“What’s your mother’s name?” Sonja asked.
“Mummy,” he replied, cross and tearful.
Now Sonja can see that the boy has fallen asleep, he’s lying on a mattress a few meters from them while his mother tries to change his little sister. She takes out some fabric from a brown leather case, tears it in two, and wraps it around the lower half of the tiny girl’s body, then opens her blouse and holds the baby to her breast.
After a few hours the roaring of the propellers had grown fainter, they had made it out to sea, each person gripping the luggage they had brought with them. The intense stench of vomit mixed with the smell of diesel, wood shavings from the mattresses, sweat, urine, and excrement, so many of them packed into such a small space.
They had eaten the eggs that they had brought with them. Miriam had taken the last, the one intended for Ilse. Her mother hadn’t wanted anything. She had become immediately withdrawn after they were separated from their father, sitting and staring all around her, saying nothing. Sonja persuaded her to eat an egg, but she didn’t touch the soup they were later offered. She lay on the mattress, whispering until she fell asleep.
Sonja lies down beside Miriam. She puts her arms around her, feels her breathing, calm, the steady rhythm of her heart, the acrid stench of the doll’s sweater. It’s so quiet in here now. Too quiet. It makes room for so many other sounds. Four days. They were to pack for four days; does that mean they’ll be on the ship for four days? And when they get there, where will that be after four days on board, when will they be back, Ilse’s dress on the hanger, she sees it, the cotton fabric, the red polka dots, Ilse, the theater job that awaits her, she hasn’t given word, the first of December, that’s five days from now, she won’t be back by then, or will she? She can’t close her eyes, can’t face it, though she can’t face keeping them open either, it’s not possible to sleep here, she can’t breathe, Miriam’s hair tickles her face.
WHAT DAY IS IT NOW? ISAK LIES IN his bunk and thinks. It must be Saturday, the twenty-eighth; they’ve been traveling for two days now, surely? Days and nights have merged into one; the dim lighting in the cargo hold is the same regardless, nothing to distinguish the hours from one another as they sit or lie down, roll back and forth, yes, it must be Saturday by now.
Quite a few times he’s felt himself on the verge of throwing up, the nausea lingering, the hunger, the thirst; he lay down on the hard wooden planks, closed his eyes, and did his very best to disappear. The good old days, the beautiful places, everything that could possibly whisk him away, even for the briefest of split seconds. Image after image flashed by just behind his eyelids.
He lies in bed in his childhood home, the bedsheets clean and white—they smell freshly ironed, and he can hear his mother from the living room, humming softly. The scent of pipe tobacco drifts in through the crack in the doorway, his father’s shadow outside the door, his slender silhouette in his armchair. He’s nine years old, his parents take good care of him, it’s time to go to sleep.
He stands on the bridge by the waterfall, gazing down at the frothing water. It’s autumn, a clear October evening, the scent of leaves and fresh earth in the air. Ilse stands by his side, just the two of them, she’s throwing autumn leaves over the bridge railing, they drift downward and are swallowed by the volumes of water below them, Ilse smiling; she’s missing a tooth.
Image by image, everything is suddenly so close, voices, smells; he can feel the autumn leaves, smell the bedsheets. But then there it is once more: the knowledge of where he is, the uncertainty, where are they going. It won’t be possible to escape for a long time yet.
A large room in the center of the ship, bunks three or four beds high, pushed tightly together, endless rows of sleeping spots with no mattresses, no blankets, no pillows—a hard surface to lie on, the wooden planks gnawing away at his body. The old man in the bunk below suffers pain with every move that he makes, limping when he walks. Throughout the first night he had lain and mumbled prayers. Isak couldn’t understand him, he must have been speaking Russian, but he had recognized the odd word. In the bunk next to him is a man, he calls out with a groan: “Gerda!” Samuel lies in the bunk above his own. He hasn’t said a word for a long while now; it’s been a whole day since he last made a single sound.
They hadn’t been at sea for more than a few hours before six guards appeared. They patrolled the rows of bunks, pointing all around. “Du und du und du,” they screamed, assembling a group of ten or twelve men. One of them was Samuel. The orders flowed.
“Hinlegen!”
The men stood and looked at the guards, quizzical; what did it mean? They learned quickly as they observed others’ misfortune. Without warning they swooped in on those who didn’t lie down, those who weren’t quick enough to follow orders, their rubber clubs raining lightning-fast beatings on shoulders and backs. One order was quickly followed by the next.
“Hüpfen!”
One of the men made a guess and started to hop; the others followed suit. With bent knees and arms out straight in front of them they hopped around. The guards laughed, pointed, found the whole spectacle hilarious, and elsewhere it might have been just that, but not here. One of the guards, a young man with a half-shaven head who was wearing small round spectacles, whispered something to his colleague. Their eyes flashed bright. Quietly they approached the old man in the lower bunk who gazed transfixed at the floor—he panted like an animal, he knew he couldn’t escape, he had no chance.
“Now then, old man,” the guard with the spectacles said. “Aufstehen!”
The old man remained where he was sitting, looking down, his left hand limp and trembling in his lap. The other guard, another young man, gripped him under his arms and hoisted him up, and for a brief moment it looked as if he were helping his grandfather up. The old man looked at him, searching for some sign or other. He didn’t need to wait long.
“Rollen!”
The guard with the small spectacles shoved him to the ground, where he lay groaning for a second or two before he was there once again, this time with his steel toe–capped boots. A kick in the stomach, a howl from the floor, and then he followed orders, he and the others who had previously been hopping around. They were to roll on the floor, over and over until there was no breath left in them. The old man tried as hard as he could to do the same as those around him, the younger men, but he wasn’t quite fast enough, his efforts weren’t quite good enough. He was a cripple, scum, the guards couldn’t get enough of his clumsy actions, what entertainment, what a performance.
Now he lies fast asleep in the lower bunk. Isak can hear the rhythm of his breathing. One of his trouser legs has been ripped and his right eye is so swollen that it has closed after its meeting with the guard’s boots.
They had to go to the deck of the ship to eat. Up a steep gangway, through the narrow corridors, guards everywhere screaming and shouting at them to hurry. The sea air was damp and cold as it buffeted them with full force after so many hours locked in the cramped cargo hold. They tried to find their bearings, where were they now, where were they headed? The sea swirled black and wild around the ship, engulfed by darkness with the blackout in full effect; even if there were land in sight then they would have no chance of seeing it.
Large soup pans had been placed on a table, but there was nothing to serve the soup in, no bowls, no spoons; the men had to make do with whatever they could find. Many of the older people who hadn’t been at Berg had brought utensils and dishes; they’d been told to bring them when they were arrested, one had said, but the prisoners from Berg, the majority of the men, they had nothing with them to speak of. One family had managed to get a washbasin that they filled to the brim with soup and tried to balance as they made their way back to the cargo hold. Isak had nothing. He glanced around the deck, checking to see if there was anything there that he could quickly grab, something he could get his hands on without the guards noticing. There was a guard just beside him. Isak could feel his eyes on him; he ha
d to be careful now, the punishment for taking something, even just rubbish, could be rough.
Then something happened. The guard approached him, looked at him, and for a second they were just two men on a ship, hungry and exhausted after hours spent at sea. He felt something cold against his right hand; there was something there. A tin. The guard nodded swiftly at him and carried on walking.
Isak guzzled the soup from the tin; it was thin, no more than a few potatoes and some pieces of turnip, but even so, it was good. The old man sat by his side and slurped his soup; his wife was on board, he said, she had asthma, did she have enough medication to last the crossing, and what about after that, when they arrived, how would they manage? Would there be a doctor there, could they get more medicine? He needed a walking stick, but they’d already taken it from him at the pier, he said, snapped it in two.
Beside them sat the family with the washbasin. Three of them, the youngest of the lot, had been at Berg, where Isak had noticed that they always stuck together. Now he could hear them whispering around the washbasin. Was it possible to squeeze out of the porthole by the lavatory, could they squeeze through and drop into the sea below, they were all good swimmers after all, but would it work? But what about Ester, one whispered, would they be able to sneak over to the women’s quarters and tell her, would she be strong enough? And how cold would the water be at this time of year? Cold, that was for certain, it was late November, how long could a person survive in ice-cold water? Plus, there were guards with machine guns, wouldn’t they notice someone in the sea below? They’d be shot at if they didn’t drown first. There was a long silence, as if each of them digested the outcome. Then they began to whisper again. Where were they being taken? The oldest of the group, a man with a full beard and a forehead lined with wrinkles, presumably their father, told them about some rumors he’d heard; if it was true that they were going to northern Norway, they’d have to try to find their bearings tomorrow, look out and see if the ship passed Lindesnes and continued north. They weren’t yet out of Oslo fjord, their father thought, maybe they’d turn and follow the Norwegian coast northward; there were rumors of a work camp up there. But the women and children, said one son, what good would they be in a work camp? There was silence once again before the men returned to the idea of the porthole: Was it completely impossible?
It had taken a long time for them to understand where they were supposed to go when they needed the toilet. Someone had urinated in a corner of the cargo hold, squeezing in as close as possible to the wall, letting it flow from them. But after a few hours at sea, someone had approached one of the guards. He held his hands in front of his lower abdomen, made a trickling sound, a long “ssshh,” and asked “Warum?” possibly the only question word he knew in German. The guard had thumped him with a clenched fist that had flown fast, clipping the man around the ear. An older man in a black suit approached the same guard.
“Bitte austreten zu dürfen?”
The guard looked at the man, who stood with his head bowed, staring at the ground. Something stirred on his lips, a sneer, a scornful snicker; would the man receive the same treatment, would there be more beatings to come? After a moment the guard pointed up toward the deck and explained in German where they should go. The porthole set into the hull of the ship, it could be opened, Isak had seen it. But to slip out, drop into the sea? Hanna and Sonja and Miriam, he couldn’t abandon them, and he wasn’t a particularly good swimmer.
Now he lies in his bunk, above the old man and below Samuel, his eyes closed. He’s sitting in his armchair at home; he can smell coffee, freshly brewed, the sun glitters through the apartment windows, is the wireless on? He can hear something. A voice. Someone singing. A woman. He opens his eyes. He lowers his head and leans out of his bunk, sees those sitting and lying all around, the prisoners, it doesn’t look as if they can believe what they’re hearing. I was only eighteen when you first met me, the moon laughed and we danced to the most elegant melody. That song, he knows it so well, usually whistles along, but now he keeps his lips firmly sealed. He leans back in his bunk. It’s coming now, he can feel it, he can’t remember the last time, it rises upward, slow, deep twitches moving through him. He presses his face against the hard wooden planks and feels the tears sting his eyes.
SONJA AWAKENS WITH A JOLT. IT’S THE train, it’s stopped again, she has no idea for how long she has been sleeping. She can hear the sound of voices outside the carriage, someone calling out, messages, the brief exchange of words. Light from the floodlights outside seeps in through the peepholes in the wall. It illuminates the upper half of the carriage, falling on the faces of those still standing. They’re huddled close, entangled, bolt upright like matchsticks packed into a tiny matchbox. Miriam has curled up in a ball on the floor, up against the wall with her hat pulled down over her ears and her legs tucked underneath her. Sonja can feel the weight of her body against her feet. The lurch of the train hasn’t woken her. Her mother stands by her side, and though her eyes are closed Sonja knows that she isn’t sleeping. Occasionally she opens her eyes slightly, just enough that she can see and no more, glancing around her and then tightly squeezing them closed once again. She’s been standing this way, eyes firmly shut, ever since they’d managed to calm her down.
Someone cries out for water. They’ve asked for the same thing every time that the train has come to a standstill, Wasser, bitte, Wasser, a chorus of hoarse voices from dry, cavernous mouths. They haven’t been given any water for several hours, not since they were back on board the ship. Sonja can hear the sound of her own voice in her mind, Wasser, Wasser, she can’t tell whether she’s saying the words aloud or simply churning over them in her own head; her lips sting, there’s no trace of moisture in her mouth.
She hears a carriage being connected to or perhaps even disconnected from their own and the train lurches forward yet again, the movement causing her to jostle Miriam. It happens every time that the train stops. The brakes screech, then they hear the sound of footsteps outside, trains whooshing past them, a shrill whistle, a lurching carriage, then the journey continues once more.
Now they’re on the move once again, they sway from side to side; the rhythm of the train has worked its way into her system, a few jerks to the left, a few more to the right, back and forth. Darkness has fallen; it must be late afternoon. All day and night they have stood here. Through a crack in the wooden planks she has managed to catch the faintest glimpses of the landscape outside. Trees blanketed in snow, the odd village, gray railway stations, unknown place names on signs.
The woman behind her gasps for air again, another fit. Her chest wheezes, her voice gurgles.
“I can’t breathe,” she cries. “Help me, please.”
Her head falls back and she opens her mouth, greedily gulping at the cold air in the carriage before coughing it back up again. She’s asthmatic, she had told Sonja, she had no medication with her; I’ll suffocate, she cried several times. Her breath smells rotten, a mixture of dried blood and spoiled food, intense and pressing; it mixes with the strong stench of urine. Sonja is aware that the woman has wet herself, they are pressed together so tightly that she can feel her damp clothing. Her husband is in a different carriage, she said, she can’t imagine how he’ll manage to stand all this time, perhaps he’s managed to find somewhere to sit down. She whispers prayers in a language Sonja can’t understand, it sounds like Russian, a multitude of words in a steady stream of dry murmurs.
Sonja can’t pray any longer. She’s tried closing her eyes, gathering her thoughts and finding the words, but now, now there are only fragments, oh God, oh God, oh God, nothing more.
After they’d spent four days in the cargo hold, the ship had reached the quay. The waves eased, the rhythm changed, the doors were opened, and the passengers, exhausted after the long journey, were ordered to make their way up onto the ship’s deck. Sonja held Miriam’s hand, their mother behind them hauling the sack. They walked from the warm, overcrowded cargo hold into the biting cold.
It was freezing outside, the air stinging their lungs as they inhaled, the insides of their noses numbed by the air they drew in. Huge wooden planks had been propped up against the side of the ship; Sonja watched as many of the men slipped on them on their way down onto land. Women and children were permitted to use the same ladders they’d been instructed to use to climb on board. The ice made every rung slippery, and everything had to be done quickly. There were the same barks, calls, and shoves, and laughter every time that anyone slipped.
The quayside had been teeming with guards. Men were sent to the left while women and children were instructed to go right. Sonja had looked for her father, gazing into the throng of men that swarmed to her left, but she couldn’t see him, there were so many people there. Miriam called out for him; many others did the same thing. Her mother stood in perfect silence. It looked as if they’d arrived in a town, concrete port facilities, enormous steel cranes dangling over the pier, bright floodlights casting a garish glare, snow falling lightly. A railway track disappeared into the distant white landscape.
They were herded in the direction of the train track where a train stood ready, carriage doors open, gaping before them like dark voids; they ran with their luggage in hand. They were sorted alphabetically. Men in one part of the train, women and children in another. The first carriage was filled, the doors shoved closed with hard, heavy thuds, people crying out from inside, Sonja could hear it all. They were directed to one of the last carriages, up against the farthest wall; they could feel the weight of a steady stream of passengers being pushed into the carriage. It was so tightly packed that they had to remain standing, shoulder to shoulder, then someone lost their footing, fell down onto the ground and was trodden on by one of the others. The doors were closed, for a moment there was utter darkness, the only light in the carriage coming from the peepholes high up on the wall. Sonja lifted Miriam, held her close, leaned against the wall. The long blast of a whistle was followed by the first trundling lurches of the carriage, and then the train began to move.
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