The Choice

someone who can pass a message to Eric. “Let it go, Dicu,” my mother
says. She and my father have written a goodbye letter to Klara, but
there is no way to send it. I watch my mother throw it away, see her
drop it onto the pavement like ash from a cigarette, see it disappear
under three thousand pairs of feet. e silk of my dress brushes
against my legs as we surge and stop and surge and stop, three
thousand of us marched toward the factory gates, pressed into a long
row of waiting trucks. Again we huddle in the dark. Just before the
truck pulls away, I hear my name. It’s Eric. He’s calling through the
slats of the truck. I shove my way toward his voice.
“I’m here!” I call as the engine starts. e slats are too narrow for
me to see him or touch him.
“I’ll never forget your eyes,” he says. “I’ll never forget your hands.”
I repeat those sentences ceaselessly as we board a crowded car at
the train station. I can’t hear the shouting officers or crying children
over the salve of his remembered voice. If I survive today, then I can
show him my eyes, I can show him my hands. I breathe to the rhythm
of this chant. If I survive today ... If I survive today, tomorrow I’ll be
free.
e train car is like none I’ve ever been in. It’s not a passenger
train; it’s for transporting livestock or freight. We are human cargo.
ere are a hundred of us in one car. Each hour feels like a week. e
uncertainty makes the moments stretch. e uncertainty and the
relentless noise of the wheels on the track. ere is one loaf of bread
for eight people to share. One bucket of water. One bucket for our
bodily waste. It smells of sweat and excrement. People die on the way.
We all sleep upright, leaning against our family members, shouldering
aside the dead. I see a father give something to his daughter, a packet
of pills. “If they try to do anything to you ...” he says. Occasionally the
train stops and a few people from each car are ordered to get out to
fetch water. Magda takes the bucket once. “We’re in Poland,” she tells