Page 59 of The Lost Husband

“I—can’t talk about it. It’s too painful.” I touch my fingers to my stomach. “She didn’t make it.”

Christoph closes his eyes and swallows hard, then lifts his hand to his heart. “Celina, I’m so?—”

“Please don’t. Don’t do that.”

My plea leaves us in a silence that can’t be filled. As I stare at the muddy boot tracks ahead of us, I slow my pace. Christoph slows down with me while Elias continues at the same rate he’s been walking since we left. He’s going to exert every bit of his energy by carrying Avi, long before we find another shelter.

“It looks like we’re on the Soviets’ path,” I say, the wind burning my throat. “Those footprints look new.”

Somewhere not too far off, metal clinks and whines amid the wind before the silence returns.

Christoph clears his throat and scratches the back of his neck. It takes him some time to switch his frame of thought and respond. “Uh—ye—yes. They do. They could also be Germans retreating,” he says. “We should move to a parallel route, so we aren’t following directly behind them. Not when they might lead straight into camps, spaces to detain the prisoners.”

“Camps,” I repeat. “Death camps.”

“That’s where the executions of the Nazis are happening the fastest.” His words stiff and cold. “They’d rather unload those they don’t need before continuing northwest, I’m sure.”

“You can’t know that for sure. You couldn’t have read that in some headline.”

Christoph turns his head, his cold-watery eyes wide. “What else would they be doing with them?”

But he’s likely correct. Igor said they would be interrogating them first. They will get rid of whoever they don’t need before continuing to the freight line that will transport them to detention camps. I assume that means they will keep whoever is worthy of notable information that could be of use later. “What if they deem Noah as excess?”

Christoph doesn’t answer right away. His gaze lingers off toward the trees for a long moment before forcing himself to refocus on the road ahead.

Elias is slowing down ahead of us, reshuffling Avi into a better position within his arms. “I’ll take her for a while,” Christoph calls out to him.

Elias had already rejected his offer when we left the shelter, but he stops this time and turns to face us. “My arms could use a short break,” he says. “Thank you.”

When Avi slides into Christoph’s arms, I press the back of my hand to her forehead. She’s still as warm as she was thismorning, even out here in the freezing cold. She slips between Christoph’s arms, just enough to make him gasp and tighten his grip around her. She doesn’t flinch or make a sound. She’s still asleep.

Elias presses his hands into his hips, his head hanging low as he drags in air.

“Yesterday, just before I reached you, I watched a Soviet truck full of German prisoners drive past me. Then it returned, passing me again, but the truck was empty.”

“That doesn’t mean?—”

“They were drunk, arms hanging out the windows with flasks dangling from their fingers. Not in celebration, but in something far darker. When I came across an aid table not long after, I asked the two women organizing supplies to point me in the best direction to reach the shelter you were registered in. They asked for the location and when I answered, their faces went pale.”

I stumble against my own feet, apprehension tipping me out of balance. “What did they tell you?”

“To stay away from the Soviets busy crossing German names off lists.”

* * *

Twice more, Elias and Christoph exchange Avi, who seems more alert now that we’re planning to stop before the sun sets. Christoph pulls out the map, a repetitive pattern for every thirty minutes we walk. He unfolds it, studies it briefly, then refolds it and shoves it back into his inner coat pocket and makes a distinct pivot toward the bony woods. “Over here,” he says. “We’re getting off track.”

We follow sluggishly. My knees quiver and I can’t feel my toes. The woods finally spill us into a narrow opening around a set of rail tracks—a path we can hopefully follow. My eyesare constantly scanning the area. Searching for boot prints, discarded gear, the hint of a German hat, half frozen in the snow. Anything that might hint at the column passing this way if it has already.

Christoph searches in every direction for every step he takes. Worry pokes through his focused expression. There’s nowhere for us to stop.

“I can’t go much farther,” Elias says. “I need to stop.”

We’ll lose time if we do. If Christoph was right and thinks it will take more than two days to get to the larch mills in Gliwice, I might not have time to spare. Elias looks at me then Christoph, his eyes bloodshot from the wind, his mouth agape from breathing too hard.

“We can’t stop here in the open,” Christoph says. “The wind—it’ll do its worst to us. We need a maintenance shed or a switch house. Railways were built to be serviced.”

“They may have been flattened,” Elias says.