Hi everyone sorry this chapter took so long but I was having a lot of trouble writing it out. I hope you all enjoy!
"Madalina what are you talking about." Paul breathed.
"I have been lying to everyone here about where I really was during the War."
Gulping, "When I was nine the Nazis moved my family into a Ghetto near my town. The house my papa worked so hard to build had to be given up, Jews weren't allowed to own property. All of us were pushed into the Ghetto, my mama, papa, my uncle and his son; along with my two aunts, their children and my grandparents."
Paul stared at me. I did not know what to do.
Biting my lip, "When I was eleven the Ghetto was liquidated. Everyone was either killed there or sent somewhere else. Most believed we would be sent to another Ghetto, but others knew better. We did not want to believe it."
"Madalina I don't..." Paul trailed off.
"At eleven, my family and I were pushed into a crowded cattle car along with ninety other people. We did not know where we were going. I do not remember how long the trip was, four maybe five days. Almost no food, our water ran out quickly, people died in the train car from dehydration, lack of food, suffocation. My papa would hold me above his head so that I could breathe." Rushing out.
"I was the one who saw the camp first before our train came to a stop, papa was holding up to the window so I could get some air. I saw Auschwitz before I even knew what it was."
"And what was it?" Paul asked softly.
"A place of death." My voice hardened, "It has become the most well-known concentration camp that the Nazis established. It was made as an extermination camp and a work camp. Those who survived the selection process were made to work. After the doors to the cattle car opened we were pushed out and made to stand in lines. Men separated from women, the elderly separated from the young."
"My cousins were torn away from my aunts and they all stared screaming. My mama and I were separated from my papa and I started screaming and crying. So much screaming and crying on that arrival. A prisoner told me to lie about my age, to tell the guards I was thirteen instead of eleven, so I did." I sounded so hollow.
"The next thing I remember is being in a big room with all these women and we were waiting in line for something, but I did not know what it was. I just wanted to know where my papa was, where my cousins were taken too and my grandparents. Some guards yanked my mama from me and I started screaming again so my aunts had to calm me down. Then I was yanked forward. Men were shouting at me in German but I did not understand, they grabbed my left arm and started carving."
Looking down at my tattoo a tear slipped down my cheek, "I was no longer Madalina Lekeman, but a six digit number. We were told that the people we had been separated from we would see again, but that was a lie. They were murdered right after their arrival. My little cousins and my grandparents were killed with poisonous gas and then cremated in ovens, their ashes in the air while we choked on it."
"This seems almost impossible." Paul said to me.
I held my arm up, "Does this look impossible!" Exclaiming at him, "Does the murders of my sweet, little cousins seem impossible or my harmless grandparents?"
"Mada..." Paul started but I cut him off.
"What about my papa!" Yelling as I stood up, "When my mama, myself and my aunt Helena were transferred to Buchenwald he and my aunt Marta were all alone."
"Do you know how he died?" Questioning Paul even though I knew he could not possibly know the answer, "I learned from a survivor after the War that he had been killed by a guard at Auschwitz. He was shot in the back of the head." Sobbing, "But...he did not...he did not do anything wrong. He was...was just walking from one building to the next. Someone killed my papa just because they could." Hiccuping. I grabbed at my throat, clawing at the pain.
This was too much. All of it.
"Madalina come sit down before you pass out." He gestured next to him.
Clutching my sides I made my way over to him slower than a snail. I do not know why but I sat on the edge of the bed before deciding to lie down and curl up next to him. I was still crying and I could feel him trying to gather me in his arms so I snuggled closer.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry my love." Paul whispered to me as he kissed my head.
"I thought..." Hiccuping, "That maybe papa had survived, my uncle, Petras, or even my aunt Marta. Maybe I had someone left."
"What happened to your aunt Helena and your mother?" He asked quietly.
"My aunt Helena was a seamstress so she was sent to work making soldiers uniforms, all I know about sewing I learned from her. She had not been dealing well when her children were taken from from, which is understandable."
I paused, "She went crazy." Slowly letting the words slip from my lips.
"One day one of the top commanders at the camp came to ask my aunt Helena to make a beautiful dress for his four year old daughter, a birthday present. Aunt Helena was the best seamstress in the camp." Giving a small smile.
"She very well could not turn one of the top commanders down so she agreed to do it but she said it would take a long time, everything needed to be perfect she said. The dress took four weeks to complete but Helena finished it. The commander was coming down in the morning to pick it up."
I closed my eyes, "The other seamstresses told us how they found her. Helena had gotten up early and quietly made her way over to the workshop. She picked up some bolts of fabric and tied them tightly together, then she took the child's dress and made a noose." Tears prickled down my face.
Paul sucked in his breath but he waited for me to continue, "That is how they found her, hanging from the rafters with that dress wrapped around her neck connecting with the other bolts of fabric. She just...got tired of living with it all, she knew her children were dead and she wanted to join them."
"It nearly broke my mothers heart but she always said at least she had me." My voice drifted off fading into the silence. I stared at the walls of Paul's caravan hoping the world would disappear forever and me along with it.
"How did she..." He did not want to finish the thought.
"She became ill, the camp was always rampant with disease and filth. It was not hard to contract something especially when you are being starved of food and made to do hard labor."
"They had a 'hospital' at the camp but it was a place no one wanted to go too." Murmuring into Paul's side pushing the cursed building from my mind.
"Why not?" He asked me rubbing my arms.
"That is how you were sent to the gas chambers. If you became ill or injured and sent to the hospital barrack then the guards would know and you would be deemed useless. You could not be useless in a place like that, so instead you were killed." Explaining it to him.
God I was so tired.
"When mama contracted typhoid I did all that I could to keep any guards from finding out. I gave her half of my rations everyday, I let her lean on me during roll call, made sure she hid from the guards, did most of her work detail for her." My voice quieted off into the air.
"In the end it was not enough." Sobbing into Paul, "One morning I woke up to find her dead next to me. She had died during the night, her face...she looked so peaceful." Sobbing harder.
"When they tried to take her body away I went mad. I clung onto her lifeless corpse, crying and screaming that they could not take her. She would not be turned into ash and scattered into the air for me to choke on."
Pausing I wiped at my face, "It took over an hour but three guards finally pulled me from her. I kept crying and they were screaming at me to shut up and get to work but I did not move. Not even when they started beating me, I just took it. I could feel their blows but I did not care. They gave up and just left me crumpled on the floor." Sniffling.
For a few minutes nothing was said as I kept crying and Paul kept rubbing my arms or kissing the top of my head to let me know he was still there.
"After that...I became very depressed. Before I had a reason for living, I had my aunt and my mama with me, but now I had no one. I began to doubt whether any of my family was still alive. I became a shell living life through a circle of roll calls, work, and sleep. I did not care if anything happened to me, and then something did. I fell ill, typhoid just like my mama." Telling Paul quietly.
"Towards the final days before the liberation a resistance rose up within the camps and overtook the camp, though there was not much left to take. Most of the guards had fled because they could sense the end was coming. By that time I was so delirious from typhoid I did not know what was happening. I just laid in my barrack and waited to die to be with my mama."
"That is how I met Thomas." Sitting up to look at Paul.
"What?" He questioned in bewilderment.
"He was part of the Army group that liberated Buchenwald, he found me in the barracks. When he picked me up I thought I was floating. I thought I had died but then I heard a voice speaking fractured German. I opened my eyes to see the bluest eyes staring back at me. He was telling me everything was alright now, I was safe now. I tried speaking to him but he could not understand me. The next thing I remember is waking up in hospital two weeks later."
"I never learned of the man who had saved my life until I came here, to Jupiter. I saw him when I went down to the police station to get Meep back. Thomas remembered me, but then again you do not forget someone under those circumstances I suppose..." Trailing off.
I giggled and it caught Paul off guard, "What is so funny?" He asked me.
Shaking my head, "Just the fact that the one place I settle down in America, is the same place where I am reunited with the man who saved my life. The universe is a odd thing, it was like I was meant to come here. To see Thomas again, to meet everyone here."
"To meet you." Biting my lip staring into Paul's eyes. I brushed some hair away from his face, smiling at him.
"I'm glad you came here. You've saved my life too. In more ways than what you did for me tonight." Giving me a gentle smile that warmed me to my toes.
Pausing I took some air into my lungs, "I have never told this to anyone who was not there, or who did not at least experience what it was like to be there. To see that place, those places. To feel the death and despair hanging ever constant in the air."
"You're afraid of what people will say, how they will react?" Paul spoke in more of a statement than a question.
Nodding my head I glanced down at my tattoo, "That is why I keep this covered. A literal daily reminder of what happened not only to me but millions like me. I could not...I will not have this be the only thing people see about me. I have to be more than just a set of numbers."
"Madalina you are. Nothing will ever define you unless you let it define you. You survived a...situation that is beyond the normal use of words to describe it. You came out stronger on the other side for it, even if it doesn't feel like it. And I wish I could somehow go through it for you." Paul leaned forward and brushed my tears away.
Damn my crying!
"I wish I could take your pain away. I wish I could bring your family back. I wish it was me in that Hell and not you. I would take it all away if I could, for you, to spare you from everything you went through." He breathed out as our foreheads touched, "I love you and you will always have me for as long as you want me."
I wanted to grab him and fuse us together. I never wanted to be separated from this man. Cupping his cheeks in my hands I felt his soft skin in my hands.
"Paul I love you. I will always want you." Whispering before I kissed him.
It was wet because of all my tears and dry at the same time because my throat felt like cotton because of everything I had poured out of my soul. It was equally balanced.
It was perfect.
Even if together we were not perfect and we did not make much sense to the outside world.
We were different but that was alright.