“I believe I found your sister.”
Mindel’s heart stopped for a moment, while tears filled her eyes and her lower lip began to tremble. Suddenly her voice was gone and all she could do was nod.
“We can talk to her tonight. But since any conversation with people from the other compounds is strictly forbidden, we have to be careful. Nobody must see us. Can you meet me at the fence to the Women’s camp after dinner?”
Mindel nodded, overwhelmed by the emotions storming in on her. She would be there, come hell or high water. She wouldn’t tell anyone, except for Laszlo of course. Someone had to explain her absence in case Mother Brinkmann found out.
With this great news she returned to the orphans’ barracks, so elated she barely noticed the pain in her toes.
“Look what I got!” she yelled as soon as she entered the hut.
“Where did you get them?” Mother Brinkmann cast her a suspicious glance.
“I didn’t steal them. Honest! The Russian woman gave them to me. Isn’t she nice?”
Mother Brinkmann smiled and took the bread from her hands, cutting it up into small slices and giving Mindel half of a slice. Mother Brinkmann never distributed everything, but kept the rest for dinner, claiming it was best not to eat all at once, which the children naturally bemoaned. With Mindel’s tummy hurting so much, why wouldn’t Mother Brinkmann allow them to eat their entire ration at once? But Mindel had learned not to argue and walked away.
“What’s wrong with your leg?” Herr Brinkmann asked as she limped past him. As always, he was rolling cigarettes from the butts the children picked up from the ground.
Since she’d never seen him smoke, she’d once asked Laszlo what Herr Brinkmann needed the butts for and he’d told her that cigarettes in the camp were as good as gold and could buy a lot of things.
Mindel thought that was very strange, but adults did all kinds of peculiar things, so why not using cigarettes for gold?
“Nothing. It’s my shoes that are hurting my feet.”
“Let me have a look,” he said and she slipped out of her shoe. When he put her bare foot beside the shoe, her toes surpassed the tip by almost an inch.
“Aw, well, you children grow too fast. Let me see what I can do.”
Mindel nodded and climbed her bunk to eat her breakfast – soup and the half slice of bread – and to get some warmth under the thin blanket. Now she just had to wait until evening to go and finally see her sister again.
20
When the horn sounded for roll call, it felt as if Rachel had only fallen asleep minutes earlier. But despite her tiredness, she jumped off her bunk like the healthy, energetic girl she’d been a year ago.
Anne gave her an encouraging smile. “You look so happy today.”
“I am. I can’t wait to talk to my sister again. Maybe there’s a way to see her. Maybe if I talk to the camp commandant, he’ll reunite us?”
Margot shook her head, but Anne touched Rachel’s arm and said, “I’m sure something can be done.”
Rachel was grateful for the kind words. Anne wasn’t like most of the other girls or even women who came here. She was determined and ever mindful of the feelings and needs of others, even though she was only fifteen. For her age, Anne Frank was very mature, but then again, who hadn’t grown up way too fast in the midst of this war?
On her way to the assembly place, Rachel examined her orange fingernails, which were slowly growing back in pale pink. It looked quite artistic, as if she’d used orange nail polish and had forgotten to paint a tiny strip. An angry red scar reminded her of the awful burn that had cut short her ordeal in the Tannenberg camp. Taking up her assigned spot in the courtyard, she let her mind wander back to the ammunition factory.
Since she’d returned to the main camp, despite the smaller rations, she felt better and the constant coughing had subsided. But the best thing was that after several days she’d lost the acid taste in her mouth. She wondered how many of her former workmates were still alive, and then determined she shouldn’t be thinking about those types of things. It was too depressing.
Right now, she wanted to concentrate her entire energy on finding Mindel. She squared her shoulders, standing straight with the newfound hope and couldn’t help the tiniest trace of a smile to appear on her face.
“You, over there,” the guard barked at her.
Rachel blinked several times as she realized she’d allowed her mind to drift and didn’t have a clue as to what was happening. When the guard raised his baton, she hurried to the area he indicated, fear gripping her as she didn’t have the slightest idea why or for what she had been selected.
“What’s going on?” she asked one of the other women, dismayed that while she’d been daydreaming, she’d forgotten to actively try looking sickly enough to avoid being selected.
“Work detail. Salt mines.”
“The salt mines?” Rachel’s knees wobbled and were about to give out. Only the thought of a truncheon slamming down on her kept her from falling, while her mind screamed: No! Not now! She wanted to hurl herself at the guard, scratch out his eyes, strangle him…or beg for mercy…but she did none of that. Instead she stayed frozen in place, knowing that nothing she did would change the guard’s mind, but could mean her death.
She decided to cling to the notion that this was one of the work details where people returned each night to the camp and she’d still be able to meet Mindel at the fence.
“Move! Fast!” the SS guard barked, and Rachel forced her feet to walk in line with the other women, resisting the urge to look back. But with every step away from the camp, her hopes vanished some more, until they reached the train ramp, where she and Mindel
