Broken Angels

by Gemma Liviero

  “What is your name?”

  “Hannah.”

  “Don’t move, Hannah. Rest a moment.”

  The drug has made her sleepy, and her eyes close involuntarily.

  I move behind my desk to make some notes in my report, then remember Manz’s instructions. Instead, I write a prescription and then take a moment to look at my work schedule for the next day.

  After a reasonable time period, I check her temperature then gently press the patient’s shoulder to wake her. She sits up gingerly, clutching her lower abdomen. I help her to the edge of the bed, then steady her as she steps into the fresh underwear and sanitary towels I have handed her. She wraps her coat around her lower half, tying the sleeves together, and slips her feet back into shoes that have almost worn through.

  “Try to rest for the next few days. Don’t lift anything heavy. And next time, don’t attempt this yourself.”

  I take two small bottles from the medicine cupboard and note the dispensary on a chart on the wall.

  “Take these painkillers and the others for the infection. Make sure you rest to build up your strength. In a few days you will need to take this prescription to the hospital for more medicine.”

  She reaches for the bottles and piece of paper I hold out toward her, and our eyes meet briefly before she averts hers out of modesty.

  “There is an easier way, you know. I can operate so that you never have to go through this again.”

  “You mean operate on the Gestapo so that I am never again forced to have sex?”

  I must appear passive at this admission, though I am suddenly aware of a tremor within my chest. It is the same tremor I felt after arriving at the ghetto, when I first viewed the haunted expressions of the hopeless. This war is constantly throwing small grenades into my once-ordinary world. At every step, I’ve had to fight within, to accept the things I see and hear.

  “Herr Manz said nothing about a rape.” I lift the stethoscope diaphragm and proceed to listen to her heart.

  “Perhaps because it is normal practice here. We just aren’t allowed to talk about it. ‘Companionship,’ I discovered, means something else.”

  She is lucid now, the effects of the drug waning, and I interrupt my final examination to carefully study her countenance. This makes her uneasy, and she searches the walls of the room for something to distract her from my sudden scrutiny. Lena once accused me of distancing myself in difficult situations, of making people feel inferior, but this is far from the truth. I am simply unable to speak until I am sure of my own thoughts and analyses. This is also a way of protecting myself, of not giving anything away before I have to.

  The woman breaks the stunned silence between us, perhaps regretting her outspokenness and attempting to make some kind of amends. “You mean sterilize . . . remove my ovaries?”

  “A surgical sterilization method, yes.”

  She thinks about this, her eyes hard on the door to the waiting room.

  “This is something you shouldn’t have to go through again.” It is all I can think of to say, though from the sounds of it there will be more women to suffer such treatment.

  She nods her head in resignation.

  I retrieve another syringe and poise a needle once again near her arm.

  “This is for the prevention of tetanus. I recommend it.”

  She nods. I could give her anything right now and I don’t think she would care.

  “Does your daughter know the circumstances?”

  She shakes her head.

  “When you are healed, come back and see me, and I will schedule you in . . . perhaps your daughter, too, if she agrees.”

  At this, her expression becomes vivid, her eyes wide, moving side to side in fear at the mention of her daughter.

  “No . . . please. Not yet. She is too young.”

  Ethics demand that all doctors, even in this war, should honor our patients’ choices, even if we do not always agree with them. And yet I understand that hope can override rationale. A mother thinking that in the future, when the war is over, her daughter will find love, perhaps like she did, settle down, and have children of her own.

  “Of course. As you wish.”

  She stands up gingerly, and I step around the desk to bear the weight of her. Her uterus would still be very tender, though with pain now dulled and her temperature reduced.

  In the waiting area, the girl jumps up to greet her mother, to take her from me. She does not even look at me, so relieved is she that her mother is no longer bleeding.

  I pass the daughter a paper bag that contains her mother’s soiled skirt and tights and open the door to the black, filthy streets of the ghetto.

  “You must bring her back if her temperature is still higher than normal after three days of medicine.”

  “Thank you,” the daughter says, but I ignore this. Gratitude in these instances always gnaws at my conscience. I do not need her thanks.

  “Guard, escort these women back, and wheel the mother gently.”

  He looks at me, his expression bland and unreadable. He will do what I say whether he agrees or not about carrying a Jew. He knows who I am. I am one of Hitler’s champions.

  OCTOBER

  CHAPTER THREE

  MATILDA

  Theo is holding a long stick in front of him for balance as he creeps along the log, one slow foot at a time. He lifts one leg from behind, swings it slowly to the front, and places his foot carefully onto the narrow log that forms a bridge across the flowing creek. This is his third attempt, and he is drenched from falling in the water twice. Even though it is agonizing to watch, my chest hurts from laughing. Dragos is goading him to reach us. He is going “cluck cluck” like a chicken. Dragos never falls in. He is surefooted and fast. He is like that in everything he does.

  I have already had my turn. It took two attempts, but I made it all the way across. Ever since I could walk, my brothers have always included me in their games. Soon my menses will come and I won’t want to play anymore, says Mama. Sometimes I wish that I were a boy.

  Theo is a third of the way from the end. It is more dangerous there where the creek is shallow, and we have all, at some time, cut our feet on the fallen branches and sharp rocks that litter the gully.

  I stop laughing because I really want Theo to make it all the way across this time. I tell Dragos to stop taunting him, but he doesn’t.

  “Come on, chicken,” he calls to Theo. “Or perhaps you are a girl.”

  “Stop it, Dragos!” I say. “There is nothing wrong with girls.”

  Dragos turns to me, his green eyes shining like mirrors. He wears a grin that is often followed by trouble.

  “You are right. There is nothing wrong with girls!”

  There are seven years between us, but he has always treated me well, so I know there is nothing in what he says. I also know that he loves girls. He spends much time looking at them. And because of how he looks, they spend much time looking at him, too. Dragos is grown all the way up to Tata.

  Theo is four years older than me, and I have more in common with him than with Dragos. We both love to learn things from books.

  Theo makes it to the end of the log eventually, but he is dripping and sore. It was Dragos’s idea, and Theo never wanted to do this. He is tired of our brother’s games and tricks, and when he finally jumps off at the end, he ignores both of us and begins to walk home. He has “a face full of dung.” That’s what my father says when he makes fun of our bad tempers.

  “Hey, what is wrong with you?” says Dragos to Theo. “You finally made it. You finally shed your feathers.”

  “Shut up!” yells Theo, who does not let up his stride.

  “Perhaps if you did not have your nose in a book all the time, like a girl, you would be better at games.”

  Theo stops and turns. “Reading is not just for girls,” he says, showing fangs like an angry cat.

  Dragos is amused that Theo is so sensitive. My oldest brother is becoming too mischievous. He does no
t always know when to stop.

  “Run along home to Mama, and don’t forget your apron to help her with the cooking! You are good at that, too.”

  Theo pushes Dragos in the chest, and I know that this will not end well. Dragos is three inches taller and five inches wider than Theo. He is a soccer player and a long-distance runner, and powerful like a bear. Their sparring is far from equal, and lately a lot more frequent. It is as if they have outgrown each other and our house. The cat will always lose to the bear.

  “Why don’t you just go to war, instead of always talking about it!” says Theo.

  Dragos’s smile shrinks to nothing. Theo has touched a sore point. Dragos has yet to sign up because he is wanted for the soccer team. Mama and Tata refused to sign the papers until he is old enough. Tata went to war in his place.

  “In a few months I will go, stupid! But you already know that. You are just jealous.”

  Dragos shoves Theo hard, and he falls back on the ground. As he lies there, Theo shakes his wrist, which has taken most of the fall. He stands up and growls; his face is red with rage as he pounces on Dragos. I have never seen him this strong as he pushes Dragos back a few paces, but it does not knock him over. Dragos is built of oak, says Tata.

  Dragos kicks Theo’s legs out from under him and pins him on the ground, and Theo fights with all his might, clawing at Dragos’s face and attempting to knee him in the thigh. They are rolling in the mud.

  “Stop it!”

  I grab at them and tell them to stop, but they cannot hear me because of the sound of rage in their ears. I attempt again to separate them, but Dragos is shoved back suddenly, and his elbow hits my mouth. I yelp loudly, and this time they stop.

  “Matilda!” Theo says.

  “See what you’ve done, you idiot!” says Dragos.

  “It was your elbow.”

  I can taste blood, and Dragos turns my face gently toward him.

  “Open your mouth, Little Sun.”

  I do.

  “All teeth intact, but you might have a fat lip.”

  “Sorry,” says Theo, stepping between us. “Are you hurt?”

  “No, I’m all right.” I’m not, really. My mouth is stinging, but I don’t want them to think that I can’t be part of their games. I don’t want the attention.

  Dragos holds out his hand to Theo.

  “Shake hands . . . all forgotten?”

  Theo goes to shake his hand, but Dragos pulls it away teasingly, then runs in the direction of home. Theo picks up a stick and chases after him, but at least he is smiling now.

  I follow, as always, drenched and laughing once more. I love my brothers the same. It is always like this. One minute we can be fighting; the next we are friends again.

  I am a long distance behind them as I step on their muddy tracks with my own. I like to follow the creek that travels between the hills, some parts so narrow I can jump from side to side. In other parts I have to wade through shallow water with long reeds up to my knees.

  It has been raining, also. Mama will be mad that we are wet. She says that we are teasing the spirits who carry the dead when we play such games in this weather. She says they will come and collect our spirits early if we are not mindful of the damp.

  Our house is the last one at the bottom of the hill. It is made from spruce logs and was built by my father. Up the mountain behind our property my mother and I harvest lavender that grows wild. We collect the buds and place them into bags made from gauze and tie them with ribbon. My mother, Catarina, sells them at the village each market day. The herbs are popular for women who suffer from nervous conditions, and also for women who suffer menses cramps. But since the war, people are not buying any longer, and the tourists who used to come to the markets have gone. We sell very little.

  Mama says she is sick of coming back with most of her stock, and that I can take over all the work. She also complains about our house that Tata built. She is tired of filling the gaps between the logs with moss to keep in the warmth. She wishes we could live in a city and she could work as a dressmaker like her mother before her. But my tata says there is no other place on earth like our home. He says it is a small piece of heaven in the hills. Tata used to work as a supervisor in a factory near the city, and he loves the smell of the pine air that has replaced the smell of burning coal.

  Tata fights on the side of the Germans, though it is not by choice. I miss him. I miss the way he dismisses Mama’s complaining and makes fun of sour faces. The way he fixes a broken fence while whistling. But mostly I miss the trips with him on the cart to town to purchase supplies for our farm. We used to have pigs, chickens, and horses, but the war has seen them gone.

  Dragos runs through the front door, slamming it back on its hinges. I watch Theo disappear inside after him.

  I am nearly out of breath when I reach the house. I am surprised to find both my brothers standing still just inside the doorway, blocking my entrance. I push between them to see what they are looking at.

  Mama is at the kitchen table. Beside her is a man in uniform. He wears a long, gray coat despite the fact the air is warm, a hat that has an eagle on the front, and his boots are made of soft, black leather. I know that Dragos would like these boots. He is envious whenever he sees a soldier in uniform.

  I think at first that he is here to deliver some news about Tata, who is away at war. My next thought is that he is here to take my brothers away like they did Tata, because Tata is filled with German blood. That they, too, must fight for Germany in a war, says Tata, that means little to any of us.

  But the German officer is not looking at my brothers; he is looking directly at me while he talks to Mama.

  “Frau Steuben,” he says. His voice is sharp and hard like nails; the kind of voice that makes loud and furious speeches in the town center. “This is your daughter.”

  It is not said like a question.

  “Yes.” Mama does not look at me but stares at the honey bowl that sits between them. They have shared some tea.

  “Mama!” says Dragos. “What is going on?”

  I look up at Dragos and see that he looks frightened, which is bad, because he is not afraid of anything. My heart beats faster. I don’t want them to take him away.

  Mama stands up and rubs her hands down the front of her apron. She looks away from Dragos and then steps toward me. She takes my hand and pulls me toward the table to sit down in her place. The officer’s eyes follow me. He is watching everything I am doing. It is as if I am a light to which the insect is drawn, and suddenly I am so close to him I can smell the leather of his boots. The kitchen is too small for all of us, and I wonder if I should run out the door. But Mama will be so angry if I do. She might send me to bed without dinner.

  “Would you excuse us, gentlemen?” says the officer to my brothers.

  “No,” says Dragos firmly. “I’m afraid that we cannot—not until we find out what you are doing here.”

  “Dragos!” says Mama. “Take Theo outside the house! This is not a matter for you. It is between the officer and me. We have important matters to discuss with Matilda.”

  “What important matters?”

  Mama is staring at Dragos as if she is staring at someone she has never seen before, as if her eyes can’t find what is in front of her. As if she has lost something and knows she can never get it back.

  “Mama, what is this? What is wrong?” asks Theo.

  Mama doesn’t answer, and Dragos takes another chair at the table, as does Theo. We are squeezed in tightly together.

  “It is clear you have no control over your children, Frau Steuben.” The officer’s voice has become a smooth, sharp blade now, carving pathways through the air. I do not want to be here in front of the blade.

  Mama bites her lip.

  “As you wish,” he says to my brothers. “You may stay. But I must warn you—if there is any trouble, I have people waiting for me outside.”

  “Trouble?” says Theo. “You speak in riddles! I didn’t see anyo
ne outside.”

  The German looks at Theo, and I wonder if he will hurt him. Fury from the stranger’s eyes burns holes into the eyes of my brother. I recognize this fury. I have seen this same look coming from Tata when Dragos has disappeared into the town and not come back till morning, and when he has not completed his tasks. I place my foot on top of Theo’s under the table to warn him not to speak.

  “Now, are we all calm?” says the stranger.

  No one answers. No one has to, because he doesn’t wait, but directs his speech toward Dragos.

  “I have been talking to your mother, who has been most hospitable and very agreeable. We have decided that your sister is perfectly suited for our program in Germany.”

  “What sort of program?”

  “One for young women with German backgrounds. I understand that your father and your grandparents hail from good German stock.”

  I do not like the way he talks about them as if he is referring to horses.

  “So, what is so important about this program?” asks Dragos.

  “It is conducted at a training center where young girls learn to be intelligent, accomplished women.”

  “My sister is already intelligent.”

  “Do you speak German, Matilda?” the officer asks me.

  “Natürlich,” I say.

  “What else can you say?”

  I count to twelve in German before he puts up his hand to stop me.

  He takes out a notebook and pen and passes them to me. “Can you write them?”

  I write the numbers down, then examine my work before I pass it to him.

  “Stand and read this, please.” He passes me a piece of paper that has German words typed on it.

  The application of force alone, without moral support based on a spiritual concept, can never bring about the destruction of an idea or arrest the propagation of it, unless one is ready and able ruthlessly to exterminate the last upholders of that idea even to a man, and also wipe out any tradition which it may tend to leave behind.

  I have to sound out the syllables of the words I don’t understand.