There was no reindeer meat; our landlords had eaten it without asking, while we were out.
‘Listen, if we make a fuss, they will ask us to leave,’ Karol said. ‘Pretend it’s fine; we don’t mind.’
‘But it’s not fine, Karol. Mama and Tatta are starving – so are we. Now, what are we supposed to eat on the train – the greedy swine? They had no right!’
Two years of practice had us all awake at four-thirty in the morning.
Tatta swung his legs off the bed and had a coughing fit, but he was in wonderful spirits. Once he’d composed himself, he said, ‘I was about to say, that’s the finest night’s sleep I’ve had in two years. And now – I shall wash, brush my hair and shave off my whiskers so I can face freedom clean-shaven.’
Mama and I stood at the window watching the flames flaring from the bonfire; the wind carrying sparks high and away.
‘I wonder how many poor souls never made it through the night?’ She placed her arm around my shoulder and hugged me as if I were the most precious thing on earth. ‘I’m just thankful we are out of that place; that this nightmare’s over. Now we have to find Gerhard, Lodzia and Ella. I want my family back, Marishu. I’ve never asked God for anything, but I’m asking now.’
Karol and I exchanged glances, but said nothing. Yet being the eternal optimist, I still hoped somehow they had wangled it and were waiting.
I sat on the edge of the bed and watched Karol working away with his cut-throat razor. He was humming to himself in the tiny speckled mirror and I wondered who he was hoping to impress. Did he have some crazy notion of bumping into Natasha if our transport stopped at Vologda and he went in search of bread? Then what would he do with her; snatch her and drag her back to the train? I had to admit, clean-shaven, he was good looking – if you liked that sort of thing.
At home, he was never short of female company, but he had never taken to anyone as he had to Natasha.
31
It was barely light when the monster of a locomotive emerged out of the blizzard, its plough spewing two plumes of snow into the air on either side of it. Our transport had arrived, and we were waiting. With a grating, metallic shriek, it ground to a halt. This might have been the same decrepit cattle train that brought us here, but given the numbers murdered at Stalin’s pleasure, its length was much shorter.
Instant mayhem. Everyone scrambled to get on, shouting to parents, children, siblings, who were not so swift off the mark.
‘I think we’ll stand a better chance of finding a place if we moved towards the front,’ Karol grabbed the two pails and my holdall, and we slithered with as much speed as we could muster along the wooden platform, me in the centre trying to hold both my parents upright.
We found space for four on the bottom shelf of the second wagon, beside the Oleszkiewicz’s and their sickly child – our neighbours from Vodopad. The wagon was missing a stove, but there was a hole cut into the floor for sanitation; a source of ventilation, until it became clogged with frozen excrement, just as before.
‘The other wagons are already full by now,’ Father said. ‘We may as well stay put. We travelled here with no heat at all for most of the journey. Now we shall head for the sun.’
Head for the sun; it sounded terrific. A strange sensation that began in my scalp instantly spread to the back of my neck and my hairs stood on end. We had survived this hellhole, and now we were heading for the sun – for the unknown. I could barely believe it, but it was happening, and it was happening now!
Karol stowed the holdall and the pails beneath the shelf, shrugged out of his shearling coat and handed it to our father, ‘Here, Tatta, you need this more than me. I’ll take yours.’
‘But what about you, son?’
‘Never mind me. Have you seen the ice on the insides of these walls?’
Our father squashed himself onto the bottom corner shelf, his head touching the one above it. ‘Utter comfort,’ he said when I tucked in his eiderdown around him. I did the same for Mother and – covered in our bedding – we sat it out, watching as people barrelled on board, their luggage banging against the walls. Soon, our wagon was so full to the point we were as crammed in as on our journey here.
Much to our dismay, our transport remained stationary.
‘Oh Lord, no. Don’t say they will keep us here for four days as they did in Zhabinka.’ I pushed my way to the door to see if more people were still arriving and causing the holdup, but no. Apart from the NKVD, there were a few refugees staggering into wagons further back, carrying stoves. I climbed back onto our shelf. ‘Perhaps we’ll get a stove.’
‘Forget it, we don’t have a chimney flue,’ Father said.
The train left in the night.
I heard the WHUMPH, WHUMPH, and the hairs on my neck stood on end again as we pulled out of Permilovo Station. We were on our way; there was no turning back now; we were heading for the sun.
No one slept. Most cried softly, others coughed. It was difficult not to be emotional. I kept swallowing the lump in my throat, listening as the WHUMPHING gave way to chugging, slowly at first and then gaining speed.
Tatta’s cough kept me awake, but I didn’t want to sleep. I wanted to keep listening, savouring freedom, lulled by the train’s rhythmic shaking motion; to the chuckuty-chuck, chuckuty-chuck, as the wheels passed over the tracks, swallowing up the kilometres, speeding me to Stefan, wherever he might be.
I must have fallen asleep because the grey dawn was visible through the iron grilles when I awoke, cold and thirsty. It was impossible to reach to scoop snow from the sills without disturbing those sleeping on the shelf above, and I had to leave it.
Then, with the thrust of the train slowing; we were approaching a station.
‘Good,’ Karol reached for a pail, ‘I’m off to get food and water.’
I worried he wouldn’t get any if our wagon stopped beyond the station building, and the others got there first.
Preparing to move to give himself a fighting chance of being near the front of the queue the moment it halted, our mother’s hand on his arm stopped him. An indescribable noise caught in her throat. Tatta lay on the shelf, his hair frozen to the wagon wall. ‘He’s dead,’ she said, her voice so quiet, barely audible to bear the weight of what she had to say.
Staring at my father’s body, I shook him. ‘No, no. No! Tatta, wake up!’
Mother was sitting with her fist to her lips, her body rigid, her face contorted. Karol pulled her into his arms.
Everything would be fine if I could free Tatta’s hair, but it held fast. Placing my bare hands on the ice hoping to melt it as if releasing his hair would bring him back to life, my flesh stuck to the wall. I crumpled into a heap on the floor in pain.
The train stopped with a jolt and guards walked the length of the platform, rolling back the doors. ‘If you have any dead, bring them out now. And be quick about it; the train won’t wait. You can leave them in the shed beyond the station building.’
‘Come on, son; I’ll give you a hand,’ Oleszkiewicz offered. But Tatta’s hair wouldn’t budge.
His wife, Stasia, produced a pair of scissors and handed them to me.
I didn’t want to defile Tatta’s image. When he awoke yesterday, he so wanted to brush his hair and shave off his whiskers so he could ‘face freedom clean-shaven’. I hesitated, but Stasia gave me an urging nod. Fighting back the tears, I severed his hair, leaving a tuft embedded in the ice.
Karol slid out of the wagon, arms outstretched, ready to receive our father’s body from Oleszkiewicz. There seemed nothing left of him.