by Lily Graham
He swore, then told her to hold out her arms while he began searching her too.
Eva’s eyes were calm even as his hands swept over her undergarments. Finding nothing, he looked furious, gritting his teeth, and pushing her from him, towards Sofie.
‘Maybe you should get your eyes tested?’ suggested Eva sweetly.
His arm circled back and he hooked her with his left fist – she went flying into the ground. He spat, ‘I know what I saw, you won’t get so lucky next time.’
There was blood on the ground, and Eva’s nose was broken. Her left eye would be swollen shut for days. Sofie helped her back to their barracks and attempted to mop up her face. As she applied ointment that she’d got from one of the other women in the barracks to her friend’s eye, Sofie shook her head and asked, ‘How did you do it? Do you have a death wish, Kritzelei?’
‘Do you?’ retorted Eva, spitting out blood into a nearby bowl.
‘No.’
Sofie shook her head, and dabbed some more ointment on Eva’s eyelid, making her flinch.
Then she sighed, again. ‘Tell me how you did it.’
‘Did what?’
Sofie shook her head. ‘You know what I mean, the letter?’
Eva gave her a lopsided grin and then made something appear from behind her friend’s ear. ‘You mean this letter?’
Sofie gasped, then made to grab it.
Eva made the letter disappear just as fast as it appeared. Like magic.
‘Kritzelei!’ protested Sofie. ‘I still need to send that letter.’
‘I know you do – but that gendarme has it in for you – and trust me you’ll get caught.’
‘And you won’t?’
‘Do I ever?’
Sofie crossed her arms. She appreciated what her friend had done for her, more than she could say, but she didn’t want her to risk her life for her.
‘Eva, that gendarme is going to have it in for you too – I saw the way he looked at you.’
‘Don’t worry about it – I’ll think of something.’
When Bedrich saw Eva’s face, he tutted. ‘I heard about what happened. You risked your life for this girl. Why?’
‘She’s my friend, uncle.’
‘So?’
‘So that means something to me.’
Bedrich sniffed. ‘What if you’d got caught, Eva? It’s a serious offence – you know that – you might not survive if they catch you.’
Eva grinned, then bit off a small wedge of salami. Then she handed it to him. He frowned, touched his jacket pocket from where she’d taken it without him noticing, and then snorted, giving her his half smile, as he ruffled her hair in a one arm hug.
‘They’ll have to try,’ she said.
Two weeks later, she was able to send out Sofie’s letter. She arranged it through one of the work units who went out to the fields – they passed by the outside world, many having made a few connections with the local population; bribery worked as well on the outside as it did within the ghetto. The reply if any did, would come through the official channels – written in code – as instructed.
Meier’s hand rested on top of hers, and it was like an unwanted jolt of electricity. She swallowed her fear, her heart thudding painfully. ‘Let’s see it,’ he said, softly, and she opened her hand at last, her legs turning to jelly. Meier stood too close, and she could smell him. It was sweet, yet slightly acrid. He took the ring from her palm, his fingers lingering against her rough skin, tickling. Then he brought the ring to his eye line, so that the faded gold sparkled in the low light of the warehouse. He gave a low whistle. ‘Might be worth a little something, here,’ he said, then to her shock put it back into her hand, closing it with his own. ‘Don’t you think?’ he asked, his gaze raking hers meaningfully. She nodded, and he touched her face, her short hair, her lips. ‘Give us a smile, Bette Davis,’ he said, and Sofie did.
He winked at her, then turned to leave. ‘If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice back,’ he promised.
Sofie’s legs almost gave out as she watched him leave. She found it hard to calm her breathing. She could have been shot for being caught stealing. She closed her eyes. Her life was in his hands. How long before he tried to call in the favour?
Chapter Eight
Eva kept more photographs that she found sorting through the coats in the warehouse. She had a small pile of just six that she kept in the thin mattress in her bunk: smiling mothers and laughing sons and daughters, happy couples, a woman with a polka dot scarf and a baby pressed against her cheek, a boy on a wooden horse.
‘Why keep them?’ asked Sofie, as Eva looked at them late at night, her memory conjuring more than the darkness would permit. ‘It’s not like they are worth anything.’
Eva turned to protest, then started to cough; she still couldn’t shake it, which had begun a few days earlier, she hoped she wasn’t getting sick, though it was sometimes unavoidable here with the lack of sanitation. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen soap. Her friend rubbed her back, both as a comfort and a gesture of peace.
‘Apart from their sentimental value for the people they used to belong to, of course. What are they to you, Eva? If the guards found you with these you could be killed. They might think you are planning on doing something with them.’
She hadn’t told Eva about what had happened with the ring, with Meier, she didn’t know if it was dangerous to share it or not. But the secret twisted like a knife.
Eva snorted. ‘Like what? There’s so few.’
Sofie shrugged. ‘I don’t know – maybe tell people outside what they are doing here?’
‘If I managed to get outside that would be a miracle – and I’m sure the barbed wire and electric fencing tells people all they need to know.’
Sofie leant her head against the wall of the bunk, and sighed, rubbing her neck. They were working them long hours, and Meier’s constant watchful, hungry gaze was taking its toll. She longed to ask him about Lotte, but she was worried about what owing him a favour like that might cost, especially given her debt already for turning a blind eye to her theft. ‘Yes, but they don’t know what goes on, not really, I think they think it’s just some sort of holding camp.’
Eva raised a brow. ‘You don’t think people know by now what it really is?’
The words death camp lay heavy in the air: the full weight, and the full horror of it all, unspoken, yet oppressive.
Sofie sighed, then rubbed her dark eyes. There were deep shadows beneath them. ‘Honestly, I don’t know if they do, or if they even care, Eva. Sometimes, I think… I hope they know what’s happening here – at other times, I hope they don’t, and that’s the reason that it has been allowed to go on so long. The alternative – that they know, and let it happen – is unbearable.’
Eva nodded. She looked at her friend and felt the familiar stab of guilt. She swallowed. ‘Sofie, if only I hadn’t—’
Sofie’s dark eyes snapped open, and she shot her an admonishing look. ‘Don’t start that again, Kritzelei.’
‘But Sof—’
‘I’m glad I followed you, all right, so leave it.’
Eva shook her head. She had been much safer back in Terezín. It was her fault that they were here now.
Sofie reached for her hand, closed her eyes again, resting her head against Eva’s shoulder. ‘You wouldn’t have been able to stop me, Kritzelei, for all your tricks. Besides I didn’t just follow you – I had to know if it was true, if Lotte really is here, if I could find out at last what she did with my son.’
Eva nodded. The memory of that day washing over her. It had begun with finding out where they had taken Michal first.
‘Auschwitz.’
Eva had stared at him, her hazel eyes huge. ‘Are you sure?’
Her uncle was solemn. ‘I’m afraid so.’
She breathed out, not taking in the surrounds. It had taken nearly a year in Terezín to find out. A year and her wedding ring – which she’d hidden well so the guards had
n’t been able to find it when they arrived – as a payment to a man who worked in the record office. Her uncle had arranged it.
Bedrich’s hand caught hold of her arm, his eyes worried. ‘Don’t do anything stupid, dítě, please.’
She looked away. Too late. She’d already decided – she’d decided a long time ago that she would follow as soon as she could.
‘I can’t promise that, uncle. I’m sorry.’
She’d found Sofie waiting for her in the women’s quarters, her dark eyes knowing. She didn’t bother with a greeting, just pursed her lips and declared, ‘If you’re going, Kritzelei, so am I.’
Eva had shaken her head, unwinding the scarf that she’d tied around her long, dark hair, against the cold. ‘No, Sofie, you shouldn’t. It might be worse than here, probably is – I’ve heard some of the rumours – it’s not like this place.’
Sofie crossed her arms, and a lock of long, dark blonde hair fell across her face, so that Eva could see the thick scars on her forehead reaching to the back of her scalp.
‘You don’t think I know about worse?’ she muttered.
Eva sighed. ‘I know you do – you told me about the camp you were in before this.’
Sofie rolled her eyes, and scoffed. ‘That was nothing. I told you about the people who I met who’d spent time in labour camps. Westerbork was much like this, but they aren’t all so marvellous, trust me, the things I’ve heard…’
There was an old woman sitting behind them on a bed, darning socks. She made a disbelieving sound at the back of her throat at the idea of calling this place ‘marvellous’. There was the constant hunger, fleas, bedbugs, overcrowding, disease and degradation with the overwhelming stench of human waste as the town groaned under the weight of far more people than it was ever intended to house before the Nazis transformed it into a camp. Still, even so, they knew or had heard rumours of worse.
Sofie whispered, ‘It’s true – I’ve heard things.’
Eva sighed. ‘Exactly, I won’t put your life at risk for mine. Okay?’
Sofie shook her head. ‘You won’t be, trust me – I’ll be risking my life to go after my cousin – I got word that that is where they most likely sent Lotte.’
Eva’s mouth opened and closed. ‘When?’
‘A little while ago – I finally got a response to my letter, the one you managed to send for me.’
It was a week, to be exact, and she’d been trying to decide if she should just volunteer to go. The reply from one of Lotte’s friends had been short and coded, as it needed to pass beneath the authorities’ gaze.
All it said was that Lotte had been put on a train and sent somewhere east, somewhere in Poland. A town called Oświęcim, she thought. Sofie had heard that it was a code for Auschwitz.
‘My life is at risk all the time. It has been for years, without me having any say in it. This way I get some choice in the matter, and I might manage to track down Lotte so that she can tell me what she did with my son – where she placed him, if I don’t throttle her with my bare hands first.’
Eva had touched her friend’s arm. ‘But you could find out another way, go back to Lotte’s neighbourhood, ask questions when the war is over… someone should know, Sofie – you don’t need to follow her there.’
They had discussed it at length, what they would do when the war was over. ‘It would be much safer for you to wait the war out here if you can, you know that.’
Sofie sighed. ‘Maybe. But if she is there – then I will find out for sure, it might be my only chance, Kritzelei. Lotte wasn’t an idiot and she wouldn’t have made it obvious where she’d taken him, in order to protect him. She might have betrayed me, but she did love my child. Besides, I can’t stay here without you.’
‘Of course you can. You’re tough – far tougher than me!’
Sofie grabbed her shoulder, roughly. ‘That’s why you need me, idiot. I have to come to make sure that my foolish, daydreaming friend stays alive, that we get out of this together!’
Eva laughed, then embraced her fiercely. ‘I’m tougher now, you know that.’
‘That’s true – although your version of being tough borders on being reckless, Kritzelei, I’m coming – so don’t try one of your tricks, if you go to the toilet, the kitchen, anywhere alone, I’m coming with you to make sure you don’t get on that train without me, do you understand?’
Eva shook her head. It was exactly what she’d planned on doing before she’d run into Sofie. ‘How can I meet your son, Tomas, at last, only to tell him that we risked our lives because we wanted to go on some fool’s mission?’
Sofie had taken her hand and said, ‘We will explain that it was my best chance of finding out where my cousin had put him. And, Kritzelei, if it comes to that – this will all just be a memory, of the time his mother met her best friend.’
Eva had squeezed her hand back, there hadn’t been much more to say after that.
Eva closed her eyes now as she lay in the bunk, listening to the sound of hundreds of other women sleeping and arguing and clinging on to life around her. There was still a part of her that wished that she had lied to Sofie – that she had come up with some other plan to distract her friend, so that Sofie could have been spared this place. She was no closer to finding Lotte than she was Michal. Had they risked it all for nothing?
Perhaps Sofie could read her mind because she opened her eyes and said, ‘I still think that, Kritzelei. That we’ll get through this and pick up our lives again, I have hope, because of you.’
It was true, before she’d met Eva, Sofie had been in a dark, dark place. But through meeting her she’d started to see a way out. Started to imagine that things might end differently.
Eva looked at her, and touched her arm. Even when everyone told her that she was mad to think the way she did, that hope was the reserve of fools, she couldn’t shake hers. She looked at her friend, and said, ‘But that’s why I’m keeping these, see,’ meaning the photographs.
Sofie frowned. ‘I don’t understand – so you are planning on showing them to people?’
‘No, not that. Although maybe yes if we get through this. But for now, I just can’t bear the thought of leaving these people behind, as if none of them mattered. This way, I don’t know, they can matter to someone, they can mean something even if it is just to me.’
‘Oh Eva.’
Eva shrugged. She knew that her friend was probably just thinking that she was being her usual rose-tinted self, but it was important to her – on some deep, human level – that she wasn’t willing to let go of, even if it risked her survival. She put the photographs back under the far too thin mattress. ‘I know it’s silly in a way, but I just couldn’t bear to have them burnt. I don’t know if they do burn them but that’s what one of the other women suggested might happen to them. What if it was Tomas or Michal?’
Sofie’s dark eyes were incredulous. ‘I wouldn’t want anyone to risk their life for my picture!’
‘Of course, but what if that’s all there is left? People have lost everything – their belongings, their families, their identity.’ She touched her arm where the tattoo they had etched into her skin – designed to take away the essence of who she had been, and replace it with a number – was, and then started to cough, a dry thin and rasping sound.
‘That’s sounding worse,’ said Sofie, looking at her critically, coming forward to touch her forehead. ‘Have you got a fever?’
‘No,’ Eva lied, shrugging her hand away.
‘Eva?’ Sofie didn’t sound convinced. She sounded worried, and suddenly on high alert, despite her fatigue.
‘I’m fine, it’s just a small cold, don’t worry,’ mumbled Eva, turning away from her friend’s anxious eyes.
‘Eva?’
‘I’ll be all right, trust me.’
Chapter Nine
But she wasn’t all right. Eva was half delirious by the morning.
‘Get up. I’m taking you to the hospital,’ said Sofie, shaking her arm.
‘Let’s stay longer. I’ll make us breakfast, we can have it in bed,’ muttered Eva, her eyes closed. ‘Take the day off…’
‘That would be nice,’ snorted Sofie despite herself. ‘But come on now, wake up. Quickly.’
Eva prised open swollen lids. Her eyes felt like they had been scratched by glass and pasted back into her sockets with glue. Her tongue was thick, and it felt like her head was under water. She groaned and turned over to go back to sleep.
‘Come on,’ insisted Sofie. ‘It’s the Appell, they’ve already called us.’
Eva swung out of bed, slowly. Then she bent down and took the photographs from the bunk, and shoved them into her underwear.
‘Leave those! Come on, quickly! The guard is already there! Put on your shoes,’ hissed Sofie, coming forward to help her.
Eva pushed her away. ‘No, I’m hot.’
‘Don’t be silly, it’s snowing,’ exclaimed Vanda, shooting Sofie a worried look.
Sofie felt Eva’s forehead and closed her eyes. ‘I think it might be typhus, God help her. It’s been going around here like wildfire – the water is filthy,’ she muttered, clenching her jaw.
Vanda helped Eva stand. ‘I’ll hold her up on my side, you do the same – they won’t see that she’s sick, I promise.’
Sofie grabbed her roughly. ‘Promise me – don’t drop her, they’ll kill her if she can’t stand.’
Vanda scowled at Sofie, and hissed, ‘I know that, I’m not an idiot, she’s my friend too!’
Eva patted their shoulders. ‘Don’t be silly, I’m fine,’ she said sliding out of bed, and falling over on her weak jelly legs.
They lifted her to her feet, and between them managed to slowly drag her outside into the freezing snow. For Eva, the cold air was a temporary relief but it still couldn’t cool down the fever burning through her limbs. They stood, holding her up for over two hours, arms aching, backs tensing in pain. Just the day before they had heard, more than seen, Hinterschloss shoot someone whose coughing had been getting on his nerves. When he’d walked past them, he’d held his head, then winked at them as a body was dragged away in the snow, which turned pink from the blood. ‘That’s better. I had such a headache.’