demeanor changes. Her eyes soften. A minute passes as she lets this news sink in. “That’s a long way to come by yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Just how long did it take?”
“He’s all I have left.”
She thinks for a minute, glancing over my shoulder, where I see there’s a clock on the wall, then sighs. “Follow me.”
We pass through the main reception area and into a smaller private office with a handwritten sign on the door: Missing Persons Liaison. Inside are a few large desks, messy with papers. A black telephone sits in the middle, half-buried.
“Sit, please.” Mrs. Yost gestures for me to take the more comfortable-looking of the two chairs in the room, taking a straight-backed wooden one for herself and finding a composition book and fountain pen from amid the clutter. It’s leather-bound, with the words I.G. FARBEN embossed in gold on the front. The words are familiar to me, but I can’t place from where.
“Miss Lederman,” she begins. “Why don’t you start by telling me what you’ve done so far to look for your brother?”
“I put his name on the list.”
“All right. Which list?”
“The Red Cross list.”
She makes a note in the composition book. “Which others?”
“I’m not sure.”
“The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association?” she offers. “The AJJDC? The Bureau for Missing Persons in Munich or any other jurisdictions?”
“In the hospital, whenever they asked me to put his name on a list, I did.”
“Miss Lederman.” Her pen was still poised above her book; now she caps it and sets it down. “It’s a very confusing time. But there are many organizations trying to help.”
She lists off more acronyms, but they all run together. I understand what she’s telling me. There are many lists. I was supposed to put his name on many lists, more than I ever could have imagined, and I was supposed to keep track of all of them.
It’s a patchwork, is what she’s saying. It’s the continent trying to sew itself together using a blend of every kind of stitch and knit available.
I grip the armrests of the chair, trying not to let Mrs. Yost go blurry in front of me. My mouth is dry, and my voice sounds like it’s coming from far away. “But waiting to hear from all those places could take months,” I say. And, I’m realizing in horror, even if I did unknowingly contact some of these organizations when I was at the hospital, they would have no way to get in touch with me now.
“It could take months,” Mrs. Yost agrees. “My job is to try to help the refugees here, but it could take months. Are you feeling all right? Put your head between your knees if you’re dizzy.”
“I’m not—I’m not dizzy.”
“You’re dizzy.” She stands and calls through her cracked door to the secretary outside. “Could you bring a glass of water?”
I don’t know if I have months, is what I want to tell her. I am alive in part because I forced myself to be alive to find Abek. I have barely held myself together. I don’t know how much longer I can do this. Sending letters that go unanswered isn’t enough.
I hear the rustle of fabric in front of me and bring my eyes into focus. Mrs. Yost has returned with a glass of water. She raises her eyebrows, asking if I can take the glass, and then settles it in my hands.
“I hope you know I’m not saying any of this to dissuade you,” she says, waiting as I force the water down my throat. “But one girl I’ve been working with here has been writing ten letters a day for sixty days straight. She knows for a fact that her sister was liberated from Auschwitz, and she still hasn’t been able to find her. But your chances are still better writing letters than traveling all over Europe by yourself. You can’t visit every place in person. And even if you could, people are still moving around. Even if you find the right place, there’s no guarantee you would be there at the right time. So, if you still have a home, your best option might be to go back there.”
“I don’t have enough money left.”
“You could consider applying to a travel fund, for—”
“No.”
“Or I could set you up with a liaison closer to where your family—”
“No,” I bark. “Not without my brother.”
I’m picturing the spindly, broken chairs in my abandoned dining room, the carpet that wasn’t ours, the bakery with unfamiliar faces. That place will not be