The shorter one stepped forward, staring at her intensely with new hatred in his eyes. ‘I think she’s going to tell on us.’
He pushed her, causing her to stumble backwards onto the ground. The other approached and stared down at her.
‘What do you want to do?’ he asked his friend.
‘I don’t know... yet. Let’s see if she’s got any money on her.’
Elsa attempted to scramble away but was soon pinned down against the soil by their combined strength. They roughlysearched her body, each offering suggestions on which area to search next. She started to scream, arching away from their searching hands as her clothes were lifted and underwear exposed. Panicked, they silenced her with stinging slaps to the face.
‘Shut up or we’ll kill you!’ whispered the shorter one through a clenched jaw.
‘I don’t have any money.’ She stopped struggling. ‘Look, we are not so very different.’ She pulled her dress back into place and attempted a brittle smile. ‘I want the war to end just as much as you do. I could be your older sister. We are just waiting for the inevitable. Are we not? I don’t have any money, but I have some food. We could share it and go our separate ways.’
The shorter one sat back on his haunches and looked at her.
Elsa pressed her advantage. ‘You remind me of my brother, Otto. He was killed fighting. Do you have a sister? A mother? Why would I want them to suffer such grief as I have done?’
‘Don’t listen to her, Rolf. She is pretending to be your friend.’
‘I won’t tell anyone. I have to get to Bremen. Reporting you would tie me up here for weeks.’
Rolf gnawed at his lip. ‘Why should we believe you?’
‘Because I have done nothing for you not to.’
He looked at his friend. ‘What do you think? Do you trust her?’
‘No. I think she will report us.’
‘What do you think we should do?’
‘I think we should kill her.’
Rolf stood up. ‘You never said anything about killing before.’
‘We have never been this hungry before.’
‘She said we could share the food.’
The taller one turned to his friend. ‘We’ve searched her. She doesn’t have any food. Look, if you don’t have the stomach for it, I’ll do it. Keep watch.’
Rolf stepped back, shaking his head. ‘This isn’t right, Hans. She is a woman. She is someone’s sister.’
‘If she reports us we will both be shot,’ Hans snapped back. ‘Is that what you want?’
His friend retreated. ‘I want no part in this. You’re crazy.’ He turned away and began running through the trees without a glance back.
Elsa watched Hans’s face change as he registered his friend’s betrayal, transforming from determination to childlike disbelief in a blink of an eye — then his expression darkened to uncontrolled anger.
‘This isyourfault!’ he shouted at her as he started raining blows down on her head, taking all his fear and frustration out on her. ‘We were like brothers until you came along!’
A moment later he was suddenly dragged off her and thrown aside.
Sam stood in his place, looking down on her. He was offering his hand. She shakily reached for it but before their fingers could touch, Hans was yelling and launching himself onto Sam’s back. The force thrust him forward and almost on top of her. She rolled out of the way just in time as both Sam and Hans fell heavily to the ground. She got to her feet. She could taste the metallic taint of blood in her mouth and her head was thumping. The strong tree trunks around appeared less stable, moving and bending in the strangest of ways. She fell to her knees to make them stay still. She lifted her head and could just make out the blurred shapes of Sam and Hans. They appeared to be in a stand-off. They sidestepped and circled each other, watchful and searching, assessing the right moment to strike.
Elsa’s vision finally cleared, revealing the small deadly knife in Hans’s hand. She gasped and shouted a warning as their bodies came crashing together. Her cry in English surprised Hans and Sam took advantage, knocking the blade out of hishand so it spun away. Now it was just the two of them. Youth against experience, agility against fatigue — the fear of defeat against the hope of victory. They wrestled with all the anger inside them, parrying and punching with only the briefest of breaks. It felt to Elsa as if they were fighting their own private war, in some way replacing the front line neither could or wanted to be on. At one point they both fell heavily to the ground, rolling across it in a deadly embrace as if in a crocodile’s death roll. Sam reached out and grabbed the knife, bringing it to Hans’s throat as they both lay on the ground.
Hans froze. His eyes met Elsa’s as the blade pressed into his skin, not yet drawing blood. An eerie silence descended and nobody moved. It was as if time had stopped on the precipice between his life and death.
