I’m not working on Tuesday, I’ll come with you.” She covered my hand with hers. “You’ll find him, I know it, but now you must eat.”
I took one pirozhki from the plate and bit into the cabbage center, perfectly salty and warm. “Why are you so dressed up, wearing your golden party shoes? Isn’t this a dress you wore to play for the tsar?”
“I’m saving my more practical clothes for my next life. I sewed some underwear from the bags in which they deliver the liver to the kitchen here. So now I attract only dogs.”
I smiled. “How did you get so funny, Karina?”
“I’ve only a few minutes to talk—the owner doesn’t like me taking breaks.”
“Know where I can find a bed close by?”
“It’s close to impossible right now, but I can get you on a list. I would invite you to sleep with me but I share my bed with two nasty sisters and one snores like something out of the zoo.”
A young blond man came in the door and walked through the crowd with a stack of newspapers on his shoulder, selling them as he went. He stopped near us and handed a paper to Karina with a smile. “No charge.”
With no comment to the young man, Karina grabbed the paper, LATEST NEWS printed across the front page, and opened it.
As the man wandered off I leaned in to Karina. “I think he likes you.”
Karina kept her gaze on the paper. “They’re talking about holding a beauty pageant. Miss Russia. Should we enter?”
“You should. They might not look kindly on my dirty fingernails.”
Karina drew me closer. “Ilya sent me a letter. We’ll finally be together after all this time, can you believe it?”
“Be careful. Dr. Abushkin says—”
Karina spread open the paper. “The doctor sees conspiracy in everything. Ilya is smart. He’s going to leave me a message in the Letters from Home section—just here. Have you seen it? It comes out every day and it’s how Russian people reconnect now.”
“Those letters may be traps.”
“I understand, Sofya. But my life without him is so hard. I have to take a chance.”
“Just let me come with you to meet him.”
“Of course,” she said, running one finger down the column. “No word from Ilya. But look, a letter for you. Can you believe it? The very last one here. It says: Sofya Streshnayva, You have a sum of money wired to your name. Please collect at this address. It gives an address in the third arrondissement. With tender affection, your loving family.”
Karina turned to me, her face drained of color. “But you have no family.”
A chill went through me.
Someone knew I was in Paris.
CHAPTER
43
Eliza
1919
I stepped closer to Merrill’s bedside and blinked to change the image before me. He lay on his side, the length of his leg exposed, his skin a deep shade of purple, covered with hideous, shiny, blue-black bubbles.
A young man in a white smock stepped toward me. “Visiting time is over.”
“Please, Doctor.”
“I’m sorry, but we have much to do here. I have no time for transfer requests.”
“I’ve come all the way from New York to see him. Could you just share your prognosis? I promise I’ll let you get to your work.”
He looked at me for a long moment and then down at Merrill. “Two serious issues. The first is gas blindness. Mustard gas most likely. He landed through a cloud of it. Lucky to be here.”
Merrill stirred and turned toward me, thick strips of lace wound around his head, covering his eyes. Had they run out of bandages?
“Will he regain his sight?”
“Most likely, but there’s no guarantee. The second issue is gas gangrene. He went down in farm country, where the soil contains a large amount of horse manure, which harbors bacillus bacteria. Once he crash-landed his clothing became saturated with the bacteria, it lodged in his wounds, and this is the result.”
“Should you not cover them with gauze?”
“Best to leave them open to the air. There was a time when we covered these wounds up, left them alone, but now know they can infect major organs. So we’ve been watching that leg.”
“Oh no, Doctor. Amputate?”
“I’ve seen the infection spread quickly to systemwide sepsis. But, believe it or not, he’s on the mend now. Fever’s gone, blister size reduced. We’ve actually had a few conversations and he’s aware of what’s happened. Has one bang-up headache and blistering in the lungs.”
“At risk for pneumonia?”
“Yes, madame. Ten percent die and the others resume their lives, though can’t say they’re