Page 41

FORTY

ELLA

As my senses start to come back to me, an ache spreads through my head and I blink, finding splintered wood to my side, my cheek pressed against it.

Luka.

I push my face away from whatever I’m leaning on, every muscle in my body repelling each slight movement.

My lips are parched, cracking as I open my mouth to inhale the dry, dusty air.

Tatiana? Where did she go?

The memory of her urges me upright.

She was right here. It’s impossible to sit up straight in a bunk with how narrow the openings between each tier are.

A thud beside me makes me jump and gasp, finding Tatiana pushing a bowl up to my mouth just like she did to the little girl.

“Drink, quickly. As much as you can.”

I do as she says, the quick few gulps inducing nausea.

“They’re about to assign you to labor. I’ll be here tonight. Don’t give up. Please. You matter, too. I’ve missed you and now that you’re here, I don’t want to lose you again.”

“…six-three-nine-four,” I hear someone shouting my number and I glance around.

A kapo stands at the open door, wearing a men’s blue overcoat over her striped smock, but with the armband labeled with the word “kapo” next to a Jewish star.

That says all I need to know.

I pull myself up and give Tatiana one last glance and a nod.

“I’ll be back,” I whisper.

Luka.

He was sent to be gassed.

That’s why I collapsed.

Luka was sent here. They discarded him just as I assumed.

Though…there could be another singer, maybe?

Could I make myself believe that instead?

“ The young one with beautiful eyes. ”

My chest is hollow and my heart only aches like it’s been battered with a bat.

I need a moment. I need to cry.

I need to scream.

But my body just moves forward as it was told to do.

I approach the kapo with the clipboard in her hand, sneering at me as if she’s already lost her patience, waiting the long seconds for me to make my way across the block to her.

“That’s my number,” I utter weakly.

“Outside,” she says, pointing to another line, then shouts the next number on her list.

My knees shake as I walk over to the other woman standing in a single line, facing another kapo.

Snow is falling now.

A snowflake lands on my hand and I stare down at it, wondering why there isn’t an accompanying chill.

More fall over my shoulders and arms, and on my cheeks as well.

As I go to sweep the flake from my sleeve, I realize why the snow isn’t cold—it’s not snow.

It’s dust. A small pebble falls into my hand, and I take it between my fingertips and examine it—a particle of bone.

I pinch the bridge of my nose to stop tears from forming, but in the darkness of my mind, I find Luka singing in the Leszno Street square, reaching his arm out toward me and the crowd, releasing his beautiful words and sound to fall upon us.

Then he falls to the ground like a steel beam, his arm still outstretched, his eyes still open—but he’s gone.

“No,” I whisper to myself.

“No, I won’t believe it.” An acrid burn swells in my chest as I dust myself off.

Two lines emerge from the one I was standing in and we’re moving forward, heel to toe as if a caterpillar squirming along as one unit.

We take a turn away from the barracks, out between two barbed-wire fences and return to the central path, bordered by more fences.

We drag our feet, unintentionally kicking hard dust up at each other until we approach a closed gate, guarded by an SS officer.

“These women are reporting to Kanada,” the kapo tells him.

He walks down the short line, grabs my arm, pinches his fingernails into my flesh and checks my inked number against whatever is written on the list in his other hand.

Kanada is where I was assigned.

Once all of the women’s arms have been matched to the list, the gates open to a series of long, wooden and brick buildings.

Set out in front of the wide barn-like entrances to the buildings are carts of luggage and piles of various personal belongings.

The sounds of gates opening and closing ring constantly as other prisoners walk in and out of the barrack’s doors, carrying bundles of items. Kanada must be a warehouse of some sort.

We’re directed inside, swallowed by dust, burnt wood, and the stench of bitterness.

Guards stand in every direction, rifles slung over their shoulders, eyes scrutinizing us.

The hanging dim light flickers, blending with the streaks of sun slipping through the thin cracks in the walls.

Shelves line the room, piled high with stacks of a variety of items confiscated from incoming prisoners—clothing, shoes, suitcases, and kitchenware.

Prisoners work methodically, sorting through them with vacant stares and mechanical movements.

None of them stop to look at us.

A kapo steps forward in front of us and begins to read our numbers off again, followed by assignments appointing us to a landmark of goods.

“Teeth—remove all gold teeth and set them in the crate,” the kapo says, her voice lacking inflection.

She calls my number and points over my head.

“Handbags—empty them, sort valuables and non-valuables.”

I move toward the pile, passing whispering workers and the scrape of crates on concrete—the factory-like hum, suffocating.

I find the area where women are sorting through handbags, each of them moving quickly.

I grab a bag, mimicking the others.

A sharp gasp breaks the steady rhythm of repeating tasks.

The girl next to me stares at her bleeding palm.

I spot a broken mirror shard on the ground, grab the handle and toss it into the worthless pile.

“Can you not handle such a simple task?” a kapo’s voice snaps from down the row.

The kapo thrusts herself down the row, grabs the girl’s handbag, and dumps the remaining items over her head.

“Hurry!” she growls before storming off.

The girl scurries to pick up the fallen items, her hand still bleeding, blood dripping down to her elbow.

I search my bag until my fingers graze over a handkerchief.

Luka’s voice drifts through my memory.

“I’ve heard women can keep an entire pharmacy stored in one small bag.”

“Here,” I whisper, handing her the cloth beneath the bags we both have open.

She doesn’t dare look up, but her lips press into a faint smile.

“Thank you,” she utters.

“I’m Galina.”

“Ella,” I reply.

I take the next bag, a black leather purse, pulling out a pill box, a wallet, a small Bible, and lipstick.

I place everything down to sort through after checking through the bag once more, touching every silky surface of the interior until something crumples like newspaper beneath my fingertips.

I find a small hole, reach inside, and retrieve a worn letter.

“My darling, how do I share the amount of love my heart holds for you?”

I find scripted ink with sharp edges to each letter, like Luka’s handwriting.

The clunk of heavy boots spooks me into dropping the note and tossing the empty bag into a wagon set out before us for the empty handbags.

This woman, wherever she might be, had a last note for her love, something to hold on to.

Hours of monotonous rummaging pins me in a mindless rhythm, disconnecting me from every object I touch.

To survive, I can’t let myself care.

A harmonious cry of a violin zips overhead as a guard enters a nearby door, the sound trailing behind.

There’s music? Here?

“Are you all right?” Galina asks, the movement of her lips subtle.

“Did you hear that?”

Her brows furrow.

“Hear what?”

“Music.”

Galina releases a quiet sigh.

“Sometimes musicians play outside the shower rooms.”

My stomach snarls at the thought.

What a cruel way—to…

“Is there ever a singer?” The question flies out of my mouth.

Her brows furrow as she peers up in thought.

“There was, once. A Jewish man. The guards mocked him, then called him a waste of talent.”

Luka?

I clutch a scarf to my chest as if it’s the one last thread that can keep me connected to something real.

Luka’s real. He’s still alive in my heart.

It must mean something.

Tatiana’s words ring through my head again.

“ The male singer, the young one with beautiful eyes… He was sent to be gassed.”

My thoughts come to an abrupt stop and the room closes in on me when the door opens again.

For a split second, a voice soft and faint hums in the distance.

I freeze, gripping the bag in my hands.

The sound wanes.

“Did you hear that?” I ask Galina, my question frantic but quiet.

Galina watches me and gently tilts her head to the side.

“Ella…there’s no singer.”

It disappeared as quickly as it came.

I lower my chin, shaking my head in disbelief, wondering if my mind is playing tricks on me.

My mind wouldn’t betray me like that.

It wouldn’t. I know I heard something—a familiar melody—a sliver of hope, or maybe pure madness.

But it’s like a flicker of light from a match that doesn’t want to burn out.