Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
CURRENT DAY
Gliwice, Poland
Knuckles brushing against my stomach…
I gasp, a striking broken breath choking out of me as the cold surface beneath my arm pleads for more warmth.
When I was sick in the Auschwitz infirmary… Noah was there. I’d forgotten, thought it was just a figment of my feverish imagination. But he was really there.
Not in a German uniform. He was in stripes like me.
My pulse pelts through every vein as I push myself up on one elbow and look at him again.
A closer look. The bruises distort his face, the dirt layered so thick it deceives the shape beneath.
My body knows he’s here. My heart does too.
It’s my mind that’s still trying to catch up—trying to piece together parts that don’t fit.
My hand moves to his cheek, tracing the familiar slope beneath the swelling.
I blink for a long breath, remembering the precise fingertip distance between his cheekbone and eye when I sketched him—how I knew exactly where the light would catch and the shadow would fall.
This isn’t what I remember. But it’s him.
His breath catches again, still slight, still uneven. His hand twitches—just a twitch, not a touch—as if his body knows I’m here even though he might not.
I slide my arm behind Noah’s neck, pulling him to me.
“Careful,” Elias says through a gasp. “We—you—we can’t move him too quickly.
It—uh—” He clenches his eyes as if he’s forgotten how to speak.
“His heart—we must be careful. He needs stillness.” How does he know all of this?
He’s so young. How do I know so little? “I saw the effects of experiments at Auschwitz. The cold weather ones.”
The reminder of naked women standing out in the snow behind one of the barracks—turning blue, shivering so hard, they were groaning—it’s not something I want to see again.
I hold my breath as I hold him in place. Avi presses the blankets in as extra support. “Celina, where’s Christoph? It’s been hours since you left with him,” she presses after I didn’t answer Elias when he asked, and her question hangs above my head. Something I want to push away.
Elias appears out of the corner of my eye, his coat in hand. He places it over Noah, adding to the layers. “Does he know you found Noah?” he adds.
“Yes,” I say, not answering Avi’s question this time. Only Elias’s.
“The warmth has to come from the center—his heart,” Elias says.
I tangle my legs around his and hold him tightly to my chest.
“Cover my head to lock in the hot air,” I say.
“Use my coat to wrap around his head, just leave his mouth and nose free to get in as much air as he can,” Avi pipes in, her confidence louder than any thought I have. I don’t know how to save my husband. Is this why we’re here like this?
Her arm wraps around me, her head resting on the coat covering mine.
If I can just warm his heart.
My cheek is against his neck.
Please God, please. Please save him. Help me save him. Please. I’d give up my life for his. Take me instead. Please.
Flashes of memories reel through my mind—the moments I refuse to let go of—the look in his eyes when he realized he was going to become a father.
The fierce glare of protection in his eyes whenever we passed someone looking at us for too long.
It was as if I was his purpose in life—keeping me safe by shielding me from all that was evil.
The night he asked me to marry him. I swore I could see our future playing out in front of my eyes. All I could think about was that moment being the perfect definition of surrealism—our life, a masterpiece of art with a foretelling of a dream I carefully envisioned.
The first time he told me loved me… On a canal boat, drifting down the river on a spring day, flower petals snowing over us. Like a Monet painting, capturing every emotion in one still moment.
Our first kiss, sitting beneath a bridge.
I was teasing him about the freckles on his nose, asking if Noah’s ark would save me from the great flood.
It took him a minute to catch my joke, but then he laughed, and laughed, and then he stopped.
Our stare became unbreakable, an unexplainable bond between us.
His eyes glistened from reflections bouncing off the water, and my entire world shifted when he finally responded.
“I’d save you from anything,” he said. His words were a whisper against my lips, laced with a soft chuckle.
His lips touched mine, a sensation I couldn’t convey on canvas.
Something sacred only our souls could experience.
My heart pounded so hard I thought my chest might burst. Then his hand cupped my cheek, warmth came, and my pounding heart became flutters in my stomach.
I silently pleaded for the moment to last a lifetime.
I never promised him I would protect and save him too. How could I have been so selfish?
Tears threaten the back of my eyes, but I can’t let them spill onto him. All I can do is pray and beg.
I lower my cheek to his chest, listening to his heart. It’s still beating, but it’s not right. I count the seconds between the slight rise and fall of his chest, forgetting how many seconds drifted between each before. Is it longer or shorter now?
His skin is thawing, I think.
“Celina, are you breathing all right?” Elias asks.
“I can breathe.”
“There’s a hint of pink in his cheeks,” Avi says.
“Shh,” Elias hushes her, quiet enough that I wasn’t supposed to hear, I’m sure.
I don’t know how long I’ve been holding on to him this tightly. My arms are locked, my muscles welding to his bones. I can’t lose him again. I can’t.
Avi’s weight shifts against my back as she repositions herself, eliciting a groan that rises from Noah’s chest.
“Noah?” I weep softly.
His heartbeat speeds up just a touch, so little I could be imagining the change, convincing myself he’s getting better.
The damp air under the blanket weighs on my lungs and I carefully pull the blanket down to my neck to take in some full breaths.
I rest my head back into the flat pillow and stare up to the ceiling as if it were a never-ending tunnel connected to this black hole, I seem trapped within.
“Celina…” Elias speaks out, hoarsely, hesitantly as if stepping onto thin ice. “Do you know where Christoph is? Should I go look for him?”
My body stiffens and my eyes close, wishing I could prevent the tears from slipping out. “No.” My voice barely makes a sound. “They—they…shot him.” My throat tightens around my words. “He’s gone.”
“What?” Elias responds, his voice becoming a short breath, grappling the fabric over his chest.
“What—what do you mean they—how—why? Do you mean—the soldier who brought Noah up here? He—” Avi rambles, startled, breathing heavily.
“Yes. Just after I found Noah in the building next door, left to die along with a roomful of other prisoners, Christoph found me. I was looking for supplies, and I found Noah.”
“And what? The Soviets found you?” Elias adds, panic lacing his words.
“They must have heard noises coming from the building and came after us. One of the Russians thought Christoph was a German prisoner.” He wasn’t dressed like one. Not like Noah was. “He saved us both.”
“I don’t—I don’t understand…” Avi presses.
“The other Soviet called it a casualty of war,” I say quietly. “He said it shouldn’t have happened.”
“That’s all he had to say after taking someone’s life?
” Avi shouts. “Nothing about them has changed. They’re heartless.
After they killed my father, raped me and my sister, then tried to take me with them—I was told it was just a casualty of war too.
A war we didn’t start. A war we didn’t want.
Why are we even here like this? Fighting for our lives when we have no say whether we live or die? My God!”
Her words slice through the air like blades, catching on the fibers of my heart. I’ve only made this worse for her. She’s experienced enough grief. She didn’t need to live through mine too.
“Avi, Avi,” Elias says, moving her to the other side of the room and sitting in the corner with her, holding her in his arms.
Minutes have gone by and when the crying stops, I peer over at Avi, finding her asleep, curled into a ball, her arms tucked beneath her.
“While she’s resting, I’m going to go find something to make a fire. I’ll be just outside the window. Bang on the glass if you need anything.”
* * *
It’s been an hour, maybe longer, since Elias went downstairs and Avi cried herself to sleep, leaving me in heavy silence with only my thoughts and grief. From one focus to another, my heart shifts with hope to despair with no balance in between.
Avi shifts around, unpeeling her arms from around her body. “I’m sorry,” Avi says. “I didn’t mean—”
“Please don’t apologize,” I tell her. “You’re right about them.”
“How’s Noah?” she asks, coming in closer.
“His muscles are less tense, his body less like stone, but I don’t know if that’s good or bad.” Elias hasn’t returned and my minutes feel more like hours, but I think it’s been a fair while.
Avi’s presses her hands against the glass window, searching for Elias I assume.
Noah’s hand twitches again.
“He has a fire going. It’s hard to see straight below, but I think he has some sort of metal bowl too,” Avi says. “That’s something.”
I stretch my fingers out, giving my grip a short rest, wiggling them around for a moment before replacing them on Noah’s arm.
I used to sleep like this, except with my head above the covers. My head on his chest, hand locked around his arm.
“Noah,” Avi says, her hands thrusting into the mattress. “His eyelashes flutter.”
I pull my head out from beneath the layers, clawing at his chest to see his face. “Noah,” I echo Avi.
I press my lips to his cheek, forgetting about the bruises and dirt. Causing another weak groan. His chest begins to vibrate, a mild shiver but a lot of small movements. I don’t know if shivering is good or bad. He should be warming up now, not growing colder.
“He’s shivering,” I say.
“Maybe this is good,” Avi says. “His eyelashes are moving. He’s making sounds.”
She places her hand on the back of my head—the gentlest display of warmth she’s shown me since saving me from being trampled. “All this time, I thought you were mad,” she utters. “Seeing him all over the place. I’m ashamed of myself for doubting you.”
She shouldn’t have to say that when part of me still expects to wake up in the Auschwitz infirmary any minute from now. Nothing feels real anymore.
* * *
Elias is back upstairs now that dusk is setting in, and one clothing layer less.
He’s down to a simple undershirt but seems unfazed from standing outside in the freezing temperatures.
He moves around to Noah’s other side and shuffles a couple of the blankets around to place behind his back, carefully elevating him to a slight angle.
“Celina, can you tent this blanket over his head?” He removes his knit tunic and drapes it over Noah’s chest. The heat fills the tented blanket quickly.
I want to ask him if this will help more than body heat, and for how long, but I’d rather not know where his ability begins and ends with this matter.
I stay in position, tenting the blanket so the heat expands around him. “He was shivering,” Avi tells Elias. “Is that good?”
“It’s not good or bad. Don’t focus on that.”
“What do I focus on?” My voice breaks, the pain is pouring out of me.
“Just what you’re doing,” he says, with a hard stare.
The heat from the bowl is saturating the blanket. It’s more heat than I can offer.
Noah’s hand shifts again, but this time, his fingers curl, hooking against my smock.
“I’m here, Noah. It’s me, Celina. If you can hear me,” I whisper, my mouth barely moving, “keep resting so you can get better.”
He lets out a small breath, like a sigh, but different. A struggle, but not as much as before, I think. His chest rises a hair too. Not enough, but more than before.
Elias and I sit in the same position until my arms start to shake from holding them up so long.
“I need to go rewarm the water. Hopefully the fire isn’t going out yet. I need to keep that going through the night.”
“It isn’t,” Avi says. “I’ve kept an eye on it.”
Elias pulls the lantern out from beneath the cot and fiddles with the switch until a flame pops then sets back outdoors again. I slink back down in the bed and wrap my arm back around Noah, pressing my temple into his neck.
“Do you have any clue how much this girl loves you?” Avi says, her voice choking on the last word. “If you even try to leave right now, she will go after you and bring you back. I’m sure of it.” Tears flood my eyes, and the pressure builds in my head. “Dear God, she just doesn’t give up.”
I twist my head to look at Avi, but she turns around before I can face her and walks to the window as if she had never said a word.
We’re both holding on to a thread, unsure how much weight it can carry before it snaps.