Page 48 of The Lost Husband

All I can focus on is the thought of Noah, beaten to a pulp.

The ride isn’t long. Tires are grinding against ice before I can come to terms with seeing Noah amid those awful soldiers.

We climb out of the truck to dark trees, snow covered branches, and a carved path leading to the door of a one-story stone building with tall, narrow windows and a heavy wooden door along the front.

A soldier walks ahead of us, steps inside the building, then exits before we even reach the door. “Go on,” he says.

We walk inside, greeted by the smell of ink and body odor. A sign hangs haphazardly along the side wall, half of it blacked out with paint. The word “hall” is all I can make out.Town hall, I presume by the looks of it.

“I’m with the Red Cross,” a woman says, her Polish accent an unexpected relief. Her dark hair neatly curled beneath a crisp, creased cap, the rest of her clad in fatigues. She hands Avi a clipboard first. “It’s important we have correct information notated for you. Please be as clear as possible.”

Avi shakes her head and hands the clipboard to me. “No,” she says.

“I—I understand,” the woman says, peering at me then back at Avi. “We can keep your information private, but we’re under instruction to account for everyone we can with so many dead or missing.”

“Who has access to these records?” I ask.

“Civilians searching for family or loved ones.”

“The Soviets will have these lists in their hands in no time,” Avi mutters.

My husband is being held hostage in a German uniform.

Why…why would he be dressed like that? What reason could there be?

“Do you know which direction the train depot is from here?” I ask the woman.

“Train depot?” she replies, confusion weighing through her eyes.

“Where they’re holding the German prisoners,” I say.

Avi shoves her elbow into my arm. “What are you doing?” she grunts.

“Oh goodness. I wouldn’t know such a thing. I’m not from the area and those locations aren’t public information.”

I don’t even know how far they drove us, or from which direction. The road behind me is gone now.

The woman hands me the clipboard and I haphazardly scribble out my information, and hand the clipboard to Elias. “There’s a box to check if you don’t want your information released,” Elias tells Avi.

“No. Still,” she says.

The woman takes the clipboard from Elias and holds her smile firmly as if she’s afraid she’ll lose it. “Let me hand this off to the ladies filling paperwork and I’ll return to bring you to the registry table then get you dry clothes, a warm meal, and a cot.”

She leaves through a door in the corner but returns just as quickly to guide us down a long corridor with evenly distributed doors to what must have once been opened into offices. The narrow space is lit with hanging bulbs every ten or twelve steps. The wooden soles of our shoes echo between the concrete walls that feel like they’re shrinking in on us the farther we walk.

We finally turn a corner into a larger open space with doors opening off it—a view of occupants within each room.

There are many more people here than I expected.

Between the open doors is a table, occupied by two women with large ledgers sprawled in front of them.

“Right here is the registry table. These nice women will help you search for names of loved ones.”

The women study us for a moment, both with tired eyes and pinched smiles as they gently greet us. The woman on the left hands me a piece of paper and a pencil.

“Please write the names of who you are looking for.”

I press the tip of the pencil to the paper, but my hand won’t move. I know where Noah is and where he’ll be going in ten days from now, according to Igor. Instead, I scroll out my parents’ names, unsure if I’m prepared to hear the truth about them.