The rock he’s carrying slips in his grasp and he jerks wrong and then pain is shooting through him because he’s twisted his ankle.
I’m dead, he thinks, as soon as he realizes. I can’t work, so I’m dead. It feels half like relief, and half like all the rage that’s been building inside him ever since Germany tore at his clothes while Russia held him down.
He’s a stubborn goddamn Pollack, so the rage wins, before he shoves it down into the black abyss that is his stomach now and goes down on Germany in the travesty of a makeshift infirmary. He feels like slime afterward, like the lamest, sickest thing, and he can’t get the taste out of his mouth after a week of rotten rations, but he gets a different work detail out of it, repairing the striped uniforms between one set of walking dead men and the next. Most of the tears he mends are bullet holes, but it’s something he can do sitting down, working the pedal with his uninjured foot, and that’s the important thing.
He’s still alive. He favors his good leg during the unbearable eternity of count and ignores the stains under his fingers when he stitches uniforms and waits for his ankle to heal and he. Is still alive.
*
He has a cough. For a terrifying moment, Germany glares at him during selektion, but Poland forces his burning lungs to keep still and stands as straight as he can, every line of him screaming, I’m strong, I’m still strong, I’m healthy enough to work, let me work one more day.
And Germany passes him by like plague, picking some to kill and some merely to pock and scar, impassive and inexplicable, and Poland goes to the showers.
It isn’t tuberculosis, and Poland would thank god for that if he could still pray without flying into questions and curses, each as pointless as the other. It isn’t a cold. He has no fever, at least according to Roma’s mothering hand on his forehead.
He just has a cough.
He thinks it’s all the smoke in the air.
*
Roma sits at the sewing machine next to him. She shows him how to steal needles, use them to prick his fingers and smear droplets of blood on his face before selektion to look ruddy-cheeked, healthier. He uses his spot by the door to serve as a lookout for her. He hums whenever the guard overseeing their work approaches, and they use the excuse of needing a warning signal to teach each other folk songs, simple tunes they used to dance to, pure melodies in soft voices, crooning to the rhythm of the pedals.
*
Russia is in the next barracks down, surrounded by his demoralized soldiers, disarmed and disheartened. Germany turned on him, of course, and whenever Poland sees him he has to fight down the urge to shout, serves you right for joining him you sadistic fucking bastard and how stupid are you not to see that coming, but Russia looks about as miserable as he feels, his bulky body withered and gaunt, his violet eyes dull, and Poland still can’t quite erase the rancid, bitter musk at the back of his throat, so Poland just meets Russia’s eyes, and nods, and keeps silent.
Voices From Auschwitz (2/3)
I’m dead, he thinks, as soon as he realizes. I can’t work, so I’m dead. It feels half like relief, and half like all the rage that’s been building inside him ever since Germany tore at his clothes while Russia held him down.
He’s a stubborn goddamn Pollack, so the rage wins, before he shoves it down into the black abyss that is his stomach now and goes down on Germany in the travesty of a makeshift infirmary. He feels like slime afterward, like the lamest, sickest thing, and he can’t get the taste out of his mouth after a week of rotten rations, but he gets a different work detail out of it, repairing the striped uniforms between one set of walking dead men and the next. Most of the tears he mends are bullet holes, but it’s something he can do sitting down, working the pedal with his uninjured foot, and that’s the important thing.
He’s still alive. He favors his good leg during the unbearable eternity of count and ignores the stains under his fingers when he stitches uniforms and waits for his ankle to heal and he. Is still alive.
*
He has a cough. For a terrifying moment, Germany glares at him during selektion, but Poland forces his burning lungs to keep still and stands as straight as he can, every line of him screaming, I’m strong, I’m still strong, I’m healthy enough to work, let me work one more day.
And Germany passes him by like plague, picking some to kill and some merely to pock and scar, impassive and inexplicable, and Poland goes to the showers.
It isn’t tuberculosis, and Poland would thank god for that if he could still pray without flying into questions and curses, each as pointless as the other. It isn’t a cold. He has no fever, at least according to Roma’s mothering hand on his forehead.
He just has a cough.
He thinks it’s all the smoke in the air.
*
Roma sits at the sewing machine next to him. She shows him how to steal needles, use them to prick his fingers and smear droplets of blood on his face before selektion to look ruddy-cheeked, healthier. He uses his spot by the door to serve as a lookout for her. He hums whenever the guard overseeing their work approaches, and they use the excuse of needing a warning signal to teach each other folk songs, simple tunes they used to dance to, pure melodies in soft voices, crooning to the rhythm of the pedals.
*
Russia is in the next barracks down, surrounded by his demoralized soldiers, disarmed and disheartened. Germany turned on him, of course, and whenever Poland sees him he has to fight down the urge to shout, serves you right for joining him you sadistic fucking bastard and how stupid are you not to see that coming, but Russia looks about as miserable as he feels, his bulky body withered and gaunt, his violet eyes dull, and Poland still can’t quite erase the rancid, bitter musk at the back of his throat, so Poland just meets Russia’s eyes, and nods, and keeps silent.