39

Train Rails through Switzerland and France

January 30–February 8, 1945

“Hello, are you okay?” came a voice.

I turned around and looked up into a round face grooved with worry: a woman about Mutti’s age, but well-fed and well-dressed. Not fat or fancy, but definitely not from Bergen-Belsen.

“Yes,” I said. She looked kind enough to ignore. I turned back to watching the railroad ties flash by.

“Mmm. I’m Mrs. Eisenberg. What’s your name?”

“Irene Hasenberg.”

“You’re from Bergen-Belsen.”

I nodded.

“Oh my,” she sighed behind me. “I’m from New York. I’ve spent the last two years trapped in Germany, in Biberach. I do so hope 1945 will be a better year than the ones before it. The month of January always does give one hope. Where’s your family?”

“Not here.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed. I mean with so much loss….”

“We left my father, I mean his body, in Biberach….”

“I am so sorry. Where you are headed?”

“Don’t know. My mother is back in Switzerland…she is very sick, she has been sick for so long and nobody really knows what it is; she might die like my father…my brother….”

And then I blurted my story, still unfolding, my words scattering everywhere as if I had spilled something.

“Irene, I’m alone, too,” she said. “I can take care of you.”

My eyes felt very heavy.

“I can take you to America. I promise.”

Taking my hand, she brought me back to her compartment, where she pulled me onto her lap and held me. A knock on the door delivered more Red Cross rations. I pulled aside the strings that held the brown box together. Small tin cans and a small can opener fell out. I opened and ate pudding, rice, and fish. I stared at the chocolate bar. Was the old Droste still hidden atop our cupboard back in Amsterdam, collecting dust? Then I just stared into the corner.

At some point in the afternoon, Mrs. Eisenberg left. She returned after a brief period, dabbing her eyes. She sat down next to me and held both my hands in hers.

“Irene, I am so sorry,” she said. “I can’t take you to America. Without a US passport or other documents, they aren’t letting people in. I should not have promised. I did find out that you are going to Africa.”

The next few days felt torn from somebody else’s tale, and from a book I couldn’t follow because I couldn’t concentrate, my thoughts ricocheting down anguished corridors of dread.

We arrived in Marseilles, and somehow ended up at the port. The largest ship was a white passenger ship held fast to the wharf ropes as thick as tree trunks. The sides were painted in tall letters spelling “Gripsholm” and “Sverige,” and with the Swedish flag. Gold and blue stripes ran up and down the ship. The Gripsholm was preparing to take Mrs. Eisenberg and others back to America.

We spent two days on a floating hospital ship before being split into two groups. I found myself in the smaller one. The bigger group was, like Mrs. Eisenberg, going to depart on the Gripsholm. She hugged me and then made her way up the gangplank with a wave.

My group walked to another wharf and onto the Citta di Alessandria, a dumpy, dirty Italian freighter. I ran my hand up the railing as we boarded, my palm turning red with rust. A man in a stained white uniform told us we were heading to Algeria, but not a word was said about why, what for, or for how long.

Beds lined the walls of the long room, their sheets and blankets tucked taut, their mattresses encased within low wooden walls, which, according to the pantomime of an Italian sailor, would keep us from falling out in rough seas. With his hands in a fist under his tilted head, the sailor rocked his body back and forth, then twirled his hands in the air, lower and lower until he spread out his fingers near the floor. Splat. He repeated the gestures until I nodded that I understood. With a satisfied smile, he tapped his white cap before backing away.

“Wait,” I called. “When do we eat?” I pretended to put something in my mouth, then pointed to his watch, which he held up in front of my face, pointing to the twelve with his right finger. Noon.

“Now? Can I eat now?” I poked at the nine and the six on his watch face, the current time.

He shook his head while making a pout and departing with a shrug.

So I sat on a top bunk, my belongings a small mountain on the floor. The room was stuffy and smelled musty with a far-off whiff of oil. My eyes fluttered. I fell back on the gray blanket, leaning to one side so I didn’t hit my head against the wall.

My stomach growled. I was already famished, though it had not been very long since breakfast. I could hear people mulling about. I kept my eyes closed. I should do something, I thought faintly.

You’re waiting for lunch. That’s good enough.

I didn’t want to move. Not for a thousand years, unless it was to join Mutti and Werner, or to eat. My heart and soul had thrown everything else off the lifeboat, so to speak.

Long ago when I had gone to school, Miss Pino had taught my class that the heart is a muscle. She had flexed her fist for emphasis. She had talked about the importance of exercise, of building strong muscles including the heart, but not to overdo it and pull something. My heart was pulled, ripped. It was trapped now, beating on my ribs like a hurt and frightened animal. Thump. Thump. Thump.

I heard a familiar voice and opened my eyes.

It was stout Mrs. Abraham, her smooth, dark hair pulled back from her high forehead. I hadn’t seen her since we had left Pappi’s wrapped body on the train station platform, when Werner and I were eating, and her husband chastised us: How can you eat when your father has just died? I turned my head to see if Mr. Abraham was here too, but there were only her two children, Hans and Ruth, behind her, and the pantomiming sailor. Behind them more people who must have been prisoners like me—judging by their clothes and skinny bodies—found their bunks and collapsed onto them.

I greeted Mrs. Abraham, but I didn’t want to talk. She looked at me like I was something she had lost a long time ago and had just found.

She had the same look that Mrs. Eisenberg had had: concerned. Was she going to make promises, too, that she couldn’t keep?

“We need to tidy up,” she directed at no one in particular.

When I didn’t move, she repeated herself two more times. Finally, I descended, hung my jacket on the hook on the door, and put my bag under the bunk. I climbed back up and balanced a photo of my parents on my bunk shelf—Mutti was as tall as Pappi in her heels. Then I opened Pappi’s razor kit with its long-gone scent of sandalwood shaving soap. As if in a trance, I folded my pink blanket and placed it at the foot of the bunk, flattening out all the folds and picking out slivers of straw nestled in the fibers—remnants of Bergen-Belsen.

Mrs. Abraham murmured something to her kids and left.

My hand continued flowing over my blanket; I mindlessly smoothed out every imperfection.

As I slipped between the taut, cold sheets, someone loosened the porthole window, swinging it open. I fell asleep to the sounds of seagulls, a distant laugh, the sea smell, a breeze across my neck, and finally the image of Pappi in his gray pinstripe suit. He was reclining in a large green-and-white striped beach chair with a drooping hood that offered protection from sand and sun. He was smiling, his hair parted like a fold and slicked back, his right leg thrown over the left. He had come directly from the office to see us, not even bothering to change into his bathing suit. He wanted to be with us that badly. In my dream, I started to come up from the surf where I was playing, but was bogged down by swirling sands that buried my feet. The hem of my short dress was wet and heavy, my legs were tugged forward and backward by the currents, my feet locked in the sand. A force so much bigger than me was pushing me around in every direction except toward Pappi.

I awoke startled and panting, my emptiness and hunger having returned. And I was shivering. I closed the porthole window and descended to the lower decks and followed some people to dinner.

We sat at wooden tables that had raised edges to keep the sliding dishes from flying off. Splat. As Mr. Abraham sat next to me, I stiffened, waiting for a rebuke of some sort. The kitchen door swung open with a bang—I jolted—as sailors strolled in with platters of hamburgers. I gazed at the pile of greasy miracles in the center of our table. Even the rolls glistened. I only started eating after Mr. Abraham took his first bite.

I tried to make Mutti proud and eat slowly, but I couldn’t. Like a wolf, I pushed in the food, taking messy bites before I had gulped the last, juices streaming down my chin that I didn’t bother wiping until the sandwich was gone. I inhaled water to force down the last choking chunk before grabbing another burger, and then the empty platter was swept off and another full one took its place.

“This’ll put fat on your bones,” Mr. Abraham said, and commanded, “Keep eating!”

As when we were on the train leaving Bergen-Belsen, my stomach was suddenly so big I couldn’t breathe. Barely excusing myself, I bolted topside, my hand holding my belly as if it were a dike trying to hold back a spring flood. On deck, I stretched out, my back to a wall, and looked at Marseilles and the silhouette of the church on the hill backlit by a deepening purple sky.

Light fell across the deck as a door opened and a cook came outside, his white apron stained brown, a cigarette clinging lightly to his lips. He carried a large steel bucket that pulled his body to one side.

“Buonasera,” he greeted me, making his cigarette bob.

At the railing, he lifted the bucket with a grunt and let dozens upon dozens of hamburgers splash into the sea. More meat than I had seen in two years. Enough to keep all of us healthy; enough to have saved Pappi. All that cooking, wasted. I got up and ran to the railing. This time I threw up over the side. The cook laughed, his cigarette falling to the deck where he ground out the orange glow with his heel.

“You sick already? The ship still in port. No big waves yet!”

Late the next morning I awoke to thrumming engines. The sea was glass-smooth. It was almost February, but it was warm, and I freed myself from my brown, frayed sweater once I was on deck. It hung in my hand looking filthy and grotesque, like a dead animal. I wanted to hurl it overboard, but knew better, because I didn’t know where I would end up.

“Hi, Reni.” It was Lex Roseboom. “Warm, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, I saw you take off your sweater.”

“It’s gross.”

“It’s not so bad.”

I didn’t say anything, so he cleared his throat and went on. “I’m sorry about your father. He was a great man. I mean, my dad says he was.”

I fingered my sweater, continuing my silence.

Lex said, “Look, I just wanted to say that. That I’m sorry.”

“Okay.” I managed to say.

“That’s it. See you around.”

My mood didn’t change. At lunch I kept my head down, creating the shortest distance between the food and my mouth. Even after three helpings of potatoes, I was scraping the empty platter with my spoon.

The crewman collecting the platters tapped my shoulder. “If you come to the kitchen, there is more,” he said in simple German. He had a pointy nose and chin, and heavy eyebrows.

“My name is Francesco.”

“Reni.”

I followed him. The relative calm of the dining hall disappeared in the din of the kitchen where men in white pants, t-shirts, coats, and hats were pivoting and maneuvering around each other, all the while swinging plates, cleavers, boiling pots, and huge sides of meat. Every movement seemed a preamble to disaster, only to be averted by inches. It was as smooth as a Shirley Temple dance scene. Francesco guided me to trays and trays of cut meats, eggs, fried potatoes, and loaves of bread.

“Eat.”

I hesitated, remembering back to the camp. Food was power. What if he wanted something from me in return, like some of the guards at Bergen-Belsen wanted from girls?

“I’m full,” I said, “I need to go.”

“Really? But you look so hungry? It’s okay,” Francesco said, “nobody will hurt you. You eat what you want and we go back.”

A jacketed, high-capped cook came over, looking at Francesco from over the top of his glasses. They talked, hands moving until the cook smiled, nodded, and extended his open hand to the feast. Once I started eating I couldn’t stop. He started to ask questions, but I wasn’t sure if he was directing them at me since he seemed to be talking to himself. How did I get so skinny? Where was I from? I didn’t respond because I didn’t want to. I met his eyes after each question, but kept chewing, the food devouring my thoughts and feelings.