“I am, too. Let’s have a drink.”
They pause along the promenade at a little blue wagon selling refreshments from beneath a red umbrella reading Bem vindo ao Brasil!
“Coconuts!” Eliska cries. “To eat or to drink?” She pantomimes the difference in hopes that the vendor will understand.
The young Brazilian beneath the umbrella laughs, amused by Eliska’s enthusiam. “Para beber,” he says.
“Do you take francs?” Addy asks, holding up a coin.
The vendor shrugs.
“Beautiful. We’ll take one,” Addy says, and he and Eliska watch in awe as the vendor selects a coconut, lops off its top with a swift swipe of a footlong machete, drops two straws inside, and hands it to them.
“Agua de coco,” he announces triumphantly.
Addy smiles.
“Primeira vez que visita o Brasil?” the vendor asks. To the average passerby, it must appear as if they are on holiday.
“Si, primeira visita,” Addy says, mimicking the vendor’s accent.
“Bem vindos,” the vendor says, grinning.
“Obrigado,” Addy replies.
Eliska holds the coconut as Addy pays. They thank the vendor again before continuing on down the mosaic promenade. Eliska takes the first sip. “Different,” she says after a moment, passing the coconut to Addy.
He holds it with two hands—it’s furry, and heavier than he’d expected. He brings it tentatively to his nose, taking in its delicate, nutty smell, looking up again at the horizon. You would love it here, he thinks, relaying the sentiment across the Atlantic. It is nothing like home, but you would love it. He takes a sip, savoring the strangely milky, subtly sweet, and entirely foreign taste of agua de coco on his tongue.
JULY 30, 1941: The Sikorski-Mayski Agreement, a treaty between the Soviet Union and Poland, is signed in London.
AUGUST 12, 1941: The Soviets grant amnesty to the surviving Polish citizens who have been detained in work camps throughout Siberia, Kazakhstan, and Soviet Asia, on the condition that they fight for the Soviets, now sided with the Allies. Thousands of Poles begin an exodus to Uzbekistan, where they are told an army is being formed under the new commander in chief of the reformed Polish Army (also known as the Polish II Corps), General W?adys?aw Anders. Anders himself has been recently released from two years of confinement in Moscow’s Lubyanka prison.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Genek and Herta
Aktyubinsk, Kazakhstan ~ September 1941
They left their camp three weeks ago in August, almost a year exactly from when they arrived. For Genek and Herta, the journey from Altynay feels in many ways reminiscent of the one that brought them there, except this time, the top doors of their cattle cars are left open, and the ill outnumber the healthy. Two of the cars at the back have been designated sick cars, for the malaria-and typhus-ridden, and in twenty-one days, over a dozen of them have died. Genek, Herta, and Józef have managed to stave off sickness—they wear handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses and keep Józef, now six months old, tucked into his sling on Herta’s breast for as many hours of the day as he’ll tolerate. Starving and sleep deprived, they do their best to remain optimistic—they are no longer prisoners, after all.
“Where are we?” one of the exiles wonders aloud as the train slows to a stop.
“The sign says ‘Ak-ty-ubinsk,’” someone replies.
“Where the hell is Aktyubinsk?”
“Kazakhstan, I believe.”
“Kazakhstan,” Genek whispers as he stands to peer from the cattle car at his surroundings—a land as alien to him as the luxury of a toilet, a clean shirt, a decent meal, a comfortable night’s sleep. The station looks like the others—nondescript, with a long, wooden platform peppered with the occasional wrought-iron gas-burning lantern.
“Anything to see?” Herta asks. She’s seated on the floor, and with Józef asleep in her arms she’s reluctant to move.
“Not much.”
Genek is about to return to his spot beside Herta when something catches his eye. Leaning his head out over the car door, he blinks, and then blinks again. I’ll be damned. Several meters down the platform, two uniformed men roll a cart overflowing with what appears to be freshly baked bread. It’s not the bread, however, that excites him. It’s the white eagle emblems embroidered on the officers’ four-cornered caps. They are Polish soldiers. Poles!
“Herta! You have to see this!”
He helps Herta to her feet and she squeezes in next to him at the door, where half a dozen others have gathered to glimpse what Genek has seen. Sure enough, there are Polish soldiers here in Aktyubinsk. A burst of hope in Genek’s chest. Someone behind him cheers, and in an instant the atmosphere in the train car is electric. The door is unlocked and the exiles pile out, feeling more limber than they have in months.
“One loaf per head,” the two-starred lieutenants call in unmistakable Polish as swarms of bodies, bone-thin, envelop their carts. A second pair of soldiers follows behind pushing a gleaming silver urn inscribed in choppy Cyrillic letters: KOFE. Two years ago, Genek would have turned up his nose at the thought of sipping grain coffee. But today, he can’t think of a more perfect gift. The brew is hot and sweet and, coupled with the still-warm bread, he and Herta drink it down with enthusiasm.
The exiles are brimming with questions. “Why are you here? Is there an army camp here? Are we enlisting now?”
The lieutenants behind the carts shake their heads. “Not here,” they explain. “There are camps in Wrewskoje and in Tashkent. Our job is just to feed you and to make sure you continue on your way south. The whole Polish Army in the USSR is on the move. We’ll reorganize in Central Asia.”
The exiles nod, their faces falling as the train’s whistle sounds. They don’t want to leave. They climb reluctantly back aboard and lean over the tracks as the train pulls away, waving furiously. One of the lieutenants throws up a two-finger Polish salute, igniting a roar amid the exiles, who return the salute en masse, their hearts racing to the clack-clack-clack of the train’s wheels as it picks up speed. Genek wraps an arm around Herta, kisses the top of Józef’s head, and beams, his spirits fueled by the sight of his sharply clad countrymen, by the kofe warming his blood, the bread in his belly, the wind on his face.
—
The bread and coffee at Aktyubinsk station would prove to be the closest thing to a meal they would encounter on their journey. As they clatter on toward Uzbekistan, the exiles go days without eating. Genek and Herta have no concept of when or where the train might stop. When it does stop, those with something to trade or a few coins in their pockets barter with the locals, who flank the tracks with baskets of delicacies in their arms—round loaves of lepyoshka bread, katik yogurt, pumpkin seeds, red onions, and, farther south, sweet melons, watermelons, and dried apricots. Most of the exiles, though, Genek and Herta included, know better than to waste their time looking hungrily at the food they can’t afford—instead, when the train stops, they leap from the cars and line up for the toilet and the water tap—or a kipyatok, as the Uzbeks call it—waiting as the dry, empty remains of semyechki seeds whirl about at their feet, listening intently for the hiss of steam, the first tug of the train’s engine, indicating that their ride is leaving, as it often does, without warning. The moment they hear the train stir, it’s a race to get back to their car, whether or not they’ve had a chance to use the toilet or fill their water buckets. No one wants to be left behind.
—