by Ruta Sepetys
I crawled toward her.
Her hand bobbed and grasped frantically at the edge of the ice.
“Ingrid!” I wailed.
The ice broke.
The hole in the ice spread farther, sending a deep crack running directly toward me. Ingrid’s hand flapped desperately.
A pair of hands tightened around my ankles. I began sliding backward along my belly to the frozen bank.
“Let me go!”
The gap in the ice widened. Water rolled toward me. Panicked screams roared from behind. “It’s all cracking!”
Someone pulled me away. I tried to free myself, to fight my way back across to Ingrid.
“No!” I pleaded. “Ingrid!”
I looked out toward the dark watery hole. Ingrid’s frantic hand suddenly went slack. Her fingers softened, slowly curled, and disappeared beneath the ice.
florian
I followed secretly behind.
When the planes appeared, the Polish girl dropped from the cart and tried to scramble to the women on the ice. I pushed her away, then ran to the nurse, pulling her back toward me. The little boy grabbed my leg, trying to yank me to safety. He had the weight of a dry twig yet heaved with the ferocity of a bull. I dragged the nurse onto the bank, restraining her, fighting her.
“Let me go!” She kicked and screamed, desperate to save her blind friend. We fell in a heap. I pulled her onto my lap. She reached out to the ice.
“Ingrid,” she whispered, trembling. “Please, no.”
The nurse’s neck fell limp, like a broken doll. Her chin dropped against my chest. She began to cry.
The broken shards of ice shifted. The blind girl’s blue scarf suddenly appeared on the surface of the water.
The little boy buried his head against Poet’s leg. “Make it stop! Please, no more.”
“Shh. There, there, Klaus,” said the shoemaker.
The nurse sobbed, clinging to me.
I sat, paralyzed, wanting to put my arms around her, but knowing I couldn’t.
The Polish girl knelt beside us. She spoke quietly, stroking the nurse’s hair and wiping her tears. Then, without a word, she lifted my arms and placed them around the nurse.
alfred
Dearest Hannelore,
Good morning from the port! It has become overwhelmingly crowded in Gotenhafen. Those fleeing from the region stand in line waiting for ship assignment. We must be cautious with registration, as there may be deserting German soldiers hiding among these refugees.
I pity the man who cannot overcome his cowardice, who cannot step on the neck of his own weaknesses. I know you saw the group of Hitler Youth come to my door, Lore. The boys teased that I was a coward, not strong enough to serve our country, but how wrong they were. I’m so pleased you know that. Yes, initially I was not part of Hitler Youth and my critical father was ashamed. But now here I am, called a bit later than most but only because they have finally realized that it takes a man to succeed where boys have failed. It is so gratifying. And where are the bullies of Hitler Youth? Perhaps dead, imprinted by the tread of a tank. Death, it seems, has a mind of its own.
Yes, I know it must all sound hostile, but this is war. Brave men are reduced to numbers. These numbers are engraved twice on an oval metal disc we wear around our neck. In the event of death, they shall snap the disc in half. Half will be buried with my body, the other half turned in to Command with my papers and personal effects.
I am 42089.
• • •
I couldn’t help but wonder: Did Hannelore have a number?
emilia
We waited on the bank for several hours but the planes did not return. The water froze again. So did our hands and feet.
The soldiers returned to their stations. They insisted we cross a different section of the ice. They rushed the groups of people, all eyes intent on the sky. I resumed my place in the cart. The knight held Joana by the elbow, worried that she might jump into the hole that had taken the blind girl from us. He was scared to touch her, but wanted desperately to touch her.
I held my breath as we crossed, quivering at the thought of our Ingrid frozen beneath. The ice ached and groaned, like old bones carrying too many years, brittle and threatening to snap at any moment. My nerves lurched with each sound. I held my hands across my stomach. The shoe poet walked ahead of the group, tapping the ice with his stick and nodding.
“The ice is arthritic, but no fractures yet,” he reported. “Hurry along, the top is melting slightly. We have kilometers to go.”
Kilometers to go.
The cramping and pressure resumed below my waist. I couldn’t watch any longer. I lay back in the frigid cart, closed my eyes, and thought of August. In my mind, the warm sun burned bright. The unfenced pastures rolled soft, like worn velvet. The window boxes puffed with flowers and the tree branches stooped heavy with ripe plums. August returned to the estate, slick with sweat after a long ride with his horse, Tabrez.
I heard the wheels of the cart churn and scrape beneath me. No one had asked, so I didn’t mention it.
I did not know how to swim.
joana
After several hours, we reached the other side of the lagoon. No one celebrated. Instead, we trudged quietly and slowly onto the bank. Finally, Eva spoke.
“I was sure we’d all drown, like cats in a bag.”
The wandering boy looked up at Eva. Tears, like slender icicles, were frozen to his cheeks.
“Sorry,” she said.
Anger suddenly consumed me. I yanked the German by the arm, pulling him aside. “I could have saved her.”
“No, you couldn’t. They not only fired through the ice, they shot her.”
“You can revive someone who drowns! It’s possible. You kept me away.”
“Yes, I did. The temperature of the water alone was enough to kill her. It would have killed you too.”
“You don’t know that!” I yelled.
“Now, now,” interrupted the shoe poet. “Let’s not soil the memory of Ingrid with arguing.” Poet gestured to the German. “He quite possibly saved both you and Emilia. Emilia also scrambled to Ingrid. I saw it. He stopped her too.”
Emilia had also tried to save Ingrid? “Emilia, are you okay?” I called up to her in the cart.
“Yes, okay.” She nodded.
“We could have lost all of you girls,” continued Poet.
“Not her,” said the German of Eva. “Her big feet grew roots. She didn’t move to save anyone.”
“Feet with roots, that’s called a fungal infection,” Poet told the wandering boy.
A soldier approached our group. “Papers!” he demanded.
I pulled the German toward me. “You owe us,” I whispered.
florian
Owed her? Why did I owe her? I saved her life.
I tried to distract the soldier while he looked at my papers. “A lot of hysteria back there. Their friend fell through the ice,” I said.
“Lucky it was just one,” said the soldier. “Yesterday we lost dozens. Damn Russians.” He scanned my papers. He looked up at me, eyes sharp. “Do you still have the parcel?”
“Yes.”
“This is signed by Gauleiter Koch,” said the soldier.
I couldn’t read his expression. Was he questioning or was he acknowledging? “Yes, I’m in a hurry,” I told him.
“Wait here,” he said. He turned and walked to another soldier. My pulse quickened.
The rest of the group overheard the exchange. “Come along,” said the shoemaker, corralling the others. “Let’s leave the boy to his business.”
The Polish girl stepped away from the group and stood by my side.
It could have been so easy. I could have walked across the ice myself, without the burden of the group. They could have tried to save the blind girl. Mayb
e they all would have drowned in the process. That would have been so much easier.
And so much harder.
“Bitte.”
The word was so quiet, I wasn’t even sure I had heard it. I looked down at the Polish girl. She wore red lipstick. Her blond hair was released from the captivity of her braids. She pulled her pink hat down over her eyes. “Bitte,” she whispered again. “Please.”
The soldier and a superior were discussing my papers. Had Dr. Lange and Gauleiter Koch made the discovery yet? Did the soldiers have my name on a list of traitors? If so, I’d soon feel the shadow of a gun on the back of my skull.
The soldier returned, staring at me. “I assume you’re going to Pillau?” he asked.
“You assume?” I said with an air of authority, needing him to reveal more.
“I am told Gauleiter Koch may be on his way to Pillau.”
“No, I am not going to Pillau,” I said.
“To Gotenhafen, then?” he asked.
Gotenhafen was in the other direction. “Correct. Gotenhafen.”
“Yes, Herr Beck. But it’s quite a walk to Gotenhafen. There may be a small boat that can take you.” He suddenly saw the Polish girl at my side and raised an eyebrow.
“Yours?” he said with a grin.
“Mind yourself. She’s with that group. They helped me when I was injured. In turn, they have helped Gauleiter Koch and the Führer.” I snapped my papers out of his hand. “Have you met Gauleiter Koch?” I asked.
The soldier shook his head. “No, but I’ve heard about him.”
Of course he had. Koch’s murderous reputation had made him known. And feared.
“Why doesn’t Koch have you in uniform?” asked the soldier. “It would be safer for you.”
“Maybe, but then I’d be dragged by some unit into the field. As you know, Koch doesn’t like his affairs broadcast. This is private business,” I said, staring him down.
He nodded.
“Listen. I need that boat to Gotenhafen. Now.”
alfred
“Beeil dich!”
Hurry, hurry. Always hurry. Hurrying made my hands itch.
I had been assigned to the Gustloff ’s enclosed sundeck for the day. It was being outfitted as a maternity ward. How inconvenient for women to become pregnant during a war. Quite thoughtless of them. My Mutter certainly would not have done such a thing. I thought of Mutter’s bedroom, separate from my father’s. But then I dismissed the thought. I preferred not to think of my father at all.
“Which cabins will the doctors stay in?” I asked as I hauled wooden cots into a line.
“You say ‘doctors’ as if there will be many,” replied the soldier. “I think there will be one doctor who tends to both the women and the injured soldiers.”
One doctor for all the patients? But then I realized my error. “So the nurses will do most of the work. Oh, yes, that’s much better.”
“Nurses? It won’t be easy to find nurses. There’s a war going on, man. If someone has a baby, you’ll be the midwife.”
Revolting. If women were so careless to become pregnant at such a time, let women sort it out. It was not a job for one of the Führer’s finest.
“Well, they’ll need more medical personnel. We’re already worn too thin,” I complained.
“Sure.” The other soldier smirked. “Folding tablecloths and laying mattress pads. That really wears you thin. I’d rather be at the front, killing Russians, but I destroyed my knee, so I’m here”—he looked at me—“with guys like you.”
“This is a most important assignment,” I corrected him. “We’re going to be commanding two thousand people.”
“Two thousand?” He laughed. “You think this tub’s going to carry only two thousand people? Who told you that?”
emilia
We sat on the bank, shivering, my abdomen seizing. I watched refugees cross the ice and continue their trek down the narrow strip of land between the lagoon and the Baltic Sea. To the left—Gotenhafen. To the right—Pillau. Either way, the journey would be another long one.
Our group argued, but finally chose Gotenhafen. They thought a voyage from Gotenhafen would be shorter. The next argument was how to get there.
“We can walk,” said Eva.
“It’s much too far. A boat will cut across the inlet faster,” argued Joana. “The Russians are on top of us. There’s no time to waste.”
“This is what we shall do,” counseled Poet. “We will lend our cart and horse to a family on foot. They will be grateful for the transportation. We will try to hire a small boat, meet them in Gotenhafen, and retrieve our belongings. That will suit all parties.”
I didn’t have any belongings, just a rotten potato in my pocket that I gnawed on when no one was looking. That was all I had.
It made me think of my father. You’re all I have, he would say. Mama’s death changed my father. One day a tuft of pure white hair appeared on the back of his head. When I mentioned it, he said it was special—angel hair. But other things changed too. His skin clung to his bones like drenched clothing. He often held his face in his hands.
I quickly realized that what pleased my father the most was my happiness. So I learned to appear happy, even if I wasn’t.
Father constantly worried about me. He cried when he told me that he was sending me away to the Kleists’ farm in East Prussia for safety. I wanted to cry too. I wanted to scream and refuse. But it hurt so much to see him sad, losing all that he loved. So I assured him that he was right, it was for the best, and that I was not upset. I told him that we would see each other in a couple of years, when the war of winter turned to spring.
I became good at pretending. I became so good that after a while the lines blurred between my truth and fiction. And sometimes, when I did a really good job of pretending, I even fooled myself.
florian
The Polish kid would not give up. She was fifteen, pregnant with her boyfriend’s baby, pregnant with a vision of freedom. And she was brave. I couldn’t deny that.
There was something else I couldn’t deny. Time was running out. I had bullied my way through a couple young guards in rural outposts, but Gotenhafen would be altogether different. Gotenhafen was a major base for the Kriegsmarine, the German navy of the Nazi regime. The military presence would be thick and constant. The naval base and port were also a prime target for Russia’s Red Army. They said that Koch himself had left Königsberg. When had he left and where exactly was he now?
Heavy snow fell. I didn’t mind the freezing temperature. The cold lowered the risk of infection in my wound. It kept me alert.
“Beck,” the soldier called out. “That one’s yours.” A small boat sped up to a rotting pier. I said nothing, just turned and walked toward the pier, the pink hat following close behind.
If I had to take the Polish girl in the boat I would. She would be lost amidst the chaos in Gotenhafen. She’d have to deal with her Latvian papers and her pregnancy by herself. A sense of relief washed over me. I would soon be back on my own. I stepped onto the pier and nodded to the driver of the boat.
“Wait, all of you?” he asked.
I turned to find the entire group standing behind me on the pier. The little boy approached and held up the earless rabbit, asking if he too could come to Gotenhafen.
The nurse’s eyes found mine. Yes, you owe us, they seemed to say.
alfred
Good evening, sweet Hannelore,
I’m taking a bit of air on the deck of the Gustloff. Although it is minus ten degrees centigrade and the wind is howling, it is nice to breathe freely. Everyone seems to smoke. You know how cigarette smoke bothers me. It would upset me greatly to see you defile your candied mouth with foulness like so many young girls I see. Have you done that, Hannelore? Of course you haven’t.
From up on deck I can see into the port and its
surroundings. There must be thirty thousand people in the sea of humanity down there. And they say the operation hasn’t even truly begun.
We are kept company by other ships here in the port. I can see Hansa, merchant ships, old fishing boats, trawlers, and even dinghies that have brought fleeing people from the nearby lagoon. I am told that the Gustloff will sail for the German port of Kiel, an expected journey of forty-eight hours. I am wondering how she will fare as a heavy-weather boat, considering she was built for calm voyages under sunny skies and has not sailed for four years.
One of our captains in charge is Captain Petersen. He is a pleasant white-haired fellow in his mid-sixties. Many of the other naval personnel have gone ashore to defend the port. They have been replaced on board by a Croatian deck crew. It is annoying to have to share everything with the personnel, but fear not. I have devised clever alternatives. Today I marked one of the toilets as inoperable. So from now on I will have it all to myself. Quite clever of your Alfie.
Some at home did not appreciate my cleverness or abilities. They saw me as a birdie with a troubled wing that should remain close to the nest. They didn’t know the truth.
I am quite confident that no one is aware of my ingenuity and objectives. I just might surprise them all, Hannelore. War is full of duty and decision. You know I have made that commitment.
Yes, life can be lonely for the truly exceptional, darling. So I build my own nest and feather it with thoughts of you.
joana
We arrived in Gotenhafen at dusk, our faces red and chapped from the wind on the water. Emilia had been sick through most of the boat trip, but insisted she was fine. Her face was the color of phlegm as we walked into the port. She held on to the sleeve of the German to steady herself. We needed to find a place for her to rest, something for her to eat.
For weeks we had trekked to get to the port. Nothing could have prepared us for what we found there. Horses and animals, lost or abandoned by their owners, roamed helpless in the streets. Gray naval supply trucks zoomed about. Crates, boxes, luggage, and provisions lined the quays.