Good luck homing pigeon

Chapter seven: To the right...

I'd just like to say before you read this, there are sections within this chapter that have been translated into Polish via google translate. If you wish to have them translated into English, you can use the translator yourself. What is to come is a very sensitive subject so please be warned. Nick had explained before how his mother died in my other series but this'll give you a chance to actually read it for yourself. Thank you to those, whoever you are, who've read these few chapters. Music video above is 'Shuffle off to Buffalo' from the 1933 movie '42nd street' With Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell. Please enjoy...

We've been on the train three days now, and I know that I said to myself I wouldn't lose hope so easily. But it wasn't getting any easier. Those who hadn't any food before they even left home were the first to grow sick. It gradually began with a little coughing and headaches, just like Mrs Koster, and then the next morning, nearly half of the container were delirious with high fevers. We tried, and wanted to help whoever we could, but how could we? We had no medicine, not nearly enough food to go around, and the only thing we all had for a toilet was a tin bucket in the corner. We were nurses without medicine, doctors without their stereoscopes. We were, for lack of nicer terms, practically useless. But never, had we felt more useless as Mrs Koster grew sicker and sicker. Such a kind, trusting woman she seemed! And to think, she was the one to fall under before anybody else.

Nick and Alice weren't coping very well. Every, little bit of food they had left, he gave to his mama, and a little to Alice. But never any for himself. We gave him just a little of what we had, but it wasn't enough. It was never enough. Mrs Koster grew weaker, thinner and frailer so quickly, and we couldn't stop it. So on the second night, I asked mama if there was anything else we could do. If there was any medicine we could give her. I hoped she would smile at me, and tell me not to fret so much. I hoped she would hold my hands and tell me all I so desperately wanted to hear. But even mama didn't have the strength to lie. She just gazed down at her hands, then regarded me with a pitying sort of look.

"She could go at any hour Kate," she said, "Even if she survives the journey, I don't think she'll be strong enough to make it off the train. I wish it didn't happen to her; I don't know her very well, but she seems a decent sort of woman. Probably the least deserving to die. But this war isn't fair Kate; to any of us. It'll take what it can get, regardless of who they are and how kind. All I do right now is thank god that none of you have fallen ill; it must've been something they contracted in another part of Drancy."

Indeed. Really, it surprised me that not everybody on this truck had caught the illness! Those who had, grew more and more serious by the minute. And...poor, Mrs Koster. I wished I could ask Nick myself, how him and Alice were faring. Even with Andre to translate, Nick didn't seem the type of boy to open himself up to a person so easily. And even if his looks frightened me somewhat, that didn't stop me from feeling sorry for him. If it were my mother on her deathbed, I knew I'd need all the support I could get. For grief was a painful, ugly thing that made me sick to my stomach when it wasn't necessary. When Angelo's father died, he grieved for months before he was anything like his old self again. But then, at least he had his mother, his sister and me to help him swim when he was drowning. Who did Nick and Alice have? Nobody. Nobody but one friend and a family of foreign strangers.

That night when we all curled up, huddled in each others arms, Angelo and I talked. He stroked my hair, over and over, and as his other hand cradled my head to his chest, my fingertips drew circles against his heart. I couldn't see his face at the time, but I felt his body tense, for just a few seconds. Why? I wondered. It wasn't like I hadn't touched him before. We'd play-fought, wrestled, and tickle-attacked each other all the time; it wasn't as if we were prude strangers when it came to physical contact. Still, it made me wonder what he was thinking. Besides being a charismatic rebel, he did have a strangely complex mind, worth deciphering.