‘No idea. Depends when the Ukrainian collects them, and the weather. We’ll go and see when this train’s due as soon as we’ve eaten.’
‘Do you want me to warm it; there’s plenty?’
‘We’ll eat it cold. Warm it up when Mama and Tatta arrive. At least we have plenty to take with us; our family won’t be going hungry.’
It was such a luxury to have food in stock. I never appreciated Karol’s resourcefulness, but each day he surprised me. As children, we were always too busy squabbling over nothing, but Natasha had changed him for the better, as Stefan had changed me.
We ate and washed it down with sweet tea. It tasted awful, but neither of us complained.
Karol grabbed his sheepskin. ‘We’d better go and find the soup kitchen and look around the station buildings. I need to find out when this train’s arriving.’
‘I’m more interested in when it’s leaving. Do you think it will wait for Mama and Tatta if they’re delayed?’
‘They’ll be here. Stop worrying.’
An old barn housed the soup kitchen, where a lengthy queue already meandered out of the door. Since Karol was eager to check out the train’s timetable, we made for the station building, a single storey shack standing beside the tracks. But it was the small shed beside it with its gaping doors, which had me recoiling in horror. ‘Oh God, it’s a mortuary.’
Inside, the bodies, many stripped of their clothing, piled to the roof. We stood rooted to the spot. Neither of us spoke; there was nothing to say.
It was impossible to get anywhere near the bonfire, surrounded as it was with hundreds more people, but on the periphery lay the corpses of those who had frozen to death. With the mortuary full, there was nowhere else to put them. I tried not to look at their faces as I stepped over them, but I couldn’t avert my gaze. Some of these people were from our camp, even our neighbours, their eyes and noses eaten by rats. They had left Vodopad yesterday full of hope, and now they were dead. It occurred to me with a jolt if they were our parents lying here with their faces bloodied and eaten away – how would we ever find them?
I felt it was time they were here. Neither Karol nor I had watches, nor did anyone else, having traded them for food. Given the station and its surrounds were just an insignificant outpost in this wilderness, finding them was proving more difficult than Karol and I imagined.
We headed to the soup kitchen, where the fetid stench of fish hung around the entrance, a potent reminder of our captivity, and in a flash, I was back at Vodopad. I called our parents’ names, and a sea of sunken eyes stared back. Shaking myself out of the memory, I turned away.
Another search of the site around the bonfire proved futile. Hordes of people crammed near the flames, warming themselves. Heads bowed and covered against the cold, their ragged clothing of browns and greys amid a sea of blankets and filthy eiderdowns. It was difficult to distinguish faces, even when moving amongst them.
Karol said, ‘Don’t you think we’d be better standing where we first arrived, so we can spot them before they get mixed in with the crowds?’
After stamping our feet for an hour, Karol was growing anxious. ‘What if they don’t arrive before the train?’
‘Yes, but didn’t the Station Master say it would be here sometime today or early tomorrow?’ Fear gnawed at the mention of it. ‘I knew we shouldn’t have left them. Shall we have another look in the soup kitchen?’
‘No. I think we should have a closer look around the bonfire.’
‘But we’ve already looked, Karol.’
‘Not at the corpses. Not a thorough look.’
‘The corpses?’
Blinking against the icy wind, we returned, needing to look, yet not wanting to see. I came across two bodies, wrapped in filthy eiderdowns. My stomach lurched and my breath caught in my chest. There was something familiar about their closeness. One lay face down in the snow, the other’s body was on its side. Its arm cradling the other, face buried in its partner’s back. I imagined Mama and Tatta dying in such a position – protecting each other to the end.
‘Oh God, Karol, look.’ My hand went straight to my midriff, and I felt a sense of impending doom. ‘I think it’s them.’ I covered my mouth with my other hand.
Karol halted, turning his head to look deep into my eyes, the anguish in his own, mirroring mine, and he crouched down.
A sudden feeling of terror overwhelmed me. Sweating, shaking, I plucked at the ragged cuff of my coat, as it seemed to take forever for him to reach out.
He placed his hand on the shoulder and rolled the corpse over, stared at the man for a moment, before his shoulders slumped, the word, ‘No’ barely a breath.
I threw back my head, exhaled and closed my eyes in gratitude, nausea washing over me in waves. Oh God, what if it had been them? Another surge, this time euphoria, but looking at the two unfortunate souls lying at my feet, I realised they must be someone else’s parents and felt such a stab of shame for rejoicing.
Karol covered their faces with the end of the eiderdown. ‘Come on, they have to be in the soup kitchen by now. Tatta said it’s where we should meet. Why are we wandering around here?’
‘Because they weren’t in there!’ I was becoming more agitated with every step, a gamut of emotions racing around my entire body. We called out their surname in each direction as we walked, but I was losing hope.
When we reached the door, those who had been waiting for hours for soup barred us. I was undeterred; standing on tiptoe, I began shouting, ‘Mama, Tatta, it’s Marisha and Karol. Are you there?’
Marisha!’ A faint wail came back from somewhere inside, growing louder, until our parents emerged, pushing through the starving as best they could.
I fell into my father’s arms, my eyes sightless with hot tears. Swaddled in their eiderdowns against the arena of the great outdoors – they looked even more shrivelled than I could ever remember. ‘Where’ve you been?’
‘We arrived earlier,’ Mother said, ‘but we were so cold, we had to force our way to the fire to thaw out first. My God, I hope this train’s a lengthy one.’
Tatta said, ‘Did you find out when it’s leaving, son?’
‘The Station Master was vague. Late tonight or tomorrow, sometime. Have you eaten?’
‘Only a plate of soup.’
‘Come on then. We have a room.’ Karol put his arm around Mama’s shoulders. ‘It’s warm too – and tonight you shall both sleep on a comfy paillasse!’
‘Karol, you are a miracle-worker!’ Mama freed her hand, clasped his cheek and kissed it.
The unpleasant emotions drained away and something akin to rapture replaced them. We were halfway to freedom, and our little family was as complete as it could be – without Gerhard, Lodzia and Ella.
Expecting their surprise, I flashed a beaming smile. ‘And we have reindeer meat,’ I put my arm around my father’s waist. ‘I cooked it myself, Tatta. It’s salty, but it’s edible.’
‘Ahh, kohanie, it needed soaking first.’
‘I know, but we were so hungry that I just boiled it.’
‘Couldn’t be any worse than that stinking fish soup your mother made when we first arrived at Vodopad. Do you remember it?’
‘How could I forget?’ Karol laughed. ‘I had to eat it!’ We all laughed together, and it was good we were laughing. We had never laughed since arriving in Russia, and now we were laughing so hard we cried, but I didn’t know if we were crying because we were happy, or because of what the Soviets had done to us.
Tatta looked into my eyes. ‘I told you it would be alright, child. Never lose hope. I’m looking forward to this reindeer meat, salty or not.’