The Infernal Express
by Jessica Remmert

The metal slabs didn't quite join at the corner. Pressing my cheek against the frigid steel, I could glimpse the green-brown Earth blur beneath my nose. I sniffed at the fresh air that permeated the crack. It was cold and rich to breathe. I closed my eyes because the color was making me dizzy. My feet were tingling with the mechanical vibration which sputtered through the heels of my coarse boots. When the box car veered sharply to one side, I felt that I would plunge forward into the darkness. Someone's elbow punctured by lower back as I grappled with the wall to steady myself. The twinge ceased in a matter of seconds, but I squeezed my body further into the corner to retreat from the
unknown perpetrator. The train moaned and shook as if it were trying to expel the weary passengers from its insides. I felt sick.

"Zippi." The familiar voice was at my left shoulder. I opened my eyes to the bleak wall before me and turned to face the presence on quivering legs. Her expression was masked by the car's murky shadows, but the anxiety in her voice fell thickly upon my ears. "Are you feeling any better?" I nodded. I swallowed at the lump in my throat. "Better," I repeated awkwardly. The sound of my own voice over the tumultuous engine somewhat reassured me. Closing my eyes, I willed myself to be standing once more on the dusty station platform in Poprateck. No matter, I thought. In two months, I'll be back there again. I have nothing to fear, except - I had never been on a train before.

I was tense. My teeth were grinding louder than the train wheels did as they slid across the metal track. My jaw was locked; my hands were balled in white-knuckled fists. Forcing myself to exhale, I was determined to regain composure for Helena. She had taken the railroad to Prague twice before. Where I had once envied her travels, I now despised the motorized monster that rumbled beneath my feet. I silently prayed that the labor camps in Northern Slovakia would be far from the train tracks. I knew that I couldn't bear to hear the shrill whistle every day for two months. "Helena?" I whispered above the other droning voices in the car.

"Yes?" Her face was inches from mine as before. I shuffled my feet nervously and pressed my back against the box car's surface. Its icy fingers prodded the length of my spine despite my thick cardigan. And yet, the train was an inferno. Eighty-odd female passengers, depleting the air of oxygen, were packed like cargo into the rickety crate. The faint stench of manure lingered in the car and tickled my lungs. With pity I regarded those four-legged beasts who had formerly made their journey to the slaughterhouse, oblivious to all but the devilish contraption growling beneath their hooves. "Do you happen to recall the nature of the work...?"

"Agriculture, I'm sure," she murmured. "Don't worry - there really is no cause for concern..."

"I know," I blurted in abrupt intensity. "I'm not frightened." I paused, and licked my salty lips in thirst. "Just a little uneasy perhaps," I admitted weakly.

In fact I was more than a little frightened. As I scanned the silhouettes of the single young women surrounding me, I felt as if their hushed conversations were echoing my own confusion. We had been "invited" to join the Jewish labor forces with the threat of "consequences" to our families should we refuse. "But it's a rather small sacrifice in a time of war," I offered. Helena's head nodded slowly in agreement. The silence was desperate. Minutes evaporated into the dense mass of the cattle crate.

How long had we been traveling? The unspoken question clung to my lips. It was impossible to determine the elapsed time. My legs ached and I longed to slide onto the floor, but feared that I might be trampled among the scattered suitcases which contained our allotted fifty kilograms. I tapped the leather bag beside my knee in confirmation. I wondered, would we have separate rooms in which to stow our things? Where would we sleep? What would they serve us to eat? Questions gnawed at my throbbing brain in anticipation. I suppressed muddled thoughts and embraced the dark refuge of my closed eyelids. It was better not to think - only to accept, and to withstand. My foreboding imagination would surely be appeased within the span of a few more hours. I then concentrated on locking my knees to prevent them from trembling. As the train swerved and chugged through the unseen world, I was lulled into emptiness and denied myself feeling. I stood, rocking in silence, for what seemed like an eternity. Sound was amplified within my ears. My head was swimming. Suddenly, the hiss of "Poland" escaped through gritted teeth in a low-pitched groan. My eyes fluttered open. "What did she say?" I asked my dark neighbor, who I assumed to be Helena.

"I think...she said...they're taking us to Poland." Helena strained her ears against the augmenting hysteria within the car. "Whatever happened to Slovakia?" Shrieked a woman from the center. "We've already traveled much farther than that," replied another. "We must nearly be in Russia by now!" Panic rose in my throat like bile. So far from home? What possible use could they have for us in Poland?
I reached out for Helena's arm to steady myself as the train lurched forward. Our momentum was changing. Suddenly I knew that our destination was nearly before us.

The train screeched as its wheels applied friction to the track. We stumbled forward, cursing as we bruised ourselves and apologizing as we collided with others. "Ladies, please!" Cried one woman. "No need to panic!" My stomach churned in apprehension as the train slowed to a stop and pressure was expelled from the engine in a loud wail that marked our arrival at... "Aushwitz!" The mutual gasp ensuing this passenger's discovery was so prolonged that I felt as if the Earth was peeling away beneath my feet and I might fall through the center. "What's Aushwitz?" I hissed, but no one responded. Voices diminished as we heard, beyond the metal crate doors, the irregular thumping of heavy boots upon the wooden planks of a platform. My heart leapt in terror at the sound of harsh German voices. Could it be that the S.S. would be the first to greet us? As if Hitler's soldiers would be employed to escort a group of women from a train! Retreating further into the box car, I realized that I was frightened of exposing myself to them. My refuge was being perforated with the metallic scraping of a lock as it was being pried from the train's sliding doors. A crack of blinding sunlight appeared and my vision was momentarily distorted. I winced as if my heart were being split along the seams.

The doors were stubborn. They opened slowly, groaning in pain, and exposing stark daylight as if the mouth of Hell were about to swallow us whole. I nearly fainted in terror. Before my eyes stood a band of soldiers fully decked in uniforms and weapons. I could scarcely focus upon the sight before me when a man's voice screamed "Out, out!" in broken Czech. The mass of bodies plummeted from the car onto the platform. Ladies cried out, clinging to their luggage or a friend as they vanished from my sight. I grappled with my own suitcase as I stumbled from the train. The soldiers were yelling and flailing their arms through the air in angry circles. Confusion choked from within. Helena was no longer beside me. Strange women pushed as they fled from our refuge. The soldier who had opened the crate doors was now so close that I glimpsed in one second every detail of his face: high cheek bones, taut mouth, steely gray eyes which were unfeeling. As I shuffled past him, his icy glare persisted although I knew he hadn't really seen me at all. They steered us through the iron gates and I glanced up to the bright blue sky. "Arbeit macht frei," said the letters above my head. In my confusion, I could scarcely interpret their meaning. I only knew that I was running. I was running and I would continue running until I had outrun the grim-faced German with the skull on his chest and the steel in his eyes.