Page 49 of The Nanny Outside the Gates

FORTY-ONE

GAVRIEL

This isn’t going to work. My legs can hardly hold my body upright.

I’m staring at the saw, still wondering what reason they had to send me back here.

Is it so they can say I died of natural causes?

Why would they care? They don’t. It’s clear.

My knees refuse to straighten, and I move closer to the wall so I don’t collapse in the middle of the unfinished floor.

I try to lower myself down with ease, but still lose my ability to control my weight, or lack thereof, I suppose.

Halina bursts in through the opening of the room, coming from her bedroom. Her arms are full with Flora, food, rags, and papers. I’ve come to realize when Halina becomes nervous, she overthinks, overdoes it, and jumps in headfirst.

“What is all of that?” I ask, my words garbled from the ache in my jaw. I don’t remember the last time I was beaten but it wasn’t long ago. I can feel that.

She doesn’t respond. Instead, she searches around the wooden enclosure intently for something…

“Where’s the bag of first aid supplies?”

“In the alcove,” I murmur, trying to lift my arm to point toward the corner on my right. “There in the hidden closet on the left side.”

Her eyebrows stitch together, confused as I didn’t show her the small hidden closet. At least, I don’t think I did.

She places the rags and food down next to me, a not-so-perfect portrait for Officer Sch?fer or Frau Sch?fer to walk in and find me with.

Halina keeps Flora in her arms and searches the corner for the seam in the wall.

She finds it rather quickly, slides her hand down to the floor and curls her fingers beneath the cracked opening, dislodging the plank door.

She moves inside and stares to her left, at a blank canvas of a wall for anyone who doesn’t know I placed a small closet within the wall.

It takes her a minute but again, she finds the seam fast and has the square door open within a few seconds.

The crinkle of the bag grows louder as she backs away and closes the panel, and the alcove panel too and makes her way to my side, lowers to her knees and plops Flora in my lap.

“I’m going to pretend as if I didn’t see a stolen pistol with a round of ammo in your hidden closet, but only for now. We might need it soon.”

My eyes open wide, forgetting I had put Officer Sch?fer’s pistol in there. Of all the things the prisoners have been blamed for stealing, he never mentioned the weapon again. “I forgot I?—”

“I was sure Ada was hiding it, waiting for the right moment. I believe she has the key to his office sitting right on her dresser. It was just one of many things I saw in her room.”

The overload of information makes me dizzy. Flora is on my lap, but I can’t do much else than rest my head back against the wall.

The sound of a can cranking open followed by a whiff of something salty with a pungent tang and a faint scent of spices hits my nose. My stomach lurches with rage as if it’s grown claws that are scraping along my insides.

I twist my head to the side, watching her bend the tin top into a curved scoop before handing it to me. “Be careful. I have nothing to smooth the edges of the tin with,” she says.

Flora twists herself around and presses her hands to my stomach, watching me as I try to get the first bite into my mouth. She must catch a whiff of the canned meat because she reaches up toward Gavriel’s chin.

“Oh, Flora, you just had applesauce an hour ago,” Halina tells her. “Don’t be rude, little lady.”

I get the first scoop into my mouth and my nerve endings go wild, pinching and smarting, but when the sensation subsides the taste is the most wonderful thing.

I feel it travel down my throat. A frenzy takes over and my mind tells me to be careful, but I’m starving.

The only thing I’m careful about is not slicing my tongue with the tin.

“All right, let’s just give your stomach a rest for a minute. You can’t afford to get sick,” Halina tells me, taking the can from my hand. I don’t release my grip at first, like some kind of mad animal, but then I find her eyes, her soft gaze, and I let go.

She takes one of the rags and gently presses it to my cheek, wiping away whatever grime has settled into my skin. My eyes close, searching for heaven in response to her touch.

“I dreamed about you, even with my eyes open.”

The motion of the damp rag slows and her knuckles feather across my cheek. “You don’t have to dream now. I’m here.”

I reopen my eyes, finding her gazing at me with wonder. “You might need to pinch me then.”

She leans in and gently touches her lips to mine, our noses glide side by side, and I grasp her waist, needing something to hold on to as a frenzy of nerves fizzles within me.

My lips begin to tingle after a short moment and she pulls back, staring up at me from beneath her dark lashes.

My heart might leap right out of my body.

Between heaven and hell, I’m lost here with her.

“I need to check on your wound now,” she whispers, her breath fluttering against my cheek. “I’ll be quick.” I allow my head to rest back against the wall, the weakness of everything burdening my strength.

A tingling sensation covers every spot of my exposed skin and when I look at my good hand, the one branded with my inked number, I realize I haven’t been able to make out the number clearly in at least a month. My skin is clean.

Halina has my other hand resting in hers as she’s unpeeling the first layer of the bandage. It isn’t long before she stops—before my skin pulls. “It’s bad. Isn’t it?” I ask, my voice sounding a bit stronger.

“No. You’ll be fine.” If I hadn’t spent time studying the varying inflections in her voice when she talks to me, I might believe her.

She’s worried. Her voice goes up higher in tone when she’s worried while saying everything will be all right.

She takes another damp rag and begins to sponge the last layer of bandaging over my skin, pressing with a little pressure.

“What are your brothers’ names? I realized I had never asked you. ”

“Jozek…”

She’s trying to distract me as she peels the bandage away from the wound it’s adhered to. The burn radiates up my arm and I press my head back into the wall and close my eyes. “You have two brothers, silly,” she says.

“And,” I say, swallowing hard, “Natan.”

“Who was the troublemaker of you three? I’m guessing it wasn’t you, being the oldest.”

I huff a small laugh. “Natan. Always in good fun, but never a dull moment. A prankster always looking for his next dangerous adventure and a way to make everyone laugh.”

I swallow again, trying to ignore the pain searing through my entire arm now.

“Natan wanted to be like Jozek for a while, but announced he was funnier and better looking than Jozek by the time he turned thirteen. The two of them are hard workers, loving, and care too much about too much. They were my greatest friends, the best brothers.” Hearing myself speak about them as if they only belong in the past brings a knot to my throat.

Before I was taken from the rest of them, I never pictured a day in my life without them.

I wish they were here. But, also, I don’t. I hope they’re just somewhere safe.

“So they’re just like you,” Halina says with a smile I can hear.

Air hits the flesh around my wound, then the wound itself. “How’s the wound?”

“It’ll heal completely. You’ll be fine,” she says with no higher pitched inflection, which I’m grateful for.

She saturates the wound in disinfectant then unravels clean bandaging from the leftover roll.

Once the bandage is secure, she drops the supplies back into the paper bag, rolls up the top, sets it to the side and hands the can of meat back to me and moves Flora from my lap to hers.

Before I scoop another bite out, I find Halina’s beautiful stare, the kindness emanating from every part of her.

“I’ve never been in love before. Was always too busy for that.

Maybe I just thought I was too busy. If you had come around, I would have dropped everything to occupy myself with only you. ”

“Gav,” she utters.

“Weeks, a month, whatever it’s been here and there, feels like an entire lifetime. A day is like a year. It does. And if it were true, it would mean I’ve been falling in love with you for years. I’m nothing special, and have nothing to offer you, but love—I can give you an endless amount of that.”

“Is it the canned meat?” she asks, holding back a smile.

“What else could it be?” I tease her. “Hali, I thought about giving up too many times these last couple of weeks. I fought to keep myself alive because I needed to find my way back to you somehow. And now that I’m here, I’ll never let you go.

I need you, and I’ve never needed anyone or anything—until now. ”

“I’ve always needed someone,” she says, her gaze falling to the floor between us.

“I just didn’t know how much. I tried to convince myself it wasn’t you who was shot and killed, but I was drowning in doubt, day after day, while still trying to hold onto a sliver of hope.

” Halina takes a shallow breath as her gaze rises back to mine.

“Even my heart swells and pounds, flutters ripple through my chest and stomach, and my cheeks grow hot whenever I’m near you.

Love never existed for me. But these feelings—this twist of fate… It must be love.”

Halina wraps her arm around Flora and shimmies closer to me, her back against the wall, her shoulder touching mine. I lift my arm and lower my hand to her leg and lean my head gently to the side of hers.

Flora takes the opportunity to scoot off Halina’s lap then climbs back up on mine, crinkling whatever papers are in her apron pocket. The little wanderer is intrigued and shoves her hand into the pocket and whips a small pile of folded papers out and holds them in the air like a trophy.

Halina takes them from her hand before she scrunches them up. “What are those?” I ask, returning my attention to the can of meat.

“Proof,” she says. “Our ticket out of this place.”

“You really think it’s enough? Will it work?” I ask.

“I hope so.” She flattens out the papers and folds them back up neatly, an index card slipping out from the center. It floats to the ground like a feather, landing face up on my outstretched legs. “Oh, I don’t know what that is. I didn’t see that when I grabbed the other two papers.”

I drop the tin scoop into the can and lift the card to get a closer look. “It’s a prisoner intake card,” I say, studying it further.

AbrAMOWICZ, BETTINA .

Born 03.01.1919 – Katowice, Poland

Polish | Widowed | Mother | Jewish

Accompanied Children:

Flora Abramowicz (Two weeks old on arrival)

Transport RS-239/xx|Arr. Auschwitz: 14.09.1942

Assigned No. 4562—(Bettina)

Infant, Flora: blonde hair, blue eyes — placed in medical quarantine, unnumbered.

Noted: Mother restrained at intake due to distress

[KONZENTRATIONSLAGER AUSCHWITZ]

I place the can down at my side, my eyes blurring over the typed information.

“What is it?” Halina asks. “May I see?”

I pinch my lips together and stare down at Flora, still plucking at the pocket of Halina’s apron.

“This is Flora’s mother,” I whisper, pressing the card to my heart.

“Bettina Abramowicz. She came with a two-week-old daughter—Flora. Then they were separated. It’s all here in black and white.

Flora isn’t the Sch?fers’ child, Hali. She was stolen.

And Ada kept the proof.” The picture of the woman on the top left—she has Flora’s eyes and heart-shaped lips.