Pursuit (22 page)

“No lights,” the sergeant said quietly. “We stop at any border, or anyplace else for that matter, you guys get out of sight. Scrunch down on the floor. If you guys get caught, you're on your own. I never heard of you. I got enough fuckin' troubles of my own.” He started to leave and then turned back. “We put the ignition keys in the glove compartments. Don't want the fuckers to jiggle out and get lost with the shakin' I expect on this crapped-up railroad line.”

He walked out of the car and waved an authoritative arm toward the engine; the train started up with a shiver that ran its length, as if it had stiffened with cold during the long wait. The sergeant watched as the boxcars clanked along, slowly gaining speed, waited while the passenger car with the troops went by with someone already setting up a board for cards, and then swung aboard the caboose as it slid past. He would be goin' home after deliverin' the fuckin' trucks; he wondered where them poor bastards without papers in that truck were goin' to end up. And he hoped to Christ they knew what he was talkin' about when he mentioned that fuckin' ignition key.

It was cold, bitter cold, and the higher the train went, straining at the long incline that led to the Austrian Alps, the colder it got. They chugged their way through Rosenheim and then started the long climb toward Kufstein and the Austrian frontier. The two men in the truck cab did not speak; each was too intent upon his own thoughts. Max, wrapped in his torn coat, was thinking how lucky they were to be getting the ride, and to Genoa itself! If they were not discovered and thrown off at either of the two frontiers they had to pass—or at any other station they had to pass—he could be in Nervi the following day, and maybe catch the
Naomi
before it sailed. It was an exciting thought. That was, of course, if he didn't freeze to death before then; the cold was beginning to make him numb. Grossman, on the other hand, was adding the discomfort he was feeling to the long list of bitter complaints against Fate he had been compiling ever since his great scheme had begun to go astray a year before. He stared across the truck cab at Brodsky, hunched behind the steering wheel, watching the vaporous breath come from that large cocoon. How could they avoid being spotted, for God's sake? They looked like a couple of geysers at one of the German spas, steaming up the place like that! They had to be caught—or were they supposed to hold their breath for twenty or thirty minutes while the border guards inspected the train at the frontier? And where would they get kicked off? On top of some mountain, without a doubt, where they would die quickly of cold. To try and get his mind off the dire possibilities, he addressed Max, trying to prevent his teeth from chattering.

“Do you know where we're going?”

Max grinned at him. “Genoa.”

“Genoa! How the devil did you arrange that?”

Max pointed toward the ceiling of the car. “Not me. Him.”

“Did He also arrange for the car to go through Milano?”

“He didn't say.”

“Next time, ask Him,” Grossman said, and fell silent. He tried to remember the map of Italy he had memorized, but he couldn't place Genoa on it. He hadn't been interested in Genoa; he still wasn't interested in Genoa. “What was the sergeant saying back there? Just before the train left?”

Max shrugged, a movement scarcely visible under all his clothes.

“Nothing. He said not to put on any lights, as if we didn't have enough sense to know that. He said to get down on the floor if the train stops anywhere. What did he think, we were going to stand up and cheer for the guards to see? Oh, and he said he takes no responsibility if we are caught. He said he has enough troubles.”

“Troubles!” Grossman said bitterly. “I would love to trade him troubles! That's all he said?”

“That's all, I think.” Max remembered. “Oh, he said something about a key, some key they put into the glove something, so it wouldn't drop out and get lost on the floor.”

“What!”

Grossman stared at Brodsky with a look of combined horror and disbelief. How stupid could the dumb Jew be? Or maybe it was because he was a Pole; Wolf was a Jew but he was a German. He would have understood in a second. Grossman fumbled in the glove compartment with stiff fingers, brought out the key, and shoved it in the ignition. He checked to make sure the gears were in neutral, and then put his foot past Brodsky's to stamp heavily on the floor starter.

Brodsky was looking at him with alarm.

“What are you doing? You're making noise—”

“Shut up! If this thing is frozen …”

The shrill whine of the starter was lost in the clanking of the boxcars as they rattled over the uneven track, and in the chugging of the engine as it fought the mountain. God! Grossman thought desperately, if we could have started this thing back in Hohen brunn and can't now because we waited too long, I'll kill the dumb Jew, big as he is! How could he be so damn stupid?

He kept his foot pressed on the starter, praying the battery would last until the motor caught, and then when he was about to admit defeat there was a cough, then another cough, the momentary rumble as the engine fought to maintain itself, and then silence. Three times the motor stalled and three times it managed to revive itself before it finally settled down to a steady beat. Grossman waited a few minutes and then leaned over and switched on the heater. The air was cold at first, with a musty odor; then it gradually warmed. Soon a steady stream of hot air made the loosening of clothing necessary. The steam from their breaths disappeared from the window; the exhaust fumes swirled about the boxcar and then were swept out of the huge gash in the side of the boxcar, together with the flurries of snow that also swirled about the car.

“That's better!” Grossman said with satisfaction, and reached for his knapsack and the food there.

But Brodsky was worried. “Ben—should we be doing this? The sergeant said—”

“The sergeant tried to tell you about the ignition key, but you were too stupid to understand! How can a person live who is that stupid?” God! When the train got anywhere in northern Italy he would be rid of this dumb Jew, and not a minute too soon! “We could have frozen to death! Stupid! Stupid!”

Brodsky stared straight ahead into the pitch-black end of the swaying boxcar. Well, it was true he had not understood what the sergeant meant, so maybe that had been stupid. He didn't know anything about trucks or oxy-whatever torches, but he had gotten them the ride. If Grossman had been handling the sergeant back in Hohenbrunn, they'd be back at Felsdorf right this minute. Now they were riding in comfort. He glanced across at Grossman, eating from a can, his overcoat open. He wants to go to Switzerland, does he? Well, let him!

Grossman finished his tin and dropped it on the floor rather than roll down the window and try to dispose of it through the gap in the car wall; rolling down the window would mean losing precious heat. He closed his eyes and leaned back, comfortable for the first time that day, the heat making him sleepy. That dumb, dumb Jew!

He woke with a start, instantly aware of one thing: the cold again. What had that stupid Jew done now? He glanced at the ignition key and saw it had been turned off. A wave of unreasoning fury swept him. What was the idiotic bastard trying to do, freeze them both to death? Or was he just being contrary? He reached for the key, but Brodsky's huge hand clamped over his, preventing him from touching it, and he then became aware that the train was stopping, and had been slowing down since he had been coming awake. The train shuddered to a halt and he realized the reason for Brodsky's action.

There were lights from swinging lanterns moving alongside the train, the crunch of footsteps on gravel along the track. Brodsky was hunched down as low as he could; the steering wheel prevented him from sliding to the floor. Grossman pushed himself to the floor and waited tensely. There were a few shouts; a flashlight, angled upward, slid across the windows of the truck and passed on. A hand was banged against the side of one of the cars; the train started to move again. They had successfully crossed into Austria without being detected and the train was now struggling up the steady rise toward Innsbruck.

The snow was coming down steadily now, swirling into the open boxcar, coming up to coat the windshield. Through the side windows they could see the roofs of houses glittering under the snow, their chalet tiles gleaming with reflections from streetlamps. An occasional lit window indicated some poor person unable to sleep, or some festive occasion to keep people awake beyond the normal early hours of the area. It was a strange feeling to inspect the normalcy of life in the neat homes beside the track while they shivered in the dark truck, fugitives from normalcy in every way. Grossman waited until they were once again in the country, the train straining mightily past stands of pine tipped with snow, before starting the truck's motor once again. It responded at once, throwing out heat. Brodsky said nothing. He was sitting erect, staring straight ahead. So he stayed awake and saved us from being caught, Grossman thought angrily. What does he want, a medal? But he knew, as he closed his eyes and went back to sleep, that if Brodsky had also gone to sleep, at this moment they would undoubtedly still be on German soil watching the lights of the train disappear up the track into the snow and the darkness.

The Brenner Pass was reached a few hours later. This time Grossman woke to both cold and darkness, once again realizing Brodsky had remained awake while he had slept. Again the two men crouched down and waited; only this time a pair of footsteps that crunched through the snow beside the cars stopped at their car, and they could hear the sounds of someone laboriously clambering into the car. A flashlight swept the glass of the window, angling downward, revealing the two men. The handle of the door was being turned. Well, Grossman thought, at least we got this far. Maybe the Mossad outfit had a safe-house near here. If we make a dash for it once they have us on the tracks, we may be able to get by the guards and get lost in the dark and the snow. He tensed himself and then heard a familiar deep voice, unaccustomedly low in volume.

“Keep your fuckin' heads down. And don't talk. I'm doing an inspection. Lucky you found the ignition key; it's colder out than an Eskimo cunt's left tit. I was afraid I'd find you guys dead.”

The door was closed; they could hear the sergeant climb down, hear him shout something down the line, and then they were moving again. They were in Italy!

The train was descending now, the chugging of the engine actually sounded cheerful, proud to have beaten the huge mountains, relaxed now and gathering speed. Grossman wanted to ask Brodsky what the sergeant had said, but figured it could not have been too important. Still, they had gotten into Italy with remarkably little trouble, and it was foolish to argue at a time of such success. He smiled across the cab.

“We made it.”

Brodsky merely shrugged. He turned the ignition key and stepped on the starter. The motor caught at once, heat gushing from the heater. Grossman's smile widened.

“Not bad. We'll teach you how to handle machinery yet.” Brodsky continued to stare into the darkness ahead. “What did the sergeant say back there?”

“Nothing.”

“He must have said something.”

“He said we were lucky to have found the key. He thought he might find us dead.”

Grossman was silent for a moment. Then, to his own surprise, he heard himself apologize.

“I'm sorry about what I said back there. If you hadn't stayed awake, we would have been caught.”

“I didn't do it for you,” Brodsky said shortly. “I'm also on this train.”

“I'm still sorry,” Grossman said. “You're certainly not stupid.”

Brodsky shook his head. “I'm stupid. Oh, not about the key to start the truck engine. That's ignorance, not stupidity. I'm stupid for having wasted a full year trying to talk you into going to Palestine. That's real stupidity!”

Grossman shook his head, smiling slightly.

“That's not stupidity, that's ignorance. I don't want to go to Palestine. It's that simple,” he said. “Look, I'm going to drop off at the next place we stop. I don't know if we go through Milano or even near it on the way to Genoa. Let's say good-bye as friends.”

“Friends,” Brodsky said without expression, and leaned back. “All right, friend, it's my turn to sleep.” And he shut his eyes tightly.

The train was red-balling now, cleared by the authority of the American Army, making up for the humiliating experience of having to crawl practically on its knees up the mountains north of the Brenner Pass. Now it swayed around curves, thundered over bridges, sneering at the mountains on either side of the valley, mountains gleaming white with bare rock in the growing light of morning. The snow was gone now; when Grossman cracked the window of the truck the smell of fresh air was a delight.

He tried to picture the land they were racing through, to place it in relation to the maps of northern Italy he had studied so thoroughly at Felsdorf. The train would probably stop at Bolzano since that was the first major town after the Brenner; from there he would make his way west through Sondrio to the Lago Maggiore. Or, if they didn't stop until they reached Trento, he'd make it through Bergamo and then north to the lake. He had ample time to get there from wherever they stopped, and the Italians were friendly people; even without money he was sure he could get by. Possibly even work a day or two and earn a few lire; he was strong again, and he knew machinery. One thing was certain; careful planning to get across the frontier this time. No spur-of-the-moment decisions!

They were coming into a town, the houses beginning to cluster, lights beginning to flicker on as the inhabitants rose to face the demands of another day. Bolzano, he assumed, and prepared to climb down from the truck and stand at the open door, ready to drop off when the train had slowed sufficiently. He looked over at the sleeping Max Brodsky, snoring gently. Should he wake him? No, they had said their good-byes a long time ago, when they had still been friends. Let it go at that. But even as he put his hand on the handle of the truck door, starting to turn it, the train was clattering over switching points, not slowing at all. He saw the deserted station flee past in the dawn and then the houses were thinning and in minutes they were in the country again, racing past grape arbors with empty vines clinging to them as if for warmth, past mule-driven wagons waiting patiently at a crossover, past small children staring at them solemnly from tilled fields, their passing the only excuse to abandon labor if only for a moment. The train whistled exuberantly and tore on.