It took me three months to get to Rouen. Evading the SS was, predictably, rather difficult, and the thought of traveling nearly 2,000 kilometers through Nazi-occupied territory was daunting, but what else was I going to do, go home? There was no "home". My brother was all I had left in the world, and my only goal was to get to where he was. Then I could decide where to go from there.

The first thing I did was run straight north, toward the nearby Bug River, and scrub myself clean. It was a tactical move: the Germans would have dogs out after me, and the only way to keep them from picking up my scent was to travel in the water for a ways. But since I had entered the death factory, all I had wanted to do was get clean, and this was the first opportunity I had. I dunked myself under the surface and floated under the water for a bit, and then used dirt and clay from the bottom to scrub my skin. As I heard the dogs barking in the distance, I thought to myself, "My obsession with cleanliness will literally be the death of me." So I moved on.

Throughout most of the journey I stuck to the woods, emerging at times to steal things I needed from local farmers. Before the war if you had told me that some day I'd support myself by becoming a common thief, I'd have laughed at you. I'd always had such a guilty conscience, and I hated the thought of taking something that was not mine.

But Treblinka had changed me. It was no longer a matter of right or wrong, it was simply survival. Farmers were often low on resources, but did I feel bad for taking from them? Not really. I'd been through worse things than missing a meal for a day, so I figured to hell with them.

If they caught me in their homes and didn't let me take what I wanted, I'd wave my pistol at them. The water had ruined it, and I didn't know how to use it anyway, but they didn't know that so they always complied.

To my knowledge no one ever reported me to the police, or if they did it never caught up with me. I assume that because I looked so dreadful, maybe they had taken pity on me. I was cursed and spat at by several of the people from whom I stole, but nothing ever came of it beyond that. To be honest, the idea of anyone actually being afraid of me was laughable, but I supposed I looked so completely deranged that I was intimidating? Who knows. Either way, I was constantly looking over my shoulder during those months, afraid that someone would be right behind me to drag me back to the Hell I'd escaped.

Despite all that, or perhaps because of it, being on my own was often more terrifying than it was freeing. In the hands of the SS I'd learned to just do as I was told. Follow orders and maybe you'd keep your life. But on the road there was no one to give me any direction. The freedom to make my own decisions was a little overwhelming, and at night I'd have to talk myself out of panic attacks, and remind myself why I was doing this. I didn't realize until I was on my own how much I'd grown accustomed to having someone else make decisions for me. In some crazy way I almost missed it. Obviously I didn't want to go back, but at times it would have been nice to have someone else around to make decisions for me. Do I walk around that village or through it? Should I go north or south? Do I break into that house and look for food? Is it safe? Should I stay on the road, or is that too risky? These decisions I had to make every moment of every day exhausted me.

I slept where I could... under trees, in barns, under houses... whatever looked safest. It was scary walking through the woods and hearing voices from afar, and often the rumble of trucks and tanks on the dirt roads. Sometimes I'd have to hide out for days, or travels miles out of my way just to avoid units of the German army. With my hair slowly growing back I looked a little less like an escaped Jew (if any of these soldiers even knew about the death camps... I wasn't sure) but I didn't have any identification papers, and I knew that if I got caught I'd end up being sent to jail at the very least, or maybe a labor camp, or maybe, maybe I'd just be forced to get on my knees, bow my head, and let them execute me. I had no idea what the consequences would be if I got caught.

So, you know. I tried to avoid that.

I think the worst part was not the fear of dying... not exactly. It was the fear of dying with no one knowing who or where I was.

It was like... I was carrying with me all the memories of the people who had been murdered. I needed to tell someone what had happened in Warsaw, and at Treblinka. I needed someone to know how my mother and father had died. If I was shot in the woods, or sent back somewhere to die, no one would ever know what happened to me.

And if I died there would be no one to mourn me, no one to mourn our family. I would just be some anonymous corpse in the forest, rotting away or being picked apart by scavengers. Somehow that was scarier to me than the thought of dying in the ghetto, or in Treblinka. So I kept going, even when I was too exhausted to move.

It grew colder as the weeks went on, and by November I was trekking though deep snow drifts. It added a great deal of danger, because of course now anyone could track me, but to make matters worse my shoes were wearing out. They hadn't been very warm to begin with, and since I'd escaped Treblinka in August my clothes were also fairly light. I stole a coat from a house somewhere in Germany, but I was never warm enough, and my hands and feet were so cold that I usually could not feel them. And my ears, god. My hat was nothing more than what Americans call a newsboy cap. The wind rushing by my ears made my head ache terribly, and I can't even tell you what I would have done for a hat that covered my ears. The cold was excruciating. There were some days when I kind of hoped someone would catch me, because a jail cell would be warmer, and if I was killed at least I wouldn't be suffering anymore.

Though I still had a long way to go, and the weather was still awful, I wept when I crossed over into France.

It was another couple of weeks before I reached Rouen. Being so close to my destination gave me a renewed sense of purpose, and I grew more anxious to reach the town as the days wore on.

Rouen was the first town I'd entered since my escape, and though many of the buildings had been bombed and the streets were dark due to the blackout, I was amazed at how normal things seemed.

Here was a man smoking a cigarette on his stoop. Here was a woman putting her cat out for the night. There were Germans patrolling the streets, but they were easy enough to avoid if I stuck to the back alleys.

But finding the address I had for Ike (which I had memorized back in Warsaw, just in case) was damn near impossible in the darkness, especially since I had never been to Rouen, and didn't know where I was going. It took me two days of slinking around alleys to find the house I was looking for. Then I couldn't figure out what to do.

I couldn't exactly go knocking upon the door, looking the way I did. I was filthy, half-starved, and my clothes were hardly more than rags at that point. My hair had been growing back, and it was little more than a matted mess under my stained hat. And though my ability to grow facial hair had always been something of a joke, after three months on the road I'd grown a ridiculous-looking, scraggly beard.

The people I had seen while I was hiding out were mostly well-dressed, and even the farmers in and around town looked better than me. If the people Ike was staying with (if he was even there anymore) answered the door, I'd surely be sent away, or arrested. I looked like a madman.

There were some thick evergreen bushes near the door to the house, so I decided to hide in them and wait and see if Ike ever showed up. I slept there that night, huddled against the house for warmth, and in the morning I awoke to the sound of voices nearby. I sat up slowly, trying not to make any noise.

Peeking out from behind the bushes, I saw two men talking a few feet away from me. One of them was tall and had brown hair. He was smoking a cigarette, and looked rather grumpy. When he spoke his voice was softer than I expected. The other was slightly shorter and skinnier, with a very familiar mess of black hair. He had a Polish accent. I stared at him in shock when I realized that this young man was actually my brother.

Seeing him in such a normal setting rattled me. I guess it had never occurred to me that while we were stuck in Poland suffering, he'd be living a relatively normal life. He looked healthy, and he was joking around with the other man. Seeing him so carefree was simultaneously relieving and infuriating. I hadn't expected to feel that way.

And he'd grown up so much since I'd last seen him. He wasn't the child I remembered, and he carried himself with such confidence that I felt I shouldn't even bother him with my filthy, degraded self. I felt ashamed of how I looked, and the kind of person I'd turned into. Suddenly I felt like fleeing instead of approaching him.

The brunette man must have felt my eyes upon him, or something, because before I could make any kind of a move, he turned and looked right at me. He scowled and made his way over to the bushes, which drew Ike's attention as well. As the Frenchman came at me I tried to back away like a pathetic, beaten animal, but he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to my feet. I stumbled out of the bushes, terrified to be exposed in broad daylight.

"Who are you? Why are you spying on us?" he demanded, gripping my shoulders tight.

In my panic I couldn't think of the right words in French, and I unsuccessfully tried to push him off me, flailing pathetically in his tight grip. Ike was walking slowly toward us, looking confused, and in my desperation I called out his name. He stopped short, and I watched as his face turned white.

"Jesus Christ," he said, "Kyle? Is that you?"

I tried to speak, but no words would come. He moved toward us, pulling the Frenchman's hands off me.

"Let him go, Christophe. This is my brother. This is Kyle," he said thickly.

Christophe eyed me with suspicion, but Ike paid him no attention, and pulled me against him. He was taller than me. My baby brother was taller than me.

"Fucking hell, Kyle, what- what happened to you? Jesus, you're shaking. How did you even get here?"

What could I say? How could I even begin to explain myself? I had no answers for him. I wanted to push him away, worried that I smelled bad, but instead I buried my face against his shoulder and tried not to cry. As much as I wanted to flee, I needed that comfort, the familiarity of him. He kept asking me over and over what happened to me, but I couldn't speak. I just listened to the sound of his heart pounding, and the sound of his voice, which was the same despite the fact that since I'd last seen him he'd transformed from a boy into a man.

Our reunion was cut short when Christophe cleared his throat. Ike pulled away from me, wiping his eyes.

"Not to be a dick," Christophe said, "but if this is your brother then, ah, maybe we should take this little party elsewhere?"

"Yeah," Ike agreed turning back to me, "It's not safe for you to be on the streets like this."

I nodded, because obviously I knew that.

"My place?" Ike asked.

Christophe shook his head, "Mm no, too risky if your parents come home. He can stay with me."

They didn't notice the way my breath hitched when they mentioned Ike's "parents". I realized after a dizzying moment that they were referring to the people who had taken him in. Still, it felt like a punch in the gut.

We followed Christophe back to his place, avoiding the main roads. I suppose he knew when and where the Germans patrolled, because he seemed more at ease than I had been sneaking around town. Or perhaps it was all a front. I realized as we walked through town that my previous behavior probably attracted a lot more attention than someone who looked like they belonged there.

We walked down a back alley, and Christophe unlocked a door that led to a staircase. There was another door to unlock at the top, which led us into a pretty nice apartment. They directed me to a table, and sat down across from me.

"Ok," said Christophe, "Talk."

"Jesus, Christophe, this isn't an interrogation," Ike said, giving him a dirty look, "How did you get here, Kyle? Where are mom and dad?"

I stared at the table, not ready to talk about this yet.

"Can I have something to eat, please? And maybe a bath? Then maybe... maybe I can talk about this. I don't even feel human right now."

"I want to know what happened," Ike insisted.

"Me too," said Christophe, "I need to know if you being here is a security risk."

"Of course it's a security risk, Christophe, he's an 'enemy of the state'. Kyle, come on, tell us what happened. Why do you look, uh... like that?"

"Ike," I started.

"Kyle," he replied, imitating my exasperated tone. It annoyed me more than it should have, maybe because of the familiarity of it.

"You have no idea what I've been through," I said, furious at his pushiness, "I've been- it's taken me three months to get here, and I just want to get clean, and eat a real meal, and maybe sleep in a real fucking bed! I can't- I can't deal with this right now. And how does this guy even know who I am?" I asked, gesturing to Christophe.

"Oh he knows the whole story. We're, uh... friends, I guess? I trust him. And I've told him about you, of course. And mom and dad. And I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me where they are, please."

I buried my head in my hands. "They're dead, Ike," I muttered, "Fuck, everyone- everyone's dead."

A tense silence followed that, and when I finally looked up Ike was sitting motionless, tears pooling in his eyes. He looked like he was struggling to breathe.

"Ike-" I said, but stopped as Christophe abruptly stood up.

"I'll make you something to eat," he said, walking toward the kitchen. I didn't know if he felt sorry for me, or if he just wanted to get away from us for the moment, but I appreciated it either way.

I stood to move to the other side of the table, sitting next to Ike and wrapping my arm around his shoulders. He buried his face against my shoulder and cried. It was strange how this confident young man had transformed back into my little brother in just the blink of an eye. Suddenly I felt the need to take care of him, like I always had.

"I'm sorry," I said, "I shouldn't have told you like that. They- it's been over a year, and so much has happened since then. I've become kind of numb to it, I guess."

"Tell me, Kyle. I want to know everything," he said, his voice muffled as he ran a hand over his face.

"Let him eat first," Christophe called from the kitchen, where he was apparently eavesdropping, "I want to know too, actually."

I figured this Christophe fellow was just being nosy, or maybe just that bored, but I didn't mind waiting. It gave me a moment to collect my thoughts. We sat in silence, and the only sound was Christophe messing around with something on the stove. But Ike was insistent. After a few minutes of tense silence, he'd obviously felt he'd let the subject rest long enough.

"What happened, Kyle?" he asked, pulling away from me.

"Um," I looked around at Christophe, who was coming back toward the table with plates in his hand. "Dad caught Typhoid Fever pretty early on. And mom was shot. So."

"Shot? What for?" Ike asked, looking like he might cry again. Christophe set down plates of scrambled eggs, ham, and bread in front of us.

"Ham, Christophe, really?" Ike asked. Christophe shrugged. I ate without a word. What the hell did I care about keeping Kosher?

"You were saying?" Ike said, his mouth full of egg. Three years apparently hadn't done anything for his table manners.

"Well. There wasn't... I mean... the SS didn't need a reason. They shot whomever they wanted."

"I need you to start from the beginning," Christophe said, pinning me down with an intense stare.

So I did. There were things I left out, but I told them what living in the ghetto was like, and how after my friends and parents were gone, I'd given up and let myself be taken to Treblinka. And Treblinka... well, that was the hardest thing to discuss, so I only gave them the bare minimum of details. But it was enough... they got the idea, anyway.

Ike ended up crying halfway through my story, and when I was done he reached over and pulled me against him again.

"I'm sorry," he said through his tears, "I'm so sorry. I wish I had been there."

"No you don't. And I don't, either."

Christophe stood up, looking pensive, and began to clear the plates from the table. He shuffled back to us awkwardly, looking as though he wanted to help, but wasn't sure how.

"Um," he said, "Do you still want to bathe? I can get that going for you, if you want."

"Yeah, and I'd like to shave this shit off my face, if I can."

He nodded, and walked off, presumably toward the bathroom. Ike sat back in his chair, still crying, but smiling a bit.

"He's so awkward when he's trying to be nice," he said.

"I can hear you!" Christophe called from down the hall.

I smiled as Ike led me toward the bathroom. I was still bothered that he'd had it easy while everyone else was being tortured and slaughtered, but I was also glad for him. Glad that he hadn't seen the things that I had, and glad that he'd made friends with people he could trust.

They left me alone to take my bath, something I hadn't had the luxury of doing in... years, I supposed. In the ghetto we'd bathed in a tub used for laundry, when we had fresh water, and in Treblinka the only real option was running a washcloth over yourself. Soaking in a nice, warm bath was luxuriant enough that it nearly made me weep.

I didn't want to get out of the warm water, so I decided to tackle the mess of hair on my face right there in the tub, with the razor Christophe had loaned me. I was cursing at it when he knocked on the door, and peeked in.

"May I come in?" he asked.

I shrugged. I had no sense of privacy anymore. He entered carrying a pile of clothes, and set them down on the counter.

"Those will be too big for you," he said, "but I figure anything would be better than... that."

He kicked at my dirty pile of rags. "I will find you things that fit when I have the resources to do so."

"Thank you," I said, but I was still scowling at the razor.

He watched me with amusement before leaving me to my struggle.

It took me a while to finish, but I finally did, and rinsing the stray hairs off me, I left the water and got dressed, ignoring the gross ring of scum I'd left around the tub. I felt more human than I had in years.

Ike and Christophe were nowhere to be seen when I exited the bathroom, but I followed the sound of their voices into a closet. It sounded as though Christophe was telling Ike about the scars on my back and arms, a souvenir of being whipped in Treblinka. I supposed Christophe had seen them when he came into the bathroom, but I was irritated that he was telling Ike. As if he needed to know about that.

They were standing on the other side of the closet wall, and I climbed through the hole to join them, giving Christophe a dirty look, which he ignored.

"I can hide you in here," he said, "If you want I could work on finding you transport to England?"

"I couldn't go without Ike," I said, looking around the room.

It was tiny, and looked like a tornado had gone through it. There were shelves lining most of the walls, and messy piles of guns and papers on every surface.

"What is all this?" I asked.

"Um," Ike said.
"I work with the French resistance," said Christophe, "I use this room to hide incriminating evidence. Which I suppose would include you, now?"

I stared back at him impassively. Then glanced at Ike, who was looking guilty.

"Don't tell me you're in on this, Ike."

"Well, ok," he answered, "Don't be mad at me! We didn't know exactly what the Germans were doing in Poland, but we'd had some knowledge of it, anyway. I wanted to do what I could to help. So yeah, I've been working with the resistance for nearly two years."

"Don't be mad?!" I shouted, "You... You've been deliberately putting yourself in harm's way this whole time! You could have been killed, Ike!"

"Listen! I know none of this compares to what you've been through, but you have no idea what it's been like for me! The whole time I've been here it's just been one awful rumor after another! I heard things about Warsaw and I worried about you, mom, and dad, and I didn't know what to do. I couldn't just sit here and eat pastries and forget about it. So when I met Christophe I knew I had to join him."

I huffed in anger, but I could see his point. Instead of arguing I settled for scowling at him. Christophe rolled his eyes at us.

"Well, this family drama is fun and all, but I have things to do today," he said, "Kyle, I will come back some time this afternoon to check on you. There's a cot there in the corner that you can use. And Ike, I don't really give a fuck what you do as long as you are quiet."

I looked at Ike desperately, not ready to be away from him.

"I'll stay here too," he said.

Christophe left, grumbling to himself, and he shut the closet door behind him. We stared at each other in silence for a moment. Now that we were alone it felt really weird to be together again.

"Well, this is uncomfortable," Ike said.
"Yeah," I replied, going for the cot in the corner, which was really more of a folding bed.

Ike watched as I set it up, pulling some blankets off a shelf and throwing them on top. Then we stared at each other again. I didn't think it would be so awkward to see him, but we didn't know what to do around each other anymore. The three years we'd been apart had changed us both so much that it was like being around a stranger. There was some part of him that I still knew, and I loved him dearly, but I didn't really know who he was anymore.

"You can... you don't have to stay, you know," I said, hoping that he would anyway, "I mean, I'm just going to sleep for a while. You don't have to be here."

He laughed incredulously.

"'Hey Ike,'" he said, "'I know we haven't seen each other in three years, and I've been tortured and nearly killed, and everyone else in our family is dead, but hey, don't trouble yourself with me.' I mean, are you serious with this shit?"

I shrugged, and climbed onto the bed. He pulled a blanket over me, and then climbed in himself. The bed was very narrow, but we pressed together until we both fit. I expected him to try and talk to me some more, but Ike had always been pretty good at reading my moods. He stayed silent, and I let my exhaustion take over. I was asleep within minutes.