Ashes by Christopher de Vinck

Author:Christopher de Vinck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper Inspire
Published: 2020-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 33

As Belgium collapsed under the Nazi invasion, its government was able to negotiate a plan with Hitler: Belgian factories would only produce what was needed for the population, and not military equipment for Germany. So, Berlin instituted the compulsory deportation of 200,000 Belgian workers to Germany. This was one reason so many Belgian citizens tried to flee the country and/or go into hiding.

To my right, the black engine of the train wheezed, exhaling steam, and churning coal; a creature low on the tracks, like a serpent anxious to swallow me. But before I succumbed to its venomous bite, I had to find my journal.

My journal had always been my secret companion. Since I could write, I had catalogued things that had happened to me, recorded events in my life from when I was a child, as I had transformed from a small, ugly larva to a not-quite-beautiful 18-year-old butterfly.

I had to find my suitcase and recover my journal.

I pushed my way through the crowd, back to where I thought I left the suitcase. And there it was, broken apart, my sheets strewn on the cobblestones like abandoned sails, ripped, covered with dirt and mud. I saw one of my pillows trampled, shredded like paper, my other pillow embraced by a man wearing a dinner suit and a top hat. He looked like John Charles Tillman, and I half-expected him to sing.

I looked again at the man in the dinner suit. He was hugging my pillow as if it were a woman, his mother, or his soul perhaps. His eyes were closed and he swayed back and forth, pressed against the back of the pillow.

Under the man’s clenched hands was my journal.

Planes continued to fly overhead, their mechanical hum competing with the chug, chug, chug of the train’s engine. My heart thumped inside me.

‘Monsieur!’ I cried out as I stood before the man. ‘Monsieur!’

He seemed to be in a trance. Flames crackled from a dress shop opposite the train station.

‘Monsieur, can I speak to you for a moment?’ I tapped his shoulder.

The man opened his eyes and said, ‘Ah, Matilda, you’ve come to get me.’

To my left, two men carried a woman on a stretcher. Across the street, in the dress-shop window, two mannequins in silver evening gowns caught fire, the flames providing a relentless golden backdrop. Ash drifted down from shop’s burning roof.

‘Non, monsieur. I’m not Matilda. My name is Simone. You have my little book.’

‘It is so nice dancing here with you, Matilda.’ The man closed his eyes, hugged my pillow and began to sway back and forth again.

Fire crept up the legs of the mannequins.

‘Monsieur, can I have my book? You have my book in your hand.’ I touched the back of the man’s smooth hands.

He opened his eyes again, looked at me and said, ‘Matilda, after all these years, I’ve missed you so.’

The mannequin to the left fell forward, and crashed through the dress-shop window. Glass exploded outwards, followed by a draught of hot air. The

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