I fed a sheet of paper into the typewriter. Mrs. Hermann closed the door to the office, whispering “Good luck” as she left. Her workday at the community center was done, and I could have the room until the next day. I reached into my bag, pulled out Karl’s scarf, and slipped it around my neck. Erika was right. My parents wanted me to be happy. My mother had told me never to give up. Choosing Michael would be a betrayal. I’d promised Anyu and Papa to do whatever it took to make it out of the camp, and I had. I’d promised to live a full and happy life, and keep playing piano, and I would. I’d promised to tell the world what Hitler had done.

I addressed my letter to General Kafelnikov, First Army of the Ukrainian Front, Birkenau, Poland. You have a prisoner, I typed. His name is Karl Jager and he saved my life.

I pulled my C-sharp from my pocket and felt the familiar soft grain under my fingers. I laid it down on the desk and returned to the keys. I started at the beginning, in the Debrecen ghetto, with a guard banging at my door. I wrote about my father handing over the keys to our apartment, and the rats at the Serly brickyards. I wrote about the dark, damp cattle train and my father’s wet, stubbled cheeks. I wrote about Mengele’s steel baton, and the chimneys belching smoke. I wrote about the razor blades and tattoos and our burned scalps and blistered hands. I wrote about the stale bread and black water, and playing piano on my mother’s back. I wrote about Erika and the twins.

It was almost midnight by the time I typed the commandant’s name. The pages filled with black ink and floated to the floor. I was hungry and tired, but the general had to know what the commandant had done to Stanislaw, what he would’ve done to me if I’d played the wrong note. Mostly, I wrote about Karl. The general didn’t know Karl had called us by our names or smuggled food into Birkenau. He didn’t know that when the commandant was away, Karl brought me food. He didn’t know that he had the wrong boy.

The morning light filtered through the office shutters. I reached into my bag and took Erika’s film from its hiding place. I slid the typed sheets and the film into an envelope and addressed it to the general. I’d kept my promise to my father to tell the world what I’d seen. I hoped I’d done enough to secure Karl’s release.

I imagined him in the POW camp, alone and scared.

I fed another sheet of paper into the typewriter.

Dear Karl,

The black and white keys thrummed when I struck them. There was so much I wanted to say, I didn’t know where to begin.

I’m in Debrecen with Erika.

I stared at the keys, worrying over what to write next, wondering what Clara Wieck would have written to Robert Schumann.

I never told you the end of Clara and Robert’s story. They were separated for three years. They reunited in Paris and married against her father’s wishes.

I pulled an envelope from the drawer and put it on the desk, next to my C-sharp.

They can’t keep you forever. I’ll wait.

I addressed the envelope to Karl, scooped up the C-sharp, and looked down at my hand. The note gleamed against my pale skin, blistered and splintering at the edges but still whole. I slipped it into the envelope.

I want you to have my C-sharp. You can return it when we see each other.

Until then,

Hanna