Chapter Twenty-Five Two months later Aletta
Chapter Twenty-Five
Two months later
Aletta
Aletta watched Chloe, noticing the way she stared so angrily at the papers she clutched in her hand, as if she wanted to rip them into pieces.
But she knew Chloe would never do that – those papers had come to mean everything to her.
And as the volume of papers had grown, so had the network of women tasked with hiding them.
‘Can I sit with you?’ Aletta asked.
Chloe looked up. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her skin blotchy. ‘Always.’
Aletta slowly lowered herself to the ground, her knees aching and her back sore. In the time she’d been at the camp, she felt as if she’d aged three decades or more; she felt more like an old lady than a young woman in her early twenties.
‘Can I tell you something?’
Chloe nodded before resting her head on Aletta’s shoulder. Aletta took her hand, linking their fingers and looking at the smudged list on her friend’s lap. But she forced herself to look away as she spoke, staring out at the trees in the far distance.
‘I think today is my birthday.’
Chloe’s head lifted. ‘Today? How do you—’
‘I had to go into the office yesterday, Herr Weber asked me to get some documents for him, and I saw a letter that had just been typed with a date at the top.’
Aletta’s throat bobbed as she swallowed, and she fought against her emotions.
‘February the twenty-sixth,’ she said, as Chloe squeezed her hand.
‘Happy birthday, Aletta,’ Chloe whispered, sliding an arm around her as Aletta tucked into her, the cold wind stinging her cheeks. ‘I wish we could be anywhere else but here.’
‘I wish that too,’ Aletta murmured back.
They sat in silence, the only noise the wind picking up speed around them and making a howling sound that sent shivers straight through Aletta.
‘How many birthdays and anniversaries have been missed in this godforsaken place?’ Chloe muttered. ‘How many lives have to be lost until it’s enough?’
Aletta didn’t answer, because she didn’t know how to. Nothing about what was happening to them, about where they were or the pain they saw every day, made sense.
‘It feels like yesterday we were sitting over there, with all those kids around us. It felt like we were doing something good, that it mattered.’
Aletta couldn’t stop her tears then. ‘It did matter, Chloe, and it still does.’ She refused to think about Else and the other children; she couldn’t. It was too much, the pain too great.
Chloe turned to her, her face streaked with tears. ‘Almost all of them have gone.’
Aletta bit hard on her lip, trying not to think about all the beautiful children who were no longer with them. The boys who’d been sent away; the little ones who’d perished; those that had become sick and not been strong enough to survive.
‘It matters because some of them are still here, and because more have filled their places. It matters because we provide something for them to hold on to while they are here.’
She inhaled a sharp, big breath.
‘It matters because we’re here, and we need to keep going, Chloe. Because no matter what happens, we are going to survive this place. This is not going to be the last place I see before I die.’
Chloe’s tears dried, and Aletta watched as she tucked a piece of paper away before standing up.
‘You’re right,’ Chloe eventually said, helping her to her feet. ‘We are going to survive this place.’
Aletta stood, her chest still rising and falling from her impassioned little speech.
‘I was going to ask you to just let me hate the world for one day, but it’s your birthday.’
Despite it all, Aletta grinned. ‘It is my birthday.’
‘And since I have no gift to give you or cake to bake you, I’m going to have to at least give you a smile.
They both laughed, and Chloe gave her a hug.
‘Happy birthday, Aletta,’ she whispered, kissing her cheek. ‘One day we will celebrate with the biggest cake and champagne, and we’ll sing and drink until our voices are hoarse from all the fun. I promise.’
Aletta sighed, closing her eyes and imagining it, knowing what fun she and Chloe would have if they could just survive long enough.
She could see them both with Cecilia, laughing as they sat in the park, and maybe Harry would be there, too.
She could almost hear the giggles and shrieks of laughter; the fun and merriment that would come from her two best friends meeting each other.
‘Maybe next year,’ she said, as Chloe pulled back, her hands still on Aletta’s shoulders. ‘Perhaps next year the war will be over, and we’ll be celebrating our freedom.’
They both smiled, but even as she said the words, even as she tried to believe in them, Aletta wondered if she would ever see another birthday that wasn’t behind the wire of this dreadful camp. Because no one had escaped in all the time she’d been here, no one had been released.
This will not be the last place I see, Aletta told herself, as she linked her arm with Chloe’s and they went in search of her mother. I’m going to survive this place, and no one is going to take that dream away from me.
‘Chloe, I actually have something for you,’ Aletta said, reaching into her pocket.
‘For me?’ Chloe frowned. ‘It’s your birthday, not mine.’
She took out the few sheets of paper, as well as a small pencil and an envelope. ‘When I was in Herr Weber’s office, he caught me taking a sheet of paper.’
‘Aletta! Why would you take such a risk!’
‘Because I believe in what you’re doing, and I know how long it’s been since you’ve had any paper to write anything new,’ she said.
‘And what happened? What did he say? Did he just let you take it?’
‘I explained to him that we weren’t allowed to write, that paper and pencils were forbidden to us, and that even if I couldn’t send it, I wished to write a letter to someone I loved.
’ Some inmates had been allowed to write heavily censored letters at times, but mostly they’d been completely cut off from the families they’d left behind.
‘To Harry?’ Chloe asked.
‘No, Chloe. The paper and envelope are so that you can write to your brothers. Herr Weber said that he would post the letter for me.’
Chloe’s tears came fast and furiously, and Aletta held her as she mumbled against her chest, making the front of Aletta’s dress damp.
‘You could have been killed for this,’ Chloe grumbled.
‘Well I wasn’t, and it was worth the risk. He told me that he couldn’t spare much, but he let me take a little extra paper, just in case.’
‘How is he such a good man among such evil?’ Chloe asked, wiping away her tears.
‘He told me that his wife is a compassionate woman, and that she’d never forgive him if he didn’t show us a little kindness,’ Aletta recounted. ‘Whatever the reason, I’m just grateful.’
‘Thank you, Aletta,’ Chloe said, shaking her head. ‘You’re the best friend I ever had.’
Now it was Aletta’s turn to cry, as they wrapped their arms around each other once more. Aletta couldn’t imagine surviving the camp without Chloe; she only hoped she never had to.