For a few years of my life when Papa was between jobs at bakeries, he worked a side job at a gas station. He taught me the tricks he learned, one of them being how to hot-wire a car. It was a very long time ago, but I remembered how to get the job done.
There were no people in sight when I took off down the road. I got at least two miles away without a second look. "Amelia," I called out. "You can pull the bag down."
I peered into the rearview mirror, noticing the redness on Amelia's chapped cheeks. She had Lucie snuggled in her arms. "Charlie, you did it!" she exclaimed.
"It doesn't matter," I told her. We were nowhere close to being out of the woods yet.
"Where do we go now?" she asked.
"We need to get out of this country, Amelia. We're not safe."
It was only a matter of a few hours before we ran out of gas. I expected it to occur, but I was hoping to make it to the border before it happened. We were just a couple of miles away, but it was too late at night to make the hike in the dark. "We're going to have to start walking," I told Amelia.
Even still, after ditching the car in a field of tall grass, we didn't get far before we were spotted. "Hey! You there!" a man shouted toward us.
We felt cornered in the woods, and though we tried to run, exhaustion was not on our side when it came to speed.
There was silence for a golden minute, but then the voice elevated again. "Hey!"
"Dammit," I whispered. "The man is after us." I took Amelia by the arm and pulled her toward a nearby tree. All I could do was cover Amelia and Lucie with my body, pinning them to the tree with my back. I prayed Lucie wouldn't make a peep, but there were whimpers we couldn't stop.
"Where did you go now?" the man continued to shout. It was hard to tell where his exact location was with his voice bouncing off each tree.
Lucie's cries grew louder, and we were inevitably spotted. I was sure we were both about to end up dead when the man's light centered over our faces.
"You're a soldier," he said, pointing his light in my face. "And you have a prisoner. Is that a stolen car you got there, too?"
"Ja, I am a soldier," I answered.
"What are you running from?" he continued.
"We aren't running," I responded.
The man could only laugh in response. He was toying with us, or so it seemed. "It's obvious you're running from something. Most people don't dump a luxury car that looks as if it belongs to the SS, then run into the woods just two miles from the Austrian border."
"Who are you to care?" I shot back.
"Absolutely no one, but I live about two hundred yards behind you, and I think I have a right to know who is passing through my property tonight."
"We don't mean you any trouble, sir," Amelia spoke up. I wanted to keep Amelia hidden as much as possible, but there was not much I could do to keep her from speaking.
"Now, if you tell me the truth, I'll offer you a roof to sleep under tonight. My wife and I like to keep a low profile, though, so you'll need to answer my questions first."
The man had nothing but millions of questions, and I had more than a million lies to offer in return. My lies led us to the vacant bedroom within the man's home. The man told us we could stay until morning, and we were to meet the man at his front door. I don't believe he wanted to be seen walking through the woods with us.
We waited for the man to leave us within the darkness of the hovering trees. I turned to Amelia and inconspicuously tore her Jude patch from the fabric of her sleeve. It was a telltale sign of the truth we were desperately hiding. "Take off your coat," I told her. I think she was confused for a moment, but when she understood what I was attempting, she complied much quicker. I was quick to strip her clothing of all the dirt-ridden golden stars, and then Lucie's clothing as well. I had to tell myself we would be okay, but I wasn't sure if we were walking right into a trap.
The room he let us sleep in was empty and cold, but it offered shelter from anyone else who might hunt us in the night.
The night crept by as I focused on the sounds of crickets singing outside in the woods. Amelia wasn't as quick to fall asleep as Lucie was, so I took the opportunity to hold the woman I love. I silently promised her everything would be all right. I was afraid to speak it out loud, though. If I were to share my thoughts, I knew none of it would be a truth I could commit to without knowing what our future would hold.
Amelia was a smart woman who undoubtedly knew the facts of our situation. Even still, she looked at me as if I was her hero, and it pained me knowing it was my kind who put her in this situation.
Before long, it was almost sunrise, and I could not sleep for a second, knowing the challenges from the previous night would only lead us to an inquisition at the border. Instead, I took every free moment I had to watch Amelia sleep. I took in every part of her—her dark lashes that fluttered while she dreamed, her nose that curved slightly at the tip, and her full lips that remained parted as hushed breaths escaped. Her skin was pale, but the color of ivory. She was the picture of perfection to me, and in my heart, I knew the odds of having the opportunity to wake up beside her every morning. The war was bigger than the two of us, and maybe I helped her escape the gas chamber, but I wasn't sure I would be given the gift of life with her.
I ran my fingers through her soft, dark hair, and traced my knuckles across her cheek. I wanted to memorize every part of Amelia, knowing I would need those memories to last.
I whispered into Amelia's ear, "Are you ready?"
