The captain stands with his arms folded over his chest at the front of the train. A few cars down, a dozen Ukrainians appear bored as they fiddle with their caps, twirling them around their fingers, their rifles slung to their backs. Some kick the dirt. Others converse, their shoulders rocking at a remark one of the others has made. Barbarians. Two more Jews have joined Dr. Frydman—apparently they too have doled out special favors and have been spared. Clamping her jaw shut, Mila lifts another mound of dirt from the hole at her feet, pours it atop her pile.
“Look,” someone behind her whispers. A young blonde woman has dropped her shovel. She struts quickly toward the tracks, toward the German, her shoulders pinned back, her black overcoat cinched tightly to her waist, its tails billowing behind her. Mila’s heart skips as she is reminded of her sister Halina, the only other woman she knows with that kind of bravado. As others begin to whisper and point, one of the Ukrainians beside the train raises his rifle, aims it; the others follow suit. The young fugitive raises her palms. “Don’t shoot!” she cries in Russian, picking up her pace to a trot as she approaches the men. The Ukrainians cock their weapons and Mila holds her breath. Felicia looks, too. The gunmen glance to the German, awaiting approval, but the captain tilts his chin and fixes his gaze on the petite, fearless Jew approaching. He shakes his head and says something Mila can’t decipher, and the Ukrainians slowly lower their arms.
Mila catches a glimpse of the young woman’s profile when she reaches the tracks. She’s pretty, with fine features and skin the color of porcelain. Even from afar, it’s easy to see that her hair is the kind of strawberry blonde that can only be real. Peroxided hair, which was common now in the ghetto—anything to look less Jewish—was easy to spot. Mila watches as the woman gestures casually with one hand, the other resting on her hip, and says something that makes the German laugh. Mila blinks. She’s won him over. Just like that. What did she offer? Sex? Money? Mila roils with a mix of disgust with the captain and jealousy of the beautiful, unflinching blonde.
A perimeter guard shouts, and the Jews go silently back to their digging. Mila tries to imagine herself putting on a bold, provocative face and strutting across the meadow. But she’s a mother, for goodness’ sake—and even when she was young she never had Halina’s talent for flirting. She’d be shot before she even reached the train. And on the chance she managed to make it to within earshot of the German, what could she possibly say to seduce him into saving her? I have nothing to—
And then an idea strikes her. Her spine snaps upright.
“Felicia!” she whispers. Felicia looks up, surprised by the intensity in her voice. Mila speaks softly, so the others won’t hear. “Watch my eyes, love—do you see that woman over there, by the train?” Mila looks toward the train car, and Felicia’s gaze follows. She nods. Mila’s breath is shallow. She’s shaking. No time to second-guess yourself—you got your daughter into this; you can at least try to get her out. Mila kneels for a moment, pretending to pull a pebble from her shoe, so she and Felicia can see eye to eye. She speaks slowly. “I want you to run to her, and pretend she’s your mother.” Felicia knits her eyebrows together, confused. “When you reach her,” Mila continues, “hold on to her, and don’t let go.”
“No, Mamusiu . . .”
Mila brings a finger to her daughter’s lips. “It’s all right, you will be all right, just do as I say.”
Tears well in Felicia’s eyes. “Mamusiu, you will come too?” Her voice is barely audible.
“No, darling, not right now. I need you to do this—alone. Do you understand?” Felicia nods, her eyes lowered. Mila reaches for Felicia’s chin, lifting it so their eyes meet again. “Tak?”
“Tak,” Felicia whispers.
Mila can barely breathe, her lungs suffocated by the sadness in her daughter’s eyes, by the plan that is about to unfold. She nods as bravely as she can. “If the men ask, that woman is twoja Mamusia. Okay?”
“Moja Mamusia,” Felicia repeats, but the words taste strange and wrong in her mouth, like something poisonous.
Mila stands and glances again at the woman by the train, who appears now to be telling a story; the German is rapt. She lifts her sweater from Felicia’s shoulders. “Go now, love,” she whispers, nodding toward the train. Felicia scrambles to her feet, looking up at her, pleading with her eyes—don’t make me! Mila squats, presses her lips quickly to Felicia’s forehead. As she rises, she braces herself with her shovel; she can’t feel her legs, and everything about the moment suddenly feels wrong. She opens her mouth, all the parts of her that are a mother clawing at her throat, begging her to change her mind. But she can’t. There is no other plan. This is all she has.
“Go!” Mila orders. “Quickly!”
Felicia turns to face the train, looks over her shoulder, and Mila nods again.
“Now!” Mila whispers.
As Felicia runs, Mila tries to resume her digging, but she’s paralyzed from the neck down and all she can manage is to watch, breathless, as the scene she’s orchestrated transpires in slow motion before her. For a few interminable seconds, no one seems to notice the small body darting across the meadow. Felicia is a third of the way to the train when one of the Ukrainians finally spots her and points. The others look up. One of them shouts an order Mila can’t understand and lifts his rifle. Suddenly, every pair of eyes in the meadow is locked on her daughter’s small frame, watching as she runs, knees high, arms wide, appearing discombobulated, as if at any moment she might fall.
“Mamusiu!” Felicia’s scream cuts through the thin air, shrill, sharp, desperate. Despite the fact that she was expecting this, it severs Mila’s heart to hear her daughter call the blonde woman mother. Her eyes leap between Felicia, the German, and the Ukrainian with his rifle raised, awaiting approval. “Mamo! Mamo!” Felicia bawls between breaths, over and over again as she nears the tracks. The German watches Felicia, shaking his head, seemingly confused. The young woman looks at Felicia and then behind her. She, too, is confused. The Ukrainians on the perimeter swivel their heads and scan the meadow, trying to decipher from where the child has come. Don’t any of you dare point, Mila silently commands, grateful that she hadn’t yet begun to dig a second hole, for Felicia. No one moves. After a few more slow seconds, Felicia reaches the train, and her cries dissipate as she flings her arms around the legs of the pretty blonde, burrowing her face into her overcoat.
Mila knows she should return to her shoveling but she can’t help but stare as the young woman peers down at the feather of a child clinging to her thighs. When the woman looks up, she glances toward the meadow, in Mila’s direction. Please, please, please, Mila mouths. Take her. Pick her up. Please. Another second passes, then two. Finally, the woman leans down and lifts Felicia to her hip. She says something inaudible and brings a hand to the back of Felicia’s head, kisses her cheek. The Ukrainians look at one other, then snap at the Jews watching to get back to work. Mila exhales, looks down, steadies herself. It’s okay. You can breathe now, she tells herself. When she looks up, Felicia has wrapped her arms around the woman’s neck and laid her head on her shoulder, her rib cage heaving still, from the exertion of the run.
—
“Garments off! Everything! Now!”
The Jews look around, panic-stricken. Slowly, they set down their shovels and begin to untie their shoelaces, unbelt their trousers, unzip their skirts. Mila reaches for the top button of her blouse, her fingers shaking. A few of the others are already half naked, shivering, their pallid skin stark against the brown earth at their feet.
“Hurry up!”