The Dark Room (16 page)

Tomas says they need to walk farther, that it isn’t safe yet. Jüri asks if they can wait for Jochen to catch up with them. Tomas stares at him. Jüri steps closer to Lore, but she wants Tomas to say it. Tears drip from her chin, but her arms are full of Peter and she cannot wipe them away. His head hangs heavy over her elbow, and his mouth is slack. She sits down, shifts his sleeping weight against her chest and waits for Tomas to speak. Liesel crouches, rubs her gums. Tomas keeps looking at Jüri.

—They shot him.

Lore lies down with Peter among the stones and cries. Jüri stands still and small.

Tomas shouts now.

—He ran the wrong way. He should have stayed in the trees. He should have stayed in the gully. All of you, like I told you.

Liesel holds her knees to her chest. Lore can feel Jüri watching her, but she can’t stop crying. Birds sing in the ferns, fly high above her head. Peter sleeps while she cries under the pale sky.

Tomas says if they don’t come now he will go without them. He walks away and Jüri follows him along the dusty track.

The hay smells sweet. Lore lies awake, hot, listening for the others in the dark, counting them.
One too few.
She doesn’t cry now, but she doesn’t sleep either. Her bed is soft, her throat is dry, and her brother is dead, far away.

Tomas shifts slowly, quietly, inching toward the ladder. Lore asks him where he is going. Liesel and Jüri sit up. Tomas lies down again in the hay.

Tomas walks with Lore to the village to beg for food. They leave Liesel and Jüri in the barn, tell them to stay quiet in the hayloft, not to move. Tomas doesn’t want to go to Hamburg. Lore keeps pace with him, pleads.

—You have to come with us. I don’t know what to do.

—There are no more borders to cross. You can get to Hamburg by yourselves now.

—Please don’t leave us.

Tomas shakes his head, breath whistles through his lips, drawn tight across his teeth. He walks fast. Lore jogs to keep up with him, Peter cries, uncomfortable on her hip. She shouts above his wailing, into Tomas’s impassive face.

—But Mutti and Vati aren’t there.

—I know, you told me. Your mother is in a camp.

—I don’t know what to do.

—Go to Hamburg. Find your Oma.

—But I told the children that Vati will be there, Tomas.

—I know.

—Tomas!

Jüri calls to them, up ahead on the road, waiting for them. He waves, and Tomas and Lore drop their voices to whispers.

—What do I say when we find Oma and Vati isn’t with her?

—I can’t help you now.

Tomas stops walking, divides off his share of the food, stuffs it in his pockets. Lore panics.

—You can live with us. With Oma. She has a big house.

Tomas laughs, but Lore knows he doesn’t find it funny.

—Oma can help you find a place to live, and a job.

He shakes his head. Peter wails, hands gripping at his stomach. Tomas pulls the bread out of his pocket, tears off a chunk for him.

—Let’s just take the food back now. I’ll carry it for you.

Tomas stands up. Jüri races toward them. He runs hard at Tomas, head thumping into his stomach, fingers clasping tight to his shirt. Tomas throws his arms up, neck and shoulders rigid in shock. He pulls away and starts walking again. Jüri clings to his arm, walking alongside, taking hold of Tomas’s hand. Lore watches her brother squeezing the long white fingers together. Tomas shakes his hand gradually free as they walk.

Crowds mill around the railway station. The old people sit on their bundles and the children cry. The air is heavy and hot. Women carry bags and babies, follow the soldiers, asking questions. Tomas joins the long line at the ticket window. Lore is afraid to let him out of her sight. She sits in the square with the children and watches him.
Liesel sleeps, Peter dozes and coughs, clouds settle overhead. Tomas crouches on the ground, wipes at the sweat on his face. When the line moves, Jüri gets up and goes to stand with Tomas. He crouches down next to him, fingers tracing the cracks between the flagstones. Lore watches their heads lean gently together, as though they are whispering. But she is too far away to see if their lips are moving.

The ticket window closes long before Tomas and Jüri get to the head of the queue. The soldiers try to disperse the crowds, intoning the same phrases, over and again; movement is prohibited without permission; no more transports until further notice. Tomas pulls the children aside, against the wall of the station building, herding them along and down the road. Liesel asks if they will get tickets for the next train, but Tomas doesn’t answer.

The train pulls into the station behind them. Tomas hurries them on, down the road, along the wall. Around the corner, the wall dips and levels out. Tomas pushes the children up and over. Other people climb the wall, too, a little farther down, and more are following from the square. Tomas throws the bundles over and scrambles up after them, landing awkwardly on the other side. Jüri is already through the fence and on the tracks.

They run along the sleepers, back toward the station. The platform is overflowing with bodies, straining forward. The people call to each other in shrill voices, pushing in close against the train. Children slip off the edge of the platform, landing between the wheels, mothers lift them up again into the crush. They grip their tickets and papers in tight fists, holding them up above their heads. The soldiers order the people into columns at the doors, but nobody moves.

Tomas leads them around the other side of the train, walking alongside, pulling at the windows until he finds one that gives.

—Same as before. Brothers and sisters, same as before.

He grabs Jüri under the armpits, pushes him up into the carriage. Jüri’s legs flail, his boot catches Tomas on the jaw. The people inside the compartment shout, shoving at Jüri and then Liesel
as Tomas lifts them into the train. More people crawl through the bushes on the far side of the tracks and sprint across to the carriages. Lore sees a man carrying a brick, his hand wrapped in a rag. He smashes a window, reaches through, and opens the door. The people inside kick at him, and a fight breaks out.

Liesel reaches her arms out of the carriage to take Peter. The people behind them in the compartment push them against the glass and shout at them to get out. Lore can see Jüri through the window. He shouts back, face crumpling, covers his ears with his hands. The man with the brick is walking toward them, behind him is a soldier with a gun.

Tomas takes Peter from Lore.

—Stay calm, same as before.

He passes Peter up to Liesel and turns to the soldier; walking to him with his palms open, talking already. He takes off his hat and holds it against his chest. His hair is flattened in a damp ring above his ears. The soldier listens, squinting concentration, while Tomas repeats himself. The rhythm of his voice drifts back to Lore through the moist air, but not his words. The man with the brick stares at Tomas, turns to look at Lore. His arm is bleeding, cut above the line of the rag around his fist. Lore looks away.

Tomas opens a wallet and pulls out papers, soft and worn. He holds them out to the soldier, who takes them and reads them. They lie limp on his palm. The man with the brick says something, kicks at the ground by Tomas’s feet. Tomas ignores him, steps closer to the soldier. Still talking, he points at the paper in the soldier’s hand; pushes up his sleeves, shows the soldier his pale arms. The soldier asks a question. Tomas nods. The man with the brick spits at him. It lands white on Tomas’s dark collar.

The soldier shouts, points his gun. The man with the brick steps away, puts up his hands. The soldier shouts again. He gives Tomas back his papers, pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and presses it into Tomas’s palm.

Tomas hurries back to Lore, wiping the spit away, stuffing the
wallet back in his pocket. He smiles, lifts Lore up to the window. The people inside the car are still angry, still shouting. Tomas whispers.

—It’s good, it’s good. It’s fine, you can go.

Lore twists away from the window, but Tomas pushes her higher.

—No, please Tomas, no. You as well, you as well.

She pleads, kicks. He lifts her farther into the carriage. Jüri screams, pushes his arms through the window, reaches past Lore to Tomas.

—You must come. Brothers and sisters. You must come, too.

He curls his fingers into Tomas’s jacket. Tomas raises his arms; his face contracts, shrinking away from the little boy’s fury. Jüri keeps screaming until Tomas pulls himself into the carriage.

They sit for hours on the floor. They have found a place in the passageway, by the door. Above the wheels, screaming slowly along the rails. When the train stops, no one gets out. Soldiers jump down from the roof and stand ready along the rails. They are quieter than American soldiers. Their uniforms are darker and their movements smaller, but they still keep their hands on their guns, ready to stop anyone who tries to run. Lore is glad they are there. Tomas sits opposite her and avoids her eyes.

When it gets dark, Jüri crawls into Tomas’s lap and sleeps with his head against his chest. Tomas has his eyes closed and doesn’t push Jüri away, but Lore knows he isn’t asleep. She dozes. Liesel leans against her shoulder and Peter sleeps on the bundle between their legs.

She wakes with numb feet and shooting pains in her thighs. Tomas has shifted a little, but Jüri still lies sleeping in his lap. Lore takes off her boots and pinches at her feet, avoiding the sores and blisters. The train rocks and rattles. Her toes prickle with blood now, but she can’t ease the pains in her legs. She stands until the
pins and needles subside, and then walks along the train. Over the sleeping bodies, her arms outstretched, palms on the walls to steady herself, Lore lurches along the swaying corridor, through the adjoining door into the next car. The window is open in the next compartment. Lore stops, lets her hair blow in the wind. She leans out and looks for the shrill wheels below in the dark, the rim of the window pressing against her hips. They pass flat, open fields and the cool, dark shapes of trees. The night is humid, and the air smells full and green.

There are people talking in the compartment behind her. She leans away from the window, keeping her back to them, but listening.

—If you’ve seen enough of those pictures, you can tell they are all in the same place.

—But the newspaper said there were lots of camps, hundreds maybe.

—I’m not saying these camps didn’t exist. Every country has its own prison system, after all. I’m just saying they didn’t kill people.

—And the pictures of the bodies?

—It’s all a set-up. The pictures are always out of focus, aren’t they? Or dark, or grainy. Anything to make them unclear. And the people in those photos are actors. The Americans have staged it all, maybe the Russians helped them, who knows.

—Who told you this?

—Fahning, for one, and Mohn. Torsten and his brother heard it, too.

—Did they see it in the newspapers?

—Listen, I’ve seen the photos. The same ones keep getting shown everywhere. Different angles on the same scene. Any fool can see that.

Lore watches the young men out of the corners of her eyes. They are not much older than she. Their faces are smooth and thin and their eyes gleam. They sit on their bundles by the compartment
door, smoking. A stub of candle is fixed to the floor between them, flickering in the draft from the open window. One is missing an arm. His sleeve is pinned to his shoulder and flaps as he speaks. He catches Lore’s eye, lifts the empty fold of cloth.

—Grenade.

He is smiling at her. Lore feels her cheeks burn, is glad of the dark.

—I’ve seen those pictures, too.

—There, you see, everyone has seen them. And the people were all thin and lying on the ground, right?

—I thought they were dead.

—They’re actors. Americans. Or some of them are dummies, models. The ones that look the most dead.

His friend blows out the candle.

—I’m going to sleep now.

He ignores Lore. The young man with one arm winks at her in the dark. The end of his cigarette glows between his lips and Lore’s cheeks burn hot in the gloom. She closes the window and makes her way back down the corridor. She opens the carriage door and the screaming wheels fill her ears.

They awake when the train stops. The soldiers open the doors, knock on the windows, tell everyone to get out and wait on the platform. Tomas pulls the bundles together, lifts Jüri down off the train. It is dark in the station, a few lamps casting a dim glow around the huge building. It is filled with noise. Crying children, shouting voices, slamming doors. Men stand by the walls in angry groups. They smell of unfamiliar food, murmur unfamiliar words.

The next train is at dawn. Jüri holds on to the hem of Tomas’s jacket. Liesel lies on the bundles, one arm covering her eyes, the other her hair. Peter screams in Lore’s arms. She asks the people around them if they can spare any food, but they say nothing, turn their faces away.

Peter’s fists are reddish-blue. Lore rubs them, blows on his fingers. She looks up and finds no roof above them, just a jagged hole and dark sky.

They wait for trains, continue on foot when they don’t come. Walk on to the next town and the next, until their luck changes and they find a station with a train and a soup kitchen. Tomas holds a long discussion with a soldier while the children eat their watery meal. The soldier knocks at the window before their train moves off, hands in an egg. Tomas thanks him, shaking his hands through the open window as the train pulls away. He holds the egg out to Lore.

—For Peter. He’s too thin.

A lift from a farmer brings them to the Elbe. They stand at the water, a day away from home. The riverbanks are lined with orchards, but none of the fruit is ripe. Thomas says he will get them to Hamburg. He lifts Jüri up onto his shoulders, promises to be quick, that they won’t have to walk. Lore takes Liesel and Peter and lines up for food at the Red Cross building. They wait for Tomas and Jüri under the broken clock. Children stand pressed into doorways, sell sour apples and tiny hard pears from sacks tied to their waists with string. They take flight at the first sight of a uniform.