Vladimir got out of the blankets in which he had wrapped himself and opened the gate. The farmyard dog immediately went for him, but he used his whip and soon made it respect him.
The whole yard was full of other people’s carts. Some of them were being made ready to go on.
‘There’s no room left here,’ said the strangers, who didn’t know that the newcomers were part of the family.
Finally they left the two vehicles beside the silo, one to the right and one to the left of it. The stables were already full of horses, but there was just enough space for the gelding and the two bays to fit in. Vladimir mixed oats and chaff, and gave the animals water.
Then he fetched Vera, and the two of them settled down in the hay along with some French POWs. It was very romantic in there by the light of the lantern. Vladimir got a bottle of vermouth that didn’t really belong to him out of the cart, and pulled the tarpaulin covering it tightly over the contents again. Then they all drank vermouth, even the man guarding the POWs. After all, he was only human.
Auntie knocked at the front door of the house. Peter walked all round it, but everything was locked up. It was some time before anyone came to let them in. And no one welcomed them with open arms … ‘There you are at last, my dears!’ Nor was there a fire crackling in the hearth and a table laid for them. All the reception they got was a basic shrug of the shoulders.
Yes, the whole family had already left, they heard. Even though they’d said they were staying, they had left! It was lucky that Frau Schneidereit, staying behind to look after the house, even recognized Auntie. A visitor so early in the morning?
Grudgingly, she let them in. They were offered no more than a hot cup of tea and a piece of bread spread with onion-flavoured curd cheese. They would rest briefly, decided Auntie, and then go on.
Yes, they heard, Uncle Josef had already left. Immediately after Auntie’s phone call from the Georgenhof he had slammed the receiver back on its stand and called to the household, ‘The Globigs are coming. That’s the last straw.’
It was the phone call that sent them off, as Frau Schneidereit now revealed. Uncle Josef had left with his family, bag and baggage — seven carts piled high with their possessions.
‘Quick, quick, quick, children! We’re leaving too,’ he had called. After hesitating for weeks, saying they’d wait and see, now he couldn’t get on the road fast enough. There were papers to be burnt on the dung heap, everyone to be chivvied along, the carts so overloaded that the horses could hardly move. The carts couldn’t get out of the yard, so the horses had to be whipped all the way out to the road.
Uncle Josef had not left Auntie a letter on the table. Most of the doors were locked, and the beds had been stripped.
So Auntie curled up on a sofa, and Peter lay down in his cousins’ room. They hadn’t left a letter either.
Three doll’s houses stood in the corner, one for each of the girls so that they wouldn’t quarrel. And a picture of the three cousins hung over them, painted by the artist who had also done the picture of Elfie that hung in Katharina’s room.
While they were resting, the other refugees harnessed up their horses and left the yard one after another.
*
Auntie wanted to leave at midday. All the strangers’ carts had left the yard by then; they would be well along the road by now. Vladimir crawled out of the hay; the French prisoners had left as well.
Vladimir immediately saw that Vera’s wooden suitcase was missing. The tarpaulin over the cart was untouched, so far as he could tell, but the wooden suitcase had gone! He went on looking for it. It had been on the driver’s box, but it was not there now. He couldn’t believe it.
Vera couldn’t grasp it either. She didn’t exactly strike up a howl of woe, but she cried floods of tears. All her possessions stolen. The pictures of her parents. All of it was gone.
Vladimir went round shouting, saying what he would do to the thief if he laid hands on him, shouting into Auntie’s face in Polish. He’d slit the man open! Put out his eyes! He’d stopped in the middle of the night to help others when they fell into the ditch, and now someone had stolen Vera’s suitcase.
‘If I can lay hands on the bastard!’ said Vladimir, uttering terrible curses in his own tongue, while Vera went on crying quietly.
A little later, they too set out. Cart was following cart on the road to Elbing, wheels crunching over the snow. They tried to thread their way into the long line of vehicles, Auntie first.
It took them some time to push in and join the cavalcade. They had to let whole village communities go first, until at last an old man stopped his horses. He pointed to them with his whip, indicating that they could go in front of him, and hurry up about it. No time to be lost. He must be wondering about the strange coach standing at the crossroads. Perhaps it reminded him of the old days? With a coat of arms on its door — had that made him let them go first?
But when Vladimir drove the heavy cart forward, drivers were already cracking their whips behind him. ‘What’s going on up ahead there?’ After all, people wanted to stick together; the line of carts was strictly organized. If the people in them lost sight of each other here, it was all over.
Meanwhile, at the Georgenhof, Sonya took possession of the keys. She opened the door to the Czech and asked the Hesses how much longer they thought of staying, because she for one wasn’t providing any more food. Drygalski had to be fetched to sort it out. Did she know, he asked Sonya, that he could send her packing in no time, along with her boyfriend? Right, she’d better get back to the cottage, at once too, or there’d be trouble. The Czech had already made himself scarce.
18. Resting
They reached the little town of Harkunen towards evening. Cart after cart stood all along both sides of the high street, one after another, and women sitting on cushions looked out of the windows. You had to think a long way back to remember when there were last such crowds here, and that was when Hitler came through to celebrate the special day of the Gau, the local district. Kaiser Wilhelm had once been received in Harkunen with garlands and girls dressed in white.
Auntie drove the coach into the fully occupied football field, part of a sports complex, and stopped in front of a goal. The Bund deutscher Mädel, the League of German Girls, were running a soup kitchen. Vladimir drove the heavily laden farm cart into a side street.
‘We’ll leave again at five in the morning,’ Auntie told Vladimir. ‘And mind nothing else gets stolen!’
‘Right, five in the morning,’ he said, and told her not to worry.
‘We’ll wait here for you,’ said Auntie. ‘In this football field. Come here at five in the morning, and then we’ll go on. Five on the dot!’
Party officials were going from cart to cart, Heil Hitler, with forms to be filled in. They were asking all these people if they needed anything, whether everything was in order. There was considerable confusion on the football field, but people were managing; they’d make it somehow. On the whole everyone was reasonable. Complaining was kept within bounds.
The Party stewards found fault with Auntie’s coach because it was blocking access to the field. Hadn’t she been allotted a place to park in conformity with the rules? No, she had not been allotted a place, she had simply parked the coach where it was.
‘That won’t do. People can’t act just as they like here.’
Even in this situation, unusual as it was, you couldn’t do just as you liked; even here you had to follow rules. Otherwise everything would end in unimaginable chaos.