Devastation Road (23 page)

‘So you’re going where exactly?’ said the woman.

‘North,’ he said.

‘That specific, huh?’ She had a point. ‘Good job I stopped then. I’m on my way to a place near Celle,’ she said, ‘if that helps, and you’ve got the guts
for it. It’s not exactly home from home but there’s a hospital and some medical support for the little one, and then perhaps from there –’ she nodded at Irena and Janek
– ‘we can maybe see about getting you guys home.’

Other people in the road were beginning to show interest in them and had stopped to look or were sidling closer, eyeing the jeep’s empty seats that could take them anywhere and the boxes
piled in the back that might be food or medicine.

‘Well, are you coming or not?’ she said. ‘If it’s not you, it’ll be someone else.’

They clambered in, Owen in the front, the others piling in the back between the boxes, a shovel and an Olivetti typewriter squeezed in on its side. Then the woman parped the horn to clear the
road and they pulled out, Janek giving an exclamation of delight as her foot pressed hard to the pedal and the jeep accelerated.

‘So, how did it go with my uncle?’ she yelled, over the sound of the engine and whistling air as they picked up speed.

He didn’t know what she was talking about.

‘The colonel,’ she said.

‘Colonel Hall’s your uncle? I didn’t know.’

She laughed. ‘Why would you? I didn’t tell you. And he sure as hell won’t. Don’t worry – it’s only through marriage. Although for how long, God knows. That
will be down to Roger, my husband.’ She glanced at him, both hands at the wheel as they hit a bump and the jeep lurched. In the back Janek whooped. ‘Some of us have been fighting a war
on all fronts,’ she said, ‘if you know what I mean.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Ah, heck, don’t be. I’m not. Anyway, I don’t think you rightly answered the question.’

‘Oh, well . . . He was rather nice.’

‘You mean an idiot, right?’ she said.

‘No. He did organize a car and a flight home, actually.’

‘Both of which you’ve turned down by the looks of things,’ she said. ‘You’re not going to be very popular. New loyalties?’ She motioned with her head to the
back of the jeep where the infant mewled against the wind.

‘Yes. Something like that,’ he said.

‘You must be a soft touch.’

Her name was Martha, a welfare officer with UNRRA – the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency, she explained.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘No one out here’s heard of us. We’re new. It’s some international set-up, sent out to feed the starving, fix the broken,
rehouse the homeless and all that.’

‘God,’ he said.

‘Oh, don’t be too impressed,’ she said. ‘Between you and me, we’re making a goddamn mess of it.’

He introduced himself and Irena, who leant forward and said, ‘You are a good lady. Thank you.’

‘Well, we get your kid fixed, that’s good enough for me. Besides, I rarely do a trip out here without someone cadging a lift. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to get
gasoline in this place.’

Janek insisted on introducing himself with theatrical gusto, standing up in the back of the jeep and throwing his arms open. ‘Janek V
ě
nceslav Sokol,’ he announced, the wind
ruffling furiously at his sleeves. ‘I love you, America!’

‘That’s great,’ said Martha, ‘but could I ask you to sit down?’

Before long, Janek had the photograph of his brother out again and was leaning through the gap to show it her. ‘You know? Petr Sokol.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘He asks everyone,’ said Owen, not meaning it to sound so much like an apology.

‘Oh, they’re all the same,’ she said. ‘It’s understandable. Half of Europe’s been tipped out across the map. No one knows where the hell anyone is. If
you’re a Polish Jew, you could be anywhere from Westerbork to goddamn Janowska. And that’s assuming you’re alive.’

‘You find Petr?’ said Janek, still holding out the photograph.

She laughed. ‘I’m sorry but at the moment getting any information is practically impossible. We’ve got no systems in place yet and besides, there’re too many DPs out
there. I might as well be trying to hold Lake Michigan in my hand.’ She leant back over her shoulder as the jeep slowed, held up by a truck. ‘I’ll try to find your brother.
I’ll ask. But I can’t make no promises. You understand?
To
. . .
nebýt
. . .
mo
ž
ný
. Too many.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘
To je mo
ž
né!
We speak to Czech. Czech people know Petr. Czech people need Petr.’

‘He’s some sort of resistance fighter, I think,’ Owen explained.

‘Well, that’s one thing we sure as hell don’t need,’ Martha told him. ‘Another rookie revolutionary.’

She swerved to avoid a speeding Russian truck that was veering from side to side. Two Red Army soldiers were leaning out of the window, clasping bottles and yelling. She slammed on the brake to
let the truck pass and swore at them. ‘
Przekl
ę
te dupki!
’

‘Russian as well?’ he said. ‘Goodness.’

‘Polish, actually,’ she said, ‘but I think they got the point.’ Then she threw a smile over her shoulder at Irena but Irena did not catch her eye.

They travelled west, following the River Helme for some way before finally turning north through the town of Nordhausen where, Martha said, only a month ago the British RAF had
destroyed three quarters of the town, killing a thousand prisoners.

‘Oh, it’s okay. Our guys are there now,’ she said as they drove through. ‘It’ll go to the Russians soon though, like Leipzig. They used to build rockets there.
V-2s. That’s what made it a target.’

The town was devastated. It was becoming a familiar picture. They passed through in silence, Janek’s arm lolling over the side while Irena held the crying infant tight to her chest. They
kept having to wipe the dust from their faces.

‘A few weeks ago we found a camp,’ Martha said, ‘just outside of here. It was supplying the workers for the factories. There were five thousand bodies.’

‘Five thousand?’ said Owen.

Martha sniffed. ‘You think that’s shocking. That’s nothing,’ she said.

After a while she pulled over so that Irena could try feeding the baby, who was still bawling, and Martha could fill the petrol tank from a canister she had in the back. She seemed surprisingly
capable.

Irena sat in the grass trying to feed Little Man but he was writhing and screaming in her arms and wouldn’t take to the breast.

‘When we get to the camp I’ll ask Dr Haynes to take a look at him,’ Martha said to Owen. ‘A kid cries for that long and you know something ain’t right.’ She
replaced the petrol cap and screwed the top on the canister. ‘What’s the story anyway?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘With the little guy. There’s always a story. I take it the baby’s not his,’ she said, giving a nod at Janek.

‘A bit of a sore subject, actually,’ he said. ‘It’s something I should have raised with your uncle.’

‘Oh?’ She fastened the hook back under the bonnet.

‘She says she was raped.’

The bonnet dropped with a clang.

‘One of ours?’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘You wouldn’t be “raising it with my uncle” if it wasn’t.’

‘That’s the point. I didn’t and I should have. She specifically asked me and I didn’t say a bloody word.’

‘Why not? Not buying it?’

‘No, it’s not that. It’s just . . .’ But now he didn’t know.

‘Where’d it happen, anyway?’

‘Aachen, she says.’

Martha leant against the side of the jeep and blew out a puff of air. ‘That’s quite some haul.’

‘Yes, well, I don’t know the full story . . .’

‘If it was one of our boys, though, I doubt he’s going to make himself known, and if he does, well, with so much else going on, the military here have got pretty good at turning
their heads.’

‘I was rather hoping we could help her.’

‘Is that guilt talking?’

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘I just think she’s had a rough deal.’

‘Well, if she’s a Pole come out of a camp, I’d say you’re putting that pretty mildly.’

‘Will you talk to her then?’ he asked. ‘I don’t think she wants to be entirely honest with me.’

Martha called something across to Irena in Polish and the girl nodded. Martha gave the bonnet a slap.

‘Looks like you boys are all in the back then.’

They joined the Berlin–Hanover autobahn heading west. Owen had never seen a road like it. Wide and sleek with four lanes, the trees on either side cut right back to allow
the road in all its glory to pass through unhindered. It was flat but curved gently through the countryside, the road elegant but in tatters. The concrete was torn up in places by the weight of
vehicles that it could not hold and it was littered with holes caused from bomb blasts that created bottlenecks in the traffic where the trucks and cars and lorries ferrying military personnel in
and out of Berlin slowed to weave a precarious route around and through the rubble.

From the rear seat he watched Martha and Irena up front, snatches of German and Polish whipped back by the wind. As the road grew clearer Martha accelerated, the sound of the road and the engine
and a rattling draught combined into a storm that blew hard across his ears. He stared over the side of the jeep. Beside him, Janek had wrapped the baby within the jacket he was wearing, protecting
him from the wind.

Five thousand corpses. It was barely conceivable.
We’re just deliverymen
, Max had said. Or perhaps that had been him.

If he let them, the passing fields fused into a blur. He could detach himself from the world that way. The juddering under him felt familiar. The roar of engine noise and pounding of wind. He
could hear it shrieking against the windscreen. He could feel how the plane had strained and quaked, the air thundering so hard against it. He could hear voices, people shouting. Owen’s eyes
closed.

He was on a train, the fur of hedges whistling past. He kept checking the documents in his hand: names and addresses and a photograph. There had been others that he’d
thrown away, or burnt near a woodland pool sitting on a chair, scratching his face from all of them except these still in his hand, sitting on the train with a canvas bag by his side, a number
scrawled on it: 4993.

When they empty the camp, we’ll need to be ready
, someone had said.
Government says we need to stay in line, but if you make a run for it, don’t get caught
.

Now he was on a train; how long later, he didn’t know, only that through the windows the snow had gone and for some unknown reason he was heading east. The carriage was busy and around him
the other passengers seemed agitated. A girl in stark white ankle socks sat opposite him, a suitcase beside her, a bear with one eye sitting in her lap. The train’s wheels ground on the
tracks and clattered in his chest. The sun blinked and flared through the window, flickering too fast across her face.

The little girl leant to one side and peered along the gangway. They had not spoken all journey but they had been playing a game of shadows. When she leant one way, he leant out the same; when
she lifted a finger, he did too. It was like a conversation. Now, when she leant, he did as well, only this time she shook her head and he glanced behind him. Two SS officers were making their way
through the crowded aisle and checking papers. He held the documents a little tighter. Where his palm was perspiring it was lifting the ink from the paper and smudging it. His heart quickened. The
train jolted. Those standing grabbed at something to steady themselves, then the train tilted again as the track curved.

He carefully peeled his hand away. The ink stains were now there on his fingers. The documents were so clearly a forgery. The little girl had noticed too. Then she looked up at the officers
approaching. The train rattled and lurched.

They left the autobahn, heading north. Janek sat in the front now, holding his hand out to feel the rush of air blowing between his fingers.

They passed through a town called Celle where they crossed a river. Along the streets there were hundreds of old timber-framed houses with the now familiar white sheets still hanging from the
windows. The town, Martha said, had saved itself by surrendering. Then they were out in the fields again. The road led them across a heath and through dense and fragrant woods where whole patches
had been burnt down – to flush out snipers, Martha revealed. Then they passed through a field, enclosed by trees, where lines of labourers were digging, turning over the soil, and there were
boards with skull and crossbones.

They drove alongside some fencing, criss-crossing like the bars of a cage behind the branches of the hedge. Through the blinks of light, mesh of wire and leaves, he kept thinking he could see
thin figures and pale lumpy mounds. They had to cover their noses to the stench of burning and the billowing clouds of smoke that blew out across the road. In the distance he could hear the
sluggish
chug-chug
of a tractor.

‘You said you wanted bringing to a camp,’ Martha said, calling back over her shoulder at Owen and Irena. ‘Well, folks, here it is.’

They rounded a bend. A single pole crossed the road and there were wooden huts on both sides. A couple of men in familiar-looking battledress raised the barrier and waved them through.

‘Here she is, Ron,’ one of them said. ‘Where the dickens you been?’

‘Round and about,’ Martha said. ‘You boys miss me?’

‘Not half,’ said the other with a cheeky grin.

‘My God,’ said Owen, with a sense of relief, ‘they’re English!’

Martha looked back at Owen and smiled.

They arrived at some barracks, an area of quadrangles, each consisting of clusters of four-storey buildings that spanned out in every direction as far as he could see.

It had been an old Panzer training school, Martha explained as they pulled up outside a main building.

They clambered out of the jeep, all slightly dazed. Janek wandered, stumbling backwards over his own feet as his head tipped back to see the buildings all around them: solid, concrete,
functionary blocks, with rows of regimental windows. One or two faces hung behind the glass like ghouls; a couple of figures leant out through open windows, their thin arms hanging like broken
sticks.