Z213 : EXIT
 
2
Page 2

If I only could, from that passage he told me about, which leads behind the wall to the abandoned fort and the tunnel through the mountain. Because the other roads were all being guarded to prevent anyone getting through. The lamps broken in the passage apart from one at the far end. And then that skylight, an open hole in the dark. Going that way you miss out the city, the passageway which narrows and narrows, you go up, hear sudden flutterings. Hear like a river flowing somewhere around.  Soon you make out the end, light, you come up, trees, grizzle, leaves shed at your feet. Voices and footsteps draw near then away. Then you start going down as fast as you can, before it grows light. More would die tomorrow. And some others will know about you. Night cut in two by the yellow belt running through it. And he had told you to wait for when they are coming and the way out is easier. For when they were bringing and separating them, two ranks – two ranks again mingling together as they were pushing them forward. And many were falling into the sea, or stumbling and the rest trampling on them. And I, as he had told me, wore the cross and passed by the side of the tower and came out on the road for the station. From there you could leave. If I could take a train from there. But I sat down then to recover because I was in pain.           


Page 3

I got up, wandered about for quite a bit, then walked to the first platform on the other side. A soldier lying beside a niche in the wall, eyes closed, a blanket over his feet, a pile of clothes beside him – uniforms – a kit-bag behind his back. I went pulled out a pair of trousers and a jacket, eyes closed, a little blood under his nose, raised his head gently, wiped it off with his sleeve. I returned to the toilets to change, came back left my clothes on the heap. Eyes closed, a drop of blood under his nose. I looked for a pair of boots from the kit-bag and put them on there, sat down beside him. Bent double, his side on the half-empty sleeve. A red beam locked us for a while in its light and went out again. It must have been already past six. Cold, keeping my hands under my armpits sensed something hard, the little Bible in the pocket, I open the pages, white, here and there a few notes, elsewhere pieces written closely together, could not make them out, it had almost got dark.  I sat down for a short time not moving yet waiting for what – stood up, walked again, to the clock, the time-table, evening service 21.13. In one and a half hours.  

(Pages 2,3. Book publication date October 2007)
Extracts translated by Shorsha Sullivan