Katka had only been only nine years old when she travelled to Prague for the first time.
And sometimes a journey can stick in the mind.
The train carriage had been hot. Late August with the sun beating in through the compartment window - and despite the air that rushed through, ruffling hair and buffeting the ears of the passengers, a prickly heat persisted, sticking clothes to skin, making faces look shiny, damp.
‘It’s beautiful there. I promise you’ll be happy.’ Katka’s mother had been saying, ‘The children’s home they’ve chosen for us really is the best place.’ But it was a lie, of course. The way her mother kept touching the skin on her neck, the nervousness in her eyes - too open, impossible to keep still - in that moment Katka hated her.
For most of the journey they did not speak.
Instead Katka looked out of the window at the scenery as it flitted past - fields of yellow, green, bright beneath the deep summer sky - and the rhythmic nudge of the railway tracks as they moved forward, towards Prague, away from everything Katka had known.
But as they neared the city Katka’s mother must have realised there wasn’t much time. She began to speak - tried to say everything she had meant to say before she said goodbye.
‘I’ll come every week. When Christmas comes I’ll send for you and you can spend a week with me in the apartment. You’ll have lots of friends and we can write to each other as often as we like.’ But as she spoke Katka could see the sadness in her eyes - because none of it was true, none of it would happen.
The letters she sent became less frequent as Katka got older. The visits too, although never as often as they were supposed to have been - once a month, then once every two - eventually they stopped all together.
‘It’s because of the war, because of the work I have to do.’ Katka’s mother told her. But Katka soon become tired of hearing her excuses. And soon she began to refuse the parcels she was sent and she began to put letters from her mother directly into the bin. And now two years had passed without speaking at all. It’s because she doesn’t care, Katka would tell herself, because she took me to a home, because didn’t visit, it’s because she is no mother at all.
But how Katka needed her now!
At some point during the night, when Katka was huddled in a doorway - cold, wet, terrified that at any moment she would be caught - she began to think of her mother again. Just a thought at first - a spark - but as the night wore on and Katka got colder and more afraid it became Katka’s only thought and soon she could think of nothing but going home.
So just before dawn Katka had gone to the railway station in the centre of the city. And although it was heavily guarded - soldiers, some with dogs, patrolling the platforms and keeping watch over the cargo trains sitting idle on the tracks - Katka was able to get herself into the carriage of a train that was destined for the little town where her mother lived. And just before dawn the train slid out from beneath the high arched roof of the railway terminal and away from Prague.
It should have been a sense of freedom that Katka felt as she watched the last of the city’s brown and black buildings passing out of sight. But the countryside, beneath a low winter sky, looked no better. It was misty and cold, the green fields she remembered seemed darker now, specked with ugly winter trees and circling gangs of crows. Here and there the train passed German army vehicles - armoured cars, tanks - small concrete fortresses painted green and grey and soldiers readying themselves by busily stacking sandbags and stringing up barbed wire fences.
Katka slept for most of the journey. Tiredness, the gentle rocking of the train, put her into a deep and comfortable sleep, and when she woke it was already late in the afternoon and already daylight had started to fade - and before the sun set completely she saw her mother’s town in the distance.
It was the factory towers she saw first - like severed limbs sticking up from the earth - they spewed black smoke and seemed to coat everything in a dark, depressing smear. It wasn’t how she remembered - and although the town was pretty in its own way, with its cobbled streets and a church with a spire - it had become just as sorrowful as Prague.
The little square that had once had a market every Saturday was now empty. The town hall - which had stood old and majestic opposite the station building was now masked with the hideous red and white of the Nazi party flag, hanging the full length of its facade. And when Katka went looking for her mother’s apartment building, not remembering exactly where it had been, she noticed that the street names had changed too. They were no longer Czech, but each now had been given a German name. And when Katka finally found her mother’s apartment, barely recognisable because she hadn’t seen it for so long, it was as if an invisible hand gripped her by the wrist when she raised her fist to knock.
Because my mother doesn’t live here anymore, Katka realised. The nameplate on the door had changed just as the street names had changed and when Katka ran back outside she saw that all the names on the postboxes had changed too. And in the little square a German army car was parked on the curb and the cafe where she remembered going when she was very small now had its menu written in German and the whole town seemed to have been transformed completely.
In desperation Katka stopped a grey-haired woman as she walked through the square - ‘My mother, she lives here but I can’t find her.’ But even when Katka told the grey-haired woman her mother’s full name, she only looked at Katka and seemed confused and she frowned a frown that creased her entire face then muttered something in broken Czech - hard to understand because she had an accent that was strong - ‘I do not know. I am sorry.’
And just as Katka was about to give up, just as she was about to walk back to the station building a hand suddenly landed on her shoulder.
‘Katka, is that you?’
Katka turned.
‘Is it you? Is it really you? What are you doing here?’ A rush of questions, too quick for Katka to answer - and she tried to recognise the smiling face of a woman with brown hair, flecked with grey and eyes that frantically scanned Katka’s face.
‘You don’t recognise me, do you?’ She said, her smile fading.
‘No, I’m sorry -’
‘Anna.’ the woman said, ‘Your mother’s friend, do you remember, the house we used to live in, we shared the garden, do you remember?’
‘Yes.’ Katka nodded, ‘Yes, I remember, of course. I’ve just been there, in fact. You lived in the apartment upstairs and you had the dog and we used to play and -’
‘What are you doing here?’ Anna asked, and as she said these words she took a fleeting glance at the cafe at the far end of the square. Despite the cold, a group of soldiers had taken seats outside.
‘I’ve come home, to see my mother, but I’ve -’
An abrupt change in Anna’s expression made Katka stop talking, and suddenly she was fearful of what Anna was about to say next.
‘I’m sorry,’ Anna said, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
‘My loss?’
‘If you would like me to take you there, to the cemetery -’ Anna said.
‘No.’ It was all Katka could say and Anna must have realised. She saw by the look on Katka’s face, wide eyed and unable to return her gaze, but instead only able to look down at the buttons of Anna’s coat.
‘I am so very sorry.!’ Anna said and she took hold of Katka’s arm. And Katka allowed herself be pulled forward and to be held tight in the warmth of Anna’s embrace. ‘You did not know, I am so sorry. You did not know.’ Anna repeated and she kept saying the words and held her for a long moment. When she finally let Katka go, it was to take her by the arm and to lead her towards the edge of the square.
‘We cannot wait here.’ She said, an unexpected urgency to her voice. She looked again in the direction of the soldiers. They were watching. One of them had stood up and was using his hands to shield his eyes from the sun. ‘It’s not safe here,’ Anna went on, ‘especially for a young girl. Come, I will take you there.’
‘Where?’ Katka asked.
‘To the cemetery.’ Anna replied and she began to lead Katka away, along a street to the churchyard, where her mother’s grave was marked with a simple wooden cross. The ground in front was weedy and untended. Katka and Anna stood looking down at it.
‘It has been two years since she died.’ Anna said.
When she stopped writing, Katka thought. ‘How did it happen?’
‘These are difficult times.’
‘No please, tell me. I am old enough to know.’ Katka begged, but at the same time not wanting to hear the answer.
‘She took her own life.’
‘She killed herself?’ Katka replied, shocked.
‘These are difficult times.’ Anna repeated, answering quickly as if she felt the need to justify herself, to justify what Katka’s mother had done. ‘You must not blame her.’
‘No.’ Katka said, but she couldn’t help but feel angry. It raged inside her and for a moment she hated her mother, hated her for leaving her again, for deserting her a second time when she needed her more than anything.
‘You must go back to Prague.’ Anna said after a long pause. ‘It is late and it is not safe for you to stay here. The German soldiers do not allow children to be unaccompanied about the town, if they ask to see your papers and you cannot -’
‘Yes. I’ll go.’ Katka said. But she did not tell Anna that this was not possible, that it would be worse in Prague than if she stayed because at least the police did not know her here - not yet, at least.
‘I have to leave now.’ Anna said softly.
Katka looked at her.
‘There is a train in half an hour. Go back to the children’s home and I will visit you. I promise, the first opportunity I can.’
‘Thank you’ Katka said, quietly, and she watched as Anna slowly walked away. Then she stood for a long time, looking down at her mother’s grave. It started to rain and Katka’s clothes became wet, soaked through and cold. And when it was late enough that she was sure the square would be empty and dark enough that she would not be seen so easily, she went back there. She asked in the hotel next to the station if a room was free.
But the man on the reception desk only frowned and asked for Katka’s name and asked where she was from and what she was doing here. Then he asked for Katka’s passport and when she said she didn’t have one he picked up the telephone and began dialling a number.
Katka left at once.
The hotel receptionist shouted something after her, but Katka did not stop. He was probably calling the police - an informer - and knowing that she would not be safe wherever she went, she went to the only place she could get out of the rain - the station building. She went inside the waiting room and, finding an old newspaper on one of the benches, she lay down and covered herself as best she could.
And sometimes a journey can stick in the mind.
The train carriage had been hot. Late August with the sun beating in through the compartment window - and despite the air that rushed through, ruffling hair and buffeting the ears of the passengers, a prickly heat persisted, sticking clothes to skin, making faces look shiny, damp.
‘It’s beautiful there. I promise you’ll be happy.’ Katka’s mother had been saying, ‘The children’s home they’ve chosen for us really is the best place.’ But it was a lie, of course. The way her mother kept touching the skin on her neck, the nervousness in her eyes - too open, impossible to keep still - in that moment Katka hated her.
For most of the journey they did not speak.
Instead Katka looked out of the window at the scenery as it flitted past - fields of yellow, green, bright beneath the deep summer sky - and the rhythmic nudge of the railway tracks as they moved forward, towards Prague, away from everything Katka had known.
But as they neared the city Katka’s mother must have realised there wasn’t much time. She began to speak - tried to say everything she had meant to say before she said goodbye.
‘I’ll come every week. When Christmas comes I’ll send for you and you can spend a week with me in the apartment. You’ll have lots of friends and we can write to each other as often as we like.’ But as she spoke Katka could see the sadness in her eyes - because none of it was true, none of it would happen.
The letters she sent became less frequent as Katka got older. The visits too, although never as often as they were supposed to have been - once a month, then once every two - eventually they stopped all together.
‘It’s because of the war, because of the work I have to do.’ Katka’s mother told her. But Katka soon become tired of hearing her excuses. And soon she began to refuse the parcels she was sent and she began to put letters from her mother directly into the bin. And now two years had passed without speaking at all. It’s because she doesn’t care, Katka would tell herself, because she took me to a home, because didn’t visit, it’s because she is no mother at all.
But how Katka needed her now!
At some point during the night, when Katka was huddled in a doorway - cold, wet, terrified that at any moment she would be caught - she began to think of her mother again. Just a thought at first - a spark - but as the night wore on and Katka got colder and more afraid it became Katka’s only thought and soon she could think of nothing but going home.
So just before dawn Katka had gone to the railway station in the centre of the city. And although it was heavily guarded - soldiers, some with dogs, patrolling the platforms and keeping watch over the cargo trains sitting idle on the tracks - Katka was able to get herself into the carriage of a train that was destined for the little town where her mother lived. And just before dawn the train slid out from beneath the high arched roof of the railway terminal and away from Prague.
It should have been a sense of freedom that Katka felt as she watched the last of the city’s brown and black buildings passing out of sight. But the countryside, beneath a low winter sky, looked no better. It was misty and cold, the green fields she remembered seemed darker now, specked with ugly winter trees and circling gangs of crows. Here and there the train passed German army vehicles - armoured cars, tanks - small concrete fortresses painted green and grey and soldiers readying themselves by busily stacking sandbags and stringing up barbed wire fences.
Katka slept for most of the journey. Tiredness, the gentle rocking of the train, put her into a deep and comfortable sleep, and when she woke it was already late in the afternoon and already daylight had started to fade - and before the sun set completely she saw her mother’s town in the distance.
It was the factory towers she saw first - like severed limbs sticking up from the earth - they spewed black smoke and seemed to coat everything in a dark, depressing smear. It wasn’t how she remembered - and although the town was pretty in its own way, with its cobbled streets and a church with a spire - it had become just as sorrowful as Prague.
The little square that had once had a market every Saturday was now empty. The town hall - which had stood old and majestic opposite the station building was now masked with the hideous red and white of the Nazi party flag, hanging the full length of its facade. And when Katka went looking for her mother’s apartment building, not remembering exactly where it had been, she noticed that the street names had changed too. They were no longer Czech, but each now had been given a German name. And when Katka finally found her mother’s apartment, barely recognisable because she hadn’t seen it for so long, it was as if an invisible hand gripped her by the wrist when she raised her fist to knock.
Because my mother doesn’t live here anymore, Katka realised. The nameplate on the door had changed just as the street names had changed and when Katka ran back outside she saw that all the names on the postboxes had changed too. And in the little square a German army car was parked on the curb and the cafe where she remembered going when she was very small now had its menu written in German and the whole town seemed to have been transformed completely.
In desperation Katka stopped a grey-haired woman as she walked through the square - ‘My mother, she lives here but I can’t find her.’ But even when Katka told the grey-haired woman her mother’s full name, she only looked at Katka and seemed confused and she frowned a frown that creased her entire face then muttered something in broken Czech - hard to understand because she had an accent that was strong - ‘I do not know. I am sorry.’
And just as Katka was about to give up, just as she was about to walk back to the station building a hand suddenly landed on her shoulder.
‘Katka, is that you?’
Katka turned.
‘Is it you? Is it really you? What are you doing here?’ A rush of questions, too quick for Katka to answer - and she tried to recognise the smiling face of a woman with brown hair, flecked with grey and eyes that frantically scanned Katka’s face.
‘You don’t recognise me, do you?’ She said, her smile fading.
‘No, I’m sorry -’
‘Anna.’ the woman said, ‘Your mother’s friend, do you remember, the house we used to live in, we shared the garden, do you remember?’
‘Yes.’ Katka nodded, ‘Yes, I remember, of course. I’ve just been there, in fact. You lived in the apartment upstairs and you had the dog and we used to play and -’
‘What are you doing here?’ Anna asked, and as she said these words she took a fleeting glance at the cafe at the far end of the square. Despite the cold, a group of soldiers had taken seats outside.
‘I’ve come home, to see my mother, but I’ve -’
An abrupt change in Anna’s expression made Katka stop talking, and suddenly she was fearful of what Anna was about to say next.
‘I’m sorry,’ Anna said, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
‘My loss?’
‘If you would like me to take you there, to the cemetery -’ Anna said.
‘No.’ It was all Katka could say and Anna must have realised. She saw by the look on Katka’s face, wide eyed and unable to return her gaze, but instead only able to look down at the buttons of Anna’s coat.
‘I am so very sorry.!’ Anna said and she took hold of Katka’s arm. And Katka allowed herself be pulled forward and to be held tight in the warmth of Anna’s embrace. ‘You did not know, I am so sorry. You did not know.’ Anna repeated and she kept saying the words and held her for a long moment. When she finally let Katka go, it was to take her by the arm and to lead her towards the edge of the square.
‘We cannot wait here.’ She said, an unexpected urgency to her voice. She looked again in the direction of the soldiers. They were watching. One of them had stood up and was using his hands to shield his eyes from the sun. ‘It’s not safe here,’ Anna went on, ‘especially for a young girl. Come, I will take you there.’
‘Where?’ Katka asked.
‘To the cemetery.’ Anna replied and she began to lead Katka away, along a street to the churchyard, where her mother’s grave was marked with a simple wooden cross. The ground in front was weedy and untended. Katka and Anna stood looking down at it.
‘It has been two years since she died.’ Anna said.
When she stopped writing, Katka thought. ‘How did it happen?’
‘These are difficult times.’
‘No please, tell me. I am old enough to know.’ Katka begged, but at the same time not wanting to hear the answer.
‘She took her own life.’
‘She killed herself?’ Katka replied, shocked.
‘These are difficult times.’ Anna repeated, answering quickly as if she felt the need to justify herself, to justify what Katka’s mother had done. ‘You must not blame her.’
‘No.’ Katka said, but she couldn’t help but feel angry. It raged inside her and for a moment she hated her mother, hated her for leaving her again, for deserting her a second time when she needed her more than anything.
‘You must go back to Prague.’ Anna said after a long pause. ‘It is late and it is not safe for you to stay here. The German soldiers do not allow children to be unaccompanied about the town, if they ask to see your papers and you cannot -’
‘Yes. I’ll go.’ Katka said. But she did not tell Anna that this was not possible, that it would be worse in Prague than if she stayed because at least the police did not know her here - not yet, at least.
‘I have to leave now.’ Anna said softly.
Katka looked at her.
‘There is a train in half an hour. Go back to the children’s home and I will visit you. I promise, the first opportunity I can.’
‘Thank you’ Katka said, quietly, and she watched as Anna slowly walked away. Then she stood for a long time, looking down at her mother’s grave. It started to rain and Katka’s clothes became wet, soaked through and cold. And when it was late enough that she was sure the square would be empty and dark enough that she would not be seen so easily, she went back there. She asked in the hotel next to the station if a room was free.
But the man on the reception desk only frowned and asked for Katka’s name and asked where she was from and what she was doing here. Then he asked for Katka’s passport and when she said she didn’t have one he picked up the telephone and began dialling a number.
Katka left at once.
The hotel receptionist shouted something after her, but Katka did not stop. He was probably calling the police - an informer - and knowing that she would not be safe wherever she went, she went to the only place she could get out of the rain - the station building. She went inside the waiting room and, finding an old newspaper on one of the benches, she lay down and covered herself as best she could.