“Let me—” Adam tries again, but this time it’s Halina who interrupts.
“I’m coming, just give me a moment!” she calls. She turns to Adam as she knots the cotton belt of her robe around her waist, “They know I’m here,” she says. “No use hiding.”
“They do now,” Adam whispers, his cheeks flushed. “Our IDs—we could have used them.”
Halina realizes her mistake. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” she says. “Let’s go.” They hurry together down the hallway.
Thus far, living in Lvov has been relatively painless. They use their real names because as Jews, they’re treated much like the city’s Poles. They have jobs, Franka as a maid, Adam as a railroad engineer, and Halina as a technician’s assistant at the city’s military hospital. They live in apartments in the center of town; unlike Radom, Lvov has no ghetto yet. Their days are simple. They go to work, they return home, they earn enough to get by. Halina saves what little extra she can for when she returns to Radom. And of course Adam works in his spare time on IDs. For the most part, life in Lvov has been uneventful. They’ve been left alone. Until now.
At the door, Halina gathers up her confidence. Standing as tall as her diminutive frame will allow, she unlocks the deadbolt. Outside, two NKVD officers greet her with quick, stern nods.
“What can I do for you?” Halina asks in Russian, one hand still gripping the doorknob.
“Pani Eichenwald,” one of the officers begins, “we need you to come with us right away to the hospital.”
“What is this about?” she asks.
“We need your blood. Dr. Levenhed is awaiting us at the lab.”
Levenhed is Halina’s supervisor. He spends his days examining blood—finding matches for transfusions and testing samples for infectious disease. Halina’s job is to help prepare the tests, and to write down the findings as Levenhed stares at a plate through a microscope.
“What do you mean—my blood?” Halina asks, incredulous.
“We have a general in. He has lost a lot of blood. Levenhed says you are a match.” It was a requirement for all the hospital staff to have their blood tested when they began work there. Halina hadn’t been told what type she was when her labs were run, but apparently the information was on file.
“And no one at the hospital can give blood?”
“No. Let’s go.”
“I’m sorry, but this isn’t a good time for me. I’m not feeling well,” Halina lies. She’s skeptical. What if all of this is just a ruse, a clever excuse to get her out the door, so the NKVD can arrest her and send her away?
“I’m afraid that’s not of our concern. You’re needed right away. Dress quickly.”
Halina contemplates putting up a fight but knows better. “Fine,” she whispers. As she makes her way back to the bedroom, Adam follows close behind. It’s not a ploy, she tells herself. Why would the NKVD concoct such an elaborate story when, from everything she’s heard, they needed no pretense to arrest her? And why would they come for just her, and not Adam, if they were to be deported?
“I’m going with you,” Adam declares, once they’ve reached the bedroom.
“I’m sure they won’t allow it,” Halina says. “Levenhed will be at the hospital. I trust him, Adam. And if they only need my blood, I’ll be back by morning.”
Adam shakes his head and Halina can see the fear in his eyes. “If you’re not back in a few hours, I’m coming for you.”
“All right.” Halina wonders about the Russian general, about what he’s been responsible for. Would giving him her blood and allowing the man to live make her complicit in his actions? She shakes the thought from her mind, reminding herself that this isn’t her choice. She’s been able to avoid trouble so far because she’s done what’s been asked of her. If they need her blood, so be it.
—
At the hospital, everything happens quickly. She’s escorted to the lab, and along the way she learns that the general was brought in earlier that night for an emergency surgery. Once she’s seated, a doctor in a white coat instructs her to roll up her sleeves.
“Both of them?” Halina asks.
“Da.”
Halina rolls the sleeves of her blouse to just above her elbow and watches as the man in the coat, who she presumes to be a doctor, sets a pair of needles, a rubber tourniquet, a cotton swab, two bandages, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a small army of collection tubes—she counts twelve—on a metal tray beside her. A minute later he brings a needle to her arm, bevel up, and pushes the tip into a vein. It hurts, more than it should, she feels, but she locks her jaw, refusing to wince. She is a puppet to these men, but this at least—the strength conveyed in her expression—she can control. Within a few seconds, the first test tube has turned a deep purple-red. The doctor removes the tourniquet from her upper arm with one hand and replaces the full tube with an empty one, the needle still stuck in her arm. A nurse waits behind him, and every time a tube is full, she whisks it away in a hurry. By the sixth tube, Halina’s blood moves at a slow drip, and the doctor asks her to flex and unflex her fist until the tube is filled. Finally, he removes the needle and wraps a bandage around her elbow crease, then turns his attention silently to her other arm.
It’s three in the morning when Halina is allowed to return home. She has given nearly a liter of her blood. She is light-headed and has no idea if the general survived the night, if the transfusion was successful. But she doesn’t care. She just wants to get back to Adam. The doctor scribbles a note and hands it to her as she leaves. “In case anyone asks why you are out,” he says. The NKVD who had retrieved her had brought her by car to the hospital. She gathers from the note that there will not be a ride home. Just as well, Halina thinks. She’s glad to be free of them. She takes the slip and leaves without a word.
Her flat is seven blocks from the hospital. She walks the route daily, knows it well. But in the dead of night, the city feels foreign. The streets are dark, empty. With every tap of her heels on the cobblestones she becomes more convinced that someone is following her, or waiting up ahead, in the shadows. You are just tired, she tells herself. Stop being paranoid. But she can’t help it. In her depleted state, she isn’t herself. She’s cold, to start—it’s May, but the nights are still chilly. She can’t stop shivering. On top of that, her head is spinning, and her limbs feel heavy, as if she’s drunk. Halfway home, spooked by the sensation of being spied upon, she slips her shoes off and summons what’s left of her strength to jog the last three blocks.
Before she can extract a key from her pocket, the door swings open and Adam appears, still clothed.
“Thank God,” he says. “I was on my way out. Come in, quickly.” He takes her by the arm and she grimaces when his thumb presses up against the bruise in the crease of her elbow. “Halina, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she says. She smiles, a feeble attempt to mask the pain, and her delirium. If he knew how much blood they’d taken out of her he’d be livid, and more livid still at his inability to stop it from happening. “Just tired,” she adds.
Adam locks the door behind her and pulls her to him, and she can feel his heartbeat through his shirt. “I was so worried,” he whispers.
The reserve of energy Halina had tapped to jog home has disappeared, and she suddenly feels as though she might faint. “I’ll be fine in the morning,” she says, “but I need to lie down.”
“Yes, of course.” Adam helps her onto the bed. He adjusts her pillow and pulls a blanket up over her shoulders before fetching a glass of water and a few slices of apple, which he leaves on her bedside table.
“You take good care of me,” Halina whispers. Her eyes are already closed, her breath heavy. “Of us.”
Adam brushes her hair aside, kisses her forehead. “I’m just glad you’re back,” he says. He undresses, turns out the light, and climbs into bed. “You had me petrified.”
Halina can feel sleep pulling her into its abyss. “Adam?” she asks. She is seconds from drifting off.