Little Ella, cold and hungry, didn’t understand what she was doing here, and neither Gerhard nor Lodzia could find the right words to explain it.
I stood and climbed out of the pile of limbs almost on top of me and went to stare through the knothole I had found in the wooden slats.
‘They’re still bringing families, and they’re taking them down to the far end of the train,’ I said to whoever was listening. The waiting was driving me mad. I kicked and thumped the wagon wall. ‘Let us out of here!’
‘Come away, child,’ Mother patted the space beside her, ‘why distress yourself. Sit down. The train isn’t full yet, and I think you’ll find we won’t be going anywhere until it is.’
‘When will that be?’
‘Well, I don’t know, do I? You ask some silly questions.’
I turned around, slid down the wall, and flopped onto the floor beside her, my knees raised, knocking them together in an agitated fashion. My thoughts turned to the Swarthy One who shot Bookiet. There was something familiar about the way he walked. He had better watch his back because when we returned I would get my revenge; I was sure he was a local Belarusian, or one of the Jews who were always scrounging favours from Tatta. Oh yes, I would track him down and teach him a lesson – one he would never forget. He would learn that people like him couldn’t go about killing other people’s pets. Neither could the Ruskies go around confiscating people’s farms and imprisoning them in these stinking wagons as if we were subhuman. Hatred was not an emotion I had ever savoured, but once tasted, I decided I liked the flavour. I didn’t know yet what his punishment would be, but I had thirty days to dream up something sufficiently vile and then we would be back. But would we?
‘Do you have to do that? Keep your knees still,’ Karol complained. ‘You’re getting on my nerves.’
‘What?’
‘Keep your knees still.’
I wasn’t even aware I was doing it. ‘I might if I had somewhere to put them.’ Oh, God, this was purgatory. Trying to blot out the constant noise and stench was impossible. Passengers complained there were not enough shelves on which to sit, and the floor was no place for luggage which rightfully belonged to the goods wagon.
Small children who had so far viewed it all as one big adventure, were now fractious because of the lack of fresh air and mental stimulation. They misbehaved, taxed their parents’ nerves and everyone else’s tolerance. Babies were cold, hungry and needed changing.
Father pushed himself to his feet, ‘Come on, boys – let’s see if we can make some floor space.’
The distraction pleased me. Everyone helped, pushing luggage under shelves, stacking suitcases against walls, making space for all who were standing to sit on the floor – but not enough to lie down.
It wasn’t just our lives that had turned upside down, so had my stomach. I could eat a scabby goat. I knew we should have brought that murdered chicken with us. At least there was a stove here we could cook it on.
A row was brewing between a man and two women. The wagon fell quiet, and everyone listened.
‘Bloody irresponsible,’ the man snapped. ‘The stove’s not here for your exclusive use. Other people need to heat food too.’
One of them lashed back at him. ‘Well, think on, because I’m not depriving my children of food, and if we use up all the coal then fine, just fine. It’s up to the Soviets to supply more. They should try being jammed up like herrings in a barrel for hours on end.’
Gradually, people lit candles and torches and brought out food. The stench from the hole was off-putting, but everyone was too hungry to care. Most were asleep by the time the grey light beyond the grilles turned to darkness. The rest fidgeted and tried to arrange themselves on the floor in the most comfortable positions, which, as I discovered, was impossible.
I put my eye to the knothole once more. The station was quieter than it was when we arrived, everyone imprisoned in their wagons. Across the tracks, swift-slanting snow lashed against a string of insipid electric light bulbs that swung in the wind. I saw soldiers patrolling with rifles, guarding the train. I heard cries of distress from newly arrived civilians. Diminishing numbers of those imprisoned were banging on walls demanding release until too exhausted to bang any more.
Sleep eluded me. When I dozed off, the man in the homburg in the corner awoke me with his intrusive snoring. All night long, someone needed to use the toilet hole and climbed over us with a lit candle or torch. By morning, the area around the hole was a disgusting mess.
6
Two days passed and our train remained bolted and static at Zhabinka.
We crouched together, freezing and frightened, our eiderdowns pulled tight over our hats and coats. Watching Lodzia trying to remove her earrings with stiff frozen fingers, I offered to help.
‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘I’ve got to get them off. The metal shaft through my earlobes conducts so much cold that my ears throb down to the drum. Oh, the pain!’
I paused when I heard the enormous metal bar being raised from the door, and my hopes soared, but it was just the guards delivering pails of boiling water. They had no intention of freeing us. The metal bar clunked back into place, and there we sat, caged in this minuscule space barely able to breathe.
On the fourth day, something was happening.
Wagons shunted together, wheels and couplings clunked, and the engine blew off steam with a whistle. My father and brothers, their feet apart, braced themselves against the shelf and the door as the train hauled its mighty weight and lumbered out of Zhabinka Station. That is how our journey into the unknown began; we were on our way, but no one had yet informed us of our destination?
Departing our homeland without being able to see it generated a gamut of emotions. Many cried, some sang hymns, others prayed – caressing each rosary bead between their fingers.
I neither cried nor prayed. I had my eye to the knothole again, watching the familiar landscape pass by as the train gained momentum, rattling over joints in the rails.
An hour into our journey, our transport drew into Arancycy Station and the engine shut down.
I scrambled to my feet and pressed my eye to the knothole. ‘There are lots of soldiers on the platform, Mama, and they’ve all got rifles. What do you think it means?’
‘They’re going to shoot us,’ Karol said.
Throughout the wagon, what began as a ripple of hope that we had reached our safe destination, swelled into an urgent torrent of desperation to get out. Everyone surged towards the door.
Soldiers removed the metal bar, and our entire wagon was as an angry ant’s nest in our zeal to get off; everyone scuffling and pushing before a shot rang out and shocked us all into silence.
I faced our captors down on the platform, and my jubilation of moments ago fizzled out at the sight of their trained rifles. We were not free.
An NKVD officer appeared at the door. ‘Six of you to fetch soup, six more to fetch kipyatok, and another six to carry bread.’
When it arrived, I looked down at the few noodles that floated around in my bowl of lukewarm water, then over at Mother. ‘Am I supposed to eat this?’
‘Don’t complain. We don’t know when we’ll get any more. At least it saves the food we brought with us.’
With our meal consumed, night fell. The commotion outside told us more Polish civilians were being brought to fill the other wagons.
A shrill whistle and a blast of steam announced our departure two days later. Our transport coiled away from the station, yet the perennial question remained – to where?