hear me?”
“Yes, Mamusia.”
“I don’t want you to move. And no calling out. Please.” With a sharp intake of breath, Róża propels one foot, then the other, down the ladder and out the door.
* * *
In the snow, Róża bleeds red black upon the white ground, in clumps and clots. As many times as she bears down, more slips out; it smells like rust and metal and rot. She grows dizzy and hot despite the frigid air. She reaches for a handful of clean snow to pat on her forehead and the back of her neck.
Róża knows she needs to get this out of her, get herself back inside. But beyond the pain, she wonders, How far along? and, Was it a girl or a boy? She trains her eyes on the far-off trees as her legs quake beneath her. With every cramping gush, she feels a deep sorrow mingled with relief.
When the bleeding subsides, Róża lets herself sit, bare bottomed, drained out, blinking up at the stars. One minute. Two. Fleeting moments in which to wonder, would they have been better off back in Gracja? The remaining Jews lived in a ghetto now, Henryk told her. If her uncle Jakob was still there, he’d have clout, and her aunt Syl, so long as she could get hold of the ingredients, would make bread for them to eat. One thing’s for certain: Róża wouldn’t be miscarrying, alone outside in the dead of winter. But then she thinks of what the soldiers did to Natan in the work fields, how they came for her parents; their thumps and shrieks sounding through the closet door—
Róża shivers as flecks of snow drift off the barn roof. In the moonlight, the frosted fields are a rolling silvery sheet. Róża hoists herself up and fastens her pants after tucking another not-so-clean cloth between her legs.
She has to hide the blood before it can be discovered. Best would be to bury it away from the sight of humans and the smell of animals, but the ground is frozen and anyway she hasn’t the time to dig a hole. If only she had bled into a bucket, she could have figured out a way to hide it inside the barn.
She staggers to the barn now and notices one of the small rabbits in the corner. In a quick singular motion, she swipes it up and holds it tight under her arm, feeling the rapid beat of its frantic, trapped heart. She reaches with her free arm for the trowel, pegged up on the wall. She fears Shira will start up with questions, but mercifully Shira is silent, still beneath the hay. Róża steps back outside and brings the trowel blade down upon the rabbit in a single terrible whack. The rabbit slumps, lifeless. Róża uses the blade to tear it apart the way a wolf might. At any other time, she would have regretted the waste of meat. Now the rangy smell, raw and rusty, makes her gag. Shaking, she places the torn-up rabbit on the heap of her own blood. In a vain last measure, she hacks at the ground, once, twice, hoping to loosen a bit of earth for cover, but there is no give. She mouths a prayer as she wipes her hands in the snow to clean off the blood—the rabbit’s, her own—and weaves her way back into the barn, up to the loft, to Shira.
* * *
The following day, through a crack at the far edge of the loft, Róża sees Jurek poke at the mangled rabbit with a stick. At the sight of it, a frozen rusted mass, Róża heaves bile into the hay. Sweat breaks at her brow. Her womb seizes anew. Yet she focuses her eyes outside. Jurek is holding the rabbit aloft now, calling out for his father.
Henryk is there in an instant.
“If there is a fox coming around, we’ll need to reinforce the coops,” Jurek says, inspecting the carcass. “But it doesn’t make sense that a fox would leave this meat. What else might have killed it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think Mama would want to put it in her soup?”
Henryk’s “No” comes out edged with panic.
If Krystyna inspects the scene, so close to the barn, she’ll know. When Henryk speaks again, his voice is composed. “We can’t know how long it’s been dead. It may be unsafe to eat.”
Jurek lets the rabbit drop and turns his stick to the clumps of reddened, viscid snow. “There’s more blood here