Exhaustion was taking its toll. With just enough strength to make it back to our tent, I flopped to my knees and formed the sand beneath my rush matting into a bolster. Snuggling down in Karol’s shearling, I buried my face in my mother’s pillow, and for the first night since Permilovo, succumbed to blissful sleep.
37
The rhythmic swash and backwash of breaking waves woke me.
I raised myself onto my elbows, and from the limited view of the beach beyond the upturned flap of our tent, I saw laughing children playing with a ball made of rags, and collecting shells. It took a moment until I was fully awake and able to savour the taste of freedom. Then it welled up again, that gut-punching realisation that Mama, Tatta and Karol were dead.
I heard Irena stir awake on the mat beside me, the clatter of mugs and mess tins as people left for breakfast.
‘We’ll have a look around later; get our bearings and see what’s here,’ Irena said, reaching for her mess tin, mug and spoon, ‘But food first.’
I reminded her that I was desperate to ask someone in authority whether Gerhard and Lodzia, and Stefan and his family had arrived.
She said, ‘I haven’t forgotten. I’ll come with you, but first let’s familiarise ourselves with the place so we don’t get lost.’
I was impatient to start searching, but reluctantly agreed.
How could I have forgotten that a boiled egg could taste so delicious? But the British bread was strange – it was white, as opposed to the heavy black Russian sort – and the tea was not nearly so sweet.
Replete after breakfast, we made for the beach where Polish sappers were hurriedly erecting shelters and digging sanitation trenches. There was nothing more than tents over here, so we turned in the opposite direction and found the hospital on the Kazian side of the harbour.
‘Wait here a minute,’ said Irena as she disappeared inside.
She appeared a little while after. ‘They’re desperate for help in there. The Iranians have made over the hospital to the British, and there are just a handful of British military nursing sisters almost on their knees with exhaustion.’
‘Aren’t there any Polish nurses helping?’
‘A few, but some are in as bad a state as their patients. I’ve offered my help. You don’t mind, do you?’
How could I mind? Irena said she would help me search, but I didn’t let my disappointment show.
‘Listen, Marishu. You should volunteer too. They’re overwhelmed.’
‘But I’m not a nurse.’
‘You don’t have to be to help feed the sick and stuff bags with straw for mattresses.’
I thought, ‘Oh, no, please don’t do this to me,’ but then if Stefan, Gerhard or Lodzia were sick, I would be in the right place to find them. I agreed.
We started right away; the gnawing urge to find my loved ones at times overwhelming me. When the straw ran out, they roped me into feeding duties and I willingly did that too. We were not alone. Amongst the recent arrivals came Polish medical officers, trained matrons, and nurses from the large hospitals in Poland, offering their services. All day long, the sick kept arriving. They sent the severest cases over the mountains to the hospitals at Qazvin, or Dosham Tapu in Tehran.
However, much as I wanted to help, desperation got the better of my good intentions. The moment someone else offered to take my place, I hurried off across the Ghazian Bridge in search of the Polish Army headquarters. The tent was hard to miss with so many crowding the notice boards searching for their names.
Giddy with excitement, I sought out the officer staffing the desk. ‘I’m trying to find my brother Gerhard, his wife, Lodzia and their daughter, and also the Novak family. They left the labour camp at the end of 1941. Would you know if they’re here?’
‘That’s a fair while ago. Best you try Q Tent across the road. Ask for a Transport Officer; they may have been and gone.’
Filled with nervous anticipation, I hurried across the road, and asked there. The Officer reached for a thick log with a large G written in black ink on the cover and his finger drifted down the names before he turned the page; then his finger moved slower still.
‘Glenz, you say? Ah yes, here it is. We evacuated the Glenz family to one of the refugee camps in Tehran at the beginning of March.’
March? That was over a month ago. My brain went into pause; I wasn’t expecting them to have survived, but his news brought forth a torrent of tears, fuelled by uncontrolled joy. ‘Thank God they’re still alive. Thank you, thank you.’ I brushed them away with the heel of my hand. ‘You say one of the camps. Which one?’
‘Ah, we don’t keep a record of that here. We have no way of knowing at what time they arrived at the vehicle park on the day of departure. The first and last would go to different camps.’
‘And what about the Novak family?’
He reached for another fat log with a ‘N’ on the front. I could hardly wait; I wished he would make haste.
‘Ah yes, here we are. The Novak’s are being evacuated tomorrow. It’s on the notice board.’ He looked up at me and smiled.
They were here! Oh God, I had found them! Stefan was here. But tomorrow – they were leaving tomorrow.
‘I need to find them. Where’s their tent?’ I realised it was a pointless question the moment I opened my mouth – there were hundreds of tents and thousands of people.
‘Sorry, can’t help you there. I’m in charge of transport.’
‘Then can you tell me in which truck they will travel?’
He smiled at my naivety. ‘Trucks, buses – the British have commandeered anything that’s fit to travel – short of camels; there are over a hundred vehicles in each convoy.’
‘How many camps are there in Tehran?’ I felt myself floundering amidst the bureaucracy.
He stared at me and said, ‘Five – including the orphanage at Isfahan, but that’s much further out. You must ask again when you arrive. Our job is to evacuate as many people from Pahlevi as fast as we can.’
‘When will it be my turn to leave?’
‘Impossible to say; over 43,000 people arrived in Pahlevi in the past nine days, 19,000 of which we will have evacuated as of tomorrow. I doubt you’ll be leaving soon – there are others before you. My guess would be in two weeks, maybe three. Keep checking the notice board.’
I was near to tears again. Each time I got closer to finding my loved ones, they moved them further away from me.
‘But the Germans are coming.’
‘Why don’t you get up early tomorrow morning, go to the vehicle park and see if you can spot your friends? You never know – you might be lucky. You’ll find it at the back of Camp 3. They leave at 0800 hours.’
Yes, yes, I would. I thanked him and left.
That evening, Irena and I walked over to the convoy rendezvous point. And what a shock it was. Lorries and buses of every shape and size, some of dubious roadworthiness, lined up in rows of ten with a Polish guard mounted at each group to prevent the vehicles moving without orders. Clustered together were a group of Iranian and Armenian drivers deep in conversation. They looked up as we passed, but made no comment. Others slept inside their vehicles.
Sleep eluded me; the excitement proved too much because tomorrow I would see Stefan. I would find him, even if it meant lying in the road in front of the convoy and yelling his name for all to hear.
Rain thundered down on our tent roof. It was still barely light when I reached the vehicle park the next morning, but well lit. People were arriving in a steady stream, hurrying to get out of the weather. I pulled the collar of my sheepskin closer, my eyes everywhere, trying not to miss a thing.