“Emi—” I whisper.
“Hush. Take this to the far-left corner and face the wall.” It takes me a moment to piece together her words with the air masking every other syllable, but the cloth wrapped object is cold and malleable. I believe it’s food and she doesn’t want me to be seen with it, hence the facing the wall in a corner. “There will be more to share.”
She leaves, her heels heavy, clacking against the wooden floor with each step as a warning to Otto that she’s still behind him, or at least I assume that is what she intends.
I rush to the empty corner, feeling eyes slant in my direction. I don’t think anyone saw the exchange, but they may be wondering why I’ve just moved so fast across the room just toface the corner. My hunger has taken control over my usual thought-out decisions.
The other corner has the metal bucket used to urinate in, so I move there to make myself less conspicuous. I unwrap the cloth, finding a large hunk of Swiss cheese. I break a piece off and shove it down my throat, barely tasting it as I consume it. I take another piece, and one more before staring down at the remnants. If my number is called today, I’ll hand it to whoever is beside me, but I need to take care of Hans first.
The cold cheese chills the inside of my stomach, making it known there isn’t much else in there, but there’s at least that.
There was one time in my life when we had too much cheese in the house. We didn’t know what to do with it all. I was only ten, but I remember that week as if it was yesterday. It was the beginning of the Great Depression when Papa bartered cases of honey for other produce. There was a misunderstanding with his request, and we ended up with three times as much cheese as any other item. It was too late by time he noticed so Mama made us eat cheese for days so it wouldn’t go to waste. I remember thinking I could never take another bite in my life. We went door to door offering all the neighbors a helping. I even brought some to the square and handed it out to the first people who approached me. We didn’t want it to go to waste in a time of so much need, despite our need for income.
Mama always told me the more good deeds we did, the better our lives would be. I’m not sure she predicted the world turning upside down years later though.
I haven’t seen another female in this barrack since the day I arrived, but all I can hear now are a woman’s heels clunking up and down a hallway. I know it’s Emilie. I can tell by the way she walks, the first heavy step, followed by three lighter ones. Then she’ll pivot and repeat. I wish I could walk around the corner and find out why she’s pacing and what has her so upset.
A door opens and closes, rather tersely, before I hear their voices.
“Did you report what happened to Dietrich?” Otto asks. “We have to report our findings.”
“No, Otto, I didn’t, and I won’t. You can go in there and tell him yourself.”
“Neither of us is watching this study. What’s he going to say if he walks out of his office right now? We need a replacement, Emilie. The data?—”
There’s silence and I can imagine a million reasons why but none of them will be true.
“The data is correct, Otto. Don’t question me.”
“They saw—” he continues. “You can’t change or undo that. Do you realize what will happen if you try?”
“Well, they saw incorrectly. It happens,” she replies, stomping her foot before walking off to wherever she’s going next.
Emilie is being Emilie, and it terrifies me. She’ll never give up, never back down, and never stop doing what’s right, which is the one thing we’re all expected to stop doing.
I’m taken aback when Otto turns the corner into the waiting area, facing my direction and the exiting door to this corridor. If I moved two steps to the right, I would be in his direct path. He would be forced to stop and look at me. We, the prisoners, know not to stand in the way of anyone with authority but I take one step to the right. He’ll have to brush shoulders with me if he continues forward.
Within steps of each other, he lowers his eyes, setting his glare toward the ground. “I know you see me,” I whisper.
“I can’t—Danner. I—I’m so—” he says in nothing more than a mutter disguised as a cough.
I’ve heard enough, so I move back to the left, allowing him out of the corridor he appears to be suffocating in. If he werestarving and had nowhere to sleep, I might think he would understand how I felt, but even if we were living identical lives, Otto still wouldn’t see me as an equal, not like he did all those years ago.
TWENTY-SIX
EMILIE
AUGUST 1942
Dachau, Germany
As my pen glides along the paper, jotting down the tangled threads of thoughts spinning through my head, I notice Otto has been watching me from the hallway for the last five minutes. I’m not sure he knows I’ve been sitting here like this at the kitchen table for hours, staring at the imperfections in the wood grain, unblinking. I’ve been afraid to lose my train of thought, but at the moment, I’m not sure I want to discuss the notes I’ve made, if he were to ask.
Otto’s wingtip shoes clap against the linoleum tiles as he starts to pace in small circles. “Are you going to be much longer?” He finally breaks his silence.
“One moment,” I say, continuing with my notes. I try to contain the hint of annoyance that pokes at me. He can see I’m busy.
“We haven’t had a warm meal in days,” he continues. “Is there something I can put together?” He opens the cabinet doors above the counter, the squeal of the metal hinges zinging down the back of my neck.
