Sometimes, it is fortunate to be a cripple. By not playing with the others, I learned our fate. Feigning interest in the birdcage, I spied as Twins’ Father explained his sorrows.
Twins’ Father was concerned about a woman. He said that she had witnessed the unimaginable, she had saved all she could, and now — she could not emerge from this unaltered, fully alive. He knew this because it was true for himself too.
Jakub paused before answering, thoughtful, as if he knew this matter too well. The burden saved you, he finally said, until you had a moment to examine it, to feel, for once, its full weight.
I think Twins’ Father agreed. But his voice was too small for me to hear.
Jakub assured Twins’ Father that the only thing greater than his devotion was the needs of the children. And then he gave a recommendation, one that put the identities of all in this conversation into sudden relief: The twins, he said hesitantly, should be put into the custody of the Red Cross. Only then could they flourish and the adults recover.
She will never leave them, Twins’ Father replied, his voice hollowed by dread. I knew he spoke for himself too. Jakub urged him to reconsider. Thirty-four children, he said, all of them on the edge of one suffering or another. Jakub vowed to look in on us in Krakow and to send word to our guardians. They won’t be forgotten, he swore.
But Miri, I thought. She is the forgotten one. Without us, she would not continue. Had no one seen the change in her since we’d lessened from thirty-five to thirty-four?
If this separation were to come to pass, I thought, I would remember Miri. First, I would save myself with a pair of crutches. Then I would save her from her sadness.
I did not tell the others what I’d heard. The children had enough concerns. Already, they had an obligation to experience freedom. This was not as simple as one might think. Fresh from our journey, we still had leagues of hesitations, stores of panic. Even a pleasant laugh floating down from a window was enough to make us startle. But we were determined to make something of our first days in Krakow, so we spent the afternoon riding the trolley, flashing our numbers at the conductor for free rides. The townspeople were charmed by us — never before had they seen so many children who matched. Peter and Sophia and me, we were the lone strays.
Peter carted my wheelbarrow on and off the trolley, onto street corners and into shops, so we could inquire after crutches together. He swore he’d find a pair, and as we searched, I tried to tell him that it was Miri who truly needed help, because we would soon be leaving her. But I could not find the words to say this. Soon enough, I realized I didn’t need to.
Because when we arrived at our adopted home, it was to the sight of a dim-eyed Miri seated in a chair, an empty cup cradled between her hands. Twins’ Father stood at the hearth and instructed us to gather round; he counted us, consulted his ever-present list, and when he said that it was time to discuss the future, all manners of plans tumbled out. The children spoke of reunions with their families, their schoolmates, their houses.
“You may return,” Twins’ Father warned, “but your house may no longer be your house. Your country may not be your country. Your belongings — they may belong to someone else.”
As he spoke, he looked at Miri, as if expecting her to refute what he said. But she merely stared into her cup, as if she might find some other solution to our plight at its bottom.
“The Red Cross is better equipped to take care of you,” Twins’ Father said, and he began to speak of the arrangements, but the younger ones drowned him out with protest — they clambered over Miri in her chair, surrounding her with pleas, each tripping over the other in distress. She dipped her face into the sleeve of her coat as if to shut them out.
The older ones began to protest too but thought better of it and exchanged their outcries for a single question: When? they wondered.
The answer: four days.
Twins’ Father consulted with each of us in turn. He informed Sophia that he would not leave her without a new coat; he assured the Blaus that they would not be separated. All of his reassurances appeared routine — but then, ever so softly, I heard him tell Peter that their plans for Krnov had been solidified. Peter caught sight of my confusion.
“A friend of my aunt’s,” he explained dully. “She says that she will be my mother now. She lives in Krnov. Twins’ Father is going to take me there, on his way to Brno.”
I was not the only one to be surprised by this news.
“How did you manage it?” the others asked. “Was it a trick? How did you fool this woman into wanting you?”
I could have told them: It was too easy to like Peter. He gave and fought and searched — who would not want his company? That was what I wanted to say to the other children, who now appeared to regard him as a mystery and — judging by their expressions, which ranged from light scowls to outright disdain — one to be resented. When I asked him why they were so angry, Peter told me that I should be angry too. A family was a rare thing these days, he said.
I knew Peter had given me much. Now that I knew we would be parted, I wanted to give him something too. But words were all I had. So I told him that I had ten memories. Of those, there were six that I really wanted to have. So, really, I had six memories. The first was Dr. Miri’s face. The second was Peter pushing my wheelbarrow. The third was the gates, but only the gates in my hindsight as we left. The fourth was Peter throwing a stone at those gates. The fifth was Peter scouring the streets of Krakow for a crutch. The sixth wasn’t really memory at all, it was more of a longing for a memory, and it was my Someone.
“You are in three of those,” I pointed out.
He responded to this by increasing our search for a crutch. In our remaining days, we traveled up and down the streets in search of a pair, knocking on doors, asking passersby, inquiring at the hospital. We also checked with Jakub.
“Do you have any crutches?” I asked him on the first day of our search.
“Not crutches, but onions,” he said, handing Peter a pair of yellow globes. One could see that refusing us anything pained him greatly.
That night, at our abandoned house, I put the onions in a soup pot and watched their yellow faces bob and revolve with unending optimism. I took their sunniness as a sign — by dawn, I thought, Jakub would have crutches for me.
And then, the following morning—
“Here for food, are you?” he ventured jovially.
No, we said. We thanked him for the soup. And did he have any crutches?
“I don’t,” he said, regretful. “But will you take this?” He folded a blanket into my wheelbarrow. I took its warmth as a sign — by dawn, I thought, I will have crutches.
But on the third day, Jakub hung his head at the sight of our approach. He couldn’t bear to say no to me, so I did not ask. Grateful for our lack of inquiry, Jakub placed a pocketknife in my hands.
“That is all that I have to give,” he said sorrowfully. We thanked him and then wheeled away. I studied the pocketknife. Peter saw my disappointment.
“Good for a trade,” he assured me.
Back at the stoop of our abandoned house, I etched images over the frosty windowpane at the entry with my fingertip. I etched the image of one crutch, and then another, and as soon as I’d completed the second, a storm arose, erasing all I’d imagined.
I decided not to take anything as a sign anymore.
It was my responsibility — not fate’s — to ensure that I was strong enough to look after Miri, even if I remained within my wheelbarrow for all my days.
When I wasn’t with Peter, I was with Miri, who spent her mornings making rounds of the streets of Krakow. I was her attending nurse, or so she told me. Really, she just couldn’t bear to leave me alone. Together, we went to the Red Cross and moved among the many cots. She knew that I was perpetually on the lookout for crutches, but she was determined to make me useful too, so I sat and wound bandages under her supervision. This work was good for me. But my guardian benefited even more, because Miri forgot her pain while surrounded by the pain of others. In tending to them, she was renewed. It was women that we looked after, for the most part, because not every soldier entrusted with the welfare of Krakow had been worthy of this task. Women and young women and girls that war had made women of too soon. I looked at them and wondered: Would they have appreciated the protection of my cage?