Chapter 41
FORTY-ONE
CURRENT DAY
Gliwice, Poland
We’re all staring at the German uniform as if it might explode, despite me telling Noah he doesn’t need to worry. Does he?
“They’ll find me,” he utters. “You aren’t safe.” He’s staring at me. Just me.
I don’t know where his confusion starts or ends, if everything is a blur, or if he’s remembering moments that only feel like today or yesterday. Most of his face is still unrecognizable and I want to see through it, to the man I memorized, but he doesn’t even sound like him.
“Food,” Elias says, already moving with intention. “God only knows how long he’s gone without eating. And I’ve seen what happens when people wait too long.”
Avi is sorting cans into groups on the ground.
“I’ll go grab the last bundles from the wheelbarrow,” Elias says.
Neither Avi nor Elias are saying much and I can understand why—what questions must be going through their minds. We’ve been fed lies for years, so many, none of us remember how to trust another being. I’m no exception.
“Food won’t help,” Noah presses.
I place my hand on his cheek, trying to calm him.
I close my eyes, remembering back to when I would do this just after we got married, when his mind was riddled with torment on how to keep us safe with a looming war.
Despite my same fears, I knew a gentle voice and touch could calm him.
It was a bandage over a wound that would never close.
Except, I don’t know why he was wearing the uniform.
Noah is staring at the uniform again, his eyes watering, gritting his teeth.
Elias is watching his every move, trying to understand what sounds like an unfamiliar language.
“An SS officer made me wear it—” His breaths quicken with panic.
“Noah.” I touch my fingers to his chest to urge him back down, to calm his breaths, to breathe at all. Color bleeds back into what we can see of his face, but I don’t think this is the right way to continue warming him up.
“Noah,” Elias echoes me, “everything here is all right now. We’re safe. Celina is safe.”
“You think I wanted this?” He pulls his hand out from beneath the blanket, pointing at the uniform. “I knew. I knew what it made me look like.”
I push myself upright and lift the uniform from the ground. “This,” I say, pointing at it, “is not you.” Noah’s hand clenches into a fist and he brings it up to his cheek, pressing against the bruises. “I know. You wore it to survive.”
I don’t know the details, but I know him.
Noah pulls in an unsteady breath, his voice pinching with a whine.
“No, I wore it—to save you.” He squeezes his eyes shut, his lips stretching over his teeth.
“The officer knew I had been sneaking into the infirmary to take care of you. He knew who to hold over my head.” His chin trembles.
“You were—you were so sick, Celina.” I don’t move.
I can hardly breathe. “He said—he said…” His voice catches before shredding into air.
“Extra prisoner uniforms had been burned. Soviets were closing in. Guards were already leaving and taking what they could.”
His hand flinches beneath the sheet, a twitch, a shiver, or a tremor. I don’t know. His stare shifts between us, staring toward the door, unfocused, and unblinking.
“You came for me.”
“No,” he breathes. “I told him I wouldn’t touch it.” The word darts out of him. “Wouldn’t do it.” Noah grinds his teeth, a sound of stone against stone as an exhale sputters from his nose.
I’m not fully piecing together this story and I’m not sure he’s aware of what he’s saying. Yet, each word paints a picture I don’t want to see.
A tear falls from his eye.
“The SS guard looked at you then, just from the doorway. He could see you clearly and pointed his rifle at you,” he cries through a hoarse whisper.
“He said if I didn’t trade uniforms, he’d drag you off the cot and—” Tears fill his eyes.
“He didn’t need my clothes.” He gasps for a small breath. “He needed someone to wear his.”
My stomach tightens, a reminder of the pain I was in, and how scared I was to die.
I thought I was imagining Noah by my side.
An angel in waiting. A fever dream—just a day or two before I and the other sick prisoners were moved into the cellar of the infirmary.
Then, a week later, when he saved me again—from the explosion, but that time, he was wearing a German uniform.
Noah’s breathing turns weak again as if air is leaving him too quickly.
“Noah,” I say, touching his arm gently, trying to bring him to the present moment. Or I need to bring myself present to this moment. I don’t know. His body is rigid under my touch, like he’s bracing for some sort of impact.
“He pulled me—” Noah chokes out a breath. His feet kick through the bottom of the sheet. “Around the back… of the building…” His voice softens like it’s pinching each word. “He—he kept—” Noah swallows hard. “Throwing me against the wall.”
My chest feels like it’s caving in. Every word scrapes down my spine.
“My coat…” He grinds his jaw, his cheeks flexing into sunken wells.
“Told me to take it off.” He goes still.
“Demanded all my clothes.” He shakes his head and his eyes narrow like he’s staring at the guard again.
“He removed his uniform and threw it at me.” He takes a breath to pause or remember. “Told me to get dressed.”
“I’m tossing the uniform into the corridor,” Elias whispers from behind me. “Out of his sight.” He does so quickly and returns to my side, then leans over Noah to get him to refocus on him. “You need to take a breath. Your body can’t handle this anger. You need to listen to me.”
Silence fills the room just long enough to hear the wheelbarrow groan, causing Noah to whip his head toward the window. “You don’t understand…” Noah shouts at Elias. “The SS is coming back. He said he’d know if I took it off. He’d come back for us both.”
Noah tries to sit up, a jarring contrast from his lethargy an hour ago. I don’t know whether to help him or stop him, but Elias knows. He presses his hands against Noah’s shoulders to keep him against the pillow.
“The SS are gone now—they’re gone,” Elias tells him.
“Do you hear me? He’s coming back. He’s going to kill her!” Noah growls. “My wife.”
Avi’s up on her feet, beside me, cupping her hand over her mouth.
Elias braces Noah down, steady and sure, like he’s done this before. Like he knows what panic does to a body. But I fear restraining him will only make the anger inside of him boil harder. I know this anger. I feel it inside of me whenever I close my eyes.
“Tobacco. He smelled like tobacco,” Noah says.
I stare at him, letting my eyes blur until he seems more familiar. My husband. I miss him. I miss him so much I don’t know if I can handle much more of this.
“He was missing a bottom tooth,” Noah continues.
I lean forward and touch his face again, willing my tears to stay away as I do. “Shh,” I hush.
“A stutter.” His voice tightens into a whine.
Noah’s eyes cinch, and tears form in the corners of his eyes. His face reddens again, as if he’s holding a breath. “He’s gone,” I say, stroking my thumb along his cheek.
His expression eases, the red fades back into a flush pink, his lips soften, and his body settles back into the mattress. I lower my head to his chest, needing to hear his heart beating.
It’s there. I hear it.
Elias and I remove our hands from him, neither of us looking at each other for common ground.
This is what will separate us from anyone who wasn’t innocently imprisoned, now and for generations to come.
People might never understand what we’ve seen, or experienced, the inhumanity, the things darker than an imagination will travel.
What Noah was saying sounds like a bad dream.
Just a bad dream. A rifle to a head as a barter for something else was a normal day in Auschwitz.
I want to forget it all. But I know that’s impossible.
“Did you still think the Soviets would save you?” Avi whispers.
Noah shakes his head. “I knew what they’d do to me in that uniform. It didn’t matter anymore.”
I was the trade-off.
“That guard knew you would take the fall for him. He knew the Soviets would kill whoever was standing in their way too, like they did to Christoph. German guards or not, they weren’t checking identification.”
Noah stills, his gaze drifts to the far wall, wide and full of questions. Then his brows soften, as if he’s realized something.
“Christoph…” Noah repeats, the name no more than a breath lodged in his throat.
Elias covers his mouth, realizing Noah might not have been clear on what happened to his best friend. I was afraid to ask. I was going to wait until he was better.
“No,” Noah utters. His hand tightens against the blanket. “He—he was just—” His words trip and tumble, his gaze shifting between my eyes. “He was with us.” He breaths. “He was right there.”
“They—they…shot…him,” I say, the words shattered.
Noah doesn’t move.
Something breaks inside of him.
His face tightens, pain cutting deep into his eyes.
“He came for us,” Noah breathes. “Because of me. Because I couldn’t protect you myself. Because I was wearing the enemy’s uniform.”