The truck judders to a stop, throwing Jan to one side. The journey has been short, but uncomfortable. It was impossible to sleep with the noise of the engine and the smell of diesel, and Jan lay on the floor, tossed from side to side as the truck rumbled over the bumpy road. He sits up, grateful that the bruising movement has ceased, and brushes the dust off his clothes. It sticks to his sweaty fingers, and he wipes his hands on his shirt, leaving filthy smears on the red cotton. He has never been so dirty in his life; his mother will be furious with him. He can hear her voice now, her Polish accent stronger, as it always is when she’s annoyed – Look at you Jan, always so dirty. How will I get that shirt clean? – It’s so clear that he looks round to see her, but of course she is not there, and it dawns on him that he might never see her again, that if the Germans killed all the men, they might also have killed the women. Tears sting at the back of his eyes, and he blinks to keep hold of them, but they spill over anyway. Before he can wipe his face, a noise at the door draws his attention and he stills, fearful and wary. Metal scrapes on metal as the bolt is drawn, and when the light and air spill in from outside, Jan knows where he is. The burnt metal smell of the furnace is unmistakeable. This is the town where his father works, worked. No – he mustn’t think of his father now.
Jan uses his heels to press himself back as far as he can; he doesn’t want to leave the truck to go God knows where. He squints past the soldier, who looms in the doorway, to try to make out exactly where he is. The truck has come to a standstill in what seems to be a schoolyard. He can see a school building nearby, much like the one in his village, only bigger. The soldier jerks his head to indicate that Jan should come out. Jan’s knees are shaking; he knows they won’t support him. He whimpers and curls in on himself as the soldier jumps up into the truck and strides towards him. The vehicle pulsates with each step. There’s nowhere for Jan to go; he can’t dodge the soldier’s grasp. Several people stop to watch as he is dragged from the van. A little girl clasps her mother’s hand tight, her mouth shocked open. After a moment or two, her mother pulls her away, but the child continues to stare, her eyes wide and wondering. The woman doesn’t look at him as she hurries away. Jan longs to cry out for help, but he is too frightened; voiceless he stumbles across the yard into the school, the soldier pushing him forwards. The tarmac is sticky beneath his feet; it is a hot day, even hotter than yesterday.
The school gymnasium is full with children and women from his village guarded by a cordon of police. In the centre of the room there is a girl from his class, Karla. Her face is strained, pale. She is looking at him, but something in her eyes tells him that she is not really seeing him. Jan is pushed into the hall and told to sit down. He staggers across the threshold, his legs shaking, unable to take in what he is seeing: a haze of faces, tired and fearful. When he reaches a spot that is clear, he sinks to the straw-covered floor and puts his head in his hands. He doesn’t want to look at anyone, he wishes…
A hissing whisper: “Jan, come here.” He turns in the direction of the sound, sees his sisters and mother beckoning. Their faces are pallid, blurred, as if someone has tried to rub them out. He thinks he’s dreaming; Jan is no longer sure what is real and what is not, and wonders what will happen if he crawls over to be beside them. Perhaps they’ll disappear and he’ll be alone once more. He wants to keep them there, to be able to see them, so he doesn’t move. A few seconds later and his mother is beside him. She grabs his hand and pulls him to her. She has been crying; her round face is crumpled and stained with tears. “Where have you been?” she says in an undertone, looking behind to make sure none of the soldiers or police is watching.
Jan opens his mouth to speak, but no sound comes out. A picture of his father twitching on the ground flickers in his mind, and he retches. He looks down at the floor unable to speak. His mother draws him closer. Jan, who has been too old for cuddles for a year now, and who never offers his mother or his sisters a goodnight kiss, accepts this, leaning his head on her shoulder.
“Let’s join the others. You can tell us later what happened.” They crawl back to his sisters. Lena is asleep, her head using Maria’s lap as a pillow. Maria wavers a smile at him. She is no longer angry with him. It is good to be near his family. Mother strokes his hair, and after a while he is almost lulled into a doze. When he shuts his eyes, though, the vision of his father folding onto the ground appears, and he forces himself awake. He sits up and moves away from the others, frightened that they can see what’s in his head. Mother draws him back towards her. He wants to shake off her arm, but the dull pain in her eyes stops him. Jan tries to speak, but she shushes him.
“Hush, sweetheart. It’s all right. We’re together now.”
It’s not true; papa will never be with them again. How can he tell his mother and his sisters what he witnessed? His mother rocks him in her arms, calming him with the steady motion. He looks round the room at the people there; no men whatsoever, the boys are all young, the oldest is thirteen, maybe fourteen. Everyone is huddled in family groups. Jan wonders if anyone escaped, or whether they managed to get every villager. He can’t understand what is going on, why they chose to do these things to his village.
Maria catches his eye and begins to speak. Her voice is low and flat, lifeless. “We were going to bed when they came. There were three of them,” she says, shuddering. “I thought they were going to kill us.”
Jan gags, puts a hand to his mouth.
“What’s the matter?”
He shakes his head, a tiny movement, all he has energy for. He wants to sleep, for then he can wake up from this nightmare. Maria looks at him for several seconds: he counts, seven, eight, nine… He can’t bear the expression in her eyes, as if she knows exactly what he has seen, and he looks away.
She continues, “They burst into the house… they may have knocked, I’m not sure. There was a lot of noise, but they didn’t wait for us to answer. Mother was half undressed. They wouldn’t let her put anything else on.” He glances at his mother; it’s true, he hadn’t noticed before, she is wearing only her undergarments, the white petticoat grubby with sweat and dirt. Jan blushes for her shame.
Maria falls silent; perhaps she too finds it hard to talk of what she’s seen. Jan’s eyelids droop; he’s exhausted, but too agitated to sleep, too frightened of what he might see in his dreams. He tries to distract himself, gives himself a meaningless task: on what day will his birthday fall this year? His birthday is in November, five months away, but when he thinks of this, his father, whose birthday is a few days after his, comes to mind. A tear runs down his cheek. Mother shakes him, asks why he is crying. He doesn’t answer and, after a few seconds, she carries on with the story that Maria couldn’t finish.
“They dragged us downstairs and made us give them everything of any value. One of them held Lena while I went through our things. He had a gun in his right hand, and he kept staring at me while I brought out all our valuables.” Her lower lips trembles, and her voice shakes as she goes on. “It was horrible. He was smirking, and the whole time he stroked the trigger with his finger. “I thought if I gave them what they wanted they’d go away. I gave them everything, even my wedding ring, but it was pointless.” His mother pulls him closer. “When I took out the secret brick, you know, the one in the fireplace, I thought, that’s it, they’ll go now. All our money was there, and some jewellery that was my mother’s. But they didn’t. They took us outside where everyone was being gathered. The street was full of trucks and soldiers. Dozens of them. There seemed to be more of them than us.” Her eyes are full of tears. “They took the men away… I… I don’t know where, and put the women and children into the trucks and brought us here. God knows how long ago that was, but it was very early this morning, just after dawn.” She stops speaking and pushes a fist into her stomach. “They’ve given us nothing to eat, only some water. I’m so hungry.” She squeezes his arm. “And you, I didn’t know where you were. You must be starving.”
Jan shakes his head. Lena stirs, and Maria rocks her gently. It’s better if she doesn’t wake up. He wonders if he can speak, and opens his mouth to try, but the only sound that comes is a croak.
The day drags on. There are well over two hundred women and children in the hall, maybe as many as three hundred. All of them are tired and frightened. Every so often, some of them are allowed to go to the toilet. The smell is overpowering; a mixture of unwashed bodies, piss and shit. Jan watches as a toddler pulls at her sodden nappy until it falls to the ground. The child’s mother sits nearby, looking on, but she does nothing. Her eyes are dead, as lifeless as the coal that lies in slag heaps near the mines. One of the other women picks up the nappy by the tips of her fingers and takes it over to a growing pile of dirty clothes. The child’s mother turns away as the infant pulls at her dress. Jan hears someone say that the woman’s husband was badly beaten by the soldiers: “He couldn’t have lived after the beating he took.” But no one does anything to comfort her.
Late in the afternoon, soup is brought in, a hellish grey brew. It stinks as if made from bad meat. Most people eat it holding their noses so they don’t have to smell it. Jan won’t touch it, even though his mother begs him to eat. He can’t bear the thought of food. When night falls, they lie down on the straw and try to rest, but the air is tense with fear and crackles with the cries of babies too hungry to sleep. Jan lies awake in the darkness listening to his mother sob. He hasn’t told her what he saw, but Maria whispers that they heard shots from the direction of the farm, did he know what they were. He pretends not to hear.
Another day passes. Everyone is fearful, tight with anxiety. Lena sucks her thumb so fiercely that it worries her mother. She plays finger games with Lena to distract her, and encourages Jan and Maria to join in. For a brief half hour they almost forget their predicament until one of the women tries to speak to a soldier in German. He ignores her, stands aloof, his head turned away from her. When she persists, he hits her with the butt of his rifle, and she falls down. No one moves. Five, ten minutes pass. To Jan’s horror, his mother struggles to her feet and walks towards the woman, her hands in the air as a gesture of surrender. He tenses, waiting for her too to be felled. She leans over the woman and wipes the blood from her face. Jan closes his eyes. He hears his mother speak: “I would like some water.” Surely now someone will hit her. But no, his mother is walking towards the door accompanied by a soldier. In a moment she returns with a bowl. Everyone in the room watches as she washes the woman’s head, then tears a strip from her petticoat to make a bandage. The soldiers look on also, leaning on their rifles. She finishes what she is doing and returns to her children.
Two more hours go by. It’s almost dark, nearly two days since they were taken away from their homes. They haven’t had any food since lunchtime. Jan is troubled, whispers to his mother: “What do you think will happen to us?” She strokes his hair, smiles down at him. “We’ll be fine as long as we’re together.” She doesn’t mention father. Jan thinks she knows something’s wrong, but he isn’t going to say anything about what happened. He can’t.
“Jan, where were you that night?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know, up at the farm.”
“I thought you were dead.” A tear runs down her face. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
“I’m sorry, I was angry because I thought you were taking Maria’s side. I just wanted to run away.”
“Silly boy.” She hugs him, and they sit silently for a moment. She takes a deep breath and asks what he has been dreading. “Was it Horak’s farm? Someone said that’s where they took the men. Did you see what happened to them? Did you see your father?”
Jan bows his head; she puts her finger under his chin and forces him to look at her. “Jan?”
He has to tell her. There is no possibility of lying about this. Jan opens his mouth, but before he can speak, an officer enters the room. His uniform is different, smarter than the others, and he looks stern, like their teacher does when something goes missing from the classroom, or when one of the younger children piddles on the floor. The man stands in the centre of the room, waiting. The women and the older children fall silent, don’t move, but the little ones are too small to take heed, and they carry on with what they are doing: rolling up little bunches of straw and throwing them aside, chewing at the hems of their dresses and shorts, sucking their thumbs.
“Women, stand.”
Uneasy glances dart from woman to woman. No one moves, and the soldier raises his voice. “Now! Stand.” Slowly they get up from the floor.
“Line up here.” The officer points to the door.
One woman bends to lift her baby.
“Leave it.”
She ignores him and takes the child in her arms. The officer mutters in German, and two privates march over. One of them seizes the baby from her while the other one holds her. Both mother and child wail. The taller of the soldiers strikes the woman with the back of his hand, and she falls, her arms outstretched towards her disappearing child.
The officer says in a firm voice, “You will leave the children here.” Chaos breaks out as he says this, and there are screams from some of the women. Jan clutches his mother’s leg.
“Quiet, or we will shoot.”
One of the women shouts that they can’t do this, and a few more raise their voices in agreement, but they are silenced a second later by the soldier firing his gun into the ceiling. Some plaster falls down and hits a small child on the head. She is only a toddler and starts to cry, but when her mother moves towards her, one of the soldiers steps in between them and points his rifle at the child, gesturing with his head for the woman to leave. The woman looks at him in horror and goes to stand at the door. There is no doubt the soldiers mean what they say.
Mother hugs them to her, kissing them hard. Jan thinks it would be better to be shot than lose her too. He is torn now about what to tell her about papa; it seems so hard that his last words to her should be ones of sorrow and pain. But before he can decide what to do, she is gone, pulled from them by a soldier who is just a boy. Maria gathers him and Lena to her. Her body shakes with sobs, and awkwardly he pats her arm.
They fall into an agitated sleep, which does nothing to revive them. Jan wakes several times and sees that Maria too lies with her eyes open. At dawn the soldiers shout to them to get up. One child, a little boy of maybe three, howls, and this starts off many of the others. Jan tenses. After what he has seen, nothing would surprise him, and he’s terrified of being shot. He grasps his sisters’ hands and wills them to do nothing to draw attention to themselves. They sense his urgency, and they stand motionless beside him. The officer tells the children to line up, and they do as they’re told, the older ones trying to comfort the babies and toddlers. Jan prays they won’t separate the boys from the girls. He cannot bear any more pain. He has to stay with his sisters. Once they are in lines, the officer orders the doors to be opened. Jan breathes in deeply. The metallic fumes catch in his throat, but they are perfume compared to the stink inside the school. For a moment he allows himself hope: they are going to be set free, their mother will be waiting outside for them, they will be sent home. It will be terrible to have to tell her about father, but he will find the strength somehow. When he reaches the door and sees the three trucks waiting for them, he almost breaks down. Maria grabs his hand, and he squeezes it wondering how he could ever have thought her a nuisance. She smiles at him. “We’ll be all right, you’ll see. As long as we’re together.” Jan nods, but wonders whether they will be together for long.
They are bundled into the trucks, about thirty children in each. There are no seats, and they have to sit on the floor, which is filthy. Jan takes Lena on his knee so she doesn’t have to sit in the muck. As they travel along the road the truck sways and bumps, and some of the children are sick. Lena pukes all over her nightdress. She starts to cry. It is her favourite, mother made it for her only a few weeks ago. It’s white cotton with tiny sprigged roses on it, all of them pink. Maria tries to comfort her as she wipes the sick away with her hand.
“Never mind. It’ll wash out.”
Lena bites her lip. Maria hugs her tight and looks across at Jan. “I’m sorry about what happened the other day… that I teased you.”
The scratches he made on her face are still livid. Jan cannot believe he lost his temper over something so stupid. He shrugs and says he’s sorry too. Maria holds out her hand to him, and he takes it, twining his fingers through hers.
“I wonder where Josef and Frantisek are.”
Jan doesn’t answer. He wants to forget he saw them in a row of ten, their faces bleached with fear as they waited for the shots that would kill them.
He must have fallen asleep. The truck stops and, unprepared, he is thrown forwards, bumping his head on that of a boy two years or so older than him, Frantisek’s younger brother, Antonin. They’re all bullies in that family. He makes a threatening gesture, and Jan apologizes. There’s no point in making a stand when he has to save all his energy for what’s ahead. With a sneer the boy backs off. When he’s sure he can’t be seen, Jan sticks his tongue out. Maria giggles before she can help herself, but when she remembers what is happening she covers her mouth with her hand, her face sad once more.
Now the trucks have stopped, they can hear the sounds of a town: traffic, a dog barking, a train hooting in the distance. The doors open, and the children are told to get out. The four children at the front are reluctant to move and have to be pulled out by a rough soldier, who whacks each of them on the head. No one needs a second telling; the rest of the truck empties within seconds onto a railway platform. Jan looks around him. “Where are we, do you think?” he asks Maria.
“I don’t know, Prague maybe.”
Jan nods his head. “Yes it might be. Can you see a sign anywhere?” They both look around, but there is nothing to see except the train in front of them and, a few yards away, a group of women, hard-faced and unsmiling. They walk over to greet the soldiers. One of the soldiers counts the children, and a few minutes later, after some signing of papers, he and the other men leave and the women take over. They line the children up in twos and march them to the other side of the station. Although he tries hard, Jan sees no signs, and he is too scared to shout out to the few civilians they do see. Five minutes later a train steams in, and the children are shoved into one of the carriages. The seats are hard wooden benches, and there aren’t enough for everyone. Jan and his sisters are squashed into a corner, against a window. It’s uncomfortable, but at least they are together.
Jan drifts in and out of sleep on the journey. It goes on for hours; they pass through towns and countryside, none of it familiar. Day turns into night, and all that can be seen is an occasional light in the distance. The children are all weak with hunger for they have been given nothing to eat, not even a slice of bread. One of the little ones, a toddler, starts to cry, quickly becoming inconsolable. As she weeps, the women, who are guarding them, watch unmoved.
“What happened to the men, Jan, to father?” Maria’s voice is so quiet he is not sure he has heard right. He doesn’t answer, but leans against the window, feeling the smooth coolness of the glass on his face.
“Did you hear me?” Insistent.
He shrugs. “I don’t know.” He won’t meet her eyes. Jan is sure she knows he’s lying, but he doesn’t want to speak about it. He can’t, not yet.
“I heard shots. We all did. Are they dead?”
Jan sighs, but before he can say anything, one of the women comes over to him and slaps his face. In a strong German accent she tells him to be quiet. Although his face hurts badly from the slap, Jan is glad to have an excuse not to talk. He saw the glint of tears in Maria’s eyes.
It is still dark when they reach their destination. The children are dragged out into the open air, which is sweet-smelling and fresh after the mustiness of the train. An owl hoots, making Lena jump. Jan cuddles her and whispers that everything will be fine. He can make out the dark shapes of trees against the blackness of the night. Something flies past, brushes his hair, and he gives a little cry of fear. A bat, he’d swear to it. The women order them into lines, and they are marched a short way to a large building. It’s like a factory, Jan thinks when he sees it. Inside it is sparsely furnished; they are taken to a huge room with beds lined up in rows against the walls.
After a short wait, they are given some dry bread to eat. There is almost a riot as it is thrown at them in a random fashion. Jan manages to grab two loaves, enough for the three of them, and he thinks he will try to save some for later as there’s no way of knowing how long it will be before they eat again. With great care, he divides each loaf into three and hands the girls two pieces each. He eats his first piece very slowly, chewing each mouthful thirty times like he used to hear his grandmother say. The bread is poor quality and stale, and turns into a glutinous mass in his mouth. The other piece is in his pocket, and he touches it, making sure it is there, his safety net for later. Although it is not nearly enough to fill his belly, the small amount of nourishment makes him feel better.
Some of the beds in the room are already occupied. Although the new arrivals make a lot of noise – the younger children are clamouring for more food, one of the babies is crying – the bodies in the beds don’t move. Jan has a terrible thought that there are corpses under the grey blankets, and he stares at the nearest shape hoping it will move. For several seconds nothing, then an almost imperceptible twitch at the foot of the bed. Not corpses after all, just more children like them.
When the children have finished their poor supper, one of the women shouts at them to undress. Jan realizes he has to eat the bread or lose it, so he forces it down, though he would rather keep it for later. Once the children are naked, three of the women take them to a room with showers and tell them to wash. They have to stand in long queues for the showers can only take about ten people at a time. The water is cold, and some of the children dash in and out, taking only a couple of seconds, but Jan lingers as long as he can. The water is like needles piercing his skin, but he relishes it. It will make him clean. He grabs the small bar of soap and scrubs himself all over, digging his nails into his skin and scraping the dirt away. He’s last in the shower, and a woman comes and shouts at him in German. Jan blushes at being seen naked, runs back to the dormitory out of her sight.
He waits with the others, teeth chattering uncontrollably, hoping for a towel. Like the other children, Jan stands with his hands over his genitals. None of them look at each other, thank God. It has been years since he has seen either of his sisters naked, and he doesn’t want to embarrass them. There’s no sign of their clothes, but Jan doesn’t care. His shorts were stinking, and he doesn’t want to put them on again, now he’s clean. The woman shouts again and points at the beds, indicating they should get into them. There is a scramble as children from the same family try to get beds close to each other. Jan doesn’t manage to stay beside Maria and Lena, but has to go over to the other side of the room. As he climbs into bed, he waves at them, tries to smile, but his mouth wobbles.
The evening is warm, and in spite of being damp from the shower, Jan soon heats up. He lies in bed trying to make out what is around him. The ceiling is high, and there is little light; he has to give up. All will be revealed in the morning. Jan is frightened to close his eyes, scared of what he will see, but he is worn out, and his eyelids droop and close. Within seconds he is sleeping.