Page 65 of The Lost Husband

Is it safe to take a breath? I do. And another, but we stay in silence long after the faintest hint of snow crunching fades.

My body sinks into the ground, my muscles burning as they release tension.

Avi doesn’t move.

Not even when I do.

I lean over her, pressing my cheek into her hair, careful not to shift the foil.

“Avi,” I whisper.

Her head is so cold, not like it was with the fever. Now, all I can wonder is if my hunt for Noah will be the cause of Avi’s death.

“Christoph,” I say through an exhale.

His hand slides from my shoulder to Avi’s back and stays there. Too long.

The light of day couldn’t be any farther away.

TWENTY-SIX

CURRENT DAY

Ruda Slaska, Poland

I count down the minutes leading to dawn, the gray light leaking in, the cold growing heavier rather than letting up. My body aches all over, every muscle feeling tied in knots after shivering for so long.

Avi is still pressed against me, but without noticeable movement. I shift just enough to press my hand between us, against her back. A breath moves through her, but shallow and unsteady. I move my cheek back to her hair, reaching my hand to her forehead. Relief floods through me as I feel the usual burn beneath her skin. A fever is better than the alternative, but she’s even warmer than the last time I checked her head.

“Christoph,” I whisper again.

He fell asleep with his hand draped over my side while searching for Avi’s breaths. He doesn’t respond to me calling him this time, but his eyes are open, his jaw rigid as he stares out from the snow berm.

Elias’s hand finds Avi’s ankle beneath the foil, then he presses up on his elbow, his eyes searching mine in the murkyhalo of light. He shakes his head and swallows hard. I’m not giving up on her. I’m not calling her death before it comes.

We need to get her out of this tunnel of ice. She needs aid. “We should never have taken her out of the shelter. I should have insisted she and Elias stay there.”

I’ll be the one responsible for her death. I’ll be as bad as those soldiers.

“None of you could stay, Celina,” Christoph says quietly. “I told you the woman in the administration office said they were running out of supplies. They barely had food left. The longer Avi remained there, the worse off she would have been.”

Just as I thought our lives were something we could regain control of, I’m proven wrong. We’re no longer hostages of Auschwitz, but we’re still fighting to survive within the purgatory of this war.

I try to prop Avi up, scooping my arm behind her. My head knocks against the underside of the railcar, reminding me of the swollen bump that might never fully disappear. “Avi, can you wake up for me?” I ask her, trying to keep my voice calmer than I feel inside. She doesn’t move, and her body is dead weight against my arm. I squeeze my hand around her arm, pinching her skin. “Avi.”

She makes a sound. Not a word, or even a groan. Just a thin breath that catches in her throat and doesn’t come back out.

Christoph backs out of the berm first, then Elias and I slowly maneuver Avi out far enough that Christoph can lift her up. With the chill of wind against my back, I know despite our efforts, none of us stayed dry last night and my skin stings and stretches beneath patches of numbness.

We’re all looking ahead rather than into our next step, searching for a way out of the forest that feels more like an endless hallway with no exit—one where those rat-hunters fromlast night could be lingering. There’s a chance we’ll never find a way out of here, not all of us, alive.

* * *

Gliwice, Poland

Through the barren trees, a stack of smoke swells toward the sky. It doesn’t mean safety, but it’s a sliver of hope that we can find something to help Avi. “How close are we to Gliwice?” I ask Christoph. He looked at the map a few minutes ago. He must have an estimate.

“Not far at all now. We cut some time by moving through the woods, but that smoke could belong to anything.”