by Lily Graham
Tears slipped from Eva’s eyes at this. That sounded like something he would do. Sofie touched her arm. ‘Meier says he looks in bad shape – one of the other guards beat him – the only reason he’s alive is because one of his friends begged Meier, and he took him there. He doesn’t know his name, and that boy has been moved so he couldn’t ask. He hadn’t been able to get much out of him to find out who he is.’
Eva closed her eyes in horror, and in hope.
Eva slipped out in the dead of night. It was freezing cold, and oddly still, despite the floodlights. In the distance, she could make out the sounds of walking feet. The Kapo, Maria, was waiting for her and she’d accepted the salami, with the briefest nod. ‘I don’t want to know why you need to go – it’s better if I don’t.’
The footsteps died down, and Maria held a finger to her lips. ‘Go,’ she said, ‘If anyone asks, I’ll tell them I sent you.’
Eva nodded.
At every point as she walked she feared that someone would find her out of her barracks and would kill her. She didn’t know what she feared more. Being killed or being killed before she saw Michal again. Or getting there and finding it wasn’t him.
I just need to make it there to see him, she thought as she ran. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. Despite the cold night, and the wind howling through the camp, sweat broke out on her forehead. She could smell her own fear. It was rank, and feral. She swallowed as she neared the spotlights, waiting for someone to shout out, tell her to stop – all the while, looking over her shoulder. A sound in the background made her whirl around, whatever it was made a skittering sound on the ground. A rat. She thought she might vomit in her relief. She kept pushing, kept running, fighting for air in her lungs, her legs burning. A stitch twisted her side, and she pressed her fingers against it and kept going. As she neared the hospital, she heard voices, and the sound of muffled footsteps behind her, she twisted around and had to clutch her chest as her breathing became more ragged. It was Meier. Her knees buckled, and she had to put her head between them, being sick on the ground.
When she’d straightened there was a look of revulsion on his face. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
He didn’t acknowledge this, but his expression softened somewhat. ‘You’re late. Come, don’t make me regret this.’
She shook her head. ‘You won’t.’
He nodded, and she followed behind the guard, wondering if she could trust him, as he slipped towards a darkened passage, just behind the hospital, away from the lights. Eva’s heart thundered in her ears.
‘You have half an hour,’ he said, before unlocking a storeroom as he pushed her inside. Eva’s heartbeat was loud in her ears.
‘No crying, keep it quiet – or I won’t be able to get you out again, understand?’
Eva nodded, and the door shut behind her with a thud, making her jump. She blinked in the darkness, her eyes blinded from the light outside. As her eyes adjusted, she saw shapes in the shadows. The smell was sour, like sickness and stale urine.
Eva stepped forward, seeing alongside the wooden wall a human shape lying on the ground. She rushed over, falling onto her knees with a thud. Was it him? Was it Michal?
Her hands gently turned his shoulder. Her throat constricted as she turned his face towards her, then blinked. It was utterly mutilated. Tears fell unbidden from her eyes. She couldn’t tell if it was him, not at all. He had been beaten to within an inch of his life. His face was bloody, eyes swollen, lips huge and busted. There were black shadows beneath his eyes, and a criss-cross of gashes. She noted too that he held out his arms and leg to an angle, both were badly broken, the skin on his hand and foot swollen and discoloured.
She touched his uninjured arm, and his eyes opened faintly, then closed again.
‘Michal?’ she asked, her fingers shaking as she touched his shorn hair. It didn’t look brown, but it was hard to tell, as it was covered in dirt and blood. There was barely a part of this poor soul that didn’t seem broken.
There was a groaning sound, and Eva blinked, touching his arm again.
‘Are you… Michal. Michal Adami?’
There was another loud groaning sound again.
But there was something there she recognised, wasn’t there? She looked at the hands. The shape of his head. Maybe. She swallowed, looked down at his hand. Was that familiar? She didn’t know. Tears slipped from her eyes, and she wiped them away angrily. She couldn’t help the sob that wracked through her body.
‘Are you Michal?’ she whispered again, desperately.
He made a strange sound.
‘What did you say?’
It sounded almost like ‘leave’.
She touched his arm, ‘You want me to go?’ The hand lifted for a moment then went still.
She thought her heart might break in two.
There was a loud bang from the door, and Meier’s voice hissed. ‘One minute!’
She looked down at the man on the ground, and his eyes closed. He’d passed out. She shook his undamaged arm.
The door started to open, and Eva’s lips crumpled. She shook the man before her, ‘Please, please, just tell me who you are, then I’ll leave you alone,’ she said, tears running fast down her cheeks, as she gasped for air.
There was a groaning sound again, and Meier’s boots were entering the room. Eva closed her eyes. It wasn’t him, she’d seen something that wasn’t there. He wanted her to leave.
She stood up to go, her legs unsteady, feeling suddenly weak, and spent, tears falling in great choking sobs that she wasn’t able to fight. As she made to go, the man’s hand shot out to stop her, and suddenly the groaning sound rose in volume, and became a word. ‘Eee… Eva?’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Prague, Winter 1938
Eva and Michal got married on a cold November morning at the registry office. Eva wore her mother’s pearls, her grandmother’s cream gown which they altered, and her cousin Mila was her bridesmaid. Despite the fear of German occupation and her uncle Bedrich’s worried eyes about their future, it was one of the happiest days of her life.
Eva moved into Michal’s tiny studio in the heart of Prague, and they settled into their new lives. They bought new furniture and she painted pictures for the walls.
Eva went to art school, Michal to the orchestra, and in the evenings, they went to her parents, to friends. They attended the cinema, concerts, and were as happy as two young people in love could be.
But everything was about to change, and quickly. The news was announced at six thirty in the morning. The Germans were coming. They were told to keep calm. They watched from their balcony in horror as the Germans rolled into their beloved city with their tanks and their hob-nailed boots. It was snowing, winter in Prague, and the winter would last well after the sun finally came again.
Every day afterwards there were new orders from the German Reich. Soon they were to discover that everything that was ill in this world was a result, the Germans maintained, of the Jews.
‘Have you seen this rubbish?’ muttered Michal in disgust as he looked at the newspaper, which was suddenly full of anti-Semitic nonsense. ‘It’s like they were just waiting for the chance to spew this bile.’
The orders for Jews continued. Soon they were nothing more than second-class citizens. Almost overnight the population – now called the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia – were being told that their friends and neighbours, the Jews, were not to be trusted. In the beginning, Eva and her family weren’t even sure what they were allowed to do – so frequently did the orders appear.
Jews couldn’t go to the cinema, theatres, parks, concerts, they were forbidden from attending schools. Eva found herself suddenly unable to continue her studies.
She looked at Michal, tears in her eyes. ‘I had the best grade of the year, that’s what they said, before they told me I had to leave.’
He held her in his arms. ‘This can’t last, my love. They won’t be able to get away with this for long. Soon they will get kick
ed out. The allies will intervene, it won’t go on forever.’
He was right, by September war had been declared.
In Eva’s family, there was talk of going somewhere else, to take up Bedrich’s offer – and go to England. But still they thought that things would get better.
But things only got worse. Soon there were signs. Juden nicht zuganglich – no Jews allowed. In all restaurants, cafés and bars. Businesses couldn’t be owned by Jews.
Eva’s mother said, ‘They were defeated in the first war – they will be again. We just need to bide our time.’
Michal was let go from the symphony, and their landlord decided it was safer renting to non-Jews. They had no choice but to move in with Eva’s family, into her old room.
Soon Michal wasn’t the only man in the family without a job. They made the best of it. Eva’s father learnt how to cook and Michal became the best cleaner, they boasted that they would become home-makers.
They got by with help from some of their non-Jewish friends, who sent money and parcels of food.
The final indignity was wearing the large yellow ‘J’ on the front of their coats, for Jude. They had to get in the back of any train, third class. Unlike their friends. Then in October the rumours began. The whispers about transports, and the decision to send the Jews away.
They tried their best not to worry, but when the letter came for Michal in the November, on the day of their first wedding anniversary, telling him to present himself to the Veletrh, the Trade Fair, where he would be processed for transportation, she broke down. ‘I’ll go too. You can’t go without me.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Eva started to cry. ‘Michal.’
He nodded and the action caused him to groan again.
‘It’s you,’ she breathed in fear and wonder.
His hand came out to touch her – her face, her hair, his fingers shaking. Seeing her, registering that it was her, had revived him.
His voice came out slow. Eva suspected that his ribs must have been cracked from where he’d been beaten. ‘I – I didn’t know if I would.’
‘Shhh,’ she said. Speaking was tiring him out.
A tear rolled down her cheeks. ‘I told you I would find you again.’
His swollen lips twitched. ‘You did.’
Meier was growing impatient. ‘Come on, time to go.’
She closed her eyes, how could she leave him now? ‘Just a moment longer,’ she begged. The guard grunted. ‘Thirty seconds, say goodbye.’
Eva’s heart thudded, and she lent down to kiss Michal. Despite how weak he was, his grip was firm. ‘N-no, don’t,’ he protested.
‘Come on,’ said Meier, pulling her away, roughly. ‘This has gone on long enough.’
She staggered to her feet, sure her heart was breaking at being torn from him. After all this time. ‘I will come back,’ she promised Michal.
Sofie was waiting for her just behind the hospital block. Meier looked at her, and his eyes pinned her to the spot, they shared a look. She was going to pay for this, she knew. ‘Can you give us a moment,’ she begged. Touching his arm.
A muscle flexed in his jaw, but he nodded. ‘This has already taken too long,’ he admonished, but he waited in the shadows nonetheless. There was a flare of a match, and they could smell the scent of a cigarette being lit.
Sofie eyed the young guard, then turned back to her friend. ‘It was him?’
‘Yes,’ said Eva, and she couldn’t help the smile that flitted across her face, replaced quickly by worry. He was alive, but who knew for how long.
Sofie breathed out. ‘Thank God for that.’
Eva nodded. ‘He’s in bad shape though,’ and her lips began to tremble.
‘I’ll ask Geneva – the Blockalteste – to check him out.’
Eva’s eyes widened. ‘Sofie, can we trust her?’
It was a moment before she answered. ‘Yes, I think so.’
In the past few weeks, Sofie had become her apprentice, and many of the tasks the gynaecologist had asked her to perform in secret, involved trying to treat and help some of the women that had been tortured by Mengele. If he found out, they’d both be shot. The upside of having Geneva know her secret – that she wasn’t a real nurse – was that she knew hers. What was one more risk?
There was a grunt from behind, and the sound of a boot stamping on the ground.
‘Play time is over, girls,’ said Meier, coming forward.
He looked at Eva. ‘Wait there for me,’ he said, indicating a few short paces. ‘Turn your back.’
Eva did, from behind she could hear the sound of shuffling, the sound of her friend being pushed toward a wall, and then muffled grunts. Eva closed her eyes in horror as she realised what was happening. She couldn’t believe that he was doing it there in the open. Till she realised, perhaps he wanted her to know. Her friend had called him a gentleman. Clearly, he was done with that, or it’s what she wanted Eva to think, not to worry for her. She felt fresh tears prick her eyes, and she had to ball her fists. What had she got her friend into?
That night when Sofie slipped into the bunk beside her, Eva turned wide awake eyes on her friend.
‘Sofie – I—’ She didn’t know what to say.
‘Don’t, Kritzelei. You found Michal, which makes it all worth it. I’m glad he’s alive.’
‘But Meier—’
‘Is a little boy, playing power games.’
‘I thought,’ Eva frowned, ‘I thought maybe he was different. He said he loves you.’
Sofie snorted. ‘It’s not love if you feel the need to control it. Anyway, he was just trying to prove a point.’
‘To who – you or me?’
‘Both, probably.’
‘Which is?’
‘That he can do what he likes. That he’ll help so long as I pretend that he’s the love of my life. That I’m overcome with lust for him every time I see him.’
Eva swallowed. She hated this. ‘I’ll find another way, Sofie – this is just too much, it’s not fair.’
‘No, Kritzelei – it’s too late anyway – at least this way we get something out of it. He might be an arrogant fool, but he’s not rough with me if I do what he asks, and he sticks to his word. Besides, he can help us.’
‘But what do you get, Sofie?’
‘I get to know that I did everything I could to help my friend. The way she once stood in front of a man who was going to sentence me to death and risked herself in the process. It’s what we do, isn’t it?’
Eva sighed. ‘I’d rather get attacked by ten more gendarmes than have you go through this.’
Sofie gave her a half smile. Sofie would no doubt have been dead if Eva hadn’t intervened back in Terezín. It’s not something she would ever forget.
‘What’s happened with Meier was going to happen, eventually. At least we’ve got something out of him as a result.’
Eva snuggled against her shoulder, and Sofie continued. ‘Besides, if I hadn’t – I wouldn’t have been able to get Geneva in to see him.’
Eva looked up, her eyes fearful.
‘How is he?’
‘He has a few broken bones, and cracked ribs, but no internal injuries.’
Eva blinked.
‘It’s a good thing, Kritzelei.’
‘Thank you,’ she said.
The words didn’t seem big enough for all that her friend had done, all that she had risked.
Sofie squeezed her hand back.
It took another three days before Eva got word through Sofie that Michal was doing better. The waiting was a strange kind of limbo – on one hand she knew now where he was, and that there was a chance that he would live. On the other, he was badly injured and needed her, and it ate her alive.
‘He’s more conscious now – seeing you really did something to him. He’s more lucid. I think he’s going to pull through,’ said Sofie, her eyes hopeful.
Eva breathed out.
‘Meier said he will try get you in tomorrow
night.’
The next evening, Meier led her through to the cell. It was dark, but the room had changed slightly. The smell was less sour and the stench of urine had gone.
Michal was sitting up in the corner. The bruises on his face had started to turn purple and green. His one eye was still pretty much shut. He smiled when he saw her, and there was just the smallest hint of a dimple. Seeing it made her throat catch.
‘Oh, my love,’ she said, throwing herself into his arms.
He gasped in pain.
She pulled a face. ‘I’m sorry!’
He shook his head, refusing to let her go. ‘Don’t be,’ he said, then cupped her face in his hands, drinking her in.
Eva felt nervous as his gaze raked over her short hair, her skinny face and limbs. She worried about the gap where her tooth was missing on the side of her mouth. She knew she looked a fright. She raised a shaking hand to her hair. ‘I look a bit different too,’ she said, giving him a half smile.
He shook his head, then pressed his battered lips against her forehead. ‘You are the most beautiful thing I have seen in two years, trust me.’
Tears coursed dirty tracks down her face, and she kissed his uninjured hand, clutching it to her as she knelt before him. He touched her short hair, ran his fingers along her skull, making goosebumps rise on her skin in pleasure.
‘How did you find me?’ he asked. ‘It’s like a miracle.’
Eva nodded. It was. The miracle’s name was Herman. She told him about the photograph, of meeting him.
‘But why are you here, did they send you on a transport?’
She looked down, then whispered, ‘I volunteered to come.’
When she looked up, there were tears coursing down his face, as if that thought caused him more pain than his injuries.
‘I wasn’t the only wife to do it,’ she said, defensively.
‘Oh, Eva, what was getting me through this hell was knowing that at least you weren’t here, you were back in Terezín… you were safe.’
