Chapter Thirty-Two Aletta
Chapter Thirty-Two
Aletta
The last time Aletta had been transported anywhere was by train when they’d been taken to Ravensbrück.
Sometimes when she closed her eyes, she could remember what it was like inside the crude wagon made for animals, in the dark and the cold not knowing where she was going.
Other days it was as if her mind had blocked the memory and wouldn’t let her remember.
But today, she could vividly recall the fear; perhaps because she finally, after all this time, felt a semblance of safety.
That they were finally leaving the hell of the past few years.
That those people who’d been waiting for them weren’t going to hurt them, couldn’t hurt them, anymore.
They were crammed together, reminding her of the last time she’d been transported, only this time they were seated shoulder to shoulder on the bus.
And instead of being afraid of the dark, Aletta was able to press her cheek to the cool glass and look at where they were going.
Nothing could have prepared her for the bombed-out areas of Germany they passed through, the destruction far more widespread than she could have imagined, the devastation showing her for the first time that the Nazis weren’t the conquerors they’d made themselves out to be.
They’d been told they were driving to the Danish border, and she knew that the nervous flutter in her stomach wouldn’t abate until they reached it.
We’re going to make it.
She’d hated the thought of seeing herself in a mirror, but in the window, she could make out her reflection.
Her hair was patchy and bedraggled – she’d often felt her scalp over the past months and was horrified by how thin her hair was – but it was her bones that scared her more.
She was all sharp angles and stretched skin, although she knew it could have been worse.
Some of the women were so sick, their bodies so weak they could barely stand, let alone walk, having only boarded the bus using the same sheer grit and determination that had seen them stay alive amid the horrors of the camp.
She knew they would have crawled on their hands and knees if they’d had to for even the slimmest chance of being rescued.
If the three hadn’t been the recipients of Herr Weber’s extra rations for so long in the factory, they would have been just as poorly as the very worst of the other prisoners. If they would have been alive at all.
‘We’re safe now,’ Chloe whispered, seated between them, holding their hands. ‘We’re going to make it.’
Aletta’s fingers were wrapped tightly around Chloe’s as she dropped her head to Chloe’s shoulder.
She shut her eyes, relaxing for the first time in so long that it felt foreign to her.
Her lips were cracked and dry, her throat ached for water, and her stomach rumbled, but she was so used to that now that she barely gave them pause for thought.
We’re going to make it.
After driving for what felt like hours, the bus slowed and eventually stopped on the edge of a forest. The driver was kindly enough, although quietly spoken, and Aletta imagined he didn’t know what to say to the women in his care.
But what he lacked for in conversation, he certainly made up for in provisions.
‘We’ll be stopping here long enough to have something to eat, and for anyone who needs to, to, ah, relieve themselves,’ he said. ‘Please take your time, we won’t leave without you.’
Most of the women were silent, not moving from their seats, even as he opened the door. Aletta didn’t want to get out of the bus – it was the first place she’d felt safe in a very long time, and it felt wrong to get out when they could just keep driving as far away from the camp as possible.
‘Perhaps you could enjoy the fresh air and stretch your legs?’ he suggested, appearing as unsure as Aletta imagined they all looked.
Eventually they did as he suggested, and Aletta held back tears as she looked at the early daffodils in the field, inhaled the smell of the forest and the grass, enough to make her gasp. It was as if her senses had been dulled for so long that experiencing nature again made her want to cry.
‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ Chloe said, as she moved past her.
Aletta’s mother leaned into her as they gratefully accepted a bread roll and a biscuit, watching as the driver gave the rest of the food to two of the women to hand out so that he could pass around cups full of a sweet-tasting juice.
‘It’s like we’ve been living in dirt, everything has been brown and grey, and now someone has turned the colour back on,’ Chloe said. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this.’
‘Leaves have never looked so green,’ Aletta’s mother said from beside her. ‘And the smell. I can’t believe it, truly I can’t.’
When Chloe looked up, she had to agree. Leaves had never looked so bright and vibrant – it was as if she was seeing them with fresh eyes, and compared to the smells they’d become used to, it smelt like the sweetest of perfumes on the edge of the forest.
‘Thank you, Chloe,’ Emma said. ‘Without you, we wouldn’t be here.’
Chloe’s smile was warm, her expression showing just how content she was. ‘I was never leaving without you, Emma. You should both have known that.’
‘Well regardless, we’re grateful.’
Aletta gently patted Chloe’s back. Her mother wasn’t wrong; if Chloe hadn’t insisted, they’d still be in that bleak, lifeless camp.
They’d done a lot for each other in the years they’d been together, but this final act from Chloe had changed everything.
She would never stop thanking her friend for what she’d done.
She chewed the bread slowly as they stood and stared at the forest, savouring every soft mouthful.
This was real bread, not the tough, sawdust-filled chunks they’d been served in the camps, and she took tiny sips of her drink in between mouthfuls.
When Aletta glanced around at the other women, she saw some place bread in their pockets, presumably for later, and she wondered how long it would take them to accept that food wasn’t going to be withheld, that they didn’t need to squirrel away rations for another time.
Aletta knew it was a habit she would find almost impossible to break.
‘Sorry ladies but we’ll need to keep moving,’ the driver called. ‘If you could all get back in the bus. There will be more food at the camp.’
Aletta looked behind her one last time, trying to commit the forest to her memories, to replace the terror of Ravensbrück with it before finding her way back to her seat. She had the window again, and she shuffled over as far as she could so her mother and Chloe could fit beside her.
But just as they were settling in, their bellies full for the first time in years and their hearts even fuller, a loud noise made Chloe snap her head up. The thud that followed made her teeth rattle, and Aletta’s jaw clenched tightly as the bus rocked, fingers clutching desperately at Chloe’s.
What the . . .
‘Take cover!’ someone yelled, as panic filled the bus like thick smog, women still hurrying to get in and falling over each other in their desperation to reach safety.
They fell on to their knees, hands pulling apart as they scrambled forward, bracing themselves as the bus lurched.
Aletta had known fear, what it was like to think she was going to die, to wonder whether she would live to see the next morning, but she’d never known the gut-wrenching panic of what was happening to her right now, when they’d finally believed they were safe.
It was like someone had dangled safety in front of them long enough for them to grasp hold, and now it was being ripped away.
There was yelling from someone at the front of the bus, and then the sound of rapid gunfire, and Aletta winced at the impossibly loud ringing in her ears at another series of what she could only guess were shots from above. Was a plane firing at them? Were they under attack?
She clasped Chloe’s hand as they squashed into the footwell, and stayed there with their arms braced above their heads until well after the firing had stopped.
And even then, when she rose to take her seat and the driver called out that they should expect a fast and bumpy trip, Aletta barely breathed she was so scared, her heart thundering in her chest and goose pimples covering her skin.
‘Who was firing at us?’ Chloe muttered. ‘Why did he even stop there if we weren’t safe?’
Aletta just shook her head and exchanged a worried look with her mother over the top of Chloe’s head.
Perhaps we were too quick to think we were safe. Perhaps it’s all just an illusion and we’re not safe at all.
Hours later, with their nerves still on edge, they finally reached the camp, which was more like a canvas city.
There were rows upon rows of tents, with Red Cross ladies handing out packages containing thick woollen socks and scarves, and ladling soup into tin cups.
But unlike the soup at Ravensbrück, this soup made Aletta’s heart sing.
It warmed her belly and eased the gnaw of hunger in her stomach, reminded her of what food was supposed to taste like when it was made to nourish a body rather than slowly poison it.
They were still shaken up over what had happened earlier, and someone said that one of the other buses had sustained a direct hit, but no one had spoken about it again.
‘I can’t believe it,’ Chloe said, braving a small smile at Aletta over her cup as she took little sips. ‘When did food taste so good?’
‘I heard them saying that they learnt from the last women who’d come through and decided to make soup instead of rich meals with too much meat,’ Chloe said. ‘It made them all violently ill after so long with nothing when they fed them fancy food.’
‘Well, this is the best soup I’ve had in my life.’