*Present day*

During childhood, sounds, sights, and smells guide us, before the dark hour sets in, before we lose our innocence. Before the world turns upside down. The same thing happened to me but I had one less sense to guide my childhood because when I closed my eyes, the world was still. I heard nothing. But even though I was deaf, I loved living in the city, full of noise and people and the hustle. I spent my days looking out the window and imagining what each hummingbird song sounded like, what each foot pounding against the pavement sounded like, what my mother’s voice sounded like as she called for me. But I never felt alone. At least not until we moved to Sisak. From the outside, it seemed like any other ordinary town with a combination of busy streets and remote abodes. If you saw it, you may even think it wasn’t much different than any other city in Croatia. But I hated it instantly. Because even as a ten year old deaf girl, I knew something terrible was happening in this city. Our new house seemed more like a steep, dark tower and only looked worse inside. The walls were a dull gray. The windows were small and so high up the wall that at 4’5, I couldn’t reach them unless I climbed up on the tall chair in the house. But when I did manage to get up, I saw nothing but a desolate field stretching for miles. But just when I thought my life would be an endless patch of a dry field, I met him.

***

January 21, 1944

I stood towering over the boy.

I asked him what his name was.

No reply. I had gotten pretty good at reading lips by now, so I was sure he didn’t say anything.

Is he deaf too?

“What’s your name?” I said a little louder. He simply looked at me. Stared at my sneakers that were mud-ridden from the hours I spent in the woods. I felt a soft brush on my shoulder, and turned around, only to find that the cold, dry wind had played one of its tricks on me again. When I looked back, the boy had inched away from me and was now almost two feet away. Is he…? could he be scared of me?

I inched forward and extended my hand. “I’m Marie Najzer. Nice to meet you!”

No reply.

“What are you doing with all those logs?”

Silence.

“I have cookies. Do you want some?”

That seemed to get a reaction. He slowly nodded at me.

So I took one out of my satchel and handed it to him. And went to sit next to him. But he was paying no attention to me and was swallowing the cookie whole.

The corners of my mouth lifted. “You must be hungry huh?”

He looked up with cookie crumbs and guilt all over his face. “Thank you”

“You are welcome! So what’s your name?”

“Don’t have one.”

“How could you not have one? Didn’t your mommy and daddy give you one when you were born?”

“Never met them.”

“But who do you live with then?”

“In that building over there.”

He was pointing to what looked like a warehouse that stood alone at the far end of the field. It was fenced all around with no way of getting in or out.

“You live there?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“That’s odd. Did you move here?”

“No. I was born here.”

“Can I call you Jack?”

“Sure. Do you have more cookies?”

“Sorry, no. But I will bring some tomorrow. We can play together."

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not allowed to leave the camp unless it’s to get logs.”

Camp? Does he mean a church camp? “Okay then. I will meet you when you come to collect logs.”

“Okay.”

“I will see you tomorrow then Jack!”

***

That was our first encounter. As I walked back, I remember feeling elated. I had just stumbled upon a potential friend. And this possibility made me blind to what I was seeing. His muddied white shirt and pants that seemed so much like the uniform of prisoners. The tattoo carved on his neck with the number 197 and again etched on his shirt collar. The scars on his head and the burn marks on his ankles. His sunken eyes full of longing and loneliness. The chains around his hands. But I didn’t see any of these that day. All I saw was a boy my age. A boy who I could play with. For the first time since we had moved to Sisak, I felt as happy as I was back home. When I returned to the house, I saw my mother walking out of the kitchen.

“Marie, how many times have I told you to keep your shoes clean?”

“Keep my what clean mother?”

“Your shoes, Marie! Your shoes.”

“I’m sorry. Mother, you will not believe what happened today!”

“What happened?”

“I made a friend! I met this boy! He lives in the warehouse by the edge of the field mother!”

I expected her to be as excited as I was. But I looked up from removing my shoes and saw shock and disapproval plague her face. She grabbed me by the hand, harsh, and kneeled in front of me.

“Owww--”You listen to me very carefully now Marie. You cannot go back to meet this boy. The people from the warehouse are not really people.”

“What are they then?”

“It doesn’t matter. You are not to go back there anymore. Do you understand?”

“Yes mother. Where is papa?”

“He is away. You know he has to help sick people get better.”

“Right.”

“What does he do?”

“He is a doctor honey.”

“Okay. Is he in the war?”

“Not directly. But he serves the country.”

“How?”

“By working for the Fuhrer.”

“What does he do for him?”

“He keeps the bad people, like the ones in the warehouse, away from us.”

“Oh.”

***

I could barely sleep that night. I kept thinking about what happened with Jack, and what my mother said. Why was I not allowed to see him? He doesn’t seem like a bad person, so why does he live in the warehouse? Does the war have something to do with the warehouse? So many questions raced through my mind and I drifted into sleep with one final thought: I had to go back tomorrow.

***

January 22, 1944

I packed a satchel full of cookies, and another satchel with two books and headed to the spot from yesterday before mother was awake. The sun cast its harsh glare on me as if it disapproved of my act as much as mother would. When I arrived, he wasn’t there. I first thought he forgot about our meeting. But I remembered him saying that he wasn’t allowed to come unless to get logs. Maybe I can convince the people he lives with. So I headed past the woods, and toward the warehouse.

***

I smelled it first before I saw it. Pungent. Like burning meat. Human meat. And was that gas? As I neared the warehouse, I saw smoke waft out of the chimney. If only I had known what was really happening inside. I used to think it was just bad cooking. But how many people were being decapitated? How many?

***

I went around the back of the warehouse and found Jack scrunched next to a pile of empty cans. He had his knees up and his head down.

“Hey Jack! Why didn’t you come today? What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be collecting logs at this time?”

I bent down and nudged him. He looked up.

“Oh my god!”

Starting from his temple and ending at the corner of his mouth was the biggest gash I had ever seen. It made his whole face swollen and purple.

“What happened!?”

“I forgot to finish my chores today, that’s all.”

”Do you smell that? It’s like something is burning.”

“That’s what they do to people who don’t finish their chores.”

“Do what?”

“Burn them.”

“Will they do that to you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you escape then?”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a Jew.”

“What does that mean?”

“That means I can’t leave the camp.”

“My mother told me that people at the warehouse are bad people. Is that true?”

“I don’t know. I think anyone can be bad if you think they are bad.”

“You don’t seem like a bad person. So why are you here?”

“I don’t know. I’ve lived here my whole life. Other kids say that it is because the Fuhrer hates us.”

“The Fuhrer hates children?”

“No, he hates Jews. Do you have any of those cookies?”

I handed him two of the biggest cookies I had. “My dad works for him. Maybe I can get him to convince the Fuhrer to let you go. Mother said he only keeps bad people away. So I’m sure he will help you.”

He was quiet. “You can’t.”

“Yes, I can. You can get out of here.”

“You think so?”

“Yea, come here tomorrow morning and I’ll bring my dad.”

“Okay. Hey, can you bring those cookies again?”

“Sure.”

Jack suddenly looked around. Did he hear something?

“Run!” he told me.

I saw a man wearing tight breeches and a tunic with a swastika on his left sleeve walk out and drag Jack away. Then he searched the area. But before he could spot me, I hid behind a ditch that contained a pile of burned clothes with numbers on them like Jack’s. Were the kids who wore these clothes dead? From my place there, I could see the door of the warehouse open. I saw the soldier who dragged Jack away converse with another man who seemed to be his superior. And as the man stepped out of the shadow, my heart stopped. Because standing at the entryway, in his crisp breeches and brown tunic was my father.

***

I decided a long time ago that the world wasn’t fair. But my first unwilling taste of this lesson was that day. That day when I saw my own father come out of the camp where they burned people. That day when I realized that the something terrible happening in Sisak was my own family. It was a feeling so incomprehensible at the time that I lost my grip with reality. I became desperate. And he paid the price.

***

January 21st 1945

I awoke with a nightmare. Everything that had happened this year flooded through me. Exactly one year ago, I found out that my father runs the warehouse. I still didn’t know what that really meant. But one thing became ingrained in me: I could not tell him about Jack. I found excuses to get out of the house everyday to meet Jack. And with each passing day, I fell deeper and deeper into the truth. The truth about the war. The truth about the camp. The truth about my family and why we moved to Sisak. Everything came together and my world fell apart. But each time I saw Jack, the world came together. And it seemed like we were the only two people in the world. We were both lonely, but we were both lonely together. That made it seem like it was okay. And it was okay at the time.

So I got up and put on my frock and sweater. And grabbed the jar of cookies that I had stolen from the kitchen yesterday, got my satchel and left.

***

It was hotter than usual that day and my legs were already giving out before I got to the warehouse. As I neared, the smoke of the warehouse seemed more ominous, the smell seemed more pungent. It penetrated me. I kept telling myself today was going to be different. Today is the last day I will smell corpses in the air. Today is the last day that Jack will be at camp. Today is the day we stop being lonely. Today is the day we escape. The smell became unbearable. It poured inside me and broke me in half. It was like a snake that poisoned the earth and everything on it. I stumbled to the back of the warehouse.

“Jack!, Jack! I made it! Let’s go!”

Nothing. Where is he?

I instinctively ran to the ditch that I used to hide in. And there I found it.

I found the shirt with 197 burned partly to cinders.

I looked up.

The field was empty and the warehouse spewed venom, and it had eaten Jack before I could get to him.

***

On my way back, I saw another boy with muddied white shirt and pants hunched over a pile of logs.