The Train Was On Time (3 page)

“Pass,” he said. The blond fellow and the unshaven soldier were sparring good-naturedly for the kitty. They knew they
were both bluffing, but they both laughed, the point was to see who could bluff best.

“Practically speaking,” said a North German voice behind him, “practically speaking we’ve already won the war!”

“Hm,” came another voice.

“As if the Führer could lose a war!” said a third voice. “It’s crazy to say such a thing anyway: winning a war! Anyone who talks about winning a war must already be considering the possibility of losing one. Once we start a war, that war is won.”

“The Crimea’s already cut off,” said a fourth voice. “The Russians have closed it off at Perekop.”

“That’s where I’m being sent,” said a faint voice, “to the Crimea.…”

“Only by plane, though,” came the confident voice of the war-winner. “It’s great by plane.…”

“The Tommies won’t risk it.”

The silence of those who said nothing was terrible. It was the silence of those who don’t forget, of those who know they are done for.

The blond fellow had shuffled, and the unshaven soldier opened with fifty marks.

Andreas saw he was holding a royal flush.

“And fifty,” he said, laughing.

“I’m in,” said the unshaven soldier.

“Raise twenty.”

“I’m in.”

Needless to say, the unshaven soldier lost.

“Two hundred and forty marks,” said a voice behind them, accompanied, as the sound of the voice indicated, by a shake of the head. It had been quiet for a minute while they had been battling for the kitty. Then the chatter started up again.

“Have a drink,” said the unshaven soldier.

“This door business is crazy, I tell you!”

“What door?”

“They’ve barricaded the door, those bastards, those scabs!”

“Shut up!”

A station without a resounding voice. God bless stations without resounding voices. The buzzing chatter of the other men went on, they had forgotten about the door and the two hundred and forty marks, and Andreas gradually began to realize he was a bit drunk.

“Shouldn’t we have a break?” he said. “I’d like a bite to eat.”

“No!” shouted the unshaven soldier, “not on your life, we’ll carry on till we get to Przemysl! No”—his voice was filled with a terrible fear. The blond fellow yawned and began muttering. “No,” shouted the unshaven soldier.…

They went on playing.

“The 42 MG is all we need to win the war. The others have nothing like it.…”

“The Führer knows what he’s doing!” But the silence of those who said nothing, nothing at all, was terrible. It was the silence of those who knew they were all done for.

At times the train got so full they could hardly hold their cards. All three were drunk by now, but very clear in the head. Then the train would empty again, there were loud voices, resounding and unresounding. Railway stations. The day wore on to afternoon. From time to time they would pause for a snack, then go on playing, go on drinking. The schnapps was excellent.

“Well, it’s French, after all,” said the soldier who needed a shave. He seemed to need one more than ever now. His face was pallid under the black stubble. His eyes were red, he hardly ever won, but he appeared to have a vast supply of money. Now the blond fellow was winning often. They were playing chemin-de-fer, the train being empty again, then they played rummy, and suddenly the cards fell from the unshaven soldier’s
hand, he slumped forward and began to snore horribly. The blond fellow straightened him, gently arranging him so that he could sleep propped up. They put something over his feet, and Andreas returned his winnings to the man’s pocket.

How gently and tenderly the blond fellow treats his friend! I’d never have expected it of that slob.

I wonder what Paul’s doing now?

They got to their feet and stretched, shook crumbs and dirt from their laps, and cigarette ash, and flung the last empty bottle out of the window.

They were traveling through an empty countryside, left and right glorious gardens, gentle hills, smiling clouds—an autumn afternoon.… Soon, soon I’m going to die. Between Lvov and Cernauti. During the card game he had tried to pray, but he kept having to think about it; he had tried again to form sentences in the future and realized they had no force. He had tried again to grasp it in terms of time—it was make-believe, idle make-believe! But he had only to think of the word Przemysl to know he was on the right track. Lvov! His heart missed a beat. Cernauti! Nothing … it must be somewhere in between … he couldn’t visualize it, he had no mental picture of the map. “D’you have a map?” he asked the blond fellow, who was looking out of the window.

“No,” he said amiably, “but he does!” He pointed to the soldier who needed a shave. “He has a map. How restless he is. He’s got something on his mind. That’s a fellow with something terrible on his mind, I tell you.…”

Andreas said nothing and looked over the man’s shoulder through the window. “Radebeul!” said a resounding Saxon voice. A decent voice, a good voice, a German voice, a voice that might just as well be saying: The next ten thousand into the slaughterhouse, please.…

It was wonderful outside, still almost like summer, September weather. Soon I’m going to die, I’ll never see that
tree again, that russet tree over there by the green house. I’ll never see that girl wheeling her bike again, the girl in the yellow dress with the black hair. These things the train’s racing past, I’ll never see any of them again.…

The blond fellow was asleep now too, he had sat down on the floor beside his pal, and in sleep they had sunk against one another; the snores of one were harsh and loud, of the other soft and whistling. The corridor was deserted except for now and again someone going to the john, and occasionally someone would say: “There’s room inside, you know, mate.” But it was much nicer in the corridor, in the corridor you were more alone, and now that both the others were asleep he was quite alone, and it had been a terrific idea to secure the door with wire.

Everything the train’s leaving behind I’m leaving behind too, once and for all, he thought. I’ll never see any more of this again, never again this segment of sky full of soft gray-blue clouds, never again this little fly, a very young one, perched on the window frame and flying off now, off to somewhere in Radebeul; that little fly will stay in Radebeul, I guess … stay behind under this segment of sky, that little fly will never keep me company between Lvov and Cernauti. The fly is on its way to Radebeul, maybe it’s flying into some kitchen heavy with the odor of potatoes boiled in their jackets and the acrid smell of cheap vinegar, where they’re making potato salad for some soldier who’s now free to suffer for three weeks through the alleged joys of home leave … that’s all I’ll ever see, he thought, for at that moment the train swung in a great loop and was coming into Dresden.

At Dresden the platform was very full, and at Dresden many men got out. The window faced a whole cluster of soldiers headed by a stout, red-faced young lieutenant. The soldiers were all dressed up in brand-new uniforms, the lieutenant was also in his brand-new hand-me-downs for the doomed;
even the decorations on his chest were as new as freshly cast lead soldiers, they looked like complete fakes. The lieutenant grasped the door handle and rattled it.

“Open up there!” he shouted at Andreas.

“The door’s closed, it won’t open,” Andreas shouted back.

“Don’t shout at me, open up, open up at once!”

Andreas shut his mouth and glowered at the lieutenant. I’m soon going to die, he thought, and he’s shouting at me. His gaze went beyond the lieutenant; the soldiers standing with the lieutenant grinned behind his back. At least the faces of these men were not new, they had old, gray, knowing faces, only their uniforms were new, and even their decorations seemed old and worn. Only the lieutenant was new from top to toe, he even had a brand-new face. His cheeks became redder still, and his blue eyes went a bit red too. Now he lowered his voice, and it was so soft, with such a soft threat in it, that Andreas had to laugh. “Are you going to open the door?” he asked. Rage was exploding from his shiny buttons. “Look at me at least!” he roared at Andreas. But Andreas did not look at him. I’m going to die soon, he thought; all these people standing around on the platform, I’ll never see any of them again, not one. And he wouldn’t smell that smell again either, that smell of dust and railway smoke, here at his window saturated with the smell of the lieutenant’s brand-new uniform that smelled of synthetic wool.

“I’ll have you arrested,” roared the lieutenant. “I’ll report you to the military police!”

Luckily the blond fellow had woken up. He came to the window, sleepy-eyed, stood impeccably at attention, and said to the lieutenant:

“Regret to report, sir, that the door was sealed off on the station side on account of its being defective: to prevent accidents.” He delivered this in the regulation manner, briskly and submissively, it was marvelous the way he spoke, like a
clock striking twelve. The lieutenant let out one more furious sigh. “Why didn’t you say so?” he yelled at Andreas.

“Regret to report further, sir, that my companion is deaf, stone deaf,” the blond fellow rattled off. “Head wound.” The soldiers behind the lieutenant laughed, and the lieutenant turned beet-red, swung round, and went off to look for space somewhere else. The bevy of men followed him. “Stupid bastard,” muttered the blond fellow after him.

I could get out here, thought Andreas as he watched the lively bustle on the platform. I could get out here, go off someplace, any place, on and on, till they caught me and put me up against a wall, and I wouldn’t die between Lvov and Cernauti, I would be shot in some little village in Saxony or die like a dog in a concentration camp. But I’m standing here by the window and I feel as if I were made of lead. I can’t move, I feel paralyzed, this train is part of me and I’m part of the train, this train that has to carry me to my appointed end, and the strange part about it is that I have absolutely no desire to get out here and stroll along the banks of the Elbe under those nice trees. I long for Poland, I long for that horizon as intensely, as fiercely and ardently, as only a lover can long for his beloved. If only the train would move, if only it would get going! Why is it standing here, why is it standing so long in this godforsaken Saxony, why has the resounding voice been silent for so long? I’m bursting with impatience, I’m not scared, that’s the strange thing, I’m not scared, just indescribably curious and restless. Anl yet I don’t want to die. I want to live, theoretically life is beautiful, theoretically life is glorious, and I don’t want to get out, it’s funny to think I could get out. I need only walk along the corridor, leave my useless pack behind and clear out, anywhere, stroll under trees with their fall coloring, and I go on standing here as if I were made of lead; I want to stay on this train, I have a terrible longing for the gray drabness of Poland
and for that unknown stretch between Lvov and Cernauti where I have to die.

Shortly after Dresden the unshaven soldier woke too. His face was ashen under the stubble, and his eyes sadder than ever. Without a word he opened a can and began eating the meat inside, spearing lumps of it onto his fork; with it he ate some bread. His hands were dirty, and from time to time scraps of meat would fall to the floor, the floor where he would be sleeping again tonight, with its litter of cigarette butts and that accumulation of impersonal grime which every soldier seems to attract like a magnet. The blond fellow was eating too.

Andreas stood at the window and saw nothing; it was light outside and the sunshine still mild, but he saw nothing. His thoughts were seething as the train sped by the pleasant garden suburbs around Dresden. He waited impatiently for his unshaven friend to finish his meal so that he could ask him for the map. He had no idea what it was like between Lvov and Cernauti. Nikopol he could imagine, even Lvov and Przemysl … Odessa and Nikolayev … and Kerch, but Cernauti was only a name; it made him think of Jews and onions, of gray streets with flat-roofed houses, wide streets, and traces of administration buildings of the old Austrian Empire, neglected gardens around crumbling Imperial façades that might now be sheltering hospitals or first-aid posts; and those boulevards of Eastern Europe with their brooding charm, their squat trees, cropped to prevent the flat-roofed houses from being crushed by treetops. No treetops.…

That’s what Cernauti would be like, but what came first, what came between Lvov and Cernauti, was something he couldn’t picture at all. It must be Galicia, Lvov being the capital of Galicia. And somewhere there was Volhynia—all dark, somber names smelling of pogroms and vast gloomy estates where brooding women dreamed of adultery since they had begun to find their blubber-necked husbands repulsive.…

Galicia, a dark word, a terrible word, and yet a splendid word. It sounded something like a knife cutting very quietly … Galicia.…

Lvov is all right, Lvov he can visualize. Splendid and gloomy and without lightness, those cities, with bloody pasts and untamed back streets, silent and untamed.

The soldier who needed a shave threw his can out of the window, returned the loaf, from which he had been biting off mouthfuls, to his pack, and lit a cigarette. His face was sad, sad, full of remorse somehow, as if he were ashamed of the orgy of cards and boozing; he joined Andreas at the window, leaning his elbows on it, and Andreas sensed that he wanted to talk.

“Look at that, a factory,” he said, “a chair factory.”

“Yes,” said Andreas. He saw nothing, nor did he want to see anything, only the map. “Might I,” he made a great effort, “might I have a look at the map?”

“What map?” Andreas felt a deep stab of fear and knew he turned pale. Supposing this fellow didn’t have any map?

“The map of Poland,” he stammered, “the map of where we’re going.”

“Oh, that one,” said the man. He bent down at once, fumbled in his pack, and handed him the folded map.

It was horrible to have the man leaning over the map with him. Andreas could smell the canned meat on his breath, which was still not quite free of the odor of digested, partially acidulated schnapps. He could smell the sweat and grime and was too wrought up to see anything; then he saw the man’s finger, a thick, red, dirty, yet very good-natured finger, and the man said: “That’s where I have to go.” Andreas read the name of the place: “Kolomyya.” Strange, now that he looked closer he could see that Lvov was not far at all from this Kolomyya … he went back … Stanislav, Lvov … Lvov … Stanislav, Kolomyya, Cernauti. Strange, he thought; Stanislav, Kolomyya … these names evoked no definite echo. That voice inside him, that
wakeful, sensitive voice, oscillated and trembled like a compass needle which cannot settle. Kolomyya, shall I get as far as Kolomyya? Nothing definite … a strange wavering of the ever-vibrating needle … Stanislav? The same quivering. Nikopol! he thought suddenly. Nothing.