49. Emilie

FORTY-NINE

Dachau, Germany

We’ve spent days making our way through the railway full of cattle cars, moving bodies that barely weigh a thing, frail bones with thin skin merely offering a hint of who the person once was. We’ve been placing bodies in wagons to transport them to a burial site—one body after another. I inspect every person, wondering if I would recognize Danner’s face if I were to see it again in this way. I know Felix is doing the same. I can see by the extended glances he gives certain bodies before his shoulders slouch forward in defeat.

I’m not sure how many wagons of bodies we have filled, but with the amount of people brought here to help, we’re coming to the end. I doubt there will ever be a time where I’ll forget the look in every set of open eyes I have stared into these past few days, nor should I. No one should forget what they’ve seen here.

The car Felix and I have been working through is empty and we climb down, finding most of the citizens standing in front of the line of railway cars, staring into oblivion. We do the same until our fathers return from their daily search within the campgrounds, coming back without news of Danner. It’s clear by the dull looks in their eyes as they walk toward us.

“So that’s it. We give up trying to find him?” I ask as they step toward us.

Papa places his hands on my shoulders. “We’ll never stop. There’s just no record of him here.”

The sun is setting and it’s the time of day we leave. “I’m not leaving yet,” I tell them.

“Emilie, there’s nowhere for you to look here. You can’t stay,” Papa says, frustration quaking through his voice, along with how exhausted we all are from the labor of moving bodies.

Papa takes my hand and pulls me away from the empty tombs we’ve cleared out. But I need to be here. What if Danner’s here somewhere?

Papa doesn’t release his grip, ensuring I get into the car with the three of them. “I don’t want to go home,” I tell him.

“I know, but we have to.”

No one is saying much because there isn’t anything to say. We’ve done what we can do and there’s no other option but to essentially give up.

I can’t do that.

I endure the ride home, walking into the house as night settles in. I’m hollow inside, unable to process anything around me. The feeling has only gotten worse in the last year as I’ve sat here in my childhood bedroom, staring out the window that looks onto Danner’s old house. All I feel is guilt, pain, grief, remorse, and emptiness. This can’t be it—all that I’ll feel for the rest of my life.

Later that night, with everyone asleep, I make my way out the front door, careful not to make a sound. I take the gas lamp from the front stoop and walk between the houses, toward the tree line. Years ago, there wasn’t much that could convince me to walk into the woods alone at night, but now, the darkness is the least of my fears.

I place the lamp down on a flat tree stump in the middle of the bee farm and pull open the metal trunk where the supplies have always been kept. So much of this city is in pieces, destroyed, needing to be rebuilt, but Herr Alesky’s supplies, the hives and tools, are all still intact.

I slip into my protective gear and light the smoker. The bees are less frightened at night and find a new hive to burrow in quicker than in the daylight, which has made the process of retrieving the honeycomb filled wooden frames much easier. After placing the frames into the metal bin, I get cranking. The habitual pattern of cycling the machine brings me comfort. Being left helpless and hopeless when it comes to not doing much of anything except sit around and stir with worry, Danner’s words play in my head every night that I’m here: “It’s true. Albert Einstein said that mankind would be extinct within four years if we lost all the bees.” The explosions and air raids scared most of the bees away, but some had gathered in a swarm nearby. I remember Danner telling me about a special wooden box his dad had, which contained drops of lemongrass oil to attract the bees. If he found a tree hive, he’d shake the branch with the box below and capture the swarm. Then he’d bring them to the farming hives at night.

It’s been up to me to make sure the bees have a home here. We’re depending on them.

I’m depending on them.

If there are bees, we have a chance of surviving. It’s all I can do now.

Once my arms give out for the night, I return the tools to the trunk and take off the protective gear, closing it all back up tightly. I take the lantern and hold it out toward the path home, but my heart aches and the grief weighing me down returns. The only place I find any semblance of peace is here in the woods.

I turn back toward the opening between the trees, making my way over to the knotted stump responsible for Danner’s scar. I promised myself I’d stop spending nights alone in the woods, but I can’t get myself to go home yet.

I lower myself onto the moss-covered ground and lean against an old oak—my memory tree. I can still remember the first time Danner showed me how to extract the honey. It feels like it was yesterday, the day that was supposed to be perfect per my fortune. Except, Danner fell and ended up needing sutures. He always referred to that day as one of his all-time favorites, and it made me laugh, knowing it ended in the hospital. It was also the same day he told me he was sure I would become a nurse. It was a pivotal day, I suppose, but neither of us should have been trying to predict the future.