“They took me to Verona as well. They stripped me naked and threw me in a cell and left me there. I hardly remember that part. Only how cold I was. After a few days they dragged me out and put me on a truck. I didn’t see Zwerger again.”

“Did they send you to Bolzano, too?”

“Yes, but I was only there for a few days before I was put on a train for Flossenburg. After I’d healed enough that I was well enough to work, they sent me out to one work camp after another. At one point I was in Chelmnitz. Not far from Zschopau at all.”

“Oh, Nico. What I’d have given to have seen you. Just to have caught sight of you and known you were alive.”

“When the Americans were no more than a day or two away, the guards forced us to start marching for Dachau. Anyone who faltered was shot or left to die. I still can’t believe I survived.”

“You’re so thin.”

“Would you believe I’ve put on twenty kilos since I was liberated? I was lucky, you know. I was given a bed in the American hospital in Linz, and the medics there knew how to fatten me up without killing me. I was lucky, and yet . . .” He shook his head, as if hoping to rid himself of his memories.

“We both had a bad time of it,” she acknowledged.

“I know you’ve only told me a part of what you endured. The very smallest part. You must promise to tell me all of it.”

“One day, yes. Not now. Not until we both can bear the telling.”

“I hope you’ll be able to forgive me. I was so set on being the hero that I never once considered what might happen to you if I was arrested. I am so very sorry, my darling.”

Now she sat up, turning in his lap so she might look him in the eye. “Nico. Listen to me. There is nothing to forgive. I survived, as did you. As did the scores of people you saved. And do you know what we’re going to do next?”

He smiled, the same crooked smile that she’d missed so much, and her love for him bloomed anew. “No,” he said. “Tell me.”

“We’re going to have supper together. A delicious meal of one wrinkled apple, a very small piece of cheese, and a few mouthfuls of some truly awful bread. We’ll wash it all down with water from the drinking fountain. Clean water, no less. After that, we’ll wait here until morning, and then we will take the first train south. We’ll be home by supper.”

Chapter 32