At that moment, David walked over and put out his hand to the boy Shayndel was quizzing. David had big, warm eyes, Shayndel thought, and she saw that he was losing his hair even though they were probably the same age.
“I am David Gruen. And you are?”
“Hirsch Guttman, from Kovno.”
“Well, Hirsch Guttman from Kovno, don’t get any ideas about this girl: she’s mine.”
“She’s the one who approached me, brother,” said Hirsch.
David smiled at Shayndel. “No matter,” he said. “I trust her. I’ll see you later, beloved.”
“What do you want to know about Hetty?” asked Hirsch.
“Hetty?”
“The German girl you were asking about. She’s a good egg. Luckier than most. She spent the whole war in Berlin working as a maid for some rich family that had no idea she was Jewish. She speaks perfect German, and she had some of the best false papers you’ve ever seen. Even her Yiddish sounds like high German. On the boat, they gave her a real grilling to prove she was a Jew. Can you imagine? But she recited all the Sabbath blessings and she knew all the words from every Passover song anyone could come up with.”
“So you think she’s all right?” Shayndel asked.
His eyes grew cold. “I know what this is all about,” he said. “On the boat she got sick with a fever and was ranting in her sleep, in German, of course. One of those thickheaded Poles started saying that she was a Nazi. What a schmuck. Is that why you’re asking about her?”
“Goodness, no,” Shayndel said. “I was just wondering because, well, she looked so tired. You’ll find out that Atlit is full of gossip. Don’t worry about Hetty.”
“All right,” he said, looking at Shayndel with new interest. “So what’s the story with you and that Gruen fellow? Do I have a chance?”
“A chance at what?” Shayndel said, adding, “You moron,” in Hebrew, as she got up.
Back in her usual seat beside Leonie, she asked, “Are you feeling better?”
“I’m fine.”
“Did you talk to the nurse?”
“Yes,” Leonie said, relieved she did not have to lie to Shayndel about that, at least.
After breakfast, Leonie had waited to go to the latrine until she thought she might have a few minutes alone there. The pain in her abdomen was getting worse, and she was afraid that soon she wouldn’t be able to keep it to herself; she had nearly doubled over at breakfast. Leonie sat with her head in her hands until she heard someone else come in and left, determined to get some medicine.
The building that housed the infirmary had once been used for storage, but the Jewish Agency had plastered the walls and put in a new wood floor, making the place seem airy and modern by comparison with everything else in Atlit. Six hospital cots made up with starched white linen stood at crisp attention along the right-hand wall; on the left were a desk, a few cabinets, and an examining room partitioned off with an old parachute hung from the rafters.
Leonie was greeted with a warm, “Good morning, sweetie,” from the regular weekday nurse, Aliza Gilad. “I’m glad you’re here early; the children are coming in for inoculations.”
Within days of arriving in Atlit, Leonie had presented herself as a volunteer at the clinic, claiming that she had always wanted to become a nurse. Aliza made it clear that she had little confidence in someone as young—and pretty—as Leonie and assigned her only me
nial tasks: mopping the floor, carrying out garbage, and washing metal instruments in alcohol. But Leonie proved herself well-suited to the work of the sick bay. She didn’t flinch at the sight of blood or vomit, and she was good with crying children, calm and reassuring with their distraught mothers, too. Aliza began trusting her with more responsibilities and came to treat Leonie as a protégée.
Leonie was glad to have a way to fill the long days and for Aliza’s growing warmth toward her. But she had been bitterly disappointed to find that all of the drugs—even the aspirin—were kept under lock and key. There was no way she would ever “find” a dose of penicillin.
“Is Dr. Gerson coming today?” Leonie asked as she put on her apron. After meeting all of the physicians who made regular visits, she had decided to approach one of the two female doctors—a reserved and closed-mouthed Swiss.
“I don’t think we’ll be seeing her anymore,” Aliza said. “She’s got a big job in Tel Aviv.”
“That’s nice for her, yes?” Leonie said, trying to hide her disappointment.
“Why did you want Dr. Gerson?” Aliza asked, as she readied a vaccine. “Do you need something? Is there something I can do?”
“No,” Leonie said. “I was just thinking about, well, studying pediatrics. I wanted to see what she thought of that.”
Aliza lowered her voice and asked, “Are you pregnant?”