I pull Max by the sleeve. He has to be with us, to be there at the end.
The three of us press on through the crowds of singing, dancing, laughing men.
“Like Trafalgar Square on New Year’s Eve,” says Bill.
We come to the offices where the camp commandant used to work, and at last I believe that this is real. I have found Bill, and we are going to England.
Bill says very firmly, “We need to see the person in charge,” and there’s something about the urgency and conviction in his voice that the American soldier hears. For a few minutes, we stand and watch the fairground the camp has become, and I think of the terrible distance we have walked and of all those who fell on the way. I bless Scotty’s generous soul. Without his sacrifice, I wouldn’t be standing here. I see the faces of all those I love, not knowing whether they are alive or dead, in pain or suffering, somewhere on this war-ravaged continent: my father and mother, Jan, Marek, Ralph. I grip Bill’s and Max’s hands on either side of me. They are all I have left, all that I know, all that I have to take into the future with me.
Those of us who’ve survived will have a huge job to do, to rebuild the cities and towns that have been reduced to rubble, to rebuild lives torn by grief and separation, to build a new and fairer world where the poor will be housed and fed, where this will truly be a war to end the senseless waste of war forever. And looking out at the celebrations in front of us, strength flows through me. If we’ve survived all we’ve experienced, we can do anything.
A GI ushers us inside. I’ve never been in the commandant’s office, but behind his big oak desk now sits a tall and rangy American colonel. Bill and Max automatically salute him. I wave my hand ineffectually, feeling oddly calm and detached.
“Yes, soldier?” he asks. “Something urgent?”
Bill steps forward and pulls me beside him.
“Yes, sir,” says Bill. “This prisoner isn’t a soldier. She’s my wife. She’s Czech.”
“Good God.” The colonel rises to his feet, staring into my eyes. I remember Ralph’s astonished face, six months and five hundred miles ago. The colonel starts to come around his desk to examine me more closely. Fear has fallen away from me, and I look back at him, look clear-eyed into this new world I’ve been spared to inhabit. Bill’s hand is squeezing mine like he’ll never let it go, but this moment is mine, earned from all the terror and hardship.
I hold up my other hand for silence and clear my throat, pulling myself up tall. “Good afternoon,” I say in the English accent I’ve been practicing in my mind for so long. I turn my head to Max and then to my darling Bill. They are both smiling encouragement, and I find I’m grinning all over my face.
I step forward, and the words rise up and circle my head like uncaged larks. “My name is Mrs. Izabela King. I’m very pleased to meet you.”