She turns to me. “Is that difficult?”
“It shouldn’t be. You don’t even have to remove the whole sleeve. Just cut away the bottom, and sew in little ovals the size of eggs.”
She looks skeptical. “Are you sure?”
“It fits you everywhere else. See? It’s not straining at your shoulders. It’s straining here, by your armpit.” I pinch the fabric to show her.
The advice came from a part of my mind I haven’t used in a while, a bear waking from hibernation. The girl’s mouth drops open in gratitude, and she immediately begins to make plans for the jacket. She’ll wear it to a job interview, she tells her friend. She heard that one of the camp administrators is looking for a typist; this jacket is exactly the kind of thing she was hoping to find.
As I’m basking in the long-dormant sense of feeling useful, Breine taps my shoulder.
“I’ve found it!” she squeals, holding up a wrinkled garment from the bottom of a box.
Yellow silk, butter not marigold, the bodice dotted in tiny seed pearls. She holds the dress against her body, swaying back and forth so the fabric swishes at her calves. “Isn’t it perfect?”
This dress isn’t remotely close to the gown Breine described wanting, and it won’t look right on her at all. It’s cut for someone with a much bigger bust than Breine’s, and wider shoulders. Someone older, too. The color of the fabric is youthful, but the style is for a matron. It’s the kind of dress an older woman would order if she didn’t want to admit her age.
“Feel the silk; it’s so delicate,” she says. “I think Chaim will love it.”
Quickly, I scan the rainbow of fabrics on the table for something better to suggest. But most of the dresses are shirtwaists or practical housedresses, nothing a woman would want to get married in. The only other formal option I see is a dark-colored, strapless velvet, appropriate for an American cocktail party but not a wedding gown.
Besides, Breine’s eyes are shining. She pulled it out of the crate and declared it perfect, but I know if the dress had been green or brown, or if it had lace instead of beads, she would have said that was perfect, too, because Breine wants to get married.
The other women see the same thing I do—the light in Breine’s eyes—and they tell her it’s perfect. The mood is gay and laughing, like the day each year when the women in my family would all go to the factory to preview the spring line. Or on special-occasion shopping trips, when my mother and Aunt Maja and I would go to Kraków and accept the glasses of champagne at the department store.
“Isn’t it perfect?” she asks again.
“If that’s the dress you want,” I say, smiling, “then you’ll be the most beautiful bride.”
Breine continues to admire her gown, and I turn back to the piles of fabric on the table. Breine was right earlier. More would-be shoppers are continuing to appear, scooping up garments, and the table is quickly becoming bare. If I don’t get something for myself now, there won’t be anything left.
I grab a dress in plaid, another in plum, a sturdy sweater, socks, and a pair of gloves. The gloves are impractical—they’re made of soft kid, the leather so supple it ripples like silk. My father bought my mother a pair like this once. She wore them to go shopping, but only when she didn’t have to carry home meat or cheese or something that could leave an odor. Only when she was buying nice things.
“Zofia?” Breine is looking at me curiously. I’ve pressed the glove against my cheek. I’m holding it there like a memory, like a memory that needs to be tied down.
My mother was wearing those gloves when we went to the soccer stadium. I can see that now, clearly. And she was wearing them after we left the soccer stadium. She smoothed back my hair with them; she used them to mop Abek’s brow. I know this happened. I know this is a true memory.
What happened next?
I push a little further. My hands start to shake. My head is pulsing. The monster at the door is stirring; I don’t want to push anymore.
I LEAVE BREINE AND ESTHER THE NEXT MORNING WHILE IT’S still dark. Breine’s bedsheets are tangled and half falling off the bed frame while her nose whistles in a snore. A few feet away, Esther sleeps with her pillow over her head.
When I get to the stables, Josef is hitching up the horses to a wagon that looks at least twenty years old. The ends of his curls are still wet from his morning washing. A drop of water clings to the back of his neck and then slowly rolls forward, tracing the curve and sinew of his skin as he works on the wagon, until it finally disappears down the open collar of his shirt. I picture it rolling down his collarbone. Rolling down his chest, rolling over his stomach.
“Hi,” he says, but there’s an element of surprise to the greeting. Maybe he wasn’t sure I’d actually show up. As early as I am, he was still almost ready to leave, and I can’t help but think he wouldn’t have waited long to find out if I was coming or not.
“Good morning,” I say. “Thank you, again, for taking me.”
“Technically, I’m not taking you,” he says, loading a crate of what look like canned goods onto the back of the wagon, the same crates that yesterday held donated dresses. “You’re just coming along on a preplanned route.”
“I guess this means that if the wagon gets crowded, you’ll leave me by the side of the road instead of the C rations.”
“Well,” he grunts as he shoves the box toward the back. “I can’t eat you in an emergency.”
When he’s hooked up Feather and the other horse, Josef nods to the spring seat at the front of the wagon, and I climb on. At the last minute, I decided to pack everything I own in case I don’t return. It’s a few more things than what I arrived with on the train, but I can still carry it all in the valise under one arm.
Josef points to a pail of food on the floorboard and then falls silent. The sun is still rising, but I know our trip is several hours long. The horses seem unhurried and unbothered; Josef drives them with the reins in one hand, a slight curve to his spine, his lean body rhythmically giving in to the movement of the wagon. Several hours of sitting next to Josef.
“Mrs. Yost says you go on supply runs,” I offer after a few kilometers of silence. “Foehrenwald trades with other camps?”
“Sometimes. Right now, the administration is worried about housing all the people from Feldafing when they arrive.”
“How often do you go?”
“Every couple of weeks.”
“I heard her say we needed blankets. And we’re bringing food?”
He nods but doesn’t elaborate out loud this time, and the line of conversation seems exhausted, anyhow. Scrambling for another subject, I look at the horses’ reins, easy in Josef’s hand. “What’s the other horse’s name?” I picture something that would go with Feather, something like Smoke or Coal.
Instead, Josef’s mouth tugs at the corner. “Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”
I laugh. “The American president?”
“The Americans donated the horse.”
“Franklin Delano Roosevelt,” I repeat.
And then suddenly, like a swift kick in the stomach, this name brings forth a memory: a dark movie house, a newsreel, grainy footage, an announcer’s voice saying the Americans had reelected their president for another term.