Paper Stars

Chapter 29

29

Severance

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I wasn’t sure how many of us were crammed into that filth-smelling car. All I knew was that it was packed tight, and where this train was taking us, I did not know. We were like sardines, almost shoulder-to-shoulder: a box full of struggling breath and tears and the smell of fear. I could hear Ayako crying and coughing, and I searched through the swathe of bodies. The young girl was trembling, almost lost in the sea of limbs, and her dark eyes were brimming with tears. Daniel’s thin form slipped through the people and went to her, and she hugged him at once, pressing her face against his neck and crying into his shirt. He was initially unresponsive and awkward as he often was, but his face soon softened a bit as he attempted to give her what comfort he could, and I was suddenly struck by how much he reminded me of his brother. But suddenly, the train shuddered to life and cries of panic erupted from the crowd.

“Where are we going?” someone yelled out.

            “Nowhere good,” another voice, raspier and harsh, called back.

The people in the compartment were an eclectic mix of those like Benjamin and I, who were relatively well cared for and still covered in our own clothes, and those that were coming from camps. These people were emaciated, clad in striped uniforms, and many didn’t have hair.

            I was cold. So cold. Hunger stabbed at my stomach; they hadn’t given out rations all week, and the only thing I had eaten in the last seven days was the last of the “coffee” and a few pieces of stale bread crusts that Mother had saved.

As I remember it, we had managed to push through the men and women until we reached one of the far walls, and Daniel, Ambros, the twins, Minori and what was left of her family followed behind us. This was our little huddle of familiarity, our safety net. We were able to clear out a little space large enough for one person to sit down, and there we would take turns resting and sleeping.

I don’t think I ever let go of Benjamin’s hand, for it was the only thing that was keeping feeling in my fingers and terror from my mind. In fact, the only time he ever separated from me was to comfort Ambros, who was in hysterics, his round brass spectacles fogged up by his tears as he tried to wipe Eli’s blood from his hands. Benjamin went to him, and when the young man registered his presence, he almost went to pieces in Benjamin’s arms. Benjamin just stood and held him in return, patting his shoulder, oblivious to the blood that was being smudged across his coat.

“It’s going to be all right, he’s better off now, he is, I promise you he is,” he said quietly. “It will be all right.”

That was the last time he really spoke during the train ride: he simply held my hand. I was so scared he would be taken from me, so scared that I would be torn from him just like Mother and Papa. But instead of telling him this, I just pressed close to him and breathed.

            Time crawled. I’ve found that it flies when there is joy, when there is happiness and life, but it drags its feet in suffering. Sixty minutes. One-hundred-twenty. One-hundred-eighty. Three-hundred-sixty. Seven-hundred-twenty. One-thousand-four-hundred-forty. I remember the first person to cry out in pain as their bladder swelled. Hold it. Hold it. We will be there soon, just hold it.

            But after the first five hours, someone couldn’t anymore.

            Soon the smell of urine and human waste filled the cattle car even more thickly. I managed to hold it until my sitting time, where I was able to squirm from my underclothes and lift my skirt as not to soil myself. This was one of the few times when I was glad that I had not eaten, for I only had to relieve myself twice.