“Do you think they’ll come back?”
I met her gaze.
“I think we’re on our own now.”
44
“Lena?”
The women had been marched out a week and a half ago, the rest of us trying to survive on the rations left in the kitchen and my medical expertise. Two women had died the first night, their bodies unable to hold off the infections overtaking them anymore. Four more died the next day.
It had taken seven of us to move the bodies, placing them in carts and burying them in shallow graves where we’d once dug trenches.
I’d dragged a bed inside what had once been used as an office, but I rarely rested, someone always needing me. Always calling out. They were in pain, hungry, and scared.
As was I.
“Lena?”
“Over here,” I managed, my voice strained as my belly tightened.
I’d gone to the kitchen to begin the process of getting food for everyone, a task that took nearly two hours as I loaded a cart, pushed it to the two sick bay buildings, went back and forth handing out what I’d brought, then went back for more. Usually, Jelena helped me, but today she’d stayed behind to tend to a woman delirious from pain.
This morning I’d woken to an aching back. Worse than usual, the pain spread around my hips and settled low in my belly. It wasn’t until I began pulling items from the shelves that a feeling like nothing I’d known before took me to my knees.
I looked up through the strands of my hair at Jelena, who stared down, her eyes moving over me.
“The baby is coming?” she asked.
“I think so,” I said and then bit my lip as another wave of pain ripped through me.
“Come,” she said, kneeling beside me and putting my arm around her neck. “Back to sick bay. We need to put you on a bed.”
I didn’t know how she could take the weight of me with her leg still healing. But somehow she managed, limping us both all the way, pausing only when the pains of my contractions rendered me immobile, my entire body shaking afterward.
“The baby?” someone said as we entered the building and Jelena led me to my office bedroom.
“Stay here,” she said. “I’ll get supplies.”
I was panting now, a moaning sound coming from me, low and mournful, my body working, pushing, tightening, stretching, all of its own accord as I kicked out and gripped the sides of the mattress.
How stupid I was to come to Germany. I was going to die here, and my baby with me. Even if we survived the birth, the lack of food, the high possibility of infection...
“Here we are,” Jelena said almost cheerfully, her arms filled with clean sheets. She disappeared again and returned with gloves, a bucket of water, and scissors. Another trip and she had the familiar bottle of alcohol and a stack of gauze.
“Have you done this before?” I asked, my voice barely more than a whisper.
“In a manner of speaking,” she said, looking away.
My heart ached as I understood. I wondered where her child was now. If he or she was still alive. If they’d one day reunite.
“Just let your body guide you,” she said. “It knows what to do.”
A tear ran down the side of my face as I nodded. I couldn’t lose this baby. I needed this little being who had resided inside me, keeping me company, bringing me comfort, reminding me of William and hope and having a future beyond this hell I found myself in.
One of the other women knocked before poking her head in. Ema, another of the experiment patients whose wound had been left to fester, but by some miracle I’d gotten it under control, bringing down the fever she’d had, and the bright red swelling as well.
“Tereza and I are going to do the food run,” she said, giving me a brave smile. “We’ll make sure to bring some for you for after. You’ll need your strength for the baby.”
