Page 39 of The Lost Husband

“I’m not sure what it is,” I say.

“Grease. Maybe tar,” Avi says. “I smell it too.”

The hill we’re fighting against looks like it might carry us into the sky, but when it unfurls into an even road, cottages pop up in the distance. Even some with working chimneys. The road narrows, the edges darkening into blackened snow. Abandoned train carts lean haphazardly, some still with tubes of metal spilling out of the sides, others empty.

A few small houses stand in one piece, but they’re dilapidated, shutters dangling, and fences rotting. Faces peek out through the windows, spotting us as we set foot in their territory. Polish villagers are moving about, carrying sacks; others are lugging wooden buckets. One woman has a straw basket looped over her intertwined hands, dangling over her swollen belly, a man by her side, carrying two heavy sacks. New life with a chance.

“Stop staring at them,” Avi hisses at me. “We already stick out with our soaked striped uniforms.”

“I didn’t mean to stare,” I reply.

“Who would think about having a baby during a war?” she utters.

Anger strikes hard and fast, and words threaten to roll off my tongue in rebuttal to Avi’s freedom of saying whatever she wants to whoever she pleases.

But my words wouldn’t be enough to explain certain aspects of life to her. She’s young. If she had known my past, she wouldn’t have said anything. I can convince myself of that.

The farther we trek through the village, a distant sight of Soviet soldiers standing about in casual conversation stops us in our tracks. Their laughter drifts toward us. Who could find laughter at a time like this?

“They’re here,” Avi says, halting abruptly. “We need to go a different way so they don’t see us.”

Avi’s words echo in my head, except the realization to me is a mix of relief with a bit of hope that I might be able to scope out the prisoners again to get a closer look.

Avi cuts between a cluster of trees that end at a set of rusty rail tracks, more abandoned train cars and a wide brick building, covered in dirty white plaster with broken windows angled to the roof. We move to the side of the building, leaving footprintswherever we go. We can hide, but there’s no hope of covering our trails.

“If it’s empty, we can sleep in here tonight. And with the Soviets here, there must be food somewhere,” Elias whispers.

“No. Not a chance. I’m not sleeping near all those soldiers. We said we were staying behind them, not with them,” Avi says, continuing to walk toward the back of the building while Elias and I move closer to the front. There’s no surprise to hear rifles clattering against uniforms. From the side of the building, I watch them pace forward, their posture slack, weapons loosely gripped between their hands, and an obvious lack of concern.

Two lines of Germans prisoners pour out from the thicket of trees, moving between the Soviets. There are more of them than before. The line has grown. They’re clearly gathering them together.

Still the same uniforms, now wrinkled and dirty. Some are no longer standing up straight. Their hunched shoulders molded as if carrying sacks of potatoes for miles. Though they carry nothing. Many are missing their caps. Various colors of hair stick out in every direction. Scowls replace their simpers. Only a couple of them look around as if searching for something. For a way out, I assume.

I begin to scan each face, ignoring the pestering thoughts in my head telling me I’ve been a fool this whole time, and I’m looking at nothing more than the guards who tried to kill us all.

“I do not have papers,” one of the prisoners calls out. I don’t see where the voice came from, but I hear a Dutch accent, I hear—a deep inflection, hoarse against the last word.He sounds like Noah.

Maybe the blast from the explosion broke something inside my head. And maybe, I need him to be alive so badly that I keep imagining every part of him.

“Celina,” Avi shouts through a whisper. “You’re getting too close.” I block out her warning because I need to get a better look. “Your husband is not there. Listen to me…”

Without realizing my mistake, I take an extra step forward, focusing on a nervous prisoner with dark hair, and a height that looks correct…wondering if he was the one claiming not to have papers.

A sudden movement at the end of the line catches my eye, and I’m met with a Soviet soldier staring directly at me. Our eyes lock. “Du dortn!” he shouts in Yiddish.

“Are they calling to you?” Elias asks behind me.

If I don’t step forward, I could end up exposing Elias and Avi too. This is my mistake. Again. “Yes,” I utter, the one word rattling.

With my arm that’s still behind the building, I push Elias away. “Go. Go now. Behind the building.”

Elias listens, even if only for the sake of taking Avi with him before she’s spotted too.

SEVENTEEN

CURRENT DAY

Chelm Slaski, Poland