Padlocked, page 36
“But I can’t go back and change things.”
“No. That much is true. However, the weight of guilt is the first step in making better decisions and becoming a more highly evolved soul. If you do not feel the consequences of your choices before you reach this side, you are destined to experience those events through those you impacted. Because you are truly sorry, repentant for the things you did that hurt others, and resolved not to repeat those actions in the future, the gift of grace may be bestowed upon you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Everything boils down to lessons. For those who don’t acknowledge the evil they wrought or the bad decisions they made, they are fated to experience them until they understand the effects their thoughts, words, and actions had on others. When you experience guilt, you already understand how you negatively impacted others. The lesson is learned. Grace and forgiveness may be offered. Provided,” she added, “that the guilt is sincere and the soul is determined not to repeat it.”
Celeste began walking again. Reluctantly, Agata rose to follow her. The beach morphed into a busy avenue lined with buildings and people. “All of the villagers in the woods, and all those who perished in the camps and beyond, were met on the other side with unconditional love and an absence of pain. Angels provided safety and security for their souls, even though their bodies were lost. They are in a far better place, to put it mildly.” She stopped and pointed. “Do you remember this place?”
Agata peered at the building in front of them. It was a formidable brick building, just as imposing and menacing as it had been when she was a child. “We are in Fürstenwalde,” she breathed. “That is a hospital.”
“I was there, too,” Celeste said quietly, “on the day your mother passed into the afterlife.”
“You mean on the day she died.”
“Ah, but she is not dead.” Celeste stepped back. As her figure began to glimmer again, she added, “The soul is never dead.”
Before Agata’s eyes, Celeste’s figure became a swirling mass of lights that glistened in all directions as though she were coming apart. In the next instance, she vanished, leaving Agata with an overwhelming sense of love and unconditional acceptance. She stepped forward into the void left, but sensed someone behind her.
As she turned, she found herself staring into her mother’s face.
“Agata,” Anna said, stepping forward. To Agata’s astonishment, she appeared exactly as she had before her body had blossomed with Elsa inside her. She looked so young; her face was radiant, her skin glowing, and her eyes filled with compassion. Her slender arms were outstretched, and as Agata fell into them, they encircled her with an embrace that she wanted to continue forever.
“Why did you leave us?” Agata cried.
“I was never actually gone,” Anna said, stroking her daughter’s hair. “I was always right there beside you, even when you couldn’t feel my presence.”
“But—”
“I had to pass over to this side,” she continued. “Had I remained, we would have stayed in Fürstenwalde. All of us would have been placed in a camp, Agata. None of us would have survived.”
“I don’t understand! We needed you!”
“Fürstenwalde did not remain the town of my youth, nor of yours,” Anna said sadly. “It became the site of a subcamp of Sachsenhausen, a labor and death camp. Because I passed away, your father was able to take you and your sister to safety in Warsaw.”
Agata was openly crying, her body wracked with her sobs. “We suffered anyway, Mama. And Papa—”
“Yes. Ira. What a good father he is. I always knew he would be.”
“But, Mama, he—”
“Take care of him, Agata. Take care of him and your sister.”
“What are you saying?”
“He has traveled far to be with you,” she said. She held Agata at arm's length from her as she smiled. “He has crossed the country in every direction.”
“What?”
“Take care of our little family, Agata, my dear child. And know that I am with you. Even when you can’t feel my presence, I am there.”
The words that were ready to escape Agata’s lips were lost on a dizzying blast of wind that spun her into a light more brilliant than the sun. Agata wrapped her arms about her face in a vain attempt to shield her eyes from the radiant orb. As she drew closer, she was overcome with weakness and lightheadedness, as though she would faint at any moment. The last thing she remembered was being laid upon a soft, warm bed as if she had truly collapsed.
50
Agata
The light was so bright and unyielding that it threatened to burn her eyelids.
Agata blinked several times as she struggled to open her eyes fully. For the first time since the explosion, she experienced pain when she moved. Her left side felt as though every nerve was on fire, and her eyes watered and throbbed with the light’s intensity. Each inhale was laborious, and she struggled to make even the slightest move.
She longed to return to Celeste’s side, where she hadn’t experienced physical pain or discomfort, and she wondered where her angel had gone. She tried to call out to her, but her throat was parched, and no sound escaped her lips.
Agata eventually managed to open her eyes and found herself lying flat on her back, staring at an annoying, bright light hanging from the ceiling. She lay there for a moment as she attempted to get her bearings. An antiseptic odor filled the air, irritating her nostrils. It smelled as though someone had mopped the floors with a too-strong solution, and she desperately wanted to open a window.
Noise filled the air. Men’s and women’s voices seemed to come at her from all directions, and yet, they sounded faint, as though they were a distance away. Someone coughed. Wheels groaned against the floor.
Agata managed to turn her head and was astonished to see Elsa half-reclining on a bed only a few feet from her. She appeared as though she had fallen asleep while reading a well-worn copy of To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway. She was afraid to close her eyes, concerned that when she reopened them, her sister would have disappeared.
Elsa appeared small and frail, but she was clean. Her hair was almost shoulder-length, not the buzz cut that all prisoners endured. There was color in her cheeks; gone was the thin alabaster skin Agata had become accustomed to seeing in the camp. She wore a clean, white hospital gown that reached from her neck to her ankles, where her feet emerged wearing socks. Socks! Agata wondered about the last time she’d seen socks, but she couldn’t remember.
She slowly began to realize that she was lying in a busy hospital ward. If she managed to peer toward her feet, she noticed a row of beds across from her, filled with people suffering from various ailments. Unlike the camp with its dark, foreboding walls and inadequate lighting, this room was filled with sunshine intermingling with overhead lights. The voices she’d heard were nurses and patients, primarily speaking in hushed, reverent tones as if trying not to disturb the others.
A cart approached Elsa’s bed, pushed by a young woman in a long-sleeved blouse and crisp white apron, her dark hair almost entirely covered by a white cap. The aroma of hot chicken stock and cooked vegetables tickled her nose, and Agata realized she was famished.
Heavier footsteps sounded behind the cart. “Here, allow me to take that tray from you,” a male voice said softly. “She’s asleep, but I’ll make sure she awakens and eats it.”
Agata’s heartbeat quickened so abruptly that she thought she was having a heart attack. She knew that voice. In fact, she could never forget it.
She tried to turn toward the voice, but her arm was tethered to an intravenous drip, and every movement sent her body spiraling into pain. As the cart wheeled past her, a man stepped between the beds and placed the tray on the nightstand between Elsa and her. He leaned forward and appeared to be gently shaking her sister.
“Elsa,” he said, “my little angel, wake up and eat.” As Elsa began to stir, he continued, “They’ve brought you fresh chicken soup, a roll, and a salad. Look, there are radishes and carrots and peas!”
Agata’s throat felt as though she’d walked through a desert under a hot, unrelenting sun. She strained to call for her father as he helped Elsa sit up in bed. Finally, a croak managed to escape her.
Startled, Ira nearly dropped the tray he was attempting to balance in front of Elsa. When he turned, his face went as pale as if Agata were a ghost manifesting in front of him. He quickly returned the tray to the table as Elsa peered around him. Her eyes lit up at the sight of Agata.
“Nurse! Nurse!” Ira called out, his voice sounding too loud and animated in the staid, clinical room. As the attendant turned around, her lips pursed as if to shush him, he leaned over Agata and continued, “My daughter’s eyes are open! She’s come out of her coma!”
Agata fought to remain awake, but the effort was too great and the pull of sleep too strong. The faces of Ira and Elsa, leaning over her, blurred as a doctor and a nurse rushed to her side. Their voices mingled, Elsa’s young, high voice seeming to merge with Ira’s soft, gentle baritone. As they were replaced by a doctor’s calm, deep tone, she succumbed to the heaviness descending on her.
Two weeks had passed, and Agata could now be propped up in bed against layers of decadent pillows. She wore a bandage that wrapped around her shaved head, concealing jagged wounds and incisions. The bandage was meticulously changed every day when the doctor inspected her injuries. In between, she had visits from medical personnel intent on asking her the same questions as they wrote in their notebooks. The prognosis was good, as she was able to recall much of her life, though she had forgotten details of the day the camp was liberated. She would likely be bothered by debilitating headaches, but it was a small price to pay to be reunited with Ira and Elsa. She had somehow returned from the dead.
While Agata was in a coma, Elsa’s organs had begun to shut down, likely due to starvation and repeated infections. Under the care of the Polish and Ukrainian nurses, however, she was flourishing. The infections were effectively treated, and she was slowly adding back the weight she’d lost. It wouldn’t be much longer before she would be released from the hospital.
Ira had miraculously survived the occupation. After he’d been placed on a cattle car heading for the north side of Warsaw, the tracks were blown up by the Polish underground resistance. In the heat of a skirmish between the Nazis and Poles, several cars were opened, and the prisoners rushed out. Casualties were heavy among the resistance fighters, and most of the prisoners were recaptured, but he’d managed to evade them. He had then set out on a grueling journey to find his two daughters.
“Is the war over?” Agata asked as Ira and Elsa perched on her bed.
“It is for us,” Ira said. “The Polish Resettlement Corps is working to relocate us, just as soon as it’s safe and you’re cleared to move.”
“But for the rest of Europe?”
“I have heard the Allies are days away from defeating the Nazis. They’ve surrounded Berlin, where Hitler is rumored to be hiding.”
“Hiding?”
“Yes, hiding. He has been living underground for months now, supposedly safe from the bombing. It’s called the Führerbunker and is now what is left of the Führer Headquarters. Can you imagine? He has been reduced to hiding in subterranean tunnels like a mole. They will find him and capture him,” Ira added. “I am sure of it.”
“And Piotr?”
It was Elsa who answered. “When the camp was liberated, Piotr joined the Polish First Army. They are playing a huge role in capturing Berlin. I am so proud of him!”
Agata laughed, but her head throbbed with the effort. “How can you be proud of him, when you hardly know him?”
“He was here with you when we were first brought here. Papa and I got to know him. Piotr never stopped fighting, Agata. Never. He never gave up.”
The sound of wheels reached their ears. “It’s too early for supper,” Agata mused.
As they turned toward the sound, a wheelchair was pushed down the long corridor between beds. A woman was behind it, her crisp, gay blue dress in contrast with the white hospital gowns and medical uniforms. From this distance, she looked like a movie star with her gleaming, shoulder-length hair and svelte figure. As they drew closer, Agata was drawn to her round face and wide smile.
Behind her were two younger women who were similarly dressed and who appeared like younger versions of her, though with darker hair. But, as Agata’s eyes moved from the women to the person in the wheelchair, her heart began to race.
The man was thinner than the last time she’d seen him. His face was gaunt, but he wore the same wide smile as the others. As her eyes moved across his figure, she realized both his legs were missing. One ended just above the knee, while the other ended halfway up his thigh.
“Agata!” he called out as they reached her bed.
“Hank?” she asked incredulously.
“I didn’t know if you’d remember me,” he said.
“How could I ever forget you?”
Ira rose and shook his hand. “I’m Ira Goldstein, Agata’s father.”
“Hank Mullins. This is my wife, Dottie, and my girls, Mary and Susanna. And you,” he added, locking eyes with Elsa, “must be the infamous Elsa Goldstein.”
“I don’t know how infamous I am,” she laughed as she shook his hand and those of each family member.
“Infamous enough for your sister to walk through the Gates of Hell to find you,” he answered.
“Did you lose your legs on the day the camps were liberated?” Agata asked gently, nodding to his body.
“I did,” Hank said, slapping his thigh. “But you know, in the big scheme of things, I’m doing okay. I’m alive, and I have my lovely wife and beautiful daughters. With any luck, my son and son-in-law will soon come home from the Pacific, where they’ve been fighting. Anyway, I heard that you had opened your eyes, and I had to come by to see you.”
“You’ve been here in the hospital this whole time?”
“Yes. I must have suffered a concussion; they told me I was out cold for a time.”
“When did you awaken?”
“I don’t recall, exactly. When I woke up, Dottie was here with my girls.”
“We were told he might not make it,” Dottie interjected. “He was near death when we arrived.”
“We kept talking to him,” Mary said, “begging him to come back to us.”
“I must have heard them on some level,” Hank said, shaking his head, “because I had some pretty vivid dreams while I was out.”
“Dreams?” Agata asked. “What kind of dreams?”
“Well,” Hank said, scratching his head, “I just remember asking an angel of God to get me back home to my family.”
“An angel of God? Was she, by any chance, named Celeste?”
“Joe. Did you have dreams also?”
“I did.”
“Well,” Hank laughed, “they must have been giving us some mighty fine medicine while we were out. I think I dreamt in Technicolor.”
“I have a feeling that my dreams have changed my life.”
“They certainly have changed mine.”
“You had a partner when I saw you last,” Agata said. “Was he injured in the explosion, too?”
“Rafe,” Hank offered. “No. Thank God, he had cleared the blast area. In fact, directly afterward, a young, inexperienced soldier opened fire. Rafe forced him to drop the rifle.”
“Did the soldier hurt anyone?” Elsa breathed.
“One, a nurse,” Hank said sadly. “Unfortunately, she didn’t make it.”
“How did Rafe stop the soldier?” Elsa asked.
“With a slingshot. He’s pretty good with it. The soldier was knocked off his feet, long enough to be disarmed, and he gained a nice bump on his head. Otherwise, he was fine.”
They all marveled over Rafe’s slingshot prowess before Agata ventured, “Where is Rafe now?”
“Right about now, he should be closing in on the outskirts of Berlin.”
“He’s in Germany?”
“That’s where the action is. He made a good friend in the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front, a guy named Misha. Anyway, after liberating the camp, the Ukrainians continued west with the Red Army. They successfully pushed back the Nazis all the way to Berlin. The Americans, Brits, and other Allies are advancing from the west. The German lines are collapsing, and Berlin has been heavily bombed.”
“By the way,” Dottie interjected, “Japan surrendered. Ray and Buck are still in the Pacific, but the war is over for them. They’ll soon be coming home.”
The conversation veered into a discussion of a new atomic weapon dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ordered by America’s new president, Harry S. Truman. There was a long moment of sad silence as they spoke of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death. Throughout the war, there was tremendous hope and faith in Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin. Eventually, the conversation ventured back to Rafe.
“Did Rafe have a family?” Agata asked.
“Yes,” Hank answered. “His mom is in France, freed from the Vichy government. After Berlin, he plans to keep moving until he reaches her in France. He wants to move her to America. The magazine editor I work for said he’d be proud to hire him.”
“What will you do now?” Ira asked.
“I’m going home,” he said, grasping Dottie’s hand. “Flight leaves tomorrow, which is why I wanted to swing by and say hello.”
“What will you do when you get home?” Agata asked.
“The magazine I work for wants a series of articles regarding my experiences. I’d sent a slew of them, but they were heavily redacted, and most didn’t make it through. The magazine seems to think Americans will be interested in what has transpired over the last five or six years. What will you do?”
“I don’t know yet,” Agata answered thoughtfully. “We really haven’t discussed it yet.”
“We’re waiting,” Ira said quietly. “Agata was in grave danger for a long while, and she’s still got a long recovery ahead of her.”
