Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
CURRENT DAY
Mys?owice, Poland
Every step we take away from the town-hall shelter, my unease grows.
Elias and Avi don’t know the full truth about me seeing Noah at the train depot a week ago, which means they don’t know that’s why we’re following this route.
Avi hasn’t asked for details and I haven’t offered them. I’ve put them through enough.
But leaving them behind would feel wrong too.
They’re young. I don’t know what’s safe.
Neither do they. Neither does Christoph, for that matter.
No one does. And despite my private agenda of following Noah, northwest is still the only direction the Soviets are pushing to end German power. It’s still the logical choice.
Elias is still charging ahead with Avi in his arms as Christoph pulls his map back out, folding it down to the square we’re moving through. “How do you know this route toward the freight line is safest?” I ask quietly.
Christoph doesn’t stop moving. Fog exhausts from his mouth, enough for me to gauge his level of frustration.
“I don’t,” he says. “I only know which routes we shouldn’t be going.”
“That’s not a good enough answer,” I argue, wrapping my arms around my waist to stop myself from shivering so hard.
Christoph drops the linen sack off his shoulder and yanks out one of the wool blankets and hands it to me. “Celina, it’s the only honest answer I can give you. This country is in ruins. Roads are gone. Villages blown to bits. I’ve been keeping track of what has been obliterated.”
I drape the blanket around my shoulders and clap it together at my neck.
“How have you been keeping track of this?” Since the war started, everything has been a mirage of truths and lies.
“After the Allied bombs hit Amsterdam two years ago, I started reading headlines—between headlines, weighing data, watching the economy—doing what Noah would do. We’re living in a lawless time, something I never thought would happen. And I was wrong.”
There were Allied bombings at home.
“What part of Amsterdam got hit?”
“North, away from the city center.”
“I didn’t know.”
Christoph takes a deep breath and scratches his fingers against his chest. “I had—I had moved just across the river shortly after you—a friend took me in…”
It’s hard to avoid the feeling of resentment. I try to push the thoughts away whenever they fill my head, but there are still questions of why me—why us—why all the Jewish people? Why would Christoph need to be taken in by a friend?
“Celina,” he says, “I—”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me,” I tell him. I’ve known Christoph long enough to read the guilt on his face.
“Yes, I do. I can only imagine what you had been thinking, and what you still do think.”
“It doesn’t matter, truly.” Maybe not at this moment, but someday, it might.
Christoph cranes his neck to catch my fallen gaze.
“Please, listen to me,” he says. “Shortly after you went to stay at the convent, the man who was leading the forgery resistance program that Noah and I were working with was captured by German soldiers. Jewish names were exposed. All the work we had been doing stopped abruptly, and our concerns turned to anyone we were protecting. I knew anything I sent you would be flagged, and I couldn’t risk your safety.
I knew the church would take care of you—and—well, the—your—ba—baby—” He pauses, and I’m not sure if it’s for a response or his own need to take a breath.
“I knew that even when they found out you were pregnant, they would take mercy on you and keep you both safe. They wouldn’t release a pregnant woman onto the streets… ”
I stare through Christoph. My mind blank, hollow, full, upside-down. “You were right.” It’s all I can say.
“What—what happened?”
“I—can’t talk about it. It’s too painful.” I touch my fingers to my stomach. “She didn’t make it.”
Christoph closes his eyes and swallows hard, then lifts his hand to his heart. “Celina, I’m so—”
“Please don’t. Don’t do that.”
My plea leaves us in a silence that can’t be filled.
As I stare at the muddy boot tracks ahead of us, I slow my pace.
Christoph slows down with me while Elias continues at the same rate he’s been walking since we left.
He’s going to exert every bit of his energy by carrying Avi, long before we find another shelter.
“It looks like we’re on the Soviets’ path,” I say, the wind burning my throat. “Those footprints look new.”
Somewhere not too far off, metal clinks and whines amid the wind before the silence returns.
Christoph clears his throat and scratches the back of his neck.
It takes him some time to switch his frame of thought and respond.
“Uh—ye—yes. They do. They could also be Germans retreating,” he says.
“We should move to a parallel route, so we aren’t following directly behind them.
Not when they might lead straight into camps, spaces to detain the prisoners. ”
“Camps,” I repeat. “Death camps.”
“That’s where the executions of the Nazis are happening the fastest.” His words stiff and cold. “They’d rather unload those they don’t need before continuing northwest, I’m sure.”
“You can’t know that for sure. You couldn’t have read that in some headline.”
Christoph turns his head, his cold-watery eyes wide. “What else would they be doing with them?”
But he’s likely correct. Igor said they would be interrogating them first. They will get rid of whoever they don’t need before continuing to the freight line that will transport them to detention camps.
I assume that means they will keep whoever is worthy of notable information that could be of use later. “What if they deem Noah as excess?”
Christoph doesn’t answer right away. His gaze lingers off toward the trees for a long moment before forcing himself to refocus on the road ahead.
Elias is slowing down ahead of us, reshuffling Avi into a better position within his arms. “I’ll take her for a while,” Christoph calls out to him.
Elias had already rejected his offer when we left the shelter, but he stops this time and turns to face us. “My arms could use a short break,” he says. “Thank you.”
When Avi slides into Christoph’s arms, I press the back of my hand to her forehead.
She’s still as warm as she was this morning, even out here in the freezing cold.
She slips between Christoph’s arms, just enough to make him gasp and tighten his grip around her.
She doesn’t flinch or make a sound. She’s still asleep.
Elias presses his hands into his hips, his head hanging low as he drags in air.
“Yesterday, just before I reached you, I watched a Soviet truck full of German prisoners drive past me. Then it returned, passing me again, but the truck was empty.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“They were drunk, arms hanging out the windows with flasks dangling from their fingers. Not in celebration, but in something far darker. When I came across an aid table not long after, I asked the two women organizing supplies to point me in the best direction to reach the shelter you were registered in. They asked for the location and when I answered, their faces went pale.”
I stumble against my own feet, apprehension tipping me out of balance. “What did they tell you?”
“To stay away from the Soviets busy crossing German names off lists.”
* * *
Twice more, Elias and Christoph exchange Avi, who seems more alert now that we’re planning to stop before the sun sets.
Christoph pulls out the map, a repetitive pattern for every thirty minutes we walk.
He unfolds it, studies it briefly, then refolds it and shoves it back into his inner coat pocket and makes a distinct pivot toward the bony woods.
“Over here,” he says. “We’re getting off track. ”
We follow sluggishly. My knees quiver and I can’t feel my toes.
The woods finally spill us into a narrow opening around a set of rail tracks—a path we can hopefully follow.
My eyes are constantly scanning the area.
Searching for boot prints, discarded gear, the hint of a German hat, half frozen in the snow.
Anything that might hint at the column passing this way if it has already.
Christoph searches in every direction for every step he takes. Worry pokes through his focused expression. There’s nowhere for us to stop.
“I can’t go much farther,” Elias says. “I need to stop.”
We’ll lose time if we do. If Christoph was right and thinks it will take more than two days to get to the larch mills in Gliwice, I might not have time to spare. Elias looks at me then Christoph, his eyes bloodshot from the wind, his mouth agape from breathing too hard.
“We can’t stop here in the open,” Christoph says. “The wind—it’ll do its worst to us. We need a maintenance shed or a switch house. Railways were built to be serviced.”
“They may have been flattened,” Elias says.
“Why doesn’t anyone think I can walk?” Avi groans from his arms. I’m not sure she can. She’s been so weak from whatever virus has been clinging to her insides.
Elias sets her on her feet, keeping his arm around her back and beneath her arms. “I can walk,” she argues again, a wet cough following.
I move to her side. “How are you feeling?”
“Like my blood has turned into solid ice. Even my nostrils are frozen, which is helping my runny nose. My head seems disconnected from my body.”
I remove my blanket and drape it over her head to give her another layer of warmth. “You need to fight this off more than I need warmth right now.”
We curve around the rails, finding no sight of a switch house or maintenance shed. But at least we’re still walking. I suspect my legs will eventually give out, but the more distance we can cover now, the better.
Christoph cranes his head forward, squinting toward something in the distance. All I see are trees. He hurries past us in a slow jog, making his way around the bend and disappearing around the other side without a word.
“Your friend seems to know what he’s doing,” Avi says.
Elias moves along ahead of us, working to catch up with Christoph.
And as slow as the two of us are moving, I begin to question why they haven’t returned as we near the bend.
Before I can think of a single response, the sight of steel appears first, a rusty edge slicing through a tall mound of snow.
Three railcars tipped onto their sides sit half buried, their doors hanging open like mouths of the deceased.
Christoph and Elias are poking their heads through the open door of the third cart.
Christoph leaps in, a clamber of knees against metal echoes between the bare trees.
He slides back out a moment later. “Let’s get them in there,” he breathlessly calls out to Elias.
“We can’t keep going without rest.” He’s watching as we approach with a troubled look on his face.
Avi coughs, grabbing onto my shoulder for support.
The sound is violent, tearing out of her chest, echoing off the steel.
She shakes uncontrollably. I won’t try and convince them to keep moving tonight.
Avi needs to rest. She needs to get better, and I need to pray we can still somehow make it to the freight line before the Soviet column does.
Elias swears under his breath before pulling her away from me, bracing her body against him as her knees give out.
“Avi!” I shout, lunging toward Elias as if I could help. I don’t think much will help her right now, not even whatever form of shelter this is. It’s a wreckage at best.
“I need to get her inside,” Elias says, breathlessly before scooping her up and forging toward the entrance of the railcar.
The entrance is a dark hole, foreboding, outlined with blackened rust. Inside, something flickers with an orange glow. Not steady. Not safe.
Fire.
My chest tightens. My throat closes.
“No,” I gasp, stumbling backward, falling into the snow. “No, no, no—”
Heat rushes against my face. My skin prickles from the violent contrast of hot and cold. The air thickens into ash, something too familiar and unforgettable.
I clamp my hand around my throat as if a noose is tightening. A scream tears out of me before I can stop it, ferocious enough to knock icicles from the trees.
Hands grasp my arms.
Steel shrieks against steel, slicing into my ears.
“Celina!”
Christoph’s voice cuts through the high-pitched ringing.
I jerk my arm from his grip, shaking my head, my body collapsing sideways into the wet snow.
The railcar moans and cries. It could be someone shouting in the distance. I can’t tell anymore.
“I—I don’t want to—I don’t want to be burned,” I shriek. “I don’t want to be burned alive.”
“There’s—there’s no fire,” Christoph says, and it sounds as if he’s trying to convince himself as much as me. “Come on, let’s get inside.”
Nobody is coming after us. There’s no fire yet.
Yet.