“Did you hear that?”
Her brows furrow. “Hear what?”
“Music.”
Galina releases a quiet sigh. “Sometimes musicians play outside the shower rooms.”
My stomach snarls at the thought. What a cruel way—to…
“Is there ever a singer?” The question flies out of my mouth.
Her brows furrow as she peers up in thought. “There was, once. A Jewish man. The guards mocked him, then called him a waste of talent.”
Luka?I clutch a scarf to my chest as if it’s the one last thread that can keep me connected to something real. Luka’s real. He’s still alive in my heart. It must mean something.
Tatiana’s words ring through my head again. “The male singer, the young one with beautiful eyes… He was sent to be gassed.”
My thoughts come to an abrupt stop and the room closes in on me when the door opens again. For a split second, a voice soft and faint hums in the distance.
I freeze, gripping the bag in my hands.
The sound wanes.
“Did you hear that?” I ask Galina, my question frantic but quiet.
Galina watches me and gently tilts her head to the side. “Ella…there’s no singer.”
It disappeared as quickly as it came. I lower my chin, shaking my head in disbelief, wondering if my mind is playing tricks on me.
My mind wouldn’t betray me like that. It wouldn’t. I know I heard something—a familiar melody—a sliver of hope, or maybe pure madness. But it’s like a flicker of light from a match that doesn’t want to burn out.
FORTY-ONE
LUKA
February 1944
From the moment I arrived at this death camp, I no longer questioned whether there would be a final night in Auschwitz. A final night on earth. The thought loomed liked a brewing storm. When the beatings dealt by an SS officer became a nightly occurrence, growing harsher and longer, I wondered why they didn’t kill me. I can only assume they wanted me to keep singing, even though they weren’t satisfied with my performance.
I should have been more grateful for those days rather than questioning why I was there.
During my final performance at the Commandant’s Headquarters in September, five months ago now, I was so ill and weak, I couldn’t make it through one song without gasping for air. The brutal officer, the one who often took pleasure in beating me, came toward me once again. This time, somehow, with a darker look than I had seen before. I was halfway through a song when he took his first swing. He didn’t stop. Not that time. He kept thrusting his fist into my stomach again and again, then kicked me in the chest until the wind left my body.
Everything went dark, and the next morning I woke up in an infirmary with signs marking the location of Birkenau. Immediately, it was clear I had been brought to the other section of Auschwitz—the side Jews went to die, as rumors went. With a swollen face, blood everywhere, and bruises marring my entire body, the pain ignited just seconds after I woke up. But I couldn’t scream. All I could do was stare at the wooden beams crisscrossed above my head, asking God why I was still alive.
Again, I wondered why they didn’t just finish me off.The SS kill for far lesser reasons here.
It’s because this place isn’t done with me yet. That’s why.
I’ve been in Birkenau for five months. As soon as I became well enough to be assigned a block and labor, I ended up in front of a shower room—a gas chamber—the place where Jews go to die. When will it be my turn?
FORTY-TWO
LUKA
I’m not stationed by the chambers because they’ve decided I shouldn’t die…yet. I’m here to entertain those who are waiting their turn to step inside. I’ve spent time at two of the four gas chambers until this point. The longest line appears to wait here—in front of chamber number four. We were moved here earlier in the week.
“Jetzt kommen die lustigen Tage,” Etan says, giving me a quick glance. He’s the talented violinist I’ve been grouped with here, a young fellow, around my age, a skeletal body like myself, eyes protruding from his face. He’s been separated from his entire family, too. He said they were all sent to the left when he was pushed to the right, and like me, he didn’t realize that was the last time he would see them. We all have a story, but it’s odd to have such similar ones. “On three.”
