Devastation Road (4 page)

He pulled out the pistol. ‘Who’s there?’

Then, in German: ‘
Wer ist da?
’

He held still but all he could hear in the darkness was the nervous fidget of birds.

He did not sleep but lay for hours, shivering and surrounded by the sounds of the forest. He squeezed his hands into his armpits once more and pulled his knees in tight, the
ground growing damp beneath him until it soaked through his clothes.

He would not be afraid. But twice he sat bolt upright, swinging the pistol furiously about at the shapes of bats that were sweeping between the trees.

Images, recent and opaque, and untethered to anything else, rose in his mind like air bubbles to the surface and just as quickly burst: sunlight burning through a skin of leaves; water rushing
around him. They flashed when he least expected: these leaves so close to his face; or the scuff and scratch of grass being hauled away from under him as if it was the earth, not him, that was
sliding. There was no catching them – these sudden openings into what might have been yesterday or the day before or even the year before; it was difficult to tell.

The trolleybus came. He sat by the window. The street melted away.

He jerked awake, aware of the stench of smoke and the fizzle of flames. When he turned on his side he found that a shabby-looking boy was squatting in the undergrowth,
staring right at him. Owen scrambled to his feet, dropping the jacket that had been draped over him, and pulled out his pistol, but the boy did not flinch.

In the clearing a fire had been lit and a crude spit constructed with a small animal roasting on it. Moisture from its skinned body dripped and the flames hissed and flared. The smoke was so
infused with cooked meat that Owen felt it pulling at his stomach.

The boy didn’t look much older than fifteen, and was squatting with his outstretched arms resting on his knees and hands lightly clasped. He had an impish quality: unkempt hair with dried
bits of leaf caught in it, and a small snub nose. His eyes were narrow and dark, and he scrutinized Owen, then shifted and cleared his throat. He didn’t look in the slightest bit scared, but
gauged Owen and the shaking gun with little more than curious suspicion. There was a dried smear of mud across each cheek and another across his forehead. His trousers were dusty at the knees, and
he wore a khaki-coloured shirt and black scuffed shoes. The jacket that had been draped over Owen must have been the boy’s too; it had darker patches curling at the elbows. A tatty canvas bag
lay beside him, with loose pockets and buckles, and something drawn on it in faded red ink.

The boy shuffled and tilted his head, chewing on his lips as if he had something sour in his mouth.

Owen took a step closer. ‘What do you want?’

Instantly the boy was on his feet and much taller than he had expected. He unleashed a torrent of words and sounds that Owen couldn’t understand. He came closer and Owen backed away. He
was still talking, fast.

‘I don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘
Hledal jsem vás,
’ the boy shouted. ‘
Dva dny. Dva dny!
’

‘For God’s sake . . .’ Owen stumbled backwards over the jacket.

The boy gave him a hard shove and then another, and then grabbed at Owen’s gun. Owen pulled it away and made for the trees, but before he knew it the boy had twisted him around with
surprising force, tipping him over his foot and bringing him to the ground so that he hit it hard with a gasp and was winded. The boy snatched the gun from his hand, unleashing another string of
words that Owen didn’t understand.

He stood over Owen, pointing the gun.

‘All right, all right,’ said Owen, submitting. He was on his back and still breathless. ‘Look, I don’t know who you are or what you want but I don’t have anything.
I promise.’

He could see then that the boy was shaking. He pressed the heel of his hand to his eye and then, turning away, he threw the pistol down at Owen’s side. He said something but the venom was
gone. He took a few deep breaths as he paced away and then, finding some self-control, came back. He looked down at Owen and then nodded, and Owen hauled himself up on to his elbows. The boy
signalled at the fire.

‘
Máte hlad?
’ he said. His anger had almost entirely drained but his frown still puckered. Whatever had happened between them was over. The faintest smile of
acceptance flickered across his face.

They sat cross-legged across the fire from each other, the boy’s eyes interrogating Owen as they both hungrily ate. Owen couldn’t make him out. Using a small flick
knife, the boy had cut the meat from the animal with a swift and practised butchery that was equally impressive and disturbing, before serving the slices in wooden bowls with a watery broth and
bits of root vegetable that had been simmering in a pan. Owen didn’t know whether to be afraid or thankful. The food was slowly reviving him but doing little to quell his unease.

Did he know the boy? Had he forgotten? He wondered if more days had fallen away into the abyss. Nothing about the boy looked familiar, yet still he stared with an unflinching curiosity. Only
occasionally did he get up to serve more broth or carve more meat from what Owen hoped was a rabbit and not a small cat. He poked encouragement into the fire while Owen discreetly felt in his
pockets: pistol, paper, button, map. He pulled out the scrap of paper. There were notes he’d written on it in pencil – the words
MAX
and
SAGAN
and
HARRY
and
HAWKERS
– but nothing about a boy.

The boy lifted the bowl and drank the dregs, his dark eyes like polished wood still fixed on Owen.

Not an imp, he thought, but a bird, in the way he cocked his head or turned it at every sound. He had a nervy alertness, as if he and everything around them was balanced on a wire.

He untied a canister from his belt and, without saying a word, offered it. Owen sniffed it and then took a sip. The water was warm and stale but he took another mouthful and handed it back. The
boy took a swig himself and refastened the cap.

‘Do I know you?’ Owen asked.

The boy said nothing.

‘Do you know where I am?’

The boy’s nose twitched.

‘I’m lost. I don’t know where I am. Do you understand?
Wo bin ich?
’ he said, trying German instead. ‘Yes? Do you speak English? Where am I?’ He
signalled around at the trees.

The boy said something that might have been a name.

‘I mean the country,’ said Owen. ‘England, yes? Do you understand?’ He pulled out the scraps of map but the boy was already talking.

‘
Č
echy,
’ the boy said. ‘
Sudety
. . .
Protektorát
Č
echy a Morava
.’ He shrugged, as if you could call it what you liked; it
didn’t much matter.

‘I don’t know what you’re saying. What are you?’ The boy sounded Polish or Russian or something. His words came out buttery but like nothing Owen had heard before.

‘
Č
eskoslovensko
.’

‘Chesko—?’

‘
Č
eskoslovensko
,’ the boy said.

It sounded like Czechoslovakia, but that was ridiculous.

Owen stared at the scrap of paper, trying to make sense of the notes he’d written and the pieces of map.

‘Here.’ He held out the paper and pencil. ‘Will you write the date?’

‘Date?’ said the boy, unsure.

‘The date. Yes. Today. I need to know what the date is. What’s the bloody date?’

‘
Je kv
ě
ten
.’

‘No,’ Owen said, losing his temper. ‘The numbers.’ He held up his hand splaying his fingers and shook them. ‘The numbers, yes? Do you understand?’

The boy took the paper and wrote something. He handed it back.

Owen looked.

3–5

What was that? March? May? That couldn’t be right. He felt a heat starting to engulf him.

‘The year . . . Now the year.
Jahr
,’ he said in German. ‘Write the year. Please.’

The boy grinned. He wrote, slow and purposeful this time, as if this were a game that he now knew he was winning. He handed it over.

Owen stared at the numbers.

1945

His stomach tightened. His mind went blank.

‘Forty-five?’

‘
Č
ty
ř
icet p
ě
t
.’ He nodded.

No, Owen thought. That wasn’t right. 1940. 1941, perhaps, but . . . He couldn’t have lost . . . what? That was four years. It couldn’t be true.

He wasn’t sure that his legs could take him, but without thinking he started to walk. He pushed hurriedly away through the trees. He needed to get out, to get away, but the boy was
suddenly coming after him.

‘
Musíte tady z
ů
stat!
’ He grabbed Owen’s arm but Owen pushed him off.

‘No, let me go!’

He stumbled, crashing through the trees, away from the boy and his mouthful of lies. By the time he came out on to the lane he was breathless. He looked about in every direction at the steep
slopes and fields and the endless woods. None of it looked real. It was as if he’d fallen through into another world. He didn’t know what to do.

He didn’t know how far he had gone before he sensed something behind him. When he turned around he could see the figure of the boy down the lane. He carried on, picking
up his pace, but he could still feel the boy following him, the bag hauled over his shoulder, the water canister bumping at his thigh.

‘What do you want?’ he shouted. ‘Leave me alone!’

He had no idea where he was going. Sagan, he thought, but he didn’t know why.

At least we ain’t getting called up
, Harry had said, but for some reason here he was.

He kept taking out the piece of paper and looking at it, uncomprehending.

3–5–1945

Nothing about it made sense.

When he stopped again and turned the boy had stopped as well, and was standing in the road, staring. Owen carried on, trying to ignore him, but he could feel the boy’s stare at the back of
his head. He stopped and turned. The boy stopped too. The sunlight was burning around his frame but the distance between them was no different from before. Was he following him on purpose? Did he
think this was a bloody game?

Oh, let him, he thought. I don’t care.

But he did. He carried on and then glanced back again.

He’s like a bloody lost dog.

When eventually he reached a junction he turned right, following the lane through a tunnel of trees. His anger with the boy was starting to dissipate. He was even beginning to feel strangely
indebted to him. The boy had fed him, after all. He had watched over Owen while he slept. Again, Owen stopped and turned. The boy was teetering on the cusp of the hillock beneath the dark overhang
of trees, the sunlight shining through from behind. This time Owen stood and waited. Oh, let him come if he wanted to, he thought. The boy would slope off to wherever he was going soon enough.

For over an hour they walked in silence. Owen felt as if he’d been taken hostage, and without a shared language he was completely disarmed. His fingers fumbled in his
pockets as he walked for the telltale shape of the button.

‘Where are you going anyway?’ he asked, but the boy did not reply.

As the morning progressed the air became bracing as they kept climbing to higher ground. The boy lingered behind him but with increasing frequency he walked parallel on the opposite side of the
lane and threw Owen cursory glances. Whenever Owen stopped to consider the map, trying to match a point on it with something he’d seen – the pinnacles of a remote chateau or the tops of
cone-like mountains blurred by distant rain – the boy would stop too, and empty a stone from his battered shoe, or swipe at something with a stick while he waited. And then Owen would pocket
the map and carry on, and the boy would fall into line.

They followed the edge of a field that had recently been set ablaze, patches of the volcanic earth still black and burning. Behind it the trees seemed to melt, and with every
change of wind the burning ash blew across their path so that they had to turn their backs to it and cover their eyes, some of the flecks still orange, pricking their cheeks and the backs of their
hands.

They joined a lane that swerved down into a valley, a loosely woven fence separating the road from the farmland. At the bottom of the slope there was an entrance and a grey stone house in a yard
with open-fronted wooden outbuildings housing a plough and a wagon. Parked behind the house a couple of small trucks could be seen. Three soldiers in olive drab uniforms were loitering in the
yard.

The boy grabbed Owen’s arm and pulled them both into a crouch. He then pelted, head stooped, across the grass and ducked behind the fence. He glanced over the top and slumped back
down.

‘
Honem!
’ he hissed, signalling to Owen, who ran over and then squatted down beside the boy, both of them breathless with their knees up and backs to the fence.

‘What is it?’ Owen said. He turned to take a look.

Through the latticework of branches he could see the house and the uniformed men, bulky rifles in their hands, each held by a strap over a shoulder. One of them sat on an upturned pail, digging
around in the dirt with the toe of his boot. The other two stood by the trucks, lounging against the bonnets, and talking the same Slavic language as the boy.

The boy squinted through the thin gap in the fence, glanced over the top and then through the gap again, trying to get a clearer look. Owen held the pistol against his chest. He could hear the
boy’s agitation in the heaviness of his breath.

Then, from inside the house, there came a commotion. A stout uniformed man with severely cropped silver hair and a square reddened face appeared in the doorway. He was dragging out a woman who
was struggling and shouting in his arms.

The boy clenched Owen’s arm, his fingertips digging in. The woman clung on to the doorframe and yelled desperately to someone inside –
Aleši! Ond
ř
eji!
–
before the soldier shouted something and wrenched her away.