“Mirjam?” I whisper, moving to the next row. The mother looks at me now. Stop, she mouths.
Over by Ollie, the soldiers are having a disagreement. One of them wants to listen to Ollie; the other says they should go back to the theater and get confirmation. A flash of blue—brilliant cerulean blue. I see it and then immediately lose it again in the dark. It was after the woman with the rose-colored hat. It was before the family with the stoic father carrying the sleepy girl.
“Mirjam?” I whisper. “Mirjam!” a little more loudly.
“Please be quiet,” whispers the woman with the hat.
“You’ll get us all killed,” the man next to her begs, his voice trembling.
“Silence,” the older soldier calls again. “Kurt,” he instructs the younger soldier standing next to him. “Shoot the next one who you hear talking.”
All the prisoners freeze in place, their breath cold and white against the night.
But I saw something. A movement, the last time I called her name. A few rows ahead of me, a girl turned her head just a fraction of an inch. Even in the dark, her coat is the color of the sky. Blood rushes in my ears as I ease up another row. One more line, and now I’m right behind her. My heart is pounding so fast, and this time not only in fear but in exhilaration for what I’ve almost done. I’ve found her. She’s going to be safe.
To my left, another movement. The soldiers have settled their disagreement over Ollie’s papers, and now the three of them are walking purposefully toward the first woman with the carriage. They gesture for her to remove the child, do it quickly. While their flashlights are pointed at her, Ollie looks up, searches for me frantically in the crowd. Go, he mouths when he catches my eye. Hurry.
I touch the back of Mirjam’s coat, and she swivels to look at me.
“Mirjam.” I’m barely moving my lips. “Come with me.”
Mirjam recoils, shaking her head in fear. Meters away, Ollie tells the guards that this isn’t the right carriage; he needs to see the other one. I can hear his shoes clipping on the stones, and I can tell he’s trying to walk slowly enough to buy me a few extra seconds. Thank you, Ollie.
“Mirjam, it’s okay. I know who you are.”
No, she mouths.
Over by Ollie, the woman pushing the second carriage takes her baby out of it. The baby starts to cry, a thin, piercing wail, but the sound provides enough cover that I can mutter instructions to Mirjam.
“We have to run. Follow me. People are waiting.” I reach down and lace my fingers through Mirjam’s. Her hand feels small and bird-fragile in mine. She’s so young.
Ollie has the camera and the film, the camera that represents hundreds of lives. He’s walking it past us, and in the moonlight his face is filled with terror, begging me silently to run, run now, leave Mirjam behind if she won’t follow me. I can’t. I’ve come too far. I’m holding her hand.
“Now,” I hiss. I tug Mirjam’s hand, pulling her to the side. Mirjam resists. “Now,” I plead.
The soldiers take their places again. “Hurry,” one says. “Move.”
And now everyone is marching again, and I’m marching with them. What have I done? Why didn’t Mirjam listen to me? Ollie is receding, back farther in the shadows with the precious cargo he came for, and I’m getting closer to the bridge, with its wide-open, deadly spaces. If we get all the way to the train station, they might make me board. We have to try running.
Forty more steps until the bridge. Thirty-five. We’re coming upon the final alley, the last place we could run before the bridge. I start pulling Mirjam toward it. Why won’t Mirjam follow me? Something’s wrong. Her hand twists in mine, struggles, breaks away.
She’s running, but not in the direction I am. She’s running directly onto the open bridge. Oh God, oh God, what is she doing? It’s the worst direction she could have run in. Her blue coat flies behind her, flapping in the cold, running, running away from me.
“Stop!” I cry out at the same time a soldier yells, “Halt.”
“Halt,” he calls out again, his boots clattering against the cobblestones. What should I do? Try to distract them? Run after her? Tell everyone else in this transport to run, too?
“Stop,” I start to say again, halfway between the alley and the transport.
Suddenly, the wind is knocked out of me as a pair of strong arms wrap around my waist and drag me back toward the alley.
“Let me go!”
“Let you go?” Ollie growls in a loud, ferocious voice. “I don’t think so. I saw you try to escape.”
Mirjam is still running along the cobblestoned street, then onto the bridge with its thick iron rails. Her legs are spindly. Her shoes clatter against the wooden planks faintly, under the heavier sound of soldiers’ boots. I claw at Ollie’s hands around my waist, trying to pry them loose. The camera digs into my hip, and he holds me tighter.