Wasn’t a person supposed to feel better after telling the truth? Perhaps there was no peace because Joana hadn’t understood or hadn’t heard me. Was it enough to admit the lie to yourself and the heavens, or did you have to tell someone who listened?
For months I had done so well. Most days I actually believed my own story. Yes, August Kleist existed. He visited the farm for a while during my stay. He carried wood for me, climbed the ladder so I didn’t have to, shared his plums, and defended me in front of his mother. He did it all because he was a kind person. But I didn’t exist for him the way he existed for me. He left before it happened.
It was a windless day in May when the Russians arrived at the farm. The air hung still and their boots echoed on the stones as they approached. Mr. Kleist had broken his own arm to avoid recruitment into the people’s army. He claimed it was an accident, but I had peeked at his preparations in the barn. He was home in a sling the day the Russians arrived.
Mrs. Kleist and her daughter, Else, came outside as the soldiers approached. Mrs. Kleist quickly told Else to go inside. But Else didn’t move. Her feet seemed attached to the ground. I had been picking mushrooms in the forest and was hauling my baskets to the cold cellar. I hid behind a large tree.
Mrs. Kleist carried the ax in the family, but I could see from my hiding place that her nerves were unsteady. Mr. Kleist talked too much when the Russians arrived. It annoyed them. They wanted food, vodka, wristwatches. And Else.
“Urri, urri, yes,” said Mrs. Kleist. “Martin, give them your watch. Immediately.”
A soldier took a step toward Else. Mr. Kleist began to whimper but his wife stepped in quickly to negotiate.
“No! This one krank, krank.” She was telling the soldiers that Else was diseased. “We have one who is much prettier.”
My blood thickened. My skin stung. No. She wouldn’t.
“Emilia!” she yelled for me. She spotted my basket peeking out from behind the tree and commanded me forward.
“You see? So pretty. Very, very pretty. Take her instead.”
The soldiers looked at me with their dead faces.
A trail of mushrooms spilled behind me as they dragged me to the cold cellar.
? ? ?
Joana carried the tiny swaddled baby over to my cot, cooing and kissing her head.
The doctor approached as well. “She’s quite small, but seems healthy. Have you chosen a name yet?”
A name? I shook my head.
“Ah, you understood! You do understand a bit of German. Wonderful. Well, you can think about a name. Good work, Joana.” The doctor left the room.
I was so tired. I closed my eyes and waited for the sound of Death’s key in the lock.
florian
I would try to board early. A cute little boy and a hobbled old shoemaker might mask my arrival nicely. We left the theater and walked out into the road. The streets were alive, moving and swaying with hordes of people pushing toward the pier. Hungry dogs roamed and barked, abandoned by their masters because they weren’t allowed on ships. Children, separated from their parents, wailed on the sidewalks, frantic and freezing. Some crouched in dark doorways of abandoned buildings, gnawing on moldy bread and the peels of sugar beets.
The small boy clung to the shoe poet, who was having difficulties navigating the shoving mob. He swatted people’s ankles with his walking stick to clear a path.
“Up we go,” I told the small boy. A pain in my wound surged as I lifted the boy onto my shoulders.
“Yes, wonderful idea,” said the shoemaker. “Thank you.” The old man fell in step with another white-haired German. “What do you hear?” asked Poet.
“On Christmas Eve, a German sub sank a troopship in the English Channel. They say there were thousands of American soldiers on board who drowned.”
Were Americans dying by the thousands as well? Nazi propaganda portrayed America as racially impure, a nation of mongrels, The Land Without a Heart.
The deep booming of an artillery shell rumbled in the distance. People in the crowd screamed and pushed forward. Women’s faces were flaked with mud and ash, camouflage from the Russians they’d applied while trekking through the woods. Refugees rummaged through deserted sleds and luggage.
“Take those boots,” called the shoe poet to an old man picking through a pile. “They’re better than your own.” The man nodded in acknowledgment.
Stories spread through the packs of people as we walked. A woman ran to a girl near us.
“Hurry! Russian planes dropped phosphorus on a mass of refugees. It blinded them and they had to roll in the snow.”
Whispers filtered that the Allies had cut off access roads and train routes. We were surrounded. The crowds became denser, more suffocating as we approached the port. Panicked refugees trembled as they lined up at registration stations. Babies were used as pawns, passed from one person to the next as they approached for registration.
A woman grabbed my arm. “How much for the kid? They won’t let me on if I don’t have a kid.”
The wandering boy’s legs tightened on my shoulders.
“He’s not for sale,” I told her.