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TO BERLIN AND BACK
Our sights set, we boarded a train to Berlin. Determined to stick to the ten-day routine for Vytautas's pneumothorax, on the way we had to stop and find a hospital. When our train rolled into a larger town, we got off and took a tram to the hospital. The Berlin doctor's letter worked as usual.
No one checked how much air was left in the lung cavity before pumping more in. The procedure over, Vytautas sensed that the lung was under too much pressure. After the procedure he was supposed to rest for several hours, but this time we were still in the hospital when the sirens went off. Told to leave the hospital at once and look for a shelter, we found ourselves in the street with no one in sight to direct us. Vytautas, the valise in one hand grabbed me with the other and started running toward the train station until explosions nearby made us duck into a doorway. There, gasping for air, Vytautas slumped onto the valise and appeared to be losing consciousness. Holding his hand I started talking, telling him to inhale, breathe deeper, don't leave me, breathe again, we must go on, and slowly he came around. When the all-clear sirens sounded, we still had to get back to the station. A tram stopped on the street corner and a passer-by said it would take us to the station, five stops away. Back in the station Vytautas collapsed on a bench and we let one train depart and waited until he was ready to move on.
We rolled into Berlin late at night. In the station they had a first aid room and the attendant let Vytautas lie down on a cot and me doze in an armchair beside him. After breakfast we boarded the tram to the Refugee Center in town.
A close family friend, Vaclovas Sidzikauskas, recognized me from afar and taking us to a side room asked how we fared, did we have enough money, what brought us to Berlin. He told me that through the underground grapevine they were in touch with my parents who were well, that my younger brother the musician had married, then asked whether I had a message to pass on to them. I wanted them to know that I married my former teacher, that my sister was expecting her second child, and that our older brother was in Germany as well. To spare my parents much worry I did not mention that I was expecting. He discouraged us from going to Switzerland, saying the country did not welcome refugees. He suggested that we stay in Germany, for the war was to end soon and then the doors to America would open. Knowing my husband by name he told him that several of his colleagues were in Berlin, and that we should see them. Handing us their addresses and recommending a small hotel in the vicinity, he asked us to stay in touch with him.
Another air raid. In Berlin we were ushered up a tower standing tall amidst blocks of leveled buildings. Up and up we climbed the dimly lit winding stairs until we came to people sitting on the steps, the tower's roof visible above them. When explosions started crackling around us, the tower neither shook nor swayed. Unless a bomb was to hit us point-blank, it was strange to feel safer high up than underground.
We visited Vytautas's former teacher, the painter Adomas Galdikas and his wife, and found there an Estonian poet and his artist friend. As we drank tea, many questions were asked, information was exchanged, advice given. I was silent most of the time but when we were going down the stairs to leave, his former teacher called after me. I stopped and turned to face him. Take good care of him, he said. I will, I promise, I said. I have a suspicion that his request and my promise, both sounding so casual at the time, etched in me then and there a sense of responsibility deeper than could be expected.
Having decided to leave Berlin as soon as possible, we went to the station. It was in chaos. Hordes of people were leaving the city, hustling amid booming announcements of train departures and arrivals, children crying, uniformed people shouting, whistles blowing. A sudden hush fell over the hall when the crowd parted to let through a troop of soldiers—youngsters, no older than 15 or 16 wearing uniforms too large, caps too big crooked on their heads, rifles and gear too heavy for their shoulders. Fleeting eye contacts exchanged disturbing thoughts and after they passed the bustle heightened considerably.
No one asked for a travel permit. Where to go? Undecided, we followed the crowd and without a ticket boarded a train, destination unknown. It was dark already and we sat down, I by the window, Vytautas beside me. Light snow was falling outside and it was snowing on me—in the midst of winter there was no glass in the window. The train started moving and after several stops the crush of people inside eased somewhat.
In front of me sat a soldier in uniform. Rattling along in the dark, we saw each other in flashes when the train passed an occasional light outside but kept staring at each other in the dark. Several flashes later I saw tears glistening on his cheeks. His hand moved under the window table toward me and I reached for it and held it tight. He must have fallen asleep when his hand went limp. I let go of it. Left with a sadness so unbearably heavy I reached for Vytautas's hand. At daybreak the soldier was no longer there. When the train pulled into a large station, we got off, had coffee, and decided to go to Forarlberg, as far away from the war zone as possible. Only Switzerland seemed untouchable.
Changing trains in a station, its name forgotten, we were standing in line for tickets to Feldkirchen when I went to the restroom. Coming back, I saw from afar that only the valise was there. I looked around for Vytautas and there he was, led away by two soldiers and almost out the door already. I ran after them shouting and the soldiers stopped. They were checking the papers of people in line and Vytautas had none to show, for his papers were in my pocket. He did not speak German, was unable to explain this to the soldiers and was arrested. One minute later and who knows for how long, if ever, I would have lost him.
The train stopped in Feldkirchen, a town connected to Switzerland by road. The minute the train moved on leaving us on the platform, two policemen focused on us. We walked around, had a bite in a cafˇ and upon leaving found the two standing outside the door. We walked to the bridge that crossed the river to Switzerland, looked at the armed guards standing there. At this point the policemen approached us and told us to get a job or leave town by the first train next morning. If we wished to stay, a shoe factory two blocks away was hiring people. I asked where we could spend the night and they pointed to a restaurant by the river.
It was warm in there. After a meal we sat around. The place did not look like a hotel. At nightfall a stout woman came to our table asking whether we planned to spend the night in here and I said yes. She left, then came back telling us that the husband can stay in this room locked up together with a dog, a German shepherd lying on the floor watching us already. I could sleep upstairs with a girl, whose roommate had gone home for the night.
The girl took me upstairs. The room had two beds, a narrow walk between them, a night table and a small window above it; a woody scent of the unpainted floor scrubbed clean filled the room. The white feather covers on the beds looked like snow mountains. Above one bed hung a crucifix with a peacock feather stuck behind it, a washstand at the end of the bed. Pointing to the other bed the girl left the room leaving the light on. I was in bed when she came back, put out the light, undressed and said goodnight.
I woke to sounds of water being poured. The girl, cast in soft relief by the angle of light falling through the curtain, stood bent over the washstand. Her nightshirt turned down to the waist, the braid pinned on top of her head, she was soaping her hands. She soaped and rinsed her face, her ears, her neck. She then cupped her maiden breasts one after the other and soaped each gently round and round, then carefully lifted scoops of water to rinse them clean. Raising each elbow just that much, she splashed water under each arm, soaped them in turn, splashed water to rinse the soap away. She then reached for a white towel and leisurely patted herself dry, the reflection of her face in the small oval mirror on the wall. The memory—a sun-drenched impressionist painting come to life—more perfect in each recall.
We took the train to Bludenz. There, in the plaza by the station, was the food card distribution office and we walked in. Times had changed: instead of food stamps, we were handed a slip of paper, told to take the train on platform # 2 and get off at such and such a station. Someone would be waiting for us at the other end and that person would take us to our destination where the food stamps would be handled. We did as we were told.
At the station we were met by an old man in a one horse sleigh, its bed covered with straw. Bells on the harness jingled pleasantly as he took us far into the mountains to a valley called Silberthal. The evening was bitterly cold. A big woman bundled up to her nose met us and showed us around. On the right of the road stood four wooden barracks side by side; on the left an administration building adjoined a large dining hall; next to it was another large building, the factory to be. The sewing machines were on the way from Vienna, expected to arrive any day. I was to work in the factory and Vytautas was to join a team of men felling trees in the mountains, supplying firewood for the kitchen and for heating the premises. We did not get the food stamps because the administration was to provide us with three meals a day. It was getting late and after a serving of soup and bread we were taken to one of the barracks. It was stacked with rows of bunk beds, maybe 20 or 30, a small iron stove in the middle, firewood on the side. We, the first residents, were handed two blankets each and left there for the night.
Vytautas started the fire and I settled in the bunk nearby and lay down. To keep the fire going he never left the stove, but it was impossible to heat a place with wind whistling in the plank walls. Vytautas was warm, but a few hours into the night I was shivering uncontrollably. Feeling cramps in the abdomen I got up and joined him. We could not stay here, but how to escape? Could we walk the distance to the station dragging the valise?
At dawn familiar sleigh bells made us run to the door. It was the driver who had picked us up at the station, delivering milk to the compound. Seeing no one around, we took the valise and walked up the road to wait for him. He recognized us and we offered him money to take us back to the station. He said that if, at this hour tomorrow, we were to wait for him a few kilometers further up the road, he would do it. We spent the day looking around and talking to the few people we met in the dining hall. We learned that this valley was so deep that even in summer sunlight never reached the ground we were standing on. As agreed, next morning the driver picked us up and dropped us off at the train station.
The train to Bludenz was due late that afternoon. The village up the road across the rails looked inviting and having a few food stamps left, we crossed the rails and went up the road looking for breakfast. In the early-morning sun the intense glimmer hurt the eyes, shadows of fir trunks striped the road.
Carrying the valise between us, we stepped over the parallel shadows in silence until I stopped and looked around as if lost. "What is this place? Where are we? What am I doing here?" The floodgates that had held back the pain of partings for so long were lifting. I started sobbing, faintly at first. But then a familiar face, a gesture, lips parting to smile, a glimmer in the eye caught years ago, the sound of a door closing, a door opening, the angle of light dissecting a wall—each unleashed a torrent of tears. That glimmering sun-drenched morning, on that striped road to that snow-capped nameless village I was saying good-by to what was dearest to me. Something snapped inside me—I was not to see my parents again. Home was lost forever. There was to be no other home, anyplace, anymore.
Vytautas, in the wisdom of his compassionately embracing silence, gently led me on. We had coffee, I calmed down. Back in the railroad station we waited hours for the train, arrived in Bludenz late that night and spent the rest of it in the station.
By morning I was furious. At them and at myself. How could they send us to a place like that... how could I be so careless... should have asked what was the place they were sending us to, tell them of our conditions. Still steaming when we reached the office that sent us to Silberthal, I opened the door. Behind the wooden counter that kept visitors at bay, four or five women sat typing at desks lining the wall of the narrow room. At the end of it sat an elderly man in uniform. I pushed open the gate and, ignoring the women jumping up to stop me, approached the supervisor. The man sat there smoking, watching the scene. Stopping in front of his desk, I said, "Yesterday you sent us to Silberthal. My husband has TB and I am pregnant." He did not blink. He looked me over, looked at Vytautas by the door, the valise beside him.
"Neither of us is fit to work in a place like that. This morning we ran away." He put out the cigarette, lit another.
"What do you want of me?" he asked somewhat amused.
"Give us food cards and a place to live." He examined Vytautas again, motioned to a woman to step up and told her to give us food stamps and assign a place to stay.
"Thank you," I said loud enough for all to hear.
While issuing the cards, the woman told me that if I had a doctor's certificate to prove that I was pregnant, I too would get cards with higher rations. When she handed me an address out of town I said we needed a sanatorium nearby. That's why I am sending you there, she said, smiling.
After a proper breakfast we were sitting in the station waiting for the train when a man hearing us speak Lithuanian approached. Jonas lived in Bludenz and was on the board of directors for Lithuanian refugees in the district. We told him our story and where we were going and he took our address. The train pulled in, Jonas went his way and we boarded the train to Nenzing by Beshling, some distance away.
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