Page 65 of The Pianist's Wife
‘You loved him though, despite it all?’ Madison asked gently.
Amira smiled at Fred as she spoke. ‘What we had was a pure kind of love, a great friendship that knew no bounds. And we gave each other hope. Hope for the future, hope for life itself.’
She paused and saw that Madison’s eyes were shining with tears.
‘Tonight, I simply feel like it’s time I told the truth.’
Chapter Thirty
Buchenwald Concentration Camp
Amira
Amira had held her head high when she’d been admitted to the camp, but it had very much been an act of bravery, for she’d been sick with worry ever since she found Fred. Since arriving, she’d heard from everyone, including her husband, what they were doing to the Jews in the main camp, and she kept expecting a guard to come rushing in, screaming her name as he dragged her out by the hair.
‘Shhh,’ Fred whispered, rubbing her back as she bent over and retched again.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered back. ‘I just can’t seem to stop.’
‘It’s a shock, that’s all,’ he said. ‘If you could have seen me, if you’d seen the state I was in when I arrived at Auschwitz and then here...’
Amira swung her legs back into bed and huddled against Fred for warmth, grateful that he didn’t mind. Although she could feel from his skin that he was as chilled as her, and no doubt yearning for the contact to raise his body temperature, as she was.
They whispered all through the night, him telling her pieces of what he’d been through and how he’d come to end up at Buchenwald, and as horrific as it all sounded, she had the distinct feeling that he was holding back the worst of it to spare her.
‘If you’d been admitted to the main camp, or any other camp, they would have shaved your head and sent you through a disinfectant bath,’ he said. ‘The way we’re treated in here, it’s as if we’re being detained perhaps as hostages of sorts, rather than prisoners.’
‘I was so worried about you, Fred. I had the most horrible thoughts that you weren’t coming home. That by the time I got here, it would be too late.’
‘I have had the same thoughts,’ he murmured back. ‘After the death I’ve witnessed, after everything—’
‘Fred, there’s something I have to tell you,’ she said, interrupting him, knowing that she couldn’t sit on the information any longer.
He stilled beside her, even his teeth no longer chattering as he listened in the darkness.
‘Hans found out why you were arrested,’ she said, wishing there was some way she could soften the blow of what was to come. She’d wrestled with whether to tell him or not, but she knew she couldn’t keep it from him. ‘He discovered what happened to Christoph.’
Fred didn’t reply, and Amira continued, knowing that he needed to hear the truth, no matter how hard it would be for her to say the words.
‘I’m so sorry to tell you that Christoph didn’t make it,’ she said. ‘He lost his life—’ Her voice caught. ‘Fred, he lost his life here at Buchenwald.’
‘He was the one who gave me up to the authorities?’ Fred’s voice was raspy, as if he could barely expel the air in his lungs, let alone his words. ‘Who gave all of us up?’
‘From what Hans told me, Christoph was hurt by the guards, before he said anything,’ she said, her heart breaking for him. ‘A man can only suffer so much.’
Fred cried quietly, and she held him through it all, understanding the depth of his pain and wishing she could take some of it from him. It wasn’t until he was still that she whispered to him again.
‘There’s something else.’
‘Gisele?’ he asked.
‘No, not Gisele. I’m, well...’ She stopped, and had to force herself to keep talking. ‘Fred, I’m—’
There was a loud bang as the door to their building swung open.
‘Schulz!’ the guard yelled, indicating that Fred should rise.
He stood, but as he did so he bent low. ‘What were you going to tell me?’
