THIRTY-THREE
HALINA
While the officer dragged us through a storm of panic and suspicion, it was several minutes before he confessed to recognizing Officer Schäfer’s name but couldn’t seem to recall where from. I don’t think he knew the name at all. They seem to find pleasure in making us squirm. A shrug of his shoulders marked the end of his scrutiny before leaving us to make our way back to the houses.
Flora and I slip back inside the Schäfer residence, and I freeze, straining my ears over my pounding heart. The house is quiet except for the high-pitched whine from a moving saw blade upstairs. I stop by Flora’s bedroom before going up to the attic and take the blanket draped over the side of her crib, knowing I’ll need to set her down upstairs while I tend to Gavriel’s wound.
I’m out of breath by the time I find Gavriel, and he’s pale, struggling to push and pull the saw, and blood is seeping through the sheet-made bandage. I drop the blanket from my grip and kneel to settle Flora in the center. I pull open the paper bag and sift through the items, finding everything but the iodine—the one thing I fear he will need more than all the rest.
“No, no. He said he was giving me iodine. He made a show of giving me what he had.”
“Maybe he didn’t have any,” Gavriel says.
“He’s the one who listed it when I said I needed to treat a wound.”
“I’m sure whatever you got will be enough.”
“No, you need an antiseptic to prevent an infection. If that becomes infected—” I shouldn’t be saying this all out loud. The last thing I want to do is panic him, but I’d been so relieved, thinking I had everything that would help him, and now I realize I am missing the one thing that will help him. I slap the paper bag shut and utter a growl. No iodine. How could a pharmacist leave out the most critical thing?
“Hali,” he says, reaching his uninjured hand out to me. “Please, don’t worry about me. This is more than I could have asked for—this is unimaginable, really. I wouldn’t have thought any of this would be available at all around here.”
“I’ll find you an antiseptic,” I tell him. “When’s the last time the kapo was up here?”
Gavriel closes his eyes for a long second. “Uh—may—maybe a half hour ago.”
I want to clean up the wound before I go on a hunt for antiseptic, but I can’t leave it exposed, and I don’t want to waste bandaging. “How’s the pain?”
“I’ll manage,” he says, swallowing his words. He’s not being honest. He’s toughing it out and that won’t do him any good right now.
“There’s aspirin in the bag. It will help.”
A small smile pinches at his lips. “More than you know.”
“I’ll be right back.”
“Be careful,” Gavriel says in a raspy whisper. His eyes don’t leave mine, making me wonder if there’s something else he wants to say, something hiding within the pain he’s masking.
“I always am.”
I lift Flora from the ground and take the blanket too, then hurry back down the stairs. I go into the washroom first and search through the medicine cabinet, which doesn’t have much. The linen closet is next, knowing there was hair dye hidden behind the bedding. Flora tugs on my fraying braid and squeals.
“Shh,” I tell her with a smile, hoping she picks up on my cheerfulness rather than nerves.
There’s nothing else in here. I spin around, debating on the room of Jewish jewels or Ada and Heinrich’s bedroom. I should doubt that there’s antiseptic among the pile of stolen items, but with it being a hard commodity to come by, there’s a chance.
I fix my gaze on the door to their bedroom, my stomach knotting, a voice in my head telling me no—a voice I have to ignore. I reach for the doorknob and step inside. The bureau is clean apart from a porcelain backed hairbrush, a handheld mirror and a small wooden jewelry box. Then I spot an ornate wooden vanity in the farthest corner. With a tall oval mirror carved with details of scrollwork and floral accents attached at the back of the tabletop, it’s hoisted on top of outwardly curved bronze legs that bow in toward the feet. A worn floral-patterned upholstered bench with matching legs and a wooden frame is tucked in beneath the adjoining drawers. I doubt there’s iodine in her vanity.
Still, I make my way over, peeking out the window to ensure there’s no sight of anyone approaching the house from the front. The coast is still clear, but there’s no saying for how long. Hastily, I open the drawers one at a time, finding combs, makeup, nail polish, hairpins, and a door key…
A door key. Heinrich’s office door perhaps? I wouldn’t put it past her.
I open the next row of shallow drawers, finding a stack of old photographs resting on top of a doctor’s script, dated from a few years ago. I pinch the corner of the script and pull it out just a bitmore, finding the medical office to be a women’s clinic. I pull the script out to see what she was given.
Dr. Franz Rosenbaum
Tychy Women’s Clinic
Tychy, Poland
