Hali shrugs. “I’m not sure if she died, or was murdered, or if she’s alive, but the letter was only meant for my eyes if she was gone.”
“Did she say why your father was so spiteful?” I’m not following. I must have missed something.
“He blamed the Jews for losing the Great War. In the letter, my mother said he didn’t want to bring a Jewish child into the world, so he tried to solve the—” she points to herself. “—the problem before it happened.”
“Wait…” I whisper. “Did you just find out you were Jewish last night?” Is that what she’s trying to say? It must be. That is what she said, but if she knew prior to this and—she wouldn’t be here as a servant. Shecan’tbe here as a servant.
Hali’s small, upturned nose scrunches and her chin trembles. “I’m so scared,” she whispers.
With a gentle motion, I wrap my hands around Flora and lift her off Hali’s chest and place her on mine. I take Hali’s hand and tug her out of the alcove and around the corner to cross the shallow corridor into her room. I lower Flora onto the bed and notice a small teddy bear leaning against the thin pillow. “Is this okay for her to hold?” I ask Hali.
She nods with a small, broken smile, fighting through the tears she won’t release. I hand Flora the small bear and ruffle the matted fur against her chin. She coos and grasps at the bear to inspect it. With Flora entertained for a moment, I engulf Hali’s delicate and petite hands in my battered and beat up grip, then squeeze gently to claim her attention.
“Look at me,” I tell her, angling my head down to catch her gaze in return. The gloss of her stare captures the sunlight and casts reflections of the window within her pretty hazel eyes. “This group of Germans—the Nazis—they don’t see people as Jews, or by the color of their skin, if they’re rich, or poor, handicapped, old, or young. It’s the difference between the rest of the world and them. They are the ones who don’t want to feel inferior to others—to so many others. This is why they put their efforts toward creating a society where only their kind belong. Anger and hatred are blossoms of a jealous root, and anyone who needs to prove their power is a weak person with nothing to show. That is who we’re surrounded by.”
“The reason doesn’t matter. We have nothing to fight back with,” Hali says.
“If everyone who isn’t a part of this force says that, what will become of the rest of this world at the end of this war? Because I’ll tell you something…I will not give up. My brothers, Jozek and Natan, and our parents, they’re out there somewhere and I will do whatever it takes to see them again. And you—your mother obviously survived long enough to give you a chance at life. Therefore, you must take it and not give up. If anything, now you fight harder—fight like she fought for you.”
“How do you stay so optimistic when—I saw the inside of Auschwitz…I saw the way you’re living, and the way people would rather die than take another breath of the death filled air.”
“I believe we are a part of history in the making, and maybe—maybe eighty years from now, long after this war has ended,people will see a bigger picture—they’ll see it isn’t one act of heroism that stops evil, but rather a culmination of bravery and camaraderie that succeeds. There are more of us than them—not just Jewish people—the good people of this world. We just need time for everyone to pull together.”
This is what I tell myself before I fall asleep each night, hoping I will wake up still believing there’s enough time left for it to all be true.
She’s gazing at me as if I’m a painting hanging in a museum, one with many possible meanings. “If Heinrich finds out I’m Jewish, I’ll be turned in. They’ll likely kill me because that’s what they’re doing to more than half of the Jewish people who arrive at Auschwitz, isn’t it? That’s what the stream of smoke is in the sky? People would speculate on the outside the restricted zone. The smokestacks are hard to ignore on a clear day, even in the surrounding towns. The rumors were too frightening to be something made up just for the sake of gossip. If I die before I’ve had a chance to live, I won’t be a part of history. It will be as if I never existed, just like my father hoped.”
“He’s not going to find out,” I say urgently, without thinking about the validity of her concern. He could find out. Maybe there are papers she doesn’t know about. Everything she said—it isn’t wrong, except that one thing…I pull her into me and release her hands in exchange for her warm cheeks, as I stretch my fingers out to weave around her ears and into her silky hair. “You exist, Hali. You exist here with me at this moment. No one can change that.”
She gasps a quiet inhale and peers up at me from beneath her lashes. My pulse stammers, fast and hard, relentless as I lean in and kiss her. She rests her hand on my chest, her fingers grasping at the fabric, scratching at my skin. I need air, but I’d rather go without if it means staying here like this for however many more seconds the world allows.
A searing pain slices through my stomach, crippling my upper body as I release Halina and cower into my ribcage.
“What is it?” she cries out. “Did I do something? Are you hurt?”
Black dots form in front of my eyes and the pain forces me to my knees. Halina follows, yanking at my shirt to find a source for the pain she can’t see on the outside. “You’re pale, Gav. Oh my—I told you I’d bring you food, and I—When’s the last time you ate?”
“Hali, I can’t remember—I, this—isn’t your fa—” I can hardly breathe through the pain, let alone complete a sentence.
She shoves her shoulder beneath my arm and tries to help me to my feet but struggles. I can’t move. My muscles won’t release their contraction.
“Okay, stay here,” she says, panicking.
“I have no choice,” I utter, knowing I would normally laugh at my own demise.
She snatches Flora and the teddy bear off the bed and scurries down the stairs, then the next set too. That kapo is here, in or just outside the house somewhere, he’s been in to check on me three times this morning and I’m due for another visit soon.
Either I’m becoming delirious, or Halina’s managed to make it all the way down both flights of stairs, and across the house, and back up here within seconds. I pray it’s her when the door opens.
“Here, Kasia made sandwiches for the entire week for the girls. I’ll make another so they don’t see one is missing. Eat this.” She struggles with Flora held in one arm as she lowers herself to her knees with a wax-paper-wrapped sandwich and an entire pitcher of water, setting them on the ground beside her.
“That kapo—he’s going to be back,” I choke out.
Halina sets Flora down beside me and presses my shoulders back so I’m leaning against the side of her bed. She grabs the pitcher and lifts it to my mouth. “Drink,” she demands.
A door slams beneath us, sucking the oxygen out of the room. Halina places the pitcher down and jumps up, rushing out of the room. Two seconds merely pass before the hammer thumps against—something. It won’t stop him. He’ll still come up here. The hammering stops for a second, and just before it starts again, another door slams. Again, the hammer stops and Halina rushes back into the room. “He was just passing through the house. He’s in the front yard,” she says breathlessly, while grabbing the sandwich and tearing the paper off.
Minutes of fear-filled silence come and go while I try to swallow as much of the sandwich without pausing to chew much. She lifts the pitcher of water back up to my lips after I’ve swallowed the last bite, and I drink as much as I can, feeling a slight relief of pain in my stomach.
