Page 81 of The Lost Husband

Elias presses his hand through his short hair and closes his eyes. “They’re toying with us,” he whispers.

We could only be so lucky if they are.

* * *

After three days of being kept inside, my oversized shirt, wool socks, and coat are finally dry—a sensation I haven’t felt sincewe were in the town hall shelter. Whether sweat, rain, or snow, these frocks don’t let air in or out.

Elias has been sitting on the side of Avi’s bed, bouncing his knee half the day. I’ve been standing at the window, watching. Watching prisoner torment. Watching the Soviets drag prisoners away minutes before rifles pop. Watching the soldiers beat the German prisoners. All the while, I can’t spot any one of them who looks different from the rest.

This is what the German guards and officers did to us in Auschwitz. They watched us from the towers, spectators of thrashings and murders, as if a sport.

Is that what I’m doing now? Spectating?

The German guards and officers deserve every bit of the torture. But the one man who isn’t a German soldier…is being tortured all over again, for doing nothing more than trying to survive. At least that’s what I’m telling myself Noah was doing, and why he was in that uniform. I don’t want to think of any other potential reasons.

I hear the whips crack more than I can see the effect.

Noah’s face, writhing in pain, is all I picture each time I hear the sound now. He’s down there, if they didn’t shoot him over the last three days, and I’m standing up here, watching the rest happen.

“I don’t like the look on your face,” Avi mumbles, her voice clearer this afternoon than it was this morning or yesterday.

“I don’t have a look on my face,” I argue.

“Yes, you do,” Elias sides with her.

“The prisoners were fed again. We weren’t,” I say, pushing away from the window.

I grab the doorknob, testing it, knowing it won’t give, but hoping someone forgot to secure it at last.

It doesn’t move.

I slap my hands flat against the door a few times and shout through the crack of the threshold. “Hello?”

“What are you doing?” Elias snaps in a whisper.

“She needs food with her medication. If she vomits, we’re taking a step back.”

No response. I drop my forehead against the door then thud it repeatedly.

The stomp and squelch of wet boots sound against the metal stairs, and I take a step away from the door, hoping one of them is coming up here to answer my call.

The door unlocks and opens. A different soldier, one I haven’t seen yet, stands in the doorway. “Were you shouting?” he asks.

“Yes, my friend is being treated with penicillin and needs food to coat her stomach.”

He leans to the side to look around me, at Avi, as if he needs more proof than a woman lying sick in a bed, then turns away and crosses the corridor to a wall-mounted field telephone. He lifts the handset from the hook, keeping his back to me.

“Post Two. Infirmary,” he says into the receiver.

He clenches his fist then loosens it, three times.

“The patient on penicillin. No ration delivered.”

He shifts his weight from one foot to the other and rolls his shoulders back.

“Da.”

Another pause.