Parts Unknown. Zirk van den Berg
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the passing hours, the conversations that had animated the early part of the journey died down. Some of the passengers had been rocked to sleep and others just stared. Even Doktor Pitzer had closed his book and his eyes. The woman sat there fidgeting with a letter on her lap, rereading it every now and then, her lips silently forming the words. Every time she got to the end, it was punctuated by a sigh, a biting of her lip. Her mouth seemed to have a life of its own, the lips always trying to find better ways of coming together, betraying the trouble her languid eyes tried to hide. Poor creature, Siegfried thought. But no, her figure was suited to her profession and she would do well. She was tall, with good bones, and could possibly demand a premium price for a decade or more to come, if she remained healthy.
There was a bang on the roof that had many of them looking up in surprise.
‘Sounds like there’s someone up there,’ Siegfried remarked.
The girl looked concerned. ‘What would anyone be doing on the roof?’
Siegfried was already on his feet. ‘I could pop out, stand on the window frame and have a look.’
Pitzer spoke up. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s probably just a structural noise, caused by the expansion of the metal in the heat.’
The risk of being ridiculous stopped Siegfried in his tracks. ‘I suppose you could be right.’
‘There’s no could be to it.’ Having dealt with the matter at hand, Doktor Pitzer opened his book again.
Siegfried sat down and stared out the window again, saw Pforte, Jakkalswater, Sphinx, Dorstrivier …
* * *
Uncomfortable as it was, Mordegai fell asleep a few times and awoke each time with a shock, with no idea how long he had drifted off, but glad still to be on the train. The landscape changed slowly. By late afternoon, they had turned north. The mountains up ahead were the Chuos, he guessed. He wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter, he could work out his whereabouts later.
The incline forced the train to slow down. He took off his shirt and wrapped the sleeves around his hands. It was the only way he could move, otherwise the metal roof would be too hot to touch. He couldn’t wait much longer; the camp diet had weakened him. He had to get off the train while he still had the strength to move. He crawled as quietly as he could to the back of the train. He couldn’t jump from up here either; he first had to climb down to the platform at the end of the carriage. The last carriage was reserved for goods – he had helped to load it – and there would be no people to see him, he guessed. But when he peered over the edge, there were two railwaymen on the small balcony at the back of the train. One of them was pissing onto the track, a shimmering stream broken by the wind, the other sitting down on the floor, rolling a cigarette. Mordegai lay flat on the roof above them, moving his arms and legs to get the stiffness out of them. He had to be ready to move fast when the time came. They were skirting the mountain now. Would he get past the men? And what would they do when they saw him? This was a bad plan, he realised. There might be a better opportunity later on. But then again there might not. And he wasn’t getting any stronger. The thirst was muddling his thoughts. Time to go.
He peered over the edge of the roof. He planned his moves, said a quick prayer to his ancestors, and swung his legs down. It all had to happen in one movement. He let go with his hands and crashed down on top of the sitting man, who barked out a grunt. Mordegai gave a step, another, and off he jumped. His feet hit the ground and momentum toppled him backward. The fall knocked the breath out of him, and the impact on his head made him black out. When his thoughts took shape again, he struggled to remember where he was. Only a few seconds must have passed, though, because the train was still nearby. He rolled over, got onto all fours and scrambled away, looking for shelter.
* * *
Siegfried heard a commotion, a wave of comments surging from the back of the train: Something had excited the railwaymen at the back. It took a while to work out the cause: They had seen a man jump from the roof, he could be an escaped prisoner of war. By the time the train had come to a halt, everyone was on their feet, except Doktor Pitzer.
‘Why are we stopping in the middle of nowhere?’ he asked.
‘To catch the prisoner. Apparently, he jumped from the train.’
‘If he jumped off the train, he must be dead.’
The train shuddered into reverse.
‘And now we’re going backwards,’ Pitzer sighed. ‘This is what you get when you let the army run things.’
Soon after they had come to a stop at the place where the men had seen the fugitive, the officers were outside, waving their pistols about. ‘Everyone out! Everyone out!’
Siegfried’s platoon assembled on the right side of the train. His platoon commander, Oberleutnant Freiherr von Schlicht, gave hurried instructions. ‘Listen now! We’re taking the south. Spread out, head uphill. Keep within sight of each other, so that he doesn’t slip between us. And keep your rifles ready. The man is an enemy. Shoot on sight.’
‘He’s mine, fellows!’ someone shouted.
Siegfried couldn’t see who spoke.
‘Perhaps you can put the second bullet in him,’ someone else retorted.
The prospect of having a crack at the enemy so soon had everyone raring to go. Unarmed and fleeing, it would be as easy as shooting a rabbit, but with greater bragging prospects.
‘Get moving!’ Von Schlicht’s voice broke. He must have been nineteen.
Even nobility suffer the embarrassments of adolescence, Siegfried thought. Perhaps the officer too might ejaculate in his pants at the touch of a beautiful woman.
‘Where the hell did he go?’ the man next to Siegfried whispered to nobody in particular.
‘There must be tracks.’
‘It’s just rocks everywhere.’
It was well into the afternoon, and the sun reflected off the rails towards the west, the only geometric shape around. Siegfried turned away and saw no sign of human habitation, only jagged rocks, sand, and scraggly grasses that looked dead even while they grew. He was struck by the crisp dryness of the land, the hollow heavens. It wasn’t only a different country, it was a different world, one shaped by a clumsy god and broken in disgust. He was an alien here, not because he was a German, but because he was human. The desolate ugliness of the land did something to him, its essential stillness echoed in his soul. He looked left and right at his fellow soldiers fanning out, rifles at hand, their hearts in their mouths and murder in their eyes. Siegfried wished he could be alone for a moment, just him and this wilderness. They headed up the slope. It was impossible to go straight, everyone had to skirt around bushes, gullies and rocks. Within the first few steps, they discovered that every bush was covered in thorns. The man to Siegfried’s right swore, and stopped to extricate himself from a particularly vicious bush.
Siegfried walked on, around a small outcropping, a knot of grey rocks rising from the ground like a clenched fist. For the moment, nobody but God could see him. He wasn’t a believer, but decided that if anyone were here, it would be God, and if God existed, He would be here. Siegfried stood still, feeling the wind against his skin, listening to it drag like a breath through the grasses. He drew his lungs full of air laced with dust and the smell of dry, sour grass.
He felt someone looking at him and glanced over his shoulder. From where he stood, he could not see any of his comrades. He admonished himself not to let thoughts of God go to his head. Then he saw it: From a crevice between two boulders, a pair of eyes looked at him, not four steps away. Siegfried’s hand clenched on his rifle, but didn’t move the weapon at all, the barrel still pointed at the ground. The sun was bright as a photographer’s flash, and Siegfried felt as if time had frozen. So much started happening in his head that his body remained inert.
This must be the escaped prisoner, his enemy. If he did what he was supposed to do, if he simply lifted the tip of the barrel, pointed it towards the fugitive and squeezed