The shriek of the train whistle woke everybody. People scrambled to their feet, the dim rails growing brighter as the engine headlight inched its way toward the platform, as if the weight were too much for the engine to pull. People covered the roofs of the cars and hung along the sides, perched on running boards or just holding on to whatever piece of metal was available, like the trains he’d seen in Egypt, bursting with fellaheen. A few boxcars with feet dangling from the open sliding doors. Everyone worn and stiff, so that when they dropped onto the platform they moved slowly, awkward with cramps. A hiss, finally, of exhausted steam, and a clang of brakes. Now the platform crowd moved forward with their bundles, shoving to get on even before the train had emptied. In the confusion, Pastor Fleischman was running back and forth, trying to locate his charges. He waved Lena over. Frau Schaller, the other helper, was already lifting children off the train.
Their heads had been shaved for delousing, skeletal. Short pants, legs like sticks, slips of paper hanging on strings around their necks as makeshift IDs, faces dazed. As people pushed around them, they stood fixed, blinking. A few had dark blotches on their skin.
“Look at that. Have they been beaten?” Jake said.
“No, it’s the edema. From no food. Any sore will bruise.”
Pastor Fleischman began loading the smaller ones into the handcart while the others looked on blankly, huddled together. No luggage. A little girl with mucus crusted under her nose. Another story Collier’s would never run-who had really lost the war.
Jake leaned over to help with the loading, reaching for one of the younger boys, but the child reared back, screaming, “ Nein! Nein!” Some of the platform crowd turned in alarm. Lena stepped between them, bent down, and spoke softly to the boy. She looked back over her shoulder at Jake.
“It’s the uniform. He’s afraid of soldiers. Say something in German.”
“I only want to help,” Jake said to him. “But you can go with the lady if you like.”
The boy stared at him, then hid behind Lena.
“It’s like this sometimes,” she said, apologetic. “Any uniform.”
Jake turned to another child. “Are you afraid of me?”
“No. Kurt’s afraid. He’s young. See how he wet himself?” Then he pointed to Jake’s pocket. “Do you have chocolate?”
“Not today. I’m sorry. I’ll bring you some tomorrow.”
The boy looked down-too long away to imagine.
Frau Schaller had opened a bag and was handing out chunks of bread, which the children held to their chests as they ate. They began moving down the platform, Pastor Fleischman pulling the cart, the others straggling behind, Lena and Frau Schaller herding from the rear. The older children were looking around, eyes wide. Not the Berlin they’d heard about all their lives, Ku’damm lights and leafy boulevards. Instead, swarms of refugees and fire-blackened walls and, through the arches, dark mounds of brick. But the grown-ups were reacting in the same way, literally staggering through the doors. Now that they were here, where did they go? Jake thought of the weary DPs in the Tiergarten that first day, just moving.
They managed to squeeze the youngest group into the jeep, Lena holding the boy who’d wet himself. The nursery was in a church in Schoneberg, and before they were halfway there the children had begun to nod off, back in the rocking motion of the train. No sense of where they were, the streets a maze of moonlit ruins. What about the people who hadn’t been met? Jake remembered walking out of Tempelhof that day, as confused as the refugees tonight, getting lost in the streets on the way to Hallesches Tor. And he knew Berlin. But of course they had been met, Breimer bundled into his official car, Liz and Jake piling in with Ron, everyone taken care of. Except Tully. How was it possible? A hasty trip, as if he’d been summoned, Brian thought. Left to find his way through the debris, someone who didn’t know Berlin? He must have been met. Berlin sprawled. Potsdam was miles away. No taxis here, Ron had said. Certainly not to Potsdam. Someone in the crowd at Tempelhof. He thought of Liz’s picture of Ron, a fuzzy background of uniforms. Why couldn’t she have taken one of Tully, made everything easier? He must have been there somewhere, one of the blurs in the doorway. While Jake had been staring across the street at rubble, missing it. Take another look. Maybe it was there, the connection. No one just arrived in Berlin, except refugees from Silesia.
