Time. Time is everything and I love that he has considered my desire to focus on my classes before moving on to the nextbig event in my life. I’m not facing my parents, but I can sense their desire to shove me into Otto’s arms, knowing I’ll be stepping into a well-cared for life just as they wanted for me. Just as Danner wanted for me. He made me promise I would land here with Otto if possible. He told me it was all he wanted for me.
I consider my options, the yes, or the no, and with the no, it’s clear my life won’t be anything like what I imagined. It would be a series of surprise events because I’ll have chosen a different path. This path is comfort, known, with plans set in stone. It’s with Otto, and I do love him dearly.
I do.
I shake my head before the word “yes” forms on my tongue, but I know he noticed the trail of thoughts running through my mind as I came to a decision.
“I’d be honored to be your wife.” The words tremble against my tongue with a foreign sensation.
Our parents are shrieking with cheers and clinking glasses as Otto slips a beautiful gold band onto my ring finger then stands up, blushing with a smile that warms my heart.
“I love you,” he whispers into my ear. We haven’t shared these words before. The only man I’ve ever confessed my love to was Danner, but he didn’t reply the same.
“This was all so unexpected, but I couldn’t be happier,” I say.
I wrap my arms around his neck, and he arches down to kiss me.
“I promise you that will be the last surprise from me.”
TWENTY-FIVE
DANNER
AUGUST 1942
Dachau, Germany
Back and forth each day, pacing like a rat in a glass cage until I’m needed. Maybe the waiting, watching, and listening is part of their intended torture. It’s becoming harder to tell who is sick and who is waiting for their assignment per their so-called act of volunteering. No one looks well, including myself. We are surviving off little bread, coffee, and potato stew, and only if we’re released from this barrack at the end of the day. The rations are hardly enough to keep a body functioning. Still, it’s enough to sit here in this medical barrack, listening to men screaming out in pain, crying as if someone is tearing off their limbs, and moaning after they are left alone. A permanent chill writhes through my spine with the thought of the horror that exists on the other side of these walls. Yet, I remain here, returning like I’m supposed to each day as if it’s the only job left in this life. I don’t see people walking out of the rooms they are taken into, making it clear I’ve chosen to take part in a slow, violent death in exchange for a quick execution.
It’s been a couple of weeks since I began waiting in this room for someone to call my number. It was called once the second day I was here, but that was for another round of prisoner registrations where a Nazi jotted my name, birthdate, prisoner number, former profession, and health vitals onto an index card before shoving the paper into a box with thousands of others. It didn’t go unnoticed that they wrote in pencil, making their notes easily erasable. Like me, I’m also easily erasable.
Otto has walked past me twenty-three times this week, his eyes locked ahead as if he is wearing horse blinders. If he doesn’t see me sitting here, I must not be here. He’ll be entering the room again any minute now after having slept comfortably all night in a bed next to the woman he doesn’t deserve. Emilie will follow behind him with swollen eyes, red cheeks, and her hair a little less tidy than it was the day before. Each day she walks through this room, she’s losing a piece of herself.
Each day, she stops before me and smiles through her pain. She whispers words such as: “I can’t give you much, but I’m here…” It’s her warm smile that she’s truly giving me though. She’s also slipped me slices of cheese and bread, even a couple of notes with reminders of good memories we shared in the past. Anything she could do, she has done, and though I fear for the brief interaction each day, I live for the moment. Her last note struck a nerve, and despite her intention, it tossed me into a darker place than I’ve been since I arrived here.
Danner,
This note is dangerous and could get us both into trouble. It’s important you destroy it after reading.
Ididn’twalk into Dachau knowing what was happening here. Herr Berger mentioned needing assistance with medical research taking place in a lab separate from thespace being utilized by the political prisoners held here. Ididn’tknow there were innocent people, like you, here. Otto didn’t confess this truth after finding out the same way I had, and therefore, I walked in blindly like him. His uncle is tied up with high-ranking commanders, putting us both in jeopardy if we were to rebel.
Please know that what you see or hear here is something I’m desperately trying to stop. Whatever I can do to help you, save you, and protect you, please know, I won’t give up.
I’ll find a way. I must.
With love,
Emi
She was fooled into joining Otto and now she can’t find a way out. I want to take the blame. I told her she belonged with him. I see now I was wrong, utterly wrong. I never imagined her father-in-law being blindly led into this world, and then bringing his son along too. I’ll try to forgive myself for being ignorant once, thinking a friend was just that—a friend, nothing more and nothing less. It turns out, a friend is someone who knows you so well, they know exactly how to fool you into believing whatever they want you to believe—including that of being a friend at all.
It’s eight in the morning and the door opens, as I predicted. Otto walks in, his feet heavy from carrying so much evil on his shoulders. His blinders are in place, and he continues down toward the corridor fifteen steps ahead of his terrified wife. He must not notice she isn’t following directly behind him. Emilie has the same look in her eyes as she’s had every morning this week, but beyond her fear, I see my sweet, beautiful, innocent Emilie, the girl who scooped me up from too many silly falls when we were children, taking care of me with the most gentle hands until I was bandaged up, then later becoming the woman Iwanted but could never have. My best friend, my forever friend, and yet, in this moment, we look nothing more than strangers.
Emilie’s footsteps are slow and light as she walks on her toes, her gaze darting in every direction, looking for whoever might be watching her. Otto has already turned the corner by the time she stops beside me to adjust the handbag dangling from her wrist. “Hi,” she mutters beneath her breath. “Are you still okay?”
“Yes,” I respond quietly. “Are you?” Our lives aren’t comparable, but I know she’s living in her own form of hell too.
“I’m fine.” She drops her handbag, and several items spill out onto the floor. She grumbles out loud, “Oh, good God.” Then kneels to pick up what has fallen, and I debate what to do because if I’m caught helping a civilized woman, I’ll be beaten. If I’m caught watching a civilized woman struggling to pick up belongings from a prison floor, I’ll be beaten. At the moment, there are only prisoners standing around me, so I bend down quickly and scoop up the remaining items, handing them to her. A cloth wrapped object falls into my palm and she stands back up, replacing her handbag over her wrist.
