Edeet Ravel - A Boy Is Not a Ghost

ONE

DRIVEN AWAY

1941

SUMMER

Exiled.

Banished.

Kicked out.

Expelled.

Driven away.

Sent packing.

Im trying to think of all the words I know for whats happened to us. In all the languages I know. German, Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Yiddish, Hebrew. I dont actually know the word for exiled in Hebrew. I only know how to say, Go away from here. Lekh mi-khan.

But German is still my first and best language, and I know at least ten ways to say Get lost! in German. All ten of which I have been using nonstop on the bugs that are eating me alive at the moment on this Train of Horrors.

Yes, I now live on a train.

Its been six weeks and two days since we were forced to leave the city of Czernowitz. At this point, I feel like a world expert on what its like to be told to get lost. Or not exactly lost, since Stalin, who is now in charge of Russia, knows exactly where were going.

Siberia.

Area of Siberia: 13 million square kilometers. Thats almost one-tenth of all the land on the planet!

Average temperature: Im afraid to ask. But cold. Very, very cold.

Famous for: Being big and cold. And for being the place where they send murderers and people who rebel against the government.

Soon to include: Natt Silver.

Thats me. Natt Silver, age twelve. Though Im not a murderer or a rebel. And no one else on this train is, either.

A year and a half ago, I had a completely different life. I lived in a house with my parents in a town called Zastavna. I had a nature collection that included snake skins and driftwood that looked like Albert Einstein. I had books, a kaleidoscope, a telescope, a globe of the world. My father had two horses and a warehouse full of grain. One of his helpers had a bouncy dog named Zoomie. I went to school.

And I had a best friend with round glasses and red hair. That would be Max. Short and small, but the fastest runner you ever saw, and the best soccer player in Zastavna. Max was also very good at telling jokes and inventing stories to act out, especially the incredible adventures of the two Musketeers, Maximus and Natius.

Now Im on an actual real-life adventure. Or thats what my mother keeps calling it. Were having an adventure! she exclaims every time theres a new catastrophe.

Shes trying to cheer me up by looking on the bright side. You need quite a good imagination to find a bright side in our current circumstances. But my mother is up to the task.

At the moment, Im trying to decide which part of life on Train Two, Carriage One is the worst.

Is it the fact that this is a livestock train, built for transporting cows and pigs?

Is it going to the bathroom in public, squatting over a hole in the floor?

Is it being squished with twenty-six other people in one small carriage?

(Originally we were thirty-four but eight old people have died since we boarded.)

Is it the suffocating heat that melts your brain and paralyzes your body, and only four small openings in the walls to (theoretically) let in (theoretical) air?

Is it the body lice, the flies, the mosquitoes and the resulting welts and rashes and UNBEARABLE ITCHING all over your body, day in and day out?

Is it the water barrel thats filled with scummy water, supposedly for drinking, and only inches away from the toilet?

Is it the fact that were sleeping on narrow boards that faintly resemble bunks? Or the black loaf we get each day that faintly resembles bread? Or the bowl of rotten vegetables and warm water that doesnt even resemble soup and has the occasional worm or fish eye floating in it?

Or is it that we have no idea how much longer well be on this train?

Yes, thats the worst part. We have no idea when this nightmare will end. And no idea whats waiting for us once we reach our destination, wherever that is.

In the meantime, were trapped between these four walls as the train clangs, clangs, clangs at a snails pace.

We did have one break from train hell.

Three weeks ago we were allowed to leave our carriages and wash in a crystal lake next to one of the stations. It seems like a dream now, but it really happened.

It was bliss to cool off and wash ourselves and our clothes (we hadnt washed in over a month, so you can imagine the stench). On top of that, I ran into kids I knew from Zastavna. And, most miraculous of all, we met my old Hebrew teacher Elias and his wife, Cecilia, and their little girl, Shainie. They were supposed to be on a different train, but they managed to switch.

And then they managed to arrange another switch, from their carriage to ours.

Of course it cost money. We had to bribe the guards and also the passengers who traded places with them.

As a result of the switch, our little group has expanded. Before, it was me, my mother and Irena. Irena is a pretty eighteen-year-old teacher from our town. Her parents were sent to Siberia, but she wasnt at home when the police came for them. She was in Czernowitz, studying to be a teacher.

Irena is the only person who actually asked to join the exiles. She wants to find her parents. They could be anywhere in Siberia, but Irena is determined to track them down.

I dont know what Mama and I would have done without Irena. Shes very good at taking charge. In fact, shes the representative of our carriage, along with an old man who is or used to be a geologist.

Now that Elias and his family have joined us, were a group of six. Each one of us can be described by what we say most often. Which, when youre living together twenty-four hours a day with barely room to move, you get very, very used to hearing:

Mama: Arent we lucky to be moving away from the fighting! (The war is taking place in Europe, and were moving east, away from Europe.)

Irena (to the other passengers, who are always fighting): Stop behaving like two-year-olds!

Elias: Stalin certainly understands equality were all equally doomed.

Cecilia: Elias, please, Im begging you, hold your tongue, someone will hear!

Shainie, their cute curly-haired four-year-old: Tell me more story, Natty!

Me: Im going to literally die of itchiness!

Ive also become friends with Andreas the Tall, who was a close friend of our lawyer, Bruno the Bald. Max was the one who invented those names for Andreas and Bruno.

Bruno the Bald lived in a side section of our house, back when we had a house. He disappeared last year, as soon as the Russians arrived. No one knows where he went. Maybe Andreas knows, but hes not telling.

Finally, theres Felicia, who is very sweet and has a tiny little baby. Even though its boiling hot in the train, her head is wrapped in a cherry-red scarf that makes her look like a genie. Weve taken Felicia under our wing. So were actually a group of eight and a baby.

I hope well be able to stay together. That is, I hope we have enough money to bribe the guards to let us stay together.

Money has become a matter of life and death. We need it for the bits of food the Russian farmers sell for preposterous prices at station stops.

I havent written to Max yet. I dont want to lie to him and I cant tell him the truth, because it isnt safe. Stalins soldiers read all the mail, and saying anything bad about Stalin or the Soviet Union can get you sent to a Gulag prison.