A Feather on the Water(63)

Once the train began to move again, the singing resumed. The DPs were in high spirits now, some of them, no doubt, fueled by the Czech brandy. By the time they reached the final stop, people were leaning out of the open doors, waving the homemade flags they’d brought all the way from Bavaria.

As the DPs began to unload their belongings to transfer to the train to Warsaw, Charlie took photographs. Kitty saw Stefan shouldering a bundle belonging to one of the elderly women who had helped run the sewing class. She hadn’t seen much of him on the journey. He hadn’t sat outside or stood around on the tracks with the other men, who seemed to take every possible opportunity to get out for a smoke.

She saw Charlie walking over to him, preparing to get a shot. But Stefan waved him away. Head down, he sped up as he made for the Warsaw train, the old lady trailing in his wake.

When all the goodbyes had been said, Kitty went to buy a bottle of Polish vodka. This had been Martha’s suggestion—to bring back to the camp something that would prove that she had entered the country and come back without any problem. On a board outside the shop, the prices of various items were written in chalk. Kitty spent a few minutes studying them, trying to remember how many zlotys Charlie had said you could get for one American dollar. She began to jot a few of the prices down in her notebook, figuring it would be useful for the people back at the camp to know how much things would cost if they decided to go back. Then she had a better idea: she could get Charlie to take a photo of the board.

Out of the corner of her eye, she became aware of someone watching her. It was a man in uniform. He wore the high-topped boots of the Russian military she had seen at the border. As she stood there, he began to move closer. She caught sight of the pistol holster strapped around his waist.

“What you do?” The question was delivered in English, which surprised her. The tone of his voice echoed the mean look in his eyes.

“Nothing.” She groped in her bag for the vodka she had bought. “Just shopping.” She pulled out the bottle.

His fingers went to the handle of his pistol. “You come with me!”

Kitty froze. What had she done? Was it possible that buying alcohol was illegal here? In desperation, she tried speaking to him in Polish. “Jestem z ONZ.” I’m with the United Nations. She pointed to the patch on her cap.

His hand was still on the pistol. “You come—now!”

“It’s okay, bud, she’s with me.” Suddenly Charlie was beside her. He put his arm around her waist. The soldier scowled at them, his hand clenching on the handle of the gun. Then he glanced at the train and gave a sharp, dismissive nod.

“Jeez,” Charlie whispered, as he steered her away. “What were you doing?”

She tried to reply but her mouth had gone so dry she could barely speak. When they were safely back on the train, she told him that all she had been doing was copying down the price list outside the shop.

“He probably thought you were a spy.”

“What? But I’m in uniform!”

“Makes no difference.” Charlie shrugged. “You’re from the West—that’s all that matters.” He glanced out the open door of the empty boxcar. “The sooner we get out of this place, the better.”



On the way out of Poland, they were waved across the border without anyone climbing on board. But as she watched the Russian soldiers at the station recede into the distance, Kitty couldn’t help worrying about the DPs now heading toward Warsaw. What if the rumors were true? What if, in leaving Seidenmühle, they were going out of the frying pan and into the fire? For some of them, she thought, it would be a price worth paying: those who were lucky enough to find their loved ones would no doubt be prepared to put up with any amount of hardship, as long as they remained reunited. She thought of what might lie ahead on her own journey. She was going back to a city she remembered as a series of snapshots—a city she would barely recognize if the destruction she’d witnessed in Munich was anything to go by. And yet, if by some miracle her parents were there somewhere . . . She would sacrifice just about anything to be with them again.

Kitty and Charlie left the train at Brno. His fellow GIs whistled and cheered as they waved them off. Kitty felt her cheeks burning. She and Charlie had done nothing to suggest that there was anything going on between them. And yet the others clearly thought there was. Perhaps it was because he had been so attentive during the trip—always looking out for her, bringing her things to eat and drink. At the Victory Dance back in August, he’d held her very close during the last waltz, but nothing else had happened. She hoped he hadn’t been bragging about her to his friends. Or that he was hoping for something more now that they were going off alone together. Because however much she liked him, she couldn’t think about that right now. And if he really cared about her, he ought to understand why.

They had a long wait for the train to Vienna. There was no regular service—all departures were controlled by the military. They sat on the platform, drinking something that looked like coffee but tasted of nothing Kitty could identify. The drink was just about bearable if she dunked one of the sweet Czech pastries into it.

“What time do you think we’ll get there?” She glanced at Charlie, who was brushing crumbs off the lapel of his uniform.

“Probably not until this evening.”

“Will it be too late to go looking for Clara?”