Once (13 page)

“Barney,” I whisper. “Where are they taking us?”

Barney doesn’t answer for a while. I know why. He’s got little Janek on his chest and Henryk holding his hand and the other kids huddled around him and some of them are close to tears and he doesn’t want to upset them any more. Ruth has lost her hairbrush. The Nazis wouldn’t let Jacob bring his teddy bear. At least Moshe has still got his piece of wood to chew.

“We’re going to the railway station,” says Barney at last.

“Will there be water there for Zelda?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says.

I hope he’s right. She’s on my back, hot and limp, and dawn’s just starting, and if we can’t give her the aspirin soon she’s going to burn up.

“Is the station far?” I ask Barney.

“Cheer up, everyone,” says Barney, ignoring me. “It’s a beautiful summer day. We’re going on an outing. Let’s all enjoy it. Has everyone got their toothbrush?”

The other kids all hold up their toothbrushes.

The Nazi soldiers are staring. They probably haven’t seen unbreakable toothbrushes before.

“I’ve lost my toothbrush,” whispers Zelda in my ear.

“It’s okay,” I say. “You can borrow mine.”

This makes me extra glad I was able to get into the cellar and grab Zelda and my stuff before the Nazis dragged me back out. Even though Zelda is pretty heavy and I think the station probably is a long way. When grown-ups go cheerful on a trip it means you won’t be getting there for ages.

It can also mean when you do get there you’ll be killed.

I tilt my head back and give Zelda a kiss on the cheek so she won’t know I’m having scary thoughts.

One thing is puzzling me.

If the Nazis are going to kill us, why didn’t they shoot us in the cellar? It would have been much easier for them. Now they have to march us through the streets in the hot sun. They look really grumpy in their thick uniforms.

I get it.

They must want other people to see us. Other Jewish people hiding in the buildings along these streets. Peeping out and seeing us and knowing it’s hopeless and deciding they might as well give themselves up.

I straighten up and try not to look hopeless.

You know how when things are really bad and you feel like curling up and hiding but instead you take deep breaths and the air reaches your brain and helps you think better?

That’s happening to me.

I’ve just thought of a way of saving Zelda’s life.

“Zelda,” I whisper, “can you see I’m wearing your locket round my neck?”

“Yes,” she says.

“I want you to take it off me and put it on you,” I say.

She doesn’t touch it.

“I gave it to you,” she says.

“Please,” I say, “this is very important.”

She hesitates.

“It’s a lovely gift,” I say. “It makes me feel not quite so bad about my mum and dad. But now I want to give it back to you. Please let me.”

Zelda hesitates some more. Then I feel her hot little fingers reaching for the chain.

The railway yard is crowded with Jewish people standing and sitting in queues, waiting to get onto a train that stretches so far along the track I can’t see the front of it or the back.

“Wow,” says Henryk. “I’ve never been on a train before.”

Several of the other kids say they haven’t either.

“We’ll all be going on it soon,” says Barney. “Who’s excited?”

The kids all say they are, except for Moshe, who just chews his wood, and Zelda, who just clings to my neck.

I’m glad the other kids are excited because it means they haven’t seen what I can see now that I’ve wiped my glasses.

Nazi soldiers with dogs are pushing people onto the train really roughly. It’s not a normal sort of train. The carriages are like big boxes with sliding doors. Some people don’t want to get on and the Nazi soldiers are hitting them with sticks and whips.

Halfway along our queue a woman collapses onto the ground.

A Nazi soldier steps over to her and shoots her.

Oh.

“No,” screams Ruth.

“Make a tent,” says Barney. “Everyone make a tent.”

Chaya and Jacob and Barney take their coats off and we all huddle together and the others put their arms into the air and Barney throws the coats over us.

I can’t put my arms up because I’m holding Zelda on my back.

Barney reaches into his coat pocket above our heads and takes out the water bottle Mr. Kopek gave me. It’s been filled again. Barney passes it to the others.

“Just one sip each,” he says. “Felix, did you get the aspirin?”

I nod.

Barney takes Zelda into his arms.

“Crush two into powder,” he says.

I grind the aspirin into my palm with my thumb. Barney makes sure each person only has a small sip of water and that there’s some left in the bottle.

“Put the powder into the water and shake it up,” he tells me.

I do. I hand the bottle to Barney. He puts it to Zelda’s lips.

“This won’t taste nice,” he says. “But you must drink it.”

She does, screwing up her face.

While she’s busy drinking, I huddle closer to Barney.

“Look at this,” I say.

I show him the locket round Zelda’s neck. He stares at the photo of her parents. Even in the hot gloom of our tent I can see he knows what it means. Chaya does too.

“I hate Polish people who join the Nazis,” she mutters.

Barney sighs. “The Polish Resistance must have killed them,” he says softly.

I don’t know what resistance means, but this isn’t the time to learn new words. There’s something much more urgent we need to do.

“We must tell someone,” I say.

Barney nods.

“Stay in the tent,” he says to the others. “We’ll be back soon.”

Barney and Zelda and me crawl out of the tent.

I squint around the railway yard, looking for someone to tell, someone who can save Zelda.

Suddenly I see him.

Thank you, God, Jesus, Mary, the Pope, and Richmal Crompton, you are on our side after all.

It’s the Nazi officer who was the dental patient. The one who wants my African story for his kids. I pull my notebook from my shirt and rip out the pages with the African story on it. It’s only half finished, but these are tough times and I’m sure he’ll understand.

I start to go over to him.

Barney grabs me. “If you leave a queue in a place like this,” he says, “you get shot.”

“Sorry,” I say.

That was stupid, I wasn’t thinking.

“Excuse me,” I yell at the Nazi officer, waving the pages. “I’ve got your story. Over here.”

He doesn’t hear me at first, but I shout some more until Barney stops me, and when a soldier comes over and starts yelling at me even louder and pointing his gun at my head, the officer looks up and sees the pages I’m waving and comes over himself.

He orders the soldier away.

“Here it is,” I say. “The story you wanted.”

I hold the pages out to him. He takes them, looks at them, smiles, folds them up, and puts them in his pocket.

“Also,” I say, “there’s something else.”

I point to the locket hanging around Zelda’s neck.

Barney puts his hand on my arm. I remember the Nazi officer doesn’t speak Polish.

The officer is staring at the locket. Barney lifts it up so he can see it better and starts speaking to him in German.

“That’s my mummy and daddy,” says Zelda quietly to the Nazi officer. “They’re dead. The Polish assistance killed them.”

The Nazi officer looks at the photo for a long time. Then he looks at Zelda and at Barney and at me and at the tent.

He points to Zelda and Barney and then points to the railway yard gate.

Yes.

He’s saying they can go.

Barney speaks to him some more in German, pointing to me and the other kids, who are peering out of the tent. He must be asking if we can go too.

The Nazi officer shakes his head. He points to Zelda and Barney again.

“Go with Zelda,” I say to Barney.

He ignores me. He says more things to the Nazi officer. I don’t speak German, but I can tell he’s pleading.

The Nazi officer shakes his head again. He’s starting to look angry.

“Go with Zelda,” I beg Barney. “I’ll look after the others.”

The other kids start screaming. Nazi soldiers have grabbed them and are dragging them toward the train. One starts dragging me.

As I’m being lifted up I see Barney push Zelda’s hand into the Nazi officer’s hand. Barney comes running after us, yelling at the soldiers to leave us alone. Zelda struggles to get away from the Nazi officer, kicking and screaming.

“Felix,” she yells, “wait.”

Now I can’t see her. I’m in one of the train boxcars, lying on the floor and on other people. I grab my glasses. Henryk lands on top of me. Other kids as well. Ruth is crying. Chaya is holding her bad arm. Jacob is holding little Janek to his chest. Other people are being thrown on top of us.

Through the tangle of people I see Barney climbing into the boxcar, crawling toward us, asking if we’re all right.

“Zelda,” I yell, hoping she can hear me in the total confusion, “good-bye.”

But it’s not good-bye. A soldier throws Zelda into the boxcar on top of us. Then he slides the door closed with a crash.

“Zelda,” I moan. “Why didn’t you stay?”

“I bit the Nazi,” she says. “Don’t you know anything?”

I put my arm round Zelda and we lie here shivering.

Outside people are screaming and dogs are barking and soldiers are shouting but the loudest noises are the gunshots.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Suddenly I realize they’re not gunshots. I realize what the soldiers are doing. They’re nailing the train door shut.

  I went on my first train journey, but I wouldn’t call it exciting—I’d call it painful and miserable.

There are so many of us in this boxcar that most of us have to stand up. Every time the train lurches, we lurch too and squash each other.

“Sorry,” I say each time to the people around me.

At least the little kids have got a space to sit down. Not all the people wanted to make room at first, because it meant the rest of us were more squashed, but Barney had a word with them and then they did.

“Sorry.”

Barney’s got all the kids doing a lice hunt, which is a really good idea. We’re packed in so tight here we could be giving each other lice without knowing it. Plus nothing passes the time on a long journey like a lice hunt.

Zelda isn’t doing it, she’s asleep.

Please, God and the others, let her get better.

“Sorry.”

I try and make myself thinner to give some of the old people more space. It must be terrible for them. I’m young and I’m used to going without food and water and space.

“Sorry.”

“For God’s sake,” yells a man near me, “stop saying sorry.”

Barney gives the man a long look.

“He’s just a kid,” says Barney. “Give him a break.”

The man looks like he’s going to explode.

“A break?” he says. “A break? Who’s giving us a break?”

I know how the man feels. We’ve been traveling for hours and this train hasn’t stopped once for a toilet break. People can’t hold it in forever, which is why we’ve had to start going in the corner of the carriage.

Well, Ruth and Moshe and three of the other people have. Everyone else is desperately trying to hold it in because there isn’t any toilet paper.

“Are we there yet?” says Henryk, looking up from Ruth’s hair.

“Be patient,” says Barney softly. “Don’t let those lice get away.”

“Will we be there soon?” says Jacob, looking up from little Janek’s wispy hair and blinking hopefully.

“Shhhh,” says Barney.

I know what he’s worried about. People who hate “sorry” probably hate “are we there yet?” just as much. ’Specially people who are trying not to think about two other words.

The two that Barney used once.

Death camp.

“Sorry,” says an elderly woman as she struggles through the rest of us to the toilet corner. “Sorry, I have to.”

We all turn away, those of us that can, to give her some privacy.

Poor woman.

Having no toilet paper isn’t so bad when you’re young and you’ve lived in an orphanage a long way from the shops and you’re used to sometimes just letting poo dry on you and then getting on with things. But for older people who are used to tradition it must be awful.

I start thinking about poor Mum and Dad and whether they had to go without toilet paper when they made this trip.

I don’t want to think about them making this trip. About them arriving and getting off the train and…

Please, I beg my imagination. Give me something else to think about. I can’t help Barney look after the kids if I’m a weeping wreck.

Suddenly an idea hits me.

Of course.

I reach into my shirt and after a struggle because a couple of other people’s elbows are in my chest I manage to pull out my notebook and rip out a couple of blank pages.

“Here,” I say to the woman in the corner. “Use this.”

The other people pass it over to her and when she sees what it is she starts crying.

“It’s all right,” I say, “I haven’t written on it.”