“Leave her alone, Oskar.”
Gavriel’s voice slices through the air like a switch of a match. With haste, then silence.
My pulse thumps, and my stomach turns sour.
“Who are you to tell me what to do, fool?” Oskar whips toward Gavriel and backhands him across the face, a crack so sharp and loud it echoes between the walls.
I flinch, my trembling hands clutching the sudden ache in my chest. This is my fault. I was spying.
“I—I was doing as he says,” I stammer, desperate to undo what’s been done. “I forgot my apron. I was going back for it before continuing my tasks.”
Oskar sneers at me, his eyes narrow with a cold stare as if he can extract a truth he prefers.
“You’re late!” he shouts at Gavriel instead, then drives his shoulder into his side in passing, sending Gavriel into the wall with an unforgiving thud.
Gavriel doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t blink. He straightens his shoulders and starts up the steps. Something fragile cracks inside of me as I watch Gavriel amble up the stairs, fresh blood dripping down his cheekbone from the blunt force.
“You shouldn’t have…” I whisper.
He glances at me as he passes, and for a brief second, I think he might smile, but he doesn’t.
“It’s better me than you.”
He disappears into the unfinished workspace, leaving me with guilt, despair and a pit in my hollow stomach.
No one has ever stood up for me before. Not like that. I should thank him. Apologize. Or…I should keep quiet and hold on to the words that always seem to search for a way out but never quite find the way.
Gratitude could cost me more than trust.
TEN
GAVRIEL
July 21, 1943
The deep metallic boom of the gong vibrates through the walls of the barrack, startling me awake as it does every morning. The lights crack on and every man in every tier of bunks around me strains to peek out of their tired eyes. Whoever is still alive, still breathing, pulls themself to the edge of the mattress then slithers and clambers out of their sleeping hole.
When the shock of the gong’s reverberation simmers, the flesh of my cheekbone burns with a sting from yesterday’s slap. There’s no mirror anywhere, but the ache of a bruise has spread across most of my cheek overnight. Oskar hit me hard, but it’s not the pain that’s afflicting me, it’s the reason it happened.
I was defending someone. I knew better, but the action—the words—came instinctively to protect her. Then the look on Halina’s face, a mix of disbelief and shock, telling me I shouldn’t have done what I did…I couldn’t understand how she thought I could watch that happen to her instead. I’m still baffled.
Our paths crossed once more yesterday after the altercation, but she only gave me a brief glance. Not an unkind look, but onewith caution. Or maybe, she doesn’t know what to say. I don’t either, but I do want to ask her if she’s all right.
What I want doesn’t matter though.
Ache, grief, and hunger are all just feelings I’ve learned to bury so I can keep moving. Keep working.
I haven’t had bread in two days due to missing prisoners at evening roll call, a punishment we all pay. My stomach gnaws at itself from starvation. But hunger, like everything else here, can only be ignored. Time, too. It loops and stutters like a broken clock. The same day on repeat, leaving me to wonder how long I’ve been surviving like this.
All I know is, it’s been long enough to question whether I’ll make it through another twelve-hour shift. A weakness is taking over, and it’s one I can’t fight against. I think that may be the point though. If we drop dead of natural causes, it saves the guards from having to gas us to death.
As most mornings while trudging toward the main gates for labor escort, the flies swarm, treating us like walking rubbish. The bugs are the worst as we pass the rectangle shaped man-made ditch. It’s become a swampy terrain covered with a film of sludge with pieces of blue and white striped fabric floating along the top.
No one says it out loud, but I’m sure there are piles of bodies decomposing in there. I hate wondering if I’ll land in a muddy hole, or be turned to ash. Which I’d prefer.
Oskar stops short before exiting the wooded path onto the officers’ residential road. “Wait here,” he demands, holding his hands up. He turns around and takes another look out at the street.
We’re quiet, allowing the commotion of hushed shouts to filter through the trees. A striking slap of skin to skin reaching us tells me why we’re standing here. Another morning altercation between Officer Schäfer and his wife. Then a car door slams, theengine roars, and gravel catches beneath the tires. All rumblings fade into the distance, and we’re released from our hold between the trees and sent to our assigned houses.
