened his coat and did his best to wrap Theresa inside of it with him. When it felt like it must be well after midnight, they stood up to go. They hadn't seen any guards at all since they'd been watching, and hopefully the ones at the closest manned post would be sleeping by now. Adam grabbed Theresa's hand and pulled her along the last few hundred metres as fast as he could manage.
The fence was wooden here. Reaching up, Adam could just get his hands over the top. The Russians weren't allowed to shoot at anyone on the western side. It was common knowledge that they didn't always respect that law, but being on the other side would surely be safer than being this close to the fence on the eastern side.
Motioning to Theresa, Adam bent and laced his fingers together into a stirrup. She stepped on, and he lifted with all his strength, pushing her as high as he could. Straining to hold her full weight in his hands, he peered up past her bottom to see what she was doing.
"Go," he whispered. She hesitated a moment more and then pulled herself onto the top of the wall, where she paused.
"Jump." His voice was too loud in the silent night. "Jump!" he whispered. She wasn't moving. "Jump or I'm going to push you. And do not scream whatever you do."
Grasping the top of the fence a little to the left of his sister, Ada
m pulled with every ounce of strength, scraping against the fence with his feet. Slowly he inched high enough to get one hand placed flat on top of the fence and grunted as he lifted his body weight up. Flinging one leg over, he straddled the fence, panting.
"I'm going to push you now. Stay quiet," he whispered to Theresa who still sat atop the fence. Giving her a firm push, he watched her land silently in the deep snow on the western side of the fence. Leaping down beside her, Adam grabbed her arm and put his lips close to her ear.
"Are you okay?" he whispered.
She nodded, her eyes as big as saucers.
"We did it," he said and squeezed her arm. "Let's go."
Crack! Adam flung himself flat beside Theresa. A gun shot. Crack!
He raised his head and looked over at his sister's terrified face. Leaning closer, he squeezed her arm again and whispered, "It's okay, they're not shooting at us. Those shots are a long way away. Let's get moving and get away from this fence." As they rushed through the deep snow, Adam wondered if the bullets had found their target.
It was good to be moving and warm again. When the fence had been out of sight for a while, they turned south. Somewhere up ahead there was a raised pathway where the tracks had been. It would be easier walking than on the open field. There was only one train a day heading west from the border and it left in the morning. They couldn't afford to miss it.
The station came into view as the night began to fade to grey. Adam could see light coming through the dim windows, but they weren't clear enough to see inside. The one daily departure was around nine in the morning from what people had said. It would be best to stay hidden until closer to departure time and then he could go in first and get the tickets. That way, any border police that patrolled the station would be less likely to ask Theresa for papers. She should be safe now that we're on this side, thought Adam, but who really knew? Maybe they'd send her back.