Page 79 of The Lost Husband

Avi is still awake, pale, grasping the wool blanket draped over her. Her eyes are wide, unblinking, but staring straight at me as I make my way back to her side.

Elias is leaning against the wall by her head on the other side. “He’s gone?” he asks quietly.

“Why?” Avi asks. “Why did he leave us here?”

“The same reason Celina has led us to follow the Soviet column,” Elias mutters. “Her husband is apparently here among the German soldiers. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it, Celina?”

My heart pounds with both anger and resentment, but at the same time I know I need to understand his perspective. I have been acting like a person with a head injury—Iama person with a head injury. One who easily could be imagining things that aren’t there. But Elias doesn’t know me. And I am right.

“You think you saw Noah again?” Avi asks, her voice croaking.

“I did see him. First, at the train depot. A man aiding the Soviets told me where they were moving next. I knew he would be here in a week’s time, and he is. Christoph and I both saw him outside earlier.”

“How can you think Christoph will make it to Amsterdam and back here within a week?” Elias demands. “Even after being locked up for the last year and a half, I know there’s very little transportation available, never mind the difficulty of crossing country borders. The only thing that has changed since our liberation is the path the Soviets are taking to push out the SS. It’s just an exchange of power. We are still at war.”

“A week?” Avi asks. “We have to wait here a week with them?”

“You don’t have to wait here with me.” I don’t think. It isn’t the two of them the Soviets are holding for questioning, it’s me. “But you also need to continue the penicillin treatment they’re giving you. You can’t go anywhere right now.”

“If I could take the penicillin and run, I’d be tempted,” Avi grumbles.

“Elias, you don’t have to stay, either. You’ve helped us more than I could ever thank you for.” Despite his anger toward me, I know we’ve all leaned on each other for support since we set off on our own path.

Elias’s subtle gaze falls over Avi. “I’m not leaving you two to fend for yourselves, but I don’t want to be a prisoner anymore, Celina. You must understand.”

“I do. I don’t want to stay here any longer than you do, but if you knew someone you love was mixed in with a gang of prisoners, would you leave them behind?”

“Why did you think he was dead until now?” Avi asks. “Or until you saw him at the train depot.”

I blink for a long second, only hearing the gunshot echo within my mind. Then the image of a body in a pool of blood. “He was spotted by the SS during a roundup in Amsterdam. We didn’t even have bands on our arms because we had—different papers… but it didn’t matter. Noah made me slip into a narrow alley, without him.” I look down at my flat, almost concave stomach, and press my hand in the center. “I was pregnant with our baby girl. He was protecting us.”

Avi’s bottom lip falls and her brows furrow. “Celina—” she exhales.

“I heard a gunshot. Ran back to the corner rather than running away like he told me to. I saw a man, dead in a pool of blood on the street. Same white shirt. Same color hair. I was certain it was him. With my heart shattered into a million pieces, I forced myself to go the other way, and I’ve regretted it since.”

“Why would you regret that? He was trying to save you?” Elias asks.

“Our baby was never meant to be. She died a couple of months later, before birth. I thought maybe Iwassupposed to try and save him. All I know was, something altered our lives, and what we thought was meant to be. We were supposed tobe parents, together, not one of us alone. So, nature corrected itself,” as Frau Drexel kindly put it—as if loss is a gift rather than a life-sentence of grief. “I’ve been left wondering if everything following that roundup was a punishment to me for giving up on him that day. In return, our baby gave up on me.”

The silence that follows my explanation only confirms the sensibility of my thoughts. How could I think otherwise? I knew I couldn’t live without him, so what was the purpose in leaving his side when he needed me most?

“You’re wrong,” Avi says. “You did everything you were supposed to do. And if you had given birth to your daughter, then been identified as a Jew, you both would have been killed at once. The world wasn’t ready for her yet, and in turn, she savedyourlife.”

A gunshot fires outside, rattling the window and my rib cage. I turn and yank the drape to the side, then peek out. The view leads directly to the prisoner yard, and a line of Soviets pointing their rifles at German soldiers’ heads.

THIRTY-TWO

CURRENT DAY

Gliwice, Poland

The canal by our flat glistens in blue and green, a breeze carries along the sweet smell of tulips, and the sun warms my skin, a comforting tingle following a momentary chill. Then the canal drains, water disappears into the cracks of the earth, the roads crumble and smoke ambushes us from each side. A hand around my wrist pulls aimlessly through the smoke. I can’t take in a breath without choking on the air.

The smoke thins and the crematorium door opens wide with a piercing metal squeal. I kick and scream, pushing myself away from the human oven. “I’m still alive!” Hands clamp around my arms and lift me up. “No! Don’t put me in there!” I spin around, a forceful jerk, facing the SS uniform—facing Noah. The freckles on his nose sparkle in the flickering fire. “Noah? What—what are you doing here? Why are you dressed like?—”

“If you scream, it will only make this worse.”

“What? What could be worse?”