Men of Snow

by John R Burns

  ‘I can’t understand the language they’re using. You listen, Adam said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Listen to them.’

  ‘I can’t....can’t.....’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I.....I think it’s Polish. They’re Poles. They’re Poles talking. I can tell.’

  ‘ What’s going on?’

  Leon tried to concentrate, feeling dizzy with so much happening. The new men without guns were certainly sounding like Poles as they stood near the doors talking loud and fast.

  ‘They’re Poles,’ he repeated, as though this might help him understand.

  ‘So what do they want?’ Adam asked.

  ‘They’re....I think they’re telling any Poles to get off the train.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They’re looking for Poles.’

  ‘So you should.....you should go,’ Adam said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘If that’s what they’re saying.’

  ‘No,’ Leon repeated.

  ‘You should go.’

  ‘It’s....it’s a trick. They’re going to kill us.’

  ‘I don’t think so. This sounds different.’

  Adam grabbed him by the shoulder and with difficulty stood up.

  ‘It’s a trick,’ Leon tried again.

  Adam told him to get up.

  Leon did not move as he said, ‘You’re supposed to be a friend. Do you want me shot?’

  ‘Come on you stupid bastard, get up. This is a chance. It sounds like a chance. You have to go.’

  The Poles continued, their stringent voices becoming louder, becoming more agitated as the white hooded figures stood back from the train.

  ‘They’re looking for Poles who...who were in the Polish army.’

  ‘That’s you,’ Adam insisted.

  ‘It...it doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘What are they wanting you lot for? Why are they here? Why?’

  ‘I’m trying to listen.’

  More of the prisoners were pushing their way to the edge of the wagon as one of the guards started shouting his own orders.

  ‘You’d better get a move on,’ Adam said.

  ‘I’m going nowhere.’

  ‘This might be a chance. Where this train is going there is no such thing.’

  ‘No,’ Leon muttered.

  ‘Just listen to what they’re saying.’

  ‘I am. I am. They’re.....they’re saying....that....that the Germans have invaded Russia.’

  ‘The Krauts,’ Adam muttered.

  ‘And that because of this....this act of treachery the Poles are now....now Russia’s allies. Stalin has promised.’

  ‘What’s old Joe promised?’

  ‘That all Poles should be freed.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’

  ‘Poles should be freed. Any Poles here on the train are to be....be transported south to the nearest town where they will then have....have to make their own way to the nearest recruiting station, the nearest recruiting station for the new Polish army that will be fighting on the side of Russia and America and England. That’s what is being said. ‘

  Adam bent down to him, ‘So you must go.’

  ‘They’re going to kill us,’ was Leon’s exhausted answer.

  ‘You have to go.’

  ‘I can’t. I’m....I’m too tired....too tired and too hungry. I’ll never make it.’

  ‘Come on,’ Adam said strongly as he jerked Leon up onto his knees, the frost and ice breaking off his clothes and boots.

  ‘There’s nothing out there,’ Leon groaned, unable to resist as Adam started dragging him towards the open doors.

  Leon was so numbed off he felt nothing except the pain in his legs and the sensation that his bones were going to snap.

  Adam was croaking with the effort as he tried to push through the group of prisoners near the door.

  ‘Tell them you’re Polish. Tell them you understand what they’re saying. That’s the only way they can tell. That’s who they’re looking for.’

  ‘No,’ Leon moaned.

  ‘Talk to them.’

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  Suddenly he had been pulled into the light, holding up his hand to try and shelter his eyes. Again his vision exploded in a dancing brightness from a low creamy sun shining across the flat distance.

  Not far away there were three trucks that had wood fires burning under their engines and a few huts half buried under snow.

  ‘Are you Poles?’ one of the men asked.

  ‘Tell them,’ Adam insisted.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Tell them.’

  ‘We want Poles, just Poles. Do you understand what I’m saying? What is your name, your name?’

  As Leon was about to turn away Adam pushed him out of the wagon. The guards were shouting at the other prisoners to get back from the doors.

  ‘He’s a Pole. He is. He’s a Pole,’ Adam kept repeating.

  Momentarily Leon looked up, squinting to see where Adam had gone.

  ‘He is as well! He is as well!’ he cried out as loud as he could before one of the Poles pulled him to his feet.

  At the start of the journey Adam had told him that he had to change his name.

  ‘Yours is too Jewish. It won’t do. We’ll have to think you up a new name.’

  ‘Pol Waneski, that should do. Met somebody with that name once, God knows where. Sounds Polish enough, that’s the name for you, Pol Waneski.’

  Now he was desperately trying to remember what they had agreed on as the Pole started asking him quick, confusing questions.

  Along the train came other Polish voices and the shouts of the guards as the engine blew out steam, huge clouds of it spreading over everybody.

  Again more questions came. Leon could feel the edge of the sun’s warmth against the freezing air. As he remembered what name he was supposed to say he glanced at darkening snow clouds on the far horizon.

  Then suddenly came the sound of the doors being closed further up the train. Leon turned and started shouting for Adam, the panic in his voice blasted by more steam as the wheels started and then stopped again, creaking over the iced up rails.

  With a lunge at the doors he stumbled forwards onto the snow, his body unable to follow what he needed it to do.

  ‘He’s another Pole,’ he was muttering, ‘Another Pole. You....you can’t leave him. Listen to me,’ came muffled words smothered in the snow,’ He’s a Pole. You have to get....get him out of there. You have to get him out of there. You can’t leave him. You can’t.’

  But the train was moving again, the guards scrambling into their carriage as it skidded forward, the whole thing grinding and creaking against the rails, more steam blasted into the darkening air.

  ‘You come with us.’

  Leon looked up at the end of the last carriage and then to the side at some of the men being lead over to the waiting trucks.

  ‘You come with us.’

  The shape of the slowly disappearing train was like something being pushed through him. He could hardly breathe.

  Again he was pulled to his feet and turned round.

  ‘Get moving,’ he was told.

  ‘There...there....’ he tried.

  ‘Now, you get moving now.’

  MEN OF SNOW

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  PART FIVE

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  CHAPTER 14

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  ‘I am grateful for all your kind messages and gifts. You have all been very generous. I would also like to thank you all for coming on such a miserable night.’

  Franz paused and looked across the huge function room with its maroon coloured walls and carpet and the people sittin
g around their tables covered in the debris of a finished dinner.

  ‘Retirement is necessary or so I am told,’ was his attempt at humour as he glanced up at the line of chandeliers running down the centre of the ceiling, ‘And yet I see it as a time full of promise. Of course I will be sad to leave all my colleagues, but I am confident of the future for this company. It has shown remarkable progress over the last years, something that you all should be proud of. I know I am leaving it in the strongest shape. Like Germany itself things have come together. The company is successful and I am sure it will continue to be so. You know what respect I have for you all as people and as colleagues. You are the reason this company will have a very bright future. Thank you again for everything.’

  He stood accepting the applause. He had been preparing himself for these moments for a long time.

  ‘Come, join us,’ Victor was shouting over the clapping.

  Franz smiled, bowed again to all his colleagues before coming off the band stand.

  Everybody was being asked to move into the bar so that the tables and chairs could be removed and the band could set up its equipment for the after dinner dance.

  ‘You always keep it short and sweet,’ said Clara, the wife of Michael one of the other directors, who was dressed in a black dress with her hair brushed up and huge earrings dangling.

  ‘They know how I feel,’ Franz answered.

  Two photographers came forward and the group stopped, turned and smiled.

  ‘Just the local press,’ Victor told him.

  ‘I never thought that....’

  ‘Of course, the people of Hamburg are interested. The company is becoming a large employer.’

  Franz blinked at the flashes, momentarily losing his composure.

  ‘Do you think they could stop now?’ he said a little too strongly.

  Bronia laughed, ‘You should enjoy the publicity Franz.’

  ‘And the company,’ Victor, the other director, added.

  For Franz there was the expected hollowness. He understood that tonight was already part of the past. The guests, workers of the sportswear company, were only here as a gesture. Tomorrow there would be no difference. Nothing would change in the office and the factory. They were saying goodbye to somebody who had really already left.

  ‘Are you sure you won’t try a drink?’ Michael asked knowing that Franz would refuse.

  ‘Surely, just to join us,’ Bronia tried, there with her deep red dress and lipstick and nail varnish.

  ‘Healthy to the last,’ was Victor’s comment.

  ‘No drinking, no smoking,’ Clara slurred.

  ‘And we’ll add no marriage but that doesn’t mean no sex.’

  Franz tried to smile at Michael’s comment.

  Others came up to wish him well. Because it was Franz it was all rather formal. Some of them had worked with for him for over thirty years and were still unsure how to respond to him. He had always been polite, restrained and private to the extent that people knew little about the rest of his life outside company hours except that he enjoyed keeping fit and took walking holidays in the Alps.

  ‘Surprise us Franz, just this once,’ said Bronia, still trying to provoke him.

  He wanted it over with. He had asked for something low key but both Michael and Victor had rejected the idea.

  ‘Not at all, come on Franz. This is your retirement. It only happens once. The company demands a good night,’ Michael had told him, ‘not just for you, but for everybody who wants to celebrate your time with the company.’

  Now he was feeling the strain, the edginess. He hardly recognised anybody in the crowd around him. They were here because that is what you did, what the company expected. They were getting drunk and loud and it was beginning to bother him.

  ‘So, how do you feel?’ was Michael’s question.

  Franz wanted to tell him he felt bored and empty but he resisted, ‘Relieved I suppose.’

  ‘You’ll be fine.’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Of course you will so long as you promise to come to our annual dinners, to keep up with everybody.’

  He made no response only tried to appear in agreement with his vague smile, wishing now for the evening to end so he could get away from the noise and the stench of cigarette smoke.

  ‘Thirty two years,’ Clara announced as she grabbed his arm, ‘My God how did you manage it?’

  ‘I never thought of it as managing,’ was his answer, ‘It never felt like that.’

  Finally as the band started up and everybody moved back into the main reception room he told them he was leaving.

  After resistance and complaint, which he knew was purely a required gesture, they let him go, except for Michael, who came with him to the hotel’s front door where a line of taxis were waiting.

  ‘You’ll be missed,’ he said in an attempt at being serious as the taxi drew up.

  ‘Thanks for this evening,’ was all Franz could manage.

  Michael held out his hand, saying, ‘You’ve always been a bit of a mystery Franz.’

  ‘Goodnight Michael,’ were his last words as he closed the taxi door and gave the driver his address.

  Back in his apartment he switched on the lights and drew the curtains. The room was simply furnished. There was nothing that could identify Franz in any way, nothing personal, no photographs, paintings, objects that were his. He had minimal tastes. So long as the place was clean and functional he was satisfied. There was a large television at one end of the large room. He spent many hours watching football, especially the German national team when they were being successful, which they usually were. That he enjoyed more than anything.

  In the kitchen he poured himself a glass of water before going into the master bedroom. Here there was nothing on the walls. A wardrobe ran the whole length of one side. Sliding open its doors he stood there for a moment before taking out the uniform. Carefully he lifted it out of its polythene wrapping and laid it out on the bed, smoothing down the material, pulling at a thread that was hanging loose. There were six buttons for the M41 uniform, field grey with a tight collar and his officer lapels. The cloth was always rough to the skin and the uniform’s cut had made movement sometimes difficult.

  Franz took off his dinner jacket and hung it up in the wardrobe. He unknotted his tie and folded it with the rest on a special hanger inside the door of the wardrobe. Unbuttoning his shirt he went back to the kitchen to put it in the wash basket before returning to the bedroom. Now just in his vest and trousers he pulled on the uniform. Standing in front of the wardrobe’s full length mirror he watched himself work the six highly polished buttons before fastening the collar. The uniform was still a good fit. It was a test to ensure his weight had not altered. He turned to the side, smoothing down the front of the material. For a moment he could see himself from all those years ago as though nothing had changed. Franz felt again the pleasure of knowing he could still be the officer. He was still in shape even to the extent that the uniform felt loose under the arms and across the chest.

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  The next morning he was listening to his fitness coach at the private sports club he attended daily.

  ‘It’s going well Herr Brucker. The more we’ve worked on the arms and shoulders the stronger they’ve become. That’s what we aimed at and with the weights we’ve been introducing, it’s going better than even I expected. You put in the work and it’s certainly paying off. I think we can up the weights a little and maybe spend a little more time on them as well as making it now a forty five minute swim each morning if you’re in agreement with that.’

  Franz had just come out of the shower and was towelling himself down. Gunter the coach had a squat, muscular body. He had been working with Franz for the last five years after his previous coach had emigrated to Australia.

  ‘We don’t want to overdo it,’ Gunter continued, ‘but over the last weeks there has been a marked improvemen
t. Your pulse rate is strong. The time on the jogging machine is becoming easier. The rest periods are shorter. I wish all my clients were progressing as well.’

  ‘I thank you Gunter. I feel better. In the night my shoulder kicks up once in a while but it’s not as bad as it used to be,’ had been Franz’s response as he enjoyed the afterglow of a good workout. This for him was the best time of the day. He was physically tired but mentally enervated at the same time. He understood the relation between the two. It had always been the same for him, putting in the required effort. The discipline was the basis to it all. He had hardly missed a session in the gym and pool for years. It was the focus of his day. He did not drink or smoke. He had a careful diet that he and Gunter had organised. He had regular check-ups with his doctor. His vitamin supplements had been increased recently and in the evenings he had started short sessions of meditation to relax, to slow himself down ready for a good eight hours sleep.

  His regime was thorough and recorded. He had a daily fitness diary that he filled in every evening. It showed the lengths and times of his early morning jogs, the weights he had been lifting, his pulse rate before and after the sessions in the gym, the time it took to swim the fifty lengths of the pool. Each month he put it all on different graphs so he could easily define improvement. At the end of each year these final graphs were pinned up on his study wall and were left there for the next twelve months to show what he had to do for the coming year. In December he took the graphs round to the gym to discuss them with Gunter and to plan what was needed for the next months. His health had become a total project.

  ‘You’ve the heart of somebody twenty years younger,’ Doctor Stein had told him on his last appointment, ‘Just don’t overdo it Franz, especially now you’re retiring. We’ve talked enough about what you manage each day. It’s excellent so long as you don’t feel it has to be improved on all the time. You have the right balance at the moment. Try and keep it like that. I know you will.’

  Momentarily Franz had resented the warning. He knew better than anybody what he was doing. The only reason he visited Stein so often was because of the new technology he had.