Page 49

FORTY-EIGHT

LUKA

The morning is cold, damp, the air thick with the sound of misery and the smell of death.

Mother’s screams still shrill in my head like a scar that won’t heal.

The blood on the ground from when she was shot is still there, with no fresh snowfall today to cover over it.

I take a glance at Kanada, the warehouse beyond the barbed-wire fence, looking for a hint of Ella.

I can’t believe she’s close by.

I don’t know how long she’s been here because, before now, I was performing at another gas chamber in another area of this compound.

Men and women rarely pass each other here.

But there she was, finding me at my weakest moment—a moment where I was debating whether to throw my body up against the electrified fence like many others have done at the end of their road.

I wasn’t in my right mind.

I’m still not. I’m not sure I ever will be again.

I want to walk right into that warehouse and find her and tell her everything I need her to hear before it’s too late.

She deserves to know how much hope she has given me when I needed it most. She needs to know how much I love her and how sorry I am if I succumb to the sickness within me that I can’t fight—both of body and of mind.

But no one will let me in through those gates.

I shake the hands of the three men I continue to play with in front of Gas Chamber number four as we prepare for another day in hell.

There are orchestras or other forms of musical talent peppered along significant areas of the camp, too.

They have a group performing at train selection lines, and the other gas chambers.

Sometimes a group will be placed in a certain spot to entertain a visiting officer being taken on a tour through this hellhole.

I suppose their need for multiple performers is the reason I wasn’t sent to the gas chamber yesterday.

The officer threatening my life was also pulled away for an incident more pressing than the demand for a grief-ridden song.

Still, I know a threat is a threat and never assume someone won’t make good on their promises.

Through the lingering notes of my damaged voice, I try to focus on something other than the relentless pain in my chest, and continue watching the movement between the disrobing barrack and disinfection zone to my left.

Between each song, I cough up more blood and scoop up whatever clean snow I can find to drip down the back of my throat.

The cold numbs some of the pain at least.

The piece we play each morning drawls on and on, the notes repetitive, the song forcefully uplifting.

I can’t remember if we’re on the fourth or fifth verse when a metallic shriek of the gates opening punctuates our music.

Another wagon creaks through, ready to collect items from the gas chamber to take back to Kanada discreetly.

The SS wouldn’t want those who are waiting in line for their turn to take a shower to see a pile of gold teeth, heaps of human hair, or prosthetic limbs passing through.

However, the vision of Jews working, laboring, pulling wagons, gives the people in line hope that once they step out of this building, they’ll be put to work, too.

Three women enter the gates with an empty wagon.

Their heads are down and movements stiff.

I can hardly see their faces.

The heavy clouds manage to part for a moment, a glow from the sun shredding through the smog, highlighting the women passing by.

A perfect nose with the tip upturned just a smidge, covered in freckles I can’t see from here.

The sunlight blinds her, marking her eyes with a rich cerulean-blue hue.

My heart blasts against my chest as I lock eyes with her, refusing to blink and chance losing sight.

I would have seen her come through before.

But then she turns her head in my direction, just slightly, just enough to be completely sure it is her I’m looking at.

To be unequivocally positive that the light in my life is standing ten footsteps away from me.

She’s thinner than I remember, her face sharper, her eyes surrounded by a heavy darkness of exhaustion.

I forget the words in the song and continue to hum them before filling the missing words with her name.

“Ella,” I sing.

No one notices.

No one except Ella. She’s trying to say something to me, but I can’t read the words, and the music drowns out any hope of sound from outside our small circle.

I take a few steps forward as I often do, unable to stand perfectly still while singing, but I haven’t tested how far I could move before the guards in the watchtower take notice.

I glance up. The guard’s back is to the window.

I take another step in Ella’s direction.

She raises her hand in front of her chest as if she’s about to wave, but a square of fabric wavers from her grip as something falls to the ground, rolling in my direction through the dead grass and remnants of melting snow.

Once more, I look up at the guard tower then to the gates, finding a moment clear to move a few more steps to retrieve whatever it is Ella just dropped.

My pulse races as I slide to my knees, grasp the small jar and return to the circle of musicians, trying to hold a note that clashes painfully with theirs.

My gaze returns to her as she meanders forward, dragging a wagon.

She looks at me once more, her lashes flutter heavily over her cheeks, and subtly touches her finger to her pursed lips and releases the kiss in my direction.

She continues to move, her position no longer parallel to mine.

I can only see the knot of the back of her scarf.

I unclench my hand from the jar, sneaking a quick peek, finding a shimmery amber glow.

Honey. It’s honey. I would recognize the texture and color anywhere.

My throat tightens, not from the strain or relentless pain, but from the ache in my heart, the want, desire and plea to just be next to her when she’s so close.

Yet, she couldn’t be farther away with every obstacle between us.

I’m still watching her walk away as the moment shatters with the growl of a guard’s voice.

Ella stiffens in response and moves quicker to catch up with the other two wagons in front of her.

The square of fabric she had in her hand falls behind her, drifting to the ground like a feather.

She must know she dropped it.

The guard moves past the entrance to the gas chamber where we’re performing and utters something under his breath as he readjusts the rifle on his shoulder.

I slip the jar into the pocket of my shirt; thankful the fabric is baggy on me with all the weight I’ve lost. It doesn’t look like anything is in my pocket since my chest now caves inward.

My hand lingers on the jar, realizing it’s still warm from her touch.

It’s the only warmth we’ve been able to share here.

Mother would have told me I needed honey to heal my injured vocal cords.

Ella knew. She remembered.

She somehow found honey and now it’s in my pocket.

More importantly, Ella is alive.

She’s still walking.

She’s still working.

She’s still trying to take care of me.

The guard now following them spots the fabric and grabs it from the ground, inspecting it closely.

My chest tightens as I strain to see if Ella is still making her way around the bed of the building, but I’ve lost sight of her.

Another guard follows from the gate, passing in front of us.

“Louder. Play louder!” His demand is sharp and impatient.

I nod and press against my throat to force out more sound at a higher volume.

A shard of glass sliding down my windpipe would hurt less.

“Did you see where this came from?” the guard who retrieved the square of fabric asks the one who just shouted at us.

He takes the fabric from the other’s hand, inspecting it.

“It must be from one of them with the wagons,” I hear from the guard who’s still moving ahead, following the wagons.

The guard who shouted at us, now holding the piece of fabric, turns in our direction.

His eyes scrutinize me as if he knows I’m the culprit, which I will gladly be if it’s between Ella or myself.

With the increase of volume in the song, the jar of honey vibrates against the bones in my chest as I arch my shoulders forward to make my shirt hang without a bulge.

He’s still looking at me.

I force myself to sing even louder than I am, praying my voice doesn’t give out in return.

I’m just hoping the volume is to his liking, enough to make him turn back to whatever he was doing a moment ago.

A cough threatens to break the song, and I clamp my hand around my neck, trying to prevent my body from its habitual workings.

The guard’s narrowed eyes pierce through me, as if he can smell fear and guilt.

A wheeze scrapes the inside of my chest, waiting for him to walk away as thick phlegm and congestion form.

Time remains still until the guard turns his back to me, finally satisfied, or perhaps, bored with mentally torturing me.

The piece of fabric still dangles from his gloved fingertips as he strides toward the wagons, his boots crunching on the frozen dirt.

He pauses where Ella had stood moments ago, his stare cast to the ground in search of something that isn’t there.

Air lodges in my throat.

He knows . He probably read the guilt branded across my face.

He calls out to the other guards, his voice sharp and demanding but muddled with the music.

I didn’t hear what he said.

My knees threaten to give out, but I force myself to keep singing, the music scraping against my throat.

My gaze is frozen on the indentations from the wagon’s wheels in the hard snow.

The guard walks through the wheel tracks and points ahead of him.

“That one,” he shouts.

I want to scream, run, pull their attention back to me and away from her.

The honey in my pocket weighs my chest down, a reminder of Ella’s sacrifice.

The guard’s focus on the square of fabric hasn’t wavered.

I know he’s going to find out where it came from, one way or another.

That’s what they do.

Anything they find that shouldn’t be here—it tells a story, it rats someone out, it’s the demise of someone’s life regardless of how insignificant the meaning of the item is—even a scrap of fabric that could have simply belonged to someone whose ashes are rising into the sky at this very moment… Except, it didn’t.