I take her hand and stop her from forging ahead. “You don’t have to worry so much. I’m not frail or dying. Even if I ran out of medicine, I’m sure I’d manage. I was born with this condition and didn’t have medicine for a long time.” I’m not truly sure how I would manage, but she doesn’t need to add my health to her growing list of concerns.
I’ve also never mentioned my fears of the Euthanasia program to her so I’m not sure if she thinks about it the way I do. For her sake, I hope not.
She’s quiet, doesn’t respond for a moment. Just gazes into my eyes, saying enough without saying anything. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be making you feel like you’re a patient I’m looking after. That wasn’t my intention. I just?—”
“You love me,” I tell her, pulling her into me.
“With all my heart,” she says.
“With love, comes worry. But why waste time worrying when we can just love, love?”
Her smile returns like the sun peeking out from behind a cloud. “What else comes with love?” Her words, an undeniable tease.
Somehow, we end up in the empty barn.
The one place we can be alone. Just us, together, where we belong.
The straw beneath us turns to silk. The layers of fabric and buttons on our clothes just prolong the answer to her question. My lips glide along warm satin skin, my fingers tangling in her hair—it’s never enough.Her hands skate across my back, holding me like she might never let go.Our hearts beat against each other’s, fierce and unfaltering. Her lips part, eyes close, and her breaths quicken. The world disappears, leaving just the two of us in a moment that’s never long enough.
“Can we stay like this—just like this, forever?” she murmurs against my ear.
“No one can take this away from us,” I tell her, drawing her into me as if she’s the last breath I’ll ever take.
TWENTY-THREE
ROSALIE
SS RESIDENTIAL ZONE, AUSCHWITZ PERIMETER
Present Day: April 10, 1944
“We don’t need your assistance at Auschwitz today,” Weyman said. “Tend tomy children at home until further notice.” He first said this to me three weeks ago, the morning after I admitted Stefan to the infirmary barrack.He added brashly, “Your preferential treatment toward a certain prisoner has been notated in the guard’s weekly report.”
The way his lips twitched at the corner of his mouth told me he knew exactly which prisoner he meant. Those weren’t words he’d read from a report. They were the same ones he’d thrown at me after I tended to Stefan in the isolation barrack.
I should be grateful for the break of working at Auschwitz—not having to take part in the demise of innocent people, but not when I’m forced to leave half my heart behind those gates.I can’t watch over him from this miserable house.
Weyman has made it clear that regardless of not requiring my presence, he expects me to be ready and waiting at five in the morning, by the door, just in case.My heart races and pounds, leaving me breathless every single day while I wait forhis decision. I’ve never felt terror scream inside of me like this, forcing me to plead for the lesser of evils at the same time. But I’m desperate to know Stefan is all right.
This is a game for Weyman.He knows more than he says.The sinister smile on his face every morning makes me think he knows exactly what he’s doing—toying with me.
Weyman’s boots thump down the stairwell as I wait by the front door, the lamp light catching his shadow as he steps toward me.
“We don’t need you today,” he says with a grin. “But tomorrow, we’ll need your expert assistance in the infirmary barracks at the main Auschwitz camp.”
Something that resembles relief fills my body, knowing I can look for Stefan tomorrow, make sure he’s still in one piece. Or I could find that I’ve lost him forever. In either case, I can’t stay in this house one more day, wondering.
“Why are you doing this to me? Forcing me to take part in something I would never agree with?” The words spill out on their own accord. I wish I could take them all back and shove them down my throat, maybe even choke on them.
He studies me for a long moment with a deciphering look in his eyes as if he’s trying to figure out where I will be more miserable.
“Why am I doing thistoyou?” he says, slipping his uniformed coat over his shoulders. With a show of looking around the open foyer then up the elegant stairwell, his brows furrow. “The only thing I’ve done is offer you proper shelter here. Surely, you don’t see something so terribly wrong with this house?”
He understands my question. This house could be a mansion made of gold with every amenity a person could desire, and I would still despise every part of it. “I’m not referring to your home.”
He plucks the buttons of his coat into the woven holes and snickers. “Ah, you mean your work,” he says, fastening the top button on his coat. “As mentioned, your indiscretion—hospitable bedside manner in the infirmary block was notated by a guard on duty, then reported to me. I’ve made it clear that you are to do what you’re told, and nothing else.”
“I’ve been doing as I’m told.” And then some. “If by bedside manner, you mean I have a heart and show compassion, then yes, I do. It’s typical behavior for people who work within the medical field. Or…it was before?—”
