Devastation Road (6 page)

‘
Gól!
’ he shouted, his arms in the air as if he had suddenly scored.

Before long the ground seemed to steady, the tumbling contours of the land finding a gentler rhythm. Owen watched the boy as he wiped spiderwebs from his face and then peeled their sticky trails
from the tips of his fingers. He seemed quite at ease out here among the trees.

They reached a wire fence ringing a perimeter. On the other side a fresh green rye field rolled on wide and deep before it reached another line of trees, the apex of a barn poking out from
behind them. The field was empty but for the wavering sea of crop and a gnarled, spindly tree that stood stark against the horizon. On every branch, scraps of white material had been tied like
ribbons, the sun catching on them as they curled in the breeze.

‘Look!’ Owen cried. He picked up his pace. He fancied sitting beneath it, resting his eyes, and looking up at the white tokens of material tied as if every one of them was something
lost and found; memories now safely tethered, or promises, or vows.

He followed the fence, trying to find a way through, one eye on the glimmering tree, the other aware of the boy stumbling behind him and jabbering on about something that Owen didn’t
understand. Then he saw a gap where the wire fence had been pulled away.

‘This way,’ he called. ‘Through here.’

He was aware of the boy starting to run behind him as Owen reached the gap and turned to step through, and then he was yanked back as the boy yelled and the pull took Owen off his feet. Suddenly
the boy was on top and winding him, one arm pressing Owen’s head down, the other held over his own, his sour breath blasting against Owen’s neck, and all his elbows and knees digging
into him.

‘Get off,’ Owen shouted.

But Janek wouldn’t. Then he slowly lifted his head and looked up, and scrambled to his feet and away.

Owen hauled himself up. He could barely catch his breath.

‘
Musíte si dávat pozor!
’ the boy exclaimed. He was pointing angrily at a thin grey line pulled taut across the gap, and then something grey and egg-like wedged
into the tree. ‘Boom!’ he shouted. He threw his arms up. ‘BOOM!’

Jesus Christ. Owen’s hand instinctively went to his throat where the wire stretched between the gap would have caught him, the pull ring from the grenade tugging free. His heart was
beating fast. The boy jabbed his finger at him, still furious.

‘Yes, I know,’ Owen said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘
Musíte být moc opatrný!
’

‘But I didn’t see it.’

The boy signalled around them and then with a pair of fingers he pointed to his eyes – they needed to be alert.

‘Two!’ he said, jabbing his finger at Owen. ‘Yes? Two now. Hmm?’

‘Two what?’ said Owen.

But the boy did not reply.

It was the sight of the Red Cross food parcels that did it – scattered along the side of the road, the boy stumbling along the ditch and looking at each in turn before
someone else could come along and steal the contents.

He was a deliveryman, not a soldier, and he was not here because once, in another lifetime, he had been a draughtsman or a son or a brother or even somebody’s lover.

Delivering packages, that’s all
, Max had said.
So I don’t know why you’re making such a bloody fuss about it
.

But what those packages were, Owen could not remember. This was how the day was going, falling into moments of clarity and then confusion, as if in his mind they kept walking through patches of
fog. Not Red Cross parcels – that he would have remembered.

Further along the road, the boy hurled one over the hedge, furious that they were all empty.

‘
Do prdele!
’ he shouted.

His father had been a doctor dealing with amputees. It was the boy splicing the tops off nettles with a stick that brought a recollection of his father – curling white
moustache, large flopping sun hat and white summer jacket, strolling around the garden, a pair of secateurs clasped discreetly behind his back. He would deadhead the roses and, with nimble surgical
precision, nip off any broken stems, just as he did the ruined limbs of soldiers.
There
, he would mumble to himself as he stepped back to admire his handiwork.
Oh yes, that’s
better
.

There was something comforting, familiar even, in logging everything that came back to him.

DELIVERYMAN

BOY
=
YANECK

FATHER
–
DOCTOR
–
AMPUTEES

There was no knowing what might be needed; what might trigger something, that might trigger something else; that finally, and in a roundabout kind of way, might tell him what he was doing here
and what he might be walking back to. A home somewhere. A wife somewhere. The cold and empty side of a bed.

They followed a narrow road up a ridge through thick forest, until it curved around a deep gully high on the hillside and they saw a sentry hut and a number of soldiers, tall
wire fencing and a pull-up gate.

They slowed and Janek ushered him quietly down a slope through a cover of trees. When they had crept some distance and had found a vantage point from which they could spy on the crossing, Janek
settled himself in the undergrowth, stretching his legs out and leaning back on his elbow among the leaves.

‘Now what?’ Owen said.

The boy motioned him to sit as well.

‘We wait?’ said Owen. ‘What is this, anyway? Is this the German border?’

The boy didn’t answer.

The wind stirred the leaves and after a while there came the patter of rain, which rapidly grew heavier and turned the early evening light from silver to lead grey. Still they waited. They
watched the soldiers up at the crossing. In time the rain abated but not before it had dampened them through to the skin.

Owen watched the boy beside him sprawled out on his side, scratching shapes into the earth. The slightest disturbance and his sharp eyes darted.

He couldn’t see why Janek had latched on to him. He was beginning to feel like a fugitive; or as if he had two lives running in parallel – the one he remembered and the one here and
now – and yet they had no point of connection as far as he could tell.

Perhaps he should give himself up. These men at the border crossing would have food and water, a line of command. He’d tell them that he was a British citizen, that he needed to speak to
someone, goddamn it, he needed to get home.

Through the dimming twilight he could barely see them now. Just the murmur of their voices and the reassurance of a laugh. What was to say the boy wasn’t leading Owen on a wild goose chase
anyway? That Owen could trust the boy when he couldn’t even trust himself?

‘These men,’ he whispered, ‘are they German?
Deutsch?
’

The boy shook his head. ‘
Rusové
.’

‘Russian? But I thought . . . Look, what’s going on here? Where are we? Isn’t this a German border?
Deutschland?
’

‘
Ano
,’ said the boy, nodding.

‘So, where are they?
Wo sind sie? Die Deutschen?
’

The boy threw his stick away and mumbled something.

‘Look, I don’t think we should be going into Germany, do you?’ said Owen. ‘That sounds like a ruddy suicide mission.’

Janek stared at him.

‘
Deutschland. Nein
,’ Owen said. ‘
Das ist
. . . I don’t know – not good.’

‘I look for Petr,’ Janek said. ‘Yes?’

Owen stood up. He’d had enough but the boy pulled him down again.

‘
Ani hnout,
’ he hissed.

‘But I don’t know what we’re doing here,’ Owen said. ‘I don’t even know why you’re still with me. Look, I don’t need your help. I’ll make my
own way. What do you want from me anyway?’

But the boy wasn’t listening. His eyes were fixed on the sentry crossing.

Owen pulled at his arm and Janek turned sharply.

‘You want home?’ Janek demanded.

‘Yes. Of course I do.’

‘That way then. England. Yes? You. Me. We go.’

It was almost dark when they heard the carts. Janek pushed him awake and on to his feet, gathering up his bag. ‘
Rychle. Rychle,
’ he whispered urgently,
then he set off, Owen stumbling blindly after him through the steep woodland as it arced around towards the patrol.

There seemed to be only a narrow stretch of woodland where it was level enough for them to stand any chance of clambering over the high barbed fence. There, though, a single soldier leant
against a post, rifle in one hand, sucking on a cigarette.

They got as close as they dared and squatted in the shadows around a denser clump of trees. Up the sharp incline to their right they could barely see the road above them or the sentry hut
through the pines. The silhouetted soldiers drifted like ghosts in the gloom. He could hear them talking more clearly now, the crack of a laugh.

The two carts drew near, wheels creaking and rattling, each pulled by a horse and flanked on either side by men, women and children; some sitting, tired and grizzly, in the carts, clutching pots
and pans, others held in parents’ arms or walking beside them and gripping a hand. Something about them looked familiar: the rickety piles of furniture, the deer antlers hooked over one side.
As the carts pulled up at the crossing, the soldiers gathered around, crowding them. There was a dialogue that soon became heated. The Russian soldiers poked at the adults, nudging them with their
guns or giving them a shove against the wagon, laughing, jeering and shouting. One of them called to their comrade down at the fence –
Ey! Georgiy!
– and signalled him. The
soldier stubbed his cigarette out on the post and Owen watched as he struggled up the incline through the trees to join the others. By the time he reached the top, two of his colleagues were
already in one of the carts and throwing things out to be caught. They would take whatever they fancied. The refugees were helpless to stop them.

‘What do we do?’ Owen whispered, but the boy wasn’t listening, his attention fixed on the road.

There was a cheer as something smashed. The refugees were pleading, trying to pull the Russians away from their possessions, but the soldiers took no notice. They raised their voices and pushed
them about from one to another, while more clambered into the carts. One of them held the antlers on top of his head, mooing like a bull, and they laughed. Another had a woman by the wrist. He
wanted something from her and wouldn’t let go. Owen could hear the children crying. The woman pulled hard and then slapped at the man, and a tussle broke out.

‘
Ted!
’ said Janek, and with that he was suddenly up and running, going stooped and swift through the undergrowth, across the steeply tilted hillside.

‘Fuck.’ Owen scrambled after him as fast as he could. High on the roadside he could hear one of the Russians yelling, the scared horses clattering their hooves and the creaking of
the cart as the animals tried to push back. He could feel his heart thumping, a sharp stitch in his chest, while Janek was fast on his feet ahead of him through the brambles and ferns that snatched
at their legs, all the while Owen aware that if they weren’t careful they might step on a mine or he might run through a booby trap, setting off a grenade for real this time.

When they reached the fence it was higher than Owen had imagined, barbed wire prongs lining the top. Janek held it steady so that Owen could go first. He hauled his way up, the wire straining
and rattling under the weight as his feet found foot holes and the wire lines bit deep into his hands. As he reached the top, the fence wavering precariously beneath him, he lifted his leg over,
steadied himself and then jumped down, Janek’s bag and canisters quickly landing in the undergrowth next to him. Janek clambered up and over, and then, with a heavy thump, he was down as
well, gathering up his things and they were running; and Owen didn’t once look back, but as they slid and scrambled down another slope, disappearing into the dark gully of the forest below,
he heard a single sharp shot and a woman started to shriek.

His mother had fits. He wondered if that was what had happened, whether it was something hereditary. He remembered her on the kitchen floor, her whole body convulsing as if it
was rejecting who she was. Everyone dashing around. Max crying. Cedar had retreated into his basket and was shaking, while in the hallway Agatha, who had only popped in for clematis clippings, was
hollering up the stairs for Owen’s father to come and be quick. And all the time Owen had stood there in the kitchen doorway, staring. His father came, pushing past, syringe in hand, for this
had happened many times before and, of course, in the end everything was fine. His lasting memory was of his mother apologizing over and over again – as was her way after every episode
– for the thing she had no recollection of happening, the trauma she had no memory of putting them all through.

He woke to voices and flashlights. He was lying on his side among rubble on the floor of a large concrete bunker, his back to the wall where there were six square holes along
its length and the lights were shining in. The concrete beneath him felt hard and frozen, and his hand was gripping a round piece of metal – a button or a badge. He didn’t know how long
he’d been there. Nothing looked familiar.

He listened to the voices, three of them: male and hushed and German. He could hear the soft crunch of their feet, and sense the grass and trees around them. The torchlight shone right over him,
lying undetected and pressed against the wall, the side of his face on the cold grit floor. Their footsteps came closer until they were right outside, two then three lights shining in, their beams
dancing over the back wall and sweeping across the floor and all its moonscape litter.

He quietly lifted his head. There was a boy standing motionless behind the entrance. Owen could just about make out the shape of a flick knife in his hand. He held one finger to his lip to Owen.
A
Don’t move, don’t make a sound
.