He didn’t tell me that it was also known as Auschwitz II.
We reached the gate, Abek and I. We were sorted to the right. He walked into the camp in his jacket with the alphabet sewn in the lining. And then he turned to me because suddenly this was dream Abek again, not real Abek. It was dream Abek, and he was walking away from me, saying goodbye, and I was trying so hard to stay there with him, but instead, I was waking up.
Part Two
Allied-occupied Germany, September
I CAN TELL WHEN THE TRAIN CROSSES THE BORDER INTO Germany.
When the train is still in Silesia, this annexed land that was Poland once and maybe is again, the tracks are haphazard and the route is meandering. The ticket master at the Sosnowiec station warned me: The Red Army was dismantling tracks, digging up the metal ties to create routes that would lead to Russia, not to Germany. The Katowice-Munich line was once direct, but now the route is circuitous—we backtrack, we divert, we reach portions of the track where multiple locomotives must share a single line, and we spend entire days waiting for another train to pass. While in Poland, the tracks and the land look confused and forgotten; the train feels like a mouse trying to escape a maze.
But I can tell when the train crosses the border into Germany, because here, the same rolling hills become scorched and scarred. The green farmland is interrupted by angry black gashes cutting open the earth. Everything was bombed here, recently, by the Allies, who were trying to cut off the German Army supply lines.
We move even slower. We stop even more frequently. Train employees tell us the tracks ahead are being cleared of debris.
An old man took the seat next to me just before the departure. He had a full gray beard and a dark coat, and he reminded me of my grandfather Zayde Lazer. He didn’t say anything at first; I wasn’t even sure we spoke the same language. But as the rumble of the wheels began, sending vibrations up our legs, he pulled a small bottle of amber liquid from his coat and handed it to me for a taste.
Nalewka, spiced vodka, sweet and strong, the small sip burning my throat. I passed the bottle back, he took his own drink, and returned it to me again.
“I don’t like trains anymore,” he said to me.
“I don’t, either.”
Now this man has become my nameless friend. The seats fill with passengers, and then the aisles fill. The old man and I rise to use the bathroom only when we can no longer wait, saving each other’s seats each time. And then the roof of the train is full, too: With nowhere left to sit, people climb up the ladders on the side of the train or pack together on the platforms linking the cars.
The trip is so long. So long and so hot, and at times I can’t even tell whether I’m awake or dreaming. At times I think I see Abek next to me. My past and my present blend together, and I let them. The hours pass, and my bad foot aches as if all my toes are still there, as if I can still wiggle them. And the days pass, and then my whole body hurts and my whole body is numb, like I’m not sure any of it exists at all.
“For bad dreams,” the old man says at one point, handing me another bottle of something that makes my head fuzzy and my mind quiet. He says this to me after I’ve just woken, gasping for breath. It’s the rhythmic motion that makes my brain scream. As soon as I fall asleep, my body remembers the train to Birkenau. I can tell my brain not to think about it, but when I fall asleep and feel the rhythm of the train, my body remembers.
“For a noisy mind,” the old man says. Another bottle.
This makes the trip bearable. It’s not a cure for what’s wrong with me, but it feels like a temporary solution. The bottles, and the fact that every time I look out the window—every time we stop and women reach up to the window with bread or boiled eggs for us to buy—I know I am getting closer to the place where Abek might be.
Finally one morning, just before dawn, the train lurches to a stop. There are no more tracks, not for a gaping fifty meters.