The Sweater

I look around - I am just one of hundreds of prisoners held by a bunch of criminals. Herded together and sorted like animals. I am pushed into a cluster of fifty-three other terrified ‘prisoners’ and before I can even look for a familiar face in the group, I am somehow in formation and marching.

We march all day through frigid November rivers and streams. We march in single file and in eerie silence. At night our captors push us into a barn to spend the night, we have no blankets, food or water. The locals must know and they bring us the bits of food they can scrounge and save in these times of rations and robbery.  

I look down at myself for the first time in days; My skirt is torn and filthy, my nylons are caked with mud and blood from my raw ankles and heels. I think of what the rest of me must look like; my starved frame drowning in the sweater I have been wearing for the past two months, dirt smeared face and lice infested hair. Broken down from three days of marching with little food and even less hope. Were they marching us to death or marching us to our deaths? Those seemed to be our only options. 

Through a knot in the barn boards I look to the lights of Ljubljana that pierce the darkness of the night - the tears roll down my cheeks silently and land in tiny splashes on my lap. The lights of the city seem to mock me, reminding me of my dark reality. I close my eyes tight and feel the warmth of my tears. 

I must have fallen asleep because I am awoken by a young man, a fellow ‘prisoner’, shaking me with a strong but bony hand. At first, I don’t recognize him - he has lost so much weight but as my eyes adjust in the darkness, I make out a familiar face. He is from Begunje, the village I was doing my apprenticeship in before I was arrested. He was a well known, educated, recently married, young man who in normal times worked as an engineer. These were not normal times, so instead he is crouched in a barn; filthy, emaciated and terrified. We stare at each other, still without saying a word. Nearby a prisoner’s cough startles us and he gives a panicked glance around looking for guards. He turns, facing me again and as our eyes lock, he begins to talk. 

He is certain he will be killed very soon; as soon as they identify him as one of the intelligentsia he is sure to be sent to death either by a bullet in his head or much worse. But he is also certain I am destined for a different fate, something tells him that I am going to make it out of this hell alive.  His words shake me to the core. For the first time in weeks I allow the the idea of survival into my thoughts. He is speaking quickly now, taking off his thick, wool, sweater, apologizing for what he is about to ask me. 

The sweater, he explains had been knit for him by his beautiful wife and he wants her to have the sweater so she will know of his fate and at least a part of him could return home to her, to their lives together. He pauses and looks away from the sweater and with unblinking eyes he asks me if I can deliver this last message of love and loyalty from him in this time of hatred and betrayal.

I take the sweater from him and hold it close, my mind is too shaken to think of any words to say and my mouth is too dry from thirst to say them. Silence lingers between the two of us, our eyes doing most of the talking and as I sit here holding his sweater,  and slowly nod my head. He half smiles, turns, and leaves.  

I sit and stare at this sweater, wondering if he is right. Am I going to make it out alive? I put the sweater on, I am happy to have the extra warmth, but the extra weight of responsibility exhausts me even more. I fall into a dark, dreamless sleep. 

I awake to a barking of orders as soldier’s boot swings into my ribs, forcing me to get up. My body aches, my stomach growls with hunger and thirst, my head spins with fear...and now my ribs are throbbing. 

Another day of marching. 

My Grandma and one other fellow prisoner survived a harrowing escape and made it out with their lives. My Grandma walked to Begunje and returned the young man's sweater to his widowed wife. Her husband was bludgeoned to death along with all other 51 prisoners.