Last Train from Kummersdorf

by Leslie Wilson

  ‘Shut up,’ said Hanno to him. That was the last thing they wanted, the dog starting a fight with the Ivans.

  I can’t do anything, he thought. I couldn’t do anything for Wolfgang, I can’t do anything against Otto. If I tried to fight the Russians off they’d kill me easily and do what they wanted to the women anyway. Fighting doesn’t work. So what does? Maybe nothing? I don’t want this, he thought. I don’t want it.

  But the Russians hadn’t grabbed the women, one of them was down on one knee, talking in a heavy, halting German, asking if Barbara was hurt?

  Frau Rupf spoke up, looking straight at the Russian. ‘She’s terrified,’ she said. ‘Your comrades did shameful things to her. You can’t make that better, can you?’

  The Russian flinched, and stood up. ‘The child should not have to suffer,’ he said. Then he spoke angrily to the other three in Russian. One shook his head, the second said something roughly – and Hanno thought he half cared what had happened to Barbara, half thought it didn’t matter so much, because she was a German child. The third fingered his gun, then shrugged his shoulders. The two German men stayed still, trying to behave as if they weren’t there.

  Hanno could hardly believe that the Russians were being kind. The one who spoke German talked to them again and said they were good Russians, they wouldn’t harm women and children. Or civilians. Hanno wondered if the Russian he’d killed had been a man like this, not a rotten raping swine.

  Effi turned to him and grinned. ‘They’re OK,’ she said, and then he thought he heard her say, ‘Red brothers,’ but he wasn’t sure.

  Now he realized his knees were shaking, he was more scared than he had been, now that she was safe – but what did ‘safe’ mean, with Otto breathing down the back of their necks?

  ‘I wish I spoke Russian,’ said Effi. ‘I could tell them he was a Nazi. They could take him away from us.’

  ‘He’d use his gun. We’d all be caught in the middle of a shooting match.’

  And they’d take the diamonds away. But he didn’t say that to Effi.

  The Russian was waving them to go on, they were on the move again, the Russians were going back to their work among the wounded.

  Frau Rupf said, ‘They’re not all monsters, thank God. And there was the man who came – that time – and made them leave us alone, and left us some of the food –’

  Barbara had got up and was standing by her mother, who said, ‘Mother. Supposing Lehmann was here? My husband,’ she explained to Otto. It looked for a moment as if she was going to go out there and search the wood for him, but then she shook herself. ‘No,’ she said in a hard voice. ‘We must go on.’

  They kept going among the wreckage of machines and soldiers and trees. There were bits of branch lying around here that would have done fine to hit Otto over the head with, but he kept too close behind them for Hanno to do anything. Then suddenly they were back in untouched woodland – though the air was still full of smoke – and shortly afterwards they found a narrow path that widened into a track. There was a bank of pale soil to one side of it, with young birches growing along the top. They turned a corner and found several broken trees tangled up with the burned wreckage of a small plane. The tailpiece lay on its own, pointing towards them.

  ‘Magda,’ said Frau Rupf, ‘I must rest. Just for a few minutes.’

  She sat down on one of the wings and peered into the plane.

  ‘The pilot’s in there,’ she said, in a crackly, tired voice. ‘Burned to a crisp. Maybe the boy should run back and tell the Ivans, so that they can come and pick him up. Bury him.’

  ‘What do you think we are?’ asked Otto. ‘The International Red Cross?’ He’d straightened up now; he was a big bully again.

  Effi sat down on the track and took her harmonica out. She played a strophe and stopped. The dog flopped at her feet.

  The doctor said, ‘I don’t like these delays. We should push on.’

  There was somebody coming up the path behind them, Hanno heard footsteps on the soft ground, firm footsteps, but not heavy enough for military boots. Cornelius started to bark and a middle-aged man came into sight, sweating inside a heavy grey coat and a felt hat. A much younger woman followed, she had smooth blonde hair and she was wearing smart clothes and walking boots. Each of them was carrying a handsome leather suitcase. They stopped and stared angrily at the crashed plane.

  ‘Always some hindrance,’ the man said, over Cornelius’s barks. ‘And where are you people from?’

  ‘From Silesia,’ said Frau Magda, then turned to Effi. ‘Can’t you shut your cur up?’

  ‘Be quiet,’ said Effi, putting her hand round Cornelius’s muzzle, then letting it go. Cornelius tried to bark again, so she held his mouth shut again. Squashed growlings came out of it.

  ‘So far?’ said the woman. ‘Did you walk all the way?’

  ‘We had a wagon,’ Frau Magda said. ‘The Russians machine-gunned it from a plane.’

  ‘I have come from Sterbin,’ said the doctor, picking up his bag as if he wanted them to notice how nice it was. ‘I was a senior physician at a hospital there.’

  ‘We’re going to the west,’ said Frau Magda. ‘All of us.’

  Otto didn’t say anything. Neither did Frau Rupf, Hanno, Effi, Barbara, or the cow, but Cornelius kept growling from between Effi’s hands. As if he was still upset after the meeting with the Russians.

  Hanno remembered the two men as they’d stood in front of the Ivan with their shoulders hunched. He thought, I’ll always remember that, and then, One day I’ll do a picture of it. No, a sculpture in wood, rotten wood with decaying knots in it. Or twisted metal. That’s what I want. To be a sculptor. It was such a crazy thing to decide in the middle of war and chaos that he almost laughed out loud at himself, but his hands moved, almost of themselves as if they were already shaping his material. He wondered how you worked in metal. Didn’t you make a clay mould first?

  ‘We came from the village,’ said the man. ‘The Russians are there, but I brought my wife away.’

  ‘We’ve just met some Russians,’ said Effi, letting go of Cornelius again and giving him a tap on the muzzle. He was quiet now. ‘These ones were OK.’

  ‘You should be careful,’ said the man, ‘they’re unpredictable. Of course, in our position –’

  The woman gave him a look and he shut up.

  ‘Little Nazi fish, were you?’ asked Effi, and Hanno saw old Frau Rupf smile. She was OK, the old woman. She’d told the Ivans what she thought.

  Frau Magda kicked at the ground. ‘We’ve got to get moving.’ Half-angrily, she said to the doctor: ‘You’ve got your train to catch.’ Emphasizing the ‘your’, and staring at her mother.

  ‘What train is that?’ asked the smart man, frowning.

  ‘A train to Frankfurt am Main,’ said Ida Rupf. ‘It’s supposed to be leaving tomorrow at twelve. But haven’t the lines all been blown up?’

  Frau Magda broke in: ‘But, Mother, the gentleman knows all about it.’

  ‘What is your name?’ Ida Rupf asked Otto.

  ‘Mickel,’ said Otto. Hanno wondered how many passports he had in his pocket.

  ‘Really?’ asked Effi. ‘I thought the gentleman’s name was Braun.’

  ‘No,’ said Otto. Of course, Effi was safe to cheek him a bit. She’d said it, he wouldn’t threaten them outright, because that would spoil his con trick. They were supposed to be going willingly to the train. Otto just said, ‘Fool of a girl.’

  ‘I could have sworn it was Braun,’ said Effi. ‘Or maybe Wagner? But you’re right, Herr Major, I’m just a silly girl.’ She giggled. Ida Rupf and Frau Magda both stared at her, at which she shut her mouth and pulled an exaggeratedly demure face that made the old woman grin. ‘I’ll believe in this train when I see it,’ Frau Rupf said.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said the smart man. ‘I heard about this. There’s a line the Führer needs. To move important papers out. And staff.’ He nodded. ‘Isn’t that right, Helga?’

  His wife
nodded too. ‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘there was definitely talk about a train last time we were in Berlin.’

  ‘There you are,’ said Frau Magda to her mother. ‘We must press on.’

  ‘We’ve got to press on anyway,’ said the old woman, sighing, pulling her fox-heads straight and standing up.

  *

  And Effi thought, Why is it that con men always have luck? It must be that the Devil loves a con man. Like Hitler – he was the top con man after all. Telling the Germans they were the best people in the world, saying they’d win the war. Saying he was a peace-loving man. When the good generals tried to kill him last year, he just happened to walk away from the suitcase with the bomb in it. The war could have been over then, but no, he was kept alive. Well, Hitler was after people’s souls, not their money. And then they went to hell. Of course the Devil was interested. And Satan’s good at improvising, better than the best jazzman.

  When you improvised, Pierre had explained to her, there was a set pattern of things you could do, so the other players knew how to go along with your music. The Devil had used Major Mickel-Otto to pick up Hanno’s con man theme, now it was easy for him to bring this pair in, just because they were so full of themselves.

  She saw Ma Headscarf look at Helga and the man, and she knew she resented Frau Helga for having a nice hairdo and looking so chic. But she wanted to believe them, because she wanted to believe in the train. She was part of the Devil’s improvisation too.

  ‘What are we waiting for?’ asked the doctor, putting his suitcase down again, fetching out a handkerchief, wiping his face, then giving that start again. The hundred eyes were still watching him. Whose eyes were they?

  ‘Where are you going?’ Frau Rupf asked the couple.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the man, and suddenly the sweat was dripping on his face. ‘I believe the Russians are everywhere.’ (That was true, there was a poor burned-out Ivan pilot right behind him.)

  ‘You could buy a ticket for the train,’ said Mickel-Otto. ‘I can arrange it for you.’

  ‘Darling Liebfried,’ Frau Helga came in, plaintive as a cat, ‘the suitcase is so heavy. Wouldn’t it be worth it to try?’

  ‘Of course,’ said her darling, with a nice sour note in his voice, ‘there are always special arrangements for the real high-ups.’ He unbuttoned his coat and pulled his silk tie loose, now he wasn’t so smart any more. ‘It’s difficult,’ he complained, ‘trying to decide what to bring with one. At such short notice. I couldn’t leave a good winter coat for the Russians. Where is the departure point for this train?’

  ‘Kummersdorf,’ said Mickel-Otto.

  ‘As long as you have enough tickets for all of us –’ Ma Headscarf started.

  But Herr Liebfried was faltering all of a sudden. ‘I don’t like the sound of Kummersdorf,’ he said. ‘I heard the worst of the fighting is in that direction.’

  ‘There’s serious fighting everywhere,’ said Otto, quickly.

  ‘Yes, but we want to get away from it, and in Kummersdorf – in my position one hears things – that is I used to hear things –’ He pulled at the knot of his tie again. Keep going, thought Effi, in half an hour you’ll look like a tramp.

  His eyes went to his wife as if he expected her to save him. But Frau Helga only said, ‘You know best, darling.’

  His voice went up half an octave. ‘These are all impossible decisions.’

  Frau Helga was still in love with her sugar daddy: ‘I’m sure you know what to do, Liebfried.’

  ‘You can believe me,’ said Herr Liebfried, pulling himself together. ‘Kummersdorf is not the direction to take. I had good sources. Even if the train departs, I am afraid the line may be broken. Granted, it was the source of a considerable security operation, but in this dark hour, when all we fought for is falling apart –’ Liebfried was good at the wailing notes, you could almost feel sorry for him.

  ‘Did you fight?’ asked Hanno.

  Liebfried opened his mouth, but Frau Rupf said to Ma Headscarf, ‘Do you hear him?’

  ‘Mother,’ said Ma Headscarf, ‘we’re going in that direction already.’

  ‘Towards the worst of the fighting?’

  ‘The fighting is over,’ said Otto in a false, reliable voice, like the wolf’s when he was sweet-talking Little Red Riding Hood. ‘And the line is safe, I’ll guarantee it.’

  ‘And what if your guarantees are nonsense?’

  Major Wolf turned on her and spoke in his own threatening voice. ‘Aren’t you tired, Granny? Aren’t your legs ready to give way? So you might as well bring out whatever you’ve got hidden in your corsets, because you’d die before you got to the west on foot, so it’s worth it to take a chance on the train.’

  ‘I won’t die,’ said Frau Rupf.

  Ma Headscarf said, ‘And Barbara? How do you expect her to get that far? Not all the Russians we meet will be good men.’

  Liebfried said to his wife, ‘I’m afraid we had better avoid Kummersdorf.’

  Frau Helga gave a little squeaky sigh and took hold of her heavy suitcase.

  ‘You wouldn’t sell your handcart?’ she wheedled Hanno – that cat really knew how to get a sweet note out when she wanted to.

  ‘It’s not for sale,’ said Hanno.

  And Liebfried and Helga went off down another track with their suitcases, heading away from Kummersdorf. But maybe Otto wasn’t taking them towards Kummersdorf either? Surely he wasn’t crazy enough to go into the hottest fighting? Didn’t he want to get to the west as much as they did?

  Ida stopped, put her sack down, picked it up again. She wouldn’t give that man a chance to jeer at her again. As she walked on she started to wonder again where she’d buried the chest. No. She mustn’t. She needed every last bit of energy to walk. If only Magda wasn’t such a fool! But since she was, Ida would have to go with her. Magda was her daughter after all, her own flesh and blood. And there was Barbara.

  The smoke was thinning, that was one good thing.

  Then the boy, Hanno, said to her: ‘We could take your sack from you and carry it in our handcart. It’d be safe there.’

  She gave it to him. She felt so relieved her head swam for a moment. It was so much easier to walk now. He was a good, kind boy.

  ‘You’d better not steal it,’ said Magda harshly.

  ‘You’ll get it back,’ said the girl Effi. ‘Trust me.’

  Mickel – or whatever he called himself – laughed. But he was probably so lost to all decency he couldn’t believe in a simple act of kindness. Did the war make him into a brute? Ida thought. Or was he always like that? Czekalla now, he was bad from the start; the war only gave him scope for his badness.

  ‘You have got a ticket for us, Herr Major, haven’t you?’ Magda asked. How could she trust a man like that better than she trusted her own mother?

  The doctor said, ‘I hope too many riff-raff won’t be coming on the train.’

  Ida started to laugh. She could feel the man’s angry eyes on her, but she kept laughing. And then, as if the laughter had released something inside her, and partly because she was angry too, angry with Magda for being such a fool, she started to talk to the girl about Felix.

  ‘My young man,’ she said, ‘the one I started to tell you about, he was a poet and a journalist, he worked for some literary magazine. And of course he had no money. But he had beautiful dark eyes and a lovely voice – and his smile!’

  Effi said, ‘Did it make your heart race and your knees go weak when he looked at you?’

  ‘Oh yes, and more. My father had a guesthouse up in the mountains, just a quiet little house and modest prices. Felix came there in Maytime, when all the birds were singing. I used to run away from my parents and we’d go for walks together. Even when he wasn’t there – I’d lay the table for breakfast and kiss the plate and cup and knife that he’d soon be holding. I never stopped thinking about him, he was the air I breathed. When I put my head down on my pillow at night the pillow felt like his cheek against mine.’r />
  Magda was listening, but she didn’t say anything.

  ‘And you wanted to get married,’ the girl said.

  ‘We wanted to get married. I didn’t care how little money we’d have. But my father threw Felix out of the guesthouse. He hadn’t told me but he’d already made arrangements with Rupf. Rupf wanted to marry me, too; Rupf was much older, he had a big hotel and plenty of money. I don’t believe he ever loved me, but I was really pretty in those days, though you wouldn’t believe it now, and he thought I was a good investment. That was the way Rupf’s mind worked. I’d help him with the hotel and bring in customers.’

  ‘So they made you marry the old man. Was he ugly?’

  ‘Not terribly ugly, but not good-looking either. He had a square head and his hair was cut short like a brush. A pair of droopy moustaches and a round face. I always thought he had a face like a clock, the moustaches were the hands at twenty past eight.’ Ida laughed again at the memory of Rupf’s face. ‘He’d been married before but his wife had died with her first child and he’d lost the child too. Diphtheria. My parents wore me down, God forgive me. They said they’d never speak to me again if I married Felix. They said we’d starve, and it was true he didn’t really earn enough to keep a wife. My mother took to her bed and said I was making her ill. And she told me I could never be happy with a man like Felix.’

  ‘Why? Because he was a journalist and a poet?’

  ‘Because he was Jewish.’ She was in tears, she couldn’t stop herself. But Magda came and took her by the arm.

  ‘Now, Mother, you give me those pearls, so that I can buy tickets for the train. Or else I’ll never speak to you again.’ To the man, she said, ‘They’re good pearls, worth a fortune.’

  ‘You’re just like your father,’ said Ida.

  ‘I want the pearls,’ said Magda.

  Ida sighed. ‘There isn’t a train, Magda.’ But she was so tired, and she could see the man’s eyes on her, gleaming like her pearls, which were what he was thinking about. Maybe she should give them to Magda. They’d been a present from Rupf, after all, and Magda was Rupf’s daughter.

  ‘What was Felix’s second name? Did he get to be famous?’ the girl asked her.