Ghost Train of Treblinka Read online

  “Same as yesterday,” said Edmund, holding up his phone. “I have a feeling he’s going to be a no-show. Then what?”

  Bill shrugged. “I guess we check out Warsaw for a day or two, then head down to Romania.” He offered a sly wink to Edmund.

  Although they had a European itinerary, it was loose at best. Edmund had around three-thousand dollars in his bank account and he guessed Bill had about the same, if his dad hadn’t gone completely apeshit after the engagement. They had places they each wanted to see, with no real order in which to visit them. The only thing that dictated their travel would be the rail system.

  It was starting to rain outside as they crossed into Poland. The landscape was very similar to Germany, although Edmund saw, for the first time, windfarms in the distance. The air outside looked frigid, although there was no way of telling that from within the comfortable cabin. A cloudy sky hung oppressively overhead and Edmund was awash with a sense of foreboding that he couldn’t quite explain. Perhaps it was the lost contact with his friend, perhaps it was History Channel binge he’d put himself through prior to coming to Poland.

  Or perhaps it was something else entirely.

  Warsaw

  January 8th, 2019

  Sometime after lunch, Edmund settled back into his seat, watched the cows and farmers zip by and somehow, lulled himself to sleep. It wasn’t restful—none of it ever was when he wasn’t sleeping in his queen-sized bed back in Salisbury but there on the train he’d been so deep in slumber that he barely registered Sophie nudging his arm.

  Edmund woke, noticed that Bill was still asleep and the passengers of the train were rising from their seats to grab their overhead belongings. It was the first time in seven hours he didn’t feel the vibration of the train moving them along. Out the window were walls of multicolored glass, a waning sun beyond. People hurried back and forth, towing suitcases on wheels. Everyone was dressed so differently, all walks of life converged in one place, and then off to all corners of the world.

  Sophie was rousing Bill when Edmund rose and started to pull down their things. He checked his bags, nodded a sleepy smile to Bill, then followed his friends up the aisle and out of the train.

  A large, copper placard read Warszawa Centralina above them. Rain pelted the outside of the train station and the cold air rushed through the opened ends. People were bundled tightly, all of Europe similarly gripped in the coldest month of the year. Edmund didn’t fit in here, but that had been the case in nearly every city he’d visited. It seemed the further east he traveled, the more removed he became from normalcy. He thought, sweet Jesus, how would I feel inside China?

  “Where are we supposed to meet Addey?” asked Sophie, looking the massive train station over. Most of it disappeared underground onto island platforms. There was a restaurant, a coffeeshop, and a little information kiosk. Bill looked to Edmund.

  “When we last talked he said he’d look for the first incoming train from Berlin and he’d be there.” Edmund held up his arms. “That’s right here.”

  They stood around, watching the train continue to pour travelers like some giant vein that had been cut open. It was easy to lose anyone in this shuffle but surely they stood out. Sophie with her goth curls and boots, Bill with his close-cut hair, denim jeans and sports coat, and Edmund, perhaps the simplest of all, with his duster jacket and frilly hair.

  As the station cleared, more trains seemed to go than come. They’d hit a lull in the day, and with the thinning crowd it became ever more poignant that Addey wasn’t going to show. A few families here and there also waited, but the next train wasn’t scheduled to arrive for another forty minutes. If Addey were here, they’d see him.

  “Eight more trains come from Berlin today,” said Edmund, looking up to the large monitor above the information kiosk.

  “The last one isn’t for another twelve hours,” said Bill. “Do you really want to wait around here all day?”

  He didn’t have an answer. It seemed silly to put his friends through that after they’d only just arrived in Europe less than a day ago. There was the option of him staying behind and letting them go sightseeing—he’d much rather wait for Addey to show up than see whatever it was Warsaw had to offer, but that sounded equally silly, not to mention downright selfish. Bill and Sophie hadn’t just come to see Europe. They’d come to be with Edmund.

  Sophie could tell he was searching for the answer, could probably see the hurt in his eyes that his friend had either stood him up or far worse, was unable to come at all.

  “Do you have his home address?” she asked.

  Edmund shook his head. Addey didn’t talk about his parents a lot, and when he did, it was never in a polite way. As far as he could tell, Addey had been raised by his grandparents until he came to America.

  “What’s Adlai’s last name?” she asked him, bringing up her phone.

  “Chobot. Rhymes with robot. Why?”

  She had brought up the phone directory for Warsaw and was typing it in.

  “Wow, there’s a lot of those here,” she said, looking up at Bill who’d decided to stand and stretch his legs after sitting for seven hours. “There’s over three-hundred Chobots in Warsaw. We won’t likely find him that way.”

  “So that’s it then,” said Bill. “He isn’t here, and we’ve no way to track him down.”

  That seemed to be the case, Edmund thought glumly. This trip had been about rekindling the friendship they’d had before fate split them up, sent them in two different directions. He’d wanted to chase some ghosts, talk about Polish life, talk about anything because Addey was one of the few people out there who truly understood him. And now, the reunion just wasn’t in the cards. Edmund stood up, shuffled his bag to the other shoulder and then came up with an idea.

  “The Żubrówka!” he said, fishing in his jacket pocket for his cell.

  Sophie and Bill just looked at him curiously, waiting for an explanation.

  Edmund shook his head, as if they should’ve been able to follow his train of thought. “For graduation, Addey sent me a gift. A bottle of Żubrówka. It’s this famous Polish vodka that has a blade of grass in it. Stuff was nasty! But it came in this sweet bottle.”

  “I vaguely remember hearing about this,” said Bill, brow furrowed. He looked at his girlfriend and shrugged.

  “Yeah, you did!” said Edmund. He’d pulled up his Facebook app and was searching through years’ worth of posts, past silly quotes, love and relationship tags from Samantha, and through the endless chain letters and prayer requests. Finally, he came upon the slew of graduation congrats—family and friends who always seemed to be so surprised when a kid finishes high school. He was looking for a very specific post he’d made after receiving that small, yellow box from Poland.

  “Found it,” he said, walking a small circle while he read. “From my boy, all the way back in Poland. Thank U Addey!” He turned the phone around to show his friends.

  The picture Edmund had posted along with the caption showed a frosted glass bottle with bright gold letters that read ‘Żubrówka’ above a bison on a yellow field. Serving as a platform for the bottle was the box it had been shipped in, bright yellow with enough postage stamps to make it look like a military hero. But as Edmund stretched the photo and zoomed in, the return address, in big black letters, could easily be seen.

  “Hold on, I’m looking it up,” said Sophie, putting a hand on Edmund’s phone to steady him. She typed in the address written on the box, the glow of her phone lighting up her studying eyes. “This is about seven miles from here.”

  “Let’s go,” said Edmund walking off. He was certain they could rent a car, or at the very least take a cab. It wasn’t practical but he’d even read about the Veturilo service that would rent them bicycles. That was bound to be pleasant in January, but whatever it took to see Addey and—

  —neither of his friends had moved. He trundled his suitcase back to the stalled couple, a solemn look in their eyes.

  “What?” he
asked, confused.

  “What’s wrong, Ed?” asked Bill. It was serious when he shortened his name.

  “What do you mean? I’m just worried about Addey, is all.”

  “You act . . . I dunno. Scared.”

  “I am. I just want to make sure he’s alright.” Edmund was feeling his face grow flustered, angry at having to explain something that should have simply been accepted by his friends.

  “There’s a dozen reasons why you’ve lost contact. Did something else happen?” Sophie asked. “You’re . . . a little manic. No offense.”

  Edmund couldn’t meet her gaze. He shook his head, but Bill was smart enough to tell when his friend was dodging.

  “What did he say?” asked Bill. “Addey said something before he disappeared, didn’t he?”

  Edmund looked up, just nodded. He thumbed to his photo app because he’d taken a screenshot of the final message Addey had sent because he didn’t want to lose it. It had haunted him from the moment he’d read it—Addey had sent it the day before Edmund asked if they were still going to meet in this very spot. Edmund just handed his phone to Bill with the picture pulled up, then turned around. The message, he had memorized.

  I think it’s great that you’re coming to Europe, but I’m not so sure meeting is a good idea. Something’s happening here. Something that people won’t talk about. I know what happened to my grandparents but mama and papa won’t talk about that either. I’m scared to go on the ghost hunt with you, Ed. If you do come to Warsaw, please, please. I’m begging you. Stay away from Treblinka.

  “What’s Treblinka?” asked Sophie.

  Bill answered. “It was a Nazi death camp to the east of here. No one ever talks about it. Anytime you turn on the History Channel it’s always about Auschwitz. But a lot of bad stuff happened in Treblinka, too.”

  “Why would Addey think you would go there?” asked Sophie.

  Edmund said, “That’s where I’d pitched the idea of ghost hunting. There’s a legend around there.”

  “He just sounds spooked,” Bill said dismissively. “I wouldn’t worry about him too much.”

  Edmund shook his head. “He was all for the ghost hunt a year ago. I don’t understand what he could’ve found out since then. Or what he thinks is happening around there. But I want to know.”

  “He said he wants you to stay away from Treblinka,” Sophie said.

  “We’re not going to Treblinka,” said Edmund, “we’re going to . . .” He pulled up his phone and switched back to Facebook, “Sienna Street.”

  “Look, let’s take it down a notch, okay, Ed?” said Bill. “I get that you’re upset. I get that you’re worried. But let’s get settled and we’ll check out his address first thing in the morning.”

  He looked at his watch. Twelve minutes past five. It would be getting dark soon and he didn’t know how Addey’s parents would take to the sudden appearance of three Americans afterhours. His heart was thudding in his chest, as excited to follow the lead to Addey’s house as to the ghost hunt. But a small part of him, the logical part, said that he should side with his friends. They should eat, find a place to stay for the night, deal with travel arrangements, and then with a clear head, look for Addey.

  “Okay,” he conceded, nodding and putting his phone away. “First thing tomorrow?”

  “First thing,” said Sophie.

  “After breakfast,” Bill said, winking to his friend and giving him a good-natured slap across the back. “C’mon.”

  ***

  Warsaw was more spread out than Edmund would have guessed. Unlike Germany with the tight, nondescript buildings, Poland seemed to rely heavier on the embellishments. True, that was probably not the case for either of those places but the short jaunts from point A to point B that Edmund took showed very little in the way of diversity.

  But Warsaw was pretty. The streets were wide, giving as much room to pedestrians as to vehicles. In some places the area seemed to fade away so that the flair of some monument could sprout from the ground. Buildings were of varied color with tapering, rounded roofs. Edmund didn’t pay much attention to any of this because Bill took the lead in getting them where they needed to go. Edmund was lost to his thoughts.

  The streets weren’t as crowded as he would have guessed, either. True, the cold seeped into his bones worse here than seven hours west in Germany, but he wondered if Warsaw’s vibrant nightlife was located elsewhere. It was getting dark, something that seemed to happen in Europe earlier than back home. He was tired, a little dejected, and wanted somewhere warm so he could think.

  Because they waited for twenty minutes on a cab, Sophie had enough time to pull up a bed and breakfast on her map. The cab and driver both smelled like some sort of spicy meat and Edmund didn’t think his nose would ever come to accept the strange food of this land. Sophie showed the driver her cellphone’s screen and without a word, he pulled away, taking a roundabout back in the direction of the train station.

  “How did people ever travel without technology?” asked Bill, watching as Sophie pulled up the BnB to double-check that it had a vacancy.

  “Slowly,” said Edmund.

  The rest of the night was uneventful. An old man ran the BnB, his face lighting up at the three Americans as they came into his home and paid cash at a small lectern he’d placed in his foyer. A tiny, eager Corgi did circles around the newcomers’ legs as Bill pulled out his wallet. The man looked at them as if they were his grandkids, then tried to take their bags away to which the boys of the group graciously stopped. Instead, the old man said something in Polish, threw his hand up to wave, then went back to his cozy chair by the fire.

  They ate in a little restaurant within walking distance, each having Pierogi and bottled water. Edmund’s system couldn’t take much more of the strange food and he vowed, sometime soon, that he would find the European version of a 7-Eleven and buy all the junk food he could afford.

  The next day when Sophie checked the map, she announced they were now four miles from Adlai’s house. Rather than take a cab, Bill suggested they try to rent a car. There was a rental place called Nomad that offered surprisingly cheap rates. At first, the man running the place didn’t want to rent to them—they were just kids, after all, and the minimum rental age in Poland was twenty-one. But when Edmund slid the guy a few extra zlotys, the deal went through. The extra cost wasn’t much of a burden—with Poland’s exchange rates they were only paying twenty bucks a day for a car, and that was even after the rental dealership’s bonus.

  So as Edmund sat in the driver’s seat of the 2013 Fiat 500, he made a discovery—the car was a manual shifter, and he hadn’t the slightest idea of how to drive one. It was also disconcerting having the steering wheel on the right side of the car, although he’d been told Poland, unlike the United Kingdom, drove on the same side as they did back home in the good ole U.S. of A.

  “Bill?” he asked to his friend who sat across in what should’ve been the driver’s seat in a normal world.

  “Shit, I have no idea, Ed.” He looked at the gearshift as if it were the most alien thing he’d ever seen.

  “Are you boys kidding me?” asked Sophie from the back. “Ed, get up.” She pushed his seat forward as soon as he was out, then traded him spots.

  “Where did you learn to drive a stick?” asked Bill.

  “Candace taught me,” she said, adjusting her seat. Edmund was pretty sure that was her sister who lived out west. Nevada or maybe New Mexico.

  “Full of surprises,” said Bill, kissing her hand before she took it back to man the gearshift. She placed the cellphone on the dash and let the GPS take them to Adlai’s house.

  The route cut through the Old City, and now Edmund could see that most of Warsaw’s activity was away from the rail line. Sienna Street was dead in the center of a colorful district with wide roads and wrought-iron fences covered in dead vinery. Their GPS delivered them to a tall, two-story apartment building but the three of them had to get out of the car and search for the address
. Lofty apartment buildings were all over the place, moving off to the south until they ended at a synagogue with a domed roof.

  Edmund took the lead, finding the correct apartment building just four doors past the little graveled turnabout where Sophie had pulled the car. He wasted no time pounding on the frame, a little too forceful which made him back up and check the street for anyone who may have come out to investigate the noise.

  Then the door swung in and, not surprising to Edmund this late into the journey, the smell of some smoked meat wafted out. Standing in the darkly lit doorway was a woman, perhaps elderly, perhaps not, but entirely too difficult to tell for sure by the way a shawl wrapped around her head. She was smoking a little yellow cigarette and her skin tone matched the filter. Her bug eyes glared up at Edmund, questioning him without even saying a word.

  “Hi, we’re looking for Addey. I mean . . . Adlai.”

  At this, her eyes lit up, but they quickly narrowed again. Edmund wasn’t sure if she understood what he’d said or if she’d simply recognized her son’s name. He pulled out his phone, quickly found an old school photo that depicted Edmund, Bill, and Addey, all sitting on the bleachers, waiting on a local acting troupe to perform Beauty and the Beast. He showed the old woman.

  She started speaking a string of Polish—at least that’s what Edmund assumed—but she turned around, as if talking to someone in the apartment. Edmund looked at Sophie who had just brought up her cellphone app to translate, but before she could, a man appeared in the doorway, nearly knocking over the old woman. She disappeared in a cloud of smoke, wandering back into the dim apartment.

  “Adlai,” the man said. He was taller than Edmund, but lanky and wore his pants so comically high that it made him look like a grasshopper. “Adlai. No here.”

  “What?” Edmund asked. “Then where?”