the scene at the station.
It was the very same blast of a steam whistle, in this half-deserted and forgotten station, or alomaš, as people called it, that blared forth that April day in 1944 and so deadened all their bodies that they more or less automatically, almost mechanically and with no real expression on their faces, moved towards the platform; their eyes, swollen and white, would never close again but would only stare into an emptiness filled with whistling, shouting, wailing, weeping and sobbing – they would, in other words, be guided only by sounds and voices, which became unbearably louder and louder until all that remained, above the world and in their memories, was an attenuated, monotonous, almost supernatural soundscape, filled with smoke escaping from the boiler of a superheated locomotive.
Franz Schwartz again saw them, now after long years, as he gazed at the quiet, nearly forgotten station, with only poplars beside it looking down from above and, hovering just over their pointed crowns, white cumulous clouds; he saw them, people holding tight to their sleepy children, suitcases and hastily wrapped packages, from which protruded silk-embroidered tablecloths, big down-filled pillows, fur collars and books, with oils on canvas cut from expensive frames hanging from open handbags like long loaves of fresh bread.
No one was speaking, everything was unfolding so quickly, people showing a certain inborn submissiveness and attention, which is to be expected of those who have been taught that order must always be observed. They would, of course, complain later, when they had a chance to speak to the men in charge, the highest authorities, who sit in quiet offices – no, no, now isn’t the time, and anyway, what’s the point of talking to these people whose uniforms aren’t even of the proper rank; they look like mere workmen, carrying out explicit orders from above; you won’t get anywhere with them, they’re just doing their job. Of course, everything is documented, but the paperwork seems all right, in order, signed and stamped; there must have been a mistake, a big mistake, which these people certainly can’t understand, let alone resolve. Now they just had to be patient, to make sure nothing in their precious luggage went missing, and they had to watch the children, who were getting restless and curious – they don’t know what’s happening either, but somehow it will all work out in the end.
Franz Schwartz’s words had been lost forever in the unbearable thunder and groan of the old train. Even that lazy, temperamental machine must have felt something that morning. People departed without saying goodbye. They were swallowed by the fog and the steam.
The wind borne by the plain from the east was dispersing the smoke from the station and distributing it noisily among the houses. It was then that whatever hope Franz Schwartz still carried inside him collapsed. He knew that Ellsie and Izak would never again appear out of the fog. Here, for a long time to come, people would still be getting on and off trains, embracing each other and saying their farewells, but he would always be waiting. He alone would be walking across the tracks and watching for the train that would one day take him away, too.
As the train pulled out of the station he thought of Šamuel Ascher. The regular pounding of its wheels and the wheezing of the tired engine were coming closer and closer. The smoke that rose from the superheated boiler was now almost white as it trailed directly above the tops of the rickety carriages. The locomotive was accelerating.
Franz Schwartz continued to gaze at the monster, which was blowing its whistle louder and louder, since by now the driver had certainly seen him. And he, for his part, saw the fireman, whose black hand was gripping a small red flag and waving it at him. From the station to the cemetery, where the railway crossed the road, was less than two hundred yards, not far but still enough distance for the train to be approaching him at a hurtling speed.
Mainly, however, that minute was time enough for a decision. For a step that a short while before had seemed impossible. In that piercing whistle, which went right through his body, Franz Schwartz – shopkeeper, former proprietor of a general store, gentleman and, especially, husband – decided to take this step.
But he had promised Šamuel Ascher, who was lying somewhere in Rakičan Park, that he would get him home.
The train blew its whistle; hot, dense steam shrouded the crossing and, mixed with the dust of the road, rose into the sky. The crosses in the town cemetery and the black gravestones in the Jewish cemetery, forlorn beside the tracks, again trembled. The whistle was heard throughout the varaš, which was lounging with seeming indifference in the middle of the endless plain. It was as if a ram’s horn had sounded, to awaken at last the souls of this sleepy town.
4
The locomotive, with its wooden carriages jumping along the tracks like crates of potatoes, was already in the middle of farmland. The terrified recruits in the first two carriages crowded around the open windows. Through the smoke and the soot, with tears in their eyes, they were looking back towards the station, as it receded to an invisible dot. In the last car, drunken officers and their adjutants, in German and Hungarian uniforms, were sitting with rifles in their hands. For several days now their generals, bewildered and lost, had been shuffling them around, carting them back and forth across the plain. They were all making plans in their hearts to flee this godforsaken place. They suspected that the train wouldn’t get very far. Many of them would soon be sent back to the station on foot, the ones who already carried death inside them, only they did not know this. They were all just waiting for the moment when this hapless train would approach the Mura River. The Germans, who had begun to feel that time was running out, were desperate to cross it. The mighty wind that was driving them from the east like dry leaves would soon be here. For the others, it was by now clear that they would do better to stay. If the end was coming, it was best to wait for it here. The soldiers were counting on the train slowing down before it reached the garrisoned bridge; at that moment they would all leap through the open doors and take off in all directions across the fields. They would hide in the dead pools of the river and wait for night to come, wait even, perhaps, for the war to end. It was only the Germans who still shot at deserters, but maybe before the train reached the bridge they would be drunk on the liquor the recruits were offering them. These days nobody knew for sure who you had to be afraid of or who you had to shoot.
It was being said more and more out loud, even among ordinary soldiers, that the thunder and occasional explosions, originating somewhere in distant Russia, were getting closer and closer. Russian bullets could now reach even here. Gunfire was being heard in the Goričko forests, the Raba valley and the villages on the plain, and there had been a succession of small diversions as well, and the anxiety of the Arrow Crossists and local administrators was escalating. Partisans, it was said, had again infiltrated the region, although no one had yet seen them. But they knew they were dangerous. After all, they had ties with the Reds, who were advancing across the steppes.
A month ago, in the middle of February, Budapest had fallen. One of the Hungarian privates, a boy barely out of adolescence who was carrying a fiddle in his duffel bag, was already good and drunk, even at that early hour. He wasn’t used to the strong liquor, in which he had been drowning his fear and comforting his soul. They had been drinking it for several days on end. He stood up from the wooden bench and cried out that his Budapest had turned red. The snow, which had come down in great heaps in February and covered Buda and Pest in white – he explained, gasping for breath – was now, after the invasion of the Red Army, red with blood. Blood was falling from the sky. Saying this, he took another long draught of the liquor and then spat on the floor.
‘Play for us, István, play something,’ his mates started shouting. The boy pulled the fiddle out of the duffel bag and, with full concentration, as if instantly sobering up, he began to play. All of them – the Sóbota recruits, the Hungarian soldiers, the train driver, the fireman – everyone knew this sad Hungarian melody. It spilled from the creaking carriages into the dewy morning, somewhere between Sóbota and Beltinci.
They sang like a chorus of condemned men whose necks had just been sliced through. The train whistled on towards Beltinci station, where a new contingent of frightened boys, with unshaven cheeks and forcibly shaven heads, were waiting.
‘So where are we supposed to put them?’ the train driver yelled, with a cigarette pressed between his lips and his hand on the brake. The song and the plaintive wail of the fiddle had by now reached