Page 78 of Hell to Pay

And a packet with four cigarettes. And an orange. And two sticks of gum. And a bar of chocolate.

“Go ahead,” Joe said, grinning through his pain. “Take it. It’s the least I can do.”

“Soup,” Frau Adelberg said. “With ham in it. Ham and potato soup! No, this I must make myself. Oh, my.”

Joe held out the cigarettes to Dr. Becker. “Seems I owe you a favor. Will this do?” Dr. Becker took them almost reverently, and the matches, too.

The little boys didn’t answer. They were staring at the orange, the chocolate, the chewing gum. Joe picked up the orange and tossed it to Matti, who promptly dropped it and went scrambling for it. “Be sure you share it, now,” Joe said. “Who takes custody of the chocolate and gum?”

Andrea raised a tentative hand and said, “I’ll share it out.”

Joe said, “Good for you.” Then he lay back against the pillows and gestured at the bounty spread out around him. “Take the rest of it away,” he told me, “and use it. If you can spare a cup of coffee, though, I’d be glad of it.”

Frau Adelberg didn’t respond to that. She was too busy repacking all the wonderful food items into their boxes, ready to carry them off with her.

“You can have coffee once we get that wound re-stitched,” Dr. Becker said.

“Yeah,” Joe said. “Once we do that.” Then he fixed me with his gaze again. His face was so open, his eyes so kind even in his pain. “I hope you’ll take what you want, too,” he said. “I only wish I had more to give you. Can you ask the doctor to get on with it, please? I seem to want to go to sleep.”

“Yes,” I said, with a surge of—what? Gratitude? Tenderness? I couldn’t even have said. “Yes. I’ll bring you that water now.”

“And hold my hand while the doc—heisa doc, isn’t he?—stitches me up?” Joe asked.

“Of course I’ll hold your hand,” I said. “And yes, he’s a doctor. My father’s doctor, in fact, and my mother’s and mine, too. A very good doctor.”

Dr. Becker had been assembling the contents of the first-aid kit. Now, he told me, “A basin of hot water, please, Daisy, and more clean towels. But first, boil the kitchen scissors and the large sewing needle for at least three minutes. Boil the spool of thread again, too.”

“My good sewing thread,” Frau Adelberg moaned.

Dr. Becker ignored her. “Bring him a glass of water first, though. We’ll give the morphine time to take effect.”

“Yes,” I said. “At once.”

I was at the door when Dr. Becker said, “Daisy? Translate one thing more for me, would you?”

“Of course,” I said, turning.

“Tell him,” Dr. Becker said, then seemed to reconsider. He drew himself to his full height and looked straight at Joe. “I am a doctor,” he told him. “I am also a Jew.”

I translated, something like pride filling my chest. And Joe said, “Well, thank goodness for that. Because so am I.”

“Talk about a meet cute,” Alix said.

“A what?” I asked.

She gestured. “A meet cute, like in a romantic comedy. A memorable meeting.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, yes, it was that.”

“But what happened then?” Ben asked. “How did he get back to his … squad, or whatever? Or did he stay with you?”

“He stayed with us,” I said, “that night and all the next day. He was tired after Dr. Becker cared for his wounds the second time—the broken collarbone was quite painful, and bullet wounds seem to hurt a great deal also. He slept and woke—he was very restless, and became feverish on the afternoon of the second day despite the sulfa powder. Dr. Becker said it was due to bacteria from the bullet and that he needed more antibiotics. We were quite concerned, especially as there was still fighting in the streets. Do you remember that?” I asked Matti.

“No,” he said. “Mostly, I remember the orange. And the chocolate. And the grenades, of course. How Gerhardt and I longed to throw the grenades and watch them blow up!”

I laughed. “Yes, but we were a step ahead of you, fortunately. Here’s what happened, then. Late the next afternoon, the fighting ceased. At least we couldn’t hear anything anymore, even the far-away explosions. It was very quiet. Very. Frau Adelberg said we should wait until the next day,but Joe was quite feverish now, so—” I shrugged. “I went out to find the Americans.”

I told Joe I was going. He reached for my hand and clutched it tight, the sweat standing out on his face. I sponged it again with cool water and said, “I’ll be back soon with your comrades. What do I tell them? I don’t want to be shot as a saboteur.”