Auntie did not look back, and no one watched her go. Even the foreign workers in the Forest Lodge, who usually took an interest in everything, didn’t lift the curtain. They could sleep peacefully all night.
Auntie was well muffled up, with her soldier’s cap on her head and her legs in a driver’s sack to keep them warm, and bundles of straw to right and left. And the gelding was such a good-tempered animal. She took a sip from her flask. But then she felt afraid of the icy wind and the darkness on the road. Thank God the moon was shining, and the snow had settled, so you could get some idea of where you were.
*
Peter burrowed into the straw. The air was cold, but bearable. He had the binoculars round his neck, the air pistol in his belt, his microscope and Auntie’s bags and suitcases beside him. Her lute lay on top of her bags. He had played hide-and-seek in the dark with the Albertsdorf cousins — stay where you are and don’t move! He looked forward to seeing the Albertsdorf cousins.
Auntie was sitting at the very front, and Peter stared through the oval back window of the coach, past the dried-up wreath of flowers and out at the road behind. He saw the two bay horses following, pulling the heavy farm cart, and he could make out the figures of Vladimir and Vera on the box.
The ice-cold sky was full of sparkling stars, and their wheels crunched as they drove over the frozen snow, with the red horizon behind them. The distant rumbling had slackened off slightly during the last few days. Could Mother be coming after all? that was the question. Was she running after the cart shouting stop, stop! Why are you going away without me?
The trees and bushes at the side of the road; the tracks in the snow. They went along at a jog-trot pace. And then they saw someone else’s cart ahead, visible as a black mound against the snow. They had nearly caught up with it and could move into the road behind it. It kept driving straight ahead; they had only to keep an eye on it and nothing could go wrong.
First to reach Uncle Josef in Albertsdorf. Then they’d see. Everything could be discussed with Josef. Rather a strange man, but on the whole his heart was in the right place. He didn’t have an easy time of it, with his wife’s bad hip.
Auntie had a plan; she would first go in the direction of Elbing and then turn north to the Frisches Haff, the zone of brackish water just inland of the Bay of Danzig. She was going to discuss that with Josef. Hanni had a good head on her shoulders too.
But weren’t the Russians already in Elbing?
Hour after hour they drove on at an easy pace. It began to snow in thick flakes that drifted back and forth in the wind like a curtain, ruffling up as they fell to the ground. The ditches beside the road were full of snow, and you could hardly make out where they began and the road ended. It was a strain, keeping your eyes fixed on the cart in front. Peter joined Auntie on the box, and when the gelding slipped he shouted, ‘Gee up!’
Sometimes a vehicle came towards them; a truck with dipped headlights, a motorbike, once even a tank. To make room for the tank, the cart ahead of them moved a little way aside, and then it slipped into the ditch.
Should they stop and help?
Peter was going to jump down, but Auntie said, ‘No, we must keep going. We don’t have time to stop now.’
Peter saw small figures crawling out of the cart, their shadows enormous in the light of their electric torches, and then it was all dark again.
Vladimir stopped to help the people in the ditch and stayed behind for a while. Auntie drove slowly on and finally stopped. Johannsen’s old mill should be somewhere near here. In clear weather you could see it from the Georgenhof, so they would be able to see the Georgenhof from the mill.
Soon Vladimir was behind them again, having helped the other cart back on the road.
The longer they drove, the more carts joined the road from left and right. Auntie was now following a trailer with rubber tyres on its wheels and cat’s eyes at the back of it. If you briefly flashed a torch at them, they shone red in the darkness.
The first light of dawn was showing; Vladimir closed the distance between their two vehicles so that no one else could come in between them. If they were separated they might never find each other again.
A solitary aircraft flew overhead. Did the pilot have a light on in his plane? Was his thumb hovering over the button to release his bombs? Was his machine gun trained on the road below?
Around now, Katharina was lying on her straw mattress in a cold police cell. She couldn’t sleep; she had spread her coat and two blankets over her. A guard was doing his rounds in the yard. He shone a light on the windows, and when it reached her cell the shadow of the bars fell on the wall. She thought of a film in which there was a woman in prison, like her, with barred shadows cast on the walls.
But this wasn’t a film. The key turned in the lock, and she had to get up and go with the man who came to fetch her. Flights of iron steps, barred doors. Then she was sitting on a hard chair in a warm interrogation room. The officer there sat at his desk signing files.
At last he turned to her. She was asked whether it was true that she had given shelter to a Jew, and was shown the drawing with the arrow on it saying Georgenhof, and the instructions to the man to climb the fence. She had admitted all this already, and it had been written down.
The police officer said that this was very, very serious, and he would like to know whether the man had made approaches to her in her room. Had she known he was a Jew? Then he delivered a long lecture about the children of Israel, describing them as filthy blowflies and a pack of criminals.
She couldn’t deny anything, and making excuses seemed a bad idea. She said she hadn’t guessed that; she hadn’t known anything about a Jew. She’d thought, oh, she didn’t know what. And she wondered, she said, whether she would have given the man shelter if she had known he was a Jew. Yes, she said that, and she asked the police officer if he really thought that she would have sheltered a Jew if she’d known who was being sent to her?
‘Well, who did you think he could be? A deserter, perhaps? Or an enemy of the state?’ He didn’t quite like to say that that would have been even worse.
She thought of Pastor Brahms and his persuasions. He had made her do it, she said. Would she have thought of such a thing of her own accord? With her husband at the front …
‘At the front?’ said the police officer. ‘Sitting in a cushy job in Italy, that’s where he is.’ Then he became insistent, and wanted to know whether matters had gone any further up in her room. Had there been anything in the way of racial defilement? ‘Did you drink alcohol? You had quite a nice little stock of it … Did he touch you? Did he make advances? Stand up!’
At last another officer came into the room. It was the man who had brought her here. He was taking her back to her cell. There was coffee that had gone cold in the cell, and a piece of bread. She longed to say, ‘Stay here, stay here with me for a little while.’ But he had already closed and locked the door.
The two vehicles from the Georgenhof went on. Hours later, they passed a crossroads. The signpost said ALBERTSDORF 7 KILOMETRES. So they turned right. They could rest once they reached Uncle Josef ’s house, they’d be at home there. Maybe news from Katharina had already reached Albertsdorf? They could discuss it all with Josef, and then they’d decide what to do next. We’ll go on to the Frisches Haff, thought Auntie. First we’ll go towards Elbing and then turn off for the Frisches Haff.
Uncle Josef had always spoken brusquely to her; well, that was just his way. When he came to the Georgenhof, alone on business, or on a Sunday with his whole family, he used to say hello to her, but that was all.
They reached Albertsdorf when the sun had risen. There was a heavy chain on the gate of the yard. Even though they had said they were coming, the whole place seemed to be locked up. The family must be sleeping late.