Tulips in Her Hand

Chapter Eighteen

At that moment, Celina felt herself shrinking into the floor, becoming lost amidst waves of thin quilts and trembling fear. She felt the Nazi's withering glare fall upon her, despite the fact that the rest of the group was drowsily waking up, alarmed.  The woman with the graying red hair, their hero, stood behind the three soldiers, tears flecking her cheeks. The entire world seemed to fall silent just then, and there was nothing any of them could do about it.

"What did I tell you, Eichmann," the Nazi closest to them continued. He clucked his tongue in disgust. "Eight of them, too. Don't they know they can't hide from Hitler?"  

The tears refused to come to Celina's eyes this time. They'd already seen too much.

Wren rose in a defiant stance. "Don't you know that we can, and did?" he said in his clumsy German.

The soldiers erupted into a sputtering of laughs. The one who Celina presumed to be Eichmann said, "Ah, the American thinks he's so clever. Enough jokes for now, however. All of you, hands out of your pockets, side by side across the room in a single file line. Schnell!"

Legs trembling, eyes glistening, each of the Jews and other prisoners in that room lined up against the wall. Droplets of moonlight dusted their cheeks as the thrust their hands out of their pockets. Celina felt her heart flutter in her chest as the Nazi strutted past, his stale, sour breath lingering in the air. He all of a sudden stopped right in front of her, his eyes fixated on her. She held her chin in a defiant stance for several seconds, waiting for him to speak. The Nazi paused, trying to think of something to say, before curling his lips and spitting on her shoes. 

He walked away with a look of smug satisfaction.

Eichmann pulled out a gun.

He opened his mouth to speak. "All right--"

Celina's heart beat even faster in anticipation of what she was about to do. Taking a deep breath, perhaps her last one, she stepped forward, her chin raised. Wren looked at her in shock. Twenty eyeballs stared at her in surprise. "You'll have to shoot me first," she said, raising her voice steadily, "I've gotten these people this far, and I'll get them through the rest of the war. I will not..." she trailed off, containing the tears, "I will not let some German murder them. Not now, not ever!" Her voice came out much sharper, much rawer than she hoped. She lowered her trembling chin ever so slightly, glaring at Eichmann in particular.

Startled, Eichmann, froze, before breaking out into a cackling laughter. "I wasn't going to shoot you, my love, but now that you mention it I think I just might." And then he raised his gun, his finger rested on the trigger. Celina glanced back behind her, then forward. She knew what she had to do.

"Celina, no! They're--" Wren called. Yet she already made up her mind.

Celina leaped forward, her trembling muscles thrusting themselves with all their might onto the soldier before her. Her fingers blindly searched for the gun, but not before she felt it explode in Eichmann's hands. With a ferocity Celina never thought she had in her, she yanked the gun from his hands, twisting it in the opposite direction. As everything swirled around in a blinding whirlpool, she felt her fingers grasp the trigger.

The dreaded click, an explosion. Then silence.

Though in reality, it was only Celina who was enveloped in silence. The rest of the room was ablaze with fiery explosion, coming from monstrous red beast and a little girl with broken blue eyes. Celina heard nothing, saw nothing except the volley of bullets, the movement of mouths crying for help behind her. She scarcely remembered dropping the gun, scarcely remembered Wren grabbing her, his mouth forming silent words. She scarcely remembered them running, one by one, stepping over the bodies of the three Nazis that once taunted them, through the door of the attic. She scarcely remembered the raw air that bit her pale cheeks as soon as the stepped outside into the exposed streets.