The Extra Read Online Free Page B

walked by the barracks in Block 5 on her way to what passed for their evening meal, the same stew as at Rossauer Lände except perhaps slightly more edible, since it had been watered down to nothing. She waited in the shadows at the corner of the barracks and then stepped out.
    “Oh!” Good Matron gasped.
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” A queer little smile fled across the woman’s face.
Frighten. I frighten her?
Lilo thought.
How utterly stupid. No wonder she’s smiling.
“I — I —” Lilo began to stammer. “I need to ask you something. A kind of favor.” She saw the woman’s shoulders sag when she said
favor.
    “Yes. Go on,” the matron said softly.
    “My father. We need to know if he’s all right. I know there was a transport out of here last night. Was he on it? Is there any way you can find out? His name is Fernand Friwald. He’s a watchmaker and he repairs watches, too — old valuable antique watches. He could be useful. He could work in a munitions factory. There is one near here. He does delicate, fine work.”
    The words began to pour from her mouth. The woman reached forward and placed her hand softly on Lilo’s arm. She shook her head. It was at that moment that Lilo noticed the blood on the woman’s uniform. A single large stain and then a few smaller ones. Lilo could not drag her eyes from the bloodstains. “Did you hurt yourself?” The woman looked confused. Then she saw what Lilo was looking at.
    “Oh, that — no.” But her bottom lip began to tremble. “Look, a name doesn’t really help. I never go into the men’s section, anyhow. The best thing you can do is stand near the fence on the east side of Block 16. That’s where the men are permitted some exercise. You might catch a glimpse of him there.”
    For two days, every chance they got, Lilo and her mother would go to the fence to scan the throngs of men milling about in a containment yard. On the third day, a boy called out. He was on the other side of the fence when Lilo had gone on her work break from assembling the tracks of barbed wire.
    “So whatcha looking for?” He spoke German but with a Roma accent.
    “What’s it to you?” Lilo was immediately suspicious. No one had ever spoken to her, let alone made eye contact with her, when she stood at the fence. Almost immediately after arriving at Buchenwald, she had noticed that none of the prisoners made eye contact. It was as if they were each in their own private hell. No trespassing allowed.
    “No big deal. Hey, only trying to help.” He spoke the fast, slangy jargon of the street. He raised his hands in mock defense. But he kept his eyes on her. She noticed that his eyes actually weren’t really black but the darkest blue. She had never seen eyes that color.
    “I’m looking for my father. I just thought I might catch a glimpse of him.”
    “So maybe I can help you.”
    “How?”
    “Look, I’ve been around.”
    “Around? Around this yard?”
    “My third camp in four years. I know how these places work.” He puffed out his narrow chest as if he were wearing badges, like a decorated general in an army, an army of concentration-camp prisoners. “You want extra food, I can organize it. You want —”
    “I want my father,” Lilo said, cutting him off.
    “So what’s his name?”
    “Fernand Friwald. He’s bald and maybe just under six feet tall. He has a bruise on his forehead from where the SS hit him when they picked him up. My mother and I are so worried that he was shipped out in that last transport.”
    “Okay, okay. I’ll check into it. What’s your name?”
    “Lilian — Lilo. Call me Lilo. And yours?”
    “Django. Meet me here later on your next work break. I might even be able to organize some bread for you.”
    “Bread?”
    “Yes. Look, just be here, all right?”
    “I will.” He began to walk away. “Hey, Django,” she called. There was a note of desperation in her voice. He turned around. “He’s a watchmaker, and