They Went Left - Monica Hesse Page 0,23
generation, and smaller still are the very old, the age of the man on the train. Nobody is younger. Nobody who could be Abek.
I clear my throat, gripping the handle of my valise. “Excuse me. Is there a person in charge?” I ask in German, the language I hear most.
A sandy-haired boy interrupts his conversation. “Of which division?”
Division. I hadn’t expected something so formal. “Of—I’m looking for someone in the camp. Another prisoner—refugee, I mean.”
He nods to a smaller, adjoining building. “Then you want to go there. Ask for Frau Yost.”
I don’t have to ask for her, though. Inside the building, modern and with linoleum floors, a small woman with wire-rimmed glasses approaches me almost as soon as I walk through the door. She’s wearing a plaid shirtwaist dress, foreign-seeming in a way I can’t place my finger on, and when she shakes my hand, it’s businesslike.
“Englisch?” she asks. “Deutsch?”
“Ja,” I tell her, explaining that I am Polish but can speak German. “My name is Zofia Lederman. Frau Yost?”
She nods. “That’s me. I’m so relieved you speak German.” Her own is accented, American or Canadian. “To communicate with a Hungarian woman the other day, I had to go through someone who spoke French.”
I expect that she’ll ask me what I’m doing here, or invite me to sit down, but instead, Mrs. Yost takes a hat hanging from a hook on a wall and pins it on her head as she ushers me back toward the door I’ve just entered.
“I told them nobody had time to clear out that much housing.” She holds the door open. “But we did the best we could—a bed here, a bed there, but we’re already doubled up and desperately short on blankets. You knew that, right? In terms of food, with all the extra people, we can manage for maybe a week without additional rations. The gardens help.”
“Mrs. Yost—”
“And your official ration cards will be eventually transferred over, I believe, but because absolutely nothing is working yet in this country—”
“Mrs. Yost, I’m so sorry, but—”
Finally, she breaks off, noticing that I haven’t followed her through the door. She steps back inside. “Feldafing?”
“Pardon me?”
“You’re from Feldafing?”
I shake my head. “No, outside they told me to ask for you in here.”
She closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. “I’m so sorry. We received a telegram saying that the camp in Feldafing was overcrowded and that some residents would arrive by the end of the week. A representative was supposed to be here now to see to the accommodations. It’s not normally my job, but I’m the only one who could take the meeting.”
She reaches for the door handle again. I sense that if she were wearing a watch, she would be checking the time. “But, anyway. You’re not from Feldafing, because of course you’re not. Whom do you represent?”
“I came here on my own. I’m looking for my brother.”
“Do you know what cottage he’s in?”
“My family is from Poland. Abek and I were separated in our first camp, but I heard prisoners from there were sent to Dachau, and then the prisoners from Dachau came here.”
“So you don’t know what cottage he’s in. Do you know for certain that he’s here at all?” She has a pointed, matter-of-fact way of talking that makes me feel automatically foolish.
“No. But I think he is. I heard the prisoners from Dachau came here.”
“Some of them did.”
“So I came here. My name is Zofia Lederman. My brother is Abek Lederman. He would be twelve, but we told him to say he was older. He could be saying he’s as old as fifteen, and—”
“This is an adults-only camp,” she interrupts. “I’m sorry, but we don’t admit anyone under the age of seventeen unless they’re accompanied by parents or guardians.”
“Could I just—”
“Check the records? Yes,” she says, anticipating how I was going to finish my sentence. “I can sit you down with a secretary. You’re here alone?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re coming from?”
“Poland.”
“So you said. Your family is from Poland. But I meant, where are you staying? Where have you come from now?”
The impulsiveness of what I’ve done has begun to sink in. I’m not staying with anyone. I have no place to stay.
Suddenly I feel so tired. So dirty. Hungry and thirsty, and wanting to lie down and wondering why I am here. “Poland,” I repeat. “I’ve been on a train from Poland.”
“Today? By yourself?”
“I arrived today. I left—several weeks ago, I think. It took a long time. And yes, alone.”
Mrs. Yost’s