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Hannah. She had come to him, tended to him. It was more real than any of his previous visions. He groaned when he woke, unwilling for the dream to end.
“Do you hurt much?” The voice was pristine, beautiful. The surge of energy that shot through him forced out a violent cough.
He blinked. “Not dreaming?” The laughter that rang out was sweeter than cool water from the freshest mountain stream. He reached his hand up to stroke her cheek and felt strong enough to dance. “Where are we?”
“The infirmary. I told them I’d help you recover. Said you might even work again in the mines.” Her fingers traced the veins on his forearm.
He opened his mouth and tried several times to speak. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
“Shhh.” She glanced over her shoulder and then picked up a small tube. She dipped her finger into something creamy, leaned over, and with a touch that made his chest nearly explode from fullness, she spread the lotion across his chapped lips.
He still didn’t understand. This certainly wasn’t heaven. How had he been delivered from his deathbed in a cold, dark cell and transferred to this room with light, with warmth, with her? It was more than his mind could take in all at once.
She placed a damp rag on his forehead. “The fever’s already breaking.” She swept a clump of his sweaty hair off his brow. “You’re going to live.”
***
Hannah didn’t sleep until the following morning, when Simon’s breathing eased enough she could spare a short nap. She woke up in the chair by his bed. The sun shone bright through the infirmary window, warming her shoulders and cheeks. She stood up clumsily, her joints stiff, but when she saw Simon smiling, all her aches vanished. She felt his forehead, letting her hand linger on his face even after she convinced herself he was still improving. “You look better.”
“You look beautiful.”
Her fingers still stroked his cheek.
“Nurse?” a voice rasped behind them. “Nurse.” Hannah lingered near Simon’s side for just a moment longer before squeezing his hand and turning to the next bed. By the time she helped her patient drink a little bit of water, two other prisoners across the room were calling for her. She felt Simon’s eyes on her the entire time she tended them, and her pulse didn’t slow down until she returned to his side.
“You’re an angel.” Simon was pale, but not ghastly gray like last night when she convinced the guards to bring him to the infirmary.
Simon wiggled his finger. He had lost a lot of weight since they left Yanji. He looked so weak lying on the blood-stained gurney. But they were together again. Nothing else mattered. She rested her head on his pillow. He whispered something, but she couldn’t make it out.
“Nurse?” The cry sounded from several beds over.
“I can’t stay.” She yearned to nuzzle her face into that soft spot between his chin and shoulder, to rest in the comfort of his presence, to forget about prison camps and infirmaries and dying inmates. But she resisted the gravity that tugged her entire being toward him, and she forced herself to stand. “I’ll come back soon.”
***
Simon’s strength flourished each day he spent under Hannah’s tender watch. The infirmary food wasn’t any more wholesome than what they fed him in solitary, but the portions were larger, and Hannah made sure he ate everything they served. If he wasn’t careful, she would even sneak some of her own rations into his bowl.
As his fever cleared, his mind regained some of the clarity he lost in the darkness downstairs. He wanted to know what had happened to Hannah, but they could never talk privately. She had dozens of patients to care for, and the officers kept constant guard over them all. And so Simon observed the way she moved from one bed to another with a grace and dignity that had only matured since she left the Secret Seminary. In spite of the infirmary’s squalid conditions, her whole being radiated peace. She moved slowly, weighed down by invisible burdens, but she cared for the sick and the dying with a tenderness that left him speechless. Men reached out to her, called for her all hours of the night. Women held onto her hand as they breathed their last, and she closed their eyelids with gentle fingers.
Without realizing it, Simon began to daydream about the future, a future outside the infirmary, outside Camp 22’s electric fence. He remembered his comrades’ discussions about Moses. What if he wasn’t a myth? What if there really was such a man, a champion for Christian prisoners? Would he help Hannah and Simon escape? If they could just get to Yanji, the Sterns could arrange for them to immigrate to South Korea or the United States. They could get married, start a family ...
Hannah ran a rag over his forehead, interrupting his impossible daydream. “What are you thinking about?”
Simon stroked her forearm, his callouses drinking up the silky smoothness of her skin. “I was just picturing what a beautiful mother you’d make.” She turned away for a moment, but not before her cheeks betrayed a faint blush. He tilted her face toward him. “I love you,” he whispered. “You know that, don’t you?” He stroked her chin with his dry, cracked thumb.
“I know,” she replied. Her downcast eyes couldn’t hide her radiance. Her lips looked so soft, so kissable. “I’ve always known.”