Few made it out of that war alive. I’m not sure we can measure success the same way we once did.
I roll my chair out of the schoolhouse doors where I meet Elek. Each day after school, we make our way back to the orphanage behind a larger group who walk in a herd. The distance is only a few blocks from here, and the schoolhouse comprises half ordinary children and half orphans.
“It’s almost Friday!” Elek’s voice carries as he steps outside of the main school doors.
“It’s Monday,” I say.
“It’s the last Monday before Friday,” he replies with a shrug. He maintains such a serious expression when trying his hardest to make me laugh.
“Have you ever considered taking your show on the road?” I ask.
He lifts the brake on my chair and tilts me back so I’m resting on only two wheels, forced to stare through thick gray clouds. “Only if you join me,” he says with a sigh.
“Fine. Maybe. I don’t know. Perhaps.”
“Such a woman,” he jests. “Can’t make up your mind.”
Our banter is endless some days. It takes up most of our time on the way back home. It also fills up the space of having proper conversations—ones we both avoid. Our future is a question mark. Whatever we are today could be something completely different tomorrow, and there’s no way to change that. We’ve learned this much in our short lives.
Upon our approach to the walkway of the main building we live in, we prepare to greet the housemother in charge of counting us as we return. We don’t interact with this housemother often as she tends to the younger children, but they all take shifts with various duties. Mademoiselle Alice has her hands crossed, dangling at her waist with an envelope pinched between her fingers. It isn’t often that we receive post here because it would mean us orphans having friends or relatives.
“Bon après-midi, chers,” she greets us with a warm smile. “Elek, I have a post for you today.” I know he wasn’t expecting anything, or at least nothing he mentioned.
By the look on Elek’s pale face, something about the letter makes him uncomfortable. He doesn’t flip it around or search for a loose end of the fold to tear. Instead, he simply slips it into his back pocket and continues walking forward into the building. He strides beside me at a slow pace as I spin my wheels down the corridor. “Are y-y-you okay?” I ask.
“Of course,” he says. “Are you going to take a rest before starting your homework?”
He knows I never take a rest after school, not before I complete any homework. When I was younger, Mama insisted that Arina and I come straight home and do our work while the information was still fresh in our heads. Then we would have the rest of the afternoon to do as we pleased. The routine made sense. It still does, though I haven’t much to look forward to between now and suppertime. “No,” I say, lifting my brows as I glance at him. “A-are you?”
“I might,” he says. “I’ll find you in the library soon.”
Elek and I are never far away from one another except for our classes. He’s in his last months of school before he can receive a diploma. I will have to go for a few months longer because of our initial placement testing. He has proven to have more educational knowledge than me, even though we’re only a couple of months apart in age.
After school, we always do our homework together in the library and if there’s time after, we go outside for some fresh air.
I suppose we’ve only been in this routine for a month since school began, but this will be the first time he’s deviated from our schedule. As we pass by his communal room, he rests his hand on the back of my chair and leans down to kiss me on the cheek. “Mon chérie,” he whispers, knowing those words make me turn several hues of red.
He walks through the door and disappears. Maybe the letter contains good news. There could be something he didn’t tell me. I would understand. I never pry, not like Arina would. If she knew someone was keeping information from her, she would follow that person around like a shadow on a bright day. There’s no way to hide from her when her curiosity is on the prowl. Now, I would do anything for her to spy on me again, to hear her giddy laugh or exasperated gasp when she overhears something I didn’t want her to know. If she was here, she’d somehow already know what was in Elek’s letter.
The longing thought of Arina makes me want to know what’s bothering him even more, but with as much as he talks, I doubt I’ll have to wait a long while to find out.
I make my way to the library where most of the older kids end up after school. It’s too noisy in the rooms we sleep in and there aren’t any other areas where there’s a quiet rule, except the gardens. No one thinks to go out there for silence, except one housemother and housefather, who I believe go out there for more than just a moment of privacy.
“Nora,” a voice calls from behind me, and I’m not sure I recognize whoever it is. I struggle to turn my chair around because the hinges are becoming more worn and don’t work as well as when the Red Cross assigned it to me. “I haven’t seen you recently.”
It’s Madame Louise, who oversees physical fitness and therapies for the girls here who need extra help. They enforced physical fitness during the summer, but not during the school year. She doesn’t look like the typical fitness motivator—not in her colorful flowery dress and a face full of makeup. Although she might have enough hairspray masking her French twist to hold a sweat or two. I visited her the first summer I was here, but she didn’t have a proper plan for someone with my disability, so she didn’t force me to continue meeting with her when I asked if I had a choice. This past summer, I avoided her completely. I don’t see the point in trying to strengthen my leg that is essentially a dead weight.
“I h-h-have been bu’y wi’h—”
“You’ve been busy with school?” she completes my sentence, likely trying to hurry the conversation along. I nod to save her from struggling to understand me again.
“Would you be interested in spending just a small amount of time with me each week to see if we can strengthen your good leg enough so you could use a crutch instead of the chair all the time?”
My left leg is strong enough to hold my body up for a short amount of time, but with the numbness in my right leg, I lose my balance and the crutch pinches the skin under my arm. As much as I hate being bound to a chair, it’s just easier to get around. I shrug in response. “I’m o-o-okay a’ I am.”
“What about your speech? I’m sure there are exercises that can help you with that?”
I wish I could express how hard I have worked with my stutter, never mind the side effects from Dr. Mengele’s procedure, which has left my speech capabilities in worse condition. I have never been the type to say I can’t do something, but I have learned that there are some things that I have to accept I am powerless to change. I’ve had to come to terms with this twice in my lifetime. It’s hard enough convincing myself there’s no hope, but to have to convince others is so much worse. I shake my head again. I thought she would be familiar with my medical records, which state I’m irreparably disabled. If she knew, she might back down from attempting to help me.