Karol raised himself onto his elbows and drank greedily, Mother holding the pan to his lips.
Irena, the nurse from Vodopad, placed a thermometer beneath his tongue, as I asked for more snow. From Karol’s nuanced expression it seemed he was deriving some relief from the cold compresses, and I continued applying them.
Irena retook his temperature. It was high before, but now it had risen to 45 degrees. He threw up – a projectile of yellow bile.
He seemed to drift in and out of consciousness. In his lucid moments, he was gibbering, uncoordinated, flaying his arms.
The day wore on, and Mother ran her fingers through his matted hair. His lips had turned blue, and Irena massaged his arms.
Helpless to do more, I watched as his thrashing hands, which had been so eloquent in his distress, fell to his sides.
Irena took his limp arm, felt for a pulse but not finding one shook her head. And I knew Karol had gone.
I sat paralysed while Mama cradled his body in her arms. It all happened so fast.
‘Vologda,’ someone called from the top shelf, as the train rolled into the station.
I was stiff. Mother was still cradling Karol’s body beside her, and beyond the open door, I saw someone carrying a corpse. It could only be from the first wagon, I realised, then another, and yet another; it looked like a child’s.
Guards stepped on board to clear out any dead left with no one to do it for them, heaping them unceremoniously onto the cart brought to the station for the purpose, prompting those capable of removing their dead to get on with it.
The nearest passengers suggested removing Karol’s body, and I gazed at their insensitive faces not knowing what to do. Couldn’t they see Mama wouldn’t let him go?
Oleszkiewicz said, ‘Come on, Marishu; I’ll give you a hand with him.’
It seemed passengers were wailing all around me, as they carried out their own, but Mama’s eyes were imploring me not to take him. I realised it was up to me now, but how could I?
Quietly, Oleszkiewicz said, ‘Come on, child.’
I reached out to my brother, but Mama tightened her grip, shaking her head.
‘Mama, please,’ I begged.
‘No! Don’t take him.’
I steeled myself, grabbed Karol about the waist and wrestled him out of her grip, as she let out an anguished wail, ‘No, my boy, my child.’
Stasia took her into her arms, to allow her husband to take over. Having left his baby son buried in an unmarked grave back in Vodopad, I could see he was having trouble coping with this, especially since the remaining one was so ill.
Mama held out his shearling. ‘Karol will be cold.’
With trembling hands, I got my brother into his coat, and prepared to help Oleszkiewicz get him off the train; the dreadful sound of Mother’s wailing ringing in my ears. I swung down from the handle of the door, and as my feet sought purchase on the ground, far from the snow and ice I was expecting, I contacted a more malleable substance. As I let go of the handle, I lost my footing altogether and landed on my back. Trying to push myself upright with my arms, my eyes drank in the horror of falling on a corpse.
The station was an orchard floor strewn with wind-fallen bodies. They lay everywhere, beside the tracks, one on top of another. The ones in their last throws of life, like twitching fish at the bottom of a near empty stream, could not take that one last step to reach the train. A passer-by said, ‘The Ruskies are emptying their jails and penal colonies; these are in a worse state than us.’
Unable to wait until I collected myself, Oleszkiewicz dragged Karol’s body off the wagon floor and onto his shoulder. I followed, clambering over the remains of what were once robust men.
He spun half around, ‘Well, go and find the mortuary. There has to be one somewhere.’
With blurred, unseeing eyes, I stumbled ahead, thankful Karol wasn’t one of those abandoned bodies carted off and dumped by the guards like a sack of potatoes.
Inside the wooden shed, a pyramid of naked and semi-naked bodies reached towards the roof, like at Permilovo. There was a queue, and I watched those in front holding their loved ones by their arms and legs, swinging them back and forth before flinging them to the top of the heap.
Oleszkiewicz followed me in, laid Karol on the floor and removed his shearling. ‘Come on then, grab an arm and leg,’ he snapped.
‘No, I can’t. I can’t do that to him. Let’s leave him here. I don’t want him squashed.’ Karol so wanted to come to Vologda to find his darling Natasha. He was here now, but she would never know. And what of his child? It would be a new born now.
‘Oh, please yourself.’ He was running out of patience. ‘Here, take this.’ He picked up Karol’s coat, threw it at me, and turned for the train.
I held it close, and stared at the heap, while many unseeing eyes stared back. I longed to run away from it all; to pretend it wasn’t happening, but I couldn’t move.
Oleszkiewicz returned and grabbed my arm, ‘Are you coming then? The train won’t wait forever.’
I blinked and followed. Passing lengthy queues waiting for food and boiling water, the gnawing pain in my stomach reminded me I ought to get some. I no longer cared about myself, but Mama was in a bad way. I searched the pockets of Karol’s shearling for money; there wasn’t much – a few roubles, but first, I had to return to fetch our pail.
The stench from each open wagon door revealed the same misery within, and guards were busy clearing away the corpses from the platform which broke my earlier fall. My eyes went straight to my mother the moment I clambered aboard. A beat of alarm and my stomach lurched. She lay motionless on the shelf where I left her – eyes closed, and for a terrifying moment I thought she was dead. I reached out and grabbed her shoulder. ‘Mama!’
She opened her eyes, and her smile held a hint of relief. ‘Thank God you’re back; but his coat, kohanie?’
‘Karol doesn’t need it now, but you do.’ I draped it over her tiny frame.
‘Where did you leave him, child?’
‘In the mortuary,’ my voice wobbled. ‘We left him in a special place; the best place.’
‘Such a waste.’ She swiped away her tears with the back of her hand. ‘He had no life. He was such a handsome boy.’
‘But Mama,’ I blurted before I could stop myself betraying his promise, ‘Karol had a life. Natasha was expecting his child when she left Vodopad. I’d have told you before, but he swore me to secrecy.’
‘A child?’ But the spark that glimmered in her eyes soon faded, ‘No wonder her mother was in such a hurry to marry her off.’
‘I’m sorry, Mama, I should have told you sooner.’ But she gave me a strange unfocused stare as if she was looking beyond me, to some half-formed future that excluded me. I gazed at her for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, alright?’ I wanted to say more, but I said nothing. Letting this pass, I picked up the pail, ‘I will fetch food and water now.’
‘No!’ she said with sudden fervour. ‘Don’t go, they’ll leave you behind.’
‘I have to, Mama. I don’t think the train will leave soon. Too many people are bringing out their dead.’
She grabbed my arm, ‘But you don’t know that.’
‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’ I hurried into the station building, aware as always of the capriciousness of the train drivers who seemed to delight in some cruel game of leaving whenever the fancy took them; shattering families – adding to their heartache. They were sick in the head. I shuffled forwards with the queue, my ears straining for the first hiss of the locomotive, wishing everyone would hurry.
It surprised me to see a variety of foods for sale. Mindful of the few roubles in my pocket, which would have to last the duration of our journey, I purchased some bread and sunflower seeds, before hurrying to the boiling water queue, pushing against the tide of those returning to the wagons with theirs.