Last Train from Kummersdorf

by Leslie Wilson

  The blow came: he saw the fist getting bigger as it hit towards him, but he seized hold of Otto’s arm with both hands and pulled, twisting sideways as he did so. He felt all Otto’s weight hurtle past him into the wall. Then Otto was crumpling – it seemed to take for ever.

  *

  Otto lay on the floor. He was out cold. Hanno wiped the blood off his mouth with his sleeve. He was out of breath and giddy, and now he noticed where he was hurting, his mouth, his hip, his hands, his belly and all the bruises from when he’d hit the floor. Any moment now, he thought, the women will be there wanting to clean me up. Scolding like mothers. He didn’t want them. He wanted Wolfgang. Thumping him on the back, saying, That was some fight, big brother.

  Dr Hungerland was there, kneeling down beside Otto, putting his hand to the pulse in his neck. ‘He’s alive,’ he said. ‘Thank God. We must take care of him. Restrain that boy. Throw him off the train.’

  Effi said, ‘Nix take care of him. Give me your tie.’

  ‘No,’ said Hungerland. ‘I have to preserve a decent standard of appearance.’

  ‘If you don’t,’ said Effi, ‘I’ll shoot you. I’ve got his gun.’

  Hungerland shuddered. He took his tie off carefully, as if he was going to roll it up and put it in a drawer. He handed it to Effi.

  ‘Now get away from him,’ she said. She got down beside Otto. Ida Rupf came to help her. Together, the two women rolled the unconscious Otto onto his front and tied his hands together with the silk. ‘We need something to do his legs,’ said Effi. ‘I know. Go into the third bedroom, you’ll find a silk kimono there, with a belt.’

  Frau Rupf went away. Hanno saw Frau Magda standing there, quite still, white in the face. She said, ‘How can we find the train now?’

  ‘There isn’t a train,’ said Effi shortly. ‘There never was. It was a game I was playing with Hanno, this joker came along and it got too serious.’ Ida Rupf came back holding something white. Effi tied Otto’s legs together with the belt. It’d hold him, silk was strong.

  Hanno said, ‘He’s got the diamonds in his pocket.’

  ‘No, he hasn’t,’ said Effi. ‘They tumbled out when you were scrapping. And the pearls. I’ve got them all here. Do you want the diamonds?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Hungerland can have them.’

  ‘Doctor Hungerland,’ the doctor corrected him, sitting up in the chair and wiping his face with his handkerchief.

  Ida Rupf was ripping the kimono apart. ‘We can truss him,’ she said. ‘Tie his arms and legs together.’

  ‘Good,’ said Effi. ‘Don’t get down. I can do it by myself. Hang on. Here are your pearls. Have your diamonds, doc.’

  Dr Hungerland said, ‘But they were my fare. I paid for the journey.’ He paused, then went on, ‘I shall give them to the conductor in the morning. Because I don’t believe these tales of fraud.’

  ‘Defeatist rumours?’ asked Effi. ‘Like the stories about the Russians reaching Berlin?’

  Hungerland said, ‘I intend to remain on this train till it moves.’

  ‘Good luck to you,’ said Effi. She was really making a parcel out of Otto’s arms and legs. ‘I’m moving on my own two feet in the morning.’

  Frau Magda was crying.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Hanno. It wasn’t enough, he knew that.

  Ida Rupf said, ‘At least we’ve been well fed, lad. Now we must get a couple of hours’ sleep. We have to be out of here at first light.’

  Hanno knew what she meant: if any Russian bombers saw the train, they’d target it.

  ‘Clean yourself up,’ said the old woman to Hanno – he was surprised it had taken her so long to say it. ‘There’s some champagne left, the alcohol will disinfect the cuts.’

  ‘Cognac,’ said Effi, getting up from Otto. ‘It’ll sting nicely, then you’ll know it’s good for you.’

  Dr Hungerland said, ‘I have grandchildren. I used to play with them. Perhaps that was why I played with the Grauss child. But my grandchildren all have blond hair.’

  ‘Of course they do,’ said Effi. ‘Now shut up, will you?’

  ‘I had to think about their future,’ said the doctor.

  ‘It didn’t make any difference. Fighting Otto,’ Hanno said. ‘It felt as if it would.’

  ‘Nothing will make any difference now,’ said Ida Rupf, grimly, ‘but maybe, when we’ve got some time, we can sit down and ask ourselves how we could allow all this to happen? The war, the Jews, the dead children. Or maybe we’ll just decide it was someone else’s fault.’

  ‘Do you hate me, Mother?’ asked Frau Magda.

  ‘Of course I don’t,’ said the old woman. ‘You’re my daughter. Magda, I’m so weary, please have some pity on me tonight.’

  ‘What was Felix’s other name?’ asked Effi.

  ‘Dresner. Are you interested in poetry?’

  Effi shook her head. ‘I thought I might have heard what happened to him. I haven’t. I’m sorry. Look, Swing Boy, don’t lash yourself. It did make a difference, fighting Otto. God knows what he meant to do to all of us, you know what he’s like. Anyway, fighting him was something you had to do. Are you going to get the cognac, or do I have to?’

  It did sting, like iodine, and he was glad. He couldn’t understand why.

  One bedroom the doctor had bagged, one Frau Magda used with Barbara, old Frau Rupf had the third. Otto was lying trussed up on the salon floor, so Effi and Hanno could use the fourth. It was a nice bed, a metre wide, but they still had to cuddle up together. Hanno went in first, then Effi came. She lay down facing him: a moment later she had her head on his shoulder. He put his arm round her and stroked her back. Little flames of pleasure ran up and down her.

  ‘You’re nice,’ she said. ‘Swing Boy.’

  He grinned at her. He was cute when he looked really happy. Then he kissed her face in an awkward, damp way. She kissed him back. A moment later they were kissing properly. It was good. It went on being good. Till the happiness drained out of him – she’d swear she could feel it go, it was like a greyness creeping over his body, which had been nice and rosy warm.

  ‘I beat him – but my father’s still dead. And Wolfgang.’

  Jesus, he sounded just like a little kid. She understood, though.

  ‘Swing Boy, we’ve all got dead people we’d like to bring back to life.’

  ‘You’ve got your mother, of course, and that Frenchman, and your aunt. Effi, what Otto said, about my father –’

  ‘You believe it, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m sure it’s true. My sister told me once – she’s two years older than me, she was four in 1933. She remembers Mother sitting there crying and crying. And Father was in the dining room and Mother went in to him and suddenly she shouted “No!” at him and something fell on the floor. Heide went in there and it was his gun. She never understood why he dropped his gun like that. Now it makes sense. He tried to shoot himself, and Mother told him not to. And there was that bad feeling about Otto. I told you. When I think about Father believing the only thing he could do was to go and shoot himself –’

  Effi said, ‘Did you hear what Otto said? They really were gassing all those Jews in Poland. Why didn’t I want to believe it? I know enough about what they were capable of. There was a man who lived near us, he’d been in a camp. For being a trade union organizer. A bit like your father. Whatever it was they did to him, they made a wreck out of him. He wasn’t allowed to talk about it, you know, they’d warned him they’d have him straight back in if he did. He used to drift into my aunt’s bar like a ghost, order a glass of beer, drink half of it and sit staring at the other half for two hours. Only if anyone spoke to him he’d start shaking and then he’d get out of the bar as if someone was after him. I reckon they let people like him out to put the frighteners on everyone else. Your father knew that kind of thing was happening.’

  ‘That finishes it all for me. I know it’s finished anyway. But there’s another way of things being finished, inside your head. Do you k
now what I mean?’

  She stroked his hair.

  ‘I do, Swing Boy.’

  ‘You know, he’d never let Wolfgang and me grumble about the Hitler Youth, I thought it was because he believed in it; maybe it was because they still had an eye on him and it was dangerous for us to bunk off HY. But maybe he did start to believe in it, later on.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t. You don’t know. Maybe your mother does.’

  ‘I told you, when we went for the walk that time, he said to my brother and me, “All I want to do is to forget.” But he didn’t do anything to stop it. Not like those people who tried to kill Hitler.’

  She said, ‘You had to know people. People you were sure were safe. Difficult in the police force. Maybe he thought things would get better – even Jews thought that at the beginning. Then he got so far in it was too late. Maybe all the time he was hating it. But you know what bastards they were, kid. That’s what counts.’

  Hesitantly, he asked, ‘Do you think Otto was lying about my mother? You know, she didn’t want my teacher to have me and Wolfgang in the Home Guard, and he said to her: “You won’t move mountains this time.”’

  ‘Your mother knew the Brownshirts might come for your father. They both knew that all of you’d be destitute if that happened. I reckon your mother was a brave woman, she went like plenty of others to beg for his life. It was bad enough for them, having to beg and plead to those bastards; I never heard that any of them had to do anything like that. He was just trying to rile you.’

  ‘How come you know so much? Were you really a criminal? If you were, why did you give the diamonds back, and the cigarette case? And why did you ask about Frau Rupf’s Jewish lover?’

  So she told him. All about Mama and Papa, about Uncle Max, and what Aunt Annelie and Pierre had been doing. About helping with hiding Jews and looting food for them, about how she’d taken messages and food back and forth, Little Red Riding Hood among the wolves. About Schulz. Now what was he going to say?

  He didn’t say anything. Was he only taking it all in?

  At last: ‘Did you want us to lose?’

  ‘I wanted Hitler to go. I didn’t want kids like your twin brother to cop it. But if losing was the only way for the Nazis to go – better a horrible ending than a horror that never ends. Do you hate me for that?’

  Now suddenly she was crying – she’d thought she couldn’t till she reached Papa, but she had to. And Hanno was stroking her hair, and his front was getting all wet with her tears, and she sobbed and sobbed, and it was OK, he kept on stroking her hair so lovingly.

  *

  The next thing she knew she was awake, there was daylight coming in through the blinds, and there was the noise of a plane. She could hear Otto bellowing in the salon. She and Hanno jumped up together.

  Frau Magda, Barbara and Frau Rupf were up, running to the salon, and Hungerland opened the door of his bedroom and looked out. His feet were bare.

  ‘We’ve got to get out!’ yelled Effi.

  ‘I shall remain here,’ said the doctor. He started to slide the door shut again.

  ‘Don’t you realize that plane could bomb us?’ Effi asked him.

  ‘The eyes are outside,’ said Hungerland. ‘They can’t look at me while I’m in here.’

  ‘Please yourself,’ said Effi.

  In the salon Otto was still yelling. He wanted them to release him. But they picked up the cart and started to lift it out of the door. The dog came too, running up the bank. The women and Barbara were outside already, they’d even started to climb the bank. The cow was at the top, looking down at them.

  ‘Otto,’ said Hanno from the bottom step. ‘What shall we do about him?’

  ‘I’ve got his gun,’ said Effi from the doorway. ‘What say we let him go? I don’t want to have killed him, soft of me, probably, Swing Boy, but I did tie him up.’

  ‘He’d hate us to free him,’ said Hanno. ‘It’d humiliate him. OK, let’s do it.’

  ‘I’ll hold the gun to keep him nicely behaved.’

  They got back into the carriage, lifting the cart up again. Hanno cut the white silk and Dr Hungerland’s tie. Otto stood up, lurching with grogginess. She supposed he had a hangover as well as concussion.

  ‘You can help with our cart,’ said Effi, keeping him covered. ‘To say thank you to us for saving your life.’

  ‘I’m not leaving,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Effi, ‘another one. Why not?’

  He took no notice, but stood up and went to the wall, did something with his hands, and a panel flew open. She saw a safe in there. He started to fiddle with the combination dial.

  ‘You’ll die,’ said Effi, ‘the Ivans will bomb this train.’

  ‘Get out,’ said Otto, staggering, but straightening up at once to go back to the safe. ‘I’d have finished you last night if things hadn’t got out of hand. Now at least I’m not sharing my haul with filthy Communist brats. You wait, I’ll catch up with you yet.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Hanno. He got the cart out and Effi almost fell out after him. She kept the gun handy in case Otto came out after all. The plane was still there, not directly overhead, though. At the top of the bank they were among the trees; that felt better.

  ‘Hurry up,’ said old Ida. ‘What kept you?’

  They didn’t explain. No time. They ran on away from the cutting. And then the plane dived, coming in with a roar over their heads. Everyone fell flat on their bellies. There was an explosion. Effi heard a creaking and smashing of trees, but only twigs and pine cones came down on her head.

  They were all getting up, coughing.

  ‘I’m going back to see what’s happened,’ said Hanno.

  Effi came with him, so did Cornelius. They left the cart.

  The railway cutting had turned into a crater whose edges were made of sand, wood fragments, and twisted metal. Effi saw something lying half-buried in the sandy soil. It was the perfume flacon with its rubber bulb. And there was a champagne cork, and a battered tin of something with the label scorched off it. In the middle of the crater there was only empty earth.

  ‘They must be dead,’ said Hanno. ‘Both of them. Unless they’re buried.’

  They climbed down with Cornelius, who went sniffing round. They didn’t hear anyone calling for help, nor did the dog find anything.

  ‘Dead and buried,’ said Effi.

  ‘Do you think Otto got the safe open?’ Hanno asked. ‘How did he find it anyway? Maybe there was a secret lever and he found it when he was tapping the walls last night.’

  Effi stared at the wreckage.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘I hope he didn’t get in there, it was one thing for us not to kill him, but I don’t want him to have died happy. Anyway, he’s gone and good riddance. Let’s go back and tell the others.’

  Frau Rupf shook her head, then she said: ‘What food did we bring? I took some black bread. And caviar, it’s very nutritious.’

  ‘You remind me of someone else I used to know,’ said Effi.

  ‘I’ve got condensed milk,’ said Ma Headscarf.

  Barbara fetched out half a bar of chocolate.

  ‘I’ve got chocolate too,’ said Effi. ‘And tinned salmon.’

  ‘Which way do we go?’ asked Frau Rupf. ‘We want to go to Frankfurt.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Hanno. ‘South-west, that is.’

  ‘South-west for me, too,’ said Effi, ‘if it’s true the Amis are there.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  They walked. They didn’t count the days. They noticed the dawn, when it was time to start out. At nightfall they had to stop walking and even though they were tired out, they were sorry to stop. They slept soundly, they were exhausted. Still, when the next day came they woke at once and felt such relief that they could walk again, you’d have thought they’d spent all night awake with their teeth rattling. They didn’t talk much.

  They stuck to forest tracks and paths. Sometimes the paths took them near roads and settlements and every
so often they’d hear women screaming. Effi would look at little Barbara then. She’d gone back into her silence, as if she felt safer like that. She had a way of keeping herself still even when she was walking: Effi thought her self was a long long way inside her body, maybe with its arms wrapped protectively round her heart. Barbara’s face was white and ugly because her self was so far with drawn from it, only her eyes were huge and watchful, fixed on the path in front of her: pine needles and twigs, thought Effi, that’s what she sees.

  They did meet people in the woods: girls who’d been sent away by their mothers to hide, whole families who had left their homes in the neighbourhood, refugees who’d abandoned the westward trek and were waiting out the rest of the war there.

  ‘Why are you going on?’ these people asked. ‘The Russians are everywhere now.’

  Sometimes Effi thought old Ida would decide to stop walking and stay put with Barbara and Frau Magda. Ma Headscarf had been doing everything her mother said since she’d been proved wrong about the train (but that wouldn’t last). But Ida was determined to get Barbara away from the Russians, so she went on with Hanno and Effi.

  They went south-west, as best they could, but they were always getting onto paths that snaked and bent and took them off-course, or towards the fighting. When they came upon a road they checked carefully before they crossed it. Several times they had to wait for hours for Russian tanks to pass. Once they came upon a little house in the middle of the woods: there were chickens, geese and goats running around, but no people, and the furniture had been thrown all over the place and broken. Someone had been looting here. They caught a nanny goat who was bleating to be milked, but she butted at Effi and Frau Magda as they trapped her between them: Frau Magda held the horns, Effi the hind legs, and then old Ida milked her, because she knew how. They’d have liked to kill a chicken, too, but they couldn’t catch any and the birds made too much noise.

  They’d thrown Otto’s gun away, so they couldn’t use that to shoot a chicken. Ida said when the Russians had stopped them before there’d been a man who had a gun. He hadn’t tried to use it against the Russians, though they’d taken his wife, but they’d taken it out of his pocket and blown his head apart with it. They got some eggs, though, and most of them were good. Cornelius found a few for himself, he didn’t care whether they were good or bad. He just ate them all.