In the village, people tell them. No one gets over without papers. They have jeeps going along the border, British and American. If you don’t have papers, you will be sent back. If you have the wrong papers, they will take you away, take you back to where you started,
put you in prison. Tomas asks what they mean by wrong papers, but no one can tell him; they only say what they see.
Lore begs potatoes. Tomas builds a fire at the edge of the road and buries them in the embers. They wait in silence, staring into the flames. It is still early, gray dawn; the long day walking ahead. Lore scoops out hot potato with her fingers for Peter, burning herself, blowing on the food. Tomas eats the blackened skins of his share and the twins copy him, their faces smeared with hot ash. Liesel’s mouth is bleeding again and she doesn’t want any food. She rubs at her gums, holds her wet, red fingers out to Lore and cries. Lore throws a charred potato at her, tells her to eat, promises salt from the next village to rub into the sores. She has an ulcer in her lower lip, worries it with her tongue, irritated by Liesel’s complaints.
Inside the barge it is dark and the beating engine is smothered by the coals, thudding against their legs. The boat man gives them raggedy sacks to hide under in case he is searched at the border. He is nervous about taking Peter in case he cries. Lore can see he is changing his mind. Tomas talks to him, quietly, persistently, presses Mutti’s brooch into his hand. The boatman nods, avoids eye contact, squints upstream. He pushes them down into the hold, rough hands leaving black coal dust smudges on their shoulders.
The hold is full, the load sloping down at the sides and at the front. They crawl forward along the barge walls, to where they can no longer be seen from the hatch. Lore leads, coals sharp against her knees, Liesel holding on to her sleeve, afraid of the dark, noisy interior.
The twins crouch down at the bottom of the pile, Liesel squatting next to them. Lore lies next to Tomas, with Peter on her stomach. It is pitch black with the hatch closed. No light leaks in at all. Lore stares into the darkness, widens her eyes, but no sight comes. She concentrates instead on listening for the others in the din. The
twins shifting their small boots on the coals, Liesel’s wheezing cough. Peter cries for a while and then lies still, a reassuring weight on Lore’s chest. She can feel Tomas’s arm against her own, the rough wool of his jacket sleeve brushing her skin with each breath. She turns her face to him, but can see only black. His breath is warm on her chin. Damp with a sour edge. Lore shifts her head gently closer. Tomas stops breathing. She lies still. He starts again.
The boatman insists he can’t take the risk, asks them to leave. He apologizes over and over, unwrapping Mutti’s brooch from his handkerchief. He says at least they are closer now, only half an hour from the border. He can’t stop talking, moving; gives them slices of his wife’s home-baked bread, coals to build a fire.
The children blink in the evening sun, sleepy from the hours spent in the dark, brushing the black dust from their hands and knees. Peter cries and coughs and they say their goodbyes. Lore carries him ahead of the group, furious, kicking the ground as she walks. The day has been wasted, the dark hours unsettling. Tomas is hunched and unwashed in the evening light: she avoids looking at him, doesn’t like to think she was lying so close to him before. They will camp soon, but first she wants to get closer to home. She walks on along the river, following the boatman’s instructions, pressing on to the north.
—Our mother is with the Americans.
Tomas nods. The children lag behind. Lore can feel the stones in the road through her boots.
—It’s a camp. Run by the Americans.
—The Americans.
—It’s not a prison for criminals.
—No.
—Please don’t tell anyone, just in case.
Tomas nods again. They pass through two villages. Beg for food,
are given milk for Peter, hot water to wash with. Lore finds a bright rag to wrap around Liesel’s head, and Tomas shaves. He and Lore walk ahead again.
—I was in a prison.
—When?
—For a long time.
—Will they keep Mutti for a long time?
—I don’t know. I don’t know about American prisons.
—It’s a camp.
They rest briefly in the third village, drinking water from the well. One of Jochen’s soles has worn loose, flapping as he walks. Lore tears a diaper into strips and binds his boot together again. They walk on.
—Were you in a Russian prison?
—No, I was in a German prison. I was moved around. Different prisons. Places they took us to work.
—One of our prisons?
—Yes, until the Americans came.
It is hot again. They are silent for a while, each absorbing what has been said. The sweat runs down Lore’s back under the bundle. Tomas keeps his jacket on. His face is damp under his hat.
—Are you a criminal?
Tomas puts his head to one side, doesn’t answer.
—What did you do?
His jaws work into what looks like a smile.
—Before I went to prison?
Lore shrugs. She doesn’t want to know now. She turns around to look at the children, straggling far behind, knows she has said too much.
—I stole from people. Money. Names, too.
Lore keeps pace with Tomas. She doesn’t speak, hopes he won’t say any more.
—What about your father?
Lore drops back. Tomas keeps walking, doesn’t look around, but he slows down, too. The children’s footsteps are louder now, closer, and Lore can hear Peter’s chatter. She falls into step behind Tomas, watching his heels, keeping a gap between him and the family as they walk.
—If I call you over, don’t say anything, let me talk. I am your brother. Your mother and father are dead. Our mother and father. Just agree with me. We can say we are going to Hamburg this time, but it’s better if I speak. Pretend you don’t understand if they ask you something; I will answer. I am your brother, remember.
Tomas walks ahead to the border control. They stand and wait, watch him talk, gesture, shift, talk. He gets papers out of his pockets, rolls up his sleeves. The soldiers look at them while he speaks, points, shrugs. They give him back his papers. He walks back to the children. He looks at Lore, shakes his head, apologizes. He leads them back down the road the way they came. Once they are out of sight of the checkpoint, they cut across country, parallel with the border.
They keep moving through the evening, along the edges of a forest. When the moon rises, Tomas leads them into the trees. He shows no sign of wanting to stop. Lore loses sight of him, his black suit melting into the thick dark ahead. She calls for him, hurries forward. The children are too tired to hurry with her. Lore strains her eyes for movement in the undergrowth, stops, shouts Tomas’s name again. She stands still, hears twigs cracking, leaves shifting underfoot.
Lore calls, Tomas calls back. They meet in the trees.
They walk back together to find the children and decide to stop for the night. Lore lies next to Peter and lets him cry himself to sleep.
. . .
On the other side of the forest they find railway tracks and follow them. They see no trains all day, but toward evening they find a small railway station. It has been bombed. Rabbits run through the craters; the buildings are shells; but the tracks have been repaired.
There are men gathered on the platform. They are thin, like Tomas. Lore watches as he speaks with them. They have teeth missing and hollow cheeks: heavy wrists and ankles on long, slow limbs. Some of them say they will wait for a train. Others want to try walking over the border. A few have already tried it. They say most of the time you get sent back, but you can be lucky. They say as long as you stick to the roads, you won’t get shot. Peter wakes up and starts crying, Lore stops listening. She goes to sit with the children, helps Jochen retie the rags around his boots.
Tomas hurries over, agitated.
—We’ve come into the Russian zone, over the border. We must have crossed it in the forest. Maybe in the night.
He holds Lore’s arm tight.
—We should go back to the forest. We should go now, keep walking. We can sleep when it gets light, walk on again tomorrow night.
—We can’t walk now, we’ve been walking all day. We can sleep here, Tomas. Please. I don’t want to sleep outside again.
Tomas pulls Lore away from the children, whispers. He is close to her, the brim of his hat pressed against her scalp, but his eyes look away. At the men on the platform, into the trees.
—It’s safer at night, much safer.
—Why can’t we wait for a train?
—We can get over to the British zone through the forest. Stay away from the soldiers.
—But the people said they shoot at you if you go off the road.
—They only meant if you run off the road when you’re crossing. We should just keep away from the soldiers, from the Russians.
—But won’t there be Russians everywhere?
—Not everywhere. We just have to be careful.
—I think we should maybe wait for the train, Tomas.
—You don’t have any papers. Only I have papers and that’s not enough. You can hide in a forest, you can’t hide on a road.
Tomas watches the men on the platform. Lore can see his lashes, a flickering pulse under his skin.
—Are they Russians?
—No, they are Germans, most of them.
—Why do they look like that?
—They were in a prison.
The skin around his eyes is fine, almost blue.
—The same prison as you?
—No. They were soldiers.
His eyes skim her face, look back into the forest.
—Not a word about that, understand?
Lore nods.
—It’s nearly dark.
He lets go of her arm. Lore calls the children, pulls the bundle higher onto her shoulders. They walk on along the tracks, passing the station on their way to the forest. The men lie side by side on the platform, sleeping under the remains of the roof. They make thin, wheezing noises as they breathe, mouths open to the night air. Lore watches them over the dark shape of Tomas’s shoulder. She stares hard at the man nearest her on the platform, his large head all hollows and loose skin. The station roof shields him from the moonlight, and Lore can’t see if his eyes are open or closed.
They are deep in the forest before Tomas lets them lie down. Half in dreams, Lore sees skeleton people crowded in the trees. Roots are limbs, half buried in the ground; twigs are fingers in her hair. She sees the moon above her through the black leaves, feels the tears wet in her ears. She lays Peter against her chest, presses her cold hands against his warm back. He stirs but doesn’t wake, and Lore sleeps.
A train comes to take them across the border. The tickets are in
their schoolbags, folded and refolded so they are soft and brittle. Lore hands them over to the conductor, who makes them lie down in the carriage. The people behind them in the queue lie down on top of them. Lore feels their bones against her skin.
Tomas moves them on before dawn, stopping again when it gets too light. The British zone is somewhere up ahead beyond the trees. Tomas is certain of it, keeps reassuring them as he spreads the oilskins, sits them down. He has found a small gully, thick with bushes: a place to hide until dark. Tomas makes them sit apart from one another, covered by the undergrowth. He walks around the top of the gully, checking to be sure they can’t be seen; unties the rag from Liesel’s head, because the red shows bright through the leaves.
Tomas says, We must be very quiet, all day. And we have to rest, ready for the night. Lore listens to his whispers, watches for the small dark movements in the bushes as he speaks. She can’t see Liesel or the twins, hidden by the dense growth between them. The birches are in full leaf, pale green fluttering in the light breeze. The forest floor is mossy, soft and moist. Peter sleeps on and on against Lore’s shoulder. His eyelids are puffy, gray-yellow, veins showing blue through the skin on his temples. Lore traces the fine line of his cheekbone, strokes his head, feels his scalp tight and dry under her fingers. She tries to remember how long ago she fed him, closing her eyes against the day. Birds sing, crowded high in the trees. She is sleepy. Cool and still. Her skirt soaks up the damp earth. A smell of cooking reaches them through the trees.
Liesel and the twins guess in whispers what it might be. They all agree on meat. Lore tells them be quiet, go to sleep, stomach lurching, saliva flooding painfully in her cheeks. Jochen crawls to her through the bushes, pulls at her clothes with hungry fingers.
Tomas has smelled it, too. He leans forward, head emerging out of the leaves. He turns his face toward the smell, locating the
source; withdraws slightly when the wind blows away the trail, waits for it to return. He moves, climbing past Lore out of the gully. He whispers to her to stay put, stay silent. Wait. She thinks, hopes: Food must be more important than the border now. Lore listens for his footfalls, snapping twigs. Lifts Peter onto her shoulder, follows Tomas up the gully toward the food. Liesel and the twins are close behind her. She can’t see Tomas. Stops, looks around.
Across a clearing there is a house, set back into the trees. Lore can see no people, but smoke rises from the chimney. The clearing is maybe one hundred meters wide. The grass grows in long clumps and the berry bushes are covered in tiny green fruit. Tomas is a dark shape, deep in the forest, making his way slowly to the house.
—There he is!
Jochen points, his voice carries far into the quiet morning. Lore hisses at him to be quiet, makes a grab for his finger. But he is already gone, running through the forest. His shirt flashes gray-white as the sun reaches between the leaves.
Lore sits down on the mossy ground with Liesel and Jüri, pulse thumping in her ears. Tomas will be angry. Minutes pass in the cool leaves. Birds sing overhead. Peter is still asleep in her lap. Liesel shifts next to her, lies down. Lore dozes.
Jochen shouts from across the clearing, then Tomas. Jüri stands up. Lore hears metal and boots, running and branches snapping. Liesel lifts her head, eyelids heavy with sleep. Lore looks through the bushes and sees Jochen running toward them across the clearing. She hears the breath pushed out of his lungs like hiccups. A gun is fired, three, four times.