Page 31

THIRTY

ELLA

By some measure of luck, I went unnoticed last night while hiding in the administration office on the first floor of the barrack.

At least, I don’t think I was spotted.

Though it’s possible that with my eyes closed in the face of fear, the man lurking around could have taken mercy on me and left to clear the rest of the floor.

The thought just seems extremely unlikely, given I’ve yet to meet one guard to consider letting anyone get away with anything here.

Once my heart settled into a steady rhythm a long hour after I made it back to the tiers of bunks, I began to wonder why I could have heard Luka’s voice coming from the Commandant’s villa of all places.

After those brief seconds of clear sound, I couldn’t be more sure that it’s him.

By why, how—could he be there?

This block isn’t very far away, but with the barrier between those buildings and these, I can only depend on what I hear.

I’m afraid to ask anyone else in the block if they hear him, too.

They might tell me I’m hearing voices.

That’s a sign of mental incompetence here and if our block-elder, Francine, or any kapo hear about any of us losing the bearings of our minds, we’ll immediately be sent elsewhere—likely to Block 10 where people are tortured through medical experiments, some even dissected while still alive.

The rumors have circulated and though unfathomable, nothing should be questioned here in Auschwitz.

So many women are coughing, sniffling, and groaning tonight, suffering from an array of illnesses sweeping through the barracks like the plague.

It’s a warning for those of us who haven’t gotten sick.

It’s only a matter of time until we catch something.

As hot and humid as it is within these walls, I often cover my face with the wool blanket while I sleep, convincing myself it will keep the germs out.

Tonight, I stare through the dark blanket, the prickly fibers scratching along my cheek as I imagine Luka’s voice, praying to capture just a hint to give me a sense of peace before I fall asleep.

Though my eyelids are heavy, my heart pounds too hard and fast to rest. Most of the others have found a position they’re comfortable enough to fall asleep in, eliminating some of the surrounding static noise.

“Does anyone hear that?” someone whispers from several rows down.

I clutch the blanket tighter, pressing it against my chest.

“What? What do you hear?” another person whispers.

A creak from the window startles me as someone attempts to crack it open—something we haven’t done since last summer.

“Oh, that,” another voice adds.

“That’s the new singer the SS have enslaved as their nightly entertainment.”

“Who’s speaking?” Even though there is a dividing wall between the rows of bunks and her closet-size space to sleep, Keely has the hearing of one of those German shepherds.

She’s the privileged kapo in our block who answers to Francine with behavioral logs each morning before roll call.

No one responds, as usual.

Keely isn’t as brutal as Francine, or she simply doesn’t have the strength to investigate every single sound throughout the night.

“If I hear another word, I will find you, and you will be reported,” she says.

I can’t see her, but I can almost hear her nose pointing into the air.

When I can see her, her arms are folded over her chest, she sucks her cheeks in to highlight her cheekbones that don’t need highlighting as prominent as they are in all of us from the hunger we endure.

It’s become apparent that people don’t change, despite our equalizing circumstances.

If they saw themselves as being above others before being imprisoned here, they still do now.

The SS seek out those people like Keely and give her privileges above everyone else, knowing she cares more about herself than anyone else around her.

Maybe all kapos aren’t like her.

Some are worse, as I’ve seen, but most wouldn’t remain in their position without giving the SS what they want.

The silence after she returns to her small private space invites a melodic breeze in through the cracked window.

My ears tingle though I can’t make out the words of this song, but the familiar sound of his voice, the highs and lows—the smooth notes that carry for longer than a common breath—embrace me.

My eyes slide shut as I think back to stolen moments in the nook of the tunnel.

The glow from the flame blocked out the surroundings, allowing me to imagine we were anywhere but there, but really—I was with him, and that’s all that mattered.

The way the fine hairs of his cheek tickled mine whenever he would nuzzle his face into the crook of my neck, and the way his arms would wrap all the way around me and hold me so tightly, convinced nothing could ever tear us apart.

And our conversations, our talks about our future when the war ends and we’re free to be who we are, and together.

One of the last nights we were together, we planned out what forever would look like for us.

“Where will we live?” I ask as Luka strokes his knuckles gently down my arm.

“Anywhere but here, in a tunnel or a sewer,” he says with a silent chuckle, as he tugs me tighter into his chest, nuzzling himself into the corner of this dark nook we hide in every night.

“I want to live on a farm, have a wooden swing outside the front door where we can rock back and forth all night and stare up at the stars. You can sing your heart out and have nature be your orchestra.”

“And you, Miss Ella, what will you do with all your freedom and happiness?”

“I’ll tend to the farm, make sure no one ever goes hungry again.” Food brings people happiness and after watching so many suffer from going without it, I wouldn’t want to do anything else.

I didn’t understand why Tata held on to the family store with everything he has left within him until I realized how much he’s given to others, how much those others rely on him.

He fights and struggles daily to bring food into the store, gathering it from places he never talks about.

All that matters is that he gives to those who need it most after they’ve been sent away empty-handed.

I want to do the same.

“Sounds like a beautiful life to me,” Luka says, placing a kiss on my neck.

“Dream of it tonight, and I will, too,” I tell him.

He sighs gently against my ear.

“At least I can dream about you when we aren’t together. Once you’re mine forever, our farm will follow.”

After the gong rattles through the block and everyone scatters to prepare themselves for a day’s worth of work, I slide down the side of the bunk and make my way over toward the window someone cracked last night.

“Who mentioned the singer working for the SS?” I ask, keeping my voice low between the scuffles.

“Me,” a woman says, sliding off her bunk with hesitation, pain pinching at her eyes.

“I’m Magda.”

“Ella,” I reply, waiting for her to say more.

I’ve seen this woman every day, but haven’t spoken to her.

Our paths haven’t crossed until now.

In fact, I’m not sure I’ve heard her speak until last night.

She must be around Mama’s age, and it pains me to think how much harder this life is affecting her than me.

Mama’s back was always hurting, her shoulders would have pinched nerves that would cause her headaches, her knees ached if she was standing too long in the kitchen, and the joints in her fingers swelled just from knitting.

She would tell me there’s nothing fun about aging and to stay young for as long as possible.

“Do you mind if I ask you how you know about him?”

“Personally, I don’t know the man. A kapo, Evie, who works in the communication office with me transports messages between the SS buildings. She mentioned something about a new male singer the SS are torturing at their evening meetings and dinners.” We never found his name registered.

But it’s his voice. I need to know.

Torturing . The word slices down my spine.

“She said that?” I was under the impression that kapos don’t speak poorly of the SS.

They’re typically loyal.

“Evie is one of the few good ones.”

“What do you mean?” I’m speaking quickly, knowing we’re running out of seconds before we need to hustle for roll call.

“A few of the kapos will help us if the price is right.”

“Price? Money? You pay her?” It’s like we’re living in two different places right now.

I’m very sure no one here has any money.

“Not with money, with food rations,” the woman says, buttoning up her smock.

Without thinking of what else I would need to forfeit, I ask the burning question: “Do you think Evie would help me with something?”

The woman laughs through a breath.

“With what?”

The other women are rushing past us in a hurry to make their way to roll call as we should be doing but I’m stuttering on the words stuck in my mouth.

“I—I, well I think—I know the singer. We were torn away from each other in Warsaw. I love him and he loves me. I would do anything—truly anything in the world—to get a message to him.”

“Careful about who you express your desperation to here, Ella…” she tells me, her motherly tone grasping a hold of my attention.

“What room do you work in?”

I swallow hard before responding, thinking before I speak after the last comment.

“The log-room, cataloging incoming prisoners.”

She nods and glances past me toward the door we need to be walking out through.

“I’ll tell you what… You find me the name of someone I know is here, find out what block they’re living in, and I’ll do what I can to convince the kapo to deliver a message for you so you can confirm whether the singer is who you think. Save up your rations, though.”

The woman pulls a scrap of paper and a pencil the size of my little finger with jagged lead out of her baggy sock.

She scribbles out the name and hands me the paper.

“Deal?”

“Yes, yes, of course, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” she says, her voice flat and unwavering, as if she has little faith that I’ll come through.

I don’t have much faith that I will either, seeing as none of us have had much luck finding the names we’ve tried searching for so far.

I hurry to roll call, catching every single puddle on the way.

The lines are already formed, and Francine is already making her way between us as I squeeze in between two women in the back row.

“Watch it,” the woman to my right says.

“Just because you can’t get here on time, you think you can shove all of us?”

“Shh,” I plead, staring at her with dread.

She grits her teeth and grinds her jaw from side to side.

“You’ll get us all in trouble if you show up late again,” she hisses.

“I won’t. I promise. I won’t.”

She curls forward with a deep, wheezing cough that won’t relent.

Without Francine in sight yet, I place my hand on the woman’s back and try to calm her so she can catch her breath between coughs.

“Try to inhale through your nose,” I whisper.

She presses her lips together and shakes as she pulls air in through her nose, holding it for a moment before standing back upright.

From the corner of her eye, she peers over at me and her chin trembles.

She swallows hard and clenches her eyes.

Blood and mucous dribble from her nose just as Francine turns down the next row.

I nudge her and gesture to wipe her nose.

She’d be sent right to the infirmary if Francine sees her like this.

People don’t usually come back from there.

“Thank—” she tries to speak but her knees give out and she keels over, face first into the ground, heavy as a log.

Francine shoves everyone to the side to make her way over, finding the poor woman unconscious in the mud.

She blows her whistle and shoots her hand up in the air, signaling for someone to come take her away. For good.