My voice cracks, despite the force I’m pressing against, and Father’s words echo in my head, “You’ve become a fine young man, Luka. I’m proud of you. Always, and I know you can handle whatever comes our way.”
I’ve let my entire family down. I was supposed to protect her and Grandmother, and I didn’t.
My vision focuses on everything around me, the people watching me with intent. I’m not as invisible as I thought. The guards continue to glare at me. All of them now, three rifles pointed at me with the threat to end my life right this second. Maybe that’s what I want…
More shouting commences around the music, and the guards move back to their original places to continue shoving peoplealong into the chamber. My focus stops on Mother again, her body melting into the snow as if she’s becoming one with the earth. Her scarf floats over the snow, the red flowers blending with the blood. I can’t look away. How can I stop looking at what’s left of her now?
The guards’ voices grow louder, fiercer as they begin to forcibly shove people inside as fear rivets through every set of eyes as they all begin to question if it’s truly a shower they’re walking toward. Why shoot a woman walking toward a shower unless someone was about to expose the truth? Their panic is my fault.
People step over her body in fear of not complying with the orders. It’s as if she’s a rock lodged in the center of their path, an object they can’t avoid any other way.
I choke on the last word of the verse, coughing up the air in my lungs.
“Sing, you worthless rat!” a guard shouts from near the open door.
I open my mouth again, but no sound comes out. I can’t sing with my mother lying dead to the side of me. My voice will not work, not like this.
The guard at the door lifts his rifle, pointing it at my head once again. His fingers twitch on the trigger.
“Wait!” another guard shouts from behind me, his boots crunching along the snow. Prisoners in line step aside, making space for him to pass, and as he does, he stops in front of Mother to inspect her dead body as if it should be of interest to him, then his icy eyes stare at me. I recognize him, one of the higher ranked SS often at the Commandant’s Headquarters.
“This one,” the familiar SS says, “the voice of an angel, yes? But clearly not anymore. Now, you’re just as weak as a tiny little mouse.” He flaps the back of his leather gloved hand at me. “Take him with the others. He must need a…shower…too.”
“No!” I shout, and my voice comes out strong and sharp. The desperation pulling something out of me. “Please, I’ll sing. I’ll do better.”
The officer smirks and shakes his head. “It’s too late,” he says, clicking his tongue. “Such a shame.”
“No one else knows the music,” one of the violinists says. “We don’t have another singer. How can we entertain these people who are patiently waiting for their showers?”
The officer shoves me in the shoulder, pushing me into the violinist. “No talent in the world can save you here,” he utters. “You’re not worth the space.”
FORTY-SIX
ELLA
My body is frozen. I can’t move. I can’t cry. I’m about to fall to my knees, as the horror continues to unfold before me. Luka’s mother is dead, just a few steps away from me, but with a fence between us. She’s dead. There’s blood everywhere. I gasp for air that won’t fill my lungs.
“Are you sending the singer into the showers?” a guard shouts from the chamber door to the officer pointing his rifle at Luka’s head. He’s alive. Let him stay alive. A cough spills out of my lungs, and I slap my hands over my mouth as the officer drops his rifle and grabs Luka by his collar.
“What do you think I should do, you filthy Jew?” he growls.
“What are you doing out here?” someone shouts from directly behind me and grabs me by the collar, dragging me backward. “There are no breaks. This isn’t a theater for your entertainment purposes. Get back to work!”
I fall to the ground inside the warehouse after being tossed in through the door. A boot clobbers me in the back, forcing all the air out of my lungs. A wave of black dots floats in front of my eyes as I take a breath. I gasp against nothing.
Again, I try to take a breath, and this time air flows but pain radiates through my back. Someone shoves their arms beneathmine and drags me through the warehouse, dropping me in front of the pile of handbags. “You all right, Ella?” Galina’s face is in front of mine, her hands pressing on my cheeks. “Breathe.”
I stare her in the eyes, but all I can see is Luka’s mother, dead in the snow. The rifle pointing at Luka’s head. The shower door, open and waiting for him.
“It was him,” I say, my voice raspy and barely producing sound.
“Who?” Galina asks, keeping to a whisper.
“The voice—the one I keep telling you I hear. It’s him. My Luka. They’re about to kill him. They just killed his mother. I watched it happen,” I blurt out.
“Are—are you sure?” Galina asks.
Tears form in the corners of my eyes, and a tickle fizzles through my nose as I clench the muscles in my face to stop myself from reacting. “Yes,” I utter. “He isn’t dead, but he’s about to be.”
