Blanketed by darkness, my daughter stares intently, transfixed by the thin line of daylight that seeps between the vertical gap of the bolted train door. After a moment of contemplation, she uses the stream of light to illuminate her hands while signing to me, Red.
I lean on the cold steel to see through the small opening. The ache in my back is enough to warrant a muffled grunt. Outside, slowly moving mountains preside over feathered patches of grass that billow in the wind and seem to rush by our train. Angular streaks, the afterimage of a red barn, fade into what little distance the gap allows, and I turn to my daughter and sign, Horse?
The most beautiful sound in the world builds in her body like a piece of music slowly working toward a crescendo. Her shoulders rock back and forth. A smile flashes. Hands shake excitedly as if trying to coax the music out. To the untrained ear, it may sound like she’s doing nothing more than expelling a joyous breath. She punctuates this remarkable sound by playfully hitting my arm and signing, No.
I pretend to be deep in thought, then after a moment, I raise both of my hands a little above my forehead in a measured motion from left to right: Cloud?
She vigorously shakes her head. I take my left hand and place it in the air as though it were the ground, but I’m interrupted by the strong nudge of a foot from my wife, Sarah.
“Nolan, what are you doing? Switch with me.”
My daughter looks at me with concern, but I place both of my thumbs together near my sternum and arc them in a downward motion. Keep going.
My body, feeling like it’s been overtaken by rust, doesn’t want to move the way it’s intended to, and I collide with another occupant in the darkness who is quick to shove me back.
“Pardon,” I say. All I get is a grumble in return.
We sway on the edges of a delicate dance. Half of us stand until our joints fuse together, then we tag someone seated to take our place. What started as an idea born from compassion has more recently devolved into arguments and physical confrontation.
What little air there is to breathe is polluted by the foul stench of urine and excrement. How long has it been since we stopped at the border? Two days? Three? The thirst has become unbearable.
When we do stop, they bring us food and drink and watch in amusement as we fight over the scraps.
We beg them to allow us to relieve ourselves and give us five minutes of sunshine and fresh air. They never say a word. They simply bolt the door and leave us with the soft glow through the crack. It has become as sacred as the sun to us. It’s our only way of telling time.
Light to darkness … to light … to darkness … to light …
This pattern repeats. Until … until when? Until they finally starve us to death? Until we kill each other?
Until they kill us? For Seasons’ sake …
I watch as my daughter grabs some of the hay scattered across the floor and plays with it. Like most children her age, she makes games of everything, even in the direst circumstances. I feel a pang of guilt for lying to her; she thinks we’re traveling to a new home and that all the people stuffed in this cattle car will be our neighbors.
But how do you explain this to a child? Imprisonment. Invasion. What are these to my daughter? There are no handwords for it.
If you listen close enough, the train has a certain rhythm, a steady hum mixed with the soft vibration of voices. It reminds me of the soft crackle the fireplace made while I toiled in the workshop at home, when my biggest worries were running out of soling nails or agreeing on whose turn it was to sign bedtime stories for Emily. I can almost convince myself that it’s safe to sleep, but instead, I’m content to exist in that place between reality and dreams, letting my memory run wild.
Despite the wretched train car, the memory seems so vivid.
I’m hammering the sole of a boot near the firelight. Brown strands of hair touch the edge of my vision as my wife wraps her arms around me and whispers, “Enough work, Nolan.” I put down the hammer, stand, and stretch my back. There are little taps behind me. I turn suddenly to try and catch my daughter off guard, but she’s not startled. She coaxes me to chase her, and does her best impression of a laugh.
Spit catches the side of my face, and I’m jolted from my reverie by a man screaming at the top of his lungs.
“I heard it! I heard the knock. Did you hear it? They’re alive, and they’re knocking!”
He began to lose his mind on the first day of our journey. To his misfortune, it has been a slow descent into madness. His wife and son were separated from him when the Kalykans rounded us up in Mustang Prairie. He spent the entire first day sobbing. At first, others tried to calm him, saying things like, “You’ll see them again,” or “They’re just a car over. We’ll stop in a few days.”
But we didn’t stop, and so his yelling began. Every single day he screams at the top of his lungs when his terror overtakes him.
“Can you hear me, Dansby? Jessica, can you hear me? Pound the walls if you can.”
He only recently started to imagine the knocks. No one else ever hears them.
“Keep him quiet,” someone in the rear of the car shouts. “He’s not the only one who lost family here.”
The man continues his ravings. The timing is odd. Usually he waits until the minuscule beam of light disappears before he starts hollering. He’s getting worse.
The lack of air, the darkness, the heat, the stench, the thirst … They’re suffocating us all.
My mother used to say that we need those who love us, and whom we love, to give our lives meaning. Yet I’ve watched more men go insane this last week despite being surrounded by those loved ones. Despite this, hope endures.
Some evenings, as I hold my daughter close and wait for her to fall asleep, I’ll listen to the people around us as they hum childhood ballads, recite their favorite poems, or offer prayers to the divine.
An unspoken agreement exists so that order is maintained: when these performers take the stage, no one interrupts. Instead, we simply wait to be captivated, to be momentarily transported out of the horrid train car and back to simpler times and happier memories. These hidden performances fade when daylight arrives, and I can never find the performers to thank them for that momentary reprieve. Instead, the morning brings back the minuscule beam of light, along with the worry and dread that corrupt us all.
I’m so lost in thought that I almost don’t feel the tug on the bottom of my shirt.
Two erect hands mimicking roofs meet at the fingertips and move from right to left, touching twice, and I look at my wife for confirmation and receive a nod. My daughter, not missing a beat, pushes back through the crowd to her.
My first reaction is to run to the gap and gain confirmation myself, but instead I reach down, moving some hay out of the way, and touch the floor of the car. Sometimes I can tell if the train is coming to a stop simply by feeling the trembling beneath my feet. Before I have enough time to make any determination, a shrill whistle pierces the air, then is cut off suddenly.
Silence overtakes the car, and for the first time all day, I’m truly allowed to hear. This new symphony of sounds is musical in its own way: my heart popping in my ears, worried breaths attached to worried men and women, a tendon popping that hasn’t been used in days. No one wants to make the first move, and the result is a moment that stretches longer than it should.
It isn’t until we hear the muffled voices directly outside our cattle car that the frenzy begins.
I pull my wife and daughter close and move them away from the door. I learned a long time ago that shortcuts get you nowhere.
What little space existed before disappears entirely as people surge toward our position. My wife and I both try to brace for the inevitability of the mob, but the effort is akin to trying to swim upstream during the spring melt. As children, we learned that one is always better off going with the current than against it. We end up pinned to a wall.
My wife yells, “Nolan, Emily can’t breathe!”
A glance down tells me the opposite, but to make sure, I use tapping as a sign to say, It’s all right. We’re going to be all right.
She gently taps back, acknowledging my message.
“Let us out!” a man in the horde screams at the door.
This inspires those around him to follow suit, and in a matter of seconds, they rapidly evolve to banging.
“We’ve been in here for days.”
Bang.
“We need food! Medicine! There are sick people in here.”
Bang.
“Please! For the love of Mother Spring, just let us out of here!”
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang …
Those pounding away pay for it. The door finally flies open, and their eyes betray them to the harsh light of day. With dozens shielding their eyes, I sense an opportunity to claim more space for my family.
Using my forearm, I push on the couple nearest us to create distance but am startled by the cries of a victim who is cracked in the head by something.
“Attention,” a voice set against the blinding light says with commanding authority. “You are now considered conscripts of the Republic of Kalyko. You will be marked and processed. You are to turn over any valuables and travel documents upon exiting the train. Any valuables found hidden on your person will result in your immediate death. Get in line and follow the rules, and you just might earn back your freedom.”
There is a brief pause as the whole of the car registers what has been said.
“Now, I want an orderly exit. Form a line. Run, and we will shoot.”