فصل 84

emilia

“Show them your papers,” commanded the sailor.

They weren’t my papers. They were hers, the Latvian who had lost her life to winter and war on the side of a road. Perhaps she paused to rest and froze to death. What right did I have to pilfer her identity? And if I got on a ship, where would it go?

I wanted to go home.

“You, in the pink hat,” commanded the officer. “I don’t have all day. Show me your papers.” He pointed to the identity card trembling in my hand.

I couldn’t move.

He stood up to face me. “What’s going on here?”

The shoe poet softly placed his hand on my shoulder. “Una, dear, are you all right?”

Una. How could I steal Una?

“As you can see, Una’s quite far along,” said Poet. “And she appears to be ill.”

The sailor, Alfred, snapped the papers from my hand and handed them to the official.

The officer sighed. “I already had a kid get sick on my desk. Move her aside,” he said. Poet pulled me away from the table. The wandering boy petted my coat.

“Her nurse is assisting Dr. Richter at the ambulance train,” said the sailor. “She asked me to bring the expectant mother for registration.”

“We’re registering, but not boarding yet,” said the officer. “Everyone must be inspected first.”

The sailor looked toward me with an odd smile. “Oh, please do inspect her. Don’t you see? The hair, the eyes,” he said. “An exquisite specimen. Her offspring shall no doubt be the same.”

“I can’t,” I whispered to Poet. This wasn’t right. I had no right.

“You must.” He nodded. “For your child.”

The officer reviewed the papers. Heat prickled up my cold neck. The sound of muffled crying floated nearby.

“Madame,” said Alfred to a tearful woman behind us. “What do you have there?”

“Nothing,” said the woman, pulling a bundle close to her chest. “She’s sleeping.”

“Is the child ill?” he asked. “We cannot register those with contagion.”

The woman’s tears turned to sobs. “No, she’s not ill. She’s sleeping.”

Alfred turned to face the woman and pulled back the blanket. He sneered. “She’s not sleeping. She’s dead! Officer, this child is deceased.” Alfred peered at the dead baby with studious fascination.

The mother’s strength was no match for her grief. Her body quaked as she tried to speak, choking breaths between her words. “No. Please. She’s just asleep. I swear. Don’t take her from me.”

The officer whistled to a nearby sentry and motioned him over.

The woman sobbed, clutching the bundle. “No! Please. I can’t leave her here. Don’t take my baby. Please, don’t take my baby!” Pandemonium ensued.

The shoemaker turned to me, his eyes full of tears. “Do you see, my dear? The proverbs are at play. ‘I wept because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.’”

I cried out, faking labor, and fell to my knees on the dock.