Forever Fleeting

by Bret Kissinger

  Screams of terror informed Hannah the fortune of some of the other women had run out. Gunshots echoed, almost causing Hannah to scream. Whether the shots were executions from point-blank range or the shots of a hunter shooting a fleeing prey was impossible to decipher.

  The cover the woods had offered ended. Hannah came to a clearing with only a lone farmhouse with a rusted black truck parked near it with its lights on and engine running. The barn door was open, and the silhouettes of two men inside were cast from the truck’s headlights. Hannah hurried to the truck. The manure in the truck bed would have been smelt by most at five meters away, but the smell of ripe shit went unnoticed to a woman who had become familiar with the smell of death. She climbed onto the bed and shoveled the manure on top of her to conceal herself. She positioned her head between the two horizontal slabs of wood that made up the sides of the bed.

  Two voices, speaking a language unrecognizable to her, grew louder as they approached the truck. One voice faded away, no doubt as he moved to the house. The truck door slammed and, seconds later, the truck bounced as it sputtered forward. Hannah brushed the manure away from her face and gasped. The rushing air filled her lungs. The road led to an unknown destination, and her view was too limited and the sky too dark to make any guesses as to where she was.

  The truck slowed when the man came to an intersection and waited at a stop sign. Hannah lifted her head from the manure. A string of cars came to a halt. Flashlight beams scanned the nearby fields. The Nazis had begun their search. Barks rang out near the front of the line of automobiles. They belonged to only one breed of dog—German Shepherd. The truck could have gone straight or right or even back the way it had come. But the flashing coming from the back left was another warning. Hannah brushed the manure back over her face and did her best to make sure she was completely covered in it. She had to take delicate sips of air or risk inhaling the manure. Claustrophobia set in instantly.

  The truck crept forward as the search continued.

  “We are searching for escaped prisoners,” a voice said.

  Even muffled by the manure, the ominous voice was familiar. It belonged to Sturmbannführer Waltz.

  “I … not speak… ugh … German no well,” the man in the truck said.

  “What are you carrying?” Waltz asked.

  He did not care in the slightest if the man understood or not. But Waltz’s question was answered as soon as he approached the back of the truck. A strong whiff of shit hit his nostrils, and he stepped back offended.

  “Where are you going?” Waltz asked.

  Hannah had no more sips of air and had to fight the urge to rise up from the manure and gasp for breath. The idea of dying by suffocating on shit was worse than being shot. But one thing was for certain—she would never step aboard that train again. She would rather die in a flatbed of manure than be a cow sent to slaughter. The man in the truck spoke again in his own language to reiterate his inability to speak or understand German while the manure was stabbed by the tip of a rifle, inches from Hannah.

  “It is just a pile of shit,” the soldier said, nearly gagging.

  The number of cars stopped increased with every passing second, and the headlights from the automobile behind threatened to illuminate Hannah like a stage light.

  “Move along,” Waltz said.

  The man must not have understood what he had been told because a hand hit the top of his truck that almost caused Hannah to jump.

  “Move!” Waltz yelled.

  The man drove forward, and after the truck struggled audibly to achieve higher speed, it accelerated enough to create a comfortable distance between it, the driver, and Hannah from the Nazi search party. Hannah pushed her hands free from the manure like a corpse breaking through its grave. She shoveled the manure off her face and sucked in air with huge exaggerated gasps.

  As her breathing steadied, she tried to wager a guess about where she was. The train had moved east—perhaps Poland or Czechoslovakia? All that mattered was that the driver didn’t speak German and he drove away from Waltz and the Nazi search party. For the first time, since arriving at Auschwitz, the stars were an endless highway of possibilities, an unexplored pathway leading to an infinite number of destinations. And for the first time, she was able to grasp all she had lost. She had grieved at Auschwitz, but survival took precedence. But now, as she lay in the bed of the truck with nothing but stars and solitude, her thoughts turned somber.

  She thought about Eleanor and the fate awaiting her. What had she done to warrant such a selfless act of compassion and heroism? She thought of Trugnowski and the way he had stood strong and tall until the very end. She thought of her mother and father. The date of losing a loved one can never be forgotten—something remembered down to the minute. But Hannah did not know the minute, the hour, the day, the month or even the year—a tombstone etched with a question mark. As the road sped by beneath her in a black blur, so many she loved were rooted now in the past. But Wilhelm had made the stars a constant reminder of him, and it was impossible for Hannah to gaze upon them without thinking of him. He was the one thing that pulled her forward. As she contemplated on everything and everyone she had lost, defeat was never so enticing. But her soul demanded her to continue on.

  The truck slowed as it approached another farmhouse. It sounded like the final cough of a sick man before the engine was killed. The truck door croaked as it opened, and the door slammed. She expected the farmer to walk around the truck and stare down at her, but the door to the house opened and closed with a creek and a thud. She lifted herself from the bed of the truck and toppled over the side. The cold air nipped at her, and her stained pajamas did little to protect her from its bite. She checked the truck for the keys and was not surprised to not find them there. Her body was as brittle as glass. It was going to shatter at any moment. Her feet had quit on her and refused to lift off from the ground. In her frail state, even the relatively calm winds nearly blew her over. Her mouth did not have a spec of saliva, and swallowing was painful.

  She hobbled toward the large barn, the color of which was the same faded red as the cattle car that had brought her to Auschwitz. She tried pulling open its heavy doors, but the wind was a cruel jokester and slammed them shut. On her second attempt, she was able to squeeze through the opening. The cows inside mooed. Was it normal for a cow to moo in the middle of the night or would the farmer come out to investigate? Near the doors was a water pump. Hannah put her face in front of it and pumped. She took in as much of it as she could, but most of it ran down her chin and doused her pajamas. Water had been such a luxury at the camp, and to be in a situation now where she could drink herself to death with it was unfathomable. After nearly drinking her weight’s worth, she limped away from the pump. Even inside the barn, the chill found its way to her, and her drenched pajamas caused her to shiver. Her feet throbbed. She lifted her left foot—thorns punctured the bottom. She grimaced as she pulled them out.

  Every stall in the barn was occupied by a cow, except for one. Hannah opened it and stepped inside. It had equal amounts of mud and hay. Her body tremored from the cold. She gathered all the hay in the stall and used it to insulate herself and tucked her hands into her armpits and buried her face in the hay. She drifted off, whether from tiredness or passing out, to a deep sleep filled with a series of dreams that flowed from one to the next but had nothing in common. Eleanor and Trugnowski were both in them as well as her parents. The last dream was of Wilhelm, but it was entirely confusing. His German morphed into a language she could not understand. She snapped awake and gasped.

  The farmer stood outside the stall, speaking the same word she had not understood Wilhelm speak in her dream. His wide, round frame covered nearly all the stall, and his glasses were so filthy that it was possible he had not seen Hannah. But he shouted again.

  “I am sorry,” Hannah said, grabbing hold of the wooden horizontal beam and struggling to her feet.

  The farmer’s angry tone instantly changed when h
e saw her striped pajamas. Hannah, although eyes open, was anything but coherent. She was beyond exhausted, beyond starved, beyond weak. Her hands and feet were numb, and the numbing crawled further up her arms and legs. She hovered between this world and the next. She was powerless to do anything when the farmer opened the stall and scooped her up in his arms. She had expected to be dropped onto the cold, hard ground, but the farmer carried her to the house and inside. She drifted in and out of consciousness, the colors of the room faded, and images blurred together. She felt nothing—not the cold wind attacking her as the farmer carried her inside, not even the farmer holding her. There was both an expanse of black and then white—a symbol of a temporary state of unconsciousness and death.

  Over the course of the next week, she seldom awoke—only long enough to take in the walls, faded egg-white in color, and the maple wood flooring. She was in a bed, freezing under the covers but dripping with sweat—somehow burning to death while simultaneously freezing. Her insatiable tiredness was finally appeased. She opened her eyes, and her vision corrected itself. The room was rustic, and the home’s owners were surely nemophilists. Now that her sleepiness had faded, a worry and curiosity as to exactly where she was and with whom had taken over. She flipped the damp, sweat-logged covers off and stepped onto the floor. It cracked and groaned with each footstep.

  She stepped out of the bedroom and found a staircase a few feet from the room. She descended the stairs, carefully holding onto the banister for support. With each step, the smell of frying eggs and sizzling ham became so defined that she could taste it. Its aroma was glorious. Her stomach gave a strong push forward in an attempt to burst out of her. A tall, slender, red-haired woman standing over the stove turned to look at her. She hurried toward Hannah and gently rubbed Hannah’s face. The man on the kitchen chair turned his body, his large belly getting caught on the table. It must have been the man from the truck, but it had been so dark and Hannah so nearing unconsciousness that she could only assume. The farmer and his wife spoke to one another. The topic was no doubt Hannah.

  “I do not speak your language,” Hannah said.

  They didn’t speak German but, at least, it would let them know she did not speak their language.

  The woman took Hannah’s hands and offered her a smile and escorted her back upstairs—an encouraging direction than the alternative of the front door and the terrors outside. The house was modest and a combination of smells of fire from the living area fireplace and cedar from the dressers and desks in each of the rooms. It was the sort of home that most likely had been in the farmer’s family for generations and had changed minimally since it was built—probably two hundred years ago.

  The farmer’s wife led Hannah back into a bedroom and pulled clothes from the second drawer of the cedar dresser. She kept them folded in her hands and led Hannah into the bathroom. She placed the clothes on the bathroom counter and grabbed a towel from the cabinet beside it. She turned to the bathtub and pulled the shower curtain out of the way and started the shower. The woman offered another smile and left.

  It was still a mystery who they were and what their motive was. But the idea of a hot shower was too much, and Hannah lifted the striped pajamas over her head and pulled the headscarf off and took a frightened step backward when she caught her reflection in the mirror. Who was the person staring back at her? Her hair, now longer than a shave, was still inches shorter than the last time she had seen her reflection. Her body was grotesquely thin and every bone, fully visible. Her face, once full of life and color, now seemed to be months into decay. Her eyes, once as bright as red giant stars, were now faded, dulled, white dwarves approaching their end. She stepped into the tub. The clear water that ran down her head and body turned black at her feet. She shampooed her hair twice and lathered her body with soap three times. She then took the razor from the ledge and shaved her armpits and legs.

  The water massaged her throbbing feet, tensed shoulders, and achy back. She sat, her arms draped over her knees, and let the water cascade onto her. Apart from her shower with Wilhelm on their final night together, it was the greatest shower of her life. As she dried herself off and wiped the mirror clean from the condensation, for the first time in months, she felt like a human being. The shower did not bring back length to her hair or add weight to her skeletal frame, but she was clean—clean for the first time in months, maybe, even years. And that was a start. She took one final look at her filthy pajamas on the bathroom floor. She had expected to die in them. They were her coffin, a coffin she wore every day. It did not matter if the clothes on the sink did not fit. They were different, and what a marvelous thing that was!

  Hannah dressed and opened the door and walked down the steps. She had appeased her tiredness and her need for cleanliness. Next on her list was food.

  The farmer and his wife rose from the kitchen table, but Hannah was fixated on the two eggs, a piece of bread coated with a thick layer of butter, and home fries on the plate and a glass of milk beside it. She wanted to make no assumptions the plate was for her and waited until the woman gestured to the seat. She crammed bits of egg and toast into her mouth and took gulps of milk between bites.

  The farmer and his wife waited as Hannah devoured the plate in less than two minutes. The farmer then left the table and returned moments later, fighting to unfold a map of Europe, using the salt and pepper shaker on opposites ends to secure it. He placed his stubby finger near the border of Poland and the Czech portion of Czechoslovakia. His finger covered nearly a dozen cities, but Hannah was somewhere near Ostrava. Hannah pointed her own finger on Oświęcim, the site of Auschwitz.

  “Nazis. Which countries are they in?” Hannah asked, even though it would not be understood.

  “Nazis?” the farmer’s wife asked.

  Hannah nodded. She pointed to Germany. “Nazis,” she said.

  She moved her finger to Poland and again repeated the word Nazis.

  The farmer’s wife caught on and pointed to country after country—Albania, Czechoslovakia, Austria, France, Montenegro, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Croatia, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Finland, Lithuania, Poland, San Marino, Serbia, Ukraine, and the Soviet Union. The invisible noose around Hannah’s neck tightened with each tap of the woman’s long finger. There was no safe haven in Europe.

  The farmer’s wife barely left the kitchen that day, and Hannah did not leave the table. She ate and ate, and an hour later, she ate more. She stayed a week, each day her strength returning tenfold. She would ask no more from the kind farmer and his wife. The penalty for harboring a Jew was death, and Hannah did not want that on her conscience. She was no longer in Poland, but Auschwitz was only a short train ride away. Her gut told her complacency was death. She had to keep moving.

  “Thank you,” Hannah said.

  The farmer’s wife placed her hands on Hannah’s and held up a single finger and went to the counter. She grabbed a satchel and placed inside it a dozen hard-boiled eggs, three potatoes, two loaves of bread, a triangle of brie cheese, and a jug of milk.

  The farmer had one last gift too. He removed a gold pocket watch, a compass below the clock, from his shirt pocket.

  “No. I cannot,” Hannah said, holding her hand up to refuse.

  The farmer shook his head, placed the watch in her hand, and gently pushed her hand away.

  It had been in their best interest to report her to the Nazis or, at the very least, banish her from their home. But instead, they chose compassion. Hannah would have died out in the cold forest. The food, bed, clothes, and shower had not only saved her life but also kept her flickering ember spirit burning.

  Hannah placed the satchel over her shoulder and gave one last appreciative glance at the two Samaritans. It was early, and the sun had yet to fully rise. She opened the gold pocket watch and made sure her heading was south. She had no place in mind but made sure to stick to walking through the wooded areas and avoid the main roads. Her stamina and strength
were still far from recuperated, and she stopped frequently to rest.

  The silence of nature only brought back haunting memories of shrieking and whistling trains. On most occasions, she was able to shake it off. But what she had thought was in her head was reality when she stepped through the end of the tree line. A train station was ahead. The sight of the train paralyzed her. Hannah had never loved nor hated trains before. She had found them to be less thrilling than planes or even cars, but now they were a symbol of the horror she had been through. Her entire body wanted her to run in the opposite direction, but the train was her best option for covering ground and fast.

  “Find one problem, solve one problem.”

  Eleanor’s words came to her like a pep talk.

  The search radius for her was small, yet she was still in it. She needed to create a greater distance between her and Auschwitz. Although she had showered, her hair was slightly longer, and even in different clothes, it was not enough to fool Waltz. He was as predatorial as a dog and equally cunning. She lurched toward the train, pausing when her eyes found something potentially dangerous. She tried to stifle the nerves and lightheaded feeling that had taken over her. She stood amongst a hundred people, waiting for the train to arrive. Hannah approached the ticket window, and the woman inside leaned forward.

  “Excuse me. Do you speak German?” Hannah asked.

  “Little,” the woman answered.

  “Where is the next train going?”

  “Vienna. Would you like to purchase a ticket?”