Last Train to Hope

Screams reverberated through the carriage. Most passengers remained quiet. A few exchanged frowning gazes. A mother walked up and down the carriage, rocking and shushing her baby who was crying at the top of her lungs. The mother’s whole body trembled. Her gaze pointed down and loose strands of hair hung over her face.

George stole a quick glance towards mother and baby. The screaming resonated with his elevated heart rate. With the back of his hand, he wiped the small beads of sweat that had appeared on his forehead. He pulled back his short, dark hair and tried to calm his breathing and relax his wide shoulders.

‘She misses the chugging’, George’s companion said. ‘Chugging soothes them. She started crying when we got held up here.’

George turned back to Boris and followed his gaze out the train window. The sky was dark and clear. The outline of the mountainous landscape around them was just about discernible in the moonlight.

The train was being held at a small village station. ‘Gara Babul’, read a sign hung on the shed representing a station building. Past the station facilities, the terrain sloped down. The river Iskar meandered below, glistening in the silver night.

‘This doesn’t look right’, George said, his eyes darting around. ‘Why are we being held here?’

He looked over his shoulder, studying the carriage and its passengers. They were in second class. The space was furnished with crude wooden benches in opposing pairs lining both sides of a central aisle. Dirty overhead lamps cast dull light over the unadorned space.

‘Trains get held up for all sorts of reasons, George’, Boris interrupted his observations, mouth curling up in a smile. ‘I’m sure we will be on the move shortly.’

‘Your majesty…’, George began, but Boris suddenly leaned forward, fire in his eyes. George fell silent and swallowed hard. ‘I am sorry… Boris’, he whispered.

He made sure no one paid attention to them before leaning towards the tsar. Closest to them were two men in suits across the aisle, engaged in a discussion as to the possible reasons for the holdup. They were taking turns to poke their heads out the window, looking towards the engine and then back to the rear. Cigarette smoke surrounded them. The screams of the unsettled baby filled the air, overpowering all other sounds in the carriage.

‘I never thought it was a good idea for you to travel incognito’, George said. ’But especially now… The world is at war. And you are Bulgaria’s tsar”, he said the last word silently, without pushing air through his mouth. George stared at Boris, his mind wandering for a brief moment. He pictured the tsar as he had seen him for the first time years ago, when he entered his cabinet as his new assistant. The tsar’s face had been strong but calm and he seemed happy surrounded by his books and his father’s old collection of butterflies. The tsar had taken kindly to George who had just left the army.

‘I know who I am, George’, Boris said, his face smooth, eyes clear. He was bald. His clean face was adorned by a well kept mustache. ‘Don’t you understand that I need this now more than ever? I feel trapped in those smoke filled rooms, with all the ministers and generals and advisers… I need this time out. And I need to see my people with my own eyes.’

‘I understand that’, George said. ‘I do. But the world is at war. Bulgaria is pinched between East and West. German soldiers are stationed across the country. You refused to send ours to the meat grinder in Russia. You stopped that train with our Jews…’

George glanced over his shoulder again. ‘Don’t you think you have a target on your back?’

‘Look, if they’ve decided to kill me, they will. No matter how many guards I have. Like this, I can hide in plain sight. Seeing people puts things in perspective and helps me think.’

Boris spoke calmly. Dressed in his plain clothes, he looked like a provincial clerk, returning home from the capital Sofia.

George scanned the carriage, mentally assessing the threat level from every passenger. Further down, a large man slept with his head leaned on the window. He wore traditional peasant clothes- woolen pants, baggy white shirt and a vest. His fur cap was lowered over his eyes. The man snored, undisturbed by the screaming baby. At the edge of his mouth, a thin line of saliva trickled down his unshaven chin and neck. Satisfying himself that the man was probably not a Nazi assassin, George kept studying the other passengers in the carriage.

“George, why don’t you walk up to the engine room and check? Will that put your mind at ease?” Boris asked.

“And leave you alone?”

“Is that a problem?” The tsar frowned.

George lowered his head and apologized for overstepping his boundaries. He stood up from the crude bench, his legs groaning with pain after the uncomfortable sitting.

To reach the engine room, George had to go through the first class carriage. He went out onto the open vestibule between the cars, where the cool autumn breeze grazed his face.

Out in the open, he realized how stale and sour the air in the carriage had been. He leaned over the railing, looking for any movement on the platform or further ahead at the station shed… Nothing.

George walked into the corridor of first class. To his left were compartments, furnished with soft seats. Reading lamps at the window sills provided dim lighting in the luxurious rooms.

There were few passengers behind the glazed compartment doors. As he approached the end of the first class carriage, his heart rate sped up. Why were they held up?

The engine room was dark. Soot covered the floor. The boiler hissed and it was hot. Next to the door, a pile of coal awaited its turn for the firebox. The train driver, a small man in dark blue overalls, had his back turned to the door. He was leaning out through the side window. ‘Ivan!’ The man yelled. ‘Ivan!’

‘Excuse me’, George interrupted. The man jumped, startled.

‘Who are you?’ The train driver demanded. He was pale. A white mustache decorated his wrinkled face.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to scare you’, George said as he stepped onto the dirty floor of the engine room. ‘I just wanted to check why we are being held here?’

‘We are being held because there is an obstacle’, the driver croaked and raised his hands. ‘I sent the fireman to check, but he hasn’t returned. And there’s no one at the station. No idea what’s going on.’ George followed the man’s gaze.

Some thirty meters in front of the train, a pile of materials was dumped on the tracks. It looked like a jumble of railroad ties and barbed wire, rising some two meters in height. Something wasn’t right. A knot tightened in George’s stomach.

‘You have to push through’, he said, his eyes wide and fixed on the dump ahead.

’What? No! Forget it”, the driver protested. ‘That’s not protocol. Railroad staff must be on their way.’

‘Listen, old man’, George snapped, stepping in front of the smaller train driver. ‘Does this look normal to you? A pile of rubbish on the tracks? In the middle of the night? No one at the station?’

“No”, the man said, shaking his head. “I’m not moving. And not without Ivan.”

George hesitated. He couldn’t make the stubborn old man move willingly. He padded his jacket, feeling his Walther semi automatic tucked in its shoulder holster. A fleeting thought passed through his mind, but he shook his head and chased it away.

‘Fine. I’ll go and find him’, George said. ‘And then we’re moving. Because this doesn’t look good. Understood?’ The old man shrugged his shoulders, then nodded with reluctant acceptance.

‘Prepare the engine. I’ll be back.’

George climbed down the side door ladder and stepped on the damp ground at the side of the track. He was pinched between the towering mountains rising into the air on his left and the steel behemoth on his right. He breathed in the cool, misty air and stepped forward.

“Ivan”, George called. “Ivan! My name is George. Are you there?” He kept making small steps forward. As he surpassed the front of the engine, he could see the dump in front of him and the train station to his right. With his heart pounding, George unholstered his pistol. He kept moving forward, weapon pointed down on his right side.

‘Ivan’, George called. He approached the pile, taking a moment to study its content. It seemed haphazardly dumped on the tracks. He shook his head… There couldn’t be an innocuous explanation as to why it was there. He felt an icy streak of sweat running down his spine. Resisting his urge to run back to the safety of the train, he moved around the pile.

Ivan was on the opposite side of the dump. He couldn’t be older than twenty. Tall and lanky, black curly hair and a thin mustache. Ivan was sat on the gravel with his back leaning against the pile. His throat was slashed and blood had poured all over his front, soaking his dirty fireman overalls. Ivan’s dead blue eyes stared into the darkness, his head slightly turned towards the Iskar river below them in the distance.