Chapter Twenty Chloe
Chapter Twenty
Chloe
Chloe sat in the dirt, her knees drawn up and her back against the side of the barracks wall.
She knew she’d be reprimanded soon and told to go inside, but sometimes, just sitting and turning her face up to the sun let her imagination take hold.
She could believe, even if just for one minute, that she was anywhere but there, even if the feeling only ever did last a short time.
That she was at home; that her mother was still alive; that she was about to embark upon her first year of university studying literature, that her sister was only one call away.
That her entire life hadn’t been turned upside down – twice.
The sound of footfall made her open her eyes, and she lifted a hand, half expecting the thwack of a baton. But instead, she saw one of the women who’d arrived a few weeks earlier.
‘Hello,’ the woman said, coming closer and holding out her hand. ‘I’m Emma.’
Chloe glanced at her, but she didn’t lift her hand.
‘Do you have any paper?’ Chloe asked.
The woman let out a sudden laugh that sounded more like a cry. Tears began to slip down her cheeks, and Chloe noticed that she didn’t bother to wipe them away as she stood there.
‘I have nothing,’ Emma finally said. ‘The only thing I have here is my daughter, they’ve taken everything else. So no, I don’t even have a piece of damn paper.’
She lowered herself to sit beside Chloe in the dirt, close enough that they could talk in low voices, but far enough away that they weren’t touching.
She watched as the woman named Emma tipped her head against the wall for a moment.
Chloe asked everyone for paper, she never had enough, but no one had ever cried when she’d asked them before.
‘I don’t know why hearing you ask that upset me so much,’ Emma said with a raspy sigh. ‘Just the thought of not having even the most basic provisions I suppose. It’s beyond demeaning, isn’t it?’
‘I understand, you don’t have to explain yourself to me,’ Chloe said, folding the piece of paper she was holding in her hand. ‘How did you end up here? What did you and your daughter do?’
Emma sighed, and Chloe watched as she cradled her hands, palms facing up.
She knew the pain she was in – she remembered too well how raw and red her hands had been when she’d first started working in the factory.
At home, she would have had a basic salve to help soothe her skin, but here they were given nothing.
It was as if they wanted them to suffer, to experience all the pain possible just to see how far they could push a person before they broke.
‘I suppose there’s no point in keeping secrets in here,’ Emma said. ‘It can’t get any worse than it already is.’
Chloe nodded, but the truth was that it could get worse.
She’d seen what they could do to women they didn’t like, or women who got sick or couldn’t work anymore, but she kept her thoughts to herself.
When she’d first arrived, she’d refused to talk to anyone, not wanting to get close to someone and face losing them, but lately, something inside her had changed.
She still didn’t want close personal relationships, but she did want to know the stories of the women in here.
‘My daughter and I were part of the Dutch Resistance,’ Emma said. ‘We were so careful not to be caught, but my husband was known to work for many Jewish clients, so I suppose that was enough to make them suspect us. Maybe it put us on a watch list of sorts.’
Chloe met Emma’s gaze. ‘You were part of the Resistance?’ she asked. ‘Is that why they arrested you and your daughter?’
‘They arrested us because they found the British airman we were hiding in our house,’ Emma said sadly. ‘My daughter went to deliver papers one night and came home with him, and we thought we’d got away with it. But in the end, it was having him in our home that sent us here.’
‘Your husband?’ Chloe asked.
She knew the moment the other woman swallowed roughly and looked away, not answering straight, what the answer was. But Chloe gave her time, sitting in silence beside her.
‘My husband is dead,’ Emma said. ‘Killed the night we were arrested.’
Chloe wasn’t sure why, but there was something about Emma that she was drawn to.
Perhaps it was because she’d been in the Resistance, which reminded her of her brother Claude, or that Emma was of a similar age to her mother, but she found herself holding out her hand.
Or maybe she just, finally, needed a friend.
‘I’m Chloe,’ she said, surprised at how warm Emma’s hand felt in hers when they touched.
‘It’s nice to meet you, Chloe,’ Emma said. ‘Were you in the Resistance too?’
‘My brother was, is,’ she said, praying that it was indeed present tense, but not wanting to get her hopes up. ‘It’s the reason I’m here.’
‘I’ve noticed you distance yourself from the other women,’ Emma eventually said. ‘Do we have to be careful who we trust?’
Chloe shook her head. ‘Not really. Everyone here is just doing their best to survive.’
They were silent again for a long moment, but it was Chloe who broke the silence this time. She found herself taking some of the papers she kept hidden in her clothes out and showing them to Emma.
‘Before the war, before all of this, I wanted to be a writer,’ she said. ‘Well, a poet if I’m honest.’
‘This is your poetry?’ Emma asked, gesturing at the papers Chloe held close to her chest. ‘That’s why you asked me for paper?’
‘I haven’t written a poem since my mother died, the words just aren’t there anymore, but I take down other people’s words.
Their poems, their recipes, their memories,’ she said.
‘If I ever get out of here, I want something I can share, of the women who were here. The mothers, the daughters, the sisters. All of them.’ Chloe took a breath, her shoulders moving up and down.
‘I’d always hoped to publish a collection of poetry, but now this seems more important than anything I’ve ever wanted to write before.
The women smuggle me any paper they can from their work detail if they’re on office or clothes sorting detail. ’
She watched as Emma went still, and Chloe’s fingers tightened on the papers as she looked down at them. Part of her wanted to show this kind woman what she’d been working on, but another part was still cautious about who to trust.
‘How long have you been here?’ Emma whispered.
‘Too long,’ Chloe murmured back. But the truth was, she no longer knew how long it had been.
The days had turned into weeks, until she barely remembered what date it even was.
‘Every day here is the same. More women arrive, more women are killed, more women are marched out to work. The days all blur into the next. But this keeps me going, it gives me something to believe in, something to work on.’
‘What would happen to you, if you were found with this?’
Chloe just shook her head, and she could see from Emma’s stare that she understood.
Emma handed her back the papers. ‘I’ll do my best to find more paper for you,’ she said. ‘What you’re doing, it will matter greatly to the families of those who’ve died.’
Chloe nodded; it was why she was doing it after all, but she wondered if anyone else would ever see it, whether she’d even survive long enough to give it to anyone who could share it.
But something happened then that made her forget all about her work.
Emma reached out and took her hand again, her fingers light and warm as she held Chloe’s palm.
They didn’t say anything else, but the feel of Emma’s skin against hers, after so long of not having another human touch her with kindness, brought tears to her eyes.
It was the simplest act, but in that moment, it meant the world to her.
‘We’d better go back inside soon,’ Chloe said, clearing her throat when she heard how raspy her voice sounded.
Emma just nodded, standing first and offering her hand again.
Chloe grasped it, letting her help her up, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before this kind woman was as weak as the rest of them, and unable to lend a hand to anyone.
But it wasn’t just that thought that made Chloe tearful, it was that somehow, in that moment, Emma reminded her so much of her own mother.
‘At work tomorrow,’ Chloe said, feeling as if she needed to do or say something to help Emma navigate camp life, to give her some kind of advice.
‘Rip off the lowest part of your dress to tie over your mouth and nose. It helps with the fumes. You’ll get used to the smell eventually, but for now, that will help. ’
Emma nodded her thanks and they walked inside, and Chloe found herself staying close to her as they climbed into their beds, just before the Block?lteste came down yelling and swearing at them, and looking for someone to beat.
She would make sure in the morning to warn Emma to steer clear of the ?lteste and her assistants.
The sadism of the guards and those they appointed to run the barracks for them knew no boundaries, but for the first time since she’d arrived, Chloe had the strangest feeling that she might have met a true friend inside the camp walls. That she might have someone to survive with.
Don’t get too close. She’ll only be taken from you.
The warning sounded in her mind even as she tried to force it away.
She’d been reluctant to befriend anyone, too scared of losing someone she cared about after seeing how many women were killed for little more than breathing the wrong way.
But Chloe was tired of being alone. She was tired of being lonely.
She was tired of all the death and the sadness and the silence.
And she missed her mother almost more now than when she’d first lost her.
She felt for the papers, tucked up her sleeve, a familiar comfort to her, an obsession that she could no more stop working on than she could stop breathing.
But then her thoughts turned to home, as they always did after lights out, and she forgot all about Emma and her papers and the camp, as she lost herself to the tears that always found her before sleep as she cried for home.