What She Lost

by Melissa W Hunter

  “Her name was Estella,” Harry interrupted. “She was beautiful. Her hair was thick and dark, almost your color, Sarah. And her complexion was so fair, her skin so soft. I loved her dearly.” He paused for a moment, his mouth open as though he was about to say more, but then he lifted the bottle to his lips and took another long drink. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he said in a softer voice, “We had a son, the most beautiful boy in the world.”

  His voice trailed off, and finally his eyes dropped from mine. I swallowed as his words rang in my ears. Part of me longed to escape the kitchen, frightened by the feelings his words caused in me. I was all too aware of his hand resting close to mine on the table. But another part of me ached when I saw the emotion, raw and exposed, in his eyes. I wanted to take his sadness away. “I’m so sorry, Harry,” I whispered, shaking my head.

  “I haven’t wanted to talk about this before, Sarah. But for some reason when I’m with you, I feel like I could tell you anything. I want to tell you.”

  My heartbeat quickened at these words. I felt another surge of emotion as I watched his eyes glaze with tears. He blinked several times and took a third swig from the bottle. The smell of alcohol was strong in the space between us. “My boy, my little Hirsch, had dark eyes just like his mother’s. And he was so smart. He was curious about everything. He used to crawl onto my lap and ask me how plants grew and why trees were so tall and why there were so many stars in the sky. He loved nature and animals. He said he wanted to be an explorer when he grew up and travel to other countries. He always carried a book of maps tucked under his arm.”

  “How old was he?” I asked hesitantly.

  “Five,” Harry said, glancing at me. “He was only five. Every evening when I came home from work, he met me at the door. But one night I came home to an empty house. When I called for them, there was no answer.”

  Harry stopped talking and closed his eyes. I thought perhaps that was all he was going to say, and I didn’t want to pry. But then he ran his hand through his hair and continued with his eyes still closed. “I searched every room. I ran to my neighbors’ homes, knocking on doors. No one answered. I saw Agna, the woman who lived across the street, look out from behind the curtain of her upstairs window. I’ll never forget it, Sarah. She looked right at me, then quickly hid behind the curtain again, pulling it closed. Only Hermann, the old man who lived next door, opened the door for me.”

  “Did he know what had happened to them?” I asked breathlessly. I realized I was leaning forward, sitting on the edge of my seat.

  “At first he said, ‘I can’t help you. You have to go. I don’t want any trouble.’ But I didn’t move from his doorstep. ‘Have you seen my wife and son?’ I demanded.

  “ ‘They were taken away this morning,’ he told me. His voice was flat. He showed no emotion. ‘They were loaded into a truck and taken to the station. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.’ And then he closed the door in my face. I remember growing cold, so cold, like my blood had turned to ice. I ran back to my house, to our room, to Hirsch’s room, tearing through the bureaus and chests. I don’t know what I was looking for, but I was frantic. That’s when Pinky found me. ‘They came for Rachel and the girls too,’ Pinky said.”

  I must have gasped, because Harry finally opened his eyes and looked at me. “Yes,” he said, “my brother was married as well, with two daughters. He grabbed my hand and pulled me from the house. ‘We have to get out of here. They’ll come for us next,’ he said. And that’s when we ran.”

  Harry stopped then, and the silence that settled over us was thick and oppressive. He still held the bottle of Scotch in one hand, absently swirling the contents so it coated the sides of the glass and glinted in the candlelight. In a voice that was almost a whisper, he said, “The Nazis came back that night to round up those they’d missed earlier in the day. If Pinky hadn’t come for me, I would have been captured too.”

  “Where did you go?” I asked breathlessly.

  “We hid in the woods. We had a few friends, associates who were willing to smuggle us food and pass along supplies and information. If we thought there was a chance we’d be captured, we ran.”

  I shook my head, amazed. I had so many questions for him, but the most pressing one made its way to my lips. “Did you ever find out what happened to your family?” I asked hesitantly, timidly, almost afraid to hear the answer.

  Still swirling the Scotch in the bottle, he said, “After they rounded up all the Jews from Katowice, the city I’m from, they were forced onto train cars, shoved in, trampled, too many bodies crushed into too small a space. I was told my little boy suffocated.” Harry’s voice broke. “When Pinky and I were finally captured, our fate caught up to us. We were taken to Auschwitz. There, I saw an old neighbor who had been working at the camp where all the Jews from Katowice were deported. He saw Hirsch—my Hirsch—trampled on the floor of the boxcar, lying beside Estella.”

  My hands flew to my mouth as I gasped. Harry swallowed hard and lifted his head to the ceiling, blinking back tears. I didn’t know what to say to comfort him, so I sat shaking my head in shocked silence.

  “I try to think that was better than if he had survived. At least that way he died in his mother’s arms.”

  As the candle between us sputtered and flared, our hands inched ever closer. When he finally reached across the table and took my hand in his, his fingers entwining around mine, I didn’t pull away. I knew in that moment that I would never let him go.

  Forty-Three

  Villa in the foothills of the Owl Mountains, Reichenbach, Germany, July 1945

  I felt Sam slipping away. He disappeared all day, sometimes not returning home until after dark. I continued to earn my wages working on the local farm and pooled my money with Sam’s. When he was there, he talked of the day when we would have enough to buy our own home. I didn’t ask how he made his money, and he didn’t tell me. In Sam’s absence, Harry and I became closer. He often accompanied me into town when I shopped for groceries or traded in the market. I fell into the role of caretaker, cooking meals for the men, cleaning the large, empty rooms, attending to the herb garden in back. I never felt at ease in the richness of my surroundings. Harry sometimes sat in the kitchen while I chopped vegetables or scrubbed the pots or boiled water for soup. He shared with me bits and pieces of his life before the war.

  He had five brothers and three sisters. He spoke often of his sister Rachel, his oldest sibling. “She had a brilliant mind and was the one who ran the family business,” he told me one time in a wistful tone as I prepared a hearty stew for supper. “She was known as the Feather Queen. Everyone respected her.”

  I grew quiet when I listened to him talk. He was an animated storyteller, gesturing with his long fingers, his face expressive, so that I hung on his every word, enthralled. His upbringing had been very different from my own. His family had lived a secular lifestyle in Katowice, a larger, more metropolitan city than Olkusz. His father had been an educated man, and the family had owned a business buying and selling goose down and furs. “Pinky and I plan to start up the business again,” he told me one day as we walked past sun-dappled fields on the way to the marketplace in Reichenbach. “We still have associates and vendors in Katowice,” he said.

  “You want to return to Katowice?” I asked. I found it impossible to believe he’d want to return to the city where he had lost his wife and child. Yet he believed his siblings were still alive, and he was determined to find them. “Don’t you want to go back to Olkusz? Don’t you want to see if your family is there?” he asked me, and I grew quiet, pondering the question that continued to haunt me. Did I want to go back? What would I find if I did? Would the memories be too painful?

  Pinky sometimes joined us in town. Like Harry, he had a jovial personality and a quick smile. One morning I led them into the booksellers where Erna now worked. I liked to browse among the racks or flip through the magazin
es, and sometimes Erna would slip one into my bag and wave me out the door before I could pay. When we entered the dusty little store, the bells above the door chimed, and Erna looked up from behind the counter. Pinky, who had been talking, stopped midsentence when he saw her, his round face growing red. To my amazement, when I introduced the brothers to Erna, Pinky couldn’t take his eyes off her. They began to spend time together. She would come to our home in the evenings, and the four of us would sit around the table, smoking and drinking. I found them to be an odd couple—Erna was so tall and large with a face that could only be described as handsome and an overbearing presence, while Pinky was shorter and portly and had a sweeter, quieter nature. Despite their differences, it was easy to see their growing affection for one another.

  When Harry and I were alone, I found out about his younger brother Joseph, who had been with him until the very end, when they were separated in Auschwitz. I found out about his older brother David, who had been married to a woman named Dora and had a son named Arthur. He told me about the family that had agreed to hide Arthur when David and Dora feared they would be taken away. He had a sister named Esther as well, and I soon told him about my sister, describing her beauty in great detail. He put a hand out and tucked a wisp of hair behind my ear as I spoke, and I froze, all too aware of the small distance that separated us. “I can’t believe her beauty could rival yours,” he whispered in a low voice, and I blushed furiously, turning away from him and hurrying down the path.

  He left his first letter to me a few mornings later. He had slipped it underneath my door sometime during the night, so that when I woke, I noticed it lying conspicuously on the floor. I picked it up, turning it over to read:

  My dearest Sarah,

  You are like a ray of light that has entered my life. I ran for the longest time, living moment to moment, afraid to stop because stopping meant remembering. I didn’t think I’d ever feel happy again, but now, when I’m with you, I see a chance for a new future. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for your kindness. Thank you for making me feel alive again. Remembering my past doesn’t hurt as much when I can share it with you. Your beauty is unmatched and your innocence is endearing.

  Your constant admirer,

  H

  My heart raced as I leaned against the door, clutching the letter to my chest. When I closed my eyes, all I could picture were Harry’s face and eyes, the fair, wispy hair that brushed his forehead and tips of his ears like soft feathers, his slender physique and elegant hands. I had felt a comfortable companionship and fondness for Michal, but this was something more, something overwhelming and almost scary. Harry left me breathless.

  I kept the letters he wrote hidden underneath my mattress. I never spoke of them, never acknowledged them aloud, but I couldn’t stop the heat that rose in my cheeks when he was near me. I felt his eyes watching me whenever we were in the same room. Sometimes I would catch a private smile or glance from him that turned my stomach not unpleasantly. Every morning a new letter would appear underneath my door. Each subsequent letter grew longer and more intimate. At night when I couldn’t sleep, I sat by the window and read the letters, memorizing each word.

  If Sam suspected, he never said a thing.

  Harry was waiting for me one day as I left the farm. He sat on the fence that bordered the fields, smoking a cigarette and shading his eyes from the sun as he watched me walk up to meet him. He lifted his hand in a wave, and I smiled. As I approached, a mother passed on the road, holding two young boys by the hands. I stopped as I watched them, my throat suddenly constricting. “Sarah?” Harry called, jumping the fence and walking in my direction. “Are you all right?” I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders as he reached my side. “I’m fine,” I said with a forced smile.

  The woman had stopped a few yards away to bend down and wipe something from one of the boy’s cheeks. His giggle floated in the air like effervescent bubbles. I felt suddenly weak. I tried to keep my eyes from staring at them, but I couldn’t help but watch as the mother lifted the other boy and swung him around so he, too, laughed.

  “Do you know them?” Harry asked softly as they continued down the road, away from us. For a moment, all I saw was the back of my mother’s head, her round hips and the curve of her neck beneath her kerchief. I saw David’s round cheeks and soft, pudgy hands and Majer’s auburn curls radiant in the sunlight.

  And suddenly I began to weep.

  “What’s the matter?” Harry asked, stepping in front of me and lifting my chin so I had to look up into his blue eyes.

  “It’s nothing,” I said, blinking back the tears. “I just, just thought—”

  “What?”

  And I told him about my mother and father, finally allowing the memories to wash over me. I told him about the twins. “They were so young, Harry. I loved them like they were my own children. They withered before our eyes, and we couldn’t do anything to stop it. They were cringing on the floor when I was taken away, holding on to each other as my mother screamed. I can’t get the memory out of my head. Oh, God, I can’t stop seeing it!” I sobbed. I thought enough time had passed that the memories wouldn’t be raw, wouldn’t hurt. But my heart still bled.

  Harry drew me into his arms, and I leaned against him heavily. I didn’t think to be embarrassed or uncomfortable. “They’re gone, Harry,” I whispered against his shoulder.

  “You don’t know that.”

  I nodded, swallowing, the taste of salt on my tongue as I wiped at my eyes. “I do. I do, Harry. There’s no way they could have survived. My parents were so broken. They never recovered after Esther died. They just accepted everything that happened to us. I did too. I was weak. I let them take me away. I should have fought, like Sam.”

  “You were a child, Sarah,” Harry said firmly, but I continued as though I hadn’t heard him.

  “And the twins were so fragile. They needed their mother. I was a poor substitute, I couldn’t protect them. We saw the smoke from the camps with our own eyes, in the ghetto. I should have known. How could I have left them?”

  “You couldn’t have known.”

  “I won’t see them again—”

  Without a word, Harry lifted me in his arms and carried me back home. I continued to gasp, to fight the racking sobs that threatened to overwhelm me, but his smell and his touch were like a tonic to my senses. I buried my face against his shoulder, inhaling deeply, and slowly, I was able to breathe again.

  Outside the front door, Harry set me on my feet and turned me toward him. “Sarah,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion. I blinked up at him through my tears. “Sarah,” he said again, “we’ve both lost so much. But when I’m with you, I’m happy. And I want to make you happy. Will you let me try?”

  The breathless feeling returned, but this time it wasn’t unpleasant. I nodded silently, caught in the intensity of his gaze. “I love you, Sarah,” he whispered. He lowered his head and, still holding my eyes, touched his lips to mine.

  I fell into him, surrendering to a feeling that eradicated all other thought. I felt his hands pull me closer so our bodies touched. My heartbeat quickened.

  “Sarah!”

  A loud voice jarred me back to myself, and I jumped, pulling away from Harry quickly. Turning to the front door, I saw Sam glaring at us both. “Sam!” I gasped as he grabbed my hand and pulled me inside, slamming the door in Harry’s face. He dragged me through the hall to my room, where he shut and locked the door and turned to face me. His cheeks were red with rage.

  “This is just like you, Sarah,” he fumed, pacing the length of the room while my eyes followed him incredulously.

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded.

  “You’ve always been too eager for the attention of men,” he spat. “Even when you were a child, you liked to flirt. It’s not appropriate.”

  Heat rushed into my own cheeks. I stood rooted to the spot, tremb
ling in anger and indignation. Sam’s eyes were narrow slits, cutting at me viciously. For a moment, he looked like a stranger.

  “You weren’t raised like that, Sarah. Mama and Papa would be appalled.”

  My fists clenched at my sides. The memories of my parents were still so fresh in my mind that this idea was like throwing salt on an open wound.

  “How can you say that?” I yelled. “I haven’t done anything wrong! Harry’s a good man, Sam. He loves me. He wants to take care of me. Helena found someone to love. Erna and Pinky are growing closer. I want to feel love too. I’m not a child anymore!”

  Sam stopped pacing and stared at me. I took a step closer to him and said, “The life we had with Mama and Papa—that life is gone, Sam.”

  “It doesn’t have to be,” he said in a low voice.

  “Yes, Sam,” I said in a moment of defiance. “It does.”

  “He’s so much older than you, Sarah,” he said, his voice suddenly void of emotion. “He’s more … experienced than you. I don’t trust him.”

  “I do,” I said simply.

  He regarded me silently, and I was reminded of the night he’d called me a whore. An ugly, sick feeling rose in my throat. The look of suspicion and judgment in his eyes bore through me, and I was sure he knew. He knew.

  “You are naive, then,” he said, and he stormed from the room.

  Forty-Four

  Blechhammer, subcamp of Auschwitz, Upper Silesia, February 1944

  We sat at long tables, our fingers sore from the repetitive motion of building small gauges and compasses for German planes. I was lucky I had found a pair of worn gloves that warmed at least part of my hands. Most of the girls around me had to suffer the bitter winter draft in the small shed where we worked, fumbling with the minute parts as they shivered, their fingers purple from cold.

  I had been in Blechhammer for almost six months. I had befriended three girls from Czechoslovakia: blonde-haired sisters Sophia and Risa and a beautiful girl named Lotte whose family had owned a jewelry store. She spoke often of how her mother’s diamond necklace was torn from her throat by a female guard when they’d first arrived at the camp, and how her own ruby ring had been forced from her finger by other prisoners as they were sorted into lines. Lotte and her mother, Miriam, had managed to stay together. Miriam had to report to the kitchen when we were sent to build parts for the planes, and every evening when we returned to the barracks, Lotte cried with relief when she saw her. Miriam became a surrogate mother to us all, wrapping her arms around us at night and singing soft lullabies in Czech that made me long for home.