“Jan?”
“What?”
“Are we friends?”
Jan goes to kick at the dust, then remembers just in time what happened when he last did it. He raises his foot so that it skims over the ground. Despite his ill temper he can’t help smiling at himself. When Zygmund sees the smile, he takes it as a positive response and gives Jan a friendly thump on the back.
Jan shrugs it off. “What are we going to do now?”
Zygmund is about to answer when they pick up a noise coming from the direction of the train. “Ssh, do you hear that?”
They listen, trying to make it out. It sounds like someone crying. No, it’s louder than that. Sounds like many people crying. Someone calls out for help and is joined by what seems like a hundred other voices.
“Is that crying, do you think?” says Jan.
“I don’t know. It’s horrible – I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I,” Zygmund is frowning. “Should we go and see what it is?”
The two boys stay where they are, locked in indecision, then Zygmund starts to walk towards the train. He beckons to Jan to follow him. Together they approach the last of the wagons. As they get nearer, they can smell something foul, a dirty, animal smell, worse than the smells they are used to in the forest. Jan tugs at Zygmund’s arm.
“I know what these wagons are. I’ve seen them at home. They’re used to transport animals when they’re going to slaughter.”
Zygmund sighs and shakes his head. “Oh Jan, it isn’t animals that are in these wagons. When did you ever hear an animal shout help, or ask for water.”
“Then what is it? What’s making that noise?” whispers Jan.
“It’s a transport.”
“I know that!” Jan is indignant.
“No, I don’t mean it’s a form of transport, I mean it’s a transport of Jews to the concentration camps.”
“Oh,” Jan is silenced. “What will happen to them?”
Zygmund doesn’t answer, and Jan remembers what he has been told about Zygmund’s family, how they all died in a concentration camp. He feels stupid for having asked such an ignorant question, for not having guessed as quickly as Zygmund what was going on. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“It’s all right,” says Zygmund. They are now only a few yards away from the wagon, which is at the back of the train. There are so many in front, they can’t see the engine. There is less crying now, more of an underlying moan, an extended groan, which makes Jan want to run away as fast as he can so he won’t have to listen to it. But he can’t run away. The road is right beside the railway track, and he has to pass this, has to get to the village to carry out his task. His steps falter and Zygmund has to pull him on.
“Don’t make this harder than it is,” begs Zygmund.
They are right beside the wagons now. They are made of bare, dirty wood. Some of the wood is broken, and when Jan glances over he is shocked to see faces peering through. Faces of old people. No, not all of them are old; there are children too, and young men and women. The smell is unbearable: unwashed bodies, faeces, urine. It’s all there. There’s another smell too, something rotten, terrifying. It makes Jan want to vomit. He knows only too well what it is: dead bodies. He has smelt this before, rats caught in traps on local farms in his village, sheep dying when they are trying to lamb.
“Water, please. Can you give us water?” The voice is weak, scarcely audible. A woman’s voice. It could be his mother, his sister. Jan doesn’t hesitate, goes over to the wagon and pushes his water bottle through the largest hole he can see. A hundred hands seem to appear from nowhere and grab the air around it, but the woman has it.
“Thank you, child,” she says, “but what are you doing here?”
Jan doesn’t know what to say, then thinks why not tell her the truth. Maybe the knowledge that there are people out there fighting the Nazis will give her hope, so he tells her.
“I wish you luck,” she says when he finishes speaking. “What’s your name?”
“Jan.”
“Jan. A Polish name, but you’re not Polish, are you?”
“No,” says Jan. “I’m from Czechoslovakia.”
“And why are you not still in Czechoslovakia? Are there no partisans there?”
Jan is silent for a moment, then says, “My village was destroyed by the Nazis, my father killed, my mother and sisters have disappeared.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. She disappears from view.
Another voice calls out for water. Jan feels desperate that he has no more to give. Then he remembers his bread and digs it out. Once again the hundred hands appear, snatching it away. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I have no more. I’m sorry.”
Zygmund has done the same with his bread and water. Now they have none, and more than half of their journey still to make. But at least they have some hope of finding some more. Zygmund joins him, pulls him away from where they are standing.
“We’d best go. There’s nothing more we can do here, and if the Nazis spot us, we’ve had it. Come on, you’ve done all you can.”
“But it’s nothing,” rages Jan. “Nothing. How can we leave them like this?”
“Jan, there is no more we can do.”
“We could try to unlock the doors—”
“You have the keys then, do you?”
Jan hits his head against one of the wagons. He bursts the skin on his forehead and feels the warm blood spill down his face.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Zygmund drags him back from the railway’s edge. He marches him along the road; they’re still beside the train for there’s no other way past. Jan tries to block out the voices, the cries and pleas as he passes. He counts twenty wagons; it’s nearly the end. As they reach the front of the train, the engine starts up once more. The sound of steam chuffing out of the engine almost drowns out the moans of the people in the wagons. Almost, but not quite. Jan had thought he would never again hear such desperation from human beings, had thought he had heard it all that morning in his village, and now, here it was, back, drilling into his mind, sending him mad. He must be going mad for he can hear someone shouting his name. Is it the woman he spoke with? No, it is not her voice. It is the voice of a younger person. Who amongst these poor souls could know his name?
“Jan, Jan! It’s me, Pawel!”
Jan comes to. “Pawel? Pawel? Where are you?” He looks frantically along the wagons, searching for a clue. Nothing. Then he spots a small brown hand poking through a hole in one of the wagons near the middle of the train. He runs towards it, conscious that the train could begin to move any minute. Zygmund is right behind him, trying to pull him back.
“Let me go, he’s a friend. I must speak to him.” He wrenches himself away from Zygmund, and in a second is by the wagon.
“Pawel, what happened to you?” Jan is trying to get the door to open. He scrabbles at it with his fingers, but nothing moves. He looks round for something to attack the door with, but there’s nothing but stones. He picks one up and bashes the door with it, but it doesn’t move.
“Jan, leave it. There’s no point. Even if I did escape they’d only shoot me. And if they see you…”
“Where have you been?” Jan is breathless with excitement and fear.
“In the forest with partisans.”
“Me too!” The train is moving now, and Jan has to run to stay beside his friend. Behind him, Zygmund is shouting something. He turns to him. “What is it?”
“Tell your friend to lie about his age, you know, when he gets to the camp. He has to say he’s at least fifteen.”
“Did you hear that?”
“Yes,” says Pawel. “Why?”
“Never mind that. Did you find your parents?”
There’s a deep sadness in Pawel’s voice. “No. Look, Jan, you must get away from here, before they spot you.”
The train is going faster, and Jan stumbles back from the line, crying out his goodbyes to Pawel, before falling onto the ground
. He lies there for a second, stunned, before he gets up. He is brushing down his trousers when he hears a bang and a warning cry from Zygmund. He looks up at the train to see a soldier standing at the window of one of the wagons, rifle raised and pointed straight at him. For a heart-stopping moment he thinks the soldier is going to shoot him, but the train is going too fast, and the soldier must realize he has no chance of hitting him. He lowers the rifle, and Jan lets out his breath.
“Jesus, Maria! That was a close thing.” He turns to speak to Zygmund. Zygmund is lying on the ground, arms splayed out across the road. This is no time to play the fool. Irritated, Jan kicks him on the ankle. “Come on you, get up.”
Zygmund doesn’t move, and Jan’s heart starts to beat faster. He leans over him and shakes him. “Zygmund, get up. We have to go.” His hand feels warm and wet. He looks down at it; it’s covered in blood. Jan yelps and wipes it on his shirt, on the grass by the side of the road, on the road itself, to try to get rid of it. All the time, he’s shouting at Zygmund to get up. But Zygmund doesn’t move, and the blood which has turned his dirty white shirt dark-red spills over onto the road.
Night has fallen. Jan doesn’t remember it getting dark, but the sun has gone long ago to be replaced by a peppering of stars and a hangnail moon. He sits where he has for many hours, terrified to move. For a long time after it happened he thought that Zygmund was merely wounded. He kept talking to him, chattering on about Pawel, what they’d done together, what great friends they’d been, told him the story of their escape, though he’d told it to him many times before. All the time he held Zygmund’s hand, telling himself it was still warm. But it was warm only from the sun. Now that the sun has gone, it is cold. Cold as the stones on which he is lying. He can no longer pretend. Zygmund has gone for good.
The night is a terrifying place to be. The hoot of an owl is sinister, the face of a friend becomes that of an enemy, the breeze in one’s hair becomes the touch of one who wishes you harm. Jan thinks of what he must do now. He has missed the meeting in the village. Marek would have expected them back before now. He wonders if anyone will bother to look for them or whether they will be forgotten within a day or two, replaced by other, fitter, stronger boys. No point in such thoughts, he moves away from Zygmund and lies down at the side of the road, hoping he’ll fall asleep.
In the morning it begins to rain. Huge drops fall on the road. The rain mingles with the dust to produce a musty smell, which reminds Jan of summer thunderstorms in his village. Within a few minutes the rain is hammering down. A blessing. Jan stands under it with his mouth open, tasting the sweetness of rain as it falls. He feels too as if it is washing away any blame for what happened yesterday. A baptism almost. Zygmund’s body lies where it fell. There is nothing he can do about it. Zygmund was bigger than him; he can’t carry it any distance, and he has no tools to dig a grave. He will have to return to the forest and tell Marek what has happened. A long way, and with no food and only the rain to nourish him, he doesn’t know if he can do it. He has to, though. But before he does, he must say goodbye to Zygmund. Jan kneels down on the ground beside his friend’s body. He closes Zygmund’s eyes and mouth, and whispers sorry to him, then stands up. As he does so, he notices something glinting on the road beside the body and bends down to pick it up. It is a ring, a plain gold band. Jan examines it; most likely it is a wedding ring, probably belonged to his mother. For a moment he considers leaving it with Zygmund, but that would be a waste; anyone finding the body would steal it. Jan weighs it in his hand: it’s heavy for such a small ring, and is probably worth quite a bit. He puts it in his trouser pocket, making sure it’s safe at the bottom. It’ll come in useful. He scans his surroundings trying to remember the way they came. Easy enough, the railway was on their left as they walked along. Jan turns round, so that it’s on his right and sets off to find help.
The heavy rain leaves puddles everywhere. Jan washes himself in one, and then drinks from the next one he finds. As he does so, he wonders whether it will make him ill. He feels sick already, but that is probably because of what happened to Zygmund, or hunger. Hunger, his stomach tightens at the thought of food. He is very weak, and his legs tremble as he walks along in the thunderous rain. The road looks very different from yesterday; the dust has turned to mud and makes his journey more difficult. Every step is an effort. It is useless, he needs to sleep, but if he lies down in this rain, he could drown. Jan forces himself to carry on, trying not to think of food, trying to keep the vision of Zygmund lying on the ground with his blood spread out like a cloak all around him, trying to remember the way back. His mind is so busy with this that at first he doesn’t realize he’s passing an orchard. The apples and pears hanging from the trees don’t register with him. Without thinking, he kicks an apple out of his way, the mud splashing over his shoes and trousers. He looks down at the smashed fruit in the road, then up at the branches above him. He ignores the pears; they are the size of bullets. The apples, although small and green, far from ripe, look promising. He reaches up and starts to pull them from their branches; he has to twist hard to free them from the tree. Some he shoves in his pocket for later, the largest one he starts to eat, wincing at its sourness, grimacing at its hardness. When he looks at it, there is blood on the flesh, his gums have started to bleed. But he perseveres, it will give him some nourishment.
A fork in the road, a choice to be made. Jan looks down both tracks, trying to remember which way he came yesterday, hoping he’ll recognize some landmark. But the countryside is unremarkable, fields stretching out as far as he can see. He closes his eyes and pictures himself and Zygmund leaving Marek. Marek making them repeat the instructions – these would need to be reversed. “Turn left at the first fork, then right at the second, go straight along the road until you get to a crossroads, then turn right, the village is about five kilometres down that road,” he mutters. “We never reached the crossroads so this must be the second fork, so I go left here.” He peers down the track wishing he knew for sure it was the way. Nothing for it but to try. He thinks he has about two kilometres to go before he reaches the first fork, then it’s not far from there. His grits his teeth at the thought of facing the men without the provisions he was supposed to pick up. A few sour apples will be no substitute.
He’s almost there, about five hundred metres to go. Jan slows his pace. Now he’s back, he’s frightened of what Marek will say, of what the others will do. Some of the men are very short-tempered and, without food, dangerous. Perhaps he was wrong to come back, he should have gone on, completed the mission. He slows his pace, not just because of his fears; it’s slippery underfoot. The rain has made the forest treacherous. Tree roots, always a nuisance, lie waiting to trip him up, for his feet to lose their grip.
He reaches the outskirts of the camp and stands behind the broad trunk of a pine tree to watch what is going on. The men are restless, huddled together in groups. There is whispering, looking round to see if others are listening. Something’s wrong; he feels it in the pit of his stomach. A twig crackles behind him, and he twirls round, Jozef is there, his spots more livid than ever. Jan nods to him, and he joins him.
“What’s going on?”
Jozef picks up a twig and throws it as far as he can. It lands twenty or so feet away. “Your guess is as good as mine. I tried to hear, but they cuffed me round the ear.”
“It doesn’t look good. Did you pick anything up at all?”
A grimace. “I’m not sure. There was something about moving.”
“Moving?” Jan doesn’t like the sound of this. He’s become used to this half existence in the forest. “Why would we move?”
“I don’t know. Where’s Zygmund? Did you get the supplies?”
Jan can’t answer him. He stares ahead, trying to see Marek. He’ll have to tell him before anyone else.
“Jan?”
Jan starts to move towards the main part of the camp; Jozef follows, muttering about Zygmund. He’s picked up that something’s wrong.
<
br /> A cry rings through the forest, then a shout and the sound of scuffling. Jan’s heart pounds – what is happening? Have the Germans found them? He turns to Jozef and mouths “What’s going on?” Jozef paler than Jan has seen him, shrugs. They creep towards the disturbance and, as they get nearer, Jan sees that two of the comrades are fighting. Marek rushes over to pull them apart.
“What’s going on here?”
The taller one, Piotr, who only recently joined them, says, “He called my sister a whore.”
It comes to Jan, then, that Piotr’s sister is the girl who was going with a German soldier. But she was doing it for the greater good, he’s heard the men say this many a time and, because of her, eleven German soldiers were killed the other night, but he won’t think about that. That can go to the place where all his bad thoughts go.
Marek interrupts before either man can say anything. “We’ve no time for this now. We have to move, all of us.”
Jan pushes himself forwards. “Why?”
“Who said that?” Marek looks round, he frowns when he sees Jan. “Where have you been? I expected you back sooner.”
Jan splurts out, “Zygmund’s dead, shot.”
Marek shakes his head, closes his eyes. Jan waits for him to say something, but he is silent. “It wasn’t my fault,” he cries.
“You will tell me about it later. But now we must move, because the Germans have taken in Piotr’s sister for questioning.”
Piotr gasps, “What?”
Marek turns to him, his voice is soft as he speaks to him, as if he were trying to calm a frightened child. “I’m sorry, Piotr. Word came from your village early this morning. Apparently there should have been another soldier with the group we captured that night, but he was ill and couldn’t make it. When the rest didn’t return, he told his captain where they’d been going. I suppose they then put two and two together.” He ducks as Piotr tries to punch him. Two of the other men step in and pull Piotr back.
“I told you,” yells Piotr. “I told you it was too risky. But you wouldn’t listen, and now they’ve got my sister.” His face is scarlet with rage, and his eyes brim over with tears.
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