THE MINING CAMP was further up the valley and so they followed the main road that led along the side of the reservoir, walking away from the dam. The guards soon fell back and began to talk in low voices amongst themselves.
‘What do you think?’
Joanna’s question was barely a whisper, but Agneta heard it clearly enough. It was the same question she was asking herself.
‘I don’t know.’
‘They gave us food.’
‘That could mean nothing. A trick.’
‘Who wastes food? It must mean something.’
‘Brandt might have been responsible for it. Maybe he persuaded the SS. I don’t know.’
‘Quiet,’ one of the SS men said loudly from almost next to them. Had he overheard their conversation? Joanna moved slowly in one direction and Agneta moved in the other until they were soon a couple of metres apart and no longer capable of discussion. It had been foolish. She should have ignored Joanna.
‘Don’t worry,’ the SS man said in a quiet voice. ‘You’re going to be taken care of.’
He spoke in German, but his accent was thick and she couldn’t be certain if the ambiguity was deliberate. She risked a sideways glance – but she couldn’t see his face clearly in the evening gloom.
They were walking alongside German refugees – mostly women, like them. She felt their eyes on them – the five prisoners walking in front of the SS men – their striped prison caps, the dirty quilted jackets, the striped prison trousers and their battered wooden clogs, the rags that bound their feet inside them already wet and cold. She couldn’t help herself – she couldn’t stop the hatred she felt for them almost overwhelming her. She had nothing to be ashamed of, no matter what they might think. It was them, the fat women in the wagons, the plump children who sat beside them – they were the ones who should feel shame. Their silence had brought them to this. Nothing she had done.
Somewhere up ahead there was the sound of a pistol shot followed a few moments later by another. The guard who was walking beside them unslung his rifle. Another SS man came forward and joined the one who now carried his rifle under his arm, his gloved finger inside the trigger guard. They lifted themselves onto the toes of their boots, straining to look over the refugees towards where the sound of gunfire had come from. Soon they were fifty metres ahead and extending their lead.
‘Close together, close together,’ a guard said from behind them. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’
There was a shout from ahead. A man’s voice. The two SS guards who had gone on ahead had stopped, their rifles held at the ready. There was a commotion of some sort and Agneta heard the sound of a woman screaming – not in fear, but in grief. The SS men seemed to relax and waved them forward.
They found a group of men standing beside a bonfire, their hands held up in the air. A youngster, his narrow face poking out from his greatcoat collar, watched over them. The boy’s expression was hard to read in the flickering firelight, but she’d the sense that he was on the point of tears. The men stood still, their mouths open as if about to speak – their faces red in the fire’s glow, their cheeks hollow and their eyes black.
A body lay on the ground behind the boy with the rifle – a dead man lying on his side as if asleep, blood turning the snow around him a wet pink. A woman in a black overcoat knelt beside him, cradling his head in her hands, her face wet with tears. The mayor stood above her, replacing his pistol into its holster. His expression as he looked down at the body suggested that things had taken an unexpected turn which he couldn’t quite explain.
If the mayor saw the prisoners and their SS guards he didn’t acknowledge them, and they kept on walking. Agneta saw the silver edge of an Iron Cross on the dead man’s chest – perhaps he had thought it would protect him. On the other side of the road, the refugees avoided looking at the woman or the dead man in her arms, or the mayor, or the men beside the bonfire. As for the SS and the prisoners, they might have been ghosts. The guards spoke amongst themselves in their own language. Their dark, dry laughter sounded like a commentary.
‘Will we spend the night at the mining camp?’ Rachel whispered when they had passed through the checkpoint. ‘Or will they march us out straight away?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Here,’ the guard who’d told them not to worry called from up ahead. He stood where a narrow lane led off to the left.
‘Two hundred metres in,’ Adamik spoke in a low voice, in German, as if quoting someone. Agneta could hear the tension in his voice. When the guards reached the lane they stood for a moment in a half circle.
‘Well,’ Adamik said, unslinging his rifle from his shoulder – the other SS following suit. ‘Let’s be careful how we do this.’
Agneta caught the sympathetic gaze of a pretty girl – about fifteen years old – on a passing wagon. She discounted it. If it wasn’t false, it was futile. The girl could do nothing. She would only watch while the SS took them into the trees. She might cry if she heard shots but she would do – could do – nothing to help them. Agneta held the girl’s gaze until one of the guards pushed her towards the laneway with his rifle. She wanted her to remember the moment, at least.
The wooden clogs on her feet had never felt so heavy – each step like walking through mud. The snow seemed to be sucking at her, pulling her down into the earth. She knew she must run, that the SS would shoot them now, but whatever waited for them along the narrow lane was like a magnet that couldn’t be resisted. She was cold and tired. Beside her Joanna was whispering. She tried to hear her but the thud, thud, thud of her heart was all that filled her ears. It was hard to breathe – the cold air was thick in her mouth.
Milky moonlight broke through the trees and she saw that the Bible students, three paces in front of her, were holding each other’s hands. Without thinking, she reached out for Joanna, finding her elbow and following her forearm down until their fingers interlinked – taking solace from the fierce strength of her grip. She reached out for Rachel on her other side and clasped her narrow hand tight. They walked along the lane, the three of them, like little girls afraid of the dark – the only noise the sound of their clogs squeaking into fresh snow.
Adamik stopped, holding up his hand for them to stay where they were. He walked on, slowly – a hunter’s considered advance – careful how he placed his feet. He stopped again, listening for a moment, before motioning them to follow. Now they could see how the road widened and how the forest had been cleared around a weathered shrine, its wooden-tiled peaked roof, sagging with age, carrying a cross. Perhaps there was a graveyard there. Perhaps their grave was already dug.
‘There it is,’ one of the Ukrainians said.
Adamik turned, gesturing them to follow him. He was more confident now.
‘Quickly,’ a guard said, so close behind Agneta that she braced herself for a blow. She shuffled forward, still holding on to the others’ hands, her mind too full to think. No blow fell.
She could hear Katerina reciting a prayer. ‘Into the Valley of Death,’ Katerina was whispering and Agneta wanted to stop and shout at everyone. The whole situation was beyond ridiculous. Why couldn’t they all just go home? Why did any of this have to happen?
‘Can you see it?’
A guard’s voice – anxious.
‘Behind the chapel, he said. It’s quiet here, he chose well.’
Agneta felt as if someone else walked the short distance towards the clearing. As though she watched the women from a distance, like they were actors in a play – their movements delicate, considered, full of meaning. The sensation was so real that she began to doubt herself. Perhaps this was all a dream. Perhaps she could wake up from it.
They turned the chapel’s corner. There was no graveyard. No half-dug trench. There was only a wagon and a horse, its head bowed. It snorted.
A cough, from the darkness. ‘You’re late.’
There was the flash of a match that illuminated a man’s face and the cigarette that hung from his thin, twisted mouth.
Brandt.