When I got back to Miła 18, the building had been destroyed.
Dead, they’re all dead, I thought, but I forced myself not to give up quite yet. I’d learned this much. As long as I didn’t find any bodies or signs that they had all been driven to the trains by the SS, there was still hope.
Desperate, I searched for one of the five entrances beneath the rubble, found a hole at last, crawled through, and was overjoyed to find the others still alive. The fire hadn’t reached the bunkers, and the SS hadn’t found them.
The mood in the chambers didn’t match my joy, though. It was like being in an oven; everyone was wearing nothing more than underwear, and Asher was the only one who managed to muster any kind of humor. “I always wanted to have a sauna down here,” he said.
My comrades became even more despondent when they heard that the Polish firemen had betrayed us.
“Now we can only hope that Amos finds a way through the sewers,” Mordechai sighed.
Avi, whose leg had become infected and who was feverish, rubbed his red beard and said, “Others have tried and failed. Shit happens!”
So far, no fighter had managed to get through the sewers. Two had even been killed when soldiers had heard them and thrown hand grenades at them through a drain.
“Amos,” Mordechai tried to sound assured, “will find canal workers to show us the way.”
“If he is still alive,” Avi groaned.
“Don’t say that!” I snapped.
I twisted my wedding ring nervously. It meant as much to me now as Rebecca’s marble did to her.
Why hadn’t Amos and I simply stayed on the Polish side and tried to remain alive? But I knew the answer. Because we couldn’t desert our comrades.
“I’m sorry,” Avi said. “Of course Amos is still alive.”
“It’s okay,” I answered, and slipped away to the chamber called Auschwitz. I took off my trousers, blouse, and shoes, and inspected my swollen ankle. It would have been good to be able to cool it, but water was too precious. I lay down and tried to not think about Amos, tried to ignore the pain. Instead, I wanted to travel to Hannah. But before I could set foot on Mirror Island, we heard the sound of footsteps above us.
Immediately, everyone in the bunker was silent. Most of us actually held our breath. Some people started to mumble prayers softly. Fighters grabbed their weapons.
Then the hammering started.
They were using heavy tools to try to drill through the debris. Did the Germans know that we were here? Or were they searching at random? For a horrible second, I imagined that they had captured Amos and tortured him until he had betrayed our hiding place. Ending his life in guilt. Dust trickled down on us.
After an eternity of fear, the hammering stopped.
Had they discovered us?
More and more people were praying, more and more quietly.
The footsteps moved away.
You could see that a few civilians wanted to cheer. We fighters were relieved, too, but now we knew for certain that our time had almost run out. We had hardly any ammunition left, practically no food, and it was almost impossible to find anything to eat in the ruins of the destroyed ghetto.
Even Daniel had lost his courage. He crawled over to me and said, “You were right.”
“What?”
“You said we’ll never survive.”
Daniel looked over at Rebecca. She was staring at her blue and white marble again, as if there was a whole world hidden inside. It was a miracle that this little girl was still alive.
Daniel whispered, “Korczak would start getting her ready, telling her that there is another, better world to come…”
That was what the old man had done with his play on the day when the Germans had come to fetch the children.
“… but I’m not Korczak,” Daniel said sadly.
“Only Korczak is Korczak,” I said kindly.
“I wanted to be like him all my life. And how have I ended up?”
“Daniel!”
He looked miserable.
“I’m not even that,” I said.
Daniel didn’t know what I meant.
“You have achieved so much more than me!”
He looked surprised.
“You gave this little girl almost a year. We fighters could only add a couple of awful days.”
He had made the miracle of her survival happen.
His answer was to kiss me gently on the cheek.
I was so surprised I didn’t know what to say.
Instead Daniel said, “Don’t listen to Avi. Amos will be back.”
And for that I kissed him on the cheek, too.
We were standing in the snow and looking down on the clouds that circled the mountain like a snugly fitting ring. About fifty meters above us the mirrors of the palace reflected the light of the sun.
The crew of the Longear was tired. Not as tired as the fighters in the bunker at Miła 18, but tired enough.
Captain Carrot swore, “These blasted mountains! I know why I chose to be a seaman.”
“You’re a seaman because you won this tub gambling,” the werewolf reminded him.
“Ah yes, I should gamble more.”
“Our whole life is a gamble.”
“In that case, we are the best gamblers in the world.”
Hannah wasn’t part of that conversation. She was smiling at Ben Redhead. The real Ben was dead. The real Hannah was, too. But because I couldn’t bear the thought of death and because Amos wasn’t with me, I surrounded myself with phantoms less and less like the real people they thought they were.
I didn’t want to die by myself.
I was all alone in my corner of Auschwitz. I got up, hobbled over to Daniel and Rebecca, and asked, “Can I join you?”
The little girl rolled her marble over to me. I picked it up carefully, as if it were the most valuable treasure. Which it was. It was incredible that it was still in one piece after all this time. It lay snug in the palm of my hand, and I could suddenly feel that there was more to the world than death.
Daniel pointed at the marble and smiled at me. “That’s an invitation,” he said.
I gave the marble back to Rebecca, cuddled up to the two of them, and felt less alone.