group, either. I scan them all as soon as we walk through the door; it’s the first thing I do, without even thinking about it. None of the children look like him.
But when is the last time I have seen so many happy children? Was the last time five years ago, before we started whispering stories to one another about Auschwitz? Was it before the Nazis closed the schools to Jewish children, so we were forced to hold classes in our apartments, small groups sitting at a kitchen table, learning in secret? Was it before the war started at all?
“How many are there?” I whisper. “Where have they all come from?”
“About three hundred are here right now.” Sister Therese looks on approvingly over the group. “It changes every day, though. Parents come, or we receive telegrams. Or new children arrive. A nine-year-old, just yesterday. We don’t see many in that age range. He’d been traveling with the British Army. They adopted him, I suppose you could say, as a sort of mascot, but eventually they realized that was no life for a child.”
“Nine years old,” I repeat. “So most of the children are—”
“Most of the children who come here from the camps are between twelve and seventeen,” she says. “The younger ones…” she trails off, but I don’t need her to finish the sentence. Anyone younger would have almost no chance of being left alive in a camp.
“Do you have many twelve-year-olds?” That’s how old Abek is, right on the brink.
“At least twenty. The stories of how they survived are miraculous.” Sister Therese closes her eyes and raises her rosary to her lips. I’m jarred by this act of public devotion, a reminder that some people went through the war able to believe God was still watching over the world.
Then Sister Therese opens her eyes and briskly claps her hands. The yard games don’t stop, but most of the children at least look up at the sound. “This is really the final at-bat for kickball. Does everybody hear me? Supper is in fifteen minutes.”
The dining hall is much smaller than Foehrenwald’s, lined not with the round tables we have but with long rectangles, benches on either side, in a room where the windows are stained glass. As we walk in, a few children set the places with flatware, and adult women help them, most not in habits but in regular street clothes. From the kitchen, more volunteers appear, carrying vats of what smells like stew.
“Place of honor.” Sister Therese shows Josef and me to seats at a table near the front of the hall. “But your plates will be just as chipped as everyone else’s, I’m afraid.”
I take the spot facing the door so I can watch everyone as they arrive. A girl with freckles. Not him. A boy with a limp. Not him. A boy on crutches, missing a leg. Not him, I think with relief, because I can’t bear the thought of Abek suffering enough to lose a limb. But then I think, of course my brother missing a leg, a foot, an arm would be a welcome sight to come through the door, of course we could work through that suffering. The children come in a stream first and then scattered clumps and then one solitary figure at a time, rushing in, late, wedging themselves between friends.
Not him. Not him. Not him.
“How long did the trip take you?” Sister Therese, presiding over the head of the table, passes me a basket of rolls.
“Most of the day, but we stopped to eat,” I say, distracted.
Not him.
He’s not here. I know that for sure when the doorway has stayed empty for a full minute and the tables are full, when my ears are ringing from the clatter of spoons. “This is everyone?”
“There are two girls in the infirmary. Their meals will be served there.”
“Other than those two girls—nobody else is sick or traveling with Frau Fischer?”
“Just the two girls. Otherwise, yes, this is everyone.”
I blink back the tears welling behind my eyes. Why did I let myself get hopeful? How could I imagine I could wake up this morning and pluck my brother out of a sea of orphans?
“You should eat your stew before it gets cold.” Sister Therese’s voice snaps me back to the dining hall. “It’s tolerable when it’s warm and not so much after that.”
I pick up my spoon and dip it into the greasy brown liquid.