Page 15 of The Lost Husband

Most of the others have continued pushing ahead, leaving the woman behind. A few straggle, but not for the woman’s sake.

We walk until darkness devours the woods, leaving us with only glimmers and shadows.

“There’s no use in trying to keep going at this hour,” one of the few men says. “We can rest in shifts, wait until sunrise, and continue northwest to Germany behind the Soviets.”

Theyarefollowing the Soviets. It wasn’t just a coincidental direction they took when leaving Auschwitz. Northwest is most logical for the Soviets, especially with German prisoners in tow.They wouldn’t be bringing them south to the Czechoslovakian border.

“Why would we want to follow the Soviets? They’re no less dangerous than the German soldiers,” Avi pushes.

Everyone turns to look at her as if she’s just arrived and disrupted their plan with her opinion. Which she has.

“She’s just a girl. Leave her be,” a man says, turning away from Avi. “The Soviets have supplies and food. We want to survive. We need them to lead us to where we’ll find what we need.”

“But…” Avi speaks out.

I grab her hand and jerk her toward me. “You can’t tell them what to do,” I whisper. “He’s right in what he’s saying.”

“We’ll be walking straight into a death trap,” she argues just as quietly, but with spit flying from her mouth.

“We’re already in a death trap, Avi.”

She rolls her eyes and pulls her arm away from me.

“We’re losing time,” a woman says. “We might lose sight of the Soviets if we stop now.”

“If we keep moving, we’ll need a source of light—a torch, something,” someone else says.

“No.” Avi doesn’t hesitate, again. “Light makes us visible. The snow gives off just enough reflection to keep us on our feet. We can move slower but shouldn’t stop.”

I’m surprised when no one argues with her, but thankful we can continue moving. Feet begin to shift against the coarse snow, unsure at first, then steadier after a moment.

An abrupt blast tears through the air. Most of us drop instinctively, hands over our heads. One of us screams—too loud, too long—flagging our location to whoever is stalking through the woods. A hand clamps over her mouth.

Then I remember that the SS are still out here somewhere. Most of them fled, but no one knows what direction they went.

“They’re coming closer. Silence,” someone whispers.

Another shot fires into the night. A warning.

“Show yourself!” a man shouts in German, his voice quivering with unease.

The group breaks apart at once, and scatters into thicker brush off the path. Avi grabs my arm and yanks me from the path too. We stumble until a boulder rises out of the dark—solid enough to hide behind, but barely.

A scuff of snow from heavy footsteps and a metallic clink.

“Nein. Keep moving,” someone mutters.

“This way—” another voice cuts in, then softens. “It was probably a fox. That’s what we must have heard.”

They aren’t hunting us. They’re hunting for food, and we were standing in the way.

I don’t breathe again until the glow of the flame sinks into a low dip in the woods and drains away from us.

Back-to-back, we sit on a pile of broken branches, leaning our sides against the boulder. I lost a few potatoes in our scurry, and it looks like Avi lost some of hers too, as she’s no longer cinching the fabric of her smock so tightly. I pull my coat tightly over my chest and sink my chin and nose inside, peeking out, keeping a watch for a flame.

“We should stay put until dawn,” the man who spoke out to Avi earlier says. He must be the leader of this pack. “The Soviets will have to stop too. No one will travel blindly through the night.”

I don’t know if he’s right or taking a guess, but I choose to believe him as exhaustion presses down on me, hard and relentless. My eyes blur. A scrape against bark snaps me alert. My heart stutters. It could be ice cracking.