HOME | DD

Description
"Five days after black and red collide.
The motion sickness past, I’ll be the first to stand.
Behind that weathered door, I thought it would be safest.
My head is dizzy now, I thought we’d overcome.
We might not make it home tonight."
-[link] (Get up- Barcelona)

I seriously cried the first time I heard this song. I'm not exaggerating at all. When I heard it, I was like HOLY SHIT. This song IS Sara and Benjamin.

* * *

On the night of April 25th, Daniel and I had fallen into a fitful sleep. Benjamin had regained consciousness a few nights before long enough to insist on sleeping in another bunk. He was adamant about it, for he feared that we would catch his illness if we stayed with him any longer, and we agreed grudgingly.
The barracks were cold; I watched blankly as my breath escaped my lips and formed crystalline clouds above my head. It swirled and twirled in frigid arcs, like ballet dancers.
It did not feel like my breath-it felt like somebody else’s.
I was almost asleep, until I heard him coughing, and I tried to sojourn my panic; it was going to be all right. The Allies… they were coming soon. Perhaps we would be freed and then we could go back home...
He coughed louder and harder this time: it was ragged and abrasive, filled with holes. I sighed, rolled over onto my side and slithered over to the edge of the wooden plank I called my bed. Daniel murmured something softly in his sleep next to me, but he didn’t wake as I leapt from my bunk onto the cold wood ground. I could see him; he was curled into himself on the bunk several yards away. His eyes were shut tightly, the skin under them purple and angry. His cheekbones, made prominent by hunger, framed it all:

A lion-hearted, broken boy encrusted in gray and white stripes, two long scars etched across his face. His identity. My identity.

I knelt down beside him, reaching out and setting my hand upon his trembling shoulder. He stirred slightly, his lips moving silently.
“Benjamin,” I murmured. My voice sounded strange—perhaps it was the lump in my throat. “Benji, wake up. It’s me.”
His eyelids fluttered, but they remained closed. I leaned forward and my lips met his in a soft kiss, and he finally blinked awake, revealing his eyes: they were the only pieces of home I had left.
At first they were glassy, muddled—as if he was trying to remember who I was. But after a moment, he blinked a few more times and his haggard face lit up, his mouth turning up into a smile. “Hey, blackbird,” he rasped.
I pressed my index finger against my lips. “Ssh, don’t talk. Scoot over; I’ll sleep with you tonight. You shan’t freeze, not on my watch.”
“No… I don’t want… you to catch it-”
“Don’t be stupid, I’ll be fine. You did the same for me, so don’t try to be a hero anymore, all right, Superman?”
He smiled and shifted to the side and I lay down next to him. I sunk my face into his shoulder, gripping at the fabric just to make sure he wouldn’t slip away from me again: he was so thin. I felt his chest moving up and down in painful, scratchy breaths—once or twice he would exhale and pause for a long moment, as if he were trying to remember what to do next. As if he were forgetting how to breathe.
It should be me instead of him. I should be the one with swollen lungs. I should be the one getting the life sucked out of me, not him.
“You have a fever,” I told him, “you shouldn’t talk anymore.”
He laughed weakly and I couldn’t help giggling as his warm breath tickled my ear. “M…make me,” he said, but I could hear the labor in his voice. I looked at him, and despite his reassuring smile I was still afraid. His collarbones stuck out, the skin hanging across the bones; fragile as tissue paper, no longer the rich olive that it used to be. Sheens of sweat covered his forehead and his lips were cracked and blue: tuberculosis had taken its toll, and I was helpless.
Why? Why him? Why do bad things happen to good people? People like him and Hanna and Ralf and my parents, like Maja and Anelie and Rose and Saul?
…I couldn’t answer my own question.
“… I know y…y…you think… I’m awfully handsome right now…” He was turned over on his side, grinning. His hair meshed with mine, like copper mixing with ink.
“You’re always handsome, silly tosspot. And once we get out of here, you’ll be back to your old self again; the Allies can’t be far now.”
Benjamin tried to sigh, but it was interrupted by a cough. I drew away from him as he curled into a ball, coughing into his sleeve, his face crumpling in pain, and when he lifted his head again I could see blood darkening the linen. He rolled onto his back with a small moan, his body taut like a piece of twine; as I looked at him, I was afraid he would break.
“Sshh… it’s going to be all right,” I told him, “soon it’ll be just you and me, Benji, just like before.”
When he finally stopped shuddering, he stared up at one of the many holes in the roof. I followed his gaze and saw a small red string caught in the splintered ceiling, fluttering in the wind. We watched it for a while and then he glanced over at me; his eyes were glinting. “Sa-Sara…” he paused, trying to suck in more air, “I’m sorry. For a l…lot of things…”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s my…fault. All of it…y-your mother, your father…Uncle Schröder, and y…you. You’ve all…all been hurt b…because of me.”
I shook my head. “It’s not your fault, Benjamin. They knew the risks. We chose to bring you back.”
His gaze never wavered as he spoke his next words:
“Sara, I…. I think I’m…ready to go home…” he paused, struggling to breathe right. “I… I want you to tell Danny I… I love him.”
He looked very scared when he said this; I saw regret, too. It was the bittersweet kind of sadness that I have often seen on the faces of parents as their children left home. But that wasn’t what frightened me. It was the soft acceptance that upstaged the fear, the quiet acquiescence of death that sat upon his continuance.
I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
He gave me a small, sad smile that said everything and I shook my head again. “You don’t mean... no… s-stop talking like that! You’re going to be fine! You promised, Benji, you promised me that everything was going to be all right. You promised, remember?”
He cringed as he breathed and I suddenly felt the need to scream at somebody, at anybody. I needed someone else to blame beside the Führer—besides myself.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered, touching my face.
I smeared the tears away with the back of my hand. “Why, Benjamin? Why ever shan’t I cry?”
“Because…” he averted his eyes for a moment, looking almost guilty. “It may sound… mad, but I feel… I feel as though it was always meant to end this way… as if was born to die.”
Dread grips me violently. “That’s not true! Remember, Benji, remember how you told me that we were going to get through it? We won’t have to hide, we’ll be married, we’ll be happy! We’re going to get out of here—we’ll get that balloon—you swore it, Benjamin! We’ll make it home; promise you’ll try. Promise!”
He looked away from me, brought my hand up to his mouth and kissed it. “Cross my heart, Sara…” he blinked a few times, his eyes becoming cloudy again. “…But…can I ask…you a favor?”
“…What?”
“The song that…we waltzed to last… last summer. Can you sing it for me…?”
I took a deep breath: it was going to be all right. Of course it would. I looked at him, not failing to notice how hard he was fighting to keep conscious. “Of all the things you want in the world, you want me to sing?” asked I. “You’re already sick; do you honestly want your ears to bleed, too?”
He laughed weakly, but it caught midway and turned into a cough. He took in another shaky breath “Please, Sara.” His hand was gripping mine tightly, with a new kind of urgency. “I…I’m scared. Don’t let go of my hand.”
I cradled his cheek in my other palm. “You are not going to die, Benjamin,” I told him, though I felt as if I were convincing myself more than he. “Do you understand? You can’t die, you are not allowed to die. Everything… everything is going to be all right.”
“Please,” he whispered, his voice so soft that I could hardly hear it. “… I know it’s… it’s silly, but please sing for me and please… please don’t let go of my hand.”
After looking at him for a moment, I began.

“I'll never smile again…
until I smile at you...
I'll never laugh again…
What good would it do…”

I sang softly, my voice hardly able to carry the tune. I felt our fingers interlace, and for some reason, my throat began to tighten.

“…For tears would fill my eyes.
My heart would realize that our romance is through...
I'll never love again…
I'm so in love with you…”

My voice began slurring as my eyelids drooped with sleep, and I could hear the crackling of the transistor radio, smell the kerosene, feel his hands on my hips. My head kept nodding, and soon my mind was getting blurry. I’d just rest my eyes for a moment. Just for a moment.
The last thing I remember before nodding off was a kiss on my forehead. Then I looked up: the string that had been hooked on the roof rustled a few more times, and then blew away.

***

I blinked awake, sitting bolt upright and looking around. For a moment I was disoriented, confused as to why I was surrounded by stacks of wood beds and straw and the smell of death. But soon my memory returned to me, and I glanced over at Benjamin. His hand was still in mine, his eyes were closed and his mouth was turned into a small smile. I laughed to myself; how could my awful singing make anyone smile?
“Sorry for nodding off, Ben. So how was it—dreadful as I thought it was? …Benji?”
He didn’t respond.
I squeezed his hand. “Benjamin?”
Nothing: his face was still.
“Benjamin, wake up! …This isn’t funny, Benji! Wake up!”
His chest wasn’t moving.
I struggled to a sitting position and took his shoulders, shaking them, gripping his shirt with both hands. It was still warm.
I shook him again. “Don’t you dare die on me! Goddamnit, Benjamin, don’t you dare die!”
He wouldn’t wake up.
Why? Why wouldn’t he wake up?
There was a sob rising in my chest as I took his hand again, feeling his wrist for a pulse, for anything, but there were only my tears, only Benjamin lying in my arms. “Crucified Christ, Benjamin, wake up! I need to tell you! I need to tell you I love you! Why won’t you answer me? I never got to tell you! Oh God, oh God, I’m so sorry, I’ve killed you… I’m so sorry…”

People say when a person you love dies before your eyes, you see something. You feel a gentle breeze on your cheek or hear a soft whisper in your ear. I have seen death. So much of it. To those who haven’t, I can tell you now that they are all lies:
Nothing happens. Nothing at all. Nothing but gone-ness. Nothing but dead. Nothing except your heart being ripped into thousands of pieces—repeatedly smashed, glued back together, and broken again. And each time a heart breaks and mends itself, there will always be a few pieces missing. That’s true with anything. If you break a vase, no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to get each piece back in the way it was. And even if you did, it wouldn’t be the same.

It wouldn’t be the same.

I buried my head in his shoulder, waiting for him to rest his chin upon the crown of my head and return my embrace, telling me that it was going to be all right.
“Benjamin! It’s all right, you can wake up now! Wake up! I need you! Goddamnit, Benji, you promised me! You bastard, you promised!”
The murmurs of the other prisoners as they acknowledged that another one had died were wafting up through the ceiling like fog. They didn’t care, though.
Nothing cared in concentration camps.
I cried. Quietly, but I cried as hard as I ever have. So hard that my ribs felt as if they were shattering, my lungs puncturing, deflating, their will to keep breathing leaving me alone with his corpse.
I remember Daniel trying to tear me away from him. I remember screaming, “Don’t! You’ll wake him up!”
He was holding me, crying quietly, too, telling me to hush through his sobs, telling me that the soldiers would hurt me if I kept shouting, that Benjamin wasn’t going to wake up.
I didn't care. Not anymore. My paper star had blown away.

…We were liberated the following morning.

Art, characters, writing (c) me

Description
"Five days after black and red collide.
The motion sickness past, I’ll be the first to stand.
Behind that weathered door, I thought it would be safest.
My head is dizzy now, I thought we’d overcome.
We might not make it home tonight."
-[link] (Get up- Barcelona)

I seriously cried the first time I heard this song. I'm not exaggerating at all. When I heard it, I was like HOLY SHIT. This song IS Sara and Benjamin.

* * *

On the night of April 25th, Daniel and I had fallen into a fitful sleep. Benjamin had regained consciousness a few nights before long enough to insist on sleeping in another bunk. He was adamant about it, for he feared that we would catch his illness if we stayed with him any longer, and we agreed grudgingly.
The barracks were cold; I watched blankly as my breath escaped my lips and formed crystalline clouds above my head. It swirled and twirled in frigid arcs, like ballet dancers.
It did not feel like my breath-it felt like somebody else’s.
I was almost asleep, until I heard him coughing, and I tried to sojourn my panic; it was going to be all right. The Allies… they were coming soon. Perhaps we would be freed and then we could go back home...
He coughed louder and harder this time: it was ragged and abrasive, filled with holes. I sighed, rolled over onto my side and slithered over to the edge of the wooden plank I called my bed. Daniel murmured something softly in his sleep next to me, but he didn’t wake as I leapt from my bunk onto the cold wood ground. I could see him; he was curled into himself on the bunk several yards away. His eyes were shut tightly, the skin under them purple and angry. His cheekbones, made prominent by hunger, framed it all:

A lion-hearted, broken boy encrusted in gray and white stripes, two long scars etched across his face. His identity. My identity.

I knelt down beside him, reaching out and setting my hand upon his trembling shoulder. He stirred slightly, his lips moving silently.
“Benjamin,” I murmured. My voice sounded strange—perhaps it was the lump in my throat. “Benji, wake up. It’s me.”
His eyelids fluttered, but they remained closed. I leaned forward and my lips met his in a soft kiss, and he finally blinked awake, revealing his eyes: they were the only pieces of home I had left.
At first they were glassy, muddled—as if he was trying to remember who I was. But after a moment, he blinked a few more times and his haggard face lit up, his mouth turning up into a smile. “Hey, blackbird,” he rasped.
I pressed my index finger against my lips. “Ssh, don’t talk. Scoot over; I’ll sleep with you tonight. You shan’t freeze, not on my watch.”
“No… I don’t want… you to catch it-”
“Don’t be stupid, I’ll be fine. You did the same for me, so don’t try to be a hero anymore, all right, Superman?”
He smiled and shifted to the side and I lay down next to him. I sunk my face into his shoulder, gripping at the fabric just to make sure he wouldn’t slip away from me again: he was so thin. I felt his chest moving up and down in painful, scratchy breaths—once or twice he would exhale and pause for a long moment, as if he were trying to remember what to do next. As if he were forgetting how to breathe.
It should be me instead of him. I should be the one with swollen lungs. I should be the one getting the life sucked out of me, not him.
“You have a fever,” I told him, “you shouldn’t talk anymore.”
He laughed weakly and I couldn’t help giggling as his warm breath tickled my ear. “M…make me,” he said, but I could hear the labor in his voice. I looked at him, and despite his reassuring smile I was still afraid. His collarbones stuck out, the skin hanging across the bones; fragile as tissue paper, no longer the rich olive that it used to be. Sheens of sweat covered his forehead and his lips were cracked and blue: tuberculosis had taken its toll, and I was helpless.
Why? Why him? Why do bad things happen to good people? People like him and Hanna and Ralf and my parents, like Maja and Anelie and Rose and Saul?
…I couldn’t answer my own question.
“… I know y…y…you think… I’m awfully handsome right now…” He was turned over on his side, grinning. His hair meshed with mine, like copper mixing with ink.
“You’re always handsome, silly tosspot. And once we get out of here, you’ll be back to your old self again; the Allies can’t be far now.”
Benjamin tried to sigh, but it was interrupted by a cough. I drew away from him as he curled into a ball, coughing into his sleeve, his face crumpling in pain, and when he lifted his head again I could see blood darkening the linen. He rolled onto his back with a small moan, his body taut like a piece of twine; as I looked at him, I was afraid he would break.
“Sshh… it’s going to be all right,” I told him, “soon it’ll be just you and me, Benji, just like before.”
When he finally stopped shuddering, he stared up at one of the many holes in the roof. I followed his gaze and saw a small red string caught in the splintered ceiling, fluttering in the wind. We watched it for a while and then he glanced over at me; his eyes were glinting. “Sa-Sara…” he paused, trying to suck in more air, “I’m sorry. For a l…lot of things…”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s my…fault. All of it…y-your mother, your father…Uncle Schröder, and y…you. You’ve all…all been hurt b…because of me.”
I shook my head. “It’s not your fault, Benjamin. They knew the risks. We chose to bring you back.”
His gaze never wavered as he spoke his next words:
“Sara, I…. I think I’m…ready to go home…” he paused, struggling to breathe right. “I… I want you to tell Danny I… I love him.”
He looked very scared when he said this; I saw regret, too. It was the bittersweet kind of sadness that I have often seen on the faces of parents as their children left home. But that wasn’t what frightened me. It was the soft acceptance that upstaged the fear, the quiet acquiescence of death that sat upon his continuance.
I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
He gave me a small, sad smile that said everything and I shook my head again. “You don’t mean... no… s-stop talking like that! You’re going to be fine! You promised, Benji, you promised me that everything was going to be all right. You promised, remember?”
He cringed as he breathed and I suddenly felt the need to scream at somebody, at anybody. I needed someone else to blame beside the Führer—besides myself.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered, touching my face.
I smeared the tears away with the back of my hand. “Why, Benjamin? Why ever shan’t I cry?”
“Because…” he averted his eyes for a moment, looking almost guilty. “It may sound… mad, but I feel… I feel as though it was always meant to end this way… as if was born to die.”
Dread grips me violently. “That’s not true! Remember, Benji, remember how you told me that we were going to get through it? We won’t have to hide, we’ll be married, we’ll be happy! We’re going to get out of here—we’ll get that balloon—you swore it, Benjamin! We’ll make it home; promise you’ll try. Promise!”
He looked away from me, brought my hand up to his mouth and kissed it. “Cross my heart, Sara…” he blinked a few times, his eyes becoming cloudy again. “…But…can I ask…you a favor?”
“…What?”
“The song that…we waltzed to last… last summer. Can you sing it for me…?”
I took a deep breath: it was going to be all right. Of course it would. I looked at him, not failing to notice how hard he was fighting to keep conscious. “Of all the things you want in the world, you want me to sing?” asked I. “You’re already sick; do you honestly want your ears to bleed, too?”
He laughed weakly, but it caught midway and turned into a cough. He took in another shaky breath “Please, Sara.” His hand was gripping mine tightly, with a new kind of urgency. “I…I’m scared. Don’t let go of my hand.”
I cradled his cheek in my other palm. “You are not going to die, Benjamin,” I told him, though I felt as if I were convincing myself more than he. “Do you understand? You can’t die, you are not allowed to die. Everything… everything is going to be all right.”
“Please,” he whispered, his voice so soft that I could hardly hear it. “… I know it’s… it’s silly, but please sing for me and please… please don’t let go of my hand.”
After looking at him for a moment, I began.

“I'll never smile again…
until I smile at you...
I'll never laugh again…
What good would it do…”

I sang softly, my voice hardly able to carry the tune. I felt our fingers interlace, and for some reason, my throat began to tighten.

“…For tears would fill my eyes.
My heart would realize that our romance is through...
I'll never love again…
I'm so in love with you…”

My voice began slurring as my eyelids drooped with sleep, and I could hear the crackling of the transistor radio, smell the kerosene, feel his hands on my hips. My head kept nodding, and soon my mind was getting blurry. I’d just rest my eyes for a moment. Just for a moment.
The last thing I remember before nodding off was a kiss on my forehead. Then I looked up: the string that had been hooked on the roof rustled a few more times, and then blew away.

***

I blinked awake, sitting bolt upright and looking around. For a moment I was disoriented, confused as to why I was surrounded by stacks of wood beds and straw and the smell of death. But soon my memory returned to me, and I glanced over at Benjamin. His hand was still in mine, his eyes were closed and his mouth was turned into a small smile. I laughed to myself; how could my awful singing make anyone smile?
“Sorry for nodding off, Ben. So how was it—dreadful as I thought it was? …Benji?”
He didn’t respond.
I squeezed his hand. “Benjamin?”
Nothing: his face was still.
“Benjamin, wake up! …This isn’t funny, Benji! Wake up!”
His chest wasn’t moving.
I struggled to a sitting position and took his shoulders, shaking them, gripping his shirt with both hands. It was still warm.
I shook him again. “Don’t you dare die on me! Goddamnit, Benjamin, don’t you dare die!”
He wouldn’t wake up.
Why? Why wouldn’t he wake up?
There was a sob rising in my chest as I took his hand again, feeling his wrist for a pulse, for anything, but there were only my tears, only Benjamin lying in my arms. “Crucified Christ, Benjamin, wake up! I need to tell you! I need to tell you I love you! Why won’t you answer me? I never got to tell you! Oh God, oh God, I’m so sorry, I’ve killed you… I’m so sorry…”

People say when a person you love dies before your eyes, you see something. You feel a gentle breeze on your cheek or hear a soft whisper in your ear. I have seen death. So much of it. To those who haven’t, I can tell you now that they are all lies:
Nothing happens. Nothing at all. Nothing but gone-ness. Nothing but dead. Nothing except your heart being ripped into thousands of pieces—repeatedly smashed, glued back together, and broken again. And each time a heart breaks and mends itself, there will always be a few pieces missing. That’s true with anything. If you break a vase, no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to get each piece back in the way it was. And even if you did, it wouldn’t be the same.

It wouldn’t be the same.

I buried my head in his shoulder, waiting for him to rest his chin upon the crown of my head and return my embrace, telling me that it was going to be all right.
“Benjamin! It’s all right, you can wake up now! Wake up! I need you! Goddamnit, Benji, you promised me! You bastard, you promised!”
The murmurs of the other prisoners as they acknowledged that another one had died were wafting up through the ceiling like fog. They didn’t care, though.
Nothing cared in concentration camps.
I cried. Quietly, but I cried as hard as I ever have. So hard that my ribs felt as if they were shattering, my lungs puncturing, deflating, their will to keep breathing leaving me alone with his corpse.
I remember Daniel trying to tear me away from him. I remember screaming, “Don’t! You’ll wake him up!”
He was holding me, crying quietly, too, telling me to hush through his sobs, telling me that the soldiers would hurt me if I kept shouting, that Benjamin wasn’t going to wake up.
I didn't care. Not anymore. My paper star had blown away.

…We were liberated the following morning.

Art, characters, writing (c) me