46. Danner

FORTY-SIX

Munich, Germany

When I wake once more in the darkness, I question if I’m alive or if this is the abyss. My internal clock winds up a couple minutes before the siren alerts us to all wake up. If I were dead, I don’t think I’d still smell the rotting flesh, bile, and sewage that lingers like a fog between these walls. I also wouldn’t hear purrs of snoring, wheezing, or delirious mumbles. My spine wouldn’t feel like it’s fused to a metal pole, and there wouldn’t be stabbing hunger pains writhing through my stomach.

Three-hundred and eighty-four days have passed since I last saw Emilie. I read the last of her words every night before bed, hoping I’ll dream of a better tomorrow as she taught me to do. Emilie was full of promises for a hopeful future, of the war coming to an end, of the happiness I’d find when this was all over. I waited at the location she passed each night, but she never came again. Night after night, I waited, but Emilie never returned.

The girl who would never give up has left me wondering what has become of her. I fight off nightmares of her being caught on the way out of the gates after sneaking me food. Even worse, there have been air raids and planes crashing in the not-so-far distance, telling me anything could have happened to anyone outside of these walls.

Here, people are dying, dropping face first into the dirt or onto a wooden floor by the hour, left pulseless by the time someone can move fast enough to check for the trace of a heartbeat. Every second of every day, I question how—why I—of all the people here—have managed to defy the odds and survive.

But there’s nothing left of me now except the skin sagging from my bones.

The morning siren rings, screaming at us to move faster than we’re capable of, to make it outside in time for roll call. A light bulb flickers to life by whomever was asleep beneath that spot of the ceiling. Hans doesn’t sit up right away like he usually does. It’s hard to avoid being startled by the ear-splitting alarm. I grab his thin arm, squeezing between his frail bones and tug him. He doesn’t budge, so I shake him with more force.

“Get up, brother. We have to move.”

He groans and struggles to open his eyes, his thin eyelashes wavering like a wing that can’t take flight. “I can’t move,” he says.

“You have to. We have to.” Without a morsel of fat or muscle left on my body, I’m as good as useless while trying to pull him toward the ladder, but I continue pulling anyway. “Come on, Hans.”

“Go without me,” he says, the sound of his voice hardly forming.

“No, I won’t.” I grit my jaw tightly and yank him over my shoulder, pulling him down to the ground with me. My knees threaten to buckle, but I keep my focus straight ahead, trying to remind myself mind over matter will win. I shove my shoulder under his arm and keep him upright as we shuffle our way out of the barrack.

The lineups are different this morning, for as far down the column of blocks as I can see against the sun’s glow peeking over the horizon, people are being shoved in different directions and shouted at. Yet, we will sit here and watch until they do the same to us, likely without any further explanation.

“No, I can’t—” the man in front of me moans before falling to the ground, face first.

I bend down to try to and help him back up, but he doesn’t budge. I can’t move him, and Hans is swaying beside me. I close my eyes and take a breath, holding it within my chest. “Please God, take care of this man laying here before me. Let his soul rest in peace,” I mutter.

“No, he’s—Fr—Frank, wake up,” Hans stutters. “You promised you wouldn’t die today. You told me last night.”

“Brother, he can’t—” Hans gently sways back and forth like a toy top about to make its last round. “Hans, look at me,” I tell him, grabbing his shoulders. He peeks through one squinted eye and shakes his head. “You can make it another day. Focus on tomorrow.”

I clap my hands around his face, trying to spark him into standing up straight. He gasps for air and winces. “How much longer?” he asks.

“Not much,” I lie. I lie like we all do, telling each other we’re going to make it, and that this is almost over even though there are no clues pointing to this possible end.

My vision blurs as I try to see more of what’s happening down the line of people, but the sun scalds my eyes like metal rods.

“Thank you for dragging me out here,” Hans mumbles. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. We’re in this together. We’re making it through this. We are.” I don’t believe the words, but I believe they may help someone listening.

The group of guards makes their way to our section, grabbing shirts and arms and tossing people like rubbish off to one side of the dirt path.

Before I can consider what will happen if Hans and I are separated, it happens. My body is thrown up against our barrack and I fold in half, recoiling from the pain shuddering through my bones and skull.

When I regain my focus and try to push through the consuming pain, half of us are gone, out of sight, as if they’d never existed in the first place. “Hans?” I shout. “Where are you?”

“Get to work,” a guard screams at me and a few others who are trying to pick themselves up. I scour the area, looking in every possible direction to see where the others must have gone. It’s as if my mind is playing tricks on me, but there’s a stick shoved into the center of my back, stabbing at me to move faster. My head is heavier than a cannon and it’s nearly impossible to hold it upright. My feet trip over each other no matter how hard I try to walk in a straight line. I’m not sure I’m still living.

I pass Block 5, the sick bay block, staring at the wooden door as if I could burn a hole through it with my eyes. Would Emilie be inside? Is she still here? Is she still alive?

Or is this place hell? She wouldn’t be there. People like her don’t go to hell. People like me, Jewish people, don’t believe in hell, yet, here I am, not sure what else to call this place.

“Emilie!” I shout, wishing she could hear me. “They took Hans. He’s gone too.”

“Shut up, rat. Keep moving,” a guard shouts from behind me, throttling his stick into my back again.