The train carried the usual cargo, pine from the East Texas woods. The engineer blew the whistle and progressed at the normal pace, so no one would suspect. They timed it perfectly. The train would arrive at 2:00 am while the town slept. Just a regular stop on a regular route.
No chains clanked, no shouts were heard. The men were far too far from home to bother protesting or attempt escape. They walked off the train quietly, in perfect Nazi file onto the East Texas soil and into incarceration.
Otto rubbed his head. He couldn’t make sense of the impossible path his life had taken. His safe, happy, simple life; playing along the Rhine; warring with his brothers among the ruins of Fürstenberg castle. When they all became soldiers, it made sense. Now, suddenly, his brothers were dead and he, after endless motionless days aboard ship and hidden in trains, was in Texas.
He did what he had been raised to do. He threw himself into the work. Each day at dawn he shoveled eggs into his mouth, climbed on the convoy and rode to the forest. He didn’t think. He chopped and hauled. At night, he slept like the dead.
When memories crept in — his mother singing over the stove, his brothers smiling as they waved goodbye — he imagined he had been taken to another planet. The townspeople who gathered at the edge of the barbed wire enclosure to catch a glimpse of a real-life Nazi helped keep him in this frame of mind. Emotion, and certainly hope, was purposeless. There was no escape from this planet — no reason for anything other than breath and work, until her.
_________ ... _________ ... _________
After a few months, the townspeople weren’t afraid anymore. Their sons were in Germany. The Germans were in Texas. There was a strange symmetry about it. Anyway, “Those Camp Boys” were hard workers and kept the paper mill running. They were so polite and obedient; they couldn’t be the monsters in the newsreels. So, in November 1944, “Those Camp Boys” were “invited” to the Thanksgiving celebration.
Otto looked forward to a break from the monotony. He used the comb they passed around the barracks and wiped the dirt from his shoes. When they arrived in the square, they were told to stay to one side, seated and quiet. But the guards were also badly in need of recreation. Soon the guns in their hands were replaced by beers and dancing partners.
She was standing as near to the prisoner table as any girl in the crowd. Her face showed uncertain resilience, as though she were in the middle of a dare. She blazed into Otto’s consciousness like a gunshot and without hesitation he moved to her. She stood her ground, terror firing her eyes. He didn’t speak, just held out his hand. She searched his gaze for a moment and then put her hand in his.
