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FORTY-SEVEN

ELLA

“Here’s another bag. Keep going,” Galina says, pushing my hands inside the bag as if I’m a useless rag doll.

“I have to make sure he’s still here,” I say while mindlessly plundering through a bag.

“You can’t go back out there,” Galina says.

“You’ll be punished much worse next time if they find you out there again.”

She’s right, but I don’t care about being punished.

I need to see if Luka’s still alive.

It’s been a few hours, and I haven’t heard his voice, only the other musicians still playing their instruments.

I don’t know how many bags I’ve handled, what I’ve found, what I’m doing right this second.

Nothing else matters.

“I have to go,” I tell Galina again.

“Ella, listen to me,” she says, grabbing my wrist, poking her fingernails into my skin.

“If they sent him—if the worst has—he would not want you risking your life, would he?”

I stand up, shoving her words to the side as I keep my focus on the door, finding it clear of kapos and guards once again today.

Fear doesn’t flicker through my veins as it normally would.

Apprehension of what I might or might not see does.

I claw at my chest as if I need to physically hold my heart still as I slip out the door into the metal pen we’re corralled within.

I walk around the side of the building, closer to the gas chamber, searching for the musicians.

They’re playing but there are no lyrics.

I can see the backs of the performers.

They’re standing close to the adjoining gate between us.

A retching sound captures my attention and I spot a man on all fours, less than a footstep away from the gate, vomiting, blood spraying out onto the snow.

I walk closer, forgetting about any guard or officer who might be within view.

“Luka?” I whisper, wondering if sound will carry far enough to reach him.

He struggles to lift his head, his eyes bloodshot, his bottom lip hanging.

He lifts a hand, reaching it toward the fence.

“No, no!” I shout through a breath.

“You’ll be electrocuted. Don’t touch the gate!”

A thunderous cough bucks through with a whistle and a wheeze so strong, I don’t know how he’s breathing.

More blood sprays from his mouth, but he swipes the sleeve of his arm across his face.

“Ella,” he groans. “Ella…”

“I’m here. I’m here,” I cry out.

“I’m dying. I can’t live,” he says through a shuddered breath.

“I’m sick. And my heart—it hurts so much. But—” he swallows hard and gasps for more air.

“You’re alive. I thought—I don’t know.” Tears spill from his eyes.

“Shh-shh-shh, it’s all right. I know what happened. I’m going to help you. I’m going to help you. You must be strong, for your mother. She’d want you to be strong for her. I love you, Luka. I love you so much. I’m going to help you. However I can. I’m going to help you. You can’t die. Don’t let them?—”

Shouts from kapos echo within the warehouse and I look back toward the door.

“Go back,” he says, between tremors.

“I don’t want you to get hurt. Please. It’s too late for me.”

I give a firm shake of my head.

“No,” I say, gritting my teeth.

“Don’t say that. You hold on. Do you hear me?” I cry out, clenching my arms around my stomach from the pain.

Again, I turn to look at the door, knowing I need to stay alive now to help him.

“I’ll be back.” I run to the door and slip back inside, crouching behind taller people and scurrying over to the pile of handbags.

Galina gives me a quick glance, her eyes full of concern.

“They just caught someone stealing. I’m glad you’re back,” she whispers.

“Yeah, me too,” I say, grabbing the next bag from the pile.

I continue sorting through the handbags, cleaning each one out, forced to catch glimpses of photos packed away in these belongings—photos of families, loved ones, and times of happiness.

The things in these photos are particles of history now.

I’m not sure there’s any form of happiness left in this part of the world.

After tearing through hundreds of bags this afternoon, I open one of the last few in the pile, emptying it of its contents: a compact, a few photos, a handkerchief, a pill box, a prayer card, and the smallest jar of honey I’ve seen in all the items I’ve separated.

A memory flashes before my eyes of the first night I finally found Luka in the sewers beneath Warsaw when he told me his grandmother was sick.

I remember telling him not to worry about me and to just tell me what he needed so I could help him.

He didn’t want me doing anything dangerous, but I made him believe I would be fine no matter what.

He finally confessed what could help.

“Thyme leaves, honey, or garlic and ginger. My mother would use those to help my grandmother, but I don’t want you going anywhere you shouldn’t to find these items, Ella. You must listen to me. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something happened to you when I’m confined here and can’t help you.”

Honey.

I squeeze my hand around the small jar and reach back into the bag for the last item, a change purse.

I let the jar slip down my sleeve as I retract my hands from the bag and empty the change purse onto the table before lifting my arm up and over to a bin of discarded items to release the puckered leather accessory.

The jar slips further into my sleeve where I’m able to pinch the upper part of my arm against my rib cage to keep the jar pinned.

All of us women could use pockets in our smocks like some of the men have on their uniforms, but the SS don’t want us to have pockets for this precise reason so we’re forced to come up with other ways of hiding items—an act that could be punishable by execution.

Following evening roll call, I return to the barrack in search of Tatiana, not finding her by her bunk.

I pace around, shoving my hands over my spiky, shaven hair.

“Ella,” Tatiana says, grabbing my wrist. “What’s the matter? You look mad.”

I pull her in by the bunks and step in closely.

“I saw Luka today.”

“I was coming to find you, to ask if you heard him singing. I don’t know where he came from, but there were performers outside crematorium four today. The man I saw was young and he does have beautiful eyes, so I was praying for you that it’s him. It is him?”

I nod, trying to hold back the sob squeezing through me.

I shove my fingers to my temples, and swallow back a lump.

“They shot his mother, right in front of him. She came from the line of people waiting for the showers. They threatened to kill him, too, but then spared him. They must not have noticed how sick he is, how sick he’s been… I’m not sure he ever got better from when his voice was breaking back when we were all in the main section of Auschwitz. He told me he’s dying. We spoke between the fences. I need to do something. I need to give him something.”

“How?” Tatiana asks, her shoulders tense and rising to her ears.

“Are you still working with the Sonderkommandos in the crematorium?”

“Yes,” she says, talking as if she doesn’t want to be reminded of her job at this hour.

“Will you switch jobs with me tomorrow? No one checks numbers after roll call anymore. Please. I’ll do anything for you.”

“Uh, well—I—of-of course. I’d do anything for you, ” she says as fear glows within her eyes.

“Lights out,” the kapo shouts.

I make it into my bunk, still pressing the jar of honey between my arm and ribs.

This plan might cost me everything, but it’s a chance I’m willing to take to help Luka.