The most gutting part is the excitement the line of people share with each other when the door finally opens. They think they’re about to be properly taken care of once inside. What elsecould they think when we’re forced to play uplifting music full of cheer and promise?
As the noon time group enters, two walk through the door at a time. As if on instinct, I glance toward the families edging closer to the door, but then I freeze.
My gaze catches on a woman who moves just within my range of sight. Her figure is bent like a question mark, but her movements are stern and deliberate, as if each step carries more than just the weight of her body. She isn’t wearing traditional clothes like those who step off the train. She’s a prisoner, dressed in a familiar blue and white striped smock, her head covered by a black scarf with a red floral pattern that ties in the back and falls to her shoulders into frayed edges.
I blink, telling myself I must be imagining things again, but when my eyes reopen and I focus back on the scarf, my chest fills with an icy numbness. I know that scarf. I remember the way I would tug at it when Grandmother tied it around my head, telling me I needed it more than she did. I would be embarrassed because it was covered in red flowers, and argue that I didn’t need to be warm. But it was warm, and the fabric was soft as it swept against my cheek. It smelled like Grandmother’s favorite vanilla fragrance. I held on to her scarf after she passed away. I slept with it at night as if it would bring me the same comfort she did.
When we were taken from Warsaw and shoved onto the train, I took the scarf out of my pocket and placed it into Mother’s, knowing she might need it more than me. My lungs are like stone walls in my chest as I fight to breathe and exhale the lyrics I’m meant to be singing. My voice bleeds into the air as I search around, wondering if anyone has noticed. But the guards are too busy escorting the line in through the door of the chamber.
My eyes lock onto her face, the features becoming clearer the closer she gets to me. She’s watching the children in front of her, smiling weakly as she offers them a gentle wave. Closer and closer she comes, and her profile sharpens, the line of her jaw, and the faint tremble of her chin and bottom lip.
She’s here. In this line. My mother.
My legs weaken at my knees. They shake from the cold, from the fear, from the incredible pain slashing through me. My body wants to give up and fall to the ground again as it’s done too many times before here, but I hold myself steady, willing myself to stay upright and think of a way to pull her out of this death line.
During the brief, momentary pause between songs, I open my mouth to shout her name, but stop myself when a guard snaps at someone for being too slow. There are too many guards around. They’ll hear me shouting. Frozen with terror, I gawk at her without blinking, praying I can somehow get her attention, but she’s unaware of me standing here. She must not even recognize my voice with how damaged it’s become here.
The music restarts, giving me just a few more seconds before I will be forced to start singing again. I’m counting the measures, making sure I stay in time, but then Mother glances over at me, her eyes meeting mine, and I clench my fists. My eyes bulge and I shake my head, trying to warn her without being able to say anything other than:
There’s a place for you
Warm, inviting, bright, and true.
A dreamland waiting to be found,
Where peace and beauty both astound
She mouths my name, but I can’t hear her voice over my own until the music softens. “Luka,” she shouts, her words frantic, pleading, and full of relief to see me.
I wave my hands at her by my waist, telling her to stop. I try to mouth the word “run” instead of singing the lyrics to keep with the music. My eyes are about to fall out of their sockets, trying to warn her to do something, not to come any closer, but she doesn’t see the words I’m trying to speak. She sees me, her son who she’s probably assumed dead.
She lunges out of the line in my direction, crying out for me. I move toward her, leaving the music behind. Leaving everything in this world behind for this one single moment.
FORTY-FOUR
ELLA
February 1944
When I think it can’t possibly get any colder outside, I’m proven wrong. Despite how many of us work within this warehouse, Kanada, there’s no additional warmth inside than there is outside, but I’m thankful to avoid the wind and frostbite.
Each time the door to the warehouse opens, I brace myself for the sting of cold to follow. A kapo has been holding the door open for minutes now. It will never warm up in here.
A hazy melody floats in with a gust of wind, carrying notes into my ear.
There’s a place for you
Warm, inviting, bright, and true.
A dreamland waiting to be found,
Where peace and beauty both astound
My jaw falls and I choke on air. Galina peers over at me with a look of confusion in her eyes. “I did hear that—the singing,” she says. “I’ve never heard anyone singing outside this building.”
I stand up without thinking of the repercussions. I keep my hands gripped around a handbag.
“Luka!” a woman calls out at the top of her lungs.
