The Promise

Chapter 7

Chapter 7.
November 1943
Auschwitz, Poland

"Ruth. Ruth. Ruth!"

Ruth snapped back to reality and glanced up at her sister. "What is it, Sara?"

"You've been sitting and smiling at that empty soup bowl for too long."

"Have I?" Ruth glanced down at the bowl which had held her watery, smelly soup. "I didn't realize. Do we have to go back to work?"

"Not just yet. What's the matter with you? You've been dazed since morning."

"Erik. It's Erik. I saw Erik this morning. He's here."

"Who?"

"Erik Schultz. You remember him, don't you?"

A bitter look came to Sara's worn face. "So what if he's here. His brother is the Kommandant and his sister is that horrible Rapportführerin who torments us day in and day out. Now there's one more Schultz to make our lives miserable. I don't understand why you sit there and smile with that knowledge."

"Erik isn't going to make anyone's life miserable!" Ruth snapped, a slight color of indignation appearing on her pale cheeks. "He's not like his siblings."

"You don't know that."

"Do so, do so!"

Sara let out a mocking laugh. "Don't tell me you're still infatuated with him. It was silly enough when you were a teenager, but now it's just absurd. Ruth, you last saw him at least six years ago. He's a Nazi officer now and you are a Jewish inmate. There's nothing left of your old friendship. It's over and done."

Ruth rolled her eyes and rising from her seat grabbed her bowl and walked off.
"Infatuated? Silly? Absurd?" She growled under her breath. "How dare you make my love for Erik so shallow? So superficial? And I last saw him four years ago, not six as you suppose. What do you know anyway? Nothing, nothing at all!"

***

In the evening Ruth made her way with the rest of the inmates back to the barracks. Her knees and back ached and her head throbbed. Her stomach growled, begging for food.

"There will only be some moldy bread," she thought with a tired sigh. "One can hardly call it dinner."

She glanced to her side, where Sara was walking beside her. Behind was their cousin, Susi. The rest of her family had been sent to the left during the selection. Ruth was certain they were all dead.

They were almost at the barracks when Ruth felt Susi pinch her elbow.

"Ruth," she whispered. "Is that Erik over there?"

Ruth glanced up sharply. Sure enough, right at the barracks in which she was forced to stay stood Erik. His face was serious and stern and he stared straight ahead without really looking at anything.
Her eyes picked up the cigarette in his hand which he repeatedly put to his mouth and slowly breathed out the smoke.

He seemed so different from the Erik she'd last known so long ago.

"Since when has he started smoking?" Ruth thought with indignation. "Did he pick up that awful habit while at the front?"

They were getting closer now, but he didn't move. His stare, however, became more intense, as though he were trying to see something.

Ruth's mind raced as she tried to guess his motives.

"Susi, change places with me, quick!"
Before Susi could protest at such a dangerous move Ruth reached behind and pulled Susi to stand in her place while she took a step back. Glancing around it seemed no one had noticed. She was now in the final row. Her heart pounded faster and faster as she got closer to the barracks door. Erik was standing not far from it.

His face showed no emotion, but as she approached he pulled out a tiny pencil and pad from his inner coat pocket. Ruth slowed down her pace. He looked up at her several times as he jotted down something in the pad.

She was sure he was writing down her number, which was sewn onto her prison uniform. By now Ruth was almost at the door, the last one to step inside.

Erik moved forward to depart in the opposite direction, but in doing so he walked close to her. So close that she could smell his cologne. Ruth breathed in deeply. Four years since she had smelled his scent. It was the same cologne he had before, she was sure of it. Granted now it was mixed heavily with smell of cigarette smoke. He brushed up against her as he passed by and Ruth felt him shove something into her hand. Something soft and mushy. She dared not look down at what it was, but guessed from the texture that it was most likely bread. Hurriedly she stuffed it into her pocket and with a final glance back at the departing Erik, entered the barracks.

***

The inmates now had some time to themselves before the lights were to go out. Some of the women were writing letters home. As a Jew, Ruth didn't have that privilege.

"Who would I write anyway? The immediate family has most likely been killed and I don't know where the extended family is." She let out a quiet sigh and wiped the two tears which had dared to escape her eyes.

A hand gently touched her shoulder and Ruth looked up to see Susi standing beside her.

"Was that really Erik Schultz we saw?"

Ruth nodded. She glanced around and stuffing her hand into her pocket pulled out some of the bread and handed it to her cousin. Susi's eyed widened at this delight and with a quick motion she hid the bread. She would eat it at night when no one would see and demand that she share it with her.

"Did he give you that?"

"Yes, stuffed it into my hand as he walked past me?"

"What are you two whispering about?" Sara now came up to them. Ruth shared some of the bread with her sister as well. Sara's reaction was similar to that of Susi's

"Fresh bread!" She hissed shoving it into her pocket. "From where?"

"Erik," Susi explained. "I wonder if we'll be getting extra food from now on with him around."

Sara snorted. "I wouldn't count on it. It's not like he remembers or cares about us. We walked straight past him and he hardly glanced in our direction."

"He did too," Ruth shot back. "Why else would he be standing at our barracks? He just couldn't make a show of knowing us."

"She's got a point," Susi agreed. "His brother is the Kommandant, which means Erik has got to be extra careful not to show any sort of sympathy. They'll transfer him elsewhere if he does. Just like they shipped him off to the front."

The statement caused Ruth to let out a gasp as she widened her eyes. Then in a moment of disbelief she shook her head. "No, no, that's impossible. How could they have known? They all lived in Berlin while he was with his grandmother. There's no way they could have found out about us?"

Sara narrowed her eyes. "Us? What us? Ruth, did you actually carry a romance with that German boy?"

Ruth said nothing as she primly avoided her sister's gaze.

Sara looked over at Susi, who sealed her mouth tightly, clearly not ready to provide any information.

"If that is the case," Sara stated at last. "Then I'm glad he was conscripted and sent off. Nothing would have come of it, Ruth, and you know it very well. I'm not even going to start talking about the objections his antisemitic, Nazi family would have, but Father would have never approved either. You know he wanted us to marry proper Jewish boys."

Ruth made no reply as she lay down on the dirty mattress of her bunk. She gently touched her right hand, the one into which Erik had stuffed the bread. Just for a split second she had felt the gentle pressure of his fingers. Ruth clung to that beautiful moment with all that was inside of her. Sara could go ahead and say whatever she wanted, Ruth was determined not to let it bother her one bit. Her sister was to narrow minded to fully understand the significance to Erik being here. He was plotting to get her out of this place. Ruth was sure of it. Why else would he have come over to see where she stayed and take down her number