“You have steady hands, Joana, and a strong stomach. You’ll do well in medicine,” he had told me.
Medicine. That had been my dream. I was studious, dedicated, perhaps overly so. My last boyfriend said I preferred my studies to him. Before I could prove it wasn’t true, he had found another girl.
I tried to massage warmth into my stiff fingers. My hands didn’t concern me, but the supplies did. There wasn’t much left. I had hoped the dead woman on the side of the road might have something—thread, tea, even a clean handkerchief. But nothing was clean. Everything was filthy.
Especially my conscience.
We all looked up when they entered the barn, a young man carrying a pistol, followed by a short blond girl in braids and a pink hat. They were both haggard. The blond girl’s face was red with exertion. The young man’s face was also flushed.
He had a fever.
florian
Others had beaten us there. A teetering collection of weathered horse carts was tucked beyond the brush, a sober portrait of the trek toward freedom. I would have preferred an abandoned site, but knew I couldn’t continue. The Polish girl pulled at my sleeve.
She stopped in the snow, staring at the possessions outside the barn, evaluating the contents and whom they might belong to. There was no evidence of military.
“I think okay,” she said. We walked inside.
A group of fifteen or twenty people sat huddled around a small fire. Their faces turned as I slipped in and stood near the door. Mothers, children, and elderly. All exhausted and broken. The Polish girl went straight to a vacant corner and sat down, wrapping her arms tightly around her chest. A young woman walked over to me.
“Are you injured? I have medical training.”
Her German was fluent, but not native. I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to speak to anyone.
“Do you have any food to share?” she asked.
What I had was no one’s business.
“Does she have any food?” she asked, pointing to the Polish girl rocking in the corner. “Her eyes look a bit wild.”
I spoke without looking at her. “She was in the forest. A Russian cornered her. She followed me here. She has a couple potatoes. Now, leave me alone,” I said.
The young woman winced at the mention of the Russian. She left my side and headed quickly toward the girl.
I found a solitary spot away from the group and sat down. I lodged my pack against the barn wall and carefully reclined on it. It would be warmer if I sat near the fire with the others but I couldn’t risk it. No conversations.
I ate a small piece of the sausage from the dead Russian and watched the young woman as she tried to speak with the girl from the forest. Others called out to her for help. She must have been a nurse. She looked a few years older than me. Pretty. Naturally pretty, the type that’s still attractive, even more so, when she’s filthy. Everyone in the barn was filthy. The stench of exertion, failed bladders, and most of all, fear, stunk worse than any livestock. The nurse girl would have turned my head back in K?nigsberg.
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to look at the pretty girl. I needed to be able to kill her, kill them all, if I had to. My body begged for sleep but my mind warned me not to trust these people. I felt a nudge at my feet and opened my eyes.
“You didn’t mention she was Polish,” said the nurse. “And the Russian?” she asked.
“He’s taken care of,” I told her. “I need to sleep.”
She knelt down beside me. I could barely hear her.
“What you need is to show me that wound you’re trying to hide.”
emilia
I thought of the carts outside the barn. They towered with the belongings of refugees. Trunks, suitcases, and furniture. There was even a sewing machine like Mama’s.
“Why aren’t you making any dresses?” I remembered asking Mama from my sunny perch in our kitchen.
Mama turned to me from her sewing machine. “Can you keep a secret?”
I nodded eagerly and moved toward her.
She put her hands on her wide belly and smiled. “I think it’s a boy. I just know it’s a boy.” She hugged me close, her warm lips against my forehead. “And you know what? You’re going to be the best big sister, Emilia.”
And now I sat in a freezing barn, alone, so far from home. These people had time to pack. I wasn’t able to pack, had left my entire life chewed to pieces. Who was using Mama’s sewing machine now?
The knight hadn’t wanted to come inside. What was his name? Who was he running from? I had examined the carts and belongings, evaluating the items and their potential owners to determine if it was safe to enter. But we had no choice. Sleeping outside meant certain death.
I sat in a corner and stuffed straw into my coat for warmth. Once I stopped moving, the pain subsided. I buried my face in my hands.
A hand touched my shoulder. “Are you all right?”
I looked up to see a young woman above me. She spoke in German, but with an accent. Her brown hair was pulled behind her ears. Her face was kind.
“Are you injured?” she asked.
I tried to control it.