Katalin and Marika are detained in Bayonne

Katalin and Marika are detained in Bayonne when German officials inspect the passengers on the Landauer family's train. Their separation turns border procedure into an immediate family crisis: Katalin's Nansen passport and the family's other travel documents do not secure passage, and Viktor's protest cannot stop the officials from taking mother and daughter away. As the train departs without them, the incident also deepens the distance between Viktor and Liesel, exposing the personal cost of his attempt to intervene.

The border inspection

The train stops at Bayonne amid shouted commands and soldiers ordering passengers onto the platform. Officials require everyone to form queues and present papers. The procedure divides the travelers into those permitted to return to the train and those taken aside; the crowd's relief at seeing many passengers pass is inseparable from fear that the next set of documents will fail scrutiny.

Viktor lays out the family's papers in neat piles: passports, French transit visas, a Spanish visa, and tickets. He identifies the group as himself, Liesel, their two children, Katalin, and Katalin's daughter. The official examines the documents, then singles out Katalin's temporary refugee passport, a Nansen passport. The paper that records her displaced status becomes the focus of the inspection rather than a guarantee of protection.

Katalin and Marika are taken away

When an official orders Katalin forward, Viktor explains that she is employed by the family. The soldier tells him, with formal politeness, that he was not asked to speak. After officials confer over her passport and visas, a uniformed man leads Katalin toward a nearby hut. Marika calls for her mother. Liesel draws the child close and promises that she will look after her, but an official insists Marika must go with Katalin. A soldier then pushes the girl toward the hut, and Katalin calls Viktor's name as mother and daughter are taken inside.

Viktor protests that Katalin's papers are in order and specifically identifies her document as a Nansen passport. The official warns him to move back onto the train unless he wants to be detained. Viktor argues that the papers had been accepted for entry into France and were suitable for Spain; the official tells him to move on and suggests the delay may be temporary. The official's words offer no assurance of release. The crowd presses forward, and the family's passage is allowed to continue without Katalin and Marika.

The attempt to intervene

The family waits in the compartment while Viktor returns to the platform to argue with an official. Liesel remains with Ottilie and Martin, trying to reassure them that their father will resolve the problem even though she herself has no such confidence. On the platform, Viktor's exchange with the official escalates: a soldier approaches and strikes him with a rifle butt, forcing him back toward the train. He re-enters the compartment injured, and the confrontation has achieved nothing for Katalin or Marika.

Liesel rebukes Viktor for putting himself at risk when he has a responsibility to his wife and children. In her anger, she connects his intervention to his attachment to Katalin, accusing him of placing Katalin above his own family. The immediate crisis thus reveals more than the powerlessness of their documents: it reopens the strain in Viktor and Liesel's marriage and makes the costs of his allegiance to Katalin visible to the children as well as to Liesel.

Departure and consequence

After the confrontation, the family sits in silence. Ottilie cries, Martin turns to a book, and Liesel and Viktor sit apart. The train's engine starts and the carriages move out of the station. Ottilie asks where Marika has gone, but there is no answer; the train carries the Landauers onward while Katalin and Marika remain behind in Bayonne.

Viktor, with blood on his face, asks Liesel what else he could have done. She turns away rather than answer. The departure leaves his question unresolved and their disagreement intact: he has tried to challenge an official decision and failed, while Liesel sees the danger he has brought upon the family. The scene makes the border's power concrete through its consequences: papers and visas have enabled the family's journey up to this point, but a single act of official discretion separates a mother and child from the people traveling with them.