Page 46 of The Lost Husband

That isn’t Polish. He’s shouting in Russian.

The door opens and a Soviet soldier greets the man, a stern glimmer in his eyes. “Chto?”

“Otpustite devushku,” the man tells the soldier. “Prinesite yey yedu.” He points at me and shakes his head. I don’t know what either of them are saying, nor whether it’s good intention.

“Skoro,” the soldier says, pulling the door shut again.

The man nods at me. “What’s your name?”

I pause before responding again. “Celina.”

“I’m Igor. When the soldiers return and take you out of here, tell them Igor said to feed you if they don’t give you something more to eat.”

I scan the room again, wondering why he’s singled me out. All the people in here must be waiting for Soviets to clear their names for something. “Where will they take me?”

“A displacement shelter down the road. The Red Cross is moving quickly to put them in order. You’ll be better off there than near the prisoners on the other side of this wall.”

But what if they shouldn’t all be prisoners…?

“Could I ask you something?” He returns to the wall he was leaning on and rests his back, then raises his brows, waiting for me to continue. “Do you think it’s possible that not all those prisoners are guilty of war crimes? Perhaps, only wearing a uniform for a different reason?” The Soviet soldiers barely gaveme a chance to talk, never mind an explanation of what I was doing outside the building. I doubt they’re listening to any of them, for good reason. But, what if…

“I wish I could give you a reason not to fear every one of them, but… while I’m sure many Germans exchanged their uniforms for other rags to disguise themselves, I’m not sure anyone would want to disguise themselves as a German soldier right now.”

He’s right. A German uniform could maybe have helped a daring Jewish prisoner escape from Auschwitz, but only before liberation. And if the man who saved me was somehow my beloved Noah—if he had somehow survived and been taken to the camp—he would have tried to save me if he knew I was there too, and if he found me, he wouldn’t have left me. But a true German guard wouldn’t have saved me that day. There’s no questioning that.

Am I just holding on to a prayer that my one true love somehow survived? Even knowing what I know. The odds are improbably stacked against me. At what point do I accept the truth and head home?

The door to the holding room opens again and a Soviet soldier I haven’t seen before points at me. “Come.”

I give Igor one last glance and mouth the words, “Thank you.” Though I’m not sure if I haven’t anything to be thankful for now, but I think he tried to help me. For that, I’m grateful.

The soldier leads me out the door and into the open space shared with the Germans in rows. The proximity comes with dread, colder air, and a stench of grease.

A door clangs shut somewhere beyond the rows of prisoners, and Russian voices clash with the German ones. The soldier pivots sharply to his left and waits for me to join his side, keeping the distance between us and the prisoners. We pass wooden tables covered with piles of paper, bottles of inkscattered about, some empty and spilling remnants onto the floor. In the corner, two Soviet soldiers are in a quiet but obvious argument, one jabbing a finger against a short stack of papers.

The German prisoners stand before us, frailer than the way they looked yesterday. My stomach tenses, thinking this is how they viewed the Jewish prisoners up until just a few days ago. Except they were proud to see the result of their torment.

I still see humans. Suffering. No one should want to see such a thing.

“Petrov, Eedée syudá!” a Soviet soldier’s voice slices through the air.

“Chyo?” the soldier beside me mutters to himself before replying out loud. “Da?” He steps in front of me to engage in their conversation, leaving me and my wandering eye to scope out the prisoners.

I scan the rows of powerless men. Faces mottled blue with bruises, beards matted with dried blood and dirt. Insignia still decorates their filthy uniforms, and ropes bite into their dangling wrists.

I shouldn’t look. I shouldn’t be hoping. Not when I saw him lying dead in the street of Amsterdam.

Then my world stops.

Ten steps away. Maybe fifteen. Close enough to touch if I lunged for him.

His jaw—God, his jaw—swollen along the left side, purple and yellow splotches bleeding together. A cut splits his upper lip, and another along his eyebrow. His coat—someone else’s coat—hangs loosely over his shoulders, two sizes too large.

I shove my fists into my eyes, bile rising in my throat. The resemblance is—it’s torture. I force myself to look again. He lifts his head, and our eyes meet. His fingers twitch…one, two, three pops of his knuckles.

Noah.My Noah. Recognition hits like a blow. I nearly cry out. His eyes flash with the same frenzied knowledge, his face contorting with something feral and possessive.

And then…he erases me.