فصل 12

florian

Others had beaten us there. A teetering collection of weathered horse carts was tucked beyond the brush, a sober portrait of the trek toward freedom. I would have preferred an abandoned site, but knew I couldn’t continue. The Polish girl pulled at my sleeve.

She stopped in the snow, staring at the possessions outside the barn, evaluating the contents and whom they might belong to. There was no evidence of military.

“I think okay,” she said. We walked inside.

A group of fifteen or twenty people sat huddled around a small fire. Their faces turned as I slipped in and stood near the door. Mothers, children, and elderly. All exhausted and broken. The Polish girl went straight to a vacant corner and sat down, wrapping her arms tightly around her chest. A young woman walked over to me.

“Are you injured? I have medical training.”

Her German was fluent, but not native. I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to speak to anyone.

“Do you have any food to share?” she asked.

What I had was no one’s business.

“Does she have any food?” she asked, pointing to the Polish girl rocking in the corner. “Her eyes look a bit wild.”

I spoke without looking at her. “She was in the forest. A Russian cornered her. She followed me here. She has a couple potatoes. Now, leave me alone,” I said.

The young woman winced at the mention of the Russian. She left my side and headed quickly toward the girl.

I found a solitary spot away from the group and sat down. I lodged my pack against the barn wall and carefully reclined on it. It would be warmer if I sat near the fire with the others but I couldn’t risk it. No conversations.

I ate a small piece of the sausage from the dead Russian and watched the young woman as she tried to speak with the girl from the forest. Others called out to her for help. She must have been a nurse. She looked a few years older than me. Pretty. Naturally pretty, the type that’s still attractive, even more so, when she’s filthy. Everyone in the barn was filthy. The stench of exertion, failed bladders, and most of all, fear, stunk worse than any livestock. The nurse girl would have turned my head back in K?nigsberg.

I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to look at the pretty girl. I needed to be able to kill her, kill them all, if I had to. My body begged for sleep but my mind warned me not to trust these people. I felt a nudge at my feet and opened my eyes.

“You didn’t mention she was Polish,” said the nurse. “And the Russian?” she asked.

“He’s taken care of,” I told her. “I need to sleep.”

She knelt down beside me. I could barely hear her.

“What you need is to show me that wound you’re trying to hide.”