After

by Morris Gleitzman

  You have to say that in wartime. There’s so much bad news, it often makes the not-so-bad news pointless.

  Yuli puts her arm round me.

  ‘Doctor Zajak was killed,’ she says.

  ‘I know,’ I say quietly. ‘I went to the camp after the Nazis had gone.’

  Yuli stares at me.

  ‘Was it you who buried the bodies?’ she asks.

  I nod.

  She keeps staring at me. It feels really nice, but I’m embarrassed about her doing it in front of the others because they haven’t got grown-ups to look at them in an amazed and concerned and proud and loving way.

  ‘What’s the other news?’ I say.

  Yuli hesitates. She swallows a couple of times.

  This is strange. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Yuli hesitate about anything.

  ‘Felix,’ she says. ‘This might be nothing. It’s just a tiny, tiny chance.’

  ‘What?’ I say. ‘What chance?’

  ‘Your parents,’ she says.

  At first I’m not even sure if I’m hearing her right.

  ‘A few weeks ago,’ says Yuli, ‘the Nazis closed down the camp your parents were probably taken to. They moved the survivors to Germany.’

  I can hardly breathe.

  ‘Survivors?’ I say. ‘How could there be survivors? It was a death camp. All the people who got taken there were killed.’

  ‘Most of them were killed,’ says Yuli. ‘Almost all of them. But it was also a work camp, and a few survived. We’ve been getting reports from Jewish partisan groups. Since the Nazis started losing the war, they’ve been marching survivors from their Polish concentration camps back to Germany.’

  I struggle to take this in.

  Suddenly I remember something.

  The Jewish people being marched along the laneway the day I took Axel’s bike. I thought they were going to a concentration camp, but they could have been coming from one.

  I’m trembling so much I can hardly speak.

  ‘I want to go there,’ I say. ‘To Germany. Take me there.’

  Yuli hesitates again. She’s starting to look like she wishes she hadn’t told me.

  ‘Felix,’ she says gently. ‘Why don’t we make enquiries first? To save you disappointment if …’

  ‘Take me there,’ I say.

  I’m being rude and bossy, but I’m desperate.

  Yuli sighs.

  ‘I’m sorry, Felix,’ she says. ‘I can’t take you to Germany. There’s something else I have to do. Something very important.’

  ‘Alright,’ I say. ‘I’ll go on my own.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that,’ says Yuli. ‘If there was no other way for you to get there, I would go with you. But there is another way. I know some people who’ll take you.’

  ‘Partisans?’ I say.

  ‘Russian soldiers,’ she says.

  The town marketplace, what’s left of it, is full of Russian soldiers.

  And Russian tanks and lorries and ambulances and huge guns on wheels.

  And hardly any Nazi soldiers. Just the few dead ones we saw in a ditch on our way in.

  Yuli is standing next to one of the ambulances talking to a Russian officer. She’s been doing it for ages. The rest of us are waiting at the edge of the town square with the cart.

  I’m trying to see from the Russian officer’s face how he feels about giving me a lift to Germany.

  He’s doing a lot of frowning.

  Axel and Helmut are staring anxiously at the Russian soldiers too. I realise why. The Russians hate Nazis and usually kill them. Axel and Helmut have taken their Hitler Youth jackets off, even though it’s freezing, but I think some of the Russians may have seen them do it.

  ‘Hey,’ I say to the others. ‘Let’s play football.’

  They look at me as though I’m mad, but I grab the empty jewellery bag from the cart and stuff some straw into it to make a ball.

  ‘Me and Hannah against Axel and Helmut,’ I say. ‘With Beryl and Faiga and Bug in goal.’

  The goal is between Dom’s back legs.

  We start playing.

  Gabriek was right, when you’re feeling very stressed it is good to keep busy. Plus now that the Russian soldiers can see Axel and Helmut playing football with Jewish kids, with a bit of luck they won’t want to kill them.

  The score is two–two when Yuli comes over.

  ‘Good news, Felix,’ she says. ‘They’ll take you.’

  I stare at her. The ball bounces off my head.

  Hannah is very competitive and hadn’t noticed I’d stopped playing.

  ‘The Russians know where the survivors from your parents’ camp were taken,’ says Yuli. ‘They’ll make sure you get there.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  I’m trembling again.

  It’s partly because I’m so grateful and partly because I’m having lots of other feelings.

  I look at Hannah and Axel and the others. How must this be for them? Nobody can take them to find their parents because their parents are all dead. They saw the bodies with their own eyes.

  Hannah looks back at me without blinking.

  ‘Don’t feel bad, Felix,’ she says. ‘We’d go if we were you.’

  Axel and Helmut are nodding.

  My eyes are filling up and I haven’t even said goodbye yet.

  I have to start somewhere.

  I go over to Dom and hug him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say to him. ‘I wish I didn’t have to leave you. But humans are different to horses. We need our parents. I hope you understand.’

  I look into his big dark eyes and I think he does.

  ‘I’ll come back afterwards and find you,’ I say. ‘If I can.’

  I hope this makes Dom feel better.

  Yuli strokes his shoulders.

  ‘He’ll be OK,’ she says. ‘I’ll get him a home with a decent farmer. Most of the horses around here are dead, so they’ll be queuing up for him.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say.

  ‘And once the war finishes there’ll be places for kids to go,’ says Yuli. ‘I’ll try to make sure the rest of this football team can stay together.’

  ‘You can tell them I’m Jewish if it helps,’ says Axel.

  Hannah and I smile at what a silly idea that is.

  Axel looks puzzled.

  I leave it to Hannah to explain later.

  ‘The partisans from the main camp are still fighting up north,’ says Yuli. ‘I haven’t heard any news about Gabriek, but if I see him, I’ll tell him where you’ve gone.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say again.

  I don’t spoil the moment by explaining why he probably won’t be that interested.

  Instead I give Yuli the biggest hug I’ve given anybody for a long time.

  She looks at me sadly.

  ‘Good luck, Felix,’ she says. ‘Try not to get your hopes up too high. Most of the people on the forced marches from the concentration camps didn’t survive, I have to tell you that.’

  I nod, but only so she won’t say anything else.

  I give Hannah and Axel and Helmut and the little girls a big hug each.

  ‘Thanks for the good protection, Felix,’ says Beryl.

  I try to speak but I can’t. I look at Yuli and I hope she can see I’m saying the same thing to her.

  I was wrong about parents.

  Kids can’t do without them, not even in wartime. That’s why I hope Hannah and the others are as lucky as I’ve been and find new ones.

  I’ve been incredibly lucky.

  First Barney, then Genia, then Gabriek, and now Yuli.

  Suddenly I don’t want to go. I don’t want to lose Yuli as well. What if I can’t find Mum and Dad? What if I end up with all my parents gone? Even a lucky person like me can’t expect to keep finding new ones.

  Yuli sees me hesitating.

  She gives me an encouraging smile.

  For a moment she looks like Mum used to.

  ‘Thank you,’ I whisper to
her. ‘I wish you were coming with me.’

  ‘So do I,’ says Yuli quietly. ‘But there’s a lot of work I still have to do. After the war’s over, Nazi leaders will be trying to escape. Planning new lives in other parts of the world. Pretending they never did terrible things. Some of us aren’t going to let them do that.’

  She kisses me on the forehead.

  I’m glad she told me. It makes me feel not so bad about leaving her.

  Her eyes are so soft and loving now, but one day an escaping Nazi leader will see her looking at the soft spot under his chin and suddenly he’ll want his mother almost as much as I want mine.

  From my pocket I take the last ring and put it in Yuli’s hand.

  ‘You might need this later,’ I say. ‘When you’ve finished all your work.’

  She looks at the ring for a long time, then puts it in her pocket.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says, with just a bit of a smile.

  I let her lead me over to the Russian officer.

  travelling with the Russian army for about ten minutes, I started to get anxious.

  I’m in an ambulance. Not as a patient, as a passenger. Yuli must have told the Russian officer about my medical experience.

  There are four Russian medical staff in here with me. And lots of medical equipment. Doctor Zajak would have cut his own leg off to have equipment like this. I bet there’s enough penicillin in here to cure a horse.

  As far as I can see, we’re the only ambulance in this Russian army convoy.

  We’re passing through town after town, village after village. In every single one there are sick and injured people and animals. The streets are full of them. We should be stopping to help them.

  That’s what’s making me anxious.

  I don’t want to.

  I’m ashamed to admit it, but I just want us to keep moving, to keep getting closer to Mum and Dad. If we stop to treat people, we could take weeks to get to Germany.

  There’ll be other ambulances coming along.

  That’s what I’m telling myself anyway.

  ‘You’ve probably got orders,’ I say hopefully to the Russian medical staff. ‘To stay with the convoy and not stop unless the rest of the vehicles stop.’

  I don’t think these men know what I’m saying. They probably don’t speak Polish. When I speak to them, they just laugh and call me babushka.

  That’s probably Russian for ‘selfish young person’.

  They’re right, I am being selfish. But I don’t care. I just want us to keep travelling.

  Fast.

  So far, so good. We’re sticking to our daily routine.

  Wake up early.

  Drive all day and most of the evening.

  Go to bed late.

  I can’t wait to be with Mum and Dad again. We’ve got so much to tell each other. So many sad things. But it won’t be too bad, because at the same time we’ll be so happy to be together.

  I wonder if we’ll go back to live in our old town? I hope so. I want to help Mum and Dad in our bookshop.

  Books will probably be scarce for a while. Most of them get destroyed in wars, and a lot of the shelving. But Mum and Dad are really good booksellers. They’ll know where to get new ones.

  There’s so much to think about.

  For example, I’ll need a new bed.

  I was six the last time I lived in our flat. My old bed must be tiny. Mum and Dad believe beds have to be big enough so you can lie completely flat. It’s important for sleep, and in case somebody wants to blow a raspberry on your tummy.

  I peer through the ambulance window.

  Look at that, there’s a bed out there now. A big one sitting on a pile of rubble.

  I almost ask the ambulance driver to stop, but I don’t. Somebody probably owns that bed, and it wouldn’t fit in here anyway.

  There’s another one, except it’s in pieces. And it’s got blood on it.

  I have a worrying thought.

  Will our town be like this? Houses wrecked and furniture broken and people with bombing injuries? If it is, we’ll have to stock helpful books for all those things.

  That’s if our shop is still standing.

  I don’t want to think about that.

  We cross the border into Germany.

  I was expecting a different-looking place, but it’s just like Poland. The road signs are all in German, but that’s how they are in Poland too.

  The Russian medical staff are tense, peering out the ambulance windows as if they’re looking for something.

  Nazi soldiers probably.

  I’m looking for the camp where Mum and Dad are. All I can see are more wrecked houses and villages. And miserable people sitting on rubble, looking hopeless.

  Just like Poland.

  It feels strange.

  This is Germany, the country that invented Nazis. The country that started the war. I want to hate it, but I don’t hate it as much as I thought I would.

  The ambulance driver suddenly swings us off the road and into a field. The rest of the convoy carries on without us. We drive across the field and park next to a farmhouse.

  What’s going on?

  Maybe an emergency call has come through. Maybe somebody needs an amputation or a bullet removed.

  We all stand up and the Russian medical staff lift up the seats to get to the storage lockers. It must be where they keep their equipment. Scalpels and vodka and candles and saws and stuff.

  I hope they can fix the problem quickly so we can get moving again. If only I spoke Russian, I could offer to help, to speed things up.

  Hang on. That’s not medical equipment they’re taking out of the lockers.

  It’s guns.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I say.

  The medical staff don’t laugh this time. They signal to me to stay in the ambulance. They say something to me loudly and crossly which I don’t understand.

  They go into the farmhouse with the guns.

  This doesn’t feel right.

  I can hear screams. And that was a gunshot. What type of medical treatment involves shooting? Patients have to be held down sometimes, but not shot.

  I know I should wait here. I know that would be the sensible thing. Just wait here till they’ve finished and then let them take me to Mum and Dad.

  But they’re medical professionals, and I think something’s going on in that farmhouse that isn’t medical or professional.

  I think there are people in there who need help.

  I have to go and see.

  I wish I hadn’t.

  I wish I’d stayed in the ambulance.

  At least now we’ve caught up with the convoy and joined onto the end of it.

  I’m glad we’re on our way again. I just want this trip to be over.

  I never want to have anything to do with the Russian army ever again. If they’re in charge of Europe now, I’m going to persuade Mum and Dad that we should go and live in America or England or Australia.

  And we’ll invite Yuli to come and live with us so she doesn’t have to live in Russia. So she won’t ever have to bump into the Russian army.

  It was horrible in that farmhouse.

  I’m not going to tell Mum and Dad what I saw in there. They’ve seen enough horrible stuff themselves, they don’t need any more.

  I don’t even want to think about it because it makes me upset.

  But I can’t stop thinking about it.

  And I am upset.

  Which is making these men laugh.

  I’m sitting here with my eyes closed, trying to ignore the men, trying not to think about the dead German women in the farmhouse, trying to think about happy things. Which isn’t really working because there’s been a war for the last six years, and you don’t get many happy things to think about in wars.

  The men are dancing around in the ambulance, hugging each other.

  The ambulance is rocking from side to side, but the driver doesn’t care. He’s jiggling in his seat and we’re weaving about all
over the road.

  So are all the other vehicles in the convoy.

  All the Russian soldiers are firing their guns into the air and throwing their helmets around.

  The war’s over.

  It was just on the radio. They broadcast it in about six languages, one after the other.

  The Nazis have surrendered.

  I know I should feel happy, but I don’t.

  Because I don’t understand. How can these men be having a party after what they did in that farmhouse?

  They’re medical professionals.

  Their job is to heal people, not torture people and kill them.

  If that’s what medical professionals do, I’m glad I’m going to be a bookseller.

  we arrived at the camp, the Russians dropped me off. They didn’t stop the ambulance. Just opened the back doors and pushed me out.

  Face first in the mud.

  Yuli’s coat protects me and Gabriek’s hat does too. My legs hurt, but no more than usual.

  I get up and look around. I’ve never seen a Nazi camp before. It’s not like I expected.

  The gates are wide open.

  There are no Nazi guards except for three of them hanging from the gateposts. The others must have run away this morning when the war ended.

  On the way here, when I thought about this moment, I imagined climbing over the fence and seeing Mum and Dad in the celebrating crowd and throwing myself into their arms.

  But the camp looks almost empty. I can’t see any Jewish people at all. Just Russian soldiers in bulldozers tidying up huge piles of rubbish.

  I go in through the gate.

  Oh.

  The piles aren’t rubbish, they’re people.

  Dead people.

  Lots and lots of them.

  I don’t want to look.

  Desperately I try to stay hopeful. I tell myself it’s a big camp. Rows after rows of wooden sheds stretching away into the distance. Mum and Dad could be in any one of those sheds. And there are people inside them. Now that I’m getting closer I can hear murmuring.

  I go into the first shed.

  Oh.

  There are hundreds of people in here. All in ragged clothes and all lying on wooden bunks. Every single person looks sick. They all need urgent medical attention.

  I can’t give it to them. I don’t know enough. If I tried it would take me years.

  I’d never find Mum and Dad.

  There are a couple of Russian army doctors in the shed. At least these ones seem to be doing their best. I tell myself the people will be fine. The army doctors will fix them up. But I know that’s not true. There are too many people and nowhere near enough doctors.