Page 75 of The Pianist's Wife
She knew without asking that he would be exhausted.
‘Did you see Hans?’ she asked.
‘I did. He was one of the only men there without his wife, although I overheard him telling someone that she was unwell.’
‘Unwell?’ Amira panicked.
‘Don’t worry, I’m almost certain it was just an excuse for her not to be there. Because he didn’t mention anything when we spoke.’
‘You spoke to him?’ Amira grabbed hold of Fred’s arm. ‘What did he say?’
‘It was very brief, but he came to request a song again, which was very clever of him,’ Fred told her. ‘He whispered to me that the crematorium is almost out of fuel, and that within the next two days, they will run out completely.’
Amira listened intently, but she wasn’t certain how the information could help them. ‘And we could use that to our advantage how?’
‘He said there will be bodies piled up with no effective way to dispose of them, which will give us an opportunity to hide.’
She immediately felt nauseous. ‘To hide,’ she said, ‘amongthem?’
Fred’s silence told her that she was right, and she took a moment to imagine exactly what that would entail and whether she could actually even do such a thing.
‘Did he tell you anything else?’ Amira asked. ‘It’s all very well hiding, but how exactly do we escape after that?’
Fred shook his head. ‘I don’t know. All I know is that we are going to have an opportunity to escape, and we have to decide whether we want to seize it, or whether we want to take our chances and stay here.’
They both sat in the dark, the sound of the wind whistling around the barracks making Amira draw her arms even tighter around herself. The cold was biting, the building full of draughtsand certainly not fit for purpose in the middle of winter with no way to heat it, and they had barely enough blankets to cover them.
‘We escape,’ she said, without hesitation. ‘No matter how awful it will be, if Hans thinks we have a chance, then we do it. I don’t think we have any other choice.’
‘There will be risks,’ Fred said. ‘If we’re caught, we will be put in the main camp and we may not survive. Or we could be shot from a watchtower even when we’re on the other side of the fence.’
‘And if we stay?’ she asked. ‘There’s no guarantee that I’ll even make it through childbirth here.’
She placed her palm flat against her stomach, feeling her baby and knowing that everything they did from this point on was for him or her.
‘Then we go,’ Fred said. ‘We wait for Hans to tell us the plan, and we do this. Together.’
‘Together,’ she repeated, as they both lay down, fully clothed and huddling beneath the blanket. ‘We’re doing this for our child.’
Fred didn’t disagree, but he did hold her tight; tighter than he’d ever held her before. But as much as she tried to think of something else, all she could see when she closed her eyes were the pained faces of the dead, open-mouthed, thrown into a pile. A pile that she was going to have to climb into if she wanted a chance at leaving this godforsaken place.
The very next day, as Amira walked back and forth with Janot while the men sat and talked, their heads bent as they discussed something important, Amira stumbled, throwing out her arm to right herself.
It was Janot who caught her and stopped her from falling.
‘Sorry, I had a dizzy spell,’ Amira murmured.
‘You’re pregnant, aren’t you?’ Janot said. ‘I’ve noticed the change in you.’
‘I, I—’ Amira cast about for something to say, but Janot raised her hand.
‘It’s fine, I’ll keep your secret,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think it’ll be long until the others notice.’
‘You’re the first person to realise,’ Amira replied, and even though she was nervous about someone knowing her secret, it was nice to have someone to talk to about her pregnancy. ‘Do you have children of your own?’
‘No, I do not. Thank goodness, otherwise I’d be worrying about them terribly from in here.’
‘I only ask because I’m worried about delivering the baby when it comes. I know very little about childbirth.’
