Page 29

TWENTY-EIGHT

ELLA

My hands are unsteady today, or more unsteady than usual.

The papers slip in my fingers, but I keep moving, hoping it doesn’t show.

My mind isn’t at its sharpest, going over and over the question of whether I might have unknowingly written out Luka’s name as if it was just any other name, monotonously grinding my pen against lines over and over all day.

Or one of the other clerks could have logged his name and wouldn’t have given it a second thought because they don’t know anything about him.

There are too many variables to consider, which leaves me desperate to come up with a way to confirm whether it’s Luka’s voice I’ve been hearing.

I could ask the others to look for Luka’s name the way we’ve been helping Iza search for her sister, Zofia.

Though part of me thinks it’s foolish to look for Luka’s name because if I was to find it, it would mean he’s here.

It would mean he’s no longer promised a tomorrow either.

I wouldn’t dream of that for him.

It’s the last thing I want for him.

Furthermore, I can’t avoid the reality of odds that he would end up in the same place I am—they must be slim.

I already know my mind has been playing tricks on me, making me think I see him in others.

This is the last place he should be.

He was already a prisoner of the walls in Warsaw.

This place—this is intended for torture and death.

Something sharp strikes me in the shoulder and I whip around, terrified I’ve been caught flipping through the pages of the log rather than continuing to enter the names.

I find a small, triangular folded card on the ground behind my chair and scoop it up.

Upon returning upright, I glance at Tatiana’s desk, then at Tatiana, who’s shooting me a questioning look.

“Everything all right?” she mouths to me.

She must have noticed I’ve been moving quite slow.

The sharp angled card pokes the inside of my hand.

I turn around to face the front, look around to make sure there aren’t any watching guards and unfold the paper to scribble out a quick note:

I heard a man singing last night.

I recognized his voice.

If it is him…It’s my Luka.

Or I might just be going mad.

I fold the note card back up into the triangle and flick it back over to her.

She catches it and unfolds the paper swiftly and reads what I wrote.

Tatiana places her hand on her chest then turns the note card over to jot something down.

Within seconds, she folds it in half then tosses it back to me.

I catch it, mid-air, open it and read what she’s responded with:

Oh gosh, we’ll search the logbooks!

What does he look like?

I’ll keep a lookout for him, too.

I respond beneath her short paragraph:

Thank you.

I must know, either way.

He’s tall, slender, sharp facial features,

and striking hazel eyes.

It’s hard to describe him when we’re devoid of our identifying features—our hair, starved, and tortured into a quiet submission.

Again, I toss back the note, but it swoops beneath her desk this time.

She doesn’t waste any time retrieving it, but then hits her head beneath the desk, causing a loud thud.

Tatiana jumps up, her mouth hanging open as we both scan the room.

Just then, an officer saunters by the open door, his hands clasped behind his back as he stops and glares inside, scoping out all the women working.

A woman two desks down from me fumbles with whatever she’s doing and spills the jar of ink on her desk.

The officer pivots and steps into the room, making his way into the room with long, slow strides toward the woman who’s trying to move all the papers away from the ink spill.

The sound of whimpering and heavy breaths forces me to squeeze my eyes shut, predicting what’s to come.

The clatter is loud, echoing and too easy to imagine.

Her bones hit the desk, and she cries out in pain.

“You…foolish imbecile,” the officer spits out.

He’s thrashing her around on the desk.

“This is what happens when you spill our ink.”

When the racket stops and the clicking of boots against the floor grows quieter, I peek out of the corner of my eyes, finding the woman pulling her dress together, holding it where it’s torn and covered in ink.

Her face is red, and blood is dripping from the side of her mouth, falling against the smudged ink stained across her body.

We aren’t allowed to console her.

Acts of kindness are forbidden, punishable by beatings, or worse.

The officer lingers in the doorway, the long moment stalling, before finally walking away.

I release a breath, and my shoulders fall.

I’m afraid to turn around to face Tatiana so I continue entering names from the pile of papers beside me.

To think of how I used to complain about helping Tata and Miko with inventory for our store needles at me.

I was young and didn’t know what life could look like.

“I don’t want to be here. It’s not fair. I was in school all day,” I complain to Tata as I stack jars of pickled vegetables on a shelf, one by one, ensuring the column is straight with each jar’s label facing me.

Tata’s rules, not mine.

“Ella, this store is part of our family. If it was me or your mother who needed help, would you say that isn’t fair, too?”

“The store isn’t a person,” I argue.

“No, but it brings life to others. We keep people fed. It’s an important job, and this store has been in our family for generations. You should take pride in that.”

I will take pride, but when I’m older with nothing else better to do.

The other kids in my class don’t even invite me to do anything with them because they know I’m never available.

This store has become my only friend, and it’s still not a person.

I sigh in response, trying to hold my tongue rather than be disrespectful.

Tata is the one who always tells me I’ll only be a child once and I should enjoy life without so many responsibilities.

He must not understand that sitting in this store all day is stealing my youth.

“All right.”

“Ella,” Tata says, taking me by the hand.

“Place that jar down and come with me.”

I stand up from my knees, as he pulls me toward the back room of the store and taps on a milk crate.

“Sit.” He sits down across from me on another crate.

“You’re sixteen. I understand your frustration. I do.”

“Then why not let me be a young adult like the others at school?” I argue.

Tata folds his hands together and rests them on the knees of his worn brown pants.

“There are many people in this city who were born into families of wealth. There are people who barely get by on the money they have. Then, there are the people like us, who weren’t born into a family of wealth, but were fortunate enough to have a business passed down to us, which acts like a money tree of sorts. We have what we need so long as we continue to put in the effort to keep the tree growing. Many years ago, your mother and I decided that we were not going to raise you like many of the other young girls in this city.”

“Why not?” I ask, frustration bubbling through me.

“Why do I need to be treated differently?”

A small smile curls into Tata’s lips as he reaches over to squeeze my knee.

“Sweetheart, your mother and I don’t think you are a simple young lady who will someday be content serving as a housewife to any man you choose to spend your life with. We see the desire for adventure within your eyes and we want to make sure that whatever it is you want to do as a grown woman, you can do. Whether that is working in this store, exploring the world, or being an amazing mother and wife—we want the choice to be yours, but if we don’t teach you how to survive, how to earn a living, and take care of yourself, your options will be limited.”

“There’s more that you aren’t saying,” I whine.

If he wants me to have freedom when I’m older, he will allow me some room to grow now.

“You’re correct, my darling. We have lived through the world’s worst economic crisis over the last eight years, and we are just now starting to rebuild, but there is no guarantee that our country and the world won’t fall again. Therefore, we need to put everything we have into this store to make sure we continue to live a stable life, and we need your help to do so.”

“Are we poor?” I ask, wondering if that’s what he means.

“We have spare change in our pockets, food on the table, and a roof over our heads. We are fortunate. Let’s always remember that and never take it for granted,” he says, pinching my cheek.

Now, I work and don’t get paid.

I’m fed just enough to keep me alive, and the roof I sleep beneath is just another form of prison within a larger prison.

Everything Tata tried to explain then finally makes sense now, and it’s too late.

I may never get to experience anything more than entering names into a book.

The ten-hour workday mark strikes with shouting demands from the corridor outside the clerical room.

We fold up our catalog books and funnel out the door and into a line where we’ll be escorted back through the main gates.

The girl who spilled her ink earlier in the day is hunched forward in front of me.

With blood stained across her uniform, and tears in the fabric gaping below her neck, a dark bruise of fingerprints tells the story of how she was grabbed earlier.

She’s limping and dragging her feet, trying to hold her uniform together over her chest. Throughout the walk toward the main gate, I listen to her heavy breaths, struggling more than the others.

She slows down, causing a gap to form in the line.

She stumbles to the left and I lunge to grab hold of her, but catch the eyes of an SS officer standing at the gate, watching the scene unfold.

The girl thankfully rights herself back to two feet, but again, stops walking.

Her knees buckle and she falls face first into the dirt.

For a brief second, I question if she will stand back up, but then a blitzing crack of a pistol fires past me, a bullet lodges straight into the back of her head.

She won’t be getting back up.

The lights in our barrack go out, marking the end of another dreary day I’ve managed to survive.

My pulse races within my ears, my nerves fraught with impatience as I listen for another ghostly hint of Luka’s voice, knowing I shouldn’t want to hear it.

I want him to live and find a way to survive, and he’s already been depleted of so much.

The idea of hearing him in the first place makes no sense.

I’m not sure who he or anyone would be singing for or where the singing would be coming from.

The longer I lie here in the darkness amid the thick air of bodily stenches and sounds of whimpering and moans, the more my mind races.

My eyes fall shut, trying to block out the surroundings and the hunger pains growling from within my body.

Then it happens again…

A hum of music drifts by, but so quick and faint, I can’t convince myself it was a voice or a song.

It’s easy to imagine, though.

Too easy.

Another brief wave of notes tickles my ear, and I prop my head up on my folded arms, listening for more.

“Are you all right?” the woman next to me asks.

I must have woken her up with my sudden movement.

“Yes, sorry for bothering you. I thought I heard some music.”

“Oh, yes, like last night? It was lovely, wasn’t it?” she asks, her voice croaking through her words.

She heard it, too. More of the melody flickers through the air, the sound almost out of reach.

“It’s harder to catch tonight.”

I slide forward and turn onto my back to pull myself out of the hole between the bunks.

“It’s much harder to hear tonight,” I reply as I scale down the wooden ladder.

“Where are you going? You know we aren’t allowed to leave the barrack after the lights are out.”

“I know,” I whisper back.

I don’t want to say much else, fearing her saying anything more.

“What are you doing?” someone else utters as I pad barefoot toward the door.

“Using the latrines downstairs is forbidden at night.”

The warnings are clear.

I know the rules. I’m aware of all the consequences for just breathing the wrong way in Auschwitz.

“A kapo could be guarding the corridors,” someone else shouts in a whisper.

“You shouldn’t leave.” At this hour, the kapos are as exhausted as anyone else, and sleep while they can.

I drown the women’s voices out through my desperation to know where the singing is coming from.

I open the door to the corridor and make my way down the one flight of stairs, gripping the handrail with all my might so I don’t stumble through my blindness of the night.

As I make it to the bottom, more notes fill the air, and I follow them, finding the sound growing just slightly louder the farther left I walk.

An open door catches my attention.

I don’t usually come down this way as the main entrance and exit is to the right of the stairwell.

Sweat forms on my forehead as I glance behind me, finding nothing but more darkness.

I pass the open door, finding an administration-like office setup with boxes of paper stacked in dozens of columns.

There’s a small window along the back wall and I creep into the room, cautiously peering around each column of boxes until I step up to the window, which sits just between two moving spotlights that don’t cross over one another.

There isn’t much to see of course, nothing but a barbed-wire fence.

But the music is continuous now, just soft.

I pull up the window, slow movements to avoid any squealing or crackling.

The music grows louder, reeling my focus to the right, beyond the fence, where I’ve been told the Commandant’s villa stands.

Why would the music be coming from there of all places?

From now until tomorrow

The moonlight will?—

A crash echoes through the corridor, startling me into closing the window and scrambling for a place to hide.

The front door, that’s what it was.

Two sets of footsteps follow, and I realize there’s nowhere to run.

Someone is coming down this way.

The other is heading up the stairs.

Terrorizing heat boils through me, sweat dripping from every crevice of my body.

My breaths are heavy and short, and my knees are shaking as I crouch behind one single column of boxes.

A breath catches in my lungs as the footsteps grow louder.

Whoever is here enters the room I’m in and walks toward the window, coming into my view.

An SS guard.

I lift a foot to shift around the column, away from the swishing glows of nearby spotlights.

My other foot sticks with sweat, making a soft squelch.

I clamp my hands over my mouth.

The guard takes long, slow strides, the movement sounding as if they’re weaving around the columns, but I can’t tell where the sound of their footsteps is coming from now.

“Second floor is cleared.” The voice travels down the corridor.

The nearby footsteps continue, then stop, followed by heavy breaths, expelling air filled with coffee and cigarettes.

Someone might have me right in their sights, but I’m too afraid to open my eyes.

The person snuffles and clears their throat.

Please, no. Please God.

“Ernst?” the other person calls out.

He lifts a foot, scratching against the grimy floor.

“One moment,” the man in the room—Ernst—replies.