Silesian Station (2008)

by David Downing

  Too slow for evermore.'

  'Yes, but...'

  'Just substitute socialism for God, and apply the rest to our Revolution. We need love and a socialist spirit more than we need science and organization.'

  It had seemed a stretch at the time, but Scheffler and she had been right, Stalin and Trotsky wrong. 'Believers,' he muttered to himself. They had all been believers then - or had aspired to be. But the world had caught up with them.

  He looked up at the poet's portrait, the serene certainty in the eyes. The world had moved a lot slower in Scheffler's day - grab hold of a vision and there was a good chance you'd make it to the grave before someone tore holes in it.

  Back in the sunlight he handed over his two marks, more because the seller looked hungry than because he really wanted the book.

  It was almost ten o'clock. He walked back to Oderstrasse but the Polish Consulate was still devoid of life. He banged a fist on the door rather harder than he intended, the noise echoing down the narrow street. The only answer came from behind him. 'They're gone,' a woman shouted from a first floor window. 'And good riddance!'

  According to the timetable there were trains to Wartha every two hours, but only, it appeared, when the Wehrmacht was not practising in the neighbourhood. It was almost two o'clock when Russell's three-coach train trundled out past the Breslau locomotive depot and turned off the main line to Upper Silesia and Poland. Wartha was supposed to be ninety minutes away.

  It was a pleasant ride, flat vistas of golden fields as far as Strehlen, followed by gently rolling country, the fields vast, lone trees standing sentry on the ridges, the occasional red-roofed farmhouse nestling beside a copse of beeches. The telegraph poles that followed the tracks, and occasionally broke away towards a distant village, were the only evidence of modernity.

  The mountains to the south slowly rose to meet them. Wartha backed onto a gap in the foothills, a widening valley to one side, the Silesian plain to the other. The station was a simple affair, a single platform with a wooden awning, a house for the stationmaster. No one was waiting to get on, and no one else got off. In the yard beyond the station building two open lorries stood unattended, and a youngish man sat, apparently waiting, on the bucket-seat of a horse-drawn cart.

  Russell asked him if he knew the Rosenfeld farm.

  The man looked at him coldly. 'What do you mean - do I know it?'

  'Do you know where it is?' Russell asked patiently.

  'Of course.'

  'Will you take me there?'

  The man hesitated, as if searching for an adequate response. 'I have other business,' he said eventually, and flicked his horse into motion.

  Russell watched the cart disappear into its own cloud of dust, and walked back round the station building in search of staff. Knocking on a door marked 'Stationmaster', he found himself face to face with a fat, red-nosed man in a Reichsbahn uniform. Mention of the Rosenfelds elicited a doubtful sniff but no outright hostility. Their farm, it transpired, was about five kilometres away.

  'Is there any way I can get a ride out there?' Russell asked.

  'Not that I know of.'

  'The lorries out front?'

  'Their owners took the train to Glatz. They didn't have the petrol to drive there.'

  Five kilometres wasn't so far. 'Can you give me directions then?'

  'You do know they're Jews?'

  'Yes.'

  The man shrugged, shut his door behind him, and led Russell back to the front of the building. 'Straight up this road,' he said, pointing westward, where the cart's trail of dust was still hovering above the track. 'You go across two crossroads, straight towards those hills, then you'll come to a fork. The road on the left follows the slope round. There are two farms on it, and you want the second.'

  It sounded straightforward enough, Russell thought, and he soon reached the first crossroads. The outskirts of Wartha began a short distance down the road to the left, and the spire of the town church rose above the roofs a kilo-metre or so to the south. He kept going, down a rutted and well-shaded dirt track. An endless field of grain stretched away to the north, and the sound of a distant tractor carried over on the wind. When the motor cut out the silence was almost palpable, and the sudden bark of a dog seemed like a desperate attempt to fill the void.

  It was really hot. When he reached the second crossroads Russell stood for a minute in the shade of a convenient oak, wiping his brow with his handker-chief. What was he going to tell the Rosenfelds? Everything, he supposed.

  He resumed walking. In a couple of hours the sun would be behind the mountains, and as far as he could remember there had been no moon the night before. He wasn't at all sure he fancied this walk in the dark. And he hadn't even asked about trains back to Breslau.

  After what seemed an age he came to the fork in the road. The track grew narrower, more rutted, but the first farm soon loomed into sight. He became aware that a woman was standing watching him. Chickens were squawking at her feet, clearly interested in the feedbag she was carrying.

  'Good afternoon,' he shouted.

  'Good afternoon,' she replied, more cautiously.

  'The Rosenfeld farm?'

  She pointed up the road and turned her back.

  It took him another fifteen minutes to reach his destination. Miriam's home was on the lee side of a hill, smoke drifting up from its chimney and into the light of the sinking sun. There was a copse of trees to the right, a single cow tethered on a long rope to one of the trunks. On the left was a sturdy wooden barn, beyond that what looked like a kitchen garden.

  Another woman was watching him, he realized, hidden in the shadows of the east-facing doorway. He had a sudden inexplicable hope that it might be Miriam, but of course it wasn't. This woman had streaks of grey in her hair.

  'Frau Rosenfeld?' he asked.

  'My husband will be back in a few minutes,' she told him.

  'That is good,' Russell said, stopping a few metres away from her. 'I wish to talk to you both.'

  'What about? Who are you?'

  'My name is John Russell. My brother-in-law Thomas Schade employed your brother-in-law Benjamin.'

  'Employed? Has he lost his job?'

  'I'm sorry, Frau Rosenfeld, but Benjamin is dead.'

  Her hands flew up to her cheeks. 'But how...' she began, only for another thought to take precedence. 'Who is looking after my daughter?'

  'That is why I'm here. I'm afraid your daughter has gone missing.'

  'Missing,' she echoed. She closed her eyes, and for a brief moment she seemed to visibly shrink. Then, with what seemed an almost absurd effort of will, she drew herself upright. 'I will fetch Leon,' she said. 'Please...'

  'I'll wait here.'

  She strode off in the direction of the kitchen garden. Russell sat himself down on the front door step, noticing the mezuzah on the frame as he did so. You didn't see many of those in Berlin anymore.

  He felt as if he had crossed into another world. He had known a lot of Jews in his lifetime, but most had been intellectuals of one sort or another, and all had been urbanised. The Yiddish-speaking Jews of the Pale, that vast expanse of plains stretching across southern Poland and Ukraine, were as much of a mystery to him as the Bushmen of the Kalahari.

  Miriam's father came into view, half-running ahead of his wife. He looked smaller than he had in the photograph, but Russell could see the kindness in the face, even twisted as now by fear. The words came out in a rush: 'What is it that I am hearing? My brother is dead? My Miriam is missing? What does this mean?'

  Russell told him. About Benjamin's murder and their worries about Miriam, about the police refusal to investigate. About the hiring of Kuzorra and the possible sighting, and the threatening of the detective.

  Frau Rosenfeld mostly listened in silence, but her husband kept interrupting with hopeful questions, as if determined to find better explanations for what had happened. When Russell reached the present Leon Rosenfeld looked at the ground for the moment, then back at hi
s guest. 'I thank you for coming,' he said. 'Now I must move the cow.'

  Russell stared after him with astonishment.

  'He needs to think,' Frau Rosenfeld explained. 'He will come back and announce that he is going to Berlin to look for her.'

  'That...' Russell began, and hesitated. Wouldn't he scour the planet for Paul if his son went missing? He would, but that didn't make it wise for Rosenfeld to go charging off. 'I would do the same, but it would not be a good idea.'

  Her look questioned his wisdom, if not his motives. 'Forgive me,' she said, 'but you are not a Jew. If she is with other Jews in Berlin, would not another Jew have a better chance of finding her?'

  'I am not a Jew, but many of the men who work for my brother-in-law are. They knew Benjamin, and they have spread the word among Berlin's Jews. No one has heard from her, or of her. If your husband goes to Berlin...Let me be blunt - the police will not listen to him, and if he kicks up a fuss - which in any sane society he would and should - then they will punish him for it. The Jews in Berlin survive by keeping themselves to themselves. Your husband will be no use to Miriam - or you - if he ends up in a concentration camp. Or worse.'

  'I don't know if I can stop him.'

  'You must try. I will keep looking, I promise you. I will promise him.'

  'I will try.' She sighed, and drew herself up again. 'Forgive me, keeping you outside all this time. Please, come in. A glass of water.'

  Russell followed her into the farmhouse. It was as well-kept as the farm, and more comfortable than he had expected. The furniture was old but recovered; an even older-looking piano stood by the far wall. There was small case of books, and a game-ready chessboard on a narrow table. Vases of wild-flowers flanked the menorah on the mantelpiece.

  Frau Rosenfeld had just given him the glass of water when her husband returned. He walked over to his wife and put his hands on her shoulders. 'Esther, I must go to Berlin.'

  She shook her head. 'I have already told Herr Russell that you would say that. He said he would do the same, but it would not be wise.' She told him why.

  It was his turn to shake his head, but he said nothing more. 'Where is my brother buried?' he asked.

  'In the Jewish cemetery in Friedrichshain. In Berlin.'

  'That is good. He enjoyed life,' he added, mostly to himself.

  Outside it was growing noticeably darker. 'I must be going,' Russell said, 'but...'

  'No, no - you must eat with us,' Esther Rosenfeld interjected. 'You can stay the night in Miriam's room. Please, it will give us time to decide what to do.'

  Put like that, Russell could hardly refuse. Not that he'd wanted to.

  The meal was simple but tasty, a rabbit stew with large chunks of home-made bread. The conversation was sparse - Russell guessed that Leon usually did most of the talking, and on this particular evening he seemed frequently - and understandably - lost in thought.

  'I saw your neighbour on my walk up here,' Russell said. 'A woman.'

  'Eva,' Frau Rosenberg said tersely. 'We were friends before all this, but now they seem afraid to know us. She does, in any case. Their boy Torsten came to see us last week. Miriam told him she would write to him, but she hadn't.'

  Russell put two and two together. 'Did he go to Breslau with her? Someone thought they saw her with a boy by the station.'

  'He works in Breslau. He was going to see that she got the right train to Berlin. She had only been to Breslau once before.'

  'I'd like to talk to him. Do you know where he works?'

  'In a big store. A really modern one, Eva told me. It was designed by a famous architect. You could ask his family, of course. I think they would tell you.'

  They went to bed soon after eating. 'We live by the sun,' Leon Rosenfeld said simply.

  Miriam's room contained an iron bed, a wooden chest of drawers and a small table. Russell lay in bed watching the candlelight flicker on the ceiling, listening to the shuffling of the horse in the barn outside. On the other side of the inner wall a conversation was being conducted in fierce whispers. He understood Leon Rosenfeld's desperate need to go looking, but he hoped Esther would be able to dissuade him. If she didn't, the only outcome of his own visit was likely to be a third family casualty.

  He leaned over to blow out the candle, and thought about losing Effi . Her mystery meeting was tonight, he remembered. He wondered what sort of people she was getting herself involved with - many of her friends and acquaintances had a somewhat tenuous grasp of political realities. Effi was sensible enough when she took time to think, but...

  Who was he kidding? There were no riskless paths any more. Safety had only ever lain in keeping one's head down and one's conscience in cold storage. It was too late for that now, for him and for Effi . Hauptsturmfuhrer Hirth had pushed them both over the edge.

  He woke soon after six, the sun streaming through the uncurtained window and onto the wall beside him. The rest of the house was empty, the kettle only warm. After using the latrine behind the house he found Esther Rosenfeld digging up weeds in the kitchen garden.

  'Good morning,' she said, straightening her back. 'Leon will take your advice,' she added without preamble. 'He wants to go, but he's also afraid to leave me unprotected. And I encouraged him in that thought, God help me.'

  'It's the right decision,' Russell said.

  'I hope so. Come, let me give you some breakfast.' She led the way back to the house, placed the kettle on the woodstove and cut some thick slices from yesterday's loaf. A slab of remarkably solid butter was fetched from the larder, a jar of plum jam taken down from a shelf. Tea was made in a Russian-looking samovar.

  All in all, it was delicious. Life was apparently possible without coffee. At least for a short time.

  'How can I contact you?' Russell asked between mouthfuls of bread. 'When my brother-in-law wrote to you, the postmaster in Wartha denied that the letter had ever arrived.'

  She thought for a moment. 'I will give you the name and address of a friend,' she said. 'A goy.'

  She found a piece of paper and wrote it out with a slow, steady hand. 'This man is the local blacksmith. He and Leon are still friends, despite everything. Send your letter to us in envelopes addressed to him, and he will bring them to us. Leon will tell him to expect it.'

  'Right.'

  They sat in silence for a while, Russell sipping at the hot tea, Esther apparently absorbed in thought. 'Do you think our daughter is still alive?' she asked suddenly.

  'I don't know. If she was dead, and the police had found her, then I think they would have informed my brother-in-law.'

  'There is hope, then?'

  'Yes.'

  She ran a hand through her hair. 'There is a train to Breslau at around nine. We can hear it when the wind is from the east.'

  'Your husband?'

  'He is working in the field beyond the barn. He will want to say goodbye.'

  They walked out to find him. He was picking cabbages, and judging by the size of the pile had been doing so for several hours.

  He wiped his hands on his trousers and shook Russell's. He looked years older than he had the evening before. 'My grandfather bought this land over sixty years ago,' he said. 'He thought they would be safer close to the mountains, and he was right. We should never have sent Miriam away.'

  'There was no way you could know that your brother would be attacked,' Russell told him.

  Leon was not to be comforted. 'I always said my Miriam was too good for this world,' he said. 'Like an angel.'

  Walking away down the dirt-track Russell could feel Esther's eyes on his back. Should he have raised her hopes? Did he have any reason to believe that Miriam was still alive?

  Smoke was rising from the neighbouring farm. He thought of stopping to ask where Torsten worked, but the thought of meeting the boy's parents was uninviting. And the clues he had would be good enough. There weren't that many big stores in Breslau, and he was surprised that even one had been designed by a famous architect.

  It seem
ed warmer than the previous day, and he hung his jacket over one shoulder. He walked swiftly, and was approaching the last crossroads, the roofs of Wartha visible across the fields, when he heard the lorry behind him. It was bumping along the dirt-track at a fair speed, belching dust into the air, and showed no signs of slowing down to spare his lungs. A blast of the horn reinforced the message.

  Russell stepped onto the verge and beyond, reaching for his handkerchief to cover his mouth. The lorry lurched by, two men in the cab, two standing behind it in the open back.

  Enveloped by dust, Russell heard rather than saw the lorry grind to a halt some fifty metres down the track. He saw two shapes climb down from either side of the cab, two more jumping down to the ground. All four shapes walked towards him. As the dust cleared, he saw that the driver and his mate were both wearing brown shirts. That was the extent of their uniform, but it was enough.

  'Oh, fuck,' Russell murmured to himself. 'Good morning!' he said cheerily, as if these were the folks he'd most wanted to meet on such a beautiful day.

  The response was less friendly. 'Where have you come from?' the driver asked. A short balding man with wide shoulders and a barrel chest, he was a good deal older than the others - around Russell's age - and he seemed to be in charge.

  There seemed no point in lying. 'I've been up to the Rosenfeld farm.'

  'For the night?'

  'It was too late to get back to Breslau.'

  'It's against the law, staying with Jews,' one of the younger men offered.

  'Why were you up there?' the driver went on, ignoring his companion.

  This, as Russell realized at the time, was the moment when he should have said something clever and self-exculpatory. That he was doing an article on Jews who refused to see sense and quit the Reich - something like that. But the last twenty-four hours had reduced his already limited willingness to indulge the local scum, and, in any case, the Rosenfelds deserved a bit of loyalty. 'I was telling them that their daughter is missing,' he said.

  That didn't seem much of a surprise to his audience, who were presumably privy to Thomas's missing letter.

  'She should have stayed here,' the same young man said with a grin. He was probably one of the gang that had intercepted Miriam on this very track, frightening the Rosenfelds into sending their daughter to Berlin.