I feel no remorse for taking his life. I should feel something, but I don’t because he was heartless and cold-blooded.
Other soldiers from our convoy race to my side, shouting at me to run. Two of the men scoop up the prisoners, and while I want to listen to their orders this time, I see Beverly lying in a pile of brush, staring back at me with tear-filled eyes. I race to her side and kneel by her head.
She’s holding her shoulder, looking whiter than the snow around her body. Blood stains the insides of her fingers, but the location she’s holding gives me hope that the bullet only grazed her. “Let me see,” I tell her.
“No, just let me die,” she says. “It’s what I deserve.”
“What are you talking about? You do not deserve to die, Beverly, and you will not. Do you hear me?”
“I have no right to your compassion after the way I’ve treated you.”
“Stop talking, Beverly. I don’t want to hear you speak that way.”
“That Nazi didn’t even know I’m Jewish,” Beverly groans, “and yet, he still wanted to kill me. I figured if I played the part, as if I weren’t Jewish, no one would know—not even you.”
The shock of hearing Beverly’s words—that she is Jewish has me questioning everything about her. I’m relieved to know I haven’t been the only one, but very confused about why she kept it a secret—more than a secret, really. She used it against me. Why did she berate me and treat me so horribly?
“I don’t understand, Beverly. Why did you keep that a secret all this time? You seemed so angry at me for being here and putting the rest of you in jeopardy because of my religion.”
She sniffles and peers up at me, clutching her shoulder harder. “Because I’ve been hiding who I am for most of my life. I thought nobody liked Jews, so I was ashamed. When I found out you were Jewish, and proud to be so, I felt angry, but not at you. I was angry at myself, but I took it out on you. Now you saved the life of someone who’s been terrible to you and I will never forgive myself. I am so sorry, Elizabeth.”
“Beverly, I forgive you, and you are going to survive this hatred right alongside me. And once we’re not together anymore, you will still survive, but you should feel proud of who you are.”
Tears run down her dirt smudged cheeks, and her eyelids fall heavily as she grits her teeth.
“Beverly,” I call out, trying to snap her out of the silence. Her eyelashes bat as if startled, but she’s unfocused as she tries to set her gaze on me.
I pull her hand away from her arm, finding the wound to be on the outer layer of skin. “You are going to be fine,” I tell her. “It’s not a severe wound.”
“It’s not?” she asks, shivering in my arms.
“No, it’s not. I promise. I need help to get this nurse up,” I call out. The volume of my voice causes a wave of panic, not knowing how many more Nazis are marching through these woods.
Thankfully, a soldier is behind me within seconds, helping me get her up and over to the truck. Isabel runs out from another ambulance toward us to help with Beverly.
“What in the world happened? Beverly!” she shouts. “Come on, honey, we have room in our vehicle.”
“She took a graze just below her shoulder,” I tell Isabel.
“I’ll take care of her,” she says, helping the soldier carry her to the truck.
Within minutes, we are driving much faster than before.
Maggie isn’t speaking. She seems taken aback in shock or angered—likely both. Plus, I imagine I’m in trouble for disobeying orders, but I can’t say I care at this point.
“Are you injured?” I ask the woman we found in the woods, having only a little space in the truck to examine her.
She places her hand on her stomach and I drape a sheet over her to look at her abdomen. There is a deep hematoma bulging from the area just above her belly button. It’s black and purple with a yellow ring around it, but the rest of her looks like a skeleton with a thin layer of tissue like skin covering the protruding bones.
“She’s starving,” Maggie says, from the other side of the ambulance, tending to another woman. “There is only skin and bones left on this woman too.”
“How far from the hospital are we?”
“I don’t think we’re far,” Maggie says.
48
July 1945
