Chapter Nine
The Hospital

One fateful afternoon in October, as I sat in the laundry with sewing on my lap, I heard a whizz-boom-crash that was so close, the ground rocked back and forth. Had a bomb hit the work camp? Inge turned off her giant steam press and ran outside. I followed her as she trotted between the buildings until she got to the open area. A few policemen had already gathered. Juli was there as well, standing rigid in her white smock, her eyes searching in the direction of town.

She pointed. “That’s where it hit.”

I shaded my eyes with one hand and squinted so I could see farther — curls of smoke rising a mile or so beyond our barbed-wire enclosure.

Officer Schmidt stepped out of the administrative building and walked to where we stood. “It’s the metalworks factory,” he said to the policemen. “I was just notified.”

Luka and Zenia worked at the metalworks factory! My heart pounded in fear for them.

Officer Schmidt turned to Inge. “Other buildings in town have been hit as well, so they’re scrambling to provide first aid. Everyone who can be spared needs to get to the entrance. They’ll be bringing the injured labourers back to the camp for treatment and many will need to be carried to the hospital.”

Inge nodded. “I’ll round up the kitchen workers and stretchers.” She turned to me and said, “Lida, you’re too small to carry any of the injured. Go to the hospital now with that worker —” she pointed at Juli “ — and help her make up the extra beds.” Then she dashed off to the kitchens.

“Come on,” said Juli, grabbing my hand.

The hospital was the last place on earth that I wanted to be, but I had no choice. When we got there, Juli held the door open and pulled me in. The first thing I noticed was the strong smell of bleaching powder and I found this comforting. At least it was clean. The entryway was a small room with wooden benches along the wall and a glassed-in reception area beside a second door. Juli nodded to the white-uniformed woman behind the glass and then opened the second door, which revealed a series of rooms on either side of a long wide corridor. I followed her down the painted concrete floors of the hallway, glancing fearfully into each room as we passed. Everything looked so normal. Each room held eight or so wooden beds with straw mattresses similar to the bunks in our barracks, only these were neatly made up with good white cotton sheets, and instead of being stacked in tiers, they were all on the floor. The first room was empty, but in the second, two of the hospital beds were occupied. The man and woman had a uniformity about them — both were gaunt and motionless — looking more like corpses than patients. No nurse or doctor was in attendance.

“Are those people forced labourers?” I whispered to Juli.

She frowned and put a finger to her lips.

Who would hear us? But just then, a couple of nurses and a man in a white coat stepped out of a room at the end of the hallway. The doctor took no notice of us, but carefully noted something on his clipboard as he slowly walked with the nurses down the hallway towards us.

He looked up as we drew closer to the group. “I see they gave you a girl to help you make up the other rooms.”

“Yes, Herr Doctor,” said Juli, nodding to him in deference.

“Do it quickly, then. The train with the injured is on its way.” He and the nurses continued down the hallway and went out through the door.

Juli took out a stack of clean sheets from the linen cupboard and handed them to me. I followed her into one of the next rooms. I didn’t think anyone would be able to hear us as we worked so I tried to ask Juli again about the patients, keeping my voice low just in case.

“They’re Germans,” she whispered. “They’re being slowly starved to death.”

I could barely hide my shock. “Why would the Nazis starve Germans?”

“They are no longer useful,” said Juli. “The woman was a warden. She has advanced cancer, and the man has a head injury. He used to be one of the police.”

I continued to make the beds in silence, but my mind tumbled with conflicting thoughts and fears. A hospital was supposed to be a place of healing, but it was at a hospital that my sister was taken from me. At this hospital some patients had been treated for injuries, but healthy children had been killed for their blood. Now here were Nazis using hospitals to kill even Germans they considered not useful. It seemed that everyone was a piece of a big machine, and if you stopped working, you were thrown out. What part of the machine was my sister being used for? She was so much younger than I. How useful could she possibly be? A dozen terrifying scenarios fluttered through my imagination. Could Larissa survive?

I made a final snug corner on the sheet of the last bed and put my hands on my hips, regarding all of the newly made-up beds. Would this room be used for healing or killing?

I heard the chugging of the train as it approached. “Let’s go,” said Juli.

As I walked beside her to meet the train, all I could think of was that hospital. I didn’t envy Juli, having to work there every day. It had to be horrible for her to witness things she had no way of stopping. The image of those two dying Germans was burned into my mind. If the doctors and nurses were supposed to make them die, why such a long process as starving them? My memory flashed back to when I was little and the Nazis had taken all the Jews and shot them in broad daylight. They shot my mother that way as well. It seemed that just as there were different soups, there were different ways of being killed, depending on your nationality.

The cook and other kitchen workers had gathered at the front of the gate with stretchers. The doctor was talking rapidly to the workers, gesturing with his hands. Close by stood the nurses, waiting for their orders. These women reminded me of the nurses who had separated me from Larissa. Were they here to assist the injured, or were they more interested in sorting through them? I thought of them as big white birds, circling, looking for scraps of meat.

The train pulled up, and one by one, survivors limped out of the train cars, gashes of red on their scalps and arms. Some held onto each other for support, trying to look less injured than they were. The nurses dispersed among the wounded, assisting those on the spot who just needed first aid — dispensing a bandage here and quick stitches there. Those more seriously injured were seen by the doctor.

Just then Zenia got off the train. She was cradling her left arm. Her dress hung in shreds and she was splattered with blood, but she was walking. I wanted to help her but Juli held me back. “Don’t call attention to yourself,” she said. “It will not help your friend.”

The doctor walked up to Zenia and did a quick examination of her arm. “Surface scratches only,” he said. “You’re lucky.” He called a nurse over to dress Zenia’s cuts and went on to someone else. The nurse roughly swabbed the deep scrapes on Zenia’s arm with a disinfectant, then bound it up. “You can recuperate in your barracks,” she said, turning to another worker.

Zenia’s face was white and covered with a sheen of sweat. I think she was probably relieved that her injuries were minor, but she still looked like she was in pain. She walked to where Juli and I stood. I guess she wanted to prove that she was still useful. I put my arm around her. “Let me help you to our barracks,” I said.

“No,” she said, trembling. “I’d like to stand here and assist if necessary.”

The next train car pulled up and the doors opened. Two labourers carried out a third by the arms and legs. I stood on tiptoes and was horrified to see the one being carried was Luka.

“Stretcher,” said the doctor, waving his hand to the kitchen workers. The cook and his assistant set a stretcher on the ground and the two OST workers gingerly lowered Luka onto it. From where I stood, I could see that the entire top portion of one leg was covered in blood. His arms and face were also spattered, but seemed uninjured.

“Luka!” I cried.

His eyes fluttered open and he looked around for me, but Juli held my arm so tightly that I couldn’t run to him. The doctor examined him quickly. “To the hospital,” he said.

My heart sank. Would he be treated or killed? I turned my face to Juli but she refused to look at me.

More slaves were taken to the hospital. “I have to go help them,” said Juli, her voice cracking. She left Zenia and I standing there.

I wrapped my arm around Zenia’s waist. “No,” she said, pushing me away. “I must walk on my own.”

Once we were in the privacy of our barracks, she collapsed onto her bunk in a quivering mound of pain. What could I possibly do to help her? I grabbed my own blankets and covered her up, then I got my tin cup and ran outside to get some water. I helped her drink a little bit, and held her until she fell asleep.

Before the morning whistle, I was woken by Zenia’s hand on my shoulder. “Look,” she said, her eyes filled with tears. She had wrapped herself in one of the blankets. She held out what was left of her dress. Her tossing and turning in the night had caused even more shredding to her already threadbare dress. It was unrepairable and basically unwearable. I tore off the bottom strip of my own tattered dress and stitched that in place to make the top of hers decent.

At roll call, those who were wounded were given alternate duties. Zenia was sent to work in the kitchen.

I went back to the laundry, worried sick about Zenia. She wasn’t as physically injured as many were, but I knew that the bombing had shattered her. I was especially worried about Luka. I counted the hours until lunch when I could ask Juli about him.

Inge acted as if the bombing had never happened. In fact, in the morning she looked happier than I had ever seen her.

“I’ve received a package from my husband,” she said, her eyes shining like a child’s on St. Nicholas Day.

She went into her office room and came back with an armful of extraordinary finery: a butter-coloured chiffon blouse with intricate lace at the bodice, a set of six monogrammed ladies’ handkerchiefs and a heavy black fur coat. The items seemed so out of keeping with life as I knew it at the camp, and it made me wonder what Inge did when she left here each day after the six o’clock whistle.

None of the items needed mending, as far as I could tell.

“They’re beautiful.” I placed a fingertip on the lace.

“Aren’t they, though?” said Inge. “My husband is fighting in France, and he sends me the most wonderful things.”

I knew all about the Nazi soldiers and how they stole. In my hometown of Verenchanka, we had no fur coats worthy of stealing, or chiffon blouses or other high-class ladies’ items. We were poor people, but our places of worship had fine old things in them — the very same reason that soldiers had bashed down the doors to Sarah’s synagogue. I’d seen one soldier grab the ornate silver menorah that must have been over a century old. Sarah was nearly hysterical when he tossed the menorah onto the top of a wheelbarrow full of plundered antique samovars and oil paintings. When they were finished robbing the synagogue, they ransacked our blue wooden church, taking the icon of the Madonna, blackened with age. It wasn’t made of anything fancy, but our church had been built in 1798. Mama said the icon was older than the church. Even now, the memory of that awful time made my chest tight with despair. I breathed in deeply and tried to set aside my thoughts. For Inge’s benefit, I pasted on a smile. “How generous of your husband,” I said. “He must love you very much.”

She smiled at that. “He’s always been such a good provider.”

I picked up the blouse and examined all of the stitch work carefully. The lace was handmade. The entire blouse was in perfect condition. A faint scent of rosewater tickled my nostrils. Was that the preferred perfume of the lady who used to own this blouse?

“What would you like me to do with this?”

“The name,” she said, turning the blouse inside out and showing me a satin label that had been securely stitched below the piping at the nape. Delicate embroidered letters in a fancy script spelled out Mme V. Fortier. Inge’s stubby finger rested on the label. “Can you remove that and embroider my name in its place?”

Who was Mme Fortier and how willingly had she given up this beautiful blouse to Inge’s husband? I held the label close to my face to get a good look at the stitchery. The attention to detail for the stitch work on an invisible label was astounding. If I removed these stitches, the label itself would likely be left riddled with holes. “Why don’t I remove this altogether?”

Inge’s eyebrows raised. “Why, because that’s easiest for you? I want the label, and I want my name on it.”

She took one of the handkerchiefs from the stack and unfolded it. The same faint scent of rosewater was released. A delicate pattern of butterflies and flowers was rendered in silken French knots. In one corner were the initials VM.

I had no silk thread, and even if I did, I would never be able to match the colours. I would have to untie the knot work in the initials and carefully pry out the stitches one by one, making sure not to break the thread because I would have to reuse it. Was it possible? I prayed that it was.

Inge dropped the fur coat onto my lap and I was enveloped in its warm rose-scented silkiness. How I longed to fold myself into it and fall asleep for a million years. She folded the front placket open to show me the black silk lining and the inner left pocket: the same initials were embroidered there as well, in blood-red silk thread.

“These are mine now.” Her bottom lip jutted out like a spoiled child. “I want my initials on all of them.”

It wouldn’t be easy to change the monograms, but from the look on Inge’s face, I knew she wouldn’t take no for an answer. “I can do it, ma’am, but it will take time.”

Her broad face broke out into a smile. “I knew you could,” she said. “My initials are IP. On the blouse, you can put Frau I. Pfizer.”