Page 33 of The Lost Husband

My eyes clench tightly until colored spots blossom, painting a picture of Noah lying beside me, smiling, caressing my cheek, always being the first to wake up and wanting nothing more than to watch me sleep a little longer. Splinters poke my legs, and people trip against the crown of my head, refusing my mind to conjure the only thing I want to see. Even dreaming is prohibited in Auschwitz.

A shout wakes me out of a dim sleep. “I took that blanket for myself,” a woman grunts.

“You weren’t using it. Have a heart,” another woman says. “My daughter is cold.”

People don’t care about each other at all now. A little girl needs a blanket. It seems like liberation was just an open door to the same corroded world we were being held prisoners in. I remove mine, knowing ours overlap, and reach it out to the girl. She hesitates before stepping toward me, looking at her mother for permission.

“Thank you,” the mother says. “Your kindness won’t be forgotten.”

I scoot in closer to Avi and slip into the darkness, remembering how Noah wrapped his sweater around my shoulders, even to buffer a chill on a summer evening. He’d also wrap me in all our blankets on cold nights despite however cold he might have been. They were small sacrifices comparedto anything anyone can give today, but they made me feel so deeply loved. I would give anything to offer him warmth now—the version of Noah without the obtrusive uniform, if my eyes haven’t been deceiving me.

* * *

A clatter of wood knocking against wood vibrates the floor and startles me again, but this time the sun is hazily leaking through the windows, pale and weak as if it’s tired of fighting against the overbearing clouds. A draft of cold air bites my nose as a man drops a stack of three crates inside the front door.

Two women tend to the crates, unsealing them as most watch with wonder of what’s inside.

“The Red Cross has sent more blankets,” one of the women says.

The other woman opens the next crate and reaches in too far for it to be filled with enough to help everyone here.

“Ingredients for broth, two loaves of bread, and a sack of dry cereal. Please, I ask that you form two lines at the back table so that we can help you.”

Lines form before I can step over the piles of hay, leaving the four of us closer to the front door than the back wall. Bodies pack in tightly, the walls of the farmhouse closing in on us as shoulders knock together, elbows jab into ribs, and the breaths of others mixes with our own. Someone coughs right behind me, wet and guttural, and I feel the moist heat hit the back of my neck.

“There won’t be anything left by the time we reach the front. There never is. We know this,” Avi tells me.

“Well, we also don’t know where there’s another shelter or how far it might be from—” Elias attempts to argue back, but he’s cut off.

Before he can get the last word out, a short, thin woman several people ahead of us falls to the ground like a heap of fabric. The others around her fan out to the sides rather than trying to catch her or make sure she isn’t hurt.

I step out of line and through those gawking, and kneel over the woman, my knees aching against the unforgiving wooden planks that reek of mildew. “Are you hurt?”

The woman is mostly bald; her black scarf is loose and draping over her shoulder. Blue veins press against her thin eyelids, her lips part and for a moment, I think the worst. Then her silver lashes flutter before she manages to hold her focus. “Wha—what happened?” she croaks.

“You fell. Does anything hurt?” I ask.

The puffy flesh where her eyebrows should be pulls together, confusion loops through her eyes. “Wh—why are you being so kind to me?”

Did I ever stop being kind? Or did I just become quiet and complacent. Is that what we all think of ourselves?

“Here, I’ll help you up?”

Her chin quivers. “Please.”

Elias drops a hand on my shoulder. “Let me.”

We get her up to her feet as someone else steps out of line to drag one of the few wooden chairs over to us.

“Oh—bless you. Thank you.” She eases into the seat with a soft groan.

I squeeze her shoulder and return to my place in line along with Elias. Avi is staring through the person in front of her, eyes not blinking. “We need to go,” she utters without moving her mouth.

“Yes, after we get food,” I say.

“No,” Avi presses. “Now.”

“Name?” A woman’s nasal voice calls out from behind me.