Good luck homing pigeon

Chapter nineteen: Time ravages, time heals (8th November, 1943)

I know my updates aren't very frequent, but here is Chapter nineteen.  At the moment, we're currently well past the middle of the book, and the big climax is approaching. I'm not giving away any spoilers, like I did with the Angel and the Rebel trilogy, but I can tell you that I liked the way it came out, so I hope you do too. The song above is Frank Sinatra's 'That old black magic'. Enjoy your reading...

To recall each and every day, spent in Auschwitz-Birkenau, you must understand, is delving far too deep for me to bare. When my husband and I left this place, we'd sworn a vow to each other to do our best to put everything here behind us. Those of our old friends left alive, we'd find. And along the way, we'd make new ones. For a while, we'd live much like a pair of celebrities; going to parties and dances every week, drinking gin and champagne like liquid gold, and then sleeping the morning away until we'd begin the day all over again. We indulged in our new luxuries the best we could. But even music and alcohol couldn't banish the memories completely.

It was November now, here in Birkenau. Although I didn't realise it until Angelo told me. I didn't even know the day Briana turned nineteen the year before, or when I turned seventeen. But then, birthdays were a rarity here. Age was something people feared, rather than celebrating. Still, I acknowledged that I was another year older, another year wiser. We all were, actually. Angelo had turned eighteen just a few months after my birthday. I'd planned to make him a cake, back in Paris. And for his present I'd use all of my allowance money to get him the one thing he'd really wanted for the past year. A pair of shiny, genuine leather, crimson-red boxing gloves he'd been admiring through the sports shop window for as long as they'd been on display. Sure, he had his own pair, but the leader was old and peeling in tatters. Barely fit for a full match. So mostly he went, bare-fisted into a street fight. But I knew how much he wanted those gloves. Too bad I never had the chance to get them.

It was only this month, I hadn't missed a birthday. I remembered Sandrine telling me she turned eighteen herself on the 8th. So, determined to make this as nice for her as I could, I set about trying to find Sandrine the perfect substitute for a birthday cake. Let's see...I didn't think we had any sugar in the kitchens, and if I asked the block leader she would've said the same thing. So my best options were to either steal something, or make a trade at the warehouse, Canada. But what could I have to trade?

I thought about it all day, really. From roll call this morning, our dishwater coffee, and through both work shifts with the lunch in between. What could I possibly trade, to get Sandrine something nice for her birthday? My scarf was practically a rag now, my shoes the only shoes I had, and my belt just as worn and tatter as everybody else's. The only option I had was to yet again, steal. What was there to steal that would go unnoticed?

Of course! How could I'd been so foolish not to see it? Our entire work hut was filled with tradable goods! Glass frames, lenses, gold and silver fillings...the only problem was that our entire hut was filled with soldiers, and a few foremen guarding our every move. I'd have to wait for a distraction before I swiped something.

"Mama would've made éclairs," Sandrine whispered, as we pushed and popped the lenses, same as usual. "Real cream éclairs with melted chocolate on the top. Either that, or we would've gone to one of the local cafes. Mama loved her old-fashioned, French cuisine."

"So did mine," I smiled secretly in her direction. "Everybody loved mama's dresses; so much, she sometimes got lunch for free, back when everyone respected her. I think after the occupation, she was still lucky to at least have her business running. In wartime, seamstresses are a valuable thing. Even Jewish ones."

"She was lucky," Sandrine remarked, "my mama was a housewife; like any other. Papa was the one who worked every day. He was an engineer. Since he was younger than us, mama said the first thing she ever saw him doing was working under a car. And she was right; there was nothing papa did better than to restore even the most temperamental of engines to their former glory."