But he stares into my eyes, “We can’t think that way. It’s our only option—it will work.”
Each step closer to the freedom lying beyond this last blockade is endless, especially now that the guard’s flashlight is gliding our way.
The damp rubble beneath my feet crackles and pops and the fog hanging in the air begins to suffocate me. My heart pounds painfully. “Papers,” the guard demands. “Where are you coming from and what is your destination?”
We stop just in front of him, his eyes concealed by the rim of his cap. “We’ve been on the compound visiting family, the Schäfers—you must know them. We were to attend their dinner party tonight, but our baby’s illness has taken a turn for the worse. She needs a doctor. She’s very sick. If we don’t get her there?—”
“Papers,” he snaps, interrupting me.
My throat tightens and my focus falls to the rusty gate, framed by sandbags and stacked wooden crates. A smeared red streak near the latch…is that paint or blood?
“There’s no time for papers,” Gavriel says, his German accent impeccable. “Our daughter…she won’t survive another hour. She needs help right away.”
No one comes and goes easily from the occupied villages surrounding Auschwitz. The entire area is heavily barricadedby guards even though the only people who live within this “restricted zone” are working members of the Reich, domestic servants, and beyond them, the prisoners.
This little girl so obviously senses every emotion surrounding her, explaining the return of her piercing cry. I hold her tighter but don’t rock her in my arms like I normally would. I don’t hush her either. It’s important that she continues to cry now.
“What is the baby ill with?” the guard asks with haste, shining his flashlight onto her sensitive eyes, lingering on her flushed skin. He stumbles back a step. “Typhus,” he utters, as if the word itself is infectious.
All the guards are afraid of this disease. As they should be.
“There’s a rash—on her belly. The fever…spiked just an hour ago. She’s already had one seizure. We’re sure it’s typhus,” Gavriel explains.
I gasp a shuddered breath as a sob relents. “You must understand,” I cry out. “Feel her head—how hot she is…” I hold her out toward him, my arms shaking.
He won’t touch her. The risk of typhus isn’t worth it to him.Please God, keep us safe right now.
The guard takes another step backward. “Go on,” he snaps, tearing a handkerchief from his pocket to press against his nose. “If you return without a doctor’s note…” He doesn’t finish his statement, but the implication is clear.
His grip tightens on the gate lever. He’s letting us go. But then his jaw clenches, and as if someone has whispered a warning in his ear, he appears to reconsider. The flashlight angles toward our faces, blinding us. “Show me your forearms.”
“Wh—what do you mean?” I ask. “Why must you see our arms?” My acting isn’t believable—nor is my naivete.
He’s looking for tattooed numbers from Auschwitz. The tattooed numbers all the prisoners within the barbed-wirefences have…the tattooed numbers we shouldn’t have if we’re truly just visiting family here on the compound.
“Show me, or you don’t pass.”
I move first, praying he will let us go when he doesn’t see a number on my arm. Gavriel’s will give us away.
With a jerky movement, I struggle with Flora in my arms, wishing I could tell her to let out a cough for the sake of our story. I pull my sleeve up to my elbow, showing my pale forearm. She can’t cough, but I can. With the phlegm coating my throat from running through the damp air, I’m able to muster a barking cough I can’t cover without a free hand. My timing is planned for when the guard steps in closer with his hand-held light to check my arm.
He jumps backward and recenters his handkerchief over his nose and mouth. “Go, go,” he mumbles, opening the metal gate.
I take Gavriel’s hand in mine and run, my heart beating so hard it’s cold despite how hot I am from panic.
We continue running down the side of the street until we’re out of sight from the checkpoint. “I know where we are now,” I tell Gavriel.
“You do?”
“Follow me.” Back into the woods, but down an unmarked path I could navigate blindly.
FORTY-SEVEN
HALINA
Gavriel keeps a hand on my back as we continue through the darkness into a circular dirt opening with a church buried in the shadows of the old trees lining the back side of the building. Behind a set of tall bushes is a concealed narrow door, the main door left unused for years since the church had a congregation.
I thrash my fist against the wooden frame, stern knocks with urgency, not the sound of a bullish Nazi going for intimidation.
