After a few minutes, we’ve gotten into a rhythmic pattern consisting of me checking vitals and the soldiers asking thethree volunteers a series of questions while Otto transcribes the information.
At the ten-minute mark, I return to Danner to conduct the third round of vital checks. His temperature has dropped to 32°C/90°F and he’s beginning to convulse rather than shiver. It’s quicker than the estimated rate and temperature fluctuation from 36.11°C/97°F. With five minutes left, my heart races and my breaths quicken as I try to think up a plan quickly. Everything in my body aches as I watch what’s happening to Danner.Why are we here, like this?I’m not sure he’ll make it the full fifteen minutes before his temperature falls too close to 28°C/82.4°F, the life-threatening temperature for hypothermia.
“Can you tell me if you can hear me?” I ask, placing my hand on the top of his headgear. His eyes roll up behind his eyelids and his body stops convulsing. “Danner, look at me!”
“Emilie,” Otto shouts over me. “Stats for Prisoner 13415.” I spoke out his name. I’m not supposed to know him as anything but a number.
“We need to get him rewarmed at once. His vitals are falling,” I shout.
“The test is scheduled to run fifteen minutes. There are four minutes left,” one of the soldiers reminds me.
“He’s going to die if we don’t remove him from the water now.”
“He won’t be the first,” a soldier replies. “We must finish the test for accuracy on Dr. Dietrich’s report.”
I move behind the tub and drop my arms into the water to lift Danner up, but his body is lifeless. “Help me!”
“Drop him,” a soldier shouts. “You’re tampering with the data.”
“Emilie,” Otto says.
“Help me,” I snap at him.
“We’re not supposed to have any deaths today. The data will be smudged,” Otto says. I’m not sure what he’s talking about or what he means but he’s moving toward me, and it better be to help me lift Danner out of this tub of ice water.
I stare at his familiar lips, becoming bluer with every passing second…
TWENTY-NINE
DANNER
SEPTEMBER 1942
Dachau, Germany
Waking up to thrashes from what feels like hundreds of serrated knives, each slicing across every hair on my flesh, is enough to make me question whether I’m truly alive. If I’m dead, I’ve been thrust into the depths of hell, despite not believing such a place exists. But my mind has been catapulted into a sleep-like state. I’m not dead but I’m not sure I’m alive either. I can’t speak or move, imprisoned within my body.
I distinctly recall stepping into a tub of ice-cold water, a decision formed by spite, heartache, and despair. Regardless of the degree of torture, I had no say in the matter, aside from choosing an execution instead. I preferred the darkness I’d slipped into before reawakening in this state. Now, the torment is unbearable as I burn on the outside while my bones remain frozen inside. My breaths are running away from me at a pace I can’t catch up to, and my heart is pounding like fists against a locked door that won’t open in time to save my life. My vision is nothing more than a blur, leaving me to the crux of my imagination—where I am, if I’ll get out alive. Every hint ofsound seems distant yet obtrusive. Nothing is clear aside from the high-pitched squeal piercing through each nerve-ending.
I saw her, though. At least I saw her before I ended up like this. This must be my punishment for receiving the gift of her presence when I should have been experiencing nothing but torture.
Hands attack me, shoving me every which way, my body slamming against metal, back and forth.
“His temperature is still dropping. We’re getting too close to our bottom line.” The first clear words I make out are not the ones I would want to hear, but they are hers. I know this much. “Turn up the temperature.”
“You may not be second-guessing my theory of body heat now, are you?”
I’m not sure who else is here speaking to Emilie or whoever, but the sinister tone doesn’t give me a sense of optimism.
“No. That’s ridiculous,” another person says. “Body heat won’t work fast enough.”
Body heat. Papa taught me about skin-to-skin contact when I was younger. He was teaching me survival skills for when we would go camping in the mountains. I never had to use that technique because we were never lost or stranded.
“What if it will help?” Emilie shouts.
“It won’t!” The response is clear, and I know it’s Otto now. The two of them have been working here together, she for one reason, he for another—or so it seems.
If only I could scream for the release of this agony that’s ravaging my body, but instead I remain still like an inanimate object, left to spectate the result of extreme opposing temperatures.
