(no subject)
Berlin, 1917.
The train station is crowded to the point of overflowing. Soldiers and citizens clog each and every platform, pushing and struggling through the flow of people. Some drag heavy suitcases, slowed down by the extra baggage as they haul all of the possessions they can carry out of the country. Others carry nothing but the clothes on their bags, and wander the rails begging for scraps of food or money, worn down by the years of war. Whole families of women and children press close to one another for safety, the starved fingers of each child clinging to the same length of twine.
But the worst are the soldiers returning from the front; bleeding from headwounds, missing arms and fingers and eyes, and some in wheelchairs with no feet. Even those lucky enough to return with all their body parts gaze with deadened, muted expressions, only half aware of where they are. They move through the station like ghosts, pressing their way through in an endless march, silent all.
A small girl, no older than five, is being led about the station by an older, matronly woman. The girl looks up at the soldiers as she passes them, but they take no notice. In her hand she clutches a worn-looking satchel, packed to bursting with three outfits, a toothbrush, and a few papiermarks hidden in the lining. There are no toys nor dolls nor jewelry; only the bare essentials. Everything else has been sold weeks ago, to afford the train ticket and the funeral.
"But I want to stay in Berlin!" pleads the girl, her long, black braided pigtails bobbing up and down, tied with two ribbons at the end. The woman who holds her wrist looks hopelessly down at her, balancing a baby at her waist with her other arm. Two other children crowd her feet, one still in diapers with his thumb in his mouth. The woman, her baby, and the two other children are all blond, dirty, and thin. They are the girl's next-door neighbors; the girl remembers that on her birthday six months ago, they shared their rations so that she could have a tiny birthday cake.
And when she closes her eyes, she can remember the taste of sugar.
The woman - Mathilda, though the girl knows to only call her Frau Rabinowitz - doesn't stop to regard the girl's begging, and keeps slogging her way through the flood of people. Next to them, the train fires up; the smoke rises from the engine, and the conductor blows his whistle. Trains are needed more to escort the army to the front lines, so fewer and fewer are left to the transportation of civilians. This is the last train leaving westward for the next week.
At last slowing down as they reach the edge of the platform, Mathilda takes the suitcase from the girl and hands it to the waiting conductor, along with the precious ticket and traveling papers.
"Make sure she reaches Baden-Wuerttemberg." Mathilda instructs, and bends down to the girl as the conductor turns to stow the suitcase with the rest. She strokes the girl's head, brushing her bangs out of the way and addressing her for the first time. Mathilda's children crowd around, while the baby on her hip gleefully reaches up to tug on her hair.
"Greta, now listen to me," Mathilda speaks quickly and loudly, over the sound of the train whistle. "Stay on the train and in your seat. Don't look at anyone, don't talk to anyone, and no one will bother you." She reaches quickly into the blanket her baby is wrapped in, and pulls out a small wad of paper money. Stuffing it into Greta's front pocket of her dress, Mathilda reaches out and pulls the girl into a hug.
"Be a good girl," she instructs, and the blonde children follow their mother's example and hug their friend and neighbor. "Listen to your grandfather, and make your parents proud."
Greta, her cheeks turning red, shuts her eyes tightly.
"But I don't want to go!" she wails. "I hate the country!" Mathilda breaks away from the hug as the conductor comes back, and leads a miserable Greta up the steps, giving her into the arms of the railroad employee. The train suddenly lurches into motion, chugging slowly down the track. For a while, Mathilda keeps pace with it, shouting encouraging words to Greta at the door.
"Perhaps in the summer, you can come visit us!" she calls out, her baby bouncing in her arms as she hurries along. Greta moves quickly from the door to the window, jumping onto the seat and pressing her hands against it, staring out. Her neighbors disappear from view, Mathilda's last words to her lost in the noise of the train. The train pulls from the station, and in a few minutes even Berlin itself has disappeared from sight.
Finally, Greta drops away from the window, slumping in the too-large seat. For the first time she notices a boy about her age, perhaps a bit older, watching her from the seat across. In his arms, he tightly clutches a green army helmet. The boy gives her a nod, then points across the aisle to two ladies talking away.
"That's my mom," he shyly announces. "And my aunt. We're going into the country too."
At seeing Greta's staring at the helmet in his lap, the boy hugs it all the tighter, afraid she might try to steal it.
"Father is a soldier." he explains.
Greta, at last, gives a nod. She pushes herself to sit straighter on the chair, her tiny, skinny legs kicking back and forth, far from the ground.
"So was mine." she says.
And that is Rip van Winkle's first memory.