Page 88 of The Lost Husband

“I’ll take him—” Christoph moves toward us just as an indecipherable shout rips through the corridor. Russian. Another voice follows that one. Boots with sticky soles charge closer.

Christoph whips his head toward the door. “They’re coming.”

The thud of boots grows louder.

“He can’t walk. He can’t lift his head.”

Christoph kneels beside us, the beam of his flashlight shaking as he pinches it under his armpit. “Noah,” he whimpers quietly.

Noah’s eyes find Christoph’s face, a struggle weighing on his eyelids.

“Chris—” Noah exhales, his name hardly begins or ends.

Another shout thunders through the corridor. There’s no time left.

“We must hide him. Help me,” I say, gripping Noah’s arm.

“No, no. It’s too late for that.” He’s watching the door. I’m watching him, waiting for him to think faster than me.

He turns back to us, and the look on his face tells me everything without saying anything more than, “Stay down.”

“No—what—what are you doing?” I whisper harshly.

“Celina,” he mutters. “Stop.”

The light from another flashlight breaks through the room. “I told you no talking, no moving, no nothing!” a Soviet guard shouts into the room, gliding his light-beam across the bodies.

Christoph steps toward the doorway before the soldier can react. “I’m not a German prisoner?—”

The soldier lifts his rifle.

A shot blasts through the room, the blow deafening us within the enclosed room.

“What are you—” another Soviet shouts. “He’s not a prisoner!”

“I—he—” the two battle through words.

“Christoph…” I scream, reaching for him just as he collapses by my side, his head landing on another person’s leg. He’s holding his hand over his chest, breathing slow and shallow. “Christoph, no!”

“His—his pa—pers. My—my pock—et.” His eyes widen, but his chest is still moving up and down slowly. He swallows hard. “You—you found him,” he whispers. “That—that’s what—what matt—ers.”

“No. No. That’s not—you matter. You matter too. Please, no…” I cry, my throat tightening. “You’re our family. You know that. You called me your sister at our wedding. Remember?” The words pinch out of me, hardly decipherable.

“Yes,” he croaks, “and I—should have—protected you before.” His eyes clench, face wincing. “I’m—doing it…now…”

THIRTY-SIX

JULY 1944

Auschwitz, Oswiecim, Poland

The woman in charge of my barrack, the kapo, a hollow-eyed beast with a narrow face and drooping jowls, has been shouting at all the women of block twenty-five since dawn as we stand in front of our rows of tiered bunks. Her voice grits like sand scratching metal as she intentionally steals the few precious minutes we need for the toilets before the guards line us up like cattle for roll call.

“You. Wagon duty, now,” she says, stepping in so close, her rotten breath sours my stomach.

“What does that?—”

“Now!” she screams, slashing a cracked leather belt against my bare leg. The throb and sting burn across my skin, radiating up to my thigh like flames. I clamp my teeth into my tongue until the metallic taste of blood fills my mouth. I’d rather that than give her the satisfaction of my pain.