“Other than those two girls—nobody else is sick or traveling with Frau Fischer?”
“Just the two girls. Otherwise, yes, this is everyone.”
I blink back the tears welling behind my eyes. Why did I let myself get hopeful? How could I imagine I could wake up this morning and pluck my brother out of a sea of orphans?
“You should eat your stew before it gets cold.” Sister Therese’s voice snaps me back to the dining hall. “It’s tolerable when it’s warm and not so much after that.”
I pick up my spoon and dip it into the greasy brown liquid.
Across from me at the table sits one of the smaller boys. He can’t be more than ten or eleven, with pointy ears and sharp features.
He’s not bothering with a spoon. He’s using his fingers to scoop bits of stew directly onto his bread. His elbows hunch around his plate, making a protective barrier to guard his food. Two bread rolls are piled next to his plate already, but when he thinks nobody else is looking, he reaches to the communal basket in the middle of the table and grabs another, tucking it up his sleeve. When he catches me looking, he stares me down.
His body is too small. It should be taller, or fatter. His eyes shouldn’t have to be so old. He shouldn’t have to be here. He shouldn’t have to eat like an animal.
I have eaten like this. I have sat in a circle of half-starved people and known I would fight someone who tried to take what I had.
Sister Therese notices the boy across from me, too. I wonder if he’ll be punished or told he must finish what’s on his plate before taking more. Instead, she gently slides the basket closer. “Have another,” she says. “But try the soup with a spoon? We have important guests!”
The small kindness does me in. As if it could possibly be enough. As if there are enough tender gestures in the world to make up for the brutalities these children have suffered.
A sound escapes from my throat, wet and feral and anguished. I shouldn’t cry here at the table, but I don’t know if I can hold it in, either. I force bread into my mouth, but I can’t swallow it. It just builds stickily in the back of my throat.
A few meters down, I hear a clatter: Another boy has accidentally upended his bowl of soup. The spoon skitters onto the floor, and his face melts in apology and sadness.
“No matter,” Sister Therese says cheerfully. “Happens at least once a meal.” She turns to me. “Zofia, as you’re our guest, could I give you the honored role of taking care of Simon?”
“Take care?” I mumble.
“Help him get cleaned up,” she elaborates, mimicking a gesture of washing. “Be in charge of looking after him. The washroom is down the hall.”
Simon slides off the bench and comes over, expectantly. He holds out his hand. And I freeze.
My hand won’t move, and my legs won’t, either. They’re shaking. My underarms flood with sweat. “I can’t,” I whisper.
“Pardon?” Sister Therese says, distracted.
Take his hand, I instruct myself. Take him to the washroom; this isn’t difficult.
“I can’t look after him,” I say louder, more desperately.
And I can’t explain the violent dread rising in my belly at this request, only that I know I can’t. I can’t be in charge of taking this small boy to the washroom. I can’t be in charge of this boy, I can’t take him to the washroom, I can’t help him get cleaned up, because I can’t take him to the washroom because I can’t be in charge of this boy.
“Let me.” Josef, his hand steady on my knee under the table, understanding something’s gone wrong. “Simon’s definitely too grown-up to want help from a girl. Isn’t that right?”
“Right,” the boy named Simon says uncertainly, not sure why he’s been passed off.
“Off we go. Let’s rinse this sweater, and you can show me where there’s something dry.”
After dinner, I sit mutely while the plates are cleared away, and while an older man appears to say he’s in charge of managing the supplies. “Good news,” Josef says, including me in the conversation. “They’ll give fifty blankets.”
“That’s wonderful,” I manage.
“Ernst can help carry them to your wagon,” Sister Therese offers.
“They were just asking if we needed anything else before we left,” Josef interjects. “Do we need anything else?” His question is pointed and, I think, a little baffled. This is your last chance, he seems to be saying. Why haven’t you asked about your brother?
“Some food,” Sister Therese decides. “While Ernst and Josef pack up the blankets, let’s go see if the kitchen can spare some leftovers for you to take with you.”
“I don’t want to take from you. The food should be for the children.”
“I’m at least going to pack you a few apples and a thermos of water. Unless I can find Lemuel’s bottle of Coca-Cola?” She winks mischievously. “I wanted to try some. Didn’t you?”
Josef has gone now, following Ernst to where the blankets are kept. I know he was right. This is the last chance I’ll have to ask about my brother. Sister Therese turns toward the kitchen. I run after her and grab the coarse sleeve of her habit. “Please.”
“Yes?” She looks perplexed.
“I’m looking for my brother. I haven’t seen him in more than three years.”
“Oh, my dear.” She reaches for my hand, and her fingers feel surprisingly strong. “I hope you’re reunited with him soon. I’ll add him to my prayers, if that’s all right with you.”
“No. I mean, yes, if you’d like. But what I was trying to say—he’s twelve, the same age as some of the children here. I think he was in Dachau. The same as some of the children here.”
Understanding washes over her face. “Oh. Oh. You didn’t come all this way here looking for him, did you? Is that why you were asking whether any were missing tonight?”
“He wasn’t at dinner. But I was thinking, maybe he could still come here later,” I say. “It sounds like you still have arrivals?”
“We do. Every day. Some children who come here, this is the second or third stop for them.”
“Or maybe one of the children coming from somewhere else has met him already,” I suggest. “And they’ll remember him.”
“Do you want to give me his name and a physical description?” Sister Therese asks. “I can post a ‘missing’ report on our bulletin board. Someone who crossed paths with him might see it.”
We change directions now, not to the kitchen but back to the office, where Sister Therese opens the same drawer that had the bottle opener. She smooths a sheet of creamy stationery onto the desk, dating it at the top. “Start with what he looks like. Close your eyes if it helps,” she offers. “Sometimes it does.”
When I close my eyes, I can see Abek’s face better than my own, but in a way that’s hard to put together in useful words. Fat cheeks? He had them before; he couldn’t possibly now. A loose tooth? It would have fallen out long ago. His hair might have been cut; his bruises might have healed or multiplied. I could tell Sister Therese that he was as tall as the armoire on the wall where my parents used to measure our height, but he would have grown.