Affinity Konar - Mischling

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?

And every afternoon, when another doctor relieved Miri from her post, she took me to the station. There, we looked for a name. The name of Miri’s sister. Or for Miri’s name — in case Ibi was looking for her. The station wall was thick with names, but Ibi’s was not there; she was not looking for Miri. Name upon name, letter after letter, plea after plea, and not a single one addressed to us. Until one afternoon, the day before the grand parting, Miri seized upon a flutter of paper and said that we owed the writer a visit. Her hand shook as she held this note, and her eyes were so overwhelmed with tears that it seemed a miracle to me that she could read it at all. All I could spy was the flash of an address. I wanted to inquire after the note’s full contents, but Miri’s demeanor told me enough: this was not a happy discovery but an obligation, and she steered me toward the address with dread.

In answer to our knock, a scarfed head poked out of the doorway. The woman’s mouth was jam red and she had curls to match — a colorful person, to be sure, and behind her form, we could spy glimpses of a room that was once very fine, a parlor with gilt paper and furniture whose shimmer had been dulled by age and neglect.

The woman squinted at us curiously, and just as she was about to address us, a drunken man tripped down the steps with promises to return for fun the next day. That was how we knew this was not an ordinary house. Miri turned away, but the woman slipped down the steps and clasped the doctor’s shoulders. With warmth, she studied my guardian.

“Very pretty,” the woman said approvingly. “And I see you have a daughter to feed.” She regarded me with pity. “But I’m afraid I have too many girls already—”

“I’m so sorry,” Miri said to the woman. “We are in quite the wrong place.”

She glanced down at the paper, and the woman took note of it too. Her eyes went wide with recognition. “If these names mean anything to you”—and she took the slip of paper gravely from Miri’s hands—“then you are precious. We must speak.” Introducing herself as Gabriella, she gestured for us to enter. “Do not worry,” she said, spying Miri’s dubious expression. “Nothing untoward for your daughter to see. Just a matron and her girls and a cup of tea.”