Elek doesn’t like to give up, and I know he will fight to keep me here or leave with me until the moment I am placed on a bus with the others being sent away. I don’t think anything will help us. I’m doubtful I will leave here with a happy heart.
It will be like starting all over again, just like I did when I emerged from the dark cellar of the hospital in Auschwitz. It was almost a week after the rest of the camp found the chance of liberation. Helena was with me, hiding as well, and we were unaware of what was happening above ground until we heard earth shattering explosions. I kept waiting for someone to venture down into the dark hallways of the basement and find us, but it sounded like the world was caving in above us. We waited until we had no choice but to escape, knowing the building above us could be the next target, and it could collapse on top of us. We kept moving until we found a barren landscape swarming with Soviet soldiers. There wasn’t a German in sight.
The soldiers separated us within minutes, Helena and me. One soldier claimed to be locating children, and the other collecting adult prisoners. That day, the day they set us free, was the last time I saw Helena, and the last day I had hope of finding Arina or my parents. I was alone without a hand to hold or someone to tell me everything would be all right. I was all I had.
Today will probably be the same. Once again, I will be all that I have.
“Those who are leaving this morning, it’s time to bring your belongings out front. The bus has arrived,” Madame Cusano’s administrative assistant says. She’s newer here and I haven’t learned her name, but that doesn’t matter now.
Elek should have been back by now. He promised he would return to my room before ten, hopefully with good news. It’s five past the hour, though.
I clasp the buckles on the suitcase and pull the luggage down onto my lap. I’ve been sitting in my chair, parallel to my bed, watching the red second hand tick around the clock hanging between the foggy windows. From here, I can only see bare branches, but the sky is as white as snow, and I can imagine how cold it must be outside.
I roll my chair away from the bed and toward the door. I won’t miss this room or the people inside, but I know better to think that way when not knowing what lies ahead—what the next room might look like.
The hallway is cold from a draft. There’s silence floating along the chill. There are other children walking toward their next destination like me, but everyone else is hiding away. I’m not sure if that’s for their well-being or ours.
I’ve peered over my shoulder several times while rolling down the long corridor, hoping for a sight of Elek, but no one is behind me. I was the last to leave the room as usual.
They must let us say goodbye. No one here is as cruel as those who ran Auschwitz.
I approach the front door, finding a line of children waiting to step up onto the bus. The driver is handling the luggage, bringing the cases around to the back of the bus. Madame Cusano is standing by the accordion door, giving the children a quick embrace before sending them off.
If she’s out here, Elek isn’t in the office pleading his case with her. I turn to peer over my shoulder once more, still finding no one behind me.
Mademoiselle Alice spots me and races up the front steps to help me outside. She lost the least number of children today since she’s responsible for the youngest of those who live here. The precious little plums, ripe for picking, unlike me.
“Let me help you down the ramp, Nora,” she says, taking a hold of my chair once I’m outside. I spot the empty play yard off to the left. It’s too cold to play outside today, anyway.
“Ha-ha-have you ’een Elek?” I ask, knowing I’m running out of time.
There’s a brief pause between my question and a sound ruminating in her throat. “I’m afraid I haven’t seen him this morning,” she says. “Madame Cusano might know better. I’m happy to ask her for you if you’d like?”
I give her a nod, accepting her offer as she releases her grip on my chair at the end of the line of children still waiting to mount the bus.
The conversation between Mademoiselle Alice and Madame Cusano is in plain view, but I can’t hear a word. Their exchange is brief and Madame Cusano’s stare freezes me to the core.
“Nora!”
My heart thuds like shutters against a window during a storm. I whip my head around, finding Elek fleeing out the front door like he’s being chased by the same storm.
He doesn’t have a suitcase in his hand.
Elek spins my chair around to face him and falls to his knees in front of me. He takes my hands in his and closes his eyes. A tear skates down the side of his freckled nose. “I tried,” he utters. “I tried so hard. They won’t even tell me where they are taking you.”
They won’t tell me either and I’m not sure if it’s because they don’t have the information or they don’t want me to share it. The rules never make sense. “Wh-wh-wha’ can I do?” I ask, gasping for air between each word.
Elek shakes his head before slowly parting his eyelids. The sheen of his tears grows thicker before spilling over his bottom lashes, falling slowly like the first drops of rain from a thunder cloud. “As soon as you arrive, wherever it is you are going, you must send me a letter with all of your information. Then, the day I turn eighteen…no, at the stroke of midnight that day, I am leaving France and I will come find you. Nothing will stop me, Nora. Nothing.”
Elek is always so passionate when he speaks of his promises, but he says things without thinking them through first. Neither of us has a coin to our names. No one is going to offer us a free ride to go anywhere once we are no longer considered minors. The cost to travel to the United States must be unaffordable to even well-off people, never mind people like us.
For the first time in my life, I wish I could be more like Arina and less like me. I wish I could skip past the reality of life and see only the possibilities. I would rather forget the cause and effect of every decision, the risk, and the possible poor outcomes. I want to ask him what will happen if my letter doesn’t reach him before he turns eighteen. The post is unreliable sending and receiving letters from overseas. It could take weeks, maybe longer.
I press my lips together, trying to force a smile that will merely mask the truth of my guttural pain. He won’t believe for a moment I am okay with saying goodbye.
“You don’t have to be strong, not for you, and not for me,” I say. “You just need to believe me when I tell you I will find you.”
He slips his hand out from between mine and places it on my cheek. “I love you, and not just the silly, immature love where kids our age shout it from the rooftops because they think they know what it means. You are the bridge in my world, like in Monet’s paintings—in our spot, keeping the two halves of my heart whole. Without you, I can’t live.”
Tears burn the backs of my eyes, believing, feeling, and understanding his every word, because I feel the same way. “I l-l-love you,” I whisper. “I’ hur’.”
“I know this hurts…It hurts so much, Nora, but we’re stronger than this. We’ve already proven that to ourselves. We’ve survived the worst, so we can survive this, and I promise you…I am making a promise to you—one I will not break. We’ll be together again soon.”