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FORTY-FIVE

LUKA

My plea for the officer not to shoot Mother has brought the world to a stark halt.

The world is caving in on me.

I can’t breathe. I can’t move.

All I can do is stare at the horror consuming Mother’s pale face.

“Aw, you mean you’d rather be the strong heroic son and take the bullet for your dear old mama?” the officer coos, toying with me as he continues to aim his rifle at my head.

My body shakes uncontrollably even though I want to be strong—to show Mother I’m strong so she doesn’t feel the need to be brave and save me.

I need to save her. I must. “Please,” I whimper.

“Luka,” she cries out again.

The sound brings back a memory of the time I tripped along the edge of a fountain and fell headfirst to the ground.

The terror of me getting hurt.

That’s what her voice cries out now, but she’s the one meant to be walking toward the gas chamber.

Another guard steps forward and lifts his rifle up in front of my chest, preventing me from moving any closer to Mother.

“Please don’t hurt her,” I cry out.

Why must they make me beg?

“Schie?en,” the guard standing beside me shouts.

Shoot.

“No, no!”

A metallic “click” shatters the air before a defining crack and the ground beneath me shudders.

My world collapses on top of me and I scream.

I try to run, but the guard keeps the rifle aimed at me.

“Unless you want to be shot, too, don’t move. Keep singing,” he says, gritting his teeth.

“No one told you to stop the music!” another guard shouts at the other musicians.

My eyes fill with tears as I absorb every detail of my mother, blood pooling around her head in the fresh snow.

My heart won’t beat.

My body won’t move.

“Sing!” the guard beside me snaps, shoving the butt of his rifle into my side, forcing me to choke out in pain.

I crumple inward, gasping for the air that was stolen from my lungs.

My lips part, but phlegm gums up my mouth.

The strings from the violin scrape against their bows, the sound of hesitation.

The cellist follows, a beat too slow.

Their bows all tremble into a sound of disarray and I force sound out to cover the sound of the others, trying to protect them before I do something to hurt them, too.

My voice cracks, despite the force I’m pressing against, and Father’s words echo in my head, “You’ve become a fine young man, Luka. I’m proud of you. Always, and I know you can handle whatever comes our way.”

I’ve let my entire family down.

I was supposed to protect her and Grandmother, and I didn’t.

My vision focuses on everything around me, the people watching me with intent.

I’m not as invisible as I thought.

The guards continue to glare at me.

All of them now, three rifles pointed at me with the threat to end my life right this second.

Maybe that’s what I want…

More shouting commences around the music, and the guards move back to their original places to continue shoving people along into the chamber.

My focus stops on Mother again, her body melting into the snow as if she’s becoming one with the earth.

Her scarf floats over the snow, the red flowers blending with the blood.

I can’t look away. How can I stop looking at what’s left of her now?

The guards’ voices grow louder, fiercer as they begin to forcibly shove people inside as fear rivets through every set of eyes as they all begin to question if it’s truly a shower they’re walking toward.

Why shoot a woman walking toward a shower unless someone was about to expose the truth?

Their panic is my fault.

People step over her body in fear of not complying with the orders.

It’s as if she’s a rock lodged in the center of their path, an object they can’t avoid any other way.

I choke on the last word of the verse, coughing up the air in my lungs.

“Sing, you worthless rat!” a guard shouts from near the open door.

I open my mouth again, but no sound comes out.

I can’t sing with my mother lying dead to the side of me.

My voice will not work, not like this.

The guard at the door lifts his rifle, pointing it at my head once again.

His fingers twitch on the trigger.

“Wait!” another guard shouts from behind me, his boots crunching along the snow.

Prisoners in line step aside, making space for him to pass, and as he does, he stops in front of Mother to inspect her dead body as if it should be of interest to him, then his icy eyes stare at me.

I recognize him, one of the higher ranked SS often at the Commandant’s Headquarters.

“This one,” the familiar SS says, “the voice of an angel, yes? But clearly not anymore. Now, you’re just as weak as a tiny little mouse.” He flaps the back of his leather gloved hand at me.

“Take him with the others. He must need a…shower…too.”

“No!” I shout, and my voice comes out strong and sharp.

The desperation pulling something out of me.

“Please, I’ll sing. I’ll do better.”

The officer smirks and shakes his head.

“It’s too late,” he says, clicking his tongue.

“Such a shame.”

“No one else knows the music,” one of the violinists says.

“We don’t have another singer. How can we entertain these people who are patiently waiting for their showers?”

The officer shoves me in the shoulder, pushing me into the violinist. “No talent in the world can save you here,” he utters.

“You’re not worth the space.”