are done away with, so stay away from there. The woman doctor is not to be trusted. It’s best you all keep your distance.”
“Germans,” Zuzanna said. “I’m ashamed for the part of us that’s German, Matka.”
“Don’t say that. You should meet the good pharmacist from town, Paula Schultz. When she comes to deliver SS medicines, she slips me supplies—hair dye so the older women can look younger and escape selections. Heart stimulants so the weak can stand at Appell. She told me the Americans are—”
A Stubova walked by our bunk, brushing her teeth, and spat into a tin cup.
“Lights out!” she shouted.
I held Matka tight, unable to let go, weeping like a child, until she had to pull away and sneak out, afraid she’d be caught. I felt such shame acting like this, but watching her through the window as she rushed off down Beauty Road and turned to throw us a kiss from the darkness was worse than the hunger or any beating.
Such terrible agony.
—
LATER THAT WEEK ROZA came to the bunk room before morning Appell and read a list of ten prisoners to report to the Revier. Luiza, Zuzanna, and I were on the list.
After the others were marched off to work, Roza led us down Beauty Road toward the Revier. “Come along, girls,” she said in a kind way.
Where was the old Roza who’d slap us for dallying? One of my bad feelings was coming on, rising in my chest. The sunrise that morning turned the sky pink and blue as we approached the gray Revier block.
I turned to Zuzanna. “What is happening?”
“I don’t know,” she said, squinting in the morning sun.
“We have Matka,” I said.
“Of course,” Zuzanna said in a distant way.
The Revier was oddly quiet that day. Matka was not at her post at the fat wooden desk in the front room. My gaze fixed on the yellow stool on which she usually sat to check patients in each day, now empty.
“Where is your mother?” Luiza whispered as we passed it.
Zuzanna looked about. “Here somewhere.”
Roza handed us over to two sturdy SS nurses in brown uniforms, their caps, like clear, white cakes, bobby-pinned to their upswept hair. They led us down a hallway to a ward, a whitewashed room crammed with three sets of bunk beds and six singles. One window, the size of a doormat, sat up high on the wall, almost touching the low ceiling. Suddenly the walls closed in. Why was there no air in the room?
A girl I knew from Girl Guides named Alfreda Prus sat on one of the beds dressed in a hospital gown, hands folded in her lap.
I wiped the smear of wetness off my upper lip. What was happening to us?
One of the nurses told us to remove our clothes, fold them neatly, and put on hospital gowns with the backs open. I puffed my chest up with air to the point of bursting, then released it slowly. I would be calm for Luiza’s sake.
Once the nurses left, Zuzanna paced about the room. She pulled a clipboard from a hook at the end of one bed and studied the blank chart attached.
“What do you think is going on here?” Luiza asked.
“Not sure,” Zuzanna said.
“Just stay next to me,” I said.
“I’ve been here for two days already with only a crazy Gypsy woman for company,” Alfreda said. “They took her away this morning. What do you think they’re up to? There are more girls in the next room. I heard one crying.”
Zuzanna walked to the door between the two rooms and wrapped her fingers around the metal doorknob.
“Locked,” she said.
Soon the nurses ushered more Polish girls into the room, including a tall, quiet one named Regina who wore round reading glasses and taught a clandestine English class in our block. Janina Grabowski came in too. We put on our gowns, and Janina and Regina laughed since the open backs left our rear ends exposed to the breezes.
“Maybe they’re sending us to a subcamp and have to give us special exams?” Alfreda said.
“Maybe they’re sending us to the brothel,” Regina said.
We all knew about the brothel being set up at another camp. Binz had made more than one recruitment announcement at Appell. She promised that in exchange for a few months of service volunteers would receive the finest clothes and shoes and guaranteed release from camp.
“Stop, Regina,” I said.
Luiza took my hand, and our palms met, both moist. “I’d rather die,” she said.