Hunger Journeys (14 page)

Lena’s stomach heaved. He wanted them to sleep with him and the other men. On her arms and her back, Lena’s skin tightened. Her thoughts tore around in her head, but she could find no escape, just deeper and deeper fear.

“Please,” Sofie said, loudly now, no longer whispering in Lena’s ear. “I’m sick.” And she bent over and retched.

“Sir,” Lena said, “is there a toilet? My friend is sick.”

“A silly trick,” he said. “There is a toilet back at our rooms. You can wait.”

And Sofie vomited, her hands on her knees, her hair swinging into her face. They had had nothing to eat since their departure, so she was throwing up thin, clear liquid, but it splashed off the stone floor and onto the cuffs of the officer’s pants.

“You little bitch!” the man shouted and raised his arm. Lena wrapped her arms around Sofie and pulled her backwards, out of his reach.

“She’s really sick,” she said. “She was throwing up before too. Please, can’t you let us go?”

He lowered his arm, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at his pants. “Get someone in here to clean that up,” he said sharply, and instantly the room was abuzz with activity. The man who had taken the girls off the train opened the door and shouted into the other room. A woman appeared with a bucket of soapy water and knelt before the big man, sponging away at his shoes and the cuffs of his pants. Someone else came in with another bucket and began cleaning the whole floor. The phone rang, and the officer took the call, barking into the receiver and listening for a long moment. He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “All right, everyone out,” he shouted.

Lena didn’t need to hear anything more. Determination took her over. “Take your bag,” she whispered, grabbing her own small case with one hand and Sofie’s wrist with the other, and slipping out the door. Her back crawled. Any second a shout was going to stop her like a hook in a fish. But no shout came. Keeping herself straight and tall, she walked through the huge outer office and headed for the door that led back onto the platform. Dimly, she was aware that someone was walking with them, not far behind. She let go of Sofie’s hand and reached for the doorknob. What if it was locked? But it was not. The man came through the door just behind them. It was the man who had looked at her so oddly (was it kindly?) from the far side of the room. On they walked, down the stairs, through the long tunnel under the tracks and straight out of the station. Footsteps followed them. A bench loomed. Lena dropped the
bags, pushed Sofie into a sitting position and turned to face their new companion.

Darkness had settled in long ago, but there was a moon, and she could see enough to tell that he was a small man, short and slender, clean-shaven, though not within the last day or so, with dark hair that curled around his ears. He needs a trim, Lena thought, but then many German soldiers were looking a bit scruffy these days. His uniform was neat enough, but it had been mended here and there and was a bit stained. His jacket showed his low rank. An ordinary soldier, more or less, as expected from one so young. He didn’t look more than twenty to Lena, but he was probably older. He shivered.

“Ladies,” he said, “might I offer you my assistance?” He spoke in German and his teeth chattered violently, but Lena found that she could understand. She looked at him in sympathy. He had followed them outdoors in his shirtsleeves and his jacket. “Where were you going on the train?” he asked.

“Almelo,” Lena said without thought.

Sofie glared up at her, but Lena found that she did not regret her honesty. Anyway, she had already announced their destination inside.

“Come with me,” the man said.

Lena was slowly feeling the cold herself. At their feet, where it had been cleared of snow, the ground was covered in a thick layer of ice. Tree stumps cast squat shadows in the garden area behind them. As far as Lena could see, the street was deserted, except for one man who wandered by, looking more like a bundle of rags than a respectable citizen. And she was sure that the ghostly stores and restaurants that lined the other side of the street were abandoned. Nothing to sell; nothing to serve. Just like Amsterdam.

Occasional flakes of snow floated down out of the dark.

The young man looked at Lena for permission as he bent and picked up their bags. “Please,” he said, “follow me.”

There was nowhere else to go, nothing else to do.

Lena met Sofie’s gaze but found no help there. Sofie was not crying anymore, but her eyes pleaded for rescue and she was shaking hard. Lena turned inward and was surprised at what she discovered. Her stomach, which had churned with fear just moments ago, had now settled down. She felt calm. Maybe this was a man they could trust.

Huddled together, Lena and Sofie shuffled after the German stranger, who carried their lives along with all their possessions. He led them right back into the station.

Lena pulled Sofie to a stop as they approached the entrance, and their leader stepped back to their side. “You’re going to Almelo,” he said. “The train leaves soon. If you are to be on it, you must board now. I can find you a place to hide. You must board now. I will be on the train as well. I go home to Germany. I will protect you.”

“He’s lying,” Sofie whispered, but not so quietly that he wouldn’t hear. “I know he is.”

Lena shrugged off her words and kept her focus on him.

“Why would you protect us?” she asked, her voice as quiet and calm as she could make it. Two men pushed by the small group. At any moment someone might accost them. “We don’t know you,” she added, but desperation made her step forward anyway. They had to keep going. They couldn’t just stand there. And even as she said the words to him, she knew somehow that he would not lie to them. He would help them and protect them if he could. It was right there in the way he looked at her.

Lena had no time to reflect on exactly what the look meant, what he might want in exchange for his assistance, why she felt
calm before him when she squirmed before boys her own age. No time to reflect on anything but the need to get to a safe place. “That officer said the train to Almelo leaves in the morning,” she went on, but of course the big man had lied. Once she and Sofie had set foot in his rooms, they would have been trapped there until the men tired of them, and after that, she could only guess at their fate.

Lena had to gather all her strength to walk back through the enormous doorway into the station. And Sofie seemed to have no strength at all. She clung to Lena with both hands.

Ordinarily, it would not have been difficult to feel anonymous and invisible in the huge echoing space of a train station, but she knew that she and Sofie were the only civilians, and they were certainly the only two young women. Even in the dark, she shrank against Sofie and took step after step, matching her pace to the young man’s, keeping close. He led them back under the tracks to the far side of the station, where they climbed a different flight of stairs and emerged on a platform beside a massive train looming in the dim light. They were looking at a passenger car, its dark windows covered with blackout paper on the inside. The man turned right and led them past another passenger car and two freight cars before he slowed down beside a big wooden carriage.

“This is a cattle car,” he said, reaching up and using all his strength to pull back the heavy door just far enough to admit a small body. “Here, let me help you up.”

And Lena and Sofie submitted to being lifted bodily and shoved into the car. Something scratchy enveloped Lena, and she felt a surge of panic. “What is it? It’s full. The car is full!”

“It’s straw,” he said. “Just straw. It will keep you warm and hidden.” And the next thing she knew, he was in the car with
them, burrowing into the straw. “You must take your things and crawl in deep. I will bring you food and blankets. I will make sure that no one hurts you. You will be safe, I promise.”

“Why are you helping us?” Sofie said out of the darkness, speaking to the man for the first time. Her voice sounded thin and small. “Why would you help us?”

It was pitch dark in the car. And silent for a moment.

“I want you to be safe,” he said at last. “I … I can’t explain to you now. It is too difficult. But I want you to be safe.”

For a moment, panic flooded Lena again. Please let his reason not have to do with sex, she said to herself—or to God. Another prayer: this one rather strange.

It would be bad enough to be noticed by a boy, any boy, but to be noticed by a German man? He might seem calm and kind, but even putting sex aside (which Lena was eager to do), that did not change what it meant for a Dutch girl to be noticed by a German in the real true world of occupied Holland. Dutch girls were not supposed to be noticed by Germans. Not in that place, at that time. It only led to trouble.

She sighed as she heard the man’s feet hit the ground as he jumped from the car. “My name is Albert,” he said, and the big door clanged shut.

And Sofie came to life. “What are we doing?” she whispered, her voice harsh. “He will have us killed. He will send men to rape us. He will rape us himself. He will abandon us.” She reached out and felt around until she found Lena’s arm. Then she grasped on tight.

“Hey,” Lena said, “let go of me! Whose idea was it to take off on a train? And who kept us safe back there in the station when those men wanted to take us away? I wasn’t the one moaning and puking.”

“It was my puking that saved us,” Sofie spat back. She was no longer whispering. “Without me, we’d be back in their rooms right now, and innocent though you pretend to be, you know what they would be doing with us.”

Lena shuddered. “All right,” she said, hoping that Sofie could hear the appeasement in her voice. “Throwing up wasn’t such a dreadful thing. But after that, what would we have done without Albert’s help?”

“Found a way to go home?” Sofie said. And she started, once again, to cry. Her hand had fallen from Lena’s arm.

Home, Lena thought. Over and over Sofie had said that her home was a terrible place, that she wanted to get away, that she longed for adventure. Yet now she was snivelling for it. Doubt threatened. Lena thought of Bep and Piet and baby Nynke, and a knot of grief made it halfway up her throat before she managed to thrust it back down to her belly where it belonged.

She reached out and found Sofie’s body huddled in the dark. Not sure about it, she put a hand on Sofie’s back and let it rest there. Sofie was surprising her again and again. At home, she had always seemed so brave, so quick to laugh no matter how awful the circumstances. But in Amsterdam, the danger had never been real. Or real, but not immediate. Maybe Sofie hadn’t known how bad it could be.

And I didn’t know either, Lena thought. I would never have come if I’d known. She thought back to those sickening moments on the Hembrug, with the soldiers laughing at her and Margriet and taking their bicycle. She had thought that she was frightened then. Now she suspected that she had a great deal more to learn about fear.

Round and round went the thoughts inside her head,
but they didn’t change the facts: she was shut up with a terrorstricken girl in a frigid, dark cattle car, part of a train run by the enemy, soon to head east into unknown territory.

Her head snapped up. She had got one part wrong.

“We’re not locked in here,” she said. “We can climb out and hide and … and find our way out of Utrecht. We’ll walk home. Why not? You should see the trips Margriet takes!”

Sofie’s sniffles stopped. She sat perfectly still. Well, Lena thought, she had put it out there. Let Sofie choose.

In that moment, the train platform came alive with German voices and stomping boots. The two girls clutched at each other. The area had been deserted when they came up.

“Have you checked the cars?” said a voice, almost right beside Lena’s and Sofie’s heads.

“Schultz and Biermann started at the other end. I’ll do these three. Here, jump up with me,” a deeper voice replied.

A grunt of frustration. “Can’t get this door open. Hey, help me, will you?”

Lena gripped Sofie’s neck and leaned to speak into her ear. “They’re searching the cars. We’ve got to find our bags and dig right to the back.” She felt Sofie nod just as the door to the next car opened with a loud creak.

“You take the far end, Rauch, and dig deep. I’ll start here. Any hideaways in here, we’ll flush them out like rats.”

Lena’s body went rigid. They know we’re here, she thought. Of course they do.

The two girls were sitting almost on top of their bags, so only a moment passed before they were digging frantically in the straw, the noise masked by the men in the next car, who seemed to be enjoying their work. They laughed and joked with each other as they speared the hay over and over again, hoping to
encounter flesh. At least, that was what Lena imagined from the sounds she heard.

“You two in there,” a voice shouted. “You think this is a game? Put your bayonets to work and get on to the next car. We’re due to leave. You hear me?”

It took Lena and Sofie a long moment to take in the word
bayonets
in German, but soon enough the meaning penetrated. They both stopped digging for a moment, only to start again, more frenzied than before. Lena had guessed pitchforks. Bayonets were worse.

The men were loudly bemoaning the lack of bodies in the straw when Lena and Sofie heard the door to their own car creak open. The men heard it too.

“Hey, we’re taking care of it,” one of them shouted, his feet hitting the platform as he spoke. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Come here. I want to tell you something,” a smaller voice said. A familiar voice.

Another pair of boots hit the ground.

Lena and Sofie were at the back of the car now, backs against the cold wood, awaiting their fate. They couldn’t hear the whispered conversation. They would never know exactly what deal was struck, but they did hear the heavy boots move on to the car on their other side, and they heard a body pull itself into their car.

Moments later, they leaned back, looking up into the face of the man who had come for them.

It was Albert. Together, Lena and Sofie let out their breath.