Too scared to risk it, I folded the letter, placed it inside the envelope, and addressed it to my aunt in New York. I had no idea if it would make it there, but at least I’d tried. Pushing it from my mind, I readied myself for bed, and the whispers and tears that always came with nightfall.
I jumped as someone banged on the door.
“I’ll be right out!” I said, hurrying off the toilet where I’d been sitting for far longer than I’d needed to, but wanting to rest, if even just for a moment.
“Restroom breaks can be done during your lunch break,” the doctor pushing past me said, his elbow ramming hard into my belly as he passed.
Rubbing my stomach, I hurried back and resumed my duties.
There were several doctors and nurses that went in and out of the two sick bays that were situated one right next to the other, making it easy for the staff to circulate and move supplies as needed. I had only been there three days when I took notice of the different setups. One sick bay was for the sick. The other, injuries. Injuries that I hadn’t heard about or seen happen when I’d been out in the fields, or even in the barracks. And the injuries themselves were strange. I couldn’t understand how these women had all gotten such terrible leg wounds.
“How did you do this?” I asked one woman as I inspected her red, swollen leg while removing the soiled dressing to replace it with a clean one. The wound had been sewn shut but was festering. And with a small bit of pressure, hot, putrid liquid squeezed out.
But she merely shook her head, her eyes half-closed, and looked away.
It wasn’t until the last patient of the day that I got an answer. Her name was Jelena. A strong Yugoslavian woman with a crude haircut and dark eyes.
“Experiments,” she whispered to me as I ran a wet cloth over her newly stitched shinbone.
“What do you mean?” I whispered back, looking around to see if anyone was paying attention to us. Luckily it was late and half of the staff had left for the night.
“They cut into our skin. With glass. Wood. Whatever they want. They put chemicals into the cuts. Sometimes bones. And then they sew it shut and watch if we heal...or fester.”
I felt the blood drain from my face, glad I was already sitting because I was sure I’d fall otherwise, not just from the shock of what she’d said, but from the little nutrition I’d had in the past three weeks. I was all belly now, my arms and legs like sticks as my body gave nearly all I took in to grow the baby. It was dangerous. If I fainted, I’d be seen as weak. And the weak did not survive here.
Taking in a long breath, I continued to dab gently at her leg.
“All of you?” I asked, looking around the room. There were at least fifty women occupying the space. “Have you all been...”
“Most,” she said.
I closed my eyes, a wave of nausea threatening to bring up the little bit still in my stomach. I couldn’t afford to lose it, so I took deep breaths until the feeling subsided, then wrapped her wound and squeezed her hand.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.
“I hope you do,” she said.
But the following day was chaos.
“What’s happening?” someone yelled as the air around me compressed from a rush of movement from the women in the barracks, hurrying from their beds and throwing on clothes. Shouting and tearful cries, worry, fear...and hope.
“What’s going on?” I asked Agata, who was lying in her bunk, pulling on her shoes.
“I’m not sure,” she said, sliding from her bed to stand beside me.
“They’re rounding us up.”
We turned to see Brigitte, for once clothed in her uniform, black triangle on display.
“For...what?” Agata’s voice trembled.
“Lord only knows,” Brigitte answered. “Nothing good, I am sure of it. We are to gather our things and line up outside. Wherever we’re going, we’re not coming back.”
The three of us stared at one another and then one by one we turned to our bunks and began packing our things.
It was early still when we stepped outside, the sun just beginning to rise, mist lying like a blanket across the fields.
“Line up!” theaufseherinshouted, stalking back and forth.
