The Things We Cannot Say(109)

The train was a walk in the park for me after the darkness of the truck, despite the fact that Saul and I were sharing a cattle car with several dozen strangers in various states of health and cleanliness. There wasn’t even enough room for all of us to sit at the same time, so by silent agreement, we passengers took it in turns, standing on our exhausted feet for hours at a time to free up some space for others to rest.

I thought I’d had it tough during the war—but these people had clearly suffered in ways I couldn’t even imagine. The woman next to me—sitting all but on top of me—was covered in weeping sores and I could see the lice crawling through the matted lengths of her hair. Every now and again she’d start sobbing, and then just as abruptly, she’d stop and close her eyes and lean limply into me, as if she’d passed out. The man traveling with her was every bit as thin as Saul, but his skin had taken on a luminescent yellow tinge. There were children on the train who were too traumatized to even cry—they’d just sit in silence—and some of them were even traveling alone. There was no toilet—so people were relieving themselves through a hole in the floor of the train, and I realized some of the sick people couldn’t wait their turn when a suspiciously rank slurry started to roll around the floor.

I had the suitcase with me, and I nursed it most of the time—too afraid to spoil the food by setting it on the floor and having it contaminated with the waste. I was also too scared to open it inside the train in case we were overwhelmed by the hungry crowd. Instead, I’d crack the lid a little, push one hand inside awkwardly, and rummage around inside. By doing this, I sneaked small chunks of bread to Saul when I thought no one was looking. I’d eat myself by pretending to scratch my nose with my cast-wrapped right hand, and sliding my left hand and the food beneath it to my mouth. Within a day of leaving the station, Saul and I had seen enough to know that if we dared to sleep at the same time, someone would steal the suitcase. After that, we slept in short shifts—if you could call it sleep, given the almost-impossible physical discomfort we were both in.

But as god-awful as all of that was, for me it was still preferable to the cavity of the truck—the cool breezes and light that crept in through the cracks on the cattle car walls made all the difference. Those hints of daylight were actually glimpses of something even more precious—I could see freedom through the cracks of the wall of that cattle cart, as ever so slowly, it dawned upon me that I was actually out of occupied Poland. Although I was a long way from safe and a long way from settled, I was finally free from the Nazis.

As that realization started to solidify, a heaviness lifted from my chest. It was the dawning of something I’d been missing for years by that stage; the expectation that I was going to survive. As that train ambled forward, I became quite sure that everything was going to be just fine—because if Saul and I could make it that far, then of course Tomasz would. If all that we had left in the world was each other at the end of this journey, that was more than enough for me to look forward to.

To most of the people trapped within that train carriage full of sickness and death and stench, the moment surely would have been a low point in their lives—but to me, I felt like I’d stumbled upon the very beginning of the future I’d dreamed about.

The journey to Buzuluk took two full weeks. The train stopped periodically, but there was rarely food available, and when there was, those poor starved creatures we were traveling with would descend on it like animals. Saul and I managed to make the loaves of bread last for the entire journey—only on the last day did we entirely run out of food. We were lucky. Several people from our cart died, and on those infrequent stops, the train attendants simply dumped their bodies in fields by the side of the tracks.

When the attendant walked past and rolled the doors open and announced that we were at Buzuluk, Saul and I turned to one another and shared a delighted, surprised smile—as if to say, We’re alive. Can you believe it? He’d grown stronger over the journey, rather than weaker like most of our traveling companions, and as we stepped off the platform at Buzuluk, Saul actually led the way. He was devastated, of course, but becoming strong enough to put one foot in front of the other and move under his own steam.

We stopped in Buzuluk and visited some stores before we made the walk to the camp. Our clothes were disgusting, so we replaced them with the cheapest and warmest we could find. All that I kept was my coat, and I told Saul this was because “it wasn’t too smelly,” but the truth was, Mama’s ring was still in the hem. We bought still more dried bread and some biscuits. We were hopeful that once we arrived at the camp, we’d be fed real food, but we couldn’t be sure so we wanted to be prepared.

“Well,” he said quietly, as we followed the last stragglers from the crowd on the train toward the army camp. “What do you think is ahead of us next?”

“Hopefully,” I said, “a nice bed with a blanket. Somewhere to lie down and actually stretch out. And food—oh, hot food. Imagine that!”

We laughed together, optimistic about the camp we expected to be welcomed into. It was only when the crowd’s progress began to slow, and then stopped altogether that we realized there was a problem. Soon, soldiers began walking along the line, talking to people, and we saw most of the people ahead of us in the line turning back to walk toward the station, cursing and shaking their heads.

“What is it?” Saul asked the soldier, as he neared us.