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TWENTY-NINE

LUKA

I can speak fluent German.

It’s something we all learned years ago, but I don’t know what I’m singing about.

I’m following the tune of the piano.

My mind is somewhere far from here, in the corner of the open foyer where a small party of SS officers and their wives mingle.

I could be anywhere else, far away from German soldiers and their wives.

Ella could be with me, standing as my wife, perhaps, both of us mingling with others as I lovingly wrap my arm around her lower back.

I would be watching her laugh at a joke, reveling in the sound and beauty she emits through happiness.

She would flash me a glance, loose curls framing her face, a complexion of porcelain, flawless.

I’d squeeze my hand around her a bit tighter, a silent gesture between us.

Then I’d ask myself how on earth I was lucky enough to have my arm around this perfect woman, to call her mine.

The sharp clang of glass jolts me back.

Ella isn’t by my side; my arm isn’t around her.

I’m not among the crowd mingling with other couples.

I’m a slave to the SS.

She’s all I want and everything I’ll never have.

“What are you singing?” the pianist, Franc, utters, glancing at me with quick blinks as he sprawls his long fingers across the tops of the ivory keys.

He seems as if he’s been in Auschwitz a while, or at least much longer than I have.

He must be around my father’s age, too, and the thought of what he’s doing at this moment sends a queasy wave through my stomach.

“The words are on the music sheet,” he says, pointing at the papers resting atop his piano.

“You must sing the right lyrics.”

I stare straight out ahead of me at the small crowd, wondering if they’ve noticed I lost track of what I was supposed to be singing.

Just as I make eye contact with the officer who brought us here tonight, a champagne flute comes flying toward me, spinning in the air.

I duck, trying to move out of the way, but I’m not as fast as I once was and not fast enough now.

The edge clips the top of my scalp before breaking against the post I’m standing in front of.

The glass shatters, shards spraying along my back.

“What about German uplifting music do you not understand? You will not sing in—” an officer snarls as if his next word is bitter on his tongue, “Polish.” He’s shouting at me from across the room, making a spectacle that creates a silence between all four walls.

“I thought it was quite beautiful,” the woman beside him, I assume to be his wife, says.

“It’s nicer than the folk songs that are supposed to bring a smile to our faces. This man is singing about love. Clearly.” The outspoken woman takes a sip from her glass and turns around, placing a hand on the officer’s back.

“Less folk…and sing in German. We don’t speak your language,” the officer says, giving his presumed wife a questioning side-eye stare.

“Go on. Continue.” He flaps his hand at me as if I’m a fly he’s shooing away.

“I’ll follow you,” Franc says as sweat glistens across his forehead, reeling in a slight reflection from the ceiling light.

When you think you know

The meaning of love,

But it’s only a tale for show

The heart bleeds with tears

Broken, shattered dreams,

Wrapped in a cloak of fears.

Reasons we refused to see

Can you hear me?

Please, let it be.

Tell me it was love, or take my heart,

Hold it close—or set it free.

A light round of applause startles me and ends as abruptly, a warning that I’ve crossed a line I didn’t intend to cross.

“Did you write that yourself?” Franc asks, talking without moving his lips.

He repositions himself on the piano bench, his stocky pale frame causing a creak and moan beneath him.

“Yes,” I reply in the same way.

“You’re gifted, and I’m sorry you’re in so much pain.”

I won’t rest until I find her.

“Aren’t we all in pain?” I ask him.

“Only if you can still feel it,” Franc says, pointing to his ear with a sweeping gesture.

Blood drips down the side of my head, falling onto my earlobe.

No pain. It’s the agony in my chest I’m afraid will never go away.

I run my hand over my head, pulling it away and finding it covered in blood.

“Let’s go—the two of you. You’re nauseating the crowd. Get yourself cleaned up and in one piece before tomorrow night,” the SS officer snaps before grabbing the two of us by our arms and yanking us toward the back door.

He’s the one who threw the glass at my head.

What did he think would happen?

Everyone witnessed the behavior and not a person flinched at the scene.

It was as common as throwing a rolled-up napkin at someone.

The anger rages inside of me bringing words to my tongue, but then I remember the look on Apollo’s face after he spoke his final thoughts out loud, the shocked look in his eyes before he was released from this torture.

Maybe that’s all it takes.

A few justified words to this mongrel and I’ll be set free like all those whose insides were painted along the execution wall today.

But I can’t do that to Mother.

I can’t lose her. I must know she’s okay.