She shook her head, barely able to speak. “Our poor Lietuva,” she whispered. “We shall never see her again. Hurry child, keep moving.” She patted my arm and walked off.
What was she talking about? The war would end. We would all go home.
Wouldn’t we?
? ? ?
The temperature plunged well below zero. I thought of the warm fire back at the estate and the cold bodies upstairs in the beds. As we left the property I had taken one last look. I couldn’t shake the image of the upstairs corner window, pierced with a bullet hole and covered in blood. Zarah Leander’s voice lived in my head, whispering the words, It’s not the end of the world.
I hoped she was right.
The wandering boy and the shoe poet marched in front of our cart. Poet entertained the boy by assigning shoe types.
“That one there, he has narrow feet. We would put him in an oxford. But that man, the one with the short boots, he’ll have a heel bruise within the next kilometer. We’d put him in a loafer, to be sure. You know, Klaus, if you can’t get a fingerprint, you would do just as well to get a foot draft from a man’s shoemaker. It will tell you more than an identity card.”
I stood next to Ingrid, whose eyes were bandaged. She insisted on walking and gripped the rope that hung behind the wagon. Emilia sat nestled in heaps of bundles on the back of our cart, her pink hat a blink of color among the endless blacks and grays. Emilia’s eyes stayed fixed on the German boy who walked behind me, his cap pulled low over his eyes. I slowed my step and allowed him to catch up to me.
“Ingrid thinks we’ll reach the ice tomorrow. She smells the coast,” I told him.
“We should try to reach the ice tonight,” he replied.
“Everyone will be exhausted and it will be too dark. We won’t see a thing.”
“Exactly. If it’s dark, the Russians won’t be able to see us. We’ll be open targets during the day. Sort of like we are now,” he said.
I hadn’t thought of that.
“The ice will be stronger at night, when it’s colder,” he whispered. “Look at all these people. When they march across the ice, it will weaken it. They shouldn’t be carrying so much baggage.”
“It’s precious to them; it’s all they have left. Just like that pack of yours. It seems pretty important to you.”
He said nothing.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“I’m fine.”
We trudged on in silence. I stared down at the icy road.
His breath was suddenly close. “The girl. She doesn’t have papers.”
Papers.
He was right. Emilia had no identity card. I had forgotten that. Germany required all civilians to legally register and carry documentation that contained our name, photograph, nationality, race, birth, and family details. The regime then assigned identifiers on the cover of the cards. My identity card said Resettler, indicating that Germany had allowed me to repatriate from Lithuania. We were required to show our identification to any official or soldier who requested it. Our papers determined our fate.
I looked up at her, balanced in the bundles. She smiled and gave me a small wave.
Emilia had no papers.
No papers, no future.
emilia
It was nice to sit in the wagon, but it felt unfair that I got to ride while the others had to walk. From my place in the cart I could see a long string of dark coats, farm carts, animals, and sleds behind us. The line snaked far back, until the people were just tiny specks.
Joana walked alongside the knight, her pretty brown curls peeking out from beneath her hat. He wouldn’t look at her when she spoke. But whenever she looked away, his eyes quickly shifted to her.
He wanted to tell her things.
She hoped he would tell her things.
But he would not.
I could feel the blackberry seeds still stuck in my teeth from the preserves he had given me. Blackberries and black currants reminded me of Father. When I was a tiny girl, he would send me out to the bushes on the edge of our property with a small tin pail to collect them. Each time I returned with a full bucket he greeted me with hugs and smiles. There were no hugs or smiles on the farm he sent me to in East Prussia. There were stables, cowsheds, a piggery, a chicken house, and two large barns with haylofts. And then there was the cold storage cellar, standing quiet, alone behind the barn. Steps led down into the dark underground room. That’s where I would take the beetroots, turnips, dried mushrooms, and barrels of soured cabbage. I blinked and rubbed my eyes.
My stomach twitched. It used to feel like a butterfly flapping or big bubbles popping in there. But now, when I put my hand on my stomach, I could feel a bumping against my palm. That bumping. It grew stronger.
florian
Dawn became day and soon became afternoon. We traveled faster knowing evacuation was permitted.