“Get up. We need to pack, have our things ready to go. The Soviets are coming. We’re leaving,” Weyman says, speaking in clipped sentences, ignoring my presence. Acting as though he wasn’t just threatening my life moments ago.
Lotte stands from her seat, the chair legs grinding against the floor as she shoves away from the table. “Where? Where are we going? What’s happening?”
“I already told you the Soviets are coming. Didn’t you hear me?”
“Why can’t we stop them?” she asks, truly bewildered as if she’s been living under a rock rather than with the devil, himself. “You said we have the best war fighting vehicles. How can we not fight with that?”
“The Soviets have more vehicles. More of everything. More than the Germans can produce. Our economy can’t keep the army equipped enough to fight. Our war machine is dead, Lotte.”
“Well, how long do we have?” Lotte asks, her voice catching in her throat.
“Days, weeks at most.”
“Where will we go?” The questions continue.
“You and the children will go stay with your parents. When I’m released from duty, I’ll join you.”
“You’re staying?” she asks, appalled at this suggestion.
“I have no choice.”
“With her?” Lotte asks, pointing at me as if I’ve agreed to be the target of his desire. The thought slings around my neck. The possibility of staying here alone with him. It would be worse than if he’d just pulled the trigger, but then his greasy words skid back into the forefront of my mind:
I didn’t kill your Jew. I’ve been saving that for you.
Stefan is still alive. Somewhere. And now I must find a way to stay alive so I can find him.
“Yes, with Rosalie,” he says with haste. The sound of my first name on his tongue—casual, onerous, intimate. It’s repulsive.
“Rosalie,” she repeats, the sound serpentine on her tongue. “I’m sure that’s exactly what you want. Everything will be just perfect for you now. No children, no wife. Nothing in your way from doing as you please with a younger woman.”
He sneers at her cruelly. “You think I don’t know Tilly isn’t my child? You think I’m ignorant enough to overlook your marital indiscretions, the daily visits to your lover. The fact that my so-called daughter looks nothing like me?”
I’m standing between them, my back to the stove, and Weyman taking up the kitchen archway. Like Poland between Germany and Russia. The idea that Lotte has been involved in an affair has crossed my mind, almost daily. Now I understand for certain why she brings Tilly with her when she leaves for the day. This other man must be her father.
I’m still here because Lotte couldn’t manage to have asecretaffair. That’s why she insisted I stay. For as long as I’m here taking care of the other children, she can come and go as she pleases.
“How dare you accuse me of something so disgraceful? I have been a loving wife. Loyal to the Reich. A good mother.” Her words are monotone, typed thoughts on paper with no inflection.
Weyman lifts his wrist, stretches his arm forward to expose the face of his watch. “As of noon today, your mister, Ludwig Reinhard is dead. So, pack up your belongings. I’ve booked you train tickets to leave for Holland tomorrow. Your parents are expecting your arrival.”
The name seems to strike Lotte like a stone thrown against her forehead. Shock, a moment of stillness, then the blood drains from her face. She has no control over her emotions, no ability to hide behind her lies as she claps her hand over her mouth and tears spill over her bottom lashes. No one can hide the unforgiving jaws of heartbreak. I’ve learned that all too well.
Hilde grows heavier in my arms as I remain stuck between them. Though, there will soon only be one side, and nothing standing between his pistol and my head.
“No one would blame me for having an affair with a decent man,” she blubbers. “Not when I’m married to a murderer with no heart.” Spit flies from her mouth, lipstick smudged to the sides of her mouth like a clown, and the tears continue. “Look at you—how far up the chain you’ve made it. Rank mustbe determined by the number of innocent lives you’ve killed. That’s what you will live with. Not me. You did this to yourself. Our children will know who their father is and what he’s done because I don’t want you in their lives. They’ll forgive me for finding love somewhere else, but you—you’re unforgivable.”
Sweat continues to drip down my spine, waiting for one of them to walk away. But neither of them moves. They just stare at each other while Hilde, confused as ever, looks back and forth between her parents, unsuspecting of what’s to come for her.
Tilly’s hungry cry wails from upstairs, forcing Lotte to break her stare and rush past us into the corridor.
“As for you,” Weyman utters. “Be ready at the usual hour tomorrow. We’ll return to Auschwitz where you can continue burning paper. Where you’ll soon drown in ink if you don’t smarten up.”
My strides feel like lead weights as I carry Hilde up the stairwell. As I bring her into her room, and help her change into pajamas, the fabric tears, thread plucking loose at the seam down the length of her arm. She’s just about grown out of these.
The fabric that makes up the clothes is weaker than we are. Seams tear.
If the camp is coming undone, purging all it’s made up of, it too will fall victim to its seams—leaving a small space to escape.
