Chapter 38
THIRTY-EIGHT
Auschwitz, O?wi?cim, Poland
“You’re still sick, aren’t you?” Elsa whispers, the poor girl stuck working alongside me.
If I open my mouth to respond, I’ll vomit…
I try to nod my head, enough to answer her.
Heat splashes me in the face. Not just heat, but a scorching boil of steam as I scoop up discarded clothing from in front of the cremation chamber and drop it into the half-loaded wagon.
The smell of decay, ash, and flesh wreak havoc as it is on my empty stomach.
But there’s something more going on inside of me than just hunger.
Fire spews out from the sides of the metal enclosure, and all I can do is stare into the dancing flame, wondering what that person’s last thought was before entering the gas chamber.
Another wagon rolls in, which tells me we’ve taken too long.
“We need to move,” Elsa says.
I dump the rest of the strewn clothing on top of the pile and lift one of the handles of the wagon as she lifts the other handle of the wagon too. My occupation was once listed as a seamstress, but not when I arrived at Auschwitz.
“It’s been weeks,” Elsa says as we push toward the exit created only for Germans soldiers to walk out of—except for slave laborers collecting clothing for the sewing block.
It has been weeks. My stomach burns and aches as if I’ve been beaten daily. Fortunately, I haven’t been. I’m not sure if my body is giving out from the hunger or something else is eating me from the inside. Today is the worst it’s been.
The walls of the laundry barrack blur around me as we make our way inside, heading for the growing pile of clothes.
A whistle blows from outside the building, the trill bouncing between my ears.
“What’s the use in having a roll call at this hour?” Elsa mutters. “They must not even know what time of day it is anymore.”
I step away from the wagon, only to catch myself on the rim of the wash bin. I try to push myself back up, but my knees buckle and my body collapses.
“Celina,” Elsa shouts in a whisper. She tries to pull me back up and bile violently spews from my throat.
“Get her out of here. Take her to the infirmary,” a deep gravelly sound of a block-elder’s voice shouting over me.
I can’t move myself. More bile expels, the motion pinning me to the ground as I lie in my own sick.
Someone grabs my ankles and someone else wrenches their hands beneath my arms, shuffling me out the door like a rag doll.
My body sways, my organs sloshing around inside of my empty body as pain continues to ripple through me.
The cold should feel good on my face now, but it stabs me like tiny ice picks all over my body.
The women carrying me exchange breathless complaints, words I can’t make out as the world spins around me, pulling me into a funnel of darkness.
* * *
When I wake, I’m surrounded by infirmary cots, each filled with another sick person. “Another case of dysentery,” someone dressed like a nurse grumbles.
“How long have you been sick?”
My eyes blink slowly as if fighting against the thick damp air in this building. “Two weeks, maybe,” I utter, unsure if that’s true anymore.
“Here’s a waste bucket,” the woman says, shoving it against the side of my legs.
The metal handle claps against the bucket, the ping piercing through my skull.
My body jerks at the sound as if I’ve been struck by something.
As if following a command, I reach toward it, my fingers unsteady and twitching.
They don’t even look like my hands. All flesh and bone, so thin with green and purple veins contrasting the paleness.
I pull my hand back, giving up on the bucket.
The putrid sour stench of sickness sticks like a fog, never thinning or drying up. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth like wool against wool. I try to turn my head away from where the smell is growing the strongest, but my neck is stiff, and suddenly very cold.
I shiver though the room is muggy from the number of people crammed into this space. A cold sweat in January isn’t right. Even beneath a wool blanket, the cold feels like knives scraping against my skin.
It isn’t the first time I’ve felt like this in the past few days.
It’s a fever that comes and goes. One minute I’m shivering until my muscles ache, and the next my skin sears like it’s on fire.
My clothes are damp and won’t dry and someone has removed my shoes, leaving my bare feet numb and detached.
I don’t remember grabbing the bucket, but it’s clenched between my shaking arms as liquid pelts against the metal repeatedly, my stomach twisting like a wet rag wrung out.
When my stomach is empty—the rag is dry—I choke on air, trying to purge the oxygen from my body, so hard, spots flicker in front of my eyes.
My throat is scorching from an acidic burn, and my ribs hurt every time I breathe.
Voices move around me, some with words that make no sense, and others that I wish made no sense.
“That one isn’t going to last much longer. Let her be.”
“I was thinking the same.”
* * *
A cool tin touches my lips, water trickling into my mouth.
I swallow just once before it comes back up, bitter and spoiled, spilling out of the sides of my mouth and down my chin and neck.
I don’t bother to wipe it away. The thought of disappearing into the straw mattress only lasts long enough until I drift. Out of my mind. Out of my body.
Then I return. The faces around me are back. The bucket is empty and shoved back against my legs and I clench my fists by my side, willing my body to stop expelling air. I try to think of something else. Something away from here. A distraction from fearing the next use of the bucket.
Noah’s hands, warmth. His arms around me.
Lips on my neck. The way he spoke my name, as if I were a rare flower he’d waited his life to see.
I mattered. I felt how much I mattered to him.
My heart was full. So full. The memory never lasts.
It flickers like the end of a candle’s wick before turning into a string of smoke.
Heaven is one long memory. I should stop wondering if I’ll die, but how much longer it will take.
* * *
My eyes flash open, focusing on the bucket by my legs. How long since I’ve touched it? I can’t remember. I try to reach for it out of habit, but my arms refuse to move.
Footsteps approach. Not heavy boots, or the clunks of a block elder making their presence known. Someone not in a rush, someone doing a job they’ve done hundreds of times before. The splat of a mop follows then the slosh of water moving back and forth.
Then the bucket nudges against my legs, gentle enough not to disturb me. The slosh of more water hits the floor, followed by the mop’s splat. A breath catches. But not mine. As if someone is choking.
I try to open my eyes, but the heaviness is like a glare of sun my body knows to avoid. Something brushes against my wrist—a sensation so faint I can only imagine a feather.
“No,” a voice cries through a whisper.
The word pinches into silence.
Again, I try to force my eyes open, even if just to squint. The little bit of light around me burns and blurs my vision, but I try to blink against the weakness and ache. I see a striped sleeve, dirt-covered, folded squarely at the thin forearm that floats between the opening.
“Celina,” he whispers.
The sound of my name could be mistaken for a gust of wind, and floats over me so quickly I’m not sure it was a sound at all. I wouldn’t hear it even if someone did speak it. I no longer have a name, just a number.
His other hand lifts, unsteady, shaking as if saying a prayer over my body. Except his touch rests against my stomach. A cry scrapes against his throat as his hands steady. His breath stutters, like an engine that won’t start, and a tremor works through his hands and fingers.
“I’m here,” he whispers, pressing his forehead against my shoulder, then cups his hands around mine. “I’m here, my love.”
My love. The cadence in the word, the emphasis on love—clings to something inside of me. My fingers twitch within his hold. And he doesn’t move. He doesn’t let go. He continues holding on as if I’m already gone.
“I’m going to get you out,” he whispers, his breath barely grasping onto air. “I will. I don’t care what it takes… I won’t leave you here.” He sniffles. “Never again.”
Never again. It’s as if those words have defined us.
I try to see his face, but he won’t lift it from my shoulder.
I try to speak, but I can’t find a way to make a sound.
A fever never relinquishes control.
“I promise you,” he says, his word scratching over a hushed sound. “You’re going to live. You must hear me. I won’t break this promise.”
I need my voice to work, or air to move through my throat.
But it won’t.
Within the darkness of my mind, I focus on the warmth of his hand. I know this hand. Why does this feel so much like him? A hand I’ve held so many times before. The grip—it makes my hand stop shivering for the first time in days.
His thumb brushes over my knuckles.
Then my body sinks heavier into the cot, the sensation of metal against my leg disappears, and a heaviness pulls my mind into a restful sleep.