Unravelled by Anna Scanlon

the Hungarian man with cartoon features told us, pointing toward an SS officer who stood no more than a few meters away from us. His arms were crossed over his chest, his boots surprisingly clean despite the sea of mud surrounding him.
    The three of us began to walk toward the SS officer, my knees starting to wobble with genuine fright and fatigue. This was the first time I could feel in the pit of my stomach that maybe something could happen to us, that maybe we weren't protected after all.
    A mumble of German passed between the man in the striped uniform and the SS officer before the Hungarian man turned back to us. His oversized mouth dropped into a frown, his exaggerated features reminding me of a clown's face.
    "Just the girls," he informed us, his face looking to the mud in distress.
    "No," my mother protested. "I'm not going without them."
    Our arms tightened around her waist protectively. I couldn't think. I couldn't form any words. All I knew was that I could not be separated from my mother in all of this confusion.
    "You must go with the other sick people," the man in the striped uniform said tersely, "The girls have been ordered to come alone."
    "But where are you taking them? How will I find them?"
    "Calm down," he told her, motioning to the SS officer behind her. "It'll be fine. You'll see them later."
    And before any of us could exchange another word, two men in striped uniforms lifted us up by the waists and an SS officer pulled my mother back to the band of the sick. She looked resolute, as if she were about to collapse from the sudden realization that she would be without us, alone.
    Immediately, I let out a scream so loud that I surprised myself. I kicked my chubby little legs as the uniformed man held me firmly on his hip, the blood from the scrap now dried like a splotch of paint. Hajna cried too, but she didn't scream like I did. Instead, she quietly sobbed and muttered "Mama," between hiccups, like an infant with a babysitter wishing her mother would return.
    My heart felt full and heavy, weighed down, like something was sitting on my chest. It was difficult for me to breathe. I could live without Lujza or my father for a night or two, but not without my mother--the woman who had cradled us when we were ill, played with us in the front yard and risked chipping her nail polish to pull us around in sleds on blustery winter days.
    When our mother was out of sight, becoming a tiny spec in the distance, we were put down on our feet again and lead by the hands to a small group who appeared to have been plucked from our transport. Waiting among them was a dwarf we had seen selling fruit at the university from time to time. I had never known his name, but sometimes my sister and I would point at him, and Zsolt took immense pride in the fact that he was taller than an apparently full grown man. Mother would always shush us if she heard our whisperings about him, but we often continued anyway, ignorant in our world of childhood bliss.
    Next to him stood a pair of toddler twins, both wearing matching sundresses with their light blonde hair in plaid pink bows at the top of their heads, gathering up their hair like a crown. They stood with their right fingers in their mouths and their left arms around their mother's leg. Even from a few meters away, I could smell the stink from their diapers. 
    Together, the six of us waited until everyone was gone, swallowed into the camp. The ramps next to the trains looked like a fairground after all of the customers had left, their suitcases, coats, dolls, canes, shoes, gloves, hats, sunglasses and sweaters strewn behind them like unwanted trash. Still summer winds blew life into the clothing and made them dance like ghosts.
    "Follow me," a the Hungarian man in the striped outfit ordered, though he was really following the same SS officer with the shiny boots who had ordered us away from our mother.
    And with that, we made our descent into hell.

 
     
    6 CHAPTER