After perhaps thirty meters, just as a soldier turned around, the girl was felled. Hands were clamped upon her from behind and the boy next door brought her down. He forced her knees to the road and suffered the penalty. He collected her punches as if they were presents. Her bony hands and elbows were accepted with nothing but a few short moans. He accumulated the loud, clumsy specks of saliva and tears as if they were lovely to his face, and more important, he was able to hold her down.

At first, she could not talk. Perhaps it was the sudden bumpiness of love she felt for him. Or had she always loved him?

I guess when someone tells you something they they usually guard, you feel privileged, not because you know something no-one else knows, but because you feel chosen. You feel like that person wants her life to intersect with yours. I think that's what felt best about it.

There were people everywhere on the city street, but the stranger could not have been more alone if it were empty.

She could smell the pages. She could almost taste the words as they stacked up around her.

But then, is there cowardice in the acknowledgment of fear? Is there cowardice in being glad that you lived?

The scrawled words of practice stood magnificently on the wall by the stairs, jagged and childlike and sweet. They looked on as both the hidden Jew and the girl slept, hand to shoulder. They breathed. German and Jewish lungs.