Page 70 of The Lost Husband

Footsteps pace back and forth from the floor above.

Pipes croak and yawn.

Whenever I couldn’t fall asleep, Noah would stroke my cheek until his comfort brought me peace.

I place my hands on my stomach and stroke my thumb back and forth. “I’m still here,” I whisper.

TWENTY-EIGHT

CURRENT DAY

Gliwice, Poland

“Celina…” Christoph’s stern voice hisses in my ear. He takes my elbow, tugging me away from the fence I’ve been staring through. Watching the German prisoners succumb to their own style of punishment. “They’re Nazis. Don’t let them see you.”

“Not all of them are Nazis.” I’m speaking, but the voice doesn’t sound like mine. The words don’t even feel like they’ve come out of my mouth.

“How could you know something like that?” he presses, searching the faces in the rows just as I was.

“One of them has a tattooed number on his forearm. One like I received following registration at Auschwitz.” I push my coat sleeve up, bunching the uniform with it, showing Christoph my forearm. He takes my wrist into his hand, the warmth returning some of my senses that have become ice-cold. “Who did this?”

“The Nazis are responsible for this,” I say, nodding my head toward the column of prisoners. I’m contradicting myself, making no sense to him or me. “The SS mark everyone—inkingnumbers in place of names to identify every person who lives beyond the selection lines.”

He runs his thumb over the puckered skin. “It’s permanent.”

“No more so than the nightmares I’ll carry with me.”

“I’m scared to ask what else they did?—”

“Don’t,” I stop him.

“Sorry.” He lowers his head and releases my arm. “Which of them has a tattoo like yours?”

“The group parallel to us, first row, fourth person in from the left. No member of the SS—no one wearing a German uniform either—would have one of these tattoos.”

Again, Christoph twists to face the fence, searching through the grates for the branded German man. “It would be easy for a Nazi to tattoo himself, and make it look like he’s a former innocent prisoner rather than part of the SS. I wouldn’t put it past them to be that desperate.”

“You think they’d tattoo themselves with numbers like the one on my arm?”

“Yes, but—” Christoph interlocks his fingers along the fence, pulling his face closer to the grates. “That man. Fourth person from the left, first row—he?—”

“What?” I ask, my throat tightening.

Christoph looks at me, his brows angling in toward his nose. Before saying another word, he looks back at the group of prisoners and his jaw tightens. “No—it can’t be him—” he says.

“Wh—who?” The whisper rattles in my chest.

“Noah…”

I push back against the gate as if an extra step closer will help me see any more clearly. The man with numbers inked on his arm shifts his eyes in our direction. The moment is brief and interrupted when he falls, face-first into the slush.

It’s him!

It’s Noah.

I gasp and yank my hand back, smothering it over my mouth.

“They’ve beaten him. His face—he’s bruised, and…” Christoph splutters.