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  “Getting some fresh air. I felt a little sick.”

  “Yes, you are pale. Where is your friend?”

  “Still in the toilet. He’s got the trots.” Jan prays she won’t notice the door is unlocked. He decides to take a chance, it’s best to try to get her away from here. “I think he’ll be some time, shall we go back?”

  “No, you go. I’ll wait in case he needs help.”

  Damn her! When have these women ever tried to help any of the children? Jan tries one last time, “I think it might embarrass him.”

  Magda shrugs. “He’ll get over it. Now, run along.”

  Jan trails back to his compartment. His mouth is dry. When Magda finds that Janusz has escaped, he’s for it. His seat by the window has gone. Lena is still where he left her, but she’s sleeping now, her face flushed. There is a trace of a smile on her lips. Perhaps she’s dreaming of home. He squeezes into a seat near the middle of the group and closes his eyes. Perhaps if he’s asleep when Magda finds out that Janusz has gone… He’s kidding himself, but he tries to sleep anyway.

  A shriek of rage. Jan’s stomach flips. This is it. He keeps his eyes closed and tries to breathe evenly. He hasn’t a clue what he’ll say.

  “You! Where is the other boy?”

  Jan pretends to wake with a start and puts on a bewildered face. “What?”

  “Your friend, the one with the trots. He’s not in the toilet.” Her face is red. Behind her is the other woman, who looks even more terrifying than Magda. Her fists are clenched. Jan scratches his head. “I don’t understand. He went into the toilet clutching his belly. He was really ill.”

  Magda narrows her eyes. “You’re lying.”

  “No, I swear.” Jan flinches from the slap she gives him. He puts his hand up to his cheek and she snatches it away.

  “You’ll pay for this. Get up!” She pushes him out into the corridor. Sweat breaks out on his forehead. She’s in a fury; he’s terrified of what she might do. Surely she won’t push him off the train? It’s speeding now, the countryside is a blur. He’ll never survive. He staggers as she hits him on the head and on his chest. Over and over, each blow worse than the next. Jan has no breath left; he’d never thought a woman could be so brutal. He can’t help himself, knows it will make things worse, but he has to, it’s her fault. He vomits, horrified as it spills down the front of her dress, then thankfully he blacks out.

  Voices all around him. He doesn’t understand it all for it’s German, but he knows enough to realize they’re talking about him. He should open his eyes, but he’s frightened of what he might see if he does, so he keeps them shut and pretends to sleep. There’s no train sound. Have they stopped the train to try to catch Janusz? Poor Janusz, if they catch him…

  They’re shaking him now, it’s no use, he’ll have to open his eyes and face whatever is coming to him. The light is blinding, and he blinks several times to try to adjust to it.

  “Get up and get dressed,” he recognizes the voice as Magda’s.

  His eyes have got used to the light, and he sees that they’re no longer in the train, but in a room. There are several adults around his bed – one is a doctor – and for a moment he feels safe, then remembers that no one can be trusted. His whole body aches when he moves, and it seems to take an age just to swing his legs out of bed. He tries to hurry for he doesn’t want to antagonize them more, but his head and chest hurt so much that he gasps and lies down.

  “You have a cracked rib,” says the doctor. “It won’t take long to heal.”

  “Yes,” says Magda. “You got it from that other boy, he kicked you when you tried to stop him running away. Isn’t that right?”

  Jan gapes at her. She glares at him, defying him to contradict what has been said. He continues to stare at her, and her face flushes. Jan understands; she’s ashamed. Whether it’s because she lost one of the boys in her charge, or whether it’s because she beat him up so badly he doesn’t know and he doesn’t care. He makes his decision.

  “Yes,” he says, “Janusz kicked me when I tried to stop him from jumping from the train.”

  “Do you know where he was going?” The doctor is writing in a notebook.

  Jan puts his head down, tries one more lie. “I think he must be dead. The train was going fast when he jumped.”

  Magda smirks. She knows he’s lying, but Jan stares at her, and eventually she nods. “The boy’s probably right.”

  Jan gets up from the bed. It’ll be days before he can move freely again without pain.

  Jan isn’t sure, but he thinks they’re being prepared for something. This place is different from the convent in Lodz. It’s more like a school. Apart from the handful of children from his village there are twenty or so Polish children; some came with them from Lodz, others were here already. It’s absolutely forbidden to speak any language other than German. An older Polish boy, Pawel, takes him aside after he’s been beaten for singing a Czech song. He looks round to check no one’s listening.

  “You have to speak German all the time. If you don’t they’ll beat you. Soon you’ll be thinking in German.” He lowers his voice. “Some of the little ones forget very quickly. But I will never forget.” His voice is proud when he says this.

  “Have you been here long?” asks Jan.

  “Four or five months. Long enough. I want to go home. Don’t you?”

  Jan bites his lip and says nothing. His stomach twists, he doesn’t want to admit he doesn’t have a home any more. The Polish children’s stories are very different from their own. They tell tales of being snatched from the streets of their towns and cities; some were stolen from their homes.

  Pawel’s story is typical; he was at home alone one Sunday, his parents had gone to church, but he wasn’t feeling well, so he’d stayed behind. A few minutes before his parents were due back from mass, a truck drew up in front of their flat. Pawel thought nothing of it; they lived in a busy street. It wasn’t until they hammered at the door that he realized what was happening; the dreaded Gestapo had come for him. Everyone knew they were stealing children to send to Germany where they would be brought up as Germans. There was nothing he could do: there were six soldiers, and they had guns. He was allowed to gather a few belongings together, and then he was bundled into the truck. When Pawel told Jan the story for the first time, he wept as he recalled how his parents had seen this happen, and how they ran after the truck calling his name. “I am their only child,” he told Jan. “They will not survive without me. I must return home. I must remain Polish.”

  Jan envies Pawel’s certainty that his parents are waiting for him. He would like to know why he is so sure, but there are other things on his mind too. “The day after we arrived, they took many of us away. Is that where they went then, to Germany, to another children’s home?”

  Pawel drops a potato into a large pan of water. “I do not think so. The others, the ones who have gone to families, were taken away in small groups, maybe one or two at a time. I think…” he lowers his voice to a whisper, “I think your friends are dead.”

  Jan stares at Pawel, who looks away with an indifference that infuriates him. With a roar of rage, he throws himself on the boy. “No,” he screams, “no, they’re not dead. I won’t let them be.” He pummels him with his fists. One of the women who look after them runs to see what is happening. She peels Jan off Pawel, hits him on the head. Pawel laughs until she hits him too. She shouts at them both, but neither of them answers. They stand in front of her, sullen and silent, until she gives up and leaves them alone.

  Jan clenches his fists. “Why did you say that?”

  “Because it’s true.” The boy’s shoe scuffs at the ground. He still doesn’t look at Jan.

  Jan breathes in deeply. “How do you know?”

  Pawel’s hands are stuffed deep in his pockets. His eyes are full of tears. “I heard them talking,” he says. “Some days after the trucks left. They said they would get what they deserved.”

  “But that could mean anyth
ing,” cries Jan. “They could have been sent home, or to…” His voice tails off. Pawel is staring at him with an expression of pity.

  “They called them little bastards. I don’t think they would have done that if they were going to be nice to them, do you?”

  Jan turns away from him. He looks over to the high fence surrounding the home. They’re in a prison, really, he thinks. A prison for children. He wonders if what Pawel says is true about taking the children away and putting them into German families. It seems such a silly thing to do. They’ve broken up families – his, Pawel’s, Janusz’s, Josef’s. All of them smashed to pieces so they can be given to some other family. It doesn’t make sense.

  Lena is playing over on the other side of the yard. She is throwing a ball to one of the women. The woman laughs as Lena catches the ball and calls her Liebchen. Jan knows this means “darling”. It chills him. He wants to run across the grass and sweep her away, but he knows if he does it will lead to another beating. He tells himself he doesn’t mind these endless beatings, but he can’t take another today. So, instead of rescuing her, he stands watching as she twirls round the woman, laughter spilling from her mouth. She’s smiling in a way he hasn’t seen since they arrived, and all of a sudden he is glad that she is having a moment of happiness; that she’s forgotten her mother won’t be there to sing her a lullaby, or her father to lift her on his shoulders and play at giants.

  It isn’t often he gets a chance to speak to Lena, for the girls and boys are kept apart most of the time. Weeks pass before he manages to find a moment when she is alone; when he speaks to her, he thinks she’s changed. For one thing, she speaks German. When Jan talks to her in Czech, she screws up her face and tells him to speak properly.

  “Only peasants speak the way you do.”

  Jan gazes at her, wordless. It’s not her fault; she doesn’t know what she’s saying. Every day the women tell them lies like this, and she’s only little. It’s no surprise that she takes in and believes what they say to her.

  “Our parents spoke this way,” he reminds her.

  Lena kicks a stone away. “Ich habe keine Eltern. Sie sind tod.”

  The roof of his mouth is dry, his heartbeat quickens. Flashes of his father falling to the ground zip past him, making him giddy. His head is empty of everything save that image, falling, falling. He cannot speak. Lena is staring at him, her eyes puzzled, her mouth downturned. One of the women calls her, she runs off without a word, leaving Jan alone. He cannot see properly as his eyes fill with hot stinging tears. It’s a relief when they start to fall. One of the boys from his village joins him. He has overheard Jan’s conversation with Lena.

  “The little ones are quick to forget.”

  Jan wipes away the tears and nods. The other boy continues. “When my mum and dad find out where we are, they’ll come and get us.”

  Jan doesn’t reply.

  “Won’t they?”

  If he tells him the truth, what will happen? Jan doesn’t know what to say. He wants to share his knowledge with someone, thinking that this will maybe chase away the images that disturb him so often. He can go for days undisturbed, then with no warning they intrude into his dreams and waking moments alike. So, when he opens his mouth it is with the intention of saying that there will be no rescue, but the boy’s eyes are so hopeful and trusting that all Jan can do is nod; his head has a life of its own. He turns away, walks across the lawn to the house, wishing he were anywhere but here. The bell rings; a summons to the class where he will be bombarded in a foreign language, that to his horror is becoming so familiar that sometimes he finds himself thinking in German.

  ‌5

  Late August, time to bring in the harvest. All over Germany, crops are being lifted and prepared for storage. Everyone knows it will be a hard winter, the fourth of this war. People work until their backs ache, their thighs throb and their heads thump. They barely talk to each other, but instead busy themselves with the endless tasks.

  The Schefflers are finding it more difficult than most. It is now three years since their daughter died, killed in a road accident while cycling home from school. She’d been keen to get back to the farm to help. That was the kind of girl she was – thoughtful, eager, their little princess. Though they rarely speak of her, she’s in their minds all the time; they can’t stop thinking about her. She would have been fifteen in December.

  As Frau Scheffler prepares the evening meal, she wipes a tear from her eye. These are strong onions, or so she tells herself. After three years, and with all that is going on, she feels guilty that she still weeps for her daughter. It is an indulgence, and she knows it, but still the tears come.

  Her husband, Friedrich, comes into the kitchen. His tread is soft, and she doesn’t hear him until he is standing right behind her.

  “There’s a letter from Wilhelm, over there, on top of the range.” She speaks to divert him – she doesn’t want him to see her tears. Her voice is thick, though, and he notices at once and comes to her side.

  “Are you all right?” His voice wavers. “You’re not thinking about Helga, are you?”

  She shakes her head, not trusting herself to speak. He puts his finger under her chin, raising it up so that she is forced to look at him.

  “Why do you do this to yourself? It does no good. What’s done is done.” He pats her cheek and goes back to the table where he cuts a slice of bread and spreads a thick layer of butter on it. They are lucky in the countryside, food is not so scarce here, and they can still eat well. He takes a bite and carries on talking, but Gisela doesn’t listen. She’s back in the past, where her two children are safe in bed, rather than fighting a war or buried deep in the ground in the Catholic cemetery in the nearby town.

  “Well then, what do you think?”

  Gisela stops chopping and stares at her husband. “What do I think about what?”

  “My plan.”

  She has no idea what he is talking about. These days she blocks out most of what is said to her. It’s easier that way. When Helga died and so many people talked nonsense to her with their pious platitudes of much better places and time being a great healer, she argued with them, but they didn’t like it. She could see it made them uncomfortable when she said things like: “Is she in a better place? How do you know it’s better? Are you saying she wasn’t happy here with her parents?” The priest especially was embarrassed, and after a while he stopped asking her how she was, and offering to say masses for her. Instead, he’d look away when they passed each other in the street. Once, he crossed the road to avoid her, almost falling in his speed to get away from her. Stupid old fool. At least he hadn’t badgered her when she stopped going to church.

  Friedrich is shaking her. He often does this to get her out of her reverie. Poor Friedrich, he misses their children too, though he will never talk about it. But she can tell from the eagerness with which he grabs Wilhelm’s letters and the way his eyes fill when he says Helga’s name.

  “Please listen to me,” he says, “I read about it in the paper, about how you can adopt children.”

  She’s listening now. What madness is this, to suggest adopting other people’s children when they have their own? Her heart beats in her head, thumping a painful rhythm inside her skull.

  “There are so many children who are orphans now. The government is looking for families like us to give them a home. Just think, Gisela, we could make a child happy.” His eyes are bright. She hasn’t seen him look like this since long before the war began. It was never in her nature to disappoint people, she had grown from a compliant child to an obliging adult, but she’d changed when Helga fell off her bike into the path of an oncoming car, and today she hardens her heart against him.

  “I don’t think so,” she says, and goes back to her mechanical slicing of onions. Behind her, Friedrich sighs. “I thought it might help,” he whispers.

  For several days she won’t let herself think about what Friedrich said, but gradually the idea takes hold. She reflec
ts on what it might entail: the difficulties of raising another woman’s child, perhaps it would be cheeky, or sullen, or perhaps it might be unhappy. Yes, almost certainly the child would be unhappy. Could she make someone happy again? She doesn’t know. At this moment, when she can barely remember what it is to be contented and not to have a gnawing emptiness in her stomach, when smiling is an effort and laughing an impossibility, she thinks it would be easier to count the grains in a field of corn. And yet – she has to be truthful; the idea is appealing. The thought of a child running around the house, someone to look after, to love, to teach, fills her with a barely remembered emotion: hope. Perhaps it would do no harm to find out more.

  She’s in the kitchen when her husband comes home from the fields. He sits down heavily on the wooden chair near the range and pulls off his boots.

  “Is that soup you’ve been making? It smells good.”

  She nods. “I’ve been thinking,” she says, “about what you said.” She ladles some soup into a bowl and places it on the table in front of him.

  Friedrich doesn’t reply. He cuts himself some bread and eats a slice before starting on the soup. He is halfway through it before he lays down his spoon. “That’s better,” he says. “Now, what were you saying?”

  “About adopting a child, maybe we could find out more.” She refills his bowl.

  He shrugs. “If that’s what you want.”

  Gisela has tested the dough for the bread. It is well risen and ready to knead. She flours the table and puts the dough down, pressing her fists into it. With slow steady movements, she flattens it, turns it over, pushing at it with all her strength. This will be the best bread she has ever made. She’s not fooled by his terse response. After twenty-two years together, she knows this is as enthusiastic as he gets.

  “Yes,” she says, “it’s what I want. Tell me about it.”

  Friedrich gets up from his chair and goes over to the stairs. “Are you sure about this?”