A Bend in the Stars

by Rachel Barenbaum

  “Everything,” Dima replied. “American bastard. How did he find the plates?”

  “I have no idea. I hid them well. I thought.” There was a pause. “That’s right. We have no way of knowing if we got the photograph Vanya needed.” Another pause. “All those chemicals spilled.”

  “Vanya’s notebook, too?”

  There was something else Vanya couldn’t hear. Then Dima said, “Yes. He’s left us all to die.” His notebook? Gone?

  “We shouldn’t stay here. It’s too dangerous,” Yuri said. “What if Clay comes back?”

  “For what? He thinks Vanya’s dead. All the villagers do. I told them he died after we brought him home. That should buy us time.” And then: “Yuri, we can’t leave. Look at him. He truly will die if we move him.”

  Vanya’s notebook. Gone. All that work. He wasn’t done, but he was closer than ever. How much could he remember without any notes? And the plates gone, too? Vanya tried to speak, but pain swept him back into unconsciousness.

  VI

  Miri climbed out of bed at sunrise. She realized she’d been dreaming about her brother and the proof he was after. Anya had said there was a period of darkness over Kiev, but that the rain never let up. Was there any hope he had his photograph? Had he solved the equations? Either way, how would she find him now in this vast, confusing city? Where was Vanya hiding?

  Sasha smiled when he saw her coming. He was sitting on the edge of his cot looking tired, but well. He’d shaved his beard. And changed into a shirt and pants that were too small, but adequate. In the sun, his eyes were light like caramel, and the color was back in his cheeks. There was no denying he was handsome, no pretending the nurses didn’t pay more attention to him than they should even as they saw Miri coming.

  Miri unraveled his bandage. His stitches had held. The scab was already growing strong, and there were no signs of infection. As she rolled a new bandage around his shoulder, he asked, “Why do they call you Dr. Petrov?”

  Miri kept her eyes on the bandage. “You don’t remember?” He shook his head, and she paused. “The nurse who took us in, Anya, made it clear that we can stay so long as I work, and only because we’re man and wife.” She leaned down to whisper, “I’ve warned her we might only stay a week.”

  “Never thought I’d marry for a week,” he said, and smiled. He seemed much less distressed by the idea than she was. “Does that mean Yuri isn’t here?”

  “It seems not. But we’re safe. I’ll work as a surgeon. You’ll work the desk. We’ll search at night.”

  “Kir might find us. Or Zubov. He knows we were headed this way.”

  “Exactly why we need to look for them quickly.”

  “Where will we sleep, wife?”

  “Upstairs. We have a room. And we can eat in the kitchen.”

  “Food? We have a private room together, and food is what concerns you?” He smiled.

  “Don’t be crude. I’ll sleep on the floor. Come,” she said.

  He hesitated. “No. I’ll take the floor.”

  “Either way, you need to get up and walk so you can heal. Yuri believes exercise helps every patient, no matter what the ailment.”

  “Did you ever care for a patient without him looking over your shoulder?”

  “Not until he left with Vanya.” She slipped an arm under Sasha, around his waist, not worrying about her hand on his bare skin now. They paced to the end of the ward.

  “I’ve heard wagons rolling past all morning. Military?” Sasha asked.

  “No. Beet deliveries.” They turned back. “There’s a factory next door.”

  “Will I see you again today?”

  “Midday, I’ll find you if I have time,” she said, and helped him into bed.

  Miri met Anya in the lobby and followed her on a tour of the hospital. It was divided into distinct sections. The third floor was a converted attic where sleeping quarters were carved into the rafters. The second floor was for patrons and paying patients. Separated by a marble lobby, the men’s and women’s wards were gilded and frescoed, lit by chandeliers. The women read books and sewed. The men smoked cigarettes. Without the men wearing uniforms, Miri couldn’t tell who was an officer, but Anya confided there were several. Since the hospital was known as the best in Kiev, even non-Jews came, and so Miri kept her head tucked low and didn’t say a word. Any one of them could have been someone who would recognize Sasha—or even Miri.

  The first floor was for those who couldn’t afford to pay. The men’s and women’s wings were gray and loud. Cots were shoehorned into every corner. Patients played cards and groaned and gambled. Children slept under their mothers’ beds. It felt like Kovno’s free clinic. As they walked through, Miri checked every male patient’s face for her brother and fiancé, just in case.

  Then came the operating theater. This room was the common denominator among the floors, where all bodies were treated equal. Miri was in awe of the bravery it took to care for the rich and the poor in the same theater, a radical design only a doctor as renowned as Tessler could achieve. And she knew he’d received a great deal of criticism for it. She wanted to know why he continued to fight for this arrangement, but she’d have to ask later.

  Anya took her to the hospital’s surgeon. He was preparing to amputate a leg below the knee. “Dr. Orlen, I’d like you to meet our newest addition, Dr. Petrov.”

  Dr. Orlen looked up. His face was covered with an operating mask so only his eyes were exposed. They were blue and looked young despite a thin film growing over them. “Dr. Petrov.” He raised his eyebrows. “I’ve never worked with a female doctor.”

  “Surgeon,” Miri said.

  “She’ll take charge of the women’s ward,” Anya said.

  “Fine. Fine. Just keep her away from my patients. A woman. Surgeon. I told Tessler to stay away from that.” He frowned as he positioned the saw blade on the patient’s skin. “Tell me, Doctor. Once I open this man’s leg, which artery do I need to find as quickly as possible?”

  “The peroneal artery,” Miri said without hesitating, even as her own pulse quickened, thinking of Anatoly.

  Orlen nodded curtly and went back to his patient.

  At the laundry in the basement, Anya helped Miri find a new dress. She held out a nurse’s apron, but Miri shook her head and reached for a surgeon’s coat. “The patients won’t accept you dressed like that.”

  “They will, in time.” It was something Babushka had said more often than Miri could count. Anya nodded and helped her with the coat. As they walked back up to the paupers’ wing, Anya told Miri about their care standards, but Miri didn’t listen. She couldn’t. The absurdity of her situation descended on her in a rush. What would Baba say about her being called Dr. Petrov? Even if she or Sasha slept on the floor, they were still sharing a room. What would Baba believe? And Yuri? And her brother—where was he?

  “Dr. Petrov!” Anya said. “Come along.”

  In the women’s ward, already there was a line of patients along the wall. There was no time to keep thinking about herself. Five women were on beds, at the end stages of labor, crying and sweat streaked. Injured, teary-eyed children clutched their mothers. Women cradled broken arms or legs or fiddled with bandages.

  “The doctor will get to you as soon as she can,” Anya said. She kissed the head of a child no more than six years old who lay in a narrow cot. The child’s arm was a bandaged stump.

  “Are there any other doctors in Podil that come to consult with Dr. Orlen?” Miri asked.

  “No. No one comes to the Jewish hospital.” She dropped her voice to a quiet whisper. “Tell me, why are you asking about other doctors?”

  “You have so many patients.” Miri wasn’t sure if she hesitated. “You need help.”

  “Which is why you’ve joined us. Is your father a doctor? Is that the problem, that he might look for you here?”

  “No.”

  “He disapproves of Sasha?”

  “No. It’s nothing like that. I’m curious. That’s all.”


  “No one’s curious during war.” And then: “Our love was also forbidden, Lev’s and mine.” Anya stopped. “It was years ago. Our parents came around. Yours will, too. Don’t fret, child. I understand. I do.”

  Miri spent the rest of the morning with her new patients. She started with the women giving birth, checked to make sure there were no complications, and then left them to the nurses. Then she turned to the children. One tiny infant lay listless in his mother’s arms. The woman had a scarf around her hair. Her hands were wrapped in rags she used as gloves. A taller, older woman next to her wrested the child from his mother and handed him to Miri. She unwound the layers of blankets around him, and his bare skin, when she found it, was too white, not pink as a newborn’s should be. “He won’t suckle,” the older woman explained. “He’s been silent since the moment he was born.”

  “My sister is blind to the truth,” the mother said. “He’s been cursed. Born during the eclipse. That’s his problem.”

  “The eclipse?” Vanya’s favorite poem was about Prince Vseslav, the great warrior born during an eclipse. She hadn’t realized even these people had been aware it was coming.

  “Yes. I can see it. Even you were scared.”

  “No. The eclipse is about science.”

  “No!” the mother replied. “The worst pains came when the sky went dark. Even in the rain, I saw it coming. The devil. He came and toyed with my baby’s tongue. He’s hexed. Hexed by the unnatural dark.”

  “Natasya, silence,” her sister said. “This nurse can fix the boy. Can’t you?”

  “I’m a surgeon,” Miri said.

  The mother spit. “You have magic greater than the devil?”

  “It wasn’t magic,” Miri said patiently. “And it wasn’t the devil.” She went back to the child, who was thin and angular. His belly was stiff.

  “He won’t eat unless we spoon the milk in,” the sister continued. “Even then most of it dribbles down his chin.” A laboring woman screamed. A nurse scurried with a bowl of steaming water. “Can you help him?” He was so pale that Miri could trace his every vein.

  “The child is starving,” Miri said.

  “She’s a witch,” the mother cried. “Magda, look at her! If she cures my child, she’s a witch, not a doctor.”

  “It’s science, that’s all,” Miri said. She rested a hand on the baby’s forehead to feel his temperature. She closed her eyes to concentrate.

  “An incantation!” the mother crooned, but Miri ignored her. She and Yuri had seen a child like this once before, an infant who couldn’t suck. Yuri had examined his mouth. Miri tried to ease a finger between the boy’s lips, but his jaw was locked tight. “I need wine, or vodka,” Miri said. The aunt and the mother looked at one another. “Not for me, for the child.”

  Magda reached under her skirt, which Miri realized wasn’t actually a skirt at all. It was layers and layers of scarves folded on a diagonal and pinned at her waist. She was a street peddler, and the scarves were her wares. Out from under a flowered square, she produced a flask.

  “Sweet child. Will you open up, please, so I can take a look?” Miri tried to keep her voice light. When he didn’t respond, she sang the same message, and the child cooed. To the mother, Miri said, “Please, sing to him.” The woman’s cheeks were soaked with tears as she obeyed. The moment the baby opened his mouth, Miri squeezed a few drops of vodka onto his tongue. He squinted and squirmed at the taste. A good sign. A few more drops and he’d relaxed enough to allow Miri to feel his gums.

  The mother hummed, and the child’s eyes began to close. Miri reached inside his mouth. His gums were hard and hot, as they should be. But his tongue should have pushed her away. She tried to slide her finger under it but she couldn’t. Ankyloglossia. Of course: the baby was tongue-tied. A short, tight band of tissues tethered his tongue to the bottom of his mouth. “He can’t suck, or eat, or cry, because he can’t move his tongue.”

  “Devil’s work,” the mother said. “I must have said something. Oh, lord.”

  “Natasya, quiet! Can you fix it?” Magda asked.

  Miri spooned the child up into her arms and bounced him. “I can help, but I’ll have to make a small cut under his tongue.”

  “Or else, what?” For the first time, Magda seemed to doubt Miri.

  “He’ll die,” Miri said. She didn’t like delivering the news, but she needed to be honest. “He’s starving.”

  The mother dropped her head onto her sister’s chest. Her tears ran fast and hard. Magda rubbed her back. “It’s science, sister. Science. Not the devil.”

  “It won’t hurt him much,” Miri said. “Please?”

  “No child should suffer for my sins,” Natasya said, and nodded to Miri slowly.

  Miri reached for the smallest scalpel. When Yuri cut the child’s tongue, he had been fast. It was one clean motion, but the mouth had been too small for Miri to watch. Miri tried to use her own tongue to feel inside her mouth, to judge the distance she would need to cut, but it was impossible to guess.

  She eased the baby’s mouth open. Using her tweezers to hold his tongue, she quickly, in a fluid swipe, severed the band of flesh. There were only a few drops of blood. After a momentary shock, he broke into a healthy, full-bodied cry, and Natasya knew it. She smiled wide, as did her sister and Miri. Miri handed the baby to his mother. “Feed him,” she urged. “Please, now. Feed him.” Magda led Natasya to a rocking chair in the corner and unlaced her dress for her. Natasya pulled out her breast and pushed the child up in her arms. The child jumped at the nipple and suckled.

  “Well done,” Anya said. Miri hadn’t noticed she was watching.

  As Miri moved along to her next patient, a nurse hurried toward her. She was short with a chin that jutted so far forward her lower lip looked oversize. “Dr. Petrov,” she said, panting. “Dr. Orlen requests your help. A man’s come in. He’s missing an eye. It’s as bad as I’ve ever seen. Someone plucked out his eye.”

  VII

  Plucked out his eye. The words were so specific. The action so horrific. It was a defensive move, one that Miri remembered Baba explaining the Jews had used in Zhytomyr. Miri hurried across the hall. By the door in the men’s section, a man was stretched out on a cot. His hands, his body, were so caked in mud it was difficult to see where his clothing ended and his skin began.

  “He’s missing an ear, but that’s an older injury,” Dr. Orlen said to Miri when he saw her. “He was left at our door. Not Jewish, can’t pay. It happens more than we like.” A nurse was wiping the patient’s face, scrubbing grime away so they could see where the eye had been. “Petrov. Tell me, can you stand the sight of pus?”

  “I’m a surgeon. Of course.”

  “So you say. Help me drain it so we can get a better look.”

  Miri washed her hands and picked up a clamp to hold back the eyelid while Orlen worked. The patient flinched when she pulled his skin, and so she knew he was better off than he appeared. Feeling pain meant life, Yuri said. “No. Stop the doctor,” the patient mumbled. It wasn’t so uncommon for patients to be afraid of physicians.

  “We need to give him something for the pain, to keep him asleep,” Orlen called. The nurse scrambled to the tray next to her.

  “The doctor and his devil,” the patient mumbled. “My eye, my eye!”

  “What are you trying to say?” Miri asked. She leaned so close she could smell the rot on him, coming from the gash. She caught Orlen’s gaze and shook her head. There was likely no way to save this man. Orlen nodded to say he agreed. All they could do was clean the wound and see if his body would heal itself. Orlen kept working.

  “The American devil,” the patient mumbled. “My cows. The eclipse.”

  “It’s the morphine,” the nurse said, shaking her head.

  But Miri leaned closer. “An American? Where? Where were you? You saw the eclipse?”

  “Dr. Petrov, pay attention,” Dr. Orlen said.

  “Tell me. Where?” Miri said to the patient again. Lou
der this time but he didn’t answer. She let go of his eyelid, came around to face him. She moved so quickly, Dr. Orlen stepped back in surprise and she grabbed the patient’s shoulders. “Who was with you? Tell me. Where?”

  “Get her out of here,” Orlen boomed, regaining control.

  “Where?” Miri asked.

  “Out!”

  “Shhh.” Anya took hold of Miri, dragged her to the door. “Shhhh, child,” Anya said. “War rattles us all.”

  “I’m not rattled.” She ripped her arm away from Anya. If anything, Miri felt sharper than ever. That man who’d lost his eye, he’d been with an American and a doctor, and he’d seen the eclipse. She was certain of it. No peasant would think to talk about an American otherwise. It couldn’t be a coincidence. “I—I…” She needed to get back to him, but Anya stood at the door, barring her. “I—I need to see Sasha.” Her words sounded gruff because she was as angry as she was scared. If this man lost an eye, what had happened to Vanya? Or Yuri? Miri shook Anya off and hurried to the men’s ward, to Sasha’s cot. She couldn’t get to him fast enough.

  “There’s a man,” she said before she’d even reached his bedside. Then she realized she was being reckless, speaking too freely. But the man who’d been next to Sasha was gone. His bed empty, his sheets still dirty.

  Sasha pulled Miri close. “Slow down. What happened?”

  She took a deep breath. Whispering, she told him about Orlen’s patient, what he’d said. “It can’t be coincidence.” She paused. “I think he was saying the American took his eye.”

  But Sasha shook his head. “You were with Orlen, operating together, and he made you leave?” She nodded. “You said too much.” Yes. She’d panicked. And she hated that, but she couldn’t change what she’d done.

  “Sasha, what matters is the American. That man saw an American and the eclipse.”

  “Maybe you’re shaping his words to hear what you want to hear.”

  “No. How many Americans do you think there are here now? For the eclipse, with a doctor? He must have been with Clay and Yuri—and Vanya. They found Clay.” Sasha opened his mouth to say something, but her words were coming so fast she wouldn’t let him speak. Not yet. “I have to talk to him before he dies. The infection is far along.”