Chapter Thirty-Two Aletta #2
They passed by a small group of British women whom they recognised from the camp and exchanged smiles with, but mostly Aletta, Chloe and Emma kept to themselves, making their way to their tent.
They’d also been given a piece of bread covered in something that looked like butter but wasn’t, and Aletta took small nibbles as they walked, her stomach groaning from being filled with food after suffering from starvation for so long. But still, she couldn’t stop.
When they eventually lay down in an unoccupied corner, their food finished, the little glimmer of hope that she’d felt earlier returned, that they might finally be safe, after all.
‘What are you most looking forward to?’ Aletta asked as they lay together, their bodies exhausted from the day of transport.
‘Seeing my brothers,’ Chloe whispered. ‘I have to believe that they survived, that my little Adrian has grown into a young man and hasn’t ended up . . .’
She didn’t need to continue for Aletta to know what she meant.
They knew the reality of the camps, how few had survived, and what a miracle it had been that all three of them had made it.
But if Chloe’s brothers had been imprisoned .
. . Aletta took a breath, her thoughts immediately turning to Harry, and whether he might have met the same fate, if he’d even made it out of her apartment alive.
‘I just want to walk through that door and find them how I left them, I suppose.’
‘I hope they’re there waiting for you,’ Aletta finally said. ‘I hope they’re waiting with open arms for their brave sister to come home.’
Chloe turned, her eyes searching Aletta’s face. ‘I hope Harry’s waiting for you, too.’
‘I think it would be a miracle if he was,’ she said, even if she had hoped for that to be true.
‘Part of me keeps wondering if he survived, and if he did whether we’ll ever be able to find each other again.
I wouldn’t even know where to start looking for him.
’ Aletta had asked herself so many times whether it had just been something forgettable to him, just a moment in time, or whether she’d meant as much to him as he had to her.
She didn’t exactly have a lot of experience with young men.
So long as he’d survived, she would be able to live with it.
But she wanted to know what his fate had been, so she didn’t have to spend a lifetime wondering.
‘Miracles happen every day,’ Emma said. ‘Don’t either of you lose hope, not yet.’
Tears prickled in Aletta’s eyes at her mother’s words, because no amount of hope was going to bring the man they’d both loved so much back to life.
‘I’m sorry he’s not going to be there waiting for us,’ Aletta said.
‘I had twenty-two years with your father, Aletta. Twenty-two beautiful years. And I won’t let that one night be the memory that stays with me, not when I have so much happiness to look back on. I refuse to let them take that from me.’
Aletta smiled, despite her tears. Her mother was right, of course she was, but it sounded easier said than done, especially when that night was still a memory that haunted her dreams and woke her in the dead of night.
‘I know it doesn’t make up for the people we’ve loved and lost, or what we’ve been through, but the war has given me a mother and a sister, and for that, I will always be grateful,’ Chloe said. ‘I will never forget either of you, for as long as I live.’
‘You’ll always be my daughter, Chloe. Whether we find our way back to each other again or not once this is over, we will always be family. Always.’
‘Thank you,’ Chloe whispered. ‘If my brothers aren’t there, if . . .’ She let go of a breath. ‘It’s just reassuring to know that I can find you, that’s all.’
Emma’s words hung between them, because it was something they’d promised each other for longer than Aletta could remember. They were family, and no matter what, they would always be there for each other, their homes open to one another whenever they needed it.
‘Can you give me the papers you’re carrying?’ Chloe asked. ‘I want to collate them, so that I can find someone to give them to.’ She glanced up at Aletta. ‘I was starting to think that it was a fantasy, that I’d risked so much and we’d never leave that place.’
Aletta took the papers she’d hidden in her clothes, and so did her mother. There were other women who’d held some too, but she’d already seen Chloe ask for theirs. Altogether, it was quite the bundle.
‘Maybe, if this war truly ends, you could have them published into a book,’ Emma suggested gently, as they all stared down at the dog-eared pages. ‘A memory of those who perished, and those who survived. The records of women.’
Chloe just nodded, clearly lost in her own thoughts about the project she had ahead of her.
‘That soup has gone straight through me,’ Aletta said, sighing as she forced herself to her feet. She was exhausted after the day they’d had, and ready for sleep. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
Aletta made her way through the tent, standing outside in the cooling early-evening air as she stretched.
It was strange to look out and not see walls or barbed wire, guards or dogs, or even watchtowers, and she began walking to a treed area nearby to relieve herself.
It wasn’t ideal, but she wasn’t complaining.
To her, this camp felt like the height of luxury.
She continued, her legs a little unsteady, when she heard a low rumble.
Turning, she realised that the rumble was becoming louder, and soon there was a plane fast approaching, flying too low through the sky.
Terror filled Aletta when she realised what was happening, and she turned on her heel and ran back to the tent, screaming as loud as she could.
‘Get out!’ she yelled. ‘Run!’
Aletta hadn’t made it back when a shot and then another rang out in the otherwise still air.
Women began to pour out of tents all around them in a panic, and when she finally saw Chloe and her mother she moved as fast as her legs would take her, clutching their hands and hauling them in the opposite direction.
But they weren’t fast enough.
Another plane, or perhaps the same one as before, flew towards them, even lower than the first. Shots echoed out, pelting the ground around them, and from the corner of her eye Aletta saw a woman fall.
But she couldn’t stop. Fear kept her running as she pushed her mother ahead of her and grabbed for Chloe’s hand.
They ran as a flurry of more shots fired near them, one sounding far too close for comfort, and Aletta stumbled as Chloe threw herself forward, covering Aletta as they hurtled towards the ground.
They landed with a thud and Aletta felt as if all the bones in her body had broken – she had so little fat left on her that she endured every inch of the fall.
But miraculously there was silence, and when she looked up, spitting out dirt, she saw the plane flying away, disappearing into the distance.
‘Why do they keep shooting at us!’ Aletta cried.
Chloe had been holding her hand, but Aletta felt her grip loosen and she tried to turn beneath the weight of her friend.
‘Chloe, get off me,’ she groaned, trying to wriggle out and wondering why Chloe wasn’t moving. ‘I can’t breathe.’
It wasn’t that Chloe was heavy, she was as thin as Aletta was, it was just that Aletta had such little strength left to move herself. Not to mention she felt like being sick, the food from earlier sitting like a lump in her stomach, and her body crying out from having to use energy she didn’t have.
‘Chloe!’
Aletta finally pulled out from beneath her, at the same time as her mother spoke her name.
‘Aletta.’
It was one word, her own name, that she’d heard her mother say countless times. But the quiet way she said it this time sent a bone-deep shiver through Aletta; it held a note of caution, of pain, that told her something was very, very wrong.
Aletta sat up and watched as Chloe moved, looking like she was about to push up to her feet before sinking back down to her knees.
‘Chloe?’ Aletta’s voice caught on her friend’s name.
And then she realised what Chloe had done when she’d thrown her to the ground and covered Aletta’s body with her own. What she’d sacrificed. Why she hadn’t moved straight away.
‘Oh my God, Chloe.’
Everything around them went silent then; the cries of other women, the wails of those who had been injured.
The sight of the dead.
But all Aletta could hear was her mother saying her name, cautioning her.
And all she could see was Chloe.