I nod my head, having a hard time forcing sound through my tightening throat. “I don’t know what’s happening. I thought they were sending me to die.” My words fumble together.
She leans away briefly and stares at me for a long second. “If you can work, they’ll keep you alive, usually,” she says.
My throat clenches. “And if someone is sick or unable to work as they had been?” I already know the answer. I don’t need her to tell me.
Her gaze falls between us, and she takes my hands within hers. “They send those people to the showers, Ella.”
“Right,” I say, the word floating on a short breath. “Like Luka. His voice broke one night. Then—there was a distressing cry of pain, a sound I can’t forget. That was it—I never heard him again. I think the SS got rid of him. I didn’t want to leave the other section because I was holding on to a bit of hope that maybe he was in an infirmary, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. I tried. I don’t know where he is, and I’m dying inside. I’m not sure I can do this any longer,” I say, my voice croaking into a quiet cry.
“Oh, dear,” she says, pulling me in for another embrace. “I’m so sorry. I know how hard you worked to find him. Everything you’ve done has been because of him.”
“None of it mattered,” I whimper.
“You didn’t want him to be suffering. I know this,” Tatiana says.
“I want to help him, save him, whatever I can to?—”
“Ella…” Tatiana interrupts me and shakes her head as her lips unfurl into a grimace. “I—I don’t know how to tell you this…”
The veins in my head pulsate as I stretch my gape wider, staring at her, urging the seconds between her breaths to go faster. “What, what is it?”
Tatiana pulls in a trembling breath. “The other women here—I overheard them talking about the male singer, the young one with the beautiful eyes. They said the SS sent him to one of the shower rooms. I tried to ask them if they might know anything more, but they stopped talking and shook their heads. I don’t know if?—”
The room tilts to the side as nausea rushes up my throat. I reach back for the bunk but miss and my body falls heavily to the ground, my cheek hitting the wooden plank floor. I feel nothing…
FORTY
ELLA
As my senses start to come back to me, an ache spreads through my head and I blink, finding splintered wood to my side, my cheek pressed against it.
Luka.
I push my face away from whatever I’m leaning on, every muscle in my body repelling each slight movement. My lips are parched, cracking as I open my mouth to inhale the dry, dusty air. Tatiana? Where did she go? The memory of her urges me upright. She was right here. It’s impossible to sit up straight in a bunk with how narrow the openings between each tier are.
A thud beside me makes me jump and gasp, finding Tatiana pushing a bowl up to my mouth just like she did to the little girl. “Drink, quickly. As much as you can.”
I do as she says, the quick few gulps inducing nausea. “They’re about to assign you to labor. I’ll be here tonight. Don’t give up. Please. You matter, too. I’ve missed you and now that you’re here, I don’t want to lose you again.”
“…six-three-nine-four,” I hear someone shouting my number and I glance around. A kapo stands at the open door, wearing a men’s blue overcoat over her striped smock, but with thearmband labeled with the word “kapo” next to a Jewish star. That says all I need to know.
I pull myself up and give Tatiana one last glance and a nod. “I’ll be back,” I whisper.
Luka.
He was sent to be gassed.
That’s why I collapsed.
Luka was sent here. They discarded him just as I assumed.
Though…there could be another singer, maybe? Could I make myself believe that instead?
“The young one with beautiful eyes.”
My chest is hollow and my heart only aches like it’s been battered with a bat. I need a moment. I need to cry. I need to scream.
But my body just moves forward as it was told to do.
