The Girl From the Train

by Irma Joubert

  The man asked a lot of questions. What was her name? Where was she from? Gretl got all the answers out in a single breath, so that he wouldn’t ask unnecessary questions.

  “I see,” he said. “And you’re ten?”

  “Yes.” She looked him in the eye. “I know the new parents want younger children, but I’m going to be very good. I’ll help them work, so that they’ll want me.”

  He nodded. “I’m sure they’ll want you,” he said. “I want you to do something for me.”

  “Yes?”

  “Say ‘yes, sir’ when you speak to a grown-up.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In Hannover there will be many journalists and people from the radio stations.”

  “I don’t know what journalists are, sir.”

  “They write for the newspapers.”

  “Okay, sir.”

  “They want to speak to the children before they leave the Heimat.”

  “Where’s the Heimat, sir?”

  “The Heimat is Germany. I want you to speak to the journalists.”

  “Just me?” She realized too late that she had forgotten to say “sir,” but he didn’t seem to have noticed.

  “No, you and a few others. Ask Tante Hildegard to tie a ribbon in your hair. The journalists might already be there when we arrive.”

  The journalists came after lunch. The children selected by Dr. Blaser sat around them on the lawn.

  “What will you do in South Africa?” one of them asked.

  “Chase the monkeys out of the tobacco fields,” said one little boy.

  “See that the lions don’t catch the goats,” said a second one.

  What a dumb answer, Gretl thought, frowning. Did he think he was Daniel in the lions’ den? He probably didn’t even have Jewish blood. “I’m going to get a home and a family who wants me,” she said, lifting her chin.

  “That’s a very good answer,” said the journalist. “What do you know about South Africa?”

  “The sun always shines, and there are lions and lots of bananas and oranges,” said one little girl.

  “And Negroes. I want to see a Negro,” said a little boy.

  “Black people,” Onkel Schalk interrupted. “We shouldn’t say Negroes.”

  “We’ll have to learn a new language, Afrikaans,” said Gretl. “It’s a lot like Dutch, which is almost like German, so it shouldn’t be too hard.”

  The journalist laughed. “You’re a little sweetheart, aren’t you?” he said. “Can you say a few words in the new language?”

  “Yes,” said Gretl. “One of the helper ladies taught me how to say good morning, good night, and sleep well. You say, ‘Goeiemôre,’ ‘goeienag,’ ‘lekker slaap.’ It means ‘guten Morgen,’ ‘gute Nacht,’ ‘schlaf gut.’ See, it’s almost the same.”

  “You’re right,” said the journalist. “Teach me a few words too? Here, Gustave”—he called to a man with a big camera—“take a photo of this little one teaching me to speak Africa.”

  Gretl was on the verge of telling him it was Afrikaans, but she smiled at the camera instead, so that it would be a nice photo.

  That night she finished her letter to Jakób. They would be leaving Germany the next day for the Netherlands, and she had to mail the letter in Germany because Jakób had put German stamps on the envelope. She told him everything, because she longed with all her heart to talk to him.

  When she finished, she looked through the window. The clouds were gone and for the first time she saw the moon again. It wasn’t a full moon, but it didn’t matter, because Jakób would be seeing the same broken moon if there were no clouds in the Polish sky.

  The next morning the journalists returned to photograph the children’s last breakfast on German soil. They ate their porridge at a long table. They wore name tags, so that the helper ladies would know who they were.

  The man with the camera gave Gretl a newspaper cutting. “Look,” he said, “it was in this morning’s paper. Who’s that little girl?”

  She couldn’t believe it. She, Gretl Kowalski—no, Gretl Schmidt—was in the newspaper! In the caption below the photo she read her name and the answers she had given. “Keep it,” said the man. “One day you can show your grandchildren what a sweet little thing their grandmother was.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she said.

  She looked at the photo for a long time. She read the words three times, memorizing them. Then she folded the cutting and put it in the envelope so that Jakób could read her clever answers and see how pretty she looked with the ribbon in her hair.

  She licked the flap, sealed the envelope, and walked to the mailbox at the gate.

  On her way back she could taste the glue on her tongue.

  The station at Hannover smelled like stations everywhere: smoky and acrid. The odors made her tummy ache.

  The station was crowded with people who wanted to see the German orphans. The children were wild with excitement, especially the boys. Some of the younger children were afraid and were crying.

  Besides the helper ladies, Mr. Theodor Haenert and Mr. and Mrs. Johannes were also traveling with them. Mr. Johannes was a schoolteacher. Of course there was also Onkel Schalk Botha, their leader. The ladies and the men were Afrikaners, but they spoke German, because they had all once been Germans, Onkel Schalk explained. Just as they—and he waved his hand to include all the children—were on the verge of becoming Afrikaners.

  Gretl was in Tante Hildegard’s group, which included many little ones. Some refused to walk and had to be carried. Others were unmanageable and wanted to run away and play. “Gretl, will you please carry Horst and hold Ingeborg’s hand?” asked Tante Hildegard.

  It was hard to carry Horst, because he kept wriggling and squirming. When Gretl called him to order, he began to cry. At least Ingeborg behaved.

  At last they were all on the train. People were crying, journalists were taking photographs, officials were inspecting their documents. A man in uniform gave a loud blast on a whistle.

  The train huffed and puffed and blew out steam, and slowly the wheels began to turn. Children hung out of the windows, waving excitedly. Cameras flashed, people held up their handkerchiefs, a band played the German anthem. Gretl couldn’t decide whether the station was a happy or sad place.

  Then Gretl saw a woman running after the train. “No! No!” the lady screamed. “I made a mistake! Bring her back!”

  A little girl of about four hung out of the window, screaming, “Mommy! Mommy!”

  The train picked up speed, leaving behind it the last German station on their route.

  It was hard to keep Horst quiet. He wanted to run up and down the corridor. He was too young to listen to a story. “Never mind, I’ll take him,” Tante Hildegard said after a while.

  Ingeborg was a lot easier. She was scared and clung to Gretl’s hand. “Look at the lovely cows,” said Gretl, pointing out the window.

  When Ingeborg fell asleep, Gretl sat looking at the landscape. She felt quite empty, as if she had lost something.

  “Are you going to cry?” asked a girl from the opposite seat.

  Gretl looked up. “No, I’m not a crybaby.”

  “Neither am I,” said the girl. “What’s your name?”

  “Gretl.”

  “My name is Rita. I’m ten. How old are you?”

  “Also ten.”

  “Oh? I thought you were younger.”

  “I’m just thin.”

  “Yes, you are.” Rita looked through the window for a while, then asked, “Are you h
ungry?”

  “No.”

  “I am. I’m going to ask for a sandwich.”

  When she came back, she brought one for Gretl as well. “We can be friends,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Gretl, “then we won’t be so lonely.”

  After a while Ingeborg woke up. Gretl told her a story, and when the younger child lost interest, Gretl pointed out things through the window. “Look at the pretty flowers,” she said. “See the windmills? They go round and round when the wind blows.” They were already in Holland, headed to Hoek van Holland, where the ferryboat was waiting to take them across the sea to Harwich in England.

  There were many sick children and grown-ups on the ferry to England. The wind kept blowing, the rain fell in sheets, and the sea was gray and angry. Wave upon wave came rushing along, tilting and rolling the boat so that Gretl had to hold on or be tossed around.

  Now I know how the disciples felt on the Sea of Galilee, Gretl thought. She tried not to be scared and to have faith, but the fury of the storm was increasing.

  The children threw up on the blankets, on their clothes, and on the floor. It was a terrible mess. To think we have to spend three more weeks on a ship to South Africa, Gretl thought.

  She clung to her little wooden cross and did her best to clean up before she fell asleep.

  In England there were more train stations, more journalists, gifts of new toothbrushes and soft facecloths, and a brief stay at a smart hotel with shiny floors and carpeted stairs. It was smarter than a palace, Gretl thought.

  The Winchester Castle was docked in Southampton. It was a big ship, bigger than Gretl ever could have imagined. If this had been the size of Noah’s ark, she thought, she could understand how there had been space for the elephants and lions and the big antelope with their long horns.

  They were shown to their rooms—cabins, they were called—deep in the ship’s belly. The toddlers stayed separately, like at the Red Cross orphanage, and the helper ladies slept with them. Tante Irmgard Zemke slept with the older children. Some of the ladies spoke a strange German, but Tante Irmgard spoke exactly the way Gretl did. “It’s Low German,” she told Gretl. “It’s the way people speak in the north.”

  Gretl realized then that her family must have lived in the north of Germany.

  She and Rita shared a cabin with four other girls. They each had a bed, called a berth, but they argued about who would sleep in the upper berths. Herma, one of the bigger girls, suggested that they take turns.

  Afterward they stood on the deck at the back of the ship, gazing at the people on shore. Sunlight glittered like diamonds on the water and wavelets lapped against the vessel. From the blue sky white birds dived into the water, making loud squawking sounds. The girls were very high up, and down below the people were bustling like ants. The ship was tied to the land—the quay, she heard people say—with paper streamers. There were balloons everywhere and a band was making loud music.

  The ship’s horn let out a deep blast—boom! boom! Slowly the ship began to move away from the quay. The people on land waved their handkerchiefs in the air. The streamers broke.

  “So, we’re on our way to South Africa. Finally!” Onkel Schalk said beside her. He had spoken Afrikaans, but she had understood.

  Supper was quite good. They ate strange-looking spaetzle, not like Aunt Anastarja or Mutti had made it—thicker, with a long hole in the middle, like a limp tube. Gretl hadn’t thought of Mutti for a long time, nor of Oma and Elza.

  But Jakób was in her thoughts every day. Not because she wanted him to be. Her thoughts went there by themselves. Like right now.

  “I like this spaetzle,” she said to Rita, just to get her mind off Jakób.

  That night when they were in bed, Tante Irmgard came to their cabin and played “Guten Abend, gute Nacht” on her accordion. When she left, one of the girls said from the lower berth, “I feel sad now. My mother used to sing that song.”

  “My mother too, before she died,” Gretl remembered.

  “My mother didn’t die,” the girl said.

  The following morning after breakfast they were called to the games room, but not for games. Mr. Johannes read from the Bible and prayed. Then he said, “I’m going to give you Afrikaans lessons every day so that you’ll know a little of the language by the time you meet your new families.”

  Gretl was pleased, though she worried about English, which had posed some difficulty for her in England. If someone spoke English to her, she wouldn’t understand a word.

  “You’re going to Afrikaner homes. The people won’t speak English,” Mr. Johannes reassured her. “Right. If you all work hard for an hour, you can go on deck to play.”

  An hour later the children could say good morning to their new father (Goeiemôre, Vader), good afternoon to their new mother (Goeiemiddag, Moeder), and good night to their new brother and sister (Goeienag, Broer, Suster). The g and the r sounds were hard to pronounce. Gretl thought it sounded as if there were a grater at the back of the throat, or as if the speaker had taken foul-tasting medicine. They could also say yes and no (ja and nee), please (asseblief), and thank you very much (baie dankie).

  It was windy and cold on deck, but two crew members played games with the children and soon they no longer felt the cold. Mr. Johannes and Onkel Schalk and one of the helper ladies, Fräulein Ingrid Brocke, played along. They had to toss a flat ring into painted squares on the deck, they had to run with a beanbag and toss it into a basket, they had to push a thin wheel to the other side of the deck and back without letting it topple over. If it toppled, they had to start over. They played in teams and when a team won, each member was given a sweet. Gretl did her best because the sweets were delicious.

  “Not very good for their teeth,” said Dr. Vera Bührmann.

  When it was time for soft drinks, Gretl went to the doctor. “Thank you for choosing me,” she said.

  The doctor smiled. “Actually, you chose yourself,” she said. “I’m trying to figure out which child to place with which family.”

  “Do you know where I’ll be going?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “What’s their last name?”

  “I can’t tell you yet, Gretl. They have to agree to take you first.”

  Gretl knew then that they had actually wanted a younger girl, like Ingeborg.

  One morning while they were playing games on deck, Gretl saw the moon in bright daylight. It wasn’t full, but shaped like a fuzzy c.

  “Can they see the same moon in South Africa at this moment?” she asked Mr. Johannes. “Or in another country, like . . .” She didn’t dare say Poland. “Like Switzerland?”

  “Yes,” he said, “in all the countries on the same degree of longitude.”

  “What’s that?”

  “What’s that, sir.”

  She kept forgetting. “What’s that, sir?”

  “Do you know how an atlas works?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, let’s see if we can find one.”

  She followed him to a part of the ship where she had never been. He took her to a room full of books, where people were reading in deep armchairs. “Is it a library?” she asked, amazed. A library on the ship?

  “Yes, you must be as quiet as a mouse.”

  “I know,” she whispered.

  He found an atlas and paged through it until he found a map of the world. “Look, there’s Germany,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said, “and there’s East Prussia.” That was where Poland was.

  “That’s right. Do you know where South Africa is?”

  She put her finger o
n the right spot.

  “You’re very clever. This is where we are now.” He pointed.

  “We’re right next to Africa,” she said, amazed yet again.

  “Yes,” he said. “In another two days we should be crossing the equator. See, there’s the equator. On the other side lies the Southern Hemisphere.”

  She nodded.

  “These are the degrees of longitude.” He looked around. “Wait, let me show you on the globe.”

  When he had explained everything, she understood perfectly. Jakób had been right. South Africa and Poland lay on the same degree of longitude. They would see the moon at the same time.

  “Does this library have Afrikaans storybooks?” she asked.

  “No, but I have two you can read.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Remember to say ‘thank you, sir,’ ” he said.

  After the first week they could say a few Afrikaans words and sing a few songs. But the boys and some of the girls were unruly. The British passengers emigrating to the Union of South Africa gave them disapproving looks. When the English ladies were having tea and Horst Bremer’s football—big Horst, not the little one—landed in the cake, one of the ladies tossed the ball over the railing, into the sea. Horst was furious. “Bloody English cow!” he said.

  “Stay away from the other passengers,” Onkel Schalk cautioned.

  Then Horst was furious with Onkel Schalk as well.

  On rainy days it was worse. They had to stay in the games room. Their classes were longer and the children became impossible. They played games like snakes and ladders or Monopoly, but soon they were arguing. They learned Afrikaans folk dances—volkspele—but the children twirled so fast that they fell over.

  Gretl tried to read the Afrikaans books, but it was difficult. The ladies and Mr. Johannes didn’t have time to help her because there were too many children to look after.