Page 71 of The Lost Husband

“But it’s him,” I say. “Surely, you believe me now.”

“Yes, I think… it is him,” Christoph utters in disbelief.

“Did something happen?” Elias’s voice grows from behind me, re-grounding me in the enclosed school yard, outside the building where the Soviet medics took Avi.

Christoph doesn’t turn away from the fence to respond to Elias.

“I—I don’t know.” It’s all I can get out of my mouth to Elias before returning my stare to the groups of prisoners.

“Noah isn’t getting back up,” Christoph says.

I search to the left, wondering if the fence opens freely or if we’re secured within. There’s only one way to know. I step to the side, releasing my grip on the fence. Before I take another step in the snow, Christoph grabs my arm, yanking me backward. “No. You can’t… What are you going to—” He pulls me so I turn to face him. “Celina, look at me.”

“I have to?—”

A rifle butt jabs into the fence, rattling the metal around us. “Move away,” a soldier demands.

My heart thuds and steals my breath as I jump away from the fence, still within Christoph’s locked grip. Then I see soldiers separating the man—the man who might be Noah—away from the rows of others. He’s being singled out by a soldier pointing a rifle at his head.

They can’t take him. They can’t.

Christoph squeezes my arm.

“We need to check on Avi,” Elias says.

If I move, he’ll disappear.

“Celina,” Elias says, demanding my attention.

If I stay, something could happen to Avi. She could die.

I can’t lose him again…

“They’re staring at you,” Christoph whispers. “The Soviets.” He pulls me away from the fence, my heels heavy as I fight to move my feet backward. “If you don’t step away from the fence, they’ll shoot you.”

“I can’t lose him again. I can’t.”

“You won’t be any help to him if you’re dead.” Christoph’s words speak of finality as he pulls me harder, forcing me to turn my back on Noah.

I look over my shoulder, but we’re no longer within sight of the row we spotted Noah. Instead, I watch two Soviets dragging a German prisoner toward the back of a low building, sitting flush with the schoolhouse. They’re blocking the view of the man’s face. All I can see are his black boots. They’re untied, gaping at his ankles. Noah used to hate that feeling. Said it let in too much cold if they weren’t tight enough.

Whether they’re dragging Noah away, or he’s lying face down on the ground, he’s in dire need of help.

A metal fence thrusts open on the opposite side of the field from where we are and another two Soviet soldiers charge toward us, their expressions like stone.

“Is our friend all right?” Elias asks, panic-stricken.

“Is she out there with the German prisoners? Is that why you were watching them?” One of the soldiers sneers, his tone dark and guttural, irate. “We’re moving you.” One steps around us to usher us forward while the other turns toward the gate we came through.

My chest tightens. The pop of a rifle bursts within me, the sight of Noah’s body—black pants, dark hair, lying on the street in a pool of blood. Now, snow—his body being dragged away—again.

“Wait,” I say, my voice bouncing off the side of the schoolhouse. “You can’t?—”

Christoph tugs my arm, pulling me into his side. “Celina.”

I shake away his voice. He doesn’t know what I’ve seen. “One of them isn’t who you think.” The words blurt out, unmistakable for anyone listening. “One of them isn’t German—he’s not who you think he is.”

The prisoners’ yard behind us grows quiet. Too quiet. As if they’re all focusing on my outcry.