a suit of golden armor to woo her. What was the prince’s name in the story?”
“Oh, I can’t remember,” Abek says.
“He crawled into the giant’s ear, and he came out the other end, and—what was it, Abek? We heard that fairy tale a hundred times. The prince’s name, it started with a D? I’m sure you remember.”
“I really don’t.” My brother shifts uncomfortably on the bed. His face has turned red. I can tell I’ve embarrassed him, that he feels badly for not being able to remember. And he shouldn’t: I don’t even remember. I just want more of this conversation, where we’re laughing together. But in trying to achieve that, I’ve turned the conversation into an interrogation.
Abek’s eyes flit briefly toward the door, and I’m worried, irrationally, that I’ve made him uncomfortable enough that he regrets coming here and might decide to leave.
Instinctively, I stretch out my legs, creating a barrier in his path to the door. What am I doing? It’s such a bizarre, desperate gesture, but that’s how I feel. Bizarre and desperate.
“You’re so big,” I say after a few minutes. “It’s been such a long time. I’m going to have to get used to the fact that you’re not the same little brother I remember.”
A few feet away, Abek plucks at a loose thread on the quilt covering my bed, and I do the same on Breine’s.
I let another moment of silence hang in the air before speaking again. “This is strange, isn’t it? It’s wonderful, of course, but it’s also strange.”
Abek nods before I even finish the sentence, relieved I’ve said it first. “Yes. I didn’t really know what it would be like. But it’s a little strange.”
“We don’t have to figure it all out now.”
“I know.”
“You must be exhausted,” I say, noticing the dark circles rimming his eyes. “I’ll sleep on the floor, and we’ll borrow some extra—”
“I don’t want you to sleep on the floor,” he interrupts, flustered. “I’m sure there are men’s cottages.”
“No,” I protest. “It’s late; we’d have to disturb the staff and wake people up to get you an assignment. The floor is fine, or I could squeeze in with Breine, or Breine could with Esther. Those are my roommates; I’m sitting on Breine’s bed. They’re probably waiting somewhere to give us privacy.”
I’m babbling again, the way I was when we first came into the room. But now it’s not nerves, now it’s me not wanting to let my brother out of my sight. Tonight I want to fall asleep knowing where my family is, and my family is the two of us.
“Abek,” I say, suddenly thinking of something. “How did you end up in Munich to begin with? I came here because I thought all the prisoners from Birkenau were sent to Dachau. But Buchenwald—I know that city. It’s hundreds of kilometers from here. How did you end up here?”
“Because I also heard the prisoners from Birkenau were sent to Dachau.” He sees that it still hasn’t registered for me and continues to explain. “I didn’t know you never came back to Birkenau, so I thought you must have come to Munich.”
“Were you the boy Sister Therese told me about?” I ask. “The boy who stole the food money from her room?”
He flushes a deep red and nods. “I know it was wrong,” he begins.
“It wasn’t wrong; it’s what helped me find you! I mean, it was wrong, but…”
“But I did it anyway,” he finishes. “Because you said we would find each other. You said we would find each other no matter what.”
I sleep that night with my hand dangling off the bed, onto the mats and blankets we’ve set up for Abek. I want to be sure of—I don’t know what. That he won’t be taken again, I suppose. That he won’t vanish into thin air.
It still feels like a fairy tale, almost. Like the dust of a fairy godmother sprinkled over a town to lull it to sleep. Something too good to be true, something that could dissolve any moment. But it doesn’t dissolve. And for once, I don’t go to sleep fearing my own nightmares. For once, I know they won’t come. The last time I saw Abek doesn’t matter now that I have a first time: the first time we were reunited.
I wake in the middle of the night, once because my arm is cold, untucked from the covers; once because it has fallen asleep; and once more because Abek turns over and his hair