Chapter Twenty-Eight Amira
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Amira
‘Remember that your every move will be scrutinised,’ Gisele said to Amira, as they sat in the back of the car together. ‘Remember everything Hans said to you.’
Hans had arranged a driver for them, and Gisele had insisted on seeing her to the gate, since Hans had said it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to do so. He’d done as much as he could, personally meeting with SS Oberführer Hermann Pister and explaining what had happened. It hadn’t been enough for Fred to be released, given the evidence against him, but it had been enough to have him transferred, and for Amira to be given a dispensation to join him.
She’d waited, terrified, for her paperwork to be scrutinised before she received an answer, but Hans had assured her there would be little attention paid to someone wanting to enter the camp. It had made her think of her father, who’d worked such long, tiresome hours, checking through papers and looking for false documentation. She knew it had broken his heart every time he detected a forgery, for it would have spelled the end for someone just like the daughter he’d worked so hard to protect.
‘I know you don’t agree with what I’m doing, but thank you,’ Amira said, putting her arms around Gisele, feeling so guilty for not telling her she was pregnant, but knowing there was no way she would let her out of the car if she knew the truth. ‘Thank you for everything, and please thank Hans again, too.’
‘He ended up being quite the unlikely ally.’
‘Perhaps we should have trusted him sooner,’ Amira said. ‘It might have avoided all of this.’
‘Don’t say that, it only makes me feel worse for not trusting him in the first place.’ But of course they hadn’t told him everything – he still believed that Fred was an innocent man, by Nazi standards – which was the way it had to be. Otherwise, Amira doubted he would have even considered helping them.
‘I wish I could give you something, or that I could talk you out of this entirely, but Hans said you would only be allowed the small suitcase of clothes and whatever you were wearing,’ Gisele said. ‘He said to pray that you weren’t asked to surrender it, but that in the special quarters you should be able to keep it all.’
Amira nodded. Hans had told her the same, but she was under no illusion about what could happen. She shuddered, thinking of the endless piles of clothes and other goods that she’d helped to sort through, of all the prisoners who’d had everything taken from them.
‘I best go now before I lose my nerve,’ she said. ‘Goodbye, Gisele.’
‘I’m going to walk you.’
‘No, let us say goodbye here. I couldn’t bear to have you standing there when I walk through.’
Gisele had tears streaming down her cheeks as she hugged her. ‘Are you certain there’s not another way? I just, I can’t stop thinking—’
‘There’s no other way,’ Amira said, kissing her friend’s tear-damp cheek. ‘Please don’t make this harder for me than it already is.’
Gisele nodded, smiling and squeezing her hand, which only made it more difficult not to tell her. She’d always imagined Gisele being the first person she’d tell when she was expecting, had thought it would be a special moment they’d share, and instead she was keeping it from her entirely.
It took all of Amira’s willpower to get out of the car instead of huddling beside her friend and telling the driver to leave. When she did get out, she closed the door and walked as quickly as she could towards the gates, looking up at the ironwork and trying not to shudder as she glanced to each side and saw the guards in towers. She prayed they didn’t point their rifles in her direction.
‘Halt!’
Amira halted and held out her papers. ‘I am Amira Schulz, and I am here to join my husband Frederick Schulz at the Fichtenhain Special Camp.’
The guard laughed. ‘Here to join him, are you? I’d turn around then get back in the car if I were you.’
‘My papers have been issued by SS Oberführer Hermann Pister, and he told me to report today to enter the camp.’
At the mention of Pister’s name, the guard reached through the gates to take her papers, scanning the first one and then the other, before passing her identity papers back to her.
‘Stand back!’ he ordered, as another guard came to open the gate.
She stood there, trying to be brave as she was pointed in the direction of a concrete building set to the side of the gates. There were trees in the distance and many similar buildings that looked to be barracks, but she turned her attention to the guard who was walking quickly and expecting her to keep up.
‘This is the Fichtenhain Special Camp,’ he said. ‘You are not to leave the building unless you are ordered. You are here as special guests of the Führer, and as such you will have privileges that others in the camp do not receive.’
She nodded. ‘Thank you.’
‘Check her luggage!’ the guard yelled, as a much younger man in uniform ran forward, snatching her case from her.
Amira stood by, mortified as he rummaged through her clothes and underwear. Hans had told her only to bring clothes and toiletries, that anything else would likely be confiscated, and she’d followed his suggestion.
‘Do you have anything of value on your person?’
‘Only my wedding ring,’ she murmured, holding out her hand. ‘And my watch.’
It was a simple gold band, and one they didn’t seem interested in, and her watch was modest and not of high enough value to them, either.
When they had finished inspecting her things, and with dirt now staining the spare blouses she’d packed, Amira dropped to her haunches and quickly stuffed everything back in, closing the lid.
‘What’s she here for?’ the younger guard asked.
‘Stupid enough to want to join her husband,’ the other guard muttered. ‘You can take her from here.’
Amira shuffled forward and tried to ignore the knot in her stomach as the guard opened the door to the building. It was dim inside, and she squinted as he shoved her, his rifle pointing into her back.
And as soon as she was in, the door shut behind her with a bang.
I’m here. Now all I have to do is find Fred.
‘Fred?’ she called out, looking around for his familiar face. ‘Hello?’
Someone appeared from another room then, a man with wide eyes that looked too big for his skull.
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Amira Schulz,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for my husband, Frederick Schulz.’
‘The pianist?’ he asked.
‘Yes!’ she gasped. ‘The pianist. You know him?’
He nodded. ‘He’s not here, but he’ll be back soon.’
‘He’s not here? I thought we weren’t allowed to leave the building?’ Panic rose inside of her and she looked back at the solid door that had been shut behind her.
‘They’re making him play for them,’ the man said. ‘But he’ll be back soon enough. Come and sit with us.’
Amira’s fingers tightened around the handle of her suitcase. She had never been so uncomfortable, but there was nothing she could do other than go with the man.
‘There are others here, you’ll be perfectly fine,’ he said. ‘It’s not so bad as out there.’ He hooked a thumb at the metal-barred window.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘If you wouldn’t mind showing me to where Fred’s quarters are.’
A small smile touched the man’s lips. ‘I’m afraid we’re all piled in here together. There’s not many of us with privacy, but we’re the lucky ones. The story is that we’re the ones the SS want to keep alive, hostages rather than prisoners.’
She nodded politely and followed him, but she couldn’t help but place a hand to her stomach, the reality of her decision resting heavy inside of her.
What have I done?
It was hours later, with darkness creeping around them and a chill against her skin so cold that Amira couldn’t stop shivering, when the door opened with a bang. She’d been waiting, sitting on a mattress on the floor and staring at it, praying that Fred would walk through and that it hadn’t all been a terrible mistake.
It was hard to see the man’s face when he first walked in, his shoulders slumped, but when she said his name, his head lifted.
‘Fred? Is that you?’
‘Amira?’ He said her name quietly, hesitantly, as if he weren’t certain it was truly her.
‘Fred?’ she whispered, taking a step forward, before rushing the rest of the way. ‘Oh my gosh, Fred ! It’s you!’
He opened his arms and embraced her, but she quickly let go when she felt how thin he was beneath his ill-fitting clothes.
‘Fred, I barely recognised you with your head shaved,’ she said, pulling back and looking up at him. She raised a hand, waiting for him to nod his acceptance before gently running her palm across his head. ‘Your beautiful thick hair. But it will grow back, it won’t take long for you to look like you again.’
‘How did you get here? What happened?’ Fred’s eyes widened, and he rubbed at them as if he were hallucinating. ‘Were you arrested because of me? What have they done to you?’
She shook her head. ‘I voluntarily entered the camp.’
‘Amira, you didn’t,’ he gasped. ‘Please tell me you didn’t.’
‘We made a promise to each other, Fred, that we would do anything we had to, to keep each other safe.’
‘But Amira, I would never, I—’
She took a deep breath. ‘There is no need to say anything. We’re going to survive this place together, Fred. I promise.’
‘You haven’t seen what they do here though, Amira,’ he whispered. ‘If you’d seen what I have...’
Amira went to take his hand and he quickly pulled it away, the pain seeming like knives stabbing deep into his skin.
‘What’s happened to your hand?’
‘Never mind my hand,’ he muttered. ‘We need to find a way to get you out of here. You should never have come.’